Chapter 37
It was now mid-August, a year almost to the day since it had all started, and they could finally talk openly about what had happened.
Marcus Lauzon had been released from prison, and while the former Deputy Prime Minister had clearly broken some serious laws, the prosecutors, with the agreement of the courts, decided he had paid the price.
He’d returned home to Québec, where every morning he went across the road to his cheese shop, put on his red-and-white striped apron, and served his friends and neighbors.
His main preoccupation being whether his favorite cheese from Isle-aux-Grues would arrive in time to share with family and friends, over a nice crisp Chablis.
Though he still harbored fantasies about bringing down Gamache, he knew he would never act on them. They were simply a companion, lashed to him.
And every night he woke up screaming. Terrified that he was still in that hellhole.
Woodford had been arrested, though the covert investigation into the possible role of President O’Rourke was ongoing. Despite their suspicions, her party had kept her on the ballot for the next election.
Armand had invited Shona Dorion and Paul Workman to Three Pines, along with Jean-Guy and Isabelle.
This was not Shona’s first visit to the village. She’d been invited down many times, often when Isabelle was also there. Never when the grandchildren were visiting, though Isabelle had made good on her pledge to herself and had introduced her own children to Shona.
Aunt Shona, as she was now known.
Her night terrors had become fewer. The shrieking less intense. But it still woke everyone in the Gamache house and sent a chill into their marrow. Isabelle or Reine-Marie would rush into her room and sit with the young woman until it passed, and Shona fell into a deep exhausted sleep.
Shona also visited Myrna in her bookshop.
They’d sit in front of the woodstove with mugs of strong sweet tea, as the journalist talked, and the former psychologist listened.
And listened. And told her she was not crazy or going crazy.
That her reaction to what had happened was the most normal, the healthiest thing possible.
Exactly what Myrna had done for Isabelle. For Jean-Guy. For Armand.
Now, as they strolled around the village green, with the prancing dogs, and Gracie, the three S?reté officers walked the two journalists through what had happened.
“You got us onto the right track,” said Armand.
“We did?” said Paul. “How?”
“You asked two simple questions: Why did the conspirators keep a document that dangerous? And how did we know it wasn’t faked?”
“It was?”
“Yes. We should never have been able to find it. They wanted us to.”
Later that day the full story, the real story, appeared online under Shona Dorion’s and Paul Workman’s bylines.
Its conclusion, something that should have been obvious to leaders for decades, was that the only real war, the one they should be fighting, wasn’t against each other, but against climate change.
They needed to stop the catastrophe, not react to it.
Shona Dorion and Paul Workman would go on to win a Polk award for their reporting.
The next morning, while everyone else was still in bed, Armand and Reine-Marie took their coffees into the back garden.
They strolled past the gnarled old apple trees. Some of the fruit had fallen, though some had sailed over the clearly-not-high-enough fence.
“Duck,” shouted Reine-Marie as another rotting apple whizzed by their heads.
They were just grateful it wasn’t the actual duck.
Ignoring the cackles from the other side, they walked past the perennial borders, past the phlox and bee balm, past the plump bobbing hydrangeas, to the very end, where their private world ended and the rest of the world began.
Pausing there, they looked back at their home. It was a rare quiet moment.
Armand exhaled. His hearing was completely restored. In fact, it seemed more acute than ever. He stood in the early-morning sunshine, listening to the birds. The rustle of squirrels and chipmunks. The breeze through the—
“Duck!”
He did, and the apple just grazed his head.
“Arrêtez, Ruth!” he called.
“Wasn’t me. It was Rosa.” And it might’ve been. That was one odd duck.
Back on the terrace, they sat in the sun and sipped their coffees.
“What’re you thinking?” Reine-Marie asked.
“What happens when there’s one bad apple. You?”
When she was silent, he turned to look at her. Then, allowing her her thoughts and space, he closed his eyes and listened to all the subtle sounds around him. He believed he could now even hear the sunshine.
Who knew, he thought, that it sounded like children singing Gregorian chants?
“I was thinking…,” she began, finding her way forward, finding the words. Again she paused. He opened his eyes and looked at her. And waited. She turned to him. “I imagine you’ve already thought of this, but do we still have a problem?”
“What do you mean?”
Most of the conspirators had been rounded up and were busy informing on each other. Including Joe Moretti, who had thrown everyone he could think of under the bus, even his own widowed mother.
Sherry Caufield had handed over the trove of proof she and her people had uncovered against judges, politicians, senior bureaucrats, industrialists, media moguls and self-styled journalists, military leaders and cops. On both sides of the border.
The depth of the planning, the involvement of so many, was shocking.
“I mean that one day they’ll have to come, won’t they?” She held his eyes, and he knew who she meant.
If something wasn’t done soon, the Americans would run out of water. One day their crops would fail completely, the once rich earth turned to dust.
“In a dry and parched land, where there is no water,” quoted Armand.
When Reine-Marie tilted her head, he said, “It’s something Dom Philippe said as he left the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
And yes,” he took her hand, “they’ll come.
Unless something changes, they’ll have to. But not today.”
Today the sunshine sang.