Chapter 11
Ruth finished her eggs Benedict at about the same time Rosa polished off the small bowl of frozen peas and sliced grapes the Ritz in Montréal had provided for her.
“Did you really kill her mother?”
He nodded. Then shook his head. It was complicated.
As Shona had left the dingy diner, she’d said to Ruth, “Having been hanged for something / I never said, / I can now say anything I can say.” Then she turned to Armand and said, with a glacial stare, “Before I was not a witch, / but now I am one.”
At the door Shona Dorion had turned and raised her middle finger. Ruth raised hers back. And, behind the counter, the emaciated server raised hers.
Armand lowered his eyes in the face of this private message between the women, a power of three that even the most obtuse man could not fail to understand.
Before I was …
Now, sitting in the grandeur of the Ritz, he gave his credit card to the server and said to Ruth, “I arrested her mother for killing her dealer, and asked that she be placed in the infirmary, for observation and help in coming off crack. She hanged herself.”
Ruth took a deep breath in and pushed away her plate.
“I later learned that she’d killed the man when he’d tried to rape Shona, who was eight.”
“Dear God,” sighed Ruth.
“I don’t think God had anything to do with what happened. It was a travesty from beginning to end.”
“Before I was not a witch,” said Ruth, softly, “but now I am one.”
He nodded.
In the car on the way home Armand tried to ignore the duck on his lap. Staring at him. Her beak almost touching his nose. Had it been a gun, he would not have been more disconcerted.
“You’re in her spot,” Ruth explained.
He turned to look outside as city turned to countryside, though Armand barely noticed.
His thoughts were on what Shona had said.
About Action Québec Bleu. They’d investigated its Executive Director, Margaux Chalifoux, but found nothing against her.
The environmental organization appeared to run not just on a shoestring, it would be lucky to have even that.
It ran on vapors and wishful thinking and, mostly, the goodwill and passion of its workers who were, in essence, involuntary volunteers.
Isabelle had investigated their funding and found nothing irregular, beyond its lack of support from any level of government, which was in itself odd.
She’d planned to look more closely, but then the plot exploded, and was resolved, and the investigation ended.
But now …
But now Shona had found tens of millions of dollars had been funneled through AQB to … Lauzon? They’d have their forensic accountants check the accounts, to be sure.
Ruth, who was a surprisingly good driver, had gotten them almost home before she quietly said, without turning to him, “I know.”
“What do you know?”
“That you heard what I just said. That your hearing is better than you let on.” She glanced at him. “Why would you hide that?”
“Why do you hide that you are, in fact, a kind and decent and loving person?”
It looked as though she was not going to answer. It wasn’t until they crested the hill that led down into Three Pines that she said, “Because it’s dangerous to expose myself.”
“Even to friends?”
“They don’t have to be told, they know.” She peered at him. “I’m presuming your family knows too.”
He smiled. “I didn’t know until you laughed.” It did seem unfair that the first sound he heard clearly was out of Ruth. Though how perfect that it was a laugh. “Please don’t tell anyone. Leave that to me.”
“You want people to think you’re not up to the job? Believe me, it’s not a hard sell.”
It was his turn to laugh. But she had it right. It was vital that he be underestimated.
There were still far too many cicadas screaming in his head, but he now had confidence they too would leave. And he found he could now think more clearly.
“It’s not always obvious who our friends are,” Ruth said, pulling her car partway onto her lawn.
He was not the only one who wanted to be underestimated.
“True enough. Thank you for the drive.”
“And the distraction? That is why we were there, no? So that no one would figure out the real reason for your visit to Montréal?”
He smiled. “You are a witch.” At which she cackled. “I’m afraid you and Rosa can’t come over for Sunday lunch today.”
“That’s okay. I’ve had my fill of you.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.” And heard her laugh. “Thank you, Ruth. You’re a good friend.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that,” said Ruth, and heard him laugh as he got out of the car.
As he walked along the path to the house, their front door opened and Henri, Fred, and Gracie bounded out, and with them came the scent of roasting chicken.
“Evelyn’s here,” said Reine-Marie, giving him a hug. “She’s waiting for you in the bistro. Jean-Guy isn’t back yet.”
He could see that. No car.
“I’m going over to Clara’s before he gets here.” The “he” she meant was not Jean-Guy. “Take the chicken out in half an hour and let it rest, and for God’s sake, don’t let Henri get it.”
That had only happened once, and they suspected it wasn’t Henri but Ruth who’d dragged the carcass away.
They walked together across the village green before separating. It was a brilliant fall day, crisp and cold. Though there was a warning in the wind. A growl through the trees that would soon, they knew, become a bite. Something was coming at them from the north.
Something was about to happen.
When he entered the bistro, he stood at the door to let his eyes adjust. He saw Evelyn waving from an armchair and indicated he’d be with her in a moment, then went over to the new server.
“Salut, mon frère,” he said quietly. “Everything okay?”
“If you call being held here against my will okay, then yes, splendid.”
“There are worse prisons, and you know you can leave. But…”
“But thanks to you, if I poke my head up, I might be murdered. Like the Abbot. Like Brother Robert.”
For a long time, Armand had believed this unhappy monk, the former acting Abbot of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, knew more. In fact, knew where Charles’s missing laptop was hidden. Since they’d found the map in the monastery, why wouldn’t Charles or the Abbot also send the laptop there?
But the monastery had been searched many times over, and nothing. And slowly Armand had come to the conclusion that this monk who’d opened mail and snooped into all his confrères’ private lives was, in fact, telling the truth.
He didn’t know where that elusive laptop might be.
Still, Armand had hidden Frère Simon in this hidden village, to keep him safe from the Black Wolf.
As days turned to weeks and months, he had watched as Brother Simon, a Gilbertine who’d taken a vow of silence, had begun to open up.
To speak. To make friends. To actually know the daily specials and master the complicated espresso machine. Had begun to fit in.
Simon had found his place. Not behind an altar but behind a counter, in service.
“Let me know if anything odd happens,” said Armand.
“Ruth hasn’t been in for her morning toddy. Does that count?”
“Close. I’ll keep it in mind.”
And Brother Simon actually smiled.
Evelyn stood as he approached, and kissing her on both cheeks, he asked why she was waiting for him in the bistro and not their home.
“I arrived early and was frankly starving. I didn’t want to trouble Reine-Marie. I did offer to help her prepare lunch, but she had it all under control. You married up, Armand.”
He was peering at her in the way she recognized but still hadn’t gotten used to. Once such a brilliant man, such a brilliant mind, now his expression more often than not was perplexed. Even blank.
Evelyn realized she should speak in short, declarative sentences.
She also realized she had not lied to Moretti on their stroll through the Jean-Talon market the day before.
Armand Gamache was clearly no longer the force he once was.
Not a threat. By the time he realized something was happening, it would be long over.
This was the real reason she’d accepted his invitation to Sunday lunch. To make sure. Now she could go home. Except she was committed to what promised to be a long and tedious lunch.
At least she’d had a delicious brioche here in the bistro while she’d waited.
“Excusez-moi,” said Armand, taking out his phone. “I need to set my alarm, to remember to take out the chicken.”
“Of course.” Though her heart ached a little, to see this once great leader reduced to anxiety over roast chicken.
She watched as his brow furrowed, and wondered if even that simple task, of setting the timer, was proving too much. How much damage had that explosion done?
But now he got up and, “Désolé,” took a few steps away from the table before turning his back on her.
At that moment she was distracted by another vehicle arriving.
“Fucking hell,” she whispered as she recognized the man getting out.
“Anything?” asked Vivienne.
“Rien.” Nothing.
Inspector Lacoste had sent a photo and message to Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir. Now she waited.
And waited.
Finally, a few long minutes later, her phone rang.
“Chief?”
“What’ve you got?” His voice was low, clearly trying to keep others from overhearing.
Armand had put on the text function since he still did not trust that the cicadas would not eat a few vital words.
“Looks like a body. I stopped digging as soon as I realized. I’ve sent for a forensics team to get up here as soon as possible, but it’ll take a while. Dr. LaPierre and I will stay by the body until they arrive.”
“What equipment do you have?”
“Gloves, evidence vials, and bags. But no testing kits. I didn’t think—”
“Of course you didn’t.” He thought for a moment, looking out the window at Marcus Lauzon. At the smug smile on that reviled face. Then he noticed Jean-Guy’s face opening up into astonishment as he too read Lacoste’s message and saw the photo.
Armand walked deeper into the bistro as Evelyn Tardiff returned her attention to her colleague, the head of homicide.
What the hell is he up to? What’s Lauzon doing here?
Something had happened. Marcus Lauzon had obviously been taken out of maximum security, supermax, and brought here for Sunday lunch. Along with her.
Why?
Alarms began to go off, and she wondered if Armand Gamache, that wily strategist, really was as feeble, as diminished, as he seemed. She glanced out the window and inadvertently caught Marcus Lauzon’s eye.
Both looked quickly away.
“Isabelle, you have to open that bag. We need to know who and what is in there.”
She knew what he was asking. That they run the risk of contaminating evidence. But the need to know now outweighed the risks.
“Agreed. Stay on the line, patron.”
Inspector Lacoste switched her phone to camera and turned the view around so Gamache could watch. Hitting record, she handed it to her companion.
“Vivienne, can you hold this? It’s recording.”
“Of course.” The biologist took the phone and pointed it at the partially exposed bag.
From the warmth and comfort of the bistro in Three Pines, Armand watched as Isabelle worked quickly and expertly, uncovering what was clearly now a corpse wrapped in layers of heavy plastic. Cutting the plastic open at the head, she was immediately repelled backward.
Even after years of doing this, she never got used to the sight, or smell, of a decomposing body.
Vivienne had dropped the phone. Armand could hear gagging.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice muffled, his face face down in the slush and muck. “Who is it?”
Isabelle picked up the phone, wiped the mud away on her jacket, and pointed. She heard the long sigh of someone who realized he’d been wrong. Very wrong.
Clara spotted Ruth coming down her path. “Quick, everyone, pretend you’re dead.”
“Everyone” was Myrna and Reine-Marie.
“Who is it?” asked Myrna.
“Who do you think?”
They crouched down and fell silent. The doorknob jiggled.
“There’s a slight flaw to this strategy,” whispered Reine-Marie, hiding behind Myrna, as was Clara.
“Hello?? Bonjour??” could be heard from the front hall. Then, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“You never lock your door,” said Myrna, standing up from where she’d been taking refuge behind the exuberant arrangement of autumn flowers and branches and weeds she’d cut down that morning and brought with her.
“There you are,” said Ruth. “I thought for a moment I’d have to make new friends.”
“Out of what?” asked Clara.
“What did she make us out of?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Stone and wishful thinking,” said Ruth, whose hearing was startlingly acute. “Your husband said I wasn’t invited to Sunday lunch. Been replaced by a mass murderer.”
“Sounds like a fair trade,” said Clara. Her smile froze when she looked out the window and realized the mad poet was, for once, telling the truth.
“What’s happened, Armand?” demanded Evelyn, when he’d hung up and rejoined her. “And what the hell is that man doing here?”
They were two separate questions, though Gamache knew they intersected. Somehow. The dead man and the luncheon guest.
The former political leader was walking down the path to the Gamache home, to join them for Sunday lunch. He was still in handcuffs, and Jean-Guy had a firm grip on his arm.
While Beauvoir did not think his prisoner would make a run for it, he knew that people did strange things. And this man’s actions in the past went far beyond predictable.
Armand chose to focus on the second of Evelyn’s questions. The one he was prepared for.
“I don’t think Marcus Lauzon is the Black Wolf.”
The look on Chief Inspector Tardiff’s face was exactly the same as Jeanne Caron’s had been the day before, when he’d dropped the same bomb on her.
“Of course he is. For fuck’s sake, it was proven in court, beyond any doubt.” Her voice was rising, so that others in the bistro, including the former monk turned server, turned to look. “And now you release him from prison? Have you lost your mind?”
She knew she should rein it in, but the shock had shaken her. What had this silent, still, still silent man found out?
Armand tilted his head to one side, his brows together. His expression puzzled.
“Désolé, Evelyn. I didn’t catch it all. But you seem angry.”
She was, in fact, incandescent. If her hair could have burst into flames, it would have.
“Why the fuck did you bring him down here? This is a huge mistake, Armand.”
Armand shrugged and shook his head. Not in boredom, not because he disagreed, but in apparent incomprehension.
“Oh, fuck it,” she muttered.
Turned out the lunch might not be as tedious as she’d thought.
As they left the bistro and made their way across the village green, Armand’s mind was not on Tardiff’s reaction to Lauzon, which was predictable, nor on the confrontation to come, but on the unexpected. The unpredicted.
The body in the bag.
How did Frederick Castonguay, who’d worked closely with their prisoner, their luncheon guest, the former Deputy Prime Minister, end up dead and buried beside that remote lake?