Chapter 16
At the same time next morning that Jean-Guy was boarding a flight to DC, Isabelle was tossing gear into a float plane.
Armand had spent much of the night before lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Debating. He finally got up and, going downstairs, he sat in an armchair and put on music.
Music. Music. How he’d missed music.
In the quietude, he listened to Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. Calm. Calming. Restful. As he listened, he let his mind drift.
Isabelle would soon be heading back up north. To see again the lake where Charles had last visited. Where Frederick had been killed. Study again the arrow carved into the tree.
That remote body of water had produced at least one body. And he knew it had more to cough up. Something else was hiding there.
He’d woken Reine-Marie before dawn with a mug of coffee. Sitting on the side of their bed, he’d leaned down and kissed her forehead. Startled, she’d sat up so quickly she’d almost broken his nose.
“What is it?”
He’d laughed. “Désolé. I didn’t mean to scare you. I have to go out.”
She focused and saw what he was wearing. A heavy coat over a turtleneck sweater. Looking down, she saw he had on thick woolen socks and by the bedroom door was a satchel.
Reine-Marie narrowed her eyes. “I’m assuming you aren’t heading to the bistro.”
“Non. I need to go to the lake where Frederick Castonguay was found.”
She pulled herself up in the bed. “You’re going to fly there?”
He nodded.
“You know what the doctor said. The pressure changes could redamage your eardrums, your hearing. Maybe do permanent damage. Just when—”
She stopped when she felt a fizzing in her throat and her eyes beginning to burn.
He nodded again. Just when he almost had it all back. Just when he could once again hear her voice. Just when they could have an actual conversation, about those details of life no one else could possibly care about.
And now he was putting it all at risk.
“I am sorry,” he said, softly. He placed his large hands on either side of her face and held them gently there for a moment, before leaning in and giving her a deep, long kiss. And felt her kiss him back.
Whatever happened, they would still have that. Always have that. Into eternity. There was no need for words to understand that.
As he pulled away, she reached out and held his face. Pulling him close, she whispered in his ear. “I love you.”
“And I love you. I’ll be back for dinner.”
After she’d heard the front door close, Reine-Marie got out of bed and, wrapping the comforter around her shoulders, she stood at the window. The dogs and Gracie joined her, and all four watched his headlights illuminate the bench on the hill, before disappearing.
He’d told her the evening before what “that man” had said about Prime Minister Woodford. It was patently ridiculous. Meant to smear.
She hoped. Because if Lauzon was actually telling the truth …
“We’re all in trouble,” she whispered and saw Henri’s satellite ears swing toward her, his face turned up to her. His eyes clearly communicating.
Breakfast.
As soon as Jean-Guy’s flight landed at Reagan National in DC, he grabbed a cab.
Twenty minutes later he walked into a diner about as far from the White House as he could be. Not geographically but socially.
The diner was populated, sparsely, by the disoriented, the disenfranchised. Those without power. Without income, without jobs. Without hope.
Though there was one person, sitting at the back, wearing a Washington Mystics cap. He had on cords and a T-shirt under an old grubby and torn combat jacket, without insignia.
“Coffee, please,” said Beauvoir, pausing at the counter, though he was far from sure the server heard him. Or cared.
General Whitehead nodded but didn’t get up.
“Good morning. Not to be rude, but I expected Armand.”
Jean-Guy sat and was grateful, though admittedly surprised, when a hand put down a mug of coffee, along with creams and sugars.
“Thank you. I’m sorry. Just me again.” He popped open the creamer, then tore a little sugar packet and stirred. “What happened to Off the Record?”
It was the swank bar in the basement of the Hay-Adams hotel, across the street from the White House, where they met last time.
“For one thing, it’s eight thirty in the morning and the bar isn’t open. And it’s too close to—”
Bert Whitehead stopped. It was clear what he meant.
“Besides,” said the General, “I like it here. Sam’s an old friend. We served together in the Gulf War. We’re safe.”
On hearing the last word, Jean-Guy stopped stirring his coffee, carefully placed the spoon on the table, and leaned forward. “Tell me about FEDS.”
Though Isabelle said nothing, she noticed Armand wincing as the plane gained altitude.
They’d asked the S?reté pilot to fly low, to lessen the pressure.
“This’s a plane,” said the pilot, “not a boat. If you want to fly, you have to go—” He pointed up.
Now Isabelle leaned forward and, placing her hand on the pilot’s shoulder, she spoke directly into his ear.
“Take it down or I’ll—”
She tightened her grip in a gesture far more eloquent than words. They descended so that they were essentially skimming the tops of the waves.
When the pressure eased and Armand opened his eyes again, they widened. He was practically making eye contact with equally surprised trout. An hour later, after almost clipping the trees, the plane made a steep turn and landed on a lake, bouncing along the tops of the waves.
Lacoste guided the pilot to the site. He stayed with his plane while Armand and Isabelle paddled the small dinghy to the pebble shore, stepping into the water and dragging the boat onto land.
It was far colder that far north. There was a light layer of snow on the ground. Their breaths came out in puffs of warm vapor. Gamache paused on the rocky shore and stared out across the lake, taking in the beauty. Absorbing the peace of the unspoiled landscape.
He drew his elbows tighter into his sides and hunched his shoulders to conserve warmth.
Looking out at the lake, he brought his hand up to his brow to cut out the glare from the dazzling sun bouncing off the water.
It looked to Isabelle as though he was saluting Mother Nature. And he might have been.
“It’s over here, patron.”
Isabelle had walked a short distance into the forest and now pointed to the base of the tree.
“How in the world did you find it?” Armand looked around.
The forest was dense, untouched, uncut. Filled with old growth, mostly evergreens that only died of extreme old age. Or, he thought, a fire.
He knew if they flew a little farther north, they’d see the charred remains of millions of trees. It was a national tragedy. An epic failure.
Canada’s great good fortune was in being rich in natural resources. Its shame was in not being better custodians.
And it was now obvious to the entire world that Canada had failed in its responsibility. Any moral superiority, any higher ground Canada might claim, had been burned to a crisp.
The results of the water samples Vivienne had taken had come back. The biologist was right. The pH levels of this lake, and no doubt others, were affected by potassium. Potash. Ash. From those wildfires.
Many more fires, and the lake would die. And, with it, all the wildlife that depended on it.
And if it was this bad here, God only knew what lasting damage was done farther south, when the plume of ash had descended on American soil and water. On American cities and citizens.
“I was searching,” said Lacoste, answering his question, “and noticed the rock looked odd, up against the tree like that. When I looked closer, it was a river rock, smooth. There’s no way it could get from there”—she pointed to the shore—“to here without help. We lifted partial prints from it. They look like Charles’s. ”
Armand picked up the stone and leaned down to examine the arrow Charles had carved into the tree along with his initials.
“Vivienne and I followed the arrow into the forest”—she pointed—“in that direction.”
“And where was Frederick’s body?”
“Over there.” She pointed in a whole other direction.
“Huh,” he grunted. “Odd. I wonder what Frederick was doing over there?”
He followed her about fifty meters in, to the crime scene tape. Armand again knelt.
They’d heard from Dr. Harris that Frederick Castonguay had almost certainly been killed where he’d been buried, and it had happened less than two months earlier, though she couldn’t be more precise.
He stood up, and after brushing dirt from his slacks, he looked around, then behind them toward the tree and the stone. Both were invisible, hidden by the thick forest in between. Still …
Armand turned full circle, then walked back and looked down at the base of the tree. Then over to where the body had been.
“So if the arrow points in one direction, why did Frederick go in the other?”
“It’s possible Frederick didn’t find the arrow, otherwise he’d have followed it, non?” said Isabelle.
“That’s possible. I guess. But if Charles told Frederick about the lake, why not tell him where to find the stone?” Armand was all but muttering to himself, and again peering around, his thoughtful gaze landing back on Lacoste.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Armand finally said. “Why tell Frederick about the lake but not the stone and what was under it? And how to find whatever he’d hidden. He’d tell him all or nothing, wouldn’t he? Since Frederick knew about the lake, it’s sensible to assume he also knew about the carving.”
“And what he was looking for. So why didn’t he follow the arrow?”
“There is one explanation. He realized, too late, that he was in trouble, and wanted to make sure whoever he was with didn’t find the stone and whatever Charles had hidden.”
“Are you saying that, knowing he was going to be murdered, he led them off in the wrong direction?”
“It’s possible.”