Chapter 36
The break came not from Sherry Caufield, but much closer to home.
“Patron?” said Isabelle Lacoste, knocking on his open office door and stepping in. It was late one Friday afternoon in February. “My husband and kids are going to his family in Québec City, for the Carnaval. I begged off.”
He looked up from the reports he’d been reading and indicated a chair.
“Non, I won’t sit, merci. I was wondering if I could come down to Three Pines for a few days. Bring my skis and a stack of books. I thought I’d start with Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
He took off his glasses and looked at her closely before saying, “Wonderful. In fact, I think Annie and the kids are also going to Carnaval this week. I’ll join you and see if Jean-Guy wants to come down too.”
“That would be fun.” Though it was clear she did not mean fun.
She too had lied.
It was far too cold over the weekend to consider cross-country or downhill skiing, and only the village children dared go outside, bundled up until they could barely walk.
They put on their skates and glided around the pond, with their hockey sticks and soft puck.
Checking each other into the soft snowdrifts.
When even they got too cold, they ran into the bistro for hot chocolate with melting marshmallows.
The days were bright, the sun almost blinding. The nights were crisp and clear, the sky strewn with stars. Every window in the village was etched with frost, while every chimney had a trail of smoke.
Their footsteps, as they walked briskly to the bistro, or the bookstore, or Clara’s for dinner, squeaked on the hardened snow, and their breath froze in their nostrils and sinuses, bringing tears to their eyes.
Most of the time the three of them joined Reine-Marie by the fire in the living room, reading and chatting and trying to avoid eye contact with Ruth and Rosa. Giving every appearance of relaxation, while inside their insides were churning.
Finally, Monday dawned overcast, with flurries. And much milder.
“Downhill or cross-country?” Jean-Guy asked over an apparently lazy breakfast of omelets, English muffins, and crab apple jelly made from the orchard out back.
“I think cross-country, don’t you?” said Isabelle.
“Perfect.”
“Have fun,” said Reine-Marie. “I’m going over to Clara’s. She’s finished a new painting and invited me to see it. Her solo show’s coming up next month.”
“It’s called Just before something happens,” said Armand, and saw Isabelle nod. Something was just about to happen.
Finally.
A kilometer into the trail through the quiet woods, their thin skis in the tracks made by previous treks, they paused. Armand had unzipped his coat partway, having worked up a sweat.
“Water?” Jean-Guy offered. Snow had accumulated on his tuque, and Armand had an idea what the younger man would look like as an elderly man.
“I have my own, merci,” said the Chief, and looked around. “This way.”
Now they broke trail through the deep snow. It was hard work, and when, ten minutes later, they arrived at the hermit’s empty cabin, all three opened their thick coats and took off their hats, their hair plastered to their heads with perspiration.
Sticking their skis in a snowbank, they knocked their boots against the veranda posts and went inside.
It was cold, like a fridge. And dusty. There were cobwebs and mouse droppings. And yet, and yet, it still felt like a home. A place that had been happy once.
They sat at the wooden table, and Armand brought out the thermos of hot chocolate and three cups. Now the cold was penetrating again. He wrapped his flannel scarf around his neck and turned to Isabelle.
“What have you got?” For it had been clear since Friday, when she’d invited herself down, that she had something. But they couldn’t risk talking about it until they were definitely alone.
They’d left their phones at home and had been careful what they’d said all weekend.
Isabelle unzipped a large pocket in her parka and placed a printout on the table.
“You remember my search of Margaux Chalifoux’s home? When we first suspected something wasn’t right with Action Québec Bleu?”
“Back when this all began, last August? Yes, of course,” said Beauvoir. “You found nothing.”
“I thought there was nothing, but I was going back over my notes again and this time I spotted something. I remembered that map in her basement. The one with all the pins.”
The two men leaned forward but said nothing.
“I had the map brought to headquarters and the pins put back in. Chalifoux said they corresponded to where the various researchers had been. Each volunteer represented by a colored pin.”
She looked at her colleagues, her friends. They were listening, closely.
“I went to look for the map in our evidence locker and it was gone.”
Beauvoir leaned back, and Armand rotated his shoulders, in an effort to alleviate the tension.
Still they said nothing.
“I didn’t look further, and didn’t ask about it, of course.”
Armand gave a small nod of approval. Evidence didn’t just disappear. Someone had taken the map. Someone didn’t want them to find it.
“Fortunately, while in Chalifoux’s basement, I took a picture of the map to re-create where the pins were placed.”
She nodded down at the paper.
“What are we looking at?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Not the pins. Those really do show where the researchers went. It’s this.”
Isabelle placed her finger on the map.
Mont-Laurier was lightly circled in pencil. With a number under it.
“I don’t understand how this gets us closer,” said Beauvoir. “We already know about Mont-Laurier.”
“True. But the number. Look at the number.”
Armand’s brow cleared and his face had opened in astonishment. “Is it a dossier number?”
“It is. And not just any dossier number. This is the approval for an American pulp-and-paper conglomerate to clear-cut the forests around Mont-Laurier and set up a pulp mill.”
“Holy shit,” said Jean-Guy. “That breaks all our laws protecting resources, never mind the environment.”
“They must be the ones who extended the airstrip,” said Gamache.
“That’s my thinking too. And to do that, they’d need to bring up lots of ‘workers’ and tons of ‘chemicals,’ supposedly for the pulp mill,” said Isabelle.
“Never mind equipment and planes,” said Jean-Guy.
“Do we know who signed off on this?” Gamache asked.
“I don’t, but Sherry Caufield does. I sent her the information. The file had been erased, but nothing disappears completely. She was able to track it down. Woodford didn’t sign the document, of course, but it was sent to his private, confidential email. He knew about it.”
It was his only mistake. And it was a big one.
“Yes?” said James Woodford.
The Prime Minister was in his office on Parliament Hill. Since news of the coup attempt, and his part in ending it, he had enjoyed unprecedented popularity, and not just in Canada. He was hailed worldwide as a hero.
A new entente was struck with the President of the United States. The two nations had never been closer.
There was talk of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Prime Minister Woodford looked up from his paperwork, expecting to see his new Chief of Staff, and was surprised to instead see Captain Pinsent of the RCMP. She was holding what looked like a warrant.
Clara Morrow’s solo show at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal had, as its centerpiece, one giant oil painting. Leading up to it, marching down the hall, was a series of portraits. Most of them of unknown people. At least, unknown to the general public, with two exceptions.
The portrait most people went straight to was of James Woodford, whose happy, content expression as he sat at his desk was just, just, just about to change.
Hundreds of patrons posed for selfies in front of the now disgraced PM, Clara having perfectly captured that split second before his world collapsed.
The other recognizable face was that of the poet Ruth Zardo, who looked quizzical, while the duck on her lap looked on the verge of solving the mysteries of the universe.
That brought smiles to the faces of all the patrons, who also lined up to pose in front of it, trying to mimic the duck’s expression.
But the portrait that most people ended up in front of belonged to someone they’d never met. And yet it was so compelling some stood in front of it for half an hour or more and returned several times. Just to visit with her.
It was Reine-Marie. She was anxious, worried … as most people seemed to be these days.
But that was just, just about to change. Someone she loved was just, just, just coming into view.
Some stood in front of the canvas and wept, with relief. Hope was taking the edge off their own stresses and fears. Reine-Marie’s face let them know that if things could change for the worse, they could also change for the better.
They would change for the better. They were changing for the better.
But the huge painting that all this led up to, the one at the very end, the last one Clara painted, was of a single snowflake, glittering in perfection. A moment before it began to melt.
The tragedy wasn’t its disappearance. The gift was that it existed at all.
What a perfect, beautiful world, where snowflakes existed. Even for a moment.