Glass Houses

CHAPTER 8

“I thought you said this was going to be a fast trial,” said Judge Corriveau’s wife, Joan. “Will we be able to go away this weekend?”

Maureen Corriveau moaned. “I don’t know. Can we get out of the reservations if we have to?”

“I’ll call the inn and see. Don’t worry, we can always go away another weekend. Vermont will be there.”

Maureen grabbed a piece of toast, kissed Joan, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“Off you go, and play nice,” said Joan.

“It’s my sandbox. I don’t have to play nice.”

She looked outside. It was barely seven in the morning and already the sun was beating down.

Getting in her car, she yelped and lifted her bottom off the scorching seat.

“Shit, shit,” she muttered, throwing on the AC and lowering herself slowly.

She could see heat distorting the air above the hood and wondered what the courtroom would be like.

But Judge Corriveau knew that, even without the heat wave, it would be suffocating.

“All rise,” she heard.

The door was opened by the guard, and Judge Corriveau stepped across the threshold.

There was a hubbub as all rose. Then sat, as she sat.

Everyone looked slightly disheveled. Already.

She nodded to the Crown, who recalled his witness from the day before.

As Chief Superintendent Gamache walked up to the witness box, Judge Corriveau noticed he seemed composed, wearing a tailored suit that might not look quite so good by the end of the day.

The AC had been turned off and already the room was close.

She also noticed, as he took his seat, that very slight scent of sandalwood.

The gentle aroma sat with her for just a moment before dissipating. Then Judge Corriveau turned her attention to the defendant, who was watching the Chief Superintendent.

There was a sharp focus, and a plea in the eyes. Aimed at Gamache.

It was intense. And only two people in the courtroom could see it. Herself. And the Chief Superintendent.

But what was the defendant pleading for? Mercy? No, that was not Gamache’s to give.

The defendant wanted something from Gamache, was desperate for it.

Forgiveness? But again, surely, that wasn’t his to give either.

What could the Chief Superintendent offer the defendant, a person he himself had arrested, at this point?

Only one thing, Judge Corriveau knew.

Silence.

He could keep some secret.

Judge Corriveau looked from the defendant to the Chief Superintendent. And wondered if a deal had been struck. Something she knew nothing about.

Again, the photo of the cobrador on the village green was put up on the screen. And there it would stay, throughout the trial.

It appeared to be watching them.

“You understand you’re still under oath, Chief Superintendent?” she asked.

“I do understand, Your Honor.”

“Bon,” said the Crown. “You told us yesterday afternoon, before we broke for the day, that you’d concluded someone in the village of Three Pines had done something so hideous that that thing”—the Crown pointed to the cobrador—“had to be called. Who did you think it was?”

“I honestly didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t know, I asked who you thought it might be. Did you have any suspicions?”

“Objection,” said the defense attorney.

Judge Corriveau sustained it, with regret. She’d have loved to hear the answer.

“A conscience?” said Ruth. Behind her on this dreary November evening, cold rain hit the window and slid down, not quite liquid, not quite solid. “So that’s what it is. I wonder who he’s come for.”

She surveyed them from her seat in one of the deep armchairs in the Gamaches’ living room. Once in, she couldn’t possibly get out without help. It was how her neighbors preferred her. Comfortable and confined.

Rosa sat on her lap, her head swiveling toward whoever was speaking. Like a duck possessed.

“Who made this?” asked Olivier, standing at the door between their kitchen and the living room. Holding a baguette.

“Jacqueline,” said Clara. “Sorry. It was all that was left at the bakery. She hasn’t improved?”

In his other hand, Olivier lifted the bread knife, its teeth askew. He went to the back door and tossed the baton of bread out, for some beaver to sharpen its teeth on. Though he suspected it would still be lying there when some future archeologist found it. It would become like Stonehenge. A mystery.

Myrna got up and, taking her red wine to the window, looked out into the dusk.

“A peace above all earthly dignities,” she quoted. Then turned back to the room. “A still and quiet conscience.”

“Shakespeare,” said Reine-Marie. “But it doesn’t feel very peaceful.”

“That’s because we’re not there yet,” said Myrna. “That thing is here because someone in the village doesn’t have a quiet conscience.”

“It’s just a man in a costume,” said Armand. “He’s playing a mind game with someone.”

“But not us,” said Gabri.

“Really?” asked Ruth. “Not us? We’re immune? Is your conscience really so still and quiet?”

Gabri squirmed.

“Is anyone’s?” Ruth asked, looking at them all before coming to rest on Armand.

In that instant he found himself standing before the door he kept closed, deep in his memory.

He reached out. A very slight tremor in his right hand.

And opened it.

It wasn’t locked. He couldn’t lock it though, God help him, he’d tried. Sometimes it swung open on its own, revealing the thing inside.

Not some fetid, sordid shame.

Before him stood a young man, barely more than a boy. Smiling. Filled with hope, and laughter, with ambition tempered by kindness. He was slender, spindly even, so that his Sûreté uniform looked like a costume.

“He’ll grow into it,” Chief Inspector Gamache had assured his mother at a reception honoring new recruits.

But, of course, he hadn’t.

The boy stood there now, smiling at Armand. Awaiting the day’s orders. Trusting him, completely.

I’ll find you. It’ll be all right.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

Go away, was what Armand wanted to say. Leave me in peace. I’m so sorry about what happened, but I can’t undo it.

But he never said it. And Armand Gamache knew that if the young man ever did leave, he’d miss him. Not the almost unbearable pain he always felt when that door swung open, but his company.

This was one special young man.

And Armand had killed him.

It had been an honest mistake, he’d told himself. A wrong decision made in a crisis.

It had not been deliberate.

But it was a stupid mistake. Avoidable.

Had he turned right instead of left, in that horrible moment, the young man would be alive. Married. Children probably, by now.

May your days be good and long upon this earth.

But, of course, they weren’t.

Armand’s conscience rose up now. Not a dark thing at all, but a skinny young man who never accused, he just smiled.

Armand brought his hand to his temple and absently followed the line of the scar. Like a mark of Cain.

Ruth tilted her head, watching Armand. Knowing, as they all probably did, what he was thinking about. Who he was thinking about.

The old woman looked at her empty glass of scotch, then down at Rosa, as though accusing the duck of drinking it.

It would not be the first time. Rosa was a mean drunk. But then, she was pretty mean sober as well. It was very hard to tell, they’d realized, if a duck was drunk.

“Or maybe he’s here for me,” said Ruth. “Seems more likely, doesn’t it?”

She smiled at Armand. In much the same way the boy smiled at him. There was tenderness there.

“Some of the things I’ve done you know about,” she said. “I’ve admitted them and made amends.”

Clara looked at Gabri and mouthed, “Amends?”

“But there is one thing…”

“You don’t have to tell us,” said Reine-Marie, laying her hand on Ruth’s.

“And have that thing”—she lifted her empty glass toward the village green—“follow me for the rest of my life? No, thank you.”

“You think it’s here for you?”

“It might be. Do you know why we moved to Three Pines when I was a child?”

“Your father got a job at the mill, didn’t he?” asked Gabri.

“He did. But do you know why he applied? He had a good job in Montréal with Canada Steamship Lines. A job he loved.”

Ruth stroked Rosa, who was bending her elegant neck in what was either pleasure or a drunken stupor.

The old poet took a breath, as a cliff diver might before the plunge.

“I was skating on the pond on Mont Royal. It was late March and my mother had warned me not to, but I did anyway. My cousin was with me. He didn’t want to do it, but I made him. I’m a natural leader.”

The friends exchanged glances but said nothing.

“We were late for lunch and my mother came up looking for us. When she saw us on the pond she yelled, and I started skating to the side, wanting to get to her first, to blame my cousin. I can be a little manipulative.”

Brows were raised again, but nothing was said.

“My cousin hadn’t seen her yet and I think his tuque must’ve muffled the sound of her shout. Or maybe I was just attuned to her voice. I can hear it still.”

The elderly woman cocked her head. Listening.

“I think you can guess what happened,” she said.

“He fell in?” Reine-Marie asked quietly.

“I fell in. Ice melts at the edges first, so just when you think you’re safe, that’s when you’re in the most danger. The ice cracked. I can still remember that moment. It was like I was suspended. I stared at my mother, who was still a distance away down the path. I remember every color, every tree, the sun on the snow. The look on her face. And then, I was underwater.”

“Oh God, Ruth,” whispered Gabri.

“It was so cold it was hot, you know?” She looked around her. Everyone there had been out in minus 40, with the wind howling, their cheeks burning in the bitter cold.

But to have the whole body scald in the freezing water?

“What happened?” whispered Gabri.

“I died,” she snapped, coming back to life. “What do you think happened, you knucklehead?”

“What happened, Ruth?” asked Reine-Marie.

“My cousin skated over to help me, and that’s when he fell in. My mother could save only one of us.”

“You?” asked Olivier, and braced for the caustic retort. That never came.

Instead the old woman nodded, her eyes focused on the distance.

She took a deep breath.

“She never forgave me. Long dead and buried in another town, / My mother hasn’t finished with me yet,” she quoted from her own poem. “I never forgave me.”

“Alas,” said Armand.

Ruth nodded. And Rosa nodded.

“We had to move here,” said Ruth. “Away from family and friends, who also blamed me. Blamed her. For saving the wrong one.”

Beside her, Olivier moaned and put his arm around the bony shoulder.

Ruth lowered her head. And tried to bring herself to say the next thing. The last thing.

But she couldn’t speak. Neither could she forget.

“I dropped a friend when he told me he was HIV positive,” said Gabri. “I was young and afraid.”

“I had a drug prescribed for a patient,” said Myrna. “A young mother. Depressed. It had a bad reaction. She called me, and I told her to come in first thing in the morning. But she killed herself that night.”

Clara took her hand.

“I disobeyed you,” said Clara, looking beyond Myrna to Armand. “I went looking for you and Peter, that day in the fishing village. You told me not to, and if I hadn’t…”

Gabri took her hand.

“I’ve lied and cheated old men and women out of their antiques,” said Olivier. “Giving them a fraction of what they were worth. I don’t do it anymore. But I did.”

He sounded amazed, as though describing a man who was unrecognizable.

“We knew about that, mon beau,” said Ruth, patting his hand. “You’re an asshole.”

Olivier grunted in near amusement.

A commotion, at first dull, reached them from the village green. A raising of voices that was growing louder. And then turned into shouting.

The friends stared at each other in surprise. Armand was out of his chair. Throwing open the front door, he saw what it was.

A crowd had gathered on the village green. He could just see the top of the cobrador’s head.

It was surrounded by people.

Armand ran out the door and the others followed, except Ruth, who was struggling to get up.

“Don’t leave me here.”

But they had.

And once again she saw the hand of her mother, plunging into the icy water. Reaching out. Desperate. Straining.

For her cousin.

But Ruth had gripped that hand instead, and risen. Unwanted.

Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again / or will it be, as always was, / too late?

“Alas,” she muttered.

“Come on, you old crone.”

Clara had returned, and now she reached out. Ruth looked at the hand for a moment, then gripped it.

And she was hauled out.

They rushed down the path and to the village green.