Glass Houses

CHAPTER 19

“What’re they doing now?” asked Jacqueline.

“They’re still there.”

Anton looked out the bay window of Sarah’s Boulangerie toward St. Thomas’s Church, while Jacqueline stood at the worktable behind the counter and kneaded. Pummeling the dough.

“They’ve taken her away,” said Anton, turning from the window. “The ambulance has gone.”

He’d come in with the news that a body had been found in the chapel. That it was one of the visitors. Katie Evans.

By then, they’d known. But still, having it confirmed was a shock.

Anton tried sitting, but found he couldn’t get comfortable, and so he paced the small boulangerie, while trying not to make it look like pacing.

When he’d woken up that morning and the cobrador was gone, he’d thought it would be okay. That they didn’t need to tell Gamache anything. But now—

A woman had been killed and there were cops everywhere.

It was worse than ever.

“We should’ve told them,” said Jacqueline, pulling sticky dough off her fingers.

“That we knew it was a cobrador? You think it had something to do with what happened.”

“Of course it did,” she snapped, then scraping the dough off the counter, she threw it down with such force it flattened. The air, the life, knocked out of it. It would not rise now. “You can’t be that much of an idiot.”

He looked at her as though he’d been the one kneaded and thumped. And winded by a blow.

“Honestly, Anton. We were told about the cobrador last year. And now it’s here? Didn’t it occur to you that maybe it’s come for us?”

“But why would it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jacqueline. “Because we worked for a madman?”

“They’re the ones who left,” said Anton. “Not us. Besides, we don’t know anything.”

“We know enough. Maybe he sent the cobrador as a warning. To keep our mouths shut.”

But if the cobrador had come for them, why was Madame Evans dead?

The cops hadn’t yet told them exactly what had happened, but it was obvious. Madame Evans wasn’t just dead. Judging by the activity at the church, it was neither natural nor an accident.

“Is it too late to say something?” he asked.

“Maybe not.” She punched the dough. “But it’ll look bad. They’ll wonder why we didn’t tell them sooner.”

“Why didn’t we?”

But he knew perfectly well.

He remembered that dark mask, facing the bistro. Facing him. Boring through the windows and walls, into the kitchen, where he washed dishes.

The Conscience. That was threatening everything Anton had built up.

Yes. That was why he hadn’t wanted to say anything to that Gamache fellow. The head of the whole Sûreté. In case he figured it out. Realized who he was.

Even Jacqueline didn’t know.

He looked at her. Those long fingers in the dough, once so sensuous, were now claws, ripping the life out of a baguette.

He knew why he’d wanted to keep silent about the cobrador. But he began to wonder why she did.

The door between the bakery and the bistro swung open with such force that it banged against the wall, and both Jacqueline and Anton jumped.

Lea Roux stepped in, followed by Matheo.

“We need—” began Lea, but stopped abruptly when she saw Anton.

They stared at each other. He’d seen them before, but only briefly. They were visitors, that’s all he knew. But now he thought, maybe, he recognized them. Or at least her.

“There you are.” Olivier walked in behind them. He acknowledged Lea and Matheo with a sympathetic nod. He’d spoken to them in the bistro, and offered condolences.

Now his attention turned to his dishwasher. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” His voice was appropriately solemn and courteous, though annoyance was poking through. “I need you in the kitchen. It’s a little busy.”

Olivier gave a strained smile and it was clear that, if not for the others present, he’d have said something else. In a whole other way.

“Sorry,” said Anton. He hurried over to the door, but paused to look at Jacqueline. “You okay?”

When she nodded, he turned to Lea and Matheo. “Désolé. It’s terrible.”

It was clear she’d been crying, her eyes were puffy and red.

Anton followed Olivier through the crowded bistro, filled with talk of murder, to the kitchens, filled with the scent of herbs and rich, comforting sauces, and the clatter of pots and pans and dishes.

To others it was a cacophony. To Anton it was a symphony. Operatic even. The clanging and banging of creation, of drama, of tension. Of rivalries. Of divas. Competing flavors and competing chefs. Heartbreak even. As soufflés fell. As casseroles burned.

But most of the time what rose from those noises, that grand tumult, was something wonderful. Beautiful. Exciting and comforting.

Anton had wept once, in Italy, when he’d tasted a perfect gelato. And once in Renty, France, when he’d taken a bite of baguette. A bread so sublime people traveled hours to buy one.

Yes. To others a kitchen was a convenience. Even a chore. To a precious few, it was their world. A messy, wonderful world. His world. His sanctuary. And he longed to get back into it. To hide. And hope the Sûreté didn’t figure out who he was.

“Let’s go,” said Olivier, holding open the swinging door to the kitchen. “There’s lots to do. Not just here, but the Sûreté agents are going to need sandwiches and drinks.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Anton.

Olivier relaxed just a little. “Merci.”

Once back at the church, Isabelle Lacoste sent an agent into Knowlton, to interview staff at the restaurant. See if they remembered the Evanses. Another agent was sent into the village with a list of the people to be interviewed.

She invited Chief Superintendent Gamache to sit in.

He declined. “Unless you need me, Isabelle.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, they’d be more likely to tell the truth, since you know them and know most of their movements in the last day or so. But,” she smiled and shrugged, “if they lie, they lie.”

It was not as cavalier as it sounded, Gamache knew.

“You’ll join us for dinner and stay over, I hope,” he said. “And perhaps we can compare notes.”

With him at the interviews, everyone would be on a short leash. Forced to tell the truth. Which, granted, was helpful in a murder investigation.

But not, perhaps, quite as helpful as a lie.

A lie didn’t necessarily make someone a killer. But it hurried the sorting process. The truthful from the untruthful. Those with nothing to hide. And those with a secret.

A lie was a light. One that grew into a floodlight, that eventually illuminated the person among them with the biggest secret. The most to hide.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir made himself comfortable in the study at the Gamache home and waited for the Internet to connect.

Few could find Three Pines, hidden in the valley, and that included the satellites that provided Internet coverage for most of the planet. The village was civilization adjacent. The information superhighway zoomed overhead. And Three Pines was a pothole.

But having witnessed untold brutality in cities and towns, Jean-Guy Beauvoir had come to believe that “civilization” might be overrated. Except for pizza delivery, of course.

But it was possible to get a book from Myrna’s shop, take it into Olivier’s bistro, and read it in peace, while drinking rich café au lait and eating a buttery croissant from Sarah’s Boulangerie.

Did that make up for no iPhone or pizza delivery?

“Non,” he muttered as he shifted impatiently in his chair and yearned for high-speed wireless and a large all-dressed.

The dial-up, primitive, maddening, noisy and unreliable, had reached the shrieking stage, as though it was afraid to connect to the outside world.

“It’s still better than what we’ve had in some places,” the chief always reminded Beauvoir when he grumbled about the wood-burning modem.

While Beauvoir waited, he looked out the window. He could see technicians taking equipment off vans and lugging it into St. Thomas’s. He marveled at Lacoste’s luck. To have such an Incident Room right next to the crime scene. Warm, dry, with running water, a fridge. A toilet.

“A coffeemaker, for chrissake,” he mumbled.

She didn’t even have to go outside, which, in Beauvoir’s opinion, was always an advantage.

It was a far cry from some of the places he and his father-in-law had been forced to use as they’d investigated murders across Québec.

The tents, the bobbing and corkscrewing fishing boats, the shacks, the caves.

He’d told Annie about the outhouse that’d once been their headquarters, but she’d refused to believe him.

“Ask your dad,” he’d said.

“I will not.” She laughed in her easy way. “You’re just trying to set me up. Entrapment, monsieur. I’ll have you up on charges.”

“You’d punish me?” he asked in a mock-hopeful voice. “I’m a bad, bad boy.”

“No, you’re a silly, silly boy. And, God help us, you’re a father now. There’re all sorts of new punishments I have lined up for you. I gave Honoré prunes for the first time. He liked them.”

But he’d been telling the truth. He and then–Chief Inspector Gamache had been investigating the murder of a survivalist in the Saguenay. The body had been found in a burned-out cabin, and the only structure left was the outhouse.

“A two-holer,” Gamache had pointed out, as though that was luxury.

“I’ll just sit out here,” Beauvoir had said, pulling a rock up to a stump and setting out his notebook.

At two in the morning, the rains came, and Beauvoir had knocked on the outhouse door.

“Who is it?” Gamache had asked, politely.

Jean-Guy had peered through the half moon cut into the rickety door. “Let me in.”

“It’s unlocked. But wipe your feet first.”

They’d spent a day and a half there, sifting through evidence in the charred rubble. And interviewing “neighbors” scattered through the forest. Most were trappers or fellow survivalists. The investigators were trying to find someone, anyone, who admitted to knowing the victim. But these people barely admitted to knowing themselves.

There’d been no Internet there at all. No laptops. No dial-up. No telephones. No nothing. Except, thankfully, toilet paper. And the sleeping bags, water, food packets and matches they’d marched in with.

They’d tacked up notepaper on the weathered walls of the outhouse and made flowcharts of suspects. It became almost cozy.

“Did you catch whoever did it?” Annie had asked. She’d been seduced by the story, and her lawyer mind had reluctantly told her that he was telling the truth.

She listened, rapt. As he listened, rapt, to her stories.

“We did. Through cunning, finely honed reasoning, animal—”

“He gave himself up, didn’t he?”

“No.” Though Jean-Guy couldn’t help but smile at the memory. “He came back looking for the water filtration system the dead man had. You should’ve seen his face when your father and I strolled out of the outhouse.”

Annie had laughed until she almost wet herself.

The Internet connected and Jean-Guy swung around, his hands hovering over the keyboard.

He had a bunch of competing priorities. But the first was obvious.

He fired off a quick email to Annie, to let her know what had happened and that he’d be spending at least the night, perhaps longer, at her parents’ place.

As he wrote, he ached for her. For Honoré. For the feel and scent of them.

“Miss you,” Annie wrote back. “Hope it’s not a two-holer.”

It had become their code for big shit.

And then he typed in Lord of the Flies, and hit enter.

“Clara?” Myrna called.

The cottage was in near darkness, just a lamp on in the living room.

Myrna switched on the lights and the cheerful kitchen appeared. Empty.

She didn’t want to disturb her friend if she was napping. But Myrna suspected after the discovery of the day, they’d all have trouble sleeping.

When Armand had returned home, they’d left. Knowing the two of them would want to be alone.

“Jesus, you woke me up, you great pile of … clothing.”

Myrna, once she’d returned to her skin, looked over at the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Framed there was the demented and bedraggled old poet. And her duck. Feathers ruffled.

“Clothing?”

“Okay, I meant shit, but Michael has asked me to be more polite. So I’d appreciate it if anytime I speak to you, you replace the appropriate word with ‘shit.’”

Myrna took a deep breath in through her nostrils, and out through her mouth. And began to worry that Ruth might actually wiggle her way into heaven with the help of a seriously deluded archangel. In which case …

“Where’s Clara?”

“How the fuck should I know, shithead?”

“Which word would you like me to replace?”

“Hmmm, let me think about that.”

There was really only one place Clara might be. The place she always went when things went bad.

“There you are,” said Myrna, tapping softly on the door of Clara’s studio.

The lights were on. Not bright. Just enough to mimic indirect morning sun.

Clara swiveled on her stool, a fine oil brush in her hand and a portrait on the easel.

Myrna could only see the edges of the painting. Clara’s body blotted out the rest.

Canvases leaned against the walls of the studio. There must’ve been a dozen portraits. Some almost finished. Most not even close.

It looked like a roomful of abandoned people.

Myrna looked away, unable to catch their eyes. Afraid of the pleas she might see there.

“How’s it coming?” she asked, nodding toward the easel.

“You tell me.”

Clara slid off the stool and stepped aside.

Myrna stared.

Normally Clara painted portraits. Extraordinary faces on canvas. Some brought smiles. Some made the viewer unaccountably melancholy, or uncomfortable, or cheerful.

Some provoked strong feelings of nostalgia for no particular reason, except that Clara was a sort of alchemist, and could render emotions, even memories, into paint. Fossilized feelings were turned into oil, then returned, framed, to the person.

But this work was different. It wasn’t a portrait at all. Or, at least, not of a person.

It showed Clara’s puppy, Leo, and Gracie, his littermate, the Gamaches’ puppy, or something.

Leo sat, contained, magnificent, handsome and confident. While Gracie, the runt, stood beside him, cocking her head, as she often did. Quizzical. Scraggly. Ugly. Not quite meeting the eye of the observer, but looking at something beyond, behind.

Myrna almost turned to see what Gracie might be seeing.

Neither dog was adorable. Neither was cute. There was something wild about them.

Clara had captured what these two domesticated animals might have been, had they not been tamed. Had they not been captured. And civilized. She’d painted what almost certainly still lurked in their DNA.

Myrna found herself reaching out toward the canvas, then drawing her hand back.

She could almost hear the snarl.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Clara. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you. I went to the bistro, but everyone’s talking about the murder, and I needed to get away but didn’t want to be alone.”

“Me too. Poor Reine-Marie,” said Clara, joining Myrna on the lumpy sofa. Surrounded by the familiar and comforting scents of oil paint and old bananas.

“I tried to pump Armand,” said Myrna. “But he just gave me that look, and walked away.”

They all knew that look. They’d seen it before. More times than you’d think possible.

There was no censure there. No suggestion they shouldn’t ask. He’d be surprised if they didn’t. And they’d be surprised if he answered.

More than anything, there was resolve in those eyes.

But this time there was also anger. And shock. Though he tried to hide both.

It always struck Myrna as curious that a man who’d hunted killers all his career and was now the head of the whole Sûreté should be so surprised by murder.

And yet, he was. She could see it.

He’d spoken to her about his decision not simply to return to the Sûreté, but to accept the top job.

“You think you can make a difference?” she’d asked, and seen his face break into a smile. The creases radiating from his eyes and down his cheeks.

“You sound unconvinced,” he’d said.

“I’m just trying to understand why you’re doing it.”

“You’re wondering if it’s hubris? Pride?” he asked.

“I’m wondering, Armand, if your decision to take the top job is driven by your ego.”

This was during one of their now informal sessions, where the retired therapist listened to the retired cop, and prodded at wounds that others might ignore. Looking for infection.

“A love of power,” she’d said. “How does that sound? Familiar?”

She spoke with only a slight smile of her own to soften the thrust.

“I don’t love power,” he said, his voice still warm, but firm. “But neither am I afraid of it when it’s offered. We all have skills, things we do well. I happen to be good at finding criminals.”

“But it’s more than that for you, Armand. It’s as much about protecting the innocent as finding the guilty. It’s good to have a mission in life, a purpose. It’s not so good to have an obsession.”

He’d leaned forward then, and she’d felt the authority of the man. It wasn’t smothering or threatening. If anything, it was incredibly calming.

“This isn’t a hobby, this isn’t a pastime. It isn’t even a job. If I accept the position of Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté, it must be with complete commitment. There’re big problems. Huge. I have to believe I can fix them, otherwise, why take on the task?”

He’d stared at her, his deep brown eyes thoughtful. There was no madness there. No fevered ego. But there was power there. And certainty.

The next day, he’d accepted the job. And now, months later, he was back investigating a crime. A murder. Right on his own doorstep.

Myrna sat side by side with Clara on the sofa, as though waiting for a bus, and considered.

Yes, there was reason for Armand’s anger. She was angry too. She was also afraid, and she wondered if Armand was too.

Myrna glanced down at the floor, where Leo was curled on the mangy piece of rug, with his chew toy. A more adorable image would be hard to find.

Then she looked at Clara’s painting of Leo. Of Gracie. Of the savagery they might be capable of. Might be hiding. And she knew that it wasn’t just a portrait of the puppies.

“Bonjour?”

The unfamiliar voice drifted into the studio. The two women struggled out of the low sofa, and walking into the kitchen, they saw a young man in a Sûreté uniform standing there.

“There’s no doorbell,” he said, slightly defensively. “I did knock.”

“That’s okay, everyone just comes in,” said Clara. “You’re here about Katie. What can we do to help?”

“Jesus, is Gamache hiring fetuses now?”

The young agent turned to the tall, thin, old piece of work framed in the doorway. Holding a duck.

“Chief Inspector Lacoste told me to find a Ruth Zardo,” he said, looking down at the wet piece of paper in his hand. “She wasn’t at her home or in the bistro. Someone said she might be here. I was told to look for a crazy old woman.”

He examined all three. From the great distance of twenty-five, they all looked old. And more than a little crazy. But what could you expect? he thought. Poor things. Stuck in this backwoods village. He should count their fingers and see if there were any banjos lying around.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said the duck, while the three old women stood together and stared, as though he was the strange one.

Jean-Guy called Myrna’s bookshop and left a message, asking if she had a copy of Lord of the Flies.

Then he turned back to the synopsis online.

He read about schoolboys stranded on a deserted island. He read about happy, healthy, decent kids away from rules and authority, slowly turning into savages.

And he thought about his son, Honoré, and what he might do in a situation like that.

But mostly Jean-Guy remembered what Matheo Bissonette had said. That their first year at the Université de Montréal had been like Lord of the Flies.

With the cruel hunter, Jack. The rational, disciplined Ralph. The “littluns,” the youngest. Conjuring their fears. Creating beasts where none existed.

And Piggy, whose only value to the group was that his glasses made fire.

Beauvoir adjusted his own glasses and read on. Tensing, tightening up, the further he got.

He read about the boys’ growing certainty that there was a beast on the island. One they needed to hunt down and kill.

Taking off his glasses, Jean-Guy rubbed his eyes.

Matheo Bissonette had likened university to Lord of the Flies, but he’d made it sound like fun, a wild romp.

Had those four friends, five counting the unfortunate Edouard, turned into savages? Then, in the confines of the university, turned on each other?

And what about Three Pines? It was a sort of island.

And now one among them was dead. And one of them had done it.

And the Conscience was nowhere to be found.

Beauvoir took a deep breath, chuckling at his overactive imagination.

But he decided to put reading about Lord of the Flies on hold and, pulling up another search, he typed in the words he’d seen that afternoon on the napkin that had fallen from Gamache’s pocket.

Burn our ships.

“May I join you?” Armand asked, gesturing to the closed toilet seat as though it were an easy chair.

“Please,” said Reine-Marie, and accepted the glass of red wine he passed her, a stalactite of bubbles from the bath she was soaking in hanging from her arm. “Nothing for you?”

“I’m afraid I’m still working,” he said, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.

“Any closer to finding out what happened?”

“Isabelle’s doing interviews. She’ll join us later for dinner. I’ve asked her and Jean-Guy to stay overnight.”

“I should get things ready.” Reine-Marie put the glass down and made to get out of the tub, but Armand waved her to stop.

“Olivier will bring something over for dinner, and I’ve checked. The beds are already made and towels out.”

“Auberge Gamache is open for business?” she asked, gliding back down, deeper into the suds.

The hint of roses from the bubble bath mixed with the steam, and Armand had the strange impression that the fog from outside had permeated their home. And as he did when he walked through the mist, he had an intense feeling of comfort.

“You okay?” he asked.

“This helps,” she said. It was clear she meant the company more than the bubbles. Or even the wine.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“It was awful, Armand. There was blood everywhere.”

She was trying not to cry, but tears streamed down her face, and he knelt beside the tub and held her hands. As she described, again, what she’d seen.

She needed to talk about it. And he needed to listen. To comfort.

“Who killed her, Armand? Was it the cobrador?”

She knew he wouldn’t have the answer, but she hoped, in the extreme privacy of their own bathroom, he might have an idea he could share with her.

“I think he’s at the center of it, yes. Whether he himself did it, I’m not sure.”

She looked into his eyes. “There was nothing you could do.”

“And that’s exactly what I did do. Nothing. But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here for you.”

He caressed her skin with his thumb.

“You did do something,” she said, ignoring what he’d just said. “You warned him. You can’t arrest someone for standing on a village green. Thank God.”

“Thank God,” murmured Armand.

He knew she was right. But he could also feel his own conscience stirring. Accusing him of following the law, in lockstep. And marching right past common sense.

Katie Evans was dead. The cobrador was missing. And Reine-Marie was soaking in the bath, the blood long gone but the stain remaining.

“The law is sometimes an ass,” he said, squeezing her warm hand.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. There are some laws that should never be upheld, enforced.”

“But you can’t be the one who decides,” she said, sitting up straighter and looking at him. “You’re the head of the Sûreté. You have to follow the law, even if it’s uncomfortable.” She held his eyes and spoke slowly, clearly. “You can’t kick someone off the public park in front of your home, Armand, just because you don’t like it.”

She made it sound so clear, so reasonable.

“What I don’t understand is how the killer knew the root cellar was there,” said Reine-Marie. “Hardly anyone ever goes in it.”

“Why did you?”

“I had some of those Chinese lantern flowers. Long stems. I wondered if there might be a vase there, even a chipped one, I could use.” She thought for a moment. “You think that’s where the cobrador went, when he disappeared at night?”

“It’s possible. Probable. The forensics report will tell us more, but it makes sense. It’s a pretty good hiding spot. There’s a bathroom, a kitchen. No windows in that little root cellar.”

“Did you find a weapon?”

He looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”

Now she looked confused. “Do you know what killed Katie?”

“The bat, of course.”

“Of course?”

In silence he regarded her, then his eyes widened.

“Can you describe again what you saw when you found the body?”

She sat up straighter in the bath, picking up on the shift in tone. She cast her mind back. “When I turned the light on I saw something dark, like a shadow, in the corner. It looked like a pile of black clothes. And then there was the blood.”

He squeezed her hand, and let that sit.

“What else was in the root cellar?” He hated doing this, but had to.

She frowned. “Jars of preserves on the shelves. Some vases, mostly chipped or cracked. Some broken candlestick holders. Things we couldn’t even sell in the rummage sale.”

“Anything else? On the ground?” It was as far as he could go. She had to tell him herself. Or not.

She scanned the room in her mind.

“Non. Why? What should I have seen? Did I miss something?”

“Non, but we almost did. Do you mind?” He got up.

“No, go.”

Armand bent down and he kissed her.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.

As he left, he reflected on how many times he’d heard that from others.

It’s not my fault. Though it almost always was.