The Beautiful Mystery

THIRTY-THREE

After breakfast Gamache approached the abbot. Not about the Book of Chants and its value. That he chose to keep quiet, for now. But about something else, of immeasurable value to the Chief himself.

“Did you get through to the boatman?”

He nodded. “Took a couple of tries but Frère Simon finally connected. He’s waiting for the fog to burn off, but he’s optimistic he can be here by noon. Don’t worry,” said Dom Philippe, once more correctly interpreting the tiny lines on Gamache’s face. “He’ll make it.”

“Merci, mon père.”

When the abbot and the others left to prepare for Lauds, Gamache looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven. Five more hours. Yes, the boatman would make it, but what would he find when he docked?

Jean-Guy hadn’t come to breakfast. Gamache strode across the quiet chapel and out the far door. A few monks nodded to him in the corridor as they left their cells, heading for the next service.

The Chief looked into the prior’s office, but it was empty. Then he knocked on Beauvoir’s door and entered without waiting for a reply.

Jean-Guy was lying in bed. In his clothing from the night before. Unshaved, disheveled. Bleary-eyed, Beauvoir got up on one elbow.

“What time is it?”

“Almost seven thirty. What’s wrong, Jean-Guy?” Gamache stood over the bed as Beauvoir struggled up.

“I’m just tired.”

“It’s more than that.” He looked closely at the young man he knew so well. “Are you on something?”

“Are you kidding? I’m clean and sober. How many times do I have to prove it?” snapped Beauvoir.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

They stared at each other. Five hours, thought Gamache. Just five hours. We can make it. He scanned the small room but there was nothing out of place.

“Get dressed, please, and join me in the Blessed Chapel for Lauds.”

“Why?”

Gamache was very still then. “Because I’ve asked you to.”

There was a pause between the two men.

Then Beauvoir relented. “Fine.”

Gamache left and a few minutes later Beauvoir, quickly showered, joined him in the Blessed Chapel, arriving just as the chants began. He dropped into the pew beside Gamache, but said nothing. Angered at being ordered about, questioned. Doubted.

The singing, as always, began from far off. A distant, but perfect, beginning. And then it drew closer. Beauvoir closed his eyes.

Deep breath in, he told himself. Deep breath out.

It felt as though he was breathing in the notes. Taking them to his core. They seemed lighter than round black notes. These neumes had wings. Beauvoir felt light-hearted, and light-headed. Lifted from his stupor. Lifted from the hole he’d rolled into.

As he listened he heard not just the voices, but the breathing of the monks, also in unison. Deep breath in. And then the singing, on the exhale.

Deep breath out.

And then, before he knew it, Lauds was over. And the monks had gone. Everyone had gone.

Beauvoir opened his eyes. The Blessed Chapel was completely silent and he was alone. Except for the Chief.

“We need to talk.” Gamache spoke quietly, not looking at Beauvoir, but staring ahead. “Whatever it is, it will be all right.”

His voice was confident, and kind, and comforting. Beauvoir felt himself drawn to it. And then he felt himself pitching forward. Losing all control. The pew leapt at him, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Then Gamache’s strong hand was on his chest, stopping him. Holding him. He could hear that familiar voice call his name. Not Beauvoir. Not Inspector.

Jean-Guy. Jean-Guy.

He felt himself slide sideways, limp, and his eyes roll to the back of his head. Just before blacking out he saw prisms of light from above, and felt the Chief’s jacket against his cheek and smelled sandalwood and rosewater.

Beauvoir’s eyes flickered open, the lids heavy. Then they closed.

Armand Gamache gathered Jean-Guy in his arms and hurried through the Blessed Chapel.

Don’t take this child.

Don’t take this child.

“Stay with me, son,” he whispered over and over until finally they were at the infirmary.

“What’s happened?” Frère Charles demanded as Gamache laid Jean-Guy on the examination table. All sign of the relaxed and jovial monk gone. The doctor had taken over and now his hand swiftly moved over Beauvoir, feeling for a pulse, lifting his lids.

“I think he’s on something, but I don’t know what. He had an addiction to painkillers, but he’s been clean for three months now.”

The doctor did a rapid assessment of his patient, lifting Beauvoir’s lids, taking his pulse. He rolled back Jean-Guy’s sweater, to get at his chest for a better sounding. There Frère Charles paused and looked at the Chief.

A scar ran across Beauvoir’s abdomen.

“What was the painkiller?” he asked.

“OxyContin,” said Gamache, and saw the concern in Frère Charles’s face. “He was shot. The OxyContin was prescribed for pain.”

“Christ,” whispered the monk under his breath. “But we don’t know for sure it’s OxyContin he’s on now. You say he’s clean. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure he was when we arrived. I know this young man, well. I’d have known if he relapsed.”

“Well it looks like an overdose to me. He’s breathing and his vital signs are strong. Whatever it is, he didn’t take enough to kill him. But it’d help if we had the pills.”

Frère Charles rolled Beauvoir onto his side, in case he vomited, and Gamache searched Jean-Guy’s pockets. They were empty.

“I’ll be back,” said the Chief Inspector, but before heading for the door he lightly touched Beauvoir’s face and felt it chill and damp. Then he turned and left.

As his long legs took him back down the corridor, past staring monks, he looked at his watch. Eight A.M. Four hours. The boatman would arrive in four hours. If the fog burns off.

The mirthful light hadn’t shown up today. Almost no sun made it through the high windows and Gamache couldn’t see if the sky was clearing, or closing in.

Four hours.

He would leave with Beauvoir. He knew that now. Whether the murder was solved or not. According to the doctor, Jean-Guy was out of immediate danger. But Gamache knew the danger was far from removed.

It didn’t take long to find the small bottle of small pills in Beauvoir’s small cell. It was under his pillow. Barely hidden. But then, Jean-Guy hadn’t expected to pass out. Hadn’t expected his room to be searched.

Gamache picked the pill bottle up with a handkerchief.

OxyContin. But it wasn’t prescribed to Beauvoir. It wasn’t prescribed at all. The label had only the manufacturer’s name and the name and dose of the drug.

After slipping it into his pocket, Gamache searched the cell and in the wastepaper basket he found a note.

Take as needed. And a signature. He carefully folded the paper, with more precision than necessary. Pausing at the window, he stared into the fog.

Yes. It was lifting.

In the infirmary Frère Charles was doing his paperwork and checking on Beauvoir every few minutes. The shallow, rapid breathing had become regular. Deeper. The Sûreté Inspector had moved from being passed out to merely sleeping.

He’d wake up in an hour or so, with a headache, a thirst, and a craving.

Frère Charles didn’t envy this man.

The monk looked up and started. Armand Gamache was standing just inside the doorway. And as Frère Charles watched, the Chief Inspector slowly closed the door.

“Did you find it?” the doctor asked. The Chief was looking at him in a way that the monk didn’t like.

“I did. Under his pillow.”

Frère Charles held out his hand for the bottle, but Gamache didn’t move. He just continued to stare and the monk dropped his eyes, no longer able to hold the hard, heavy stare.

“I also found this.” Gamache held the note up and the monk went to take it, but the Chief pulled it back. Frère Charles read it as it hung in the air between them, then met the Chief Inspector’s eyes.

The monk’s mouth was open, but no words came out. His face turned a deep red and he looked again at the note in Gamache’s hand.

It was in his own handwriting. With his own signature.

“But I didn’t…” he tried again and flushed more.

Chief Inspector Gamache lowered the paper and walked over to Beauvoir. There he laid his hand against his Inspector’s neck, to feel his pulse. It was, the doctor recognized, a practiced move. A natural move. For the head of homicide. To establish proof of life. Or death.

Then Gamache turned back to the doctor.

“Is this your handwriting?” he nodded to the note.

“Yes, but—”

“And your signature?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did you give Inspector Beauvoir these pills?”

Gamache reached into his pocket and held out the pills, using the handkerchief.

“No. I never gave him pills. Let me see.” The doctor reached but Gamache withdrew the bottle, so that the doctor had to lean in to read the label.

After examining it he turned and walked to his medicine cabinet, which he unlocked using a key in his pocket.

“I keep OxyContin in stock, but only for the worst emergencies. I’d never normally prescribe it. Filthy stuff. All my stock checks out. I have the records if you’d like to see what I’ve ordered, when, and what I’ve prescribed. There’s none missing.”

“Records can be faked.”

The doctor nodded and handed a small pill bottle to the Chief, who put on his glasses and examined it.

“As you see, Chief Inspector, the pills are the same, but the dosage and the supplier is different. I never deal in the higher doses and we get our medications from a medical supply house in Drummondville.”

Gamache removed his glasses. “Can you explain the note?”

Both men looked again at the paper in Gamache’s hand.

Take as needed. And then the doctor’s signature.

“I must’ve written that for someone else, and whoever left the OxyContin for your Inspector found it and used it.”

“Who have you prescribed for recently?”

The doctor went to his records, but both men knew this wasn’t necessary. It was a small enough community, and this would have been recent enough. Frère Charles almost certainly would remember, without aid of records.

But still, he looked it up and returned.

“I should demand a warrant for medical records,” he said, but they both knew he wouldn’t. It would just be postponing the inevitable and neither man wanted that. Besides, the monk never again wanted to experience that cold, hard stare.

“It was the abbot. Dom Philippe.”

“Merci.” Gamache went over to Beauvoir once again and looked down at the face of his now-sleeping Inspector. After tucking the blanket snug around him, the Chief walked to the door. “Can you tell me what the prescription was for?”

“A mild tranquillizer. The abbot hasn’t slept well since the death of Frère Mathieu. He needed to function, so he came for help.”

“Have you ever prescribed tranquillizers for him before?”

“No, never.”

“And for the other brothers? Tranquillizers? Sleeping pills? Pain medication?”

“It happens, but I watch it closely.”

“Do you know if the abbot used the tranquillizers?”

The doctor shook his head. “No, I don’t. I doubt it. He prefers meditation to medication. We all do. But he wanted something, just in case. I wrote that note for him.”

Armand Gamache reached the Blessed Chapel but instead of walking through it, he paused. And sat, in the very last pew. Not to pray, but to think.

If the doctor was telling the truth, his note was found by someone and used to give Beauvoir the impression the pills were from the medical monk. Gamache wished he could convince himself that Beauvoir didn’t know what he was taking, but the bottle was clearly marked OxyContin.

Beauvoir knew. And he took them anyway. No one forced him. But someone had tempted him. Gamache looked at the altar, which had changed in just the few minutes he’d been sitting there. Strings of light were dropping, like luminous acrobats, from above.

The fog was clearing. The boatman would come for them. Gamache checked his watch. In two and a half hours. Did he have time to do what was needed? The Chief Inspector spotted someone else in the chapel, sitting quietly in a pew by the wall. Not, perhaps, trying to hide. But not sitting out in the open either.

It was the Dominican. Sitting in the reflected light. A book on his knees.

And in that moment, the Chief Inspector knew, with distaste, what he had to do.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir was aware of his mouth before anything else. It was huge. And lined with fur and mud. He opened and closed it. The sound was mammoth. A mushy, clicking sound, like his grandfather in later years, eating.

Then he listened to his breathing. It was also unnaturally loud.

And finally, he pried open one eye. The other seemed glued shut. Through the slit he saw Gamache sitting on a hard chair, pulled up to the bed.

Beauvoir felt a moment of panic. What had happened? The last time he saw the Chief sitting like that Beauvoir had been gravely, almost mortally, wounded. Had it happened again?

But he didn’t think so. This felt different. He was exhausted, almost numb. But not in pain. Though there was an ache, deep down.

He watched Gamache sitting so still. His glasses were on, and he was reading. The last time, in the Montréal hospital, Gamache had also been hurt. His face a shock to Beauvoir when he’d finally roused enough to take anything in.

It had been covered in bruises, and there was a bandage over the Chief’s forehead. And when he got up to lean over Beauvoir, Jean-Guy had seen the grimace of pain. Before it quickly turned into a smile.

“All right, son?” he’d asked, quietly.

Beauvoir couldn’t talk. He’d felt himself drifting off again, but he held those deep, brown eyes as long as he could, before he had to let go.

Now, in the monastery infirmary, he watched the Chief.

He was no longer bruised, and while there was and always would be a deep scar over his left temple, it had healed. The Chief had healed.

Beauvoir hadn’t.

In fact, it now seemed to Beauvoir that the healthier the Chief got, the weaker he himself became. As though Francoeur was right, and Gamache was sucking him dry. Using him until he could be discarded. In favor of Isabelle Lacoste, whom the Chief had just promoted to Beauvoir’s own rank.

But he knew it wasn’t true. He unhooked the thought from his flesh and could almost see it drift away. But thoughts that dreadful came with a barb.

“Bonjour.” The Chief looked up and noticed Jean-Guy’s eye open. “How’re you feeling?” He leaned over the bed and smiled. “You’re in the infirmary.”

Jean-Guy struggled to sit up, and managed it, with Gamache’s help. They were alone. The doctor had gone off to the eleven A.M. mass, leaving Gamache alone with his Inspector.

The Chief raised the head of the bed, put some pillows behind Beauvoir and helped him drink a glass of water, all without saying a word. Beauvoir began to feel human again. His daze cleared, slowly at first then with a rapid succession of memories.

The Chief was sitting again, his legs crossed.

Gamache wasn’t stern, wasn’t censorious, wasn’t angry. But he did want answers.

“What happened?” the Chief finally asked.

Beauvoir didn’t say anything but watched with dismay as the Chief reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a handkerchief. And opened it.

Jean-Guy nodded, then closed his eyes. So ashamed, he couldn’t look Gamache in the face. And if he couldn’t face the Chief, how was he ever going to face Annie?

The thought made him so sick he thought he’d vomit.

“It’s all right, Jean-Guy. It was a slip, nothing more. We’ll get you home and get help. Nothing that can’t be put right.”

Beauvoir opened his eyes and saw Armand Gamache looking at him not with pity. But with determination. And confidence. It would be all right.

“Oui, patron,” he managed. And he even found himself believing it. That this could be put behind him.

“Tell me what happened.” Gamache put the bottle away and leaned forward.

“It was just there, on the bedside table, with the note from the doctor. I thought…”

I thought it was a prescription. I thought it was all right since it was from the doctor. I thought I had no choice.

He held the Chief’s eyes and hesitated.

“… I didn’t think. I wanted them. I don’t know why, but I had a craving and they appeared and I took them.”

The Chief nodded and let Beauvoir gather himself.

“When was this?” Gamache asked.

Beauvoir had to think. When was it? Weeks ago, surely. Months. A lifetime.

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“It wasn’t the doctor who put them there. Do you have any idea who else might have?”

Beauvoir looked surprised. He’d given it no thought, completely accepting they were from the medical monk. He shook his head.

Gamache got up and got Beauvoir another glass of water. “Are you hungry? I can get you a sandwich.”

“No, patron. Merci. I’m fine.”

“The abbot’s called the boatman and he’ll be here in just over an hour. We’ll leave together.”

“But what about the case? The murderer?”

“A lot can happen in an hour.”

Beauvoir watched Gamache leave. He knew the Chief was right. A lot could happen in an hour. And a lot could fall apart.