A Better Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

@CarlTracey: @NouveauGalerie, We have other more recent work. Would that help?

@NouveauGalerie: No. @CarlTracey, Moving on. But thank you.

In the car on the way over to Gerald Bertrand’s place, Isabelle Lacoste read the Instagram exchange between Pauline Vachon, pretending to be the artist, and Agent Cloutier, pretending to be the gallery owner.

It was true, she thought. Nothing, and no one, on social media was as they seemed.

Still, it looked as though Cloutier had been masterful in her manipulation. Turning Tracey down. Forcing Vachon to almost beg NouveauGalerie for attention.

Stringing Vachon along. Until she got exactly what she wanted.

When they pulled in to Gerald Bertrand’s driveway, Lacoste put away her phone and rang the bell.

“Gerald Bertrand?”

“Oui?”

“My name is Isabelle Lacoste. I’m with the Sûreté du Québec. This is Agent Cloutier. May we come in?”

The man was young, perhaps early twenties. With the burly arms and torso of a fellow who did manual labor. There was about him a sort of cologne of testosterone.

His dark beard was bushy but groomed and his hair styled shorter to his head. His brown eyes were clear and bright, and he held, in his sturdy arms, an infant.

For an instant, Isabelle Lacoste forgot she was married. With two children. She hoped her mouth hadn’t dropped open, but she was pretty sure her eyes had widened.

Beside her, Lysette Cloutier was smiling. Grinning, really. Having lost both her heart and apparently her mind.

“The Sûreté? What’s this about?” he asked.

“We need to speak with you about a homicide.”

“A murder? Here?”

He looked out the door and held his baby closer to his body, instinctively protecting her.

Cloutier swallowed whatever drool had pooled in her mouth.

“No, not right here,” said Lacoste, who’d recovered most of her wits. “May we come in?”

“Yes, sorry.”

He stepped back, and after removing their dirty boots, they followed him into the kitchen of the modest home.

He lived in a subdivision of Cowansville, in a cluster of bungalows exactly the same.

“Can you tell us about your relationship with Vivienne Godin?” Lacoste asked as she took the chair he’d indicated, the best one in the room, and leaned her cane against the arm.

Monsieur Bertrand had taken them to the back of the house, past the small front room normally used as a formal living room, but in this home it held workout equipment.

The kitchen opened to a sitting area with a sofa, two chairs, and a huge television on which cartoons were playing. A card table doubled as a dining table, though Lacoste doubted there’d been many, if any, dinner parties there.

Dishes were piled in the sink, and a near-empty baby bottle was on the counter.

The place was messy, but not, Lacoste could see, dirty.

“Don’t tell my sister,” he said as he muted the sound.

“I’m afraid I can’t promise that,” said Lacoste. “It’s very serious. We might have to talk with her, too.”

“Really? Well, I can tell you now that she doesn’t approve.”

“Few would.”

“It’s not really that bad, is it?”

It was about here that Isabelle Lacoste began to suspect they were discussing two different things.

“What isn’t?” she asked.

“Television. Vendredi likes Babar, so I put it on when Pam isn’t around.”

“Vendredi?” asked Cloutier.

“She was born on a Friday.”

“Pam’s your sister?” asked Cloutier.

“Oui.”

“So this isn’t your child?” asked Agent Cloutier.

“No.” He smiled. “I look after her whenever I can. I’m off work right now. Construction season’ll start again in a couple of weeks.” He looked at the little girl and grinned at her, and she grinned back. “Gotta spend as much time with Dee as I can.”

The agents exchanged looks. Both thinking much the same thing.

That he was adorable. And maybe a murderer.

But would a mother, a sister, trust her baby to a man, a brother, capable of murder? A sibling would probably know, would have seen some of that darkness, that menace, as they grew up.

But maybe he hadn’t intended to kill his lover. Maybe it was a terrible accident and he was afraid to come forward. If he was afraid to tell his sister about an animated elephant, how would he feel about admitting to murder?

Superintendent Lacoste repositioned herself so she was facing him directly.

“Your relationship, sir. With Vivienne Godin.”

His brow dropped in concentration as he bobbed his niece, gently, on his knee.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I know her. Is she the one who was killed?”

They watched him closely, but neither agent could see any distress, beyond a normal human reaction when hearing that a stranger was dead.

“Please just answer the question,” said Lacoste.

Despite the fact Agent Cloutier was clearly the elder of the two and should have been the more senior, Gerald Bertrand understood innately that the young woman with the old eyes and cane was in charge.

“I have. I don’t know her. Why do you think I do?”

“Think a little harder,” said Lacoste.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Bertrand, looking from one to the other.

Then another thought occurred to Lacoste. Maybe it wasn’t Vivienne who called.

“How about Carl Tracey?”

“What about him?”

“Do you know him?”

“No. Never heard of him either. What’s this about? Why do you think I know these people?”

“Because either Vivienne or Carl called you on Saturday. Repeatedly.”

“Oh, merde. That was her? Some woman kept calling. The first time I tried to tell her she had the wrong number, but she seemed really upset. I’m not sure she was listening. She called back, and I tried again, but after that I just ignored the calls. She left a couple of messages—”

“Can we listen to them?” asked Cloutier.

“I erased them.”

Of course you did, thought Cloutier. What else would a guilty person do?

But then she rethought that.

What else would an innocent person do? She did the same thing with messages from wrong numbers.

She was beginning to see how quickly something completely normal could suddenly seem sinister, if you chose to see it that way.

“May we have a look around?” Lacoste asked.

Gerald Bertrand looked surprised but nodded.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked as they surveyed the small home. It was very messy and very masculine. A man-child lived here, alone. It was furnished with pieces that looked like they’d come from friends or family or a dumpster. Some hockey trophies. A pile of skis and skates and hunting gear was in the basement.

There were a few photos, of Gerald with mates, with teams, with his family. But none of him with Vivienne.

“Who’s this?” Lacoste looked at a photo among many on the fridge.

“Old girlfriend. We broke up a couple of months ago.”

“You keep her picture up?”

He shrugged. “I forgot it was there.”

It showed the two young people in bathing suits at the lake, faces smashed together for a selfie. Beaming.

“Do you own a gun?”

“A hunting rifle, yes. I have a license.”

He showed them the weapon, safely locked up, with ammunition locked in a separate room. He produced from his wallet the license.

Lacoste inspected the rifle. Clean. Well maintained.

“Where do you hunt?”

“Wherever my buddies want to go, but mostly up north. The Abitibi. But haven’t been for a while. Not since Vendredi was born.”

“Why not?”

“Lost my taste for killing things, I guess.”

“Where were you on Saturday afternoon and evening?” asked Lacoste.

“You’re kidding, right?”

But it was clear by her expression that she was not.

Bertrand thought for a moment. “I was looking after Dee until about six, when my sister finished work and came over to get her, and then some buddies dropped by and we watched the game.”

“Which game?”

“The hockey game.” He seemed shocked she needed to ask. “Canadiens and Leafs. Terrible game.”

He was right. Lacoste had watched it with her husband and kids. The Leafs won.

“May I have their names, please. Your friends,” said Cloutier, bringing out her notebook.

“You’re going to talk to them?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But they’ll think I had something to do with this.”

“Names, please.”

Gerald Bertrand hesitated and, in doing so, moved up the suspect list. Carl Tracey still held the top spot and would be hard to tumble, but this anxious man was closing in.

He gave them some names and phone numbers.

“Please don’t get in touch with them, Monsieur Bertrand,” said Cloutier. “We can easily check up on your calls.”

By now Bertrand was sheet-white. He hugged the baby to him as though she were the one threatened.

Superintendent Lacoste considered the child.

No bruising. No sign at all of anything other than comfort and happiness.

This man might have been a threat to Vivienne Godin, but Lacoste was assured he was no threat to the baby.

“Merci, monsieur,” said Lacoste, giving him her card as they walked to the door. “We’re probably going to ask you for fingerprints and a blood sample—”

“Come on,” he said, clearly upset now. “Why? I had nothing to do with whatever happened. I don’t even know these people.”

“Then your prints and DNA will clear you,” said Lacoste.

Cloutier opened the door, and they stepped out.

“Did you know she was pregnant?” asked Lacoste.

“I didn’t know her,” he said, his voice plaintive. Then he paused, and his muscular shoulders sagged a bit. “She was pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“And someone killed her?”

“Yes.”

“The baby…?”

“Died, too.”

He covered Vendredi’s ears and said, “Goddamned fucking shit of a fucking horrible world.”

Then he uncovered his niece’s ears and kissed her. Gently.

“That’s either a really great guy,” said Cloutier, putting the car in gear, “or a monster.”

Lysette Cloutier never dreamed, while working in accounting, that it could be so difficult to tell the two apart. But it was.

As Beauvoir and Gamache slid into the booth at the café in Cowansville, Gamache’s phone rang. It was from the RCMP.

“Excuse me.” He slid back out and went outside to take the call.

“Armand?” came the familiar voice, shouting over a familiar noise. “Sorry, meant to get to you sooner, but I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Are you in a helicopter?”

“Oui. Over the La Grande-3 dam.”

One of the oldest, Gamache knew. If any dam was going to—

“We’ve opened the spillways,” the RCMP officer shouted above the rotors.

“And?” Gamache shouted back.

Inside the café, Beauvoir could hear Gamache’s voice through the window and saw him hunkered over, a hand covering his other ear, straining to hear whoever was on the other end.

“It seems to be working. Will let you know about the others.” Gamache heard him give muffled instructions to the pilot. “Call you back.”

“And the diversions farther south? Are they being dug?” Gamache shouted into the phone, but the connection had been broken.

Gamache hung up and exhaled. Closing his eyes for a moment. It just might work.

“What was that about?” Jean-Guy asked when he returned, but there was no chance for an answer.

Someone was walking toward them.

“Thank you for coming, Simone,” said Gamache, as the elegant woman in her early forties approached their booth. “I’m not sure you’ve met Chief Inspector Beauvoir. He’s the head of homicide for the Sûreté. Jean-Guy, this’s Simone Fleury. She’s on the board of the Réseau de Violence Conjugale du Québec and runs the local women’s shelters. We’ve sat on several committees together.”

“Committees.” Madame Fleury made a dismissive, almost rude noise.

She looked at Beauvoir’s outstretched hand, ignored it, and sat down.

“Nothing’s changed. Women are beaten, women are killed. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“Oui,” said Beauvoir, dropping his hand and sitting down next to Gamache.

“I see you’re back at work, Armand.” Her voice was abrupt. There was a tone of displeasure and impatience. “Not everyone seems pleased.”

“I’m sure the vast majority are thrilled I’m back,” he said with a smile.

“They’re just too busy to mention it on Twitter, I suppose,” she said. “Though you do have one defender. A dumb-ass.”

Beauvoir looked at her with surprise. But Gamache just gave a small grunt of laughter. What Madame Fleury said next confirmed Beauvoir’s suspicions about her.

“Let’s get on with it.” She looked at her watch. “I have a hair appointment, then a luncheon.”

Rich. Bored. The kids gone, husband busy making more money. A do-gooder.

Simone Fleury regarded Beauvoir.

A bundle of coiled energy she found repulsive. Here was a young guy promoted beyond his competence. Just beginning to develop a paunch. Probably going to seed, she thought.

He was good-looking, clean, well groomed, but Madame Fleury had trained herself to look beyond what could be seen.

Probably went home and whaled on his wife when the Habs lost. Or after he’d had a few. Or just because.

Simone Fleury did not like cops. She tolerated Gamache. Barely.

“What can you tell us about Vivienne Godin?” Beauvoir asked, placing the photo of her on the table so that the blank-faced young woman was looking up at them.

“Tea, please,” said Madame Fleury to the waitress.

Beauvoir ordered one as well, while Gamache took a coffee.

The waitress had looked Madame Fleury in the eye as she ordered. Brief enough, meaningless enough. Except she hadn’t made eye contact with either Beauvoir or Gamache.

“I’ve seen that,” said Madame Fleury, pushing the photograph back across the table to Beauvoir. “You sent it to me, Armand. I asked around. She didn’t show up at any of the shelters, and if she called, she didn’t use her own name. Most don’t.”

“So she could’ve called but didn’t give her name.”

“Isn’t that what I just said? We get twenty-six thousand calls a year.” She let that sink in and was gratified to see the look of surprise on Beauvoir’s handsome face. “Most never give their name. Most never show up.”

“Why not?”

“Most women, when they call for help, don’t want to leave the relationship. They just want the beating, that beating, to end.”

It was, Gamache knew, exactly what Cameron described with Vivienne.

“But they must know there’ll be another,” said Beauvoir. “Why—”

“Don’t,” Madame Fleury snapped. “Don’t you dare ask why they don’t leave. Don’t you dare judge these women for staying.”

“But it’s a legitimate question, isn’t it?” He looked from Madame Fleury to Gamache.

“There’s an implied criticism,” said Madame Fleury. “That these women are weak or stupid.”

“I never said that.”

“No, but you think that. Why don’t they leave? Because they’ve been conditioned to believe it’s their fault. Because they’ve been isolated. They have no money and no support. Because they have a shred of hope or delusion. Because they actually love the guy. Because they’re stuck. Because they’re terrified. And for good reason. Because it’s all they know and all they think they deserve. Because they believe there’s nothing better out there. You can see it in her face. That dazed look. As telling as bruises.”

She jutted her slender hand toward the photo on the table. The picture had been taken before Vivienne was married, but Gamache didn’t bother to correct her.

“That’s why the law was changed,” he said instead. “With Madame Fleury’s help. So that when police show up, they can use their discretion and arrest the abuser. The woman doesn’t have to be the one to lay charges.”

“Yeah, right,” said Madame Fleury. “But how often does that actually happen? Goddamned cops. You need ‘sufficient information.’ I think that’s the phrase, right?”

“You know it is,” said Gamache.

“Did she call the cops?” asked Madame Fleury, looking from one to the other.

“She did,” said Beauvoir. “Charges were never laid.”

“Insufficient information,” said Madame Fleury. “How long before she was killed was that?”

“First time? Thirteen months. There were other calls after that, but no arrest.”

“And then he kills her.”

She looked from Beauvoir to Gamache. Neither of whom disagreed.

“Alors,” said Madame Fleury, raising her manicured hands. “All we can do is provide a safe place for those who do break free.”

“Would they know where to go, though?” asked Beauvoir.

The location of shelters was closely guarded. For good reason.

“We don’t advertise the location of shelters, if that’s what you mean.”

It clearly was not what Beauvoir meant. He was coming to deeply dislike this woman, who had a knack for taking what he said and exaggerating it, twisting it, into something ridiculous.

“If they want help, we arrange to meet them,” she continued. “And bring them to a shelter.”

“But still,” said Beauvoir, “must be hard in a small community to keep that secret. Neighbors and all.”

“It is. How did she die?”

“Pushed off a bridge into a river in flood. She either drowned or was battered against the rocks. She was pregnant.”

Simone Fleury raised her head so that she was looking down her long nose at Beauvoir.

He realized he was being brutal. Stating the facts as though they were just words. Matching her own matter-of-fact tone. Beside him, he heard Gamache take a deep breath of disapproval.

He pulled himself back in. “It’s a terrible thing.”

There was a pause, until through those thin lips came one word: “Yes.”

She turned to Gamache. “Her husband, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“He’s a suspect, oui.”

“If you have any trouble convicting him, just send him over to the shelter. We’ll take care of him.”

“Merci,” said Gamache. “We might have trouble.”

Barely under her breath, as she squeezed her tea bag, Madame Fleury muttered, “Cops.”

“If an abuser does show up at a shelter,” said Beauvoir, “what do you do?”

“Invite him in for tea and petits fours. What do you think we do?”

Is it true, is it kind, does it need to be said? Beauvoir held his tongue. Barely.

“You call the cops,” he finally said, through his own thin lips.

“Yeah, right. And wait the twenty minutes until they move their fat asses?”

“That’s not true,” said Gamache.

“Okay, that might be true, but not fast enough. Never fast enough when the guy’s pounding on the door.”

“So what do you do?” Beauvoir persisted.

“We take care of it.”

“How? Do you have a gun?”

“Are you kidding? Do I look crazy?”

Gamache cleared his throat in a warning to Beauvoir not to answer that.

“Believe me,” Madame Fleury continued, “those of us who managed to escape won’t put up with that bullshit ever again. No one gets through the front door. No one touches any of those women. Never. Ever.”

“Us?” asked Beauvoir. “You?”

“You don’t think I do this out of the goodness of my heart?”

Beauvoir did not think that.

“Listen, Chief.” She almost spit the word out. “Doctors go home and beat their wives. Lawyers. Cops. There’s a huge instance of abuse from cops.” She glared at him in what he realized, with some shock, was a warning. Maybe even an accusation.

“My father was a judge,” she continued, “and inside our big old house in our respectable neighborhood, he beat us kids. And worse. I married a banker at eighteen, to get away, and guess what? He beat me, too. Then he’d bring me flowers and jewelry and he’d cry. He’d sob and say how sorry he was. And that he’d be a better husband. He’d never do it again. And you know what?” Her eyes opened wide as she stared at Beauvoir. “I believed him. Because I wanted to. Because I had to. I put on the beautiful silk scarf he brought me, to hide the bruises, and went to the country club for lunch.”

She let that sink in.

“Without realizing it, we go to what’s familiar. When I finally told my best friend, she didn’t believe me. No one did. They didn’t want to know. There was only one shelter here at the time. Overflowing. But they took me in and gave me a mattress on the floor. I slept on it for three months. First time in my life I felt safe. You know why it’s safe? Not because the cops protect us but because we look after ourselves. We make sure it is.”

“‘We’ the workers?”

“‘We’ every woman there. You asked if we have a weapon? We do. And you gave it to us, with every blow. Every bruise. Every broken bone. It’s the toy at the bottom of the cereal box.” She clunked her mug down on the table so hard that tea shot out the top and other patrons looked over.

“Rage,” said Beauvoir.

“Baseball bats,” said Madame Fleury. “Next time you see a group of women in a park practicing their swings, you think about that.”

She wiped up the spilled tea with a thin paper napkin, then pointed to the words Gamache had just written in his notebook. “What you just wrote is true, but no excuse. Cycle of abuse. My husband was beaten by his father. He saw his mother hit. But he was an adult when he hit me, and responsible for his own actions. They all are. After a beating they feel horrible and buy presents and promise to be better men, but they don’t change. They don’t grow up. They remain out-of-control children in a man’s body.”

“Simone,” said Gamache, “a bag was found on the side of the river with some of her belongings in it, but it was a strange assortment. Summer clothing. Medication she probably didn’t need anymore.”

“So?”

“We’re wondering if she packed it herself.”

Madame Fleury considered. “Might’ve, in a panic. Some women leave suddenly, just take off. But most have thought about it for a while. They have a bag packed and hidden, ready to grab. I had one packed for almost a year before I got up the courage to leave.”

Beauvoir tried to imagine Simone Fleury as a frightened young woman. But then, he knew that few people would look at him and imagine the wreckage he’d crawled out of, not all that long ago.

Madame Fleury glanced at her watch. “I’m leaving. My hairdresser doesn’t like it when I’m late. If you need anything else, you know how to reach me.”

And leave she did. Armand did not offer her his hand, and she did not offer him hers.

But Beauvoir did. As a sort of peace offering.

Simone Fleury looked at it and walked away.

“She thinks every man’s an abuser,” said Beauvoir, dropping his hand to his side. “That’s unfair.”

“She was beaten by two men she trusted. That’s unfair. She works with abused women every day. She’s surrounded by it. It’s incredible she can even bring herself to look at us, never mind talk to us in anything close to a civil manner.” Gamache nodded toward Beauvoir’s hand, which was at his side, his fingers relaxed into a loose fist. “What would you do if a weapon were thrust at you?”

Beauvoir looked down. He saw a hand. One that wrote notes, and chopped vegetables, and bathed his son. But Madame Fleury saw something else.

Twenty-six thousand calls a year, he thought.

As they stepped into the sunshine and the unseasonably warm April day, Beauvoir instinctively scanned the faces and realized with some amazement why he always did that.

He was unconsciously looking for danger. Always. He saw potential threats everywhere. In everyone. In the elderly man across the way, with that bag. In the kids laughing and shoving each other. In the SUV heading a little too quickly down the main street.

Suppose …

It had become second nature. Hardwired into him.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew that every person had a killer inside them.

And Madame Fleury knew that every man had an abuser inside of him.

Both were unfair. But such was their experience. And conditioning.

That was one of the many reasons he had to leave. Had to escape the Sûreté and get far, far away. From a world filled with threats. He longed to see a kinder world.

He realized it might be too late. Too much damage might’ve already been done. But Jean-Guy Beauvoir had to try to break free.

As they walked by the window of the café, he glanced in and saw the young waitress clearing their mugs and picking up the money they’d left.

She looked at him and quickly dropped her eyes.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir returned his gaze to the road ahead. Scanning it.