A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 34

There was no denying, it was awkward.

Jean-Guy and Isabelle had headed back to the academy, but Paul Gélinas asked to spend the night with the Gamaches. Reine-Marie was on the verge of telling him where he could go, but Armand jumped in and said they’d be delighted.

“Did you actually say ‘delighted’?” asked Reine-Marie, when they were alone in the kitchen.

“Oui. It’ll be de-wonderful, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re demented.”

He smiled, then bent down and whispered, “He didn’t expect us to agree. Did you notice his discomfort?”

“I was too busy noticing my own,” she whispered back.

In an effort to put if not distance then people between herself and Gélinas, Reine-Marie had gone to the bistro and invited their friends over for dinner.

“What’re we going to feed them?” Armand asked.

Reine-Marie glanced toward the bin of kibble.

“Oh, don’t tell me—” he began.

Reine-Marie laughed. “No. Ruth wouldn’t notice, but the others might.”

“And that’s the only reason you wouldn’t feed our guests dog food?”

“I wouldn’t criticize if I were you, monsieur, given why we have guests in the first place. Delightful.” She shook her head. “But I was actually looking at Gracie and thinking she needs to go out.”

“Let me,” volunteered Armand. At the door, he gave her a stern look of warning.

“I promise, no kibble,” she said, then mumbled, “probably,” loud enough for him to hear.

Smiling, Armand took Gracie out of her crate, put her on a leash, and tried not to step on her as she got underfoot. Henri went with them.

The shepherd and Armand flanked the little creature as they walked around the back garden, Henri digging through the patches of snow to find grass and Gracie copying him.

“I hope you weren’t upset by what I said in the bistro,” came Paul Gélinas’s voice.

Armand looked around and saw the man standing on the back terrace.

“Surprised, definitely.” Armand paused before going on. “Why did you bring up my mother and father?”

It was pitch-dark except for the light from the house. Gélinas was a black cutout against the light from the living room. Through the French doors, Armand could see Clara and Myrna talking, Clara gesturing to make some point. Gabri was listening or, more likely, waiting to talk. Ruth was invisible, having slumped down in the sofa. Rosa and Olivier were staring out the window.

“I think you know why.” Gélinas stepped off the terrace and joined his host.

Gamache’s face was clearly visible in the light from his home. The RCMP officer could see every contour.

There was a small tug on the leash as Gracie strained to join Henri.

Gélinas fell into step beside Gamache. “Are you leading me up the garden path, monsieur?”

Gamache grunted in mild amusement. “Leading you astray? You don’t need me for that. You’re doing quite a good job on your own.”

“I’ve gone off the path? Probably true, but isn’t that where you normally find criminals?”

Gamache stopped and turned to his guest. “And you think I’m a criminal?”

“I doubt you see it that way. To be a criminal, you have to have committed a crime. I suspect you think the murder of Serge Leduc was not a crime.”

“Then what was it?”

“A consequence. A happy opportunity.”

“Happy?”

“Well, perhaps not happy. But a fortunate opportunity. You saw a chance and you took it.”

“And why would I do that?” said Gamache.

“We all reach a sort of crossroads, don’t we?” said Gélinas, his voice grave now. “Some sooner than others. Driven there by some dreadful event. In your case, the death of your parents. In my case, the death of my wife. When faced with an event of that magnitude, some go in one direction and become embittered. They want others to suffer, as they have. Some, though, choose the more difficult route. They become compassionate and kind and patient with the imperfections of others. They want to save others the pain they themselves have felt.”

“Oui,” said Gamache, curious where this was going.

“The difficulty is telling them apart,” said Gélinas. “A person can look one way, but behave in another. They can say one thing, but be thinking something else entirely. Most of the real monsters I’ve encountered look like saints. They have to. Otherwise someone would’ve stopped them years ago.”

“Is this a confession?” asked Gamache, and heard laughter in the darkness.

“I was hoping you’d confess, sir. It would make my job easier. It would make your family’s life easier. Stop this charade. We both know what happened, and why.”

Gamache glared at Gélinas.

“If you’re going to arrest me, do it now. But don’t you dare bring my family into it.”

“It’s too late. Your family is all over this case, isn’t it? I know who Amelia Choquet is.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know everything.”

Gamache took a small step toward him, but stopped.

Gélinas did not recoil. He stood erect, almost daring the man.

“Another happy opportunity?” Gélinas whispered. “Will I be, what’s that English expression, pushing up daisies in your pretty garden, monsieur? Does it get easier to kill?”

“I think dinner must be ready,” said Gamache, saying one thing but thinking something else entirely. He stepped away from the RCMP officer. “We should go inside. Come along, Gracie. Henri!”

He scooped up the puppy, turned and walked back to his home, the shepherd bounding after them. Through the kitchen window, Armand could see Reine-Marie moving about the kitchen. Pushing her hair back from her face. Muttering to herself as she always did when figuring out a large meal.

And he longed to tell her something he should have admitted years ago, certainly months ago. When he first saw the name Amelia Choquet.

“How long have I been asleep?” asked Ruth, looking down at her plate.

“Victoria is no longer on the throne, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Myrna.

“The good news is, we do have another queen,” said Olivier, glancing at Gabri.

“I heard that,” said Gabri. “A nasty stereotype. Oooh, crumpets.”

“What time is it?” Ruth persisted.

Each had an omelette in front of them, with fresh tarragon and oozing melted Camembert.

A platter of back bacon sat on the pine table, along with a basket of golden toasted crumpets, butter melting into the crannies.

“Breakfast?” asked Ruth, looking more confused than normal.

“Dinner,” said Reine-Marie. “I’m sorry, it’s all we had.”

“It’s delicious,” said Myrna, taking three pieces of maple-smoked bacon.

“Some might even call it delightful,” said Reine-Marie, catching Armand’s eye and smiling.

They all knew why they were there, except perhaps Ruth. They were human shields between the Gamaches and the RCMP officer.

And yet they noticed that Armand had placed himself right across from Gélinas.

Perhaps, Clara thought, to show he wasn’t intimidated.

Perhaps, Myrna thought, to act as a shield himself, for Reine-Marie, who was shooting unpleasant glances his way.

Perhaps, Olivier thought, to keep an eye on his accuser.

Perhaps, Ruth thought, because evil really was, in the words of Auden, unspectacular and always human.

“And shares our bed,” she murmured. “And eats at our own table.”

Gamache, who was beside her, turned slightly to the old poet.

“And we are introduced to Goodness every day,” he whispered back. “Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults.”

She held his steady gaze while conversation flowed around and past them.

“Do you know how it ends?” she asked quietly

“This?” he whispered, nodding toward Gélinas.

“No, the poem, you moron.”

He grimaced and thought for a moment.

“It is the Evil that is helpless like a lover,” he said haltingly, struggling to remember. “And has to pick a quarrel and succeeds—”

“And both are openly destroyed before our eyes.” Ruth finished the poem. “That’s how it ends.”

There was a long pause while they locked eyes.

“I know what I’m doing,” said Armand.

“And I know an epitaph when I hear it.”

“You said that the cadets are a crowd of faults. You think so?”

“Don’t know about them,” said Ruth. “But I know for sure you are. Bacon?”

Gamache took the platter, which was empty. She was demanding, not offering.

“I have a question for you, Ruth,” said Reine-Marie from down the table. “I can’t find anything in the archives from the First World War. Any idea what happened to all that material? There must have been a lot.”

“Why does everyone think I know everything?”

“We don’t,” said Gabri.

“Well, I knew about Roof Trusses. No one else here did.”

“What do you know about it?” asked Paul Gélinas.

But Ruth was ignoring him, except to mumble something that sounded like “shithead.” So Myrna jumped into the cavernous silence that had opened up.

“The reason you can’t find it is that it isn’t called Roof Trusses anymore. The name was changed some time ago.”

“To what?”

“Notre-Dame-de-Doleur,” said Gabri.

“Our Lady of Pain?” asked Gélinas.

Armand sat back in his chair. “Or it could be Our Lady of Grief.”

“It’s not there anymore,” said Ruth. “It died.”

“Can’t think the name helped,” said Gabri.

“Can you show us on a map?” asked Gamache.

“Have you not been listening, Miss Marple?” asked Ruth. “It’s not on a map. It’s gone.”

“Thank you for clarifying that,” said Armand, with exaggerated courtesy. “I did just manage to grasp it. But can you show us where the village once was?”

“I suppose.”

“Can we get back to the archives?” asked Reine-Marie. “Any idea where all the material on the Great War might’ve gone?”

“Do you know,” said Myrna slowly, “I do have an idea. Didn’t the historical society put on a special retrospective at the Legion in Saint-Rémy a few years back?”

“That’s right,” said Clara. “In 2014, to mark the hundredth anniversary of the start of the war.”

“So where’s all that material now?” asked Olivier.

“Damnatio memoriae,” said Reine-Marie.

Like Three Pines. Like Roof Trusses and Notre-Dame-de-Doleur, the war to end all wars had been banished from memory.

Armand and Reine-Marie walked Ruth home after dinner. Olivier and Gabri offered, but the Gamaches felt the need for fresh air, and distance from Paul Gélinas. They both hoped he’d be asleep by the time they returned.

The cadet Nathaniel was sitting on the sofa in Ruth’s living room, reading. He sprang up as though kicked in the derriere when he heard them come in.

“Sir,” he said.

“No need to call me sir,” said Ruth. “Sit.”

Nathaniel sat.

“No, I meant them.” She pointed to Armand and Reine-Marie, who also sat smartly.

Reine-Marie turned to Nathaniel. “What’re you reading?”

“A book I found on the table.”

He showed it to them.

“We have that same book,” said Armand.

“Exactly the same book,” said Reine-Marie. “That’s ours.”

“Oh.”

“Come here,” commanded Ruth from the kitchen.

And they did.

She’d found a worn old map of the area and spread it out on her white plastic table. A notebook with her crablike scribbling was open, as it always was, beside a curdling cup of tea.

Armand recognized the cup. It was theirs.

Ruth believed in precycling. An evolution on recycling. She made use of things before people threw them out.

“We’re looking up Roof Trusses,” Armand said to Nathaniel, who was studying the map with excruciating earnestness.

“But we already tried,” said the cadet, looking up. “It’s not there, remember?”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” demanded Ruth.

“Wh— ah— um.”

“The future of the Sûreté?” Ruth asked Armand.

“He didn’t ask you, Ruth,” said Reine-Marie kindly, with patience, “because he thinks you’re a crazy old woman.”

“I do not,” said Nathaniel, turning very red, then very white.

Ruth stood there, duck feathers on her pilled sweater, with Rosa muttering obscenities in her flannel nest beside the stove.

And Ruth laughed. Reaching out her hand to Reine-Marie to steady herself.

Nathaniel took a small step behind the Commander. Now she looked like a crazy old woman.

“Well, I suppose you’re right,” Ruth said, finally getting some control over herself. “But I’m happy. Are you?”

The young man, practically peeking out from behind Gamache, colored.

“Are you happy, Ruth?” asked Reine-Marie, touching her thin arm.

“I am.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased to hear it. I was—”

“Roof Trusses?” asked Armand. He could see the two women were settling in to discuss the human condition and the nature of happiness. Normally a conversation he’d love to hear, but not that evening.

“There.” Ruth’s gnarly finger landed on the map, squishing a spot about ten kilometers from Three Pines. “That’s where Roof Trusses used to be. But the name was changed to Notre-Dame-de-Doleur a while back.”

Nathaniel wrote that down, then took a closer look at the map.

“But there’s nothing there. You’re just pointing to a field.”

He stared at Ruth. Ruth glared at him.

“And now, Cadet Smythe, comes another lesson in police work,” said the Commander. “Who to believe. Is Madame Zardo telling you the truth, or messing with you?”

“Could be a mind-fuck,” agreed Ruth.

“How can you tell?” Nathaniel asked Gamache.

“You can’t, with certainty. You can be taught to gather facts, evidence, but the very best investigators learn to trust something we’re told early in our lives is useless. Even dangerous. Instinct. You use your head and your heart and your gut. The whole animal, like a good hunter. What does your instinct tell you about Madame Zardo? Is she telling the truth?”

Nathaniel turned back to Ruth, who was watching him with some interest.

“I think she is. At least, I think she believes it. I’ll go tomorrow and find out.”

Gamache nodded approval at the distinction between truth and fact.

“May I?” The cadet pointed to the map and Ruth grunted.

Armand watched the boy carefully fold up the worn paper. His red hair just touching his pale forehead as he bent over. There was the ready blush, the smooth, perfect skin. The bashful personality.

And Armand reflected on his conversation with Gélinas in the garden.

Gamache knew Gélinas was wrong. The real criminals, the worst criminals, weren’t found off the beaten path. They were found in our kitchens, at our tables.

Unspectacular and always human.