Bury Your Dead

SIXTEEN

Jean-Guy glanced round. The bistro was quiet. Placing his hands on the arms of his chair he hauled himself forward. The chair felt warm from the fire. In the grate the large logs popped, sending embers bouncing against the screen to glow on the stone hearth then slowly die away.

The maple logs smelled sweet, the coffee was strong and rich, the aromas from the kitchen familiar.

Not of home but of here.

He leaned forward and stared into the cold, blue eyes across from him. Winter eyes in a glacier face. Challenging, hard, impenetrable.

Perfect.

He paused and in an instant he was back there, since “there” was never far away.

“My favorite season is autumn, I think,” Gamache was saying.

“I’ve always loved winter,” came the young voice over the monitors. “I think because I can wear thick sweaters and coats and no one can really see how skinny I am.”

Morin laughed. Gamache laughed.

But that was all Inspector Beauvoir heard. He was out the door, through the Incident Room and into the stairwell. There he paused for a moment. Opening his fist he read the note Gamache had scrawled.

There was another note, folded, with Nichol’s name on it. He opened it and groaned. Was the Chief mad? Because Yvette Nichol almost certainly was. She was the agent no one wanted. The agent who couldn’t be fired because she wasn’t quite incompetent or insubordinate enough. But she sure played around the cliff. And finally the chief had assigned her to telecommunications. Surrounded by things, not people. No interaction. Nothing major to screw up. No one to enrage. Just listening, monitoring, recording.

Any normal person would have quit. Any decent agent would have resigned. Like the witch trials of old. If she sank she was innocent, if she survived she was a witch.

Agent Nichol survived.

But still, he didn’t hesitate. Down the stairs he ran, two at a time, until he was finally in the sub-basement. Yanking open a door he looked in. The room was darkened, and it took him a moment to make out the outline of someone sitting in front of green lights. On oval screens lines burst into a frenzy as words were spoken.

Then a face was turned to him. A green face, and eyes glowing green. Agent Yvette Nichol. He hadn’t seen her in years and now he felt a tingling under his skin. A warning. Not to enter. This room. This person’s life.

But Chief Inspector Gamache had wanted him to. And so he did. On the speaker he was surprised to hear the Chief’s voice, talking now about various dog toys.

“Have you ever used a Chuck-it, sir?” Agent Morin asked.

“Never heard of it. What is it?”

“A stick thing with a cup on the end. It helps toss a tennis ball. Does Henri like balls?”

“Above all else,” laughed Gamache.

“Idiotic conversation,” came the female voice. A green voice. Young, ripe, filled with bile. “What do you want?”

“Have you been monitoring the conversation?” Inspector Beauvoir demanded. “It’s on a secure channel. No one’s supposed to have access to it.”

“And yet you were about to ask me to start monitoring it, weren’t you? Don’t look so surprised, Inspector. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. No one comes here unless they want something. What do you want?”

“Chief Inspector Gamache wants your help.” He almost gagged on the words.

“And what the Chief Inspector wants, he gets. Right?” But she’d turned back into the room. Beauvoir felt on the wall and found the light switch. He turned it on and the room was flooded with bright fluorescent lights. The woman, who had seemed so menacing, so otherworldly, suddenly became human.

Staring at him now was a short, slightly dumpy, young woman with sallow skin marked by old blemishes. Her hair was dull and mousy and her eyes squinted to adjust to the sudden light.

“Why’d you do that?” she demanded.

“Sir,” he snapped. “You’re a disgrace but you’re still a Sûreté officer. You’ll call me ‘sir’ and the Chief Inspector by his full rank. And you’ll do as you’re ordered. Here.”

He thrust the note at the agent who now looked very young, and very angry. Like a petulant child. Beauvoir smiled remembering his initial disquiet. She was pathetic. A sorry little person. Nothing more.

Then he remembered why he was there.

She might be a sorry little person, but Chief Inspector Gamache was risking his entire career in bringing her secretly into the investigation.

Why?

“Tell me what you know.” She lowered the note and stared Beauvoir in the eye. “Sir.”

It was a disconcerting look. Far smarter, far brighter, than he would have expected. A keen stare, and deep inside, still, a flash of green.

He bristled at her use of words. At that particular phrase. “Tell me what you know.” It’s what the Chief always asked when first arriving at a murder scene. Gamache would listen carefully, respectfully. Thoughtfully.

The antithesis of this willful, warped agent.

Surely she was mocking the Chief. But there were more important things than challenging her on that.

He told her what he knew.

The shooting, the kidnapping, the claims of the farmer to have attached a bomb. To go off the next morning at 11:18.

Instinctively they both glanced at the clock. Ten past six in the evening. Seventeen hours left.

“Chief Superintendent Francoeur believes the kidnapper’s a frightened backwoods farmer, probably with a small marijuana operation, who panicked. They think there’s no bomb and no other plan.”

“But Chief Inspector Gamache doesn’t agree,” said Agent Nichol, reading from the note. “He wants me to monitor closely.” She looked up after a moment digesting the Chief’s instructions. “They’re monitoring closely upstairs I presume?”

She was unable, or unwilling, to rid her voice of bitterness. It was an annoying and annoyed little voice.

At a curt nod from Beauvoir she smiled and carefully folded the note. “Well I guess the Chief Inspector thinks I’m better.”

Agent Nichol stared at Beauvoir, willing him to contradict her. He glared at her.

“Must be,” he finally managed.

“Well, he’s going to have to do more than talk about dog toys. Tell him to pause.”

“Haven’t you been listening? A pause and the bomb will go off.”

“Does anyone really believe there’s a bomb?”

“And you’d risk it?”

“Hey, I’m safe and warm here. Why not.”

At a glare from Beauvoir she continued. “Look, I’m not asking him to go make a cup of coffee. Just a second here and there. Lets me record the ambient sound. Got it? Sir?”

Agent Yvette Nichol had started in homicide. Been chosen by Chief Inspector Gamache. Mentored by him. And had been a near complete failure. Beauvoir had begged the Chief to fire her. Instead, after many chances, he’d transferred her. To do something she needed to learn.

The one thing she clearly could not do.

Listen.

That was her job now. Her only job. And now Chief Inspector Gamache was putting his whole career, and perhaps Agent Morin’s life, into these incompetent hands.

“Why haven’t they traced the call yet?” Agent Nichol asked, swinging her seat back to the monitors and hitting some keys on her computer. The Chief’s voice was crisper now, clear. As though he was standing with them.

“They can’t seem to get a fix,” said Beauvoir, leaning over her chair, staring almost mesmerized at the dancing waves on the screens. “When they do it shows Morin in a different place as though he’s moving.”

“Maybe he is.”

“One moment he’s by the U.S. border the next he’s in the Arctic. No, he’s not moving. The signal is.”

Nichol made a face. “I think the Chief Inspector might be right. This doesn’t sound like something rigged up by a panicked farmer.” She turned to Beauvoir. “What does the Chief think it is?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“It would have to be something big,” Nichol mumbled as she focused on the screen and the voices. “To kill an agent and kidnap another then to call the Chief Inspector.”

“He needs to be able to communicate with us without Chief Superintendent Francoeur knowing,” said Inspector Beauvoir. “Right now all his messages are monitored.”

“No problem. Get me the code to his computer and I can set up a secure channel.”

Beauvoir hesitated, examining her.

“What?” she demanded, then smiled. It was unattractive, and again Beauvoir felt a warning tingle. “You came to me remember. Do you want help or not? Sir?”

“. . . Zora’s a handful, apparently,” came Gamache’s voice. “Teething now. She loves the blanket you and Suzanne sent.”

“I’m glad,” said Morin. “I wanted to send a drum set but Suzanne said maybe later.”

“Marvelous. Perhaps you could also send some caffeine and a puppy,” laughed Gamache.

“You must miss them, sir. Your son and grandchildren.”

“And our daughter-in-law,” Gamache said. “Yes, but they’re enjoying Paris. Hard to begrudge them that.”

“Damn it. He needs to slow down,” snapped Nichol, annoyed. “He has to give me pauses.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Well, hurry up,” said Nichol. “And get that code.” She turned her back on Inspector Beauvoir as he strode out the door.

“Sir,” he muttered as he bounded back up the stairs. “Sir. Shit-head.”

At the eighth floor he wheezed to a stop and gasped for breath. Opening the door a little he could see Chief Superintendent Francoeur not far away. Over the monitors came the familiar voices.

“Has anybody spoken to my parents?” the young man asked.

“We’re giving them regular updates. I’ve sent an agent to be with your family and Suzanne.”

There was a longer pause.

“Are you all right?” Gamache jumped in.

“Fine,” came the voice, though it was thin and struggling. “I don’t mind for myself. I know I’m going to be all right. But my mother—”

There was silence again, but before it could go on too long the Chief Inspector spoke, reassuring the young agent.

Chief Superintendent Francoeur exchanged glances with the Inspector beside him.

Across the room Beauvoir could see the clock.

Sixteen hours and fourteen minutes left. He could hear Morin and the Chief Inspector discussing things they wished had gone differently in their lives.

Neither of them mentioned this.

Ruth exhaled. “This story you just told me, none of that was in the news.”

She said “story” as though it was a fairy tale, a children’s make-believe.

“No,” agreed Beauvoir. “Only a few know it.”

“Then why’re you telling me?”

“Who’d believe you if you said anything? They’d all just think you’re drunk.”

“And they’d be right.”

Ruth cackled and Beauvoir cracked a tiny smile.

Across the bistro Gabri and Clara watched.

“Should we save him?” Clara asked.

“Too late,” said Gabri. “He’s made a deal with the devil.”

They turned back to the bar and their drinks. “So, it’s between Mauritius and the Greek Islands on the Queen Mary,” said Gabri. They spent the next half hour debating fantasy vacations, while several feet away Jean-Guy Beauvoir told Ruth what really happened.

Armand Gamache and Henri entered the third and last shop on their list, Augustin Renaud’s list. The man while alive haunted the used bookstores in Quebec City buying anything that might have even a remote reference to Samuel de Champlain.

The little bell above the entrance tinkled as they entered and Gamache quickly closed the door before too much of the day crept in with him. It didn’t take much, a tiny crack and the cold stole in like a wraith.

It was dark inside, most of the windows being “booked” off. Stacks of dusty volumes were piled in the windows, not so much for advertisement as storage.

Anyone suffering from claustrophobia would never get three steps into the shop. The already narrow aisles were made all the more cramped by bookcases so stuffed they threatened to topple over, and more books were stacked on the floor. Henri picked his way carefully along behind Gamache. The Chief’s shoulders brushed the books and he decided it might be best to remove his parka before he knocked over all the shelves.

Getting the coat off proved quite an exercise in itself.

“Can I help you?”

The voice came from somewhere in the shop. Gamache looked round, as did Henri, his satellite ears flicking this way and that.

“I’d like to talk to you about Augustin Renaud,” called Gamache to the ceiling.

“Why?”

“Because,” said Gamache. Two could play that game. There was a pause then a clambering of feet on a ladder.

“What do you want?” the bookseller asked, taking small, quick steps out from behind a bookcase. He was short and skinny, his fisherman’s sweater was pilled and stained. An almost white T-shirt poked out of the collar. His hair was gray and greasy and his hands were dark from dust. He wiped them on his filthy pants and stared at Gamache then he noticed Henri looking out from behind the large man’s legs.

Hiding.

Though Gamache would never say it to Henri’s face, they both knew he wasn’t the most courageous of dogs. Nor, it must be said, was Henri very bright. But he was loyal beyond measure and knew what mattered. Din-din, walks, balls. But most of all, his family. His heart filled his chest and ran to the end of his tail and the very tips of his considerable ears. It filled his head, squeezing out his brain. But Henri, the foundling, was a humanist, and while not particularly clever was the smartest creature Gamache knew. Everything he knew he knew by heart.

“Bonjour,” the shopkeeper knelt in a totally involuntary movement and reached out to Henri. Gamache recognized it. He had it himself, as did Reine-Marie, when in the presence of a dog. The need to kneel, to genuflect.

“May I?” the man asked. It was the sign of an experienced dog owner, to always ask. Not only was it respectful, it was prudent. You never knew when a dog might not want to be approached.

“You run the risk of him never leaving, monsieur,” smiled Gamache as the shopkeeper produced a biscuit.

“Fine with me.” He fed Henri the treat and rubbed his ears to groans from the dog.

It was then Gamache noticed the cushions on the floor and the name “Maggie” on the side of a food bowl. But no dog.

“How long ago?” Gamache asked.

“Three days,” said the man, standing up and turning away. Gamache waited. He recognized this movement too.

“Now,” the man finally said, turning back to Gamache and Henri. “You said you wanted to talk about Augustin Renaud. Are you a reporter?”

Gamache looked as though he might be, but not for the television or radio or even a daily paper. Perhaps for an intellectual, monthly magazine. One of those obscure university presses or journals specializing in dying ideas and the dead people who’d championed them.

He wore a shirt and tie under a cardigan the color of butterscotch. His slacks were charcoal gray corduroy. If the shopkeeper noticed the scar above Gamache’s left temple he didn’t mention it.

“Non, I’m not a reporter, I’m helping the police but in a private capacity.”

Henri was now leaning against the little shopkeeper, whose hand was down by his side kneading the dog’s head.

“Are you Alain Doucet?” Gamache asked.

“Are you Armand Gamache?” Doucet asked.

Both men nodded.

“Tea?” Monsieur Doucet asked. Within minutes the two men were sitting at the back of the tiny store in a cave of books, of words, of ideas and stories. And Monsieur Doucet, after pouring them fragrant cups of tea and offering his guest a digestive cookie, was telling his own story.

“Augustin came in once a fortnight at least, sometimes more often. Sometimes I’d call if I got in a book I knew he’d be interested in.”

“What interested him?”

“Champlain, of course. Anything to do with the early colony, other explorers, maps. He loved maps.”

“Was there anything he found here that particularly excited him?”

“Well, now, that’s hard to say. Everything seemed to excite him, and yet he said almost nothing. I knew him for forty years but we never sat down like this, never had a conversation. He’d buy books and be animated and enthusiastic, but when I tried to ask him about it he’d get quiet, defensive. He was a singular man.”

“He was that,” said Gamache, taking a bite of his digestive cookie. “Did you like him?”

“He was a good client. Never argued about price, but then I never tried to take advantage.”

“But did you like him?” It was funny, Gamache had asked this question of all the used-bookstore owners and all had been evasive.

“I didn’t know him but I’ll tell you something, I had no desire to get to know him better.”

“Why not?”

“He was a fanatic and they scare me. I think he’d do just about anything if he thought it would get him an inch closer to Champlain’s body. So, I was civil, but kept my distance.”

“Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”

“He had a knack for annoying people, but you don’t kill someone just because they’re annoying. The place would be littered with bodies.”

Gamache smiled and took a leisurely sip of his strong tea, thinking.

“Do you know if Renaud had a current idea? Some new theory about where Champlain might be buried?”

“You mean the Literary and Historical Society?”

“I mean any place.”

Monsieur Doucet thought then shook his head.

“Did you buy books from them?”

“The Lit and His? Sure. Last summer. They had a big sale. I bought three or four lots.”

Gamache put his mug down. “What was in them?”

“Frankly? I don’t know. Normally I’d go through them but it was the summer and I was too busy with the flea market. Lots of tourists, lots of book collectors. I didn’t have time to go through the boxes, so I just put them out at my stall. Renaud came by and bought a couple.”

“Books?”

“Boxes.”

“Did he go through them before buying?”

“No, just bought. People are like that, especially collectors. They want to go through them privately. I think that’s part of the fun. I got another couple of lots from the Lit and His later, sometime this past fall, before they decided to stop the sale. I called Renaud and asked if he was interested. At first he said no then he showed up about three weeks ago asking if I still had them.”

“Hmm.” The Chief Inspector sipped and thought. “What does that tell you?”

Alain Doucet looked surprised. He had clearly thought nothing of it but now he did.

“Well, I guess it might mean he found something in that first lot and thought there might be more.”

“Why the delay, though? If he bought the first couple boxes in the summer, why wait until after Christmas to contact you?”

“He’s probably like most collectors. Buys loads of books meaning to go through them but they just sit there for months until he gets around to it.”

Gamache nodded, remembering the rabbit warren that was Renaud’s home.

“Do these numbers mean anything to you?” He showed Doucet the catalog numbers found in Renaud’s diary. 9-8499 and 9-8572.

“No, but used books come in with all sorts of strange things written on them. Some are color-coded, some have numbers, some have signatures. Screws up their value, unless the signature is Beaudelaire or Proust.”

“How’d he seem when he came by for the other lot?”

“Renaud? As always. Brusque, anxious. He was like an addict before a fix. Book freaks are like that, and not just old guys. Look at kids lining up for the latest installment of their favorite books. Stories, they’re addictive.”

Gamache knew that was true. But what story had Augustin Renaud stumbled on? And where were the two books? Not in his apartment, not on his body. And what happened to the other books in the lot? They weren’t in the apartment either.

“Did he bring any books back?”

Doucet shook his head. “But you might ask the other used bookstores. I know he went to all of us.”

“I’ve asked. You’re the last, and the only one who bought the Literary and Historical Society books.”

“Only one stupid enough to try to sell English books in old Quebec City.”

The Chief’s phone vibrated and he took it out. It was a call from Émile.

“Do you mind?” he asked and Doucet shook his head. “Salut, Émile. Are you at home?”

“No, I’m in the Lit and His. Amazing place. I can’t believe I’ve never been before. Can you meet me here?”

“Have you found something?”

“I found Chiniquy.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Gamache rose and Henri rose with him, ready to go wherever Gamache went.

“Does the name Chiniquy mean anything to you?” he asked as they walked to the front of the store. It was almost four P.M. and the sun had set. Now the shop looked cozy, lit by lamps, the books merely suggestions in the shadows.

Doucet thought about it. “No, sorry.”

Time, thought Gamache as he stepped once more into the darkness, it covered over everything eventually. Events, people, memory. Chiniquy had disappeared beneath Time. How long before Augustin Renaud followed?

And yet Champlain had remained, and grown.

Not the man, Gamache knew, the mystery. Champlain missing was so much more potent than Champlain found.

Picking up his pace, he and Henri wove between the revelers carrying their hollow plastic canes filled with Caribou, wearing their Bonhomme pins on their down-filled parkas. They wore smiles and huge mittens and joyful fluffy, warm toques, like exclamation marks on their heads. In the distance he heard the almost haunting blast on a plastic horn. A call to arms, a call to party, a call to youth.

Gamache heard it, but the call wasn’t for him. He had another calling.

Within minutes he and Henri were standing outside the brightly lit Literary and Historical Society. The small crowd of gawkers had given up, perhaps called away by the horns to something more interesting. Called to life, not to death.

Gamache entered and found his old mentor in the library surrounded by small stacks of books. Mr. Blake had emigrated from his armchair to the sofa and the two elderly men were chatting. They looked over as the Chief Inspector entered, and waved.

Mr. Blake stood and indicated his place.

“No, please,” said Gamache, but it was too late. The courtly man was already standing next to his habitual chair.

“We’ve been having a terrific talk, you know,” said Mr. Blake. “All about Charles Chiniquy. Remarkable man. But then, we’re likely to think that,” he said with a laugh.

“Found another one, Monsieur Comeau,” Elizabeth MacWhirter called down from the balcony, then spying Gamache she waved.

Gamache caught Émile’s eye and smiled. He’d made a few conquests here.

Soon all four were sitting round the coffee table.

“So,” said Gamache, looking at the three eager, elderly faces. “Tell me what you know.”

“The first thing I did was call Jean,” Émile said. “You remember him? He had lunch with us a few days ago at the Château Frontenac.” Gamache remembered. The Laurel to René Dallaire’s Hardy.

“A member of your Champlain Society.”

“That’s right, but he’s also a student of Québec history in general. Most of the members are. He knew of Chiniquy, but not much more than I’d heard. Chiniquy was some sort of fanatic about temperance and had quit the Catholic Church and joined the Protestants. He’s considered a bit of a nut. Did some good work then messed it up by going off the deep end himself.

“I was on my way home and just passing the Lit and His when I suddenly thought they might know Chiniquy here. After all, it is a Literary and Historical Society and presumably has links to Protestantism. So I came in.”

Elizabeth picked up the thread. “He asked about Chiniquy. It’s not a name I’m familiar with but I did find some books in our collection. He wrote quite a few. Then Mr. Blake came in and I directed Monsieur Comeau to him.”

Mr. Blake leaned forward. “Charles Chiniquy was a great man, Chief Inspector. Much maligned and misunderstood. He should be considered one of the great heroes of Québec instead of forgotten or remembered only for his eccentricities.”

“Eccentricities?”

“He was, it must be admitted, a bit of a showboat. Quite extravagant in his lifestyle and speeches. Charismatic. But he saved a lot of lives, built a sanatorium. At the height of his popularity tens of thousands took the pledge after listening to him speak. He was indefatigable. Ummm.” Mr. Blake struggled a bit with the next part. “Then he went a bit far for the comfort of the Catholic Church. To be fair, they did give him a lot of warnings but finally he was stripped of his church. He quit in a rage and joined the Presbyterians.”

“Didn’t he claim Rome was conspiring to take over North America and had sent the Jesuits to kill Lincoln?” asked Émile.

“He might have mentioned that,” said Mr. Blake. “Still, he did a great deal of good too.”

“What happened to him?” asked Gamache.

“He moved to Illinois but annoyed so many people he soon left and ended his days in Montreal. Got married you know, and had two children, daughters I think. Died at the age of ninety.”

“In 1899,” said Gamache and when she looked surprised he explained. “I looked it up last night, but the file had just his dates, no real information about the man.”

“There was a huge obituary in the New York Times,” said Mr. Blake. “He was considered a hero by many people.”

“And a nut by many too,” admitted Elizabeth.

“Why would Augustin Renaud be interested in Chiniquy?”

All three shook their heads. Gamache thought some more.

“The big Presbyterian church is right next door, and the Lit and His has a number of his books, is it fair to assume there might have been a connection? A relationship?”

“Between Charles Chiniquy and the Lit and His?” asked Elizabeth.

“Well, there was James Douglas, he’d be a connection,” said Mr. Blake.

“And who is that?” asked Gamache. Both Elizabeth and Mr. Blake turned in their seats and looked out a window. Gamache and Émile also looked but in the dark they saw only their own reflections.

“That’s James Douglas,” said Mr. Blake. Still they stared, and still all they saw were their own baffled faces.

“The window?” asked Gamache finally, after waiting long enough for Émile to ask the nonsensical question.

“Not the window, the bust,” said Elizabeth with a smile. “That’s James Douglas.”

Sure enough, on the deep windowsill there stood a white alabaster bust of a Victorian gentleman. They always looked disturbing to Gamache. It was the white, empty eyes, as though the artist had sculpted a ghost.

“He was one of the founders of the Literary and Historical Society,” said Mr. Blake.

Elizabeth leaned forward and said to Émile beside her, “He was also a grave robber. Collected mummies, you know.”

Neither Gamache nor Émile did know. But they wanted to.