Bury Your Dead

TWENTY–FOUR

The Wife pushed away from the table and gaped.

“Old?” she whispered.

It was as though the bitter wind had found a way in and frozen everyone in place. Had Beauvoir accused the mantelpiece of murder they could not have been more astonished.

“Oh, God, Old, please,” The Wife begged. But a hint of desperation had crept into her eyes, slowly replacing disbelief. Like a healthy woman told she had terminal cancer, The Wife was in a daze. The end of her life was in sight, her simple life with a carpenter, making and restoring furniture, living in the country in a modest home. Raising Charles, and being with the only man she ever wanted to be with, the man she loved.

Over.

Old turned to her and his son. He was impossibly beautiful and even the vile accusation couldn’t tarnish that.

“He killed my father,” Old repeated. “I came to Three Pines to find him. He’s right,” he jerked his head toward Beauvoir. “I was working in Les Temps Perdu, restoring furniture when a walking stick came in. It was very old, handmade. Unique. I recognized it right away. My father had shown it to me and pointed out the inlaying, how the woodworker had designed it around the burling. It appeared to be just a simple, rustic walking stick, but it was a work of art. It had been my father’s and had been stolen after he died. Had been stolen by his murderer.”

“You found out from the shop records who had sold it to Les Temps Perdu,” said Beauvoir. This was supposition now, but he needed to make it sound as though he knew it to be true.

“It was from an Olivier Brulé, living in Three Pines.” Old Mundin breathed deeply, prepared to take the plunge. “I moved here. Got a job repairing and restoring Olivier’s furniture. I needed to get close to him, to watch him. I needed proof he’d killed my father.”

“But Olivier could never do that,” said Gabri, quietly but with certainty. “He could never kill.”

“I know,” said Old. “I realized that the more I got to know him. He was a greedy man. Often a little sly. But a good man. He could never have killed my father. But someone did. Olivier was getting my father’s things from someone. I spent years following him all over the place, as he did his antiquing. He visited homes and farms and other shops. Bought antiques from all over the place. But never did I see him actually pick up one of my father’s things. And yet, they kept appearing. And being sold on.”

Perhaps it was the atmosphere, the warm and snug bistro. The storm outside. The wine and hot chocolate and lit fires, but this felt unreal. As though their friend was talking about someone else. Telling them a tale. A fable.

“Over the years I met Michelle and fell in love,” he smiled at his wife. No longer The Wife. But the woman he loved. Michelle. “We had Charles. My life was complete. I’d actually forgotten about why I’d come here in the first place. But one Saturday night I was sitting in the truck after picking up the furniture and I saw Olivier close up and leave the bistro. But instead of heading home he did something strange. He went into the woods. I didn’t follow him. I was too surprised. But I thought about it a lot and the next Saturday I waited for him, but he just went home. But the following week he went into the woods again. Carrying a bag.”

“Groceries,” said Gabri. No one said anything. They could see what was happening. Old Mundin in his truck. Watching and waiting. Patient. And seeing Olivier disappear into the woods. Old quietly getting out of the vehicle, following Olivier. And finding the cabin.

“I looked in through the windows and saw—” Old’s voice faltered. Michelle reached out and quietly laid her hand on his. He slowly regained himself, his breathing becoming calmer, more measured, until he was able to continue with the story.

“I saw my father’s things. Everything he’d kept in the back room. The special place for his special things, he’d told me. Things only he and I knew about. The colored glass, the plates, the candlesticks, the furniture. All there.”

Old’s eyes gleamed. He stared into the distance. No longer in the bistro with the rest of them. Now he was back at the cabin. On the outside looking in.

“Olivier gave the bag to the old man and they sat down. They drank from china my father let me touch, and ate off plates he said came from a queen.”

“Charlotte,” said Beauvoir. “Queen Charlotte.”

“Yes. Like my mother. My father said they were special because they would always remind him of my mother. Charlotte.”

“That’s why you named your son Charles,” said Beauvoir. “We thought it was after your father, but it was your mother’s name. Charlotte.”

Mundin nodded but didn’t look at his son. Couldn’t look at his son, or his wife now.

“What did you do then?” Beauvoir asked. He knew enough now to keep his voice soft, almost hypnotic. To not break the spell. Let Old Mundin tell the story.

“I knew then I was looking at the man who’d killed my father fifteen years ago. I never believed it was an accident. I’m not a fool. I know most people think it was suicide, that he killed himself by walking onto the river. But I knew him. He would never have done that. I knew if he was dead he’d been killed. But it was only much later I realized his most precious things had been taken. I talked to my mother about it but I don’t think she believed me. He’d never shown her the things. Only me.

“My father had been murdered and his priceless antiques stolen. And now, finally, I’d found the man who’d done it.”

“What did you do, Patrick?” Michelle asked. It was the first time any of them had heard his real name. The name she reserved for their most intimate moments. When they were not Old and The Wife. But Patrick and Michelle. A young man and woman, in love.

“I wanted to torment the man. I wanted him to know someone had found him. One of our favorite books was Charlotte’s Web, so I made a web from fishing line and snuck into the cabin when he was working on his vegetable garden. I put it in the rafters. So that he’d find it there.”

“And you put the word ‘Woo’ into it,” said Beauvoir. “Why?”

“It was what my father called me. Our secret name. He taught me all about wood and when I was small I tried to say the words but all I could say was ‘woo.’ So he started calling me that. Not often. Just sometimes when I was in his arms. He’d hug me tight and whisper, ‘Woo.’ ”

No one could look at the beautiful young man now. They dropped their eyes from the scalding sight. From the eclipse. As all that love turned into hate.

“I watched from the woods, but the Hermit didn’t seem to find the web. So I took the most precious thing I own. I kept it in a sack in my workshop. Hadn’t seen it in years. But I took it out that night and took it with me to the cabin.”

There was silence then. In their minds they could see the dark figure walking through the dark woods. Toward the thing he had searched for and finally found.

“I watched Olivier leave and waited a few minutes. Then I left the thing outside his door and knocked. I hid in the shadows and watched. The old man opened the door and looked out, expecting to see Olivier. He looked amused at first, then puzzled. Then a little frightened.”

The fire crackled and cackled in the grate. It spit out a few embers that slowly died. And Old described what happened next.

The Hermit scanned the woods and was about to close the door when he saw something sitting on the porch. A tiny visitor. He stooped and picked it up. It was a wooden word. Woo.

And then Old had seen it. The look he’d dreamed of, fantasized about. Mortgaged his life to see. Terror on the face of the man who’d killed his father. The same terror his father must have felt as the ice broke underneath him.

The end. In that instant the Hermit knew the monster he’d been hiding from had finally found him.

And it had.

Old separated himself from the dark forest and approached the cabin, approached the elderly man. The Hermit backed into the cabin and said only one thing.

“Woo,” he whispered. “Woo.”

Old picked up the silver menorah and struck. Once. And into that blow he put his childhood, his grief, his loss. He put his mother’s sorrow and his sister’s longing. The menorah, weighed down with that, crushed the Hermit’s skull. And he fell, Woo clutched in his hand.

Old didn’t care. No one would find the body except Olivier and he suspected Olivier would say nothing. He liked the man very much, but knew him for what he was.

Greedy.

Olivier would take the treasure and leave the body and everyone would be happy. A man already lost to the world would be slowly swallowed by the forest. Olivier would have his treasure, and Old would have his life back.

His obligation to his father discharged.

“It was the first thing I ever made,” said Old. “I whittled Woo and gave it to my father. After he died I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore so I put it in the sack. But I brought it out that night. One last time.”

Old Mundin turned to his family. All his energy spent, his brilliance fading. He placed his hand on his sleeping son’s back and spoke.

“I’m so sorry. My father taught me everything, gave me everything. This man killed him, shoved him onto the river in spring.”

Clara grimaced, imagining a death like that, imagining the horror as the ice began to crack. As it did now beneath The Wife.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir went to the bistro door and opened it. Along with a swirl of snow two large Sûreté officers entered.

“Can you leave us, please?” Beauvoir asked of the villagers, and slowly, stunned, they put their winter coats on and left. Clara and Peter took The Wife and Charles back to their home, while Inspector Beauvoir finished the interview with Old Mundin.

An hour later the police cars drew away, taking Old. Michelle accompanied him, but not before stopping at the inn and spa to hand Charles over to the only other person he loved.

The asshole saint. Dr. Gilbert. Who tenderly took the boy in his arms and held him for a few hours, safe against the bitter cold world pounding at the door.

“Hot toddy?”

Peter handed one to Beauvoir, who sat in a deep, comfortable chair in their living room. Gabri sat on the sofa in a daze. Clara and Myrna were also there, drinks in their hands, in front of the fireplace.

“What I don’t get,” said Peter, perching on an arm of the sofa, “is where all those amazing antiques came from in the first place. The Hermit stole them and took them into the woods, but where did Old’s father get them to begin with?”

Beauvoir sighed. He was exhausted. Always happier with physical activity, it constantly amazed him how grueling intellectual activity could also be.

“For all that Old Mundin loved his father, he didn’t know him well,” said Beauvoir. “What kid does? I think we’ll find that Mundin made some trips to the Eastern Bloc, as communism was falling. He convinced a lot of people to trust him with their family treasures. But instead of keeping them safe, or sending people the money, he just disappeared with their treasures.”

“Stole them himself?” Clara asked.

Beauvoir nodded.

“The Hermit’s murder was never about the treasure,” said Beauvoir. “Old Mundin could care less about it. In fact, he came to hate it. That’s why it was left in the cabin. He didn’t want the treasure. The only thing he took was the Hermit’s life.”

Beauvoir looked into the fire and remembered his interrogation of Old, in the deserted bistro, where it had all begun months ago. He heard about the death of Mundin’s father. How Old’s heart had broken that day. But into that crack young Old had shoved his rage, his pain, his loss but that wasn’t enough. But once he placed his intention there his heart beat again. With a purpose.

When Olivier had been arrested Old Mundin had wrestled with his conscience, but had finally decided this was fate, this was Olivier’s punishment for greed, for helping a man he knew very well was at best a thief and at worst, worse.

“You play the fiddle?” Beauvoir had asked Old, when they were alone in the bistro, after the others had left. “I understand you perform at the Canada Day picnics?”

“Yes.”

“Your father taught you that too?”

“He did.”

Beauvoir nodded. “And he taught you about antiques and carpentry and restoration?”

Old Mundin nodded.

“You lived in old Quebec City, at number sixteen rue des Ramparts?”

Mundin stared.

“And your mother used to read Charlotte’s Web to you and your sister, as children?” Beauvoir persisted. He didn’t move from his seat, but it felt as though with each question he was approaching Mundin, getting closer and closer.

And Mundin, baffled, seemed to sense that something was approaching. Something even worse than what had already happened.

The lights flickered as the blizzard threw itself against the village, against the bistro.

“Where did you get your name?” Beauvoir asked, staring at Old Mundin across the table.

“What name?”

“Old. Who gave you that name? Your real name is Patrick. So where did Old come from?”

“Where everything I am came from. My father. He’d call me old son. ‘Come along, old son,’ he’d say. ‘I’ll teach you about wood.’ And I’d go. After a while everyone just called me Old.”

Beauvoir nodded. “Old. Old son.”

Old Mundin stared at Beauvoir, his face blank then his eyes narrowed as something appeared on the horizon, very far off. A gathering. Terror, the Furies. Loneliness and Sorrow. And something else. Something worse. The worst thing imaginable.

“Old son,” Beauvoir whispered again. “The Hermit used that expression. Called Olivier that. ‘Chaos is coming, old son.’ Those were his words to Olivier. And now I say it to you.”

The building shuddered and cold drafts stole through the room.

“Chaos is coming, Old son,” Beauvoir said quietly. “The man you killed was your father.”

“He killed his own father?” Clara whispered. “Oh, dear God. Oh my God.”

It was over.

“Mundin’s father faked his death,” said Beauvoir. “Before that he’d built the cabin and moved the treasures. Then he returned to Quebec City and waited for spring, and a stormy day to cover his tracks. When the perfect conditions came he put his coat by the shore and disappeared, everyone assumed into the St. Lawrence River. But in fact, into the forest.”

There was silence then, and in that silence they imagined the rest. Imagined the worst.

“Conscience,” said Myrna, at last. “Imagine being pursued by your own conscience.”

And for a terrible moment they did. A mountain of a conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow. Growing. Darkening.

“He had his treasure,” said Clara, “but finally all he wanted was his family.”

“And peace,” said Myrna. “A clear and quiet conscience.”

“He surrounded himself with things that reminded him of his wife and kids. Books, the violin. He even carved an image of what Old might look like as a young man, listening. It became his treasure, the one thing he could never part with. He carved it, and scratched ‘Woo’ under it. It kept him company and eased his conscience. A bit. When we first found it we thought the Hermit had made a carving of Olivier. But we were wrong. It was of his son.”

“How’s Old?” Clara asked.

“Not good.”

Beauvoir remembered the look of rage on the young man’s face when the Inspector had told him the Hermit was in fact his father. He’d murdered the very man he meant to avenge. The only man he wished was alive, he killed.

And after the rage, came disbelief. Then horror.

Conscience. Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew it would keep Old Mundin company in prison for decades to come.

Gabri held his head in his hands. Muffled sobs came from the man. Not great dramatic whoops of sorrow, but tired tears. Happy, confused, turbulent tears.

But mostly tears of relief.

Why had Olivier moved the body?

Why had Olivier moved the body?

Why had Olivier moved the body?

And now, finally, they knew. He’d moved the body because he hadn’t killed the Hermit, only found him already dead. It was a revolting thing to do, disgraceful, petty, shameful. But it wasn’t murder.

“Would you like to stay for dinner? You look exhausted,” Beauvoir heard Clara say to Gabri. Then he felt a soft touch on his arm and looked up.

Clara was talking to him.

“It’ll be simple, just soup and a sandwich, and we’ll get you home early.”

Home.

Perhaps it was the fatigue, perhaps it was the stress. But he felt his eyes burning at the word.

He longed to go home.

But not to Montreal.

Here. This was home. He longed to crawl under the duvet at the B and B, to hear the blizzard howl outside and do its worst and to know he was warm, and safe.

God help him, this was home.

Beauvoir stood and smiled at Clara, something that felt at once foreign and familiar. He didn’t smile often. Not with suspects. Not at all.

But he smiled now, a weary, grateful grin.

“I’d like that but there’s something I have to do first.”

Before he left he went into the washroom and splashed cold water onto his face. He looked into the reflection and saw there a man far older than his thirty-eight years. Drawn and tired. And not wanting to do what came next.

He felt an ache deep down.

Bringing the pill bottle out of his pocket he placed it on the counter and stared at it. Then pouring himself a glass of water he shook a pill into his palm. Carefully breaking it in half he swallowed it with a quick swig.

Picking up the other half from the white porcelain rim of the sink he hesitated then quickly tossed it back in the bottle before he could change his mind.

Clara walked him to the front door.

“Can I come by in an hour?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said and added, “bring Ruth.”

How did she know? Perhaps, he thought as he plunged into the storm, he wasn’t as clever as all that. Or perhaps, he thought as the storm fought back, they know me here.

“What do you want?” Ruth demanded, opening the door before he knocked. A swirl of snow came in with him and Ruth whacked his clothing, caked in snow. At least, he thought that was why she was batting away at him, though he had to admit the snow was long gone and still she hit him.

“You know what I want.”

“You’re lucky I have such a generous spirit, dick-head.”

“I’m lucky you’re delusional,” he muttered, following her into the now familiar home.

Ruth made popcorn, as though this was trivial. Entertainment. And poured herself a Scotch, not offering him one. He didn’t need it. He could feel the effects of the pill.

Her computer was already set up on the plastic garden table in her kitchen and they sat side-by-side in wobbly pre-formed plastic chairs.

Ruth pressed a button and up came the site.

Beauvoir looked at her. “Have you watched it?”

“No,” she said, staring at the screen, not at him. “I was waiting for you.”

Beauvoir took a deep ragged breath, exhaled, and hit play.

“Too bad about Champlain,” said Émile as they walked down St-Stanislas and across rue St-Jean, waiting for revelers to pass like rush-hour traffic.

It was beginning to snow. Huge, soft flakes drifted down, caught in the street lamps and the headlights of cars. The forecast was for a storm coming their way. A foot or more expected overnight. This was just the vanguard, the first hints of what was to come.

Quebec City was never lovelier than in a storm and the aftermath, when the sun came out and revealed a magical kingdom, softened and muffled by the thick covering. Fresh and clean, a world unsullied, unmarred.

At the old stone home Émile got out his key. Through the lace curtains on the door they could see Henri hiding behind a pillar, watching.

Gamache smiled then brought his mind back to the case. The curious case of the woman in Champlain’s coffin.

Who was she, and what happened to Champlain? Where’d he go? Seemed his explorations didn’t end with his death.

Once inside Gamache took Henri for a walk and when he returned Émile had set the laptop on the coffee table, put out a bottle of Scotch, lit the fire and was waiting.

The elderly man stood in the center of the room, his arms at his side. He looked formal, almost rigid.

“What is it, Émile?”

“I’d like to watch the video with you.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

All through the walk the Chief Inspector had been preparing himself for this. The cold flakes on his face had been refreshing and he’d stopped and tilted his face up, closing his eyes and opening his mouth, to catch them.

“I love doing that,” Morin said. “But the snow has to be just right.”

“You were a connoisseur?” the Chief asked.

“Still am. The flakes have to be the big, fluffy kind. The ones that just drift down. None of the hard, small flakes you get in storms. That’s no fun. They go up your nose and get in your ears. Get everywhere. No it’s the big ones you want.”

Gamache knew what he meant. He’d done it himself, as a child. Had watched Daniel and Annie do it. Children didn’t need to be taught, it seemed instinctive to catch snowflakes with your tongue.

“There’s a technique, of course,” said Morin in a serious voice, as though he’d studied it. “You have to close your eyes, otherwise the snow gets in them, and stick out your tongue.”

There was a pause and the Chief Inspector knew the young agent was sitting, bound to the chair, his head tilted back, his eyes closed, his tongue out. Catching snowflakes.

“Now,” agreed Gamache and after bending down to release Henri, he walked to the sofa and sat before the laptop.

“I found the site.” Émile sat and looked over at Armand in profile. The trim beard suited the man, now that Émile had gotten used to it. Gamache’s eyes were steady, staring at the screen, then he turned and looked directly at his mentor.

“Merci.”

Émile paused, taken by surprise. “What for?”

“For not leaving me.”

Émile reached out and touched Gamache on the arm, then clicked the button and the video started to play.

Beauvoir stared at the screen. As he suspected, the images were cobbled together from the tiny cameras attached to the headsets of each Sûreté officer. What he hadn’t expected was the clarity. He’d thought it’d be grainy, hard to distinguish the players, but it was clear.

As were their voices.

“Officer down!” Gamache called above the gunfire.

“Go, go, go,” Beauvoir shouted, pointing to a gunman on the gallery above. Rapid fire shots, the camera swinging wildly, then dropping. Then another view, of the officer on the ground. And blood.

“Officer down,” shouted one of the team. “Help him.”

Two forms moved forward, automatic weapons firing, laying down cover for a third. Someone grabbing the downed officer, dragging him away. Then a cut to a corridor, racing, chasing the gunmen down darkened halls and into cavernous rooms. Explosions, shouts.

The Chief leaning against a wall, wearing a black tactical vest, automatic rifle in his hands. Firing. It looked so strange to see Gamache with a gun, and using it.

“We have at least six shooters,” someone called.

“I count ten,” said Gamache, his voice clipped, precise, clear. “Two down. That leaves eight. Five on the floor above, three down here. Where’re the medics?”

“Coming,” came Agent Lacoste’s voice. “Thirty seconds away.”

“We need a target alive,” the Chief ordered. “Take one alive.”

All hell was breaking loose as bullets slammed into walls, into bodies, into the floor and ceiling. Everything became gray, the air filled with dust and bullets. Shouts and screams. The Chief issuing orders as they pushed the gunmen from one room into another. Cornering them.

Then Beauvoir saw himself.

He stepped out from the wall and shot. Then he saw himself stagger, and fall.

Hitting the floor.

“Jean-Guy!” the Chief yelled.

He saw himself splayed on the ground, legs collapsed beneath him. Unmoving.

Gamache ran, calling, “Where are those medics!”

“Here, Chief, here,” called Lacoste. “We’re coming.”

Gamache grabbed Beauvoir’s jacket, dragging him behind the wall, shots ringing out. Now, with the sounds of explosions all round, the scene was suddenly intimate. The Chief’s worried face, in close up, staring down.

Armand Gamache watched, unblinking, though all he wanted to do was look away. Close his eyes, cover his ears, curl into a ball.

He could smell again the acrid gunpowder, the burning, the concrete dust. He could hear the violent report of the weapons. Feel the rifle in his own hands, pounding out bullets. And weapons firing at him.

Bang, bang, bang, exploding all round. The bullets hitting and bouncing, ricocheting, thudding. The riot of sensations. It was near impossible to think, to focus.

And for an instant he felt again the jolt of seeing Beauvoir hit.

On the screen he saw himself staring down at Beauvoir, searching his face. Feeling for a pulse. The camera catching not just the events, but the sensations, the feelings. The anguish in Gamache’s face.

“Jean-Guy?” he called and the Inspector’s eyes fluttered and opened, then rolled closed.

Bullets splayed their position and the Chief ducked over Beauvoir, pulling him further behind the wall and propping him up. He opened Jean-Guy’s vest, his eyes sweeping down the Inspector’s torso, stopping at the wound. The blood. Ripping open a pocket in his own vest he brought out a bandage and pressed it into Beauvoir’s hand then pressed the hand to the wound.

Leaning forward he whispered in Beauvoir’s ear.

“Jean-Guy, you have to hold your hand there, can you do it?”

Beauvoir’s eyes fluttered open again, fighting for consciousness.

“Stay with me,” the Chief commanded. “Can you stay conscious?”

Beauvoir nodded.

“Good.” Gamache looked up, at the fighting ahead and overhead, then looked back down. “Medics are on their way. Lacoste’s coming, she’ll be here in a moment.” He paused and did something not meant to be seen by anyone else, and now seen by millions. He kissed Beauvoir on the forehead. Then smoothing Beauvoir’s hair, he left.

Beauvoir watched the screen through his fingers clutched to his face, his eyes wide. He’d expected the video to have captured, imperfectly, the events. It hadn’t occurred to him it would also capture how it felt.

The fear and confusion. The shock, the pain. The searing pain as he clutched at his abdomen. And the loneliness.

On the screen he saw his own face watching, pleading, as Gamache left him. Bleeding and alone. And he saw Gamache’s agony, at having to do it.

The view changed and they followed the team, chasing gunmen through corridors. Exchanging fire. A Sûreté officer wounded. A gunman hit.

Then Gamache taking the stairs two at a time, in pursuit, the man turning to fire. Gamache throwing himself at him and the two struggling, fighting hand to hand. From the screen came a confusion of arms and torsos, gasps, as they fought. Finally the Chief grabbed for the weapon that had been knocked out of his hand. Swinging it at the terrorist he caught him with a terrible crunch to the head. The man dropped.

As the cameras watched, Gamache collapsed to his knees beside the man and felt for a pulse, then he cuffed him and dragged him down the stairs. At the bottom the Chief staggered a bit, catching himself. Struggling to stand upright, Gamache turned. Beauvoir was sprawled against the wall across the room. A bloody bandage in one hand and a gun in the other.

There was a rasping, gasping.

“I . . . have . . . one,” Gamache was saying, trying to catch his breath.

Émile hadn’t moved since the video began. He’d only twice in his career had to fire his gun. Both times he’d killed someone. Hadn’t wanted to, but he’d meant to.

And he’d taught his officers well. It was an absolute, you never, ever take out your gun unless you mean to use it. And when you use it, aim for the body, aim to stop. Dead, if need be.

And now he watched Armand, his face bloody from the fight, sway a bit, then step forward. From his belt he grabbed his pistol. The gunman was unconscious at his feet. Shots continued all round. Émile saw the Chief Inspector turn, react to shooting above him. Gamache took another step forward, raised his gun and took shots in quick succession. A target was hit. The shooting stopped.

For a moment. Then there was a rapid fire.

Gamache’s arms lifted. His whole body lifted. And twisted. And he fell to the ground.

Beauvoir held his breath. It was what he’d seen that day. The Chief lying, unmoving, on the floor.

“Officer down,” Beauvoir heard himself rasp. “The Chief’s down.”

It seemed forever. Beauvoir tried to move, to drag himself forward, but he couldn’t. Around him he heard gunfire. In his headphones officers were calling to each other, shouting instructions, locations, warnings.

But all he saw was the still form in front.

Then there were hands on him and Agent Lacoste kneeling, bending over him. Her face worried and determined.

He saw her eyes move down his body, to his bloody hand clutching his abdomen. “Here, over here,” she shouted and was joined by a medic.

“The Chief,” Beauvoir whispered and motioned. Lacoste’s face fell as she looked.

As medics leaned over Beauvoir, putting pressure bandages on his wound, sticking needles into him, calling for a stretcher, Beauvoir watched Lacoste and a medic run to the Chief. They moved toward him but shooting erupted and they had to take cover.

Gamache lay motionless on the concrete floor just beyond their reach.

Finally Lacoste raced up the stairs and from her camera they saw her trace the shots to a gunman in a doorway above. She engaged him, eventually hitting him. Grabbing his gun she shouted, “Clear!”

The medic ran to Gamache. Across the floor Beauvoir strained to see.

Émile watched as the medic leaned over Gamache.

“Merde,” the medic whispered. Blood covered the side of the Chief Inspector’s head and ran into his ear and down his neck.

The medic looked up as Lacoste joined him. The Chief was coughing slightly, still alive. His eyes were half closed, glazed, and he gasped for breath.

“Chief, can you hear me?” She put her hands on either side of his head and lifted it, looking into his eyes. He focused and struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Hold this.” The medic grabbed a bandage and put it over the wound by Gamache’s left temple. Lacoste pressed down, holding it there, trying to stop the bleeding.

The Chief stirred, tried to focus, fighting for breath. The medic saw this, his brow furrowed, perplexed. Then he ripped open the Chief’s tactical vest and exhaled.

“Christ.”

Lacoste looked down. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

The Chief’s chest was covered in blood. The medic tore Gamache’s shirt, exposing his chest. And there, on the side, was a wound.

From across the room Beauvoir watched, but all he could see were the Chief’s legs, his polished black leather shoes on the floor moving slightly. But it was his hand Beauvoir stared at. The Chief’s right hand, bloody, tight, taut, straining. And in the headset he heard gasping. Struggling for breath. Gamache’s right arm outstretched, fingers reaching. His hand grabbing, trembling, as though the breath was just out of reach.

As medics lifted Beauvoir onto a stretcher he whispered over and over again, pleading, “No, no. Please.”

He heard Lacoste shout, “Chief!”

There was more coughing, weaker. Then silence.

And he saw Gamache’s right hand spasm, shudder. Then softly, like a snowflake, it fell.

And Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew Armand Gamache was dying.

On the uncomfortable plastic chairs, Beauvoir let out a small moan. The video had moved on. Shots of the squad engaging the remaining gunmen.

Ruth stared at the screen, her Scotch untouched.

“Chief!” Lacoste called again.

Gamache’s eyes were open slightly, staring. His lips moved. They could barely hear what he was saying. Trying to say.

“Reine . . . Marie. Reine . . . Marie.”

“I’ll tell her,” Lacoste whispered into his ear and he closed his eyes.

“His heart’s stopped,” the medic called and leaned over Gamache, preparing for CPR. “He’s in cardiac arrest.”

Another medic arrived and kneeling down he grabbed the other’s arm.

“No wait. Get me a syringe.”

“No fucking way. His heart’s stopped, we need to start it.”

“For God’s sake do something,” Lacoste shouted.

The second medic rifled through the medical kit. Finding a syringe he plunged it into the Chief’s side and broke the plunger off.

There was no reaction. Gamache lay still, blood on his face and chest. Eyes closed.

The three stared down. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Then, then. There was a slight sound. A small rasp.

They looked at each other.

Émile finally blinked. His eyes felt dry as though they’d been sandblasted and he took a deep breath.

He knew the rest of the story, of course, from calls to Reine-Marie and visits to the hospital. And the Radio-Canada news.

Four Sûreté officers killed, including the first by the side of the road, four others wounded. Eight terrorists dead, one captured. One critically wounded, not expected to survive. At first the news had reported the Chief Inspector among the dead. How that leaked out no one knew. How any of it leaked out no one knew.

Inspector Beauvoir had been badly hurt.

Émile had arrived that afternoon, driving straight from Quebec City to Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Montreal. There he found Reine-Marie and Annie. Daniel was on a flight back from Paris.

They looked wrung out, nothing left.

“He’s alive,” Reine-Marie had said, hugging Émile, holding him.

“Thank God for that,” he’d said, then seen Annie’s expression. “What is it?”

“The doctors think he’s had a stroke.”

Émile had taken a deep breath. “Do they know how bad?”

Annie shook her head and Reine-Marie put her arm around her daughter. “He’s alive, that’s all that matters.”

“Have you seen him?”

Reine-Marie nodded, unable now to speak. Unable to tell anyone what she’d seen. The oxygen, the monitors, the blood and bruising. His eyes closed. Unconscious.

And the doctor saying they didn’t know the extent of the damage. He could be blind. Paralyzed. He could have another one. The next twenty-four hours would tell.

But it didn’t matter. She’d held his hand, smoothed it, whispered to him.

He was alive.

The doctor had also explained the chest wound. The bullet had broken a rib which had punctured the lung causing it to collapse and collapsing the second. Crushing the life out of him. The wound must have happened early on, the breathing becoming more and more difficult, more labored, until it became critical. Fatal.

“The medic caught it,” the doctor said. “In time.”

He hadn’t added “just,” but he knew it to be the case.

Now the only worry was the head wound.

And so they’d waited, in their own world of the third floor of Hôtel-Dieu. An antiseptic world of hushed conversations, of soft fleet feet and stern faces.

Outside, the news flew around the continent, around the world.

A plot to blow up the La Grande dam.

It had been a decade in the planning. The progress so slow as to be invisible. The tools so primitive as to be dismissed.

Canadian and American government spokesmen refused to say how the plan was stopped, citing national security, but they did admit under close questioning that the shootout and deaths of four Sûreté officers had been part of it.

Chief Superintendent Francoeur was given, and took, credit for preventing a catastrophe.

Émile knew, as did anyone who’d had a glimpse inside the workings of major police departments, that what was being said was just a fraction of the truth.

And so, as the world chewed over these sensational findings, on the third floor of Hôtel-Dieu they waited. Jean-Guy Beauvoir came out of surgery and after a rocky day or so, began the long, slow climb back.

And after twelve hours Armand Gamache struggled awake. When he finally opened his eyes he saw Reine-Marie by his side, holding his hand.

“La Grande?” he rasped.

“Safe.”

“Jean-Guy?”

“He’ll be fine.”

When she returned to the waiting room where Émile, Annie, her husband David and Daniel sat, she was beaming.

“He’s resting. Not dancing yet, but he will.”

“Is he all right?” Annie asked, afraid yet to believe it, to let go of the dread too soon in case it was a trick, some jest of a sad God. She would never recover from the shock of being in her car, listening to Radio-Canada and hearing the bulletin. Her father . . .

“He will be,” said her mother. “He has some slight numbness down his right side.”

“Numbness?” asked Daniel.

“The doctors are happy,” she assured them. “They say it’s minor, and he’ll make a full recovery.”

She didn’t care. He could limp for the rest of his days. He was alive.

But within two days he was up and walking, haltingly. Two days after that he could make it down the corridor. Stopping at the rooms, to sit by the beds of men and women he’d trained and chosen and led into that factory.

Up and down the corridor he limped. Up and down. Up and down.

“What are you doing, Armand?” Reine-Marie had asked quietly as they walked, hand in hand. It had been five days since the shooting and his limp had all but disappeared, except when he first got up, or pushed too hard.

Without pausing he told her. “The funerals are next Sunday. I plan to be there.”

They took another few paces before she spoke. “You intend to be at the cathedral?”

“No. I intend to walk with the cortege.”

She watched him in profile. His face determined, his lips tight, his right hand squeezed into a fist against the only sign he’d had a stroke. A slight tremble, when he was tired or stressed.

“Tell me what I can do to help.”

“You can keep me company.”

“Always, mon coeur.”

He stopped and smiled at her. His face bruised, a bandage over his left brow.

But she didn’t care. He was alive.

The day of the funerals was clear and cold. It was mid-December and a wind rattled down from the Arctic and didn’t stop until it slammed into the men, women and children who lined the cortege route.

Four coffins, draped in the blue and white fleur-de-lys flag of Québec, sat on wagons pulled by solemn black horses. And behind them a long line of police officers from every community in Québec, from across Canada, from the United States and Britain, from Japan and France and Germany. From all over Europe.

And at the head, walking at slow march in dress uniform, were the Sûreté. And leading that column were Chief Superintendent Francoeur and all the other top-ranking officers. And behind them, alone, was Chief Inspector Gamache, at the head of his homicide division. Walking the two kilometers, only limping toward the very end. Face forward, eyes determined. Until the salute, and the guns.

He’d closed his eyes tight then and raised his face to the sky in a grimace, a moment of private sorrow he could no longer contain. His right hand clamped tight.

It became the image of grief. The image on every front page and every news program and every magazine cover.

Ruth reached out and clicked the video closed. They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” she finally said. “I don’t believe a word of it. All done on a soundstage I bet. Good effects, but the acting sucked. Popcorn?”

Beauvoir looked at her, holding out the plastic bowl.

He took a handful. Then they walked slowly through the blizzard, heads bowed into the wind, across the village green to Peter and Clara’s home. Halfway across, he took her arm. To steady her, or himself, he wasn’t really sure.

But she let him. They made their way to the little cottage, following the light through the storm. And once there, they sat in front of the fireplace and ate dinner. Together.

Armand Gamache rose.

“Are you all right?” Émile got up too.

Gamache sighed. “I just need time alone.” He looked at his friend. “Merci.”

He felt nauseous, physically sickened. Seeing those young men and women, shot. Killed. Again. Gunned down in dark corridors, again.

They’d been under his command. Hand-picked by him against Chief Superintendent Francoeur’s protests. He’d taken them anyway.

And he’d told them there were probably six gunmen in the place. Doubling what he’d been told. What Agent Nichol had told him.

There’re three gunmen, the message had said.

He’d taken six officers, all he could muster, plus Beauvoir and himself.

He thought it was enough. He was wrong.

“You can’t do this,” Chief Superintendent Francoeur had said, his voice low with warning. The Chief Superintendent had burst into his office as he’d prepared to leave. In his ear Paul Morin was singing the alphabet song. He sounded drunk, exhausted, at the end.

“Once more please,” Gamache said to Morin then whipped off his headset and Chief Superintendent Francoeur immediately stopped talking.

“You have all the information you need,” the Chief Inspector glared at Francoeur.

“Gleaned from an old Cree woman and a few sniff-heads? You think I’m going to act on that?”

“Information gathered by Agent Lacoste, who’s on her way back. She’s coming with me, as are six others. For your information, here are their names. I’ve alerted the tactical squad. They’re at your disposal.”

“To do what? There’s no way the La Grande dam is going to be destroyed. We’ve heard nothing about it on the channels. No one has. Not the feds, not the Americans, not even the British and they monitor everything. No one’s heard anything. Except you and that demented Cree elder.”

Francoeur stared at Gamache. The Chief Superintendent was so angry he was vibrating.

“That dam is going to be blown up in one hour and forty-three minutes. You have enough time to get there. You know where to be and what to do.”

Gamache’s voice, instead of rising, had lowered.

“You don’t give me orders,” Francoeur snarled. “You know nothing I don’t and I know no reason to go there.”

Gamache went to his desk and took out his gun. For an instant Francoeur looked frightened, then Gamache put the pistol on his belt and walked quickly up to the Chief Superintendent.

They glared at each other. Then Gamache spoke, softly, intensely.

“Please, Sylvain, if I have to beg I will. We’re both too old and tired for this. We need to stop this now. You’re right, it’s not my place to give you orders, I apologize. Please, please do as I ask.”

“No way. You have to give me more.”

“That’s all I have.”

“But it doesn’t make sense. No one would try to blow up the dam this way.”

“Why not?”

They’d been over this a hundred times. And there was no time left.

“Because it’s too rough. Like throwing a rock at an army.”

“And how did David slay Goliath?”

“Come on, this isn’t biblical and these aren’t biblical times.”

“But the same principle applies. Do the unexpected. This would work precisely because we won’t be expecting it. And while you might not see it as David and Goliath, the bombers certainly do.”

“What are you? Suddenly an expert in national security? You and your arrogance, you make me sick. You go stop that bomb if you really believe hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.”

“No. I’m going to get Paul Morin.”

“Morin? You’re saying you know where he is? We’ve been looking all night,” Francoeur waved to the army of officers in the outer office, trying to trace Morin. “And you’re telling me you know where he is?”

Francoeur was trembling with rage, his voice almost a scream.

Gamache waited. In his peripheral vision he could see the clock, ticking down.

“Magog. In an abandoned factory. Agent Nichol and Inspector Beauvoir found him by listening to the ambient sound.”

By listening to the spaces between words they’d found him.

“Please, Sylvain, go to La Grande. I’m begging you. If I’m wrong I’ll resign.”

“If we go there and you’re wrong I’ll bring you up on charges.”

Francoeur walked out of the office, out of the incident room. And disappeared.

Gamache glanced at the clock as he made for the door. One hour and forty-one minutes left. And Armand Gamache prayed, not for the first time that day, or the last.

“It could’ve been worse,” said Émile. “I mean, who knows who made this video? They could’ve made the entire operation look like a catastrophe. But it doesn’t. Tragic, yes. Terrible. But in many ways heroic. If the families have to watch, well . . .”

Gamache knew Émile was trying to be kind, trying to say the editing could have made him out to be a coward or a bumbling idiot. Could have looked like those who died had squandered their lives. Instead everyone had looked courageous. What was the word Émile used?

Heroic.

Gamache slowly climbed the steep stairs, Henri at his heels.

Well, he knew something Émile didn’t. He suspected who had made the video. And he knew why.

Not to make Gamache look bad, but to make him look good, too good. So good the Chief would feel as he did. A fraud. A fake. Lionized for nothing. Four Sûreté officers dead and Armand Gamache the hero.

Whoever had done this knew him well. And knew how to exact a price.

In shame.