The Beautiful Mystery

TWENTY-TWO

Jean-Guy Beauvoir grabbed the rolled-up plans of the monastery off the desk in the prior’s office. As he did he glanced at Gamache, who sat in the visitor’s chair. On his lap were the coroner’s and forensic reports.

Francoeur was waiting for Beauvoir in the Blessed Chapel and he had to hurry back. But still, he paused.

Gamache put his half-moon reading glasses on, then looked at Beauvoir.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped, Chief,” said Beauvoir. “I just…”

“Yes, I know what you ‘just.’” Gamache’s voice was unyielding. Little warmth left in it. “He’s no fool, you know, Jean-Guy. Don’t treat him like that. And never treat me like that.”

“Désolé,” said Beauvoir, and meant it. When he’d offered to take the Superintendent off Gamache’s hands he never dreamed this would be the Chief’s reaction. He thought the Chief would be relieved.

“This isn’t a game,” said Gamache.

“I know it isn’t, patron.”

Chief Inspector Gamache continued to stare at Beauvoir.

“Do not engage with Superintendent Francoeur. If he taunts, don’t respond. If he pushes you, don’t push back. Just smile and keep your eye on the goal. To solve the murder. That’s all. He’s come here with some agenda, we both know that. We don’t know what it is, and I for one don’t care. All that matters is solving the crime and getting home. Right?”

“Oui,” said Beauvoir. “D’accord.”

He nodded to Gamache and left. If Francoeur had an agenda, so did Beauvoir. And it was simple. To just keep the Superintendent away from the Chief. Whatever Francoeur had in mind, it had something to do with Gamache. And Beauvoir was not going to let that happen.

“For God’s sake, be careful.”

The Chief’s final words followed Beauvoir down the corridor and into the Blessed Chapel. As did his last view of Gamache, sitting in the chair, the dossiers on his lap. A paper in his hand.

And the slight tremor of the page as a draft caught it. Except that the air was completely still.

At first Beauvoir couldn’t see the Superintendent, then he found him by the wall, reading the plaque.

“So this’s the hidden door into the Chapter House,” said Francoeur, not looking up as Beauvoir approached. “The life of Gilbert of Sempringham isn’t interesting reading I’m afraid. Do you think that’s why they hid the room behind here? Knowing any possible invader would die of boredom on this very spot?”

Now Chief Superintendent Francoeur did look up, right into Beauvoir’s eyes.

There was humor there, Beauvoir saw. And confidence.

“I’m all yours, Inspector.”

Beauvoir regarded the Chief Superintendent and wondered why the man was so friendly to him. Francoeur knew without a doubt that Beauvoir was loyal to Gamache. Was one of the Chief’s men. And while Francoeur baited and goaded and insulted the Chief, he was only extremely pleasant, charming even, to Beauvoir.

Beauvoir grew even more guarded. A frontal attack was one thing, but this slimy attempt at camaraderie was something else. Still, the longer he could keep this man away from the Chief, the better.

“The stairs are over here.” The two Sûreté men walked to the corner of the chapel, where Beauvoir opened a door. Worn stone steps led down. They were well lit and the men descended until finally they were in the basement. Beauvoir stood, not on dirt as he’d expected, but on huge slabs of slate.

The ceilings were high and vaulted.

“The Gilbertines don’t seem to do anything half-assed,” said Francoeur.

Beauvoir didn’t answer, but it was exactly what he’d been thinking. It was cooler down there, though not cold, and he suspected the temperature would stay much the same even as the seasons above changed.

Large wrought-iron candleholders were bolted to the stone, but the light came from naked bulbs strung along the walls and ceiling.

“Where to?” Francoeur asked.

Beauvoir looked this way. Then that. Not at all sure. His plan, he realized, hadn’t been thought all the way through. He’d expected to arrive in the basement and for some reason find Frère Raymond right there.

Now he felt a fool. If he’d been with Chief Inspector Gamache he’d have made a joke and they’d have gone looking for Frère Raymond together. But he wasn’t with Gamache. He was with the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. And Francoeur was staring at Beauvoir. He wasn’t angry. Instead he looked patient, as though working with a rookie agent who was just doing his bumbling best.

Beauvoir could have slapped that look right off his face.

Instead he smiled.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

He was the one who’d invited the Superintendent along, after all. He had to at least appear happy to have him. To cover his uncertainty, Beauvoir walked over to one of the stone walls and put his hand on it.

“Frère Raymond told me over lunch that the foundations are cracking,” said Beauvoir, examining the stone, as though this was the plan all along. He mentally kicked himself for not making arrangements with the monk.

“Vraiment?” asked Francoeur, though he seemed less than interested. “What does that mean?”

“It means Saint-Gilbert is collapsing. He says it’ll fall down completely within ten years.”

Now he had Francoeur’s attention. The Superintendent walked over to the wall across from Beauvoir and examined it.

“Looks fine to me,” he said.

It looked fine to Beauvoir too. No gaping cracks, no roots breaking through. Both men peered around. It was magnificent. Another engineering marvel by Dom Clément.

The stone walls ran under the entire monastery. It reminded Beauvoir of the Montréal metro system, only without the humming subway trains. Four cavernous corridors, like tunnels, stretched away from them. All well lit. All swept clean. Nothing out of place.

No murder weapon lying around. And no pine forest growing out of the walls.

But if Frère Raymond was to be believed, Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups was falling in on itself. And while Beauvoir had no great fondness for monks or priests or churches or abbeys, he discovered he’d be sorry if this one disappeared.

And he’d be very sorry if it disappeared while they were standing in the basement.

The sound of a door closing echoed toward them, and Francoeur started walking in that direction, not waiting to see if Beauvoir followed. As though it didn’t matter to him, so insignificant and incompetent was Inspector Beauvoir.

“Shithead,” mumbled Beauvoir.

“Sound travels down here, you know,” said Francoeur, without turning around.

Despite Gamache’s warnings. Despite his own pledges, Beauvoir had already allowed himself to be goaded. Allowed his feelings to flare.

But maybe it was a good thing, thought Beauvoir, as he slowly followed Francoeur. Maybe Gamache was wrong, and Francoeur needed to know that Beauvoir wasn’t afraid of him. Francoeur needed to know he was dealing with a grown man, not some kid out of the academy, in awe of the title of Chief Superintendent. Some kid he could manipulate.

Yes, thought Beauvoir as he walked a few steps behind the striding Superintendent, that wasn’t a mistake at all.

They arrived at a closed door. Beauvoir knocked. There was a long pause. Francoeur reached for the handle just as the door opened. Frère Raymond stood there. He looked alarmed, but on seeing them his expression changed to one of exasperation.

“Are you trying to scare me to death? You could’ve been the murderer.”

“They rarely knock,” said Beauvoir.

He turned, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Superintendent looking at Frère Raymond, completely bewildered.

Francoeur appeared not just surprised but stunned by this rough-hewn subterranean monk, who spoke with the ancient dialect. It was as though the door had opened and a monk from the first congregation, from Dom Clément’s community, had stepped out.

“Where’re you from, mon frère?” Francoeur finally asked.

And now it was Beauvoir’s turn to be surprised. As was Frère Raymond.

Chief Superintendent Francoeur had asked the question in the same broad accent as the monk’s. Beauvoir examined the Superintendent, to see if he was making fun of the monk, but he wasn’t. In fact, his expression was one of delight.

“Saint-Felix-de-Beauce,” said Frère Raymond. “You?”

“Saint-Gédéon-de-Beauce,” said Francoeur. “Just down the road.”

What followed was a rapid exchange between the men that was almost unintelligible to Beauvoir. Finally Frère Raymond turned to Beauvoir.

“This man’s grandfather and my great-uncle rebuilt the church in Saint-Ephrem after the fire.”

Frère Raymond motioned the men into the room. It too was huge. Wide and long, running the balance of the corridor. The monk gave them a tour, explaining the geothermal system, the ventilation system, the hot water system, the filtration system. The septic system. All the systems.

Beauvoir tried to remain focused, in case anything useful was said, but eventually his mind grew numb. At the end of the tour Frère Raymond walked to a cabinet and brought from it a bottle and three glasses.

“This calls for a celebration,” he said. “It’s not often I meet a neighbor. A friend of mine is a Benedictine and sends me this.” Frère Raymond handed Beauvoir the dusty bottle. “Like a slug?”

Beauvoir examined the bottle. It was B&B. Brandy and Bénédictine. Not made, fortunately, from fermented monks, though he suspected there were enough of those. But by the Benedictines themselves, from a long-secret recipe.

The three men pulled chairs around a drafting table and sat.

Frère Raymond poured. “Santé,” he said, tipping the deep amber liquid toward his rare guests.

“Santé,” Beauvoir said and brought it to his lips. He could smell it, rich and full, sweet but also medicinal. His eyes burned from the strength of it. The B&B seared his throat as he swallowed, then the alcohol exploded into his gut, and brought tears to his eyes.

And it was good.

“So, mon frère,” Superintendent Francoeur cleared his throat, then began again. His accent was back to where Beauvoir recognized it, as though the B&B had burned the ancient dialect away. “Inspector Beauvoir here has some questions.”

Beauvoir shot him an annoyed look. It was a small dig. As though he needed Francoeur to pave the way. But Beauvoir simply smiled and thanked the Superintendent. Then he unfurled the scroll and watched Frère Raymond for a reaction. But there was none, beyond the polite nodding as the monk stood and bent over the old plan of the monastery.

“Have you seen this before?” asked Beauvoir.

“Many times.” He looked into Beauvoir’s face. “I consider this an old friend.” His lean hand hovered over the vellum. “Practically memorized it when we were looking to put in the geothermal.” He turned back to the plan, an affectionate look on his face. “It’s beautiful.”

“But is it accurate?”

“Well, not these bits.” The monk pointed to the gardens. “But the rest is surprisingly precise.”

Frère Raymond sat back down and launched into an explanation of how the first monks, back in the mid-1600s, would have built the monastery. How they did measurements. How they transported rocks. How they dug.

“It would’ve taken them years and years,” said Raymond, warming to his topic. “Decades. Just to dig the basement. Imagine that.”

Beauvoir found himself fascinated. It was indeed a feat of mammoth proportions. These men had fled the Inquisition to come here. Where they were met by a climate so savage it could kill within days. They were met by bears and wolves and all sorts of strange, feral beasts. By black flies so ravenous they’d strip a newborn moose. By deer flies so persistent they’d drive a saint to insanity.

How horrible was the Inquisition, that this was better?

And instead of building some modest wooden shelter, they’d built this.

It beggared belief.

Who had that sort of discipline? That sort of patience? Monks, that was who. But maybe, with Frère Raymond, it was also bred into him. Like Beauvoir’s grandmother’s patience. With blight, and drought, and hail, and floods. With unkindness. With encroaching towns, and clever new neighbors.

Beauvoir looked over at Superintendent Francoeur, a son of the same soil as the monk, and as Beauvoir’s grandparents.

What patient plan was he working on, even now? Was it years in the making? Was he constructing it stone by stone? And what part of that plan had brought the Superintendent here?

Beauvoir knew he himself would have to be patient if he was to find out, though he was not exactly overflowing with that quality.

Frère Raymond droned on. And on.

After a while Beauvoir lost interest. Frère Raymond had the rare gift of turning a mesmerizing story into tedium. It was a sort of alchemy. Another transmutation.

Finally, as silence penetrated Beauvoir’s now numb skull, he emerged from his reverie.

“Then,” Beauvoir grasped at the last relevant thing he remembered, “the plan is accurate?”

“It’s accurate enough so that I didn’t need to draw another plan when the new system was going in. The thing with geothermal—”

“Yes, I know. Merci.” Beauvoir was damned if he was going to be provoked by one man and bored to death by another. “What I want to know is, is it possible there’s a room hidden somewhere in the abbey—”

He was interrupted by a snort. “You don’t believe that old wives’ tale, do you?” asked Frère Raymond.

“It’s an old monks’ tale. One you’ve obviously heard.”

“As I’ve heard of Atlantis and Santa Claus and unicorns. But I don’t expect to find them in the abbey.”

“But you do expect to find God,” said Beauvoir.

Far from looking insulted, Frère Raymond smiled. “Believe me, Inspector, even you will find God here before you’ll find any hidden room. Or a treasure. You think we could put in a geothermal system and not have found a hidden room? You think we could put in the solar panels, electricity, running water and plumbing, and not have found it?”

“No,” said Jean-Guy. “I don’t think that’s possible. I think it would have been found.”

The meaning in his voice wasn’t lost on the monk, but instead of being defensive he simply smiled.

“Listen, my son,” said Frère Raymond, speaking slowly. Beauvoir was getting very tired of being spoken to as though he was their son. A child. “That was just a story the old monks told each other to pass the time on long winter nights. It was a bit of fun. Nothing more. There’s no hidden room. No treasure.”

Frère Raymond leaned forward, his hands together in front of him, his elbows resting on his thin knees. “What’re you really looking for?”

“The man who killed your prior.”

“Well, you won’t find him down here.”

There was a moment as the two men looked at each other, and the cool atmosphere crackled.

“I wonder if we’ll find the murder weapon down here then,” said Beauvoir.

“A rock?”

“Why do you think it was a rock?”

“Because that’s what you told us. We all understood Frère Mathieu was killed by a rock to the head.”

“Well, the coroner’s report says the weapon was more likely a length of pipe, or something like it. Do you have any?”

Frère Raymond got up and led him to a door. He switched on a light and they saw a room no larger than the monks’ cells. There was shelving on the walls, and everything was neatly arranged. Boards, nails, screws, hammers, old pieces of broken wrought iron, all the miscellanies of any household, though considerably less than most.

And leaning up in the corner were lengths of piping. Beauvoir moved over there, but after a moment he turned back to Frère Raymond.

“Is this all you have?” Beauvoir asked.

“We try to reuse everything. That’s it.”

The Sûreté officer turned back to the corner. There were pipes there, all right, but none shorter than five feet, most considerably longer. The killer might have used one to pole vault over the wall, but not to actually brain the prior.

“Where could someone find another piece of pipe?” Beauvoir asked as they left the room and closed the door.

“I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing we leave lying around.”

Beauvoir nodded. He could see that. The basement was pristine. And he knew if there was a length of pipe to be found, Frère Raymond would know about it.

He was the abbot down here. The master of this underworld. And while the abbey above seemed filled with incense and mystery, music and odd, dancing light, down here everything felt organized and clean. And constant. The temperature, the light, all unchanging.

Beauvoir liked it. There was no creativity, nothing beautiful in this netherworld. But neither was there chaos.

“The abbot says he came down yesterday morning, after Lauds, but that you weren’t here.”

“After Lauds I work in the garden. The abbot knows that.” Frère Raymond’s voice was light and friendly.

“Which garden?”

“The vegetable garden. I saw you there this morning.” He turned to Superintendent Francoeur. “And I saw you arrive. Very dramatic.”

“You were there?” asked Beauvoir. “In the garden?”

Frère Raymond nodded. “Apparently all monks look alike.”

“Did anyone see you?” Beauvoir asked.

“In the garden? Well, I didn’t talk to anyone, but I wasn’t exactly invisible.”

“So it’s possible you weren’t there?”

“No, it’s not possible. It’s possible I wasn’t seen, but I was there. What is possible is that the abbot wasn’t here. There was no one at all to see him down here.”

“He says he came to look at the geothermal system. Does that sound likely?”

“It does not.”

“Why not?”

“The abbot knows nothing about all this.” Frère Raymond waved to the mechanics. “And when I try to explain he loses interest.”

“Then you think he wasn’t here yesterday, after your prayers?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you think he was?”

The monk stood silent. They’re like rocks, thought Beauvoir. Big black rocks. Like rocks, their natural state was to be silent. And still. Speaking was unnatural to them.

Beauvoir knew of only one way to break a rock.

“You think he was in the garden, don’t you?” said Beauvoir. His voice no longer quite so friendly.

Still the monk stared.

“Not the vegetable garden, of course,” Beauvoir continued, taking a step closer to Frère Raymond, “but his own garden. The abbot’s private garden.”

Frère Raymond made no sound. Made no movement. Did not recoil as Beauvoir advanced.

“You think the abbot wasn’t alone in his garden.”

Beauvoir’s voice was rising. Filling the cavern. Bouncing off the walls. In his peripheral vision he could see the Superintendent, and thought he heard a cough. A clearing of his throat. No doubt to stop this audacious and inappropriate agent.

To correct him. To get Beauvoir to back down, back away, back off this religieux.

But Beauvoir would not. Frère Raymond, for all his gentleness, all his passion for mechanical things, for all he sounded like Beauvoir’s grandfather, was hiding something. In a convenient silence.

“You think the prior was there as well.”

Beauvoir’s words were clipped, hard. Like pelting the stone monk with pebbles. The words bounced off Frère Raymond, but they were having an effect. Beauvoir took another step forward. He was close enough now to see alarm in Frère Raymond’s eyes.

“You’ve all but led us to this conclusion,” said Beauvoir. “Have the guts to go all the way. To say what you really think.”

The only way to break a stone, Beauvoir knew, was to pound it. And keep pounding.

“Or do you just insinuate, hint, gossip?” sneered Beauvoir. “And expect braver men to do your dirty work. You’re willing to throw the abbot to the wolves, you just don’t want it on your conscience. Instead you imply, suggest. You all but wink at us. But you don’t have the guts to stand up and say what you really believe. Fucking hypocrite.”

Frère Raymond took a step back. The pebbles had turned to stones. And Beauvoir was making direct hits.

“What a pathetic excuse for a man you are,” Beauvoir continued. “Look at you. You pray and sprinkle holy water and light incense and pretend to believe in God. But you only stand up to run away. Just like the old monks ran away. They came to Québec, to hide, and you’ve come down here. Hiding in your basement. Organizing things, cleaning, tidying. Explaining. While up above the real work is happening. The messy work of finding God. The messy fucking work of finding a murderer.”

Beauvoir was so close to Frère Raymond he could smell the brandy and Bénédictine on his breath.

“You think you know who did it? Well, tell us. Say the words.” Beauvoir’s voice was rising until he was shouting into Frère Raymond’s face. “Say the words.”

Now Frère Raymond looked frightened.

“You don’t understand,” he stammered. “I’ve said too much.”

“You haven’t even begun. What do you know?”

“We’re supposed to be loyal to our abbots,” Raymond said, sliding away from Beauvoir. He turned to look at Francoeur, his voice pleading. “When we join a monastery, our loyalty isn’t to Rome or even to the local archbishop or bishop. It’s to the abbot. It’s part of our vows, our devotion.”

“Look at me,” Beauvoir demanded. “Don’t look at him. It’s me you’re answering to now.”

Frère Raymond really did look frightened, and Beauvoir wondered if this monk actually believed in God. And he wondered if Frère Raymond believed God would strike him dead for speaking. And he wondered who could be loyal to a God like that.

“I never thought it would go this far,” Frère Raymond whispered. “Who could’ve known?”

He was pleading with Beauvoir now. But for what? Understanding? Forgiveness.

He’d get neither from Beauvoir. The Inspector wanted only one thing. To solve the murder and get home, as Gamache said. Just get the fuck out of there. And away from Francoeur, who’d sat cross-legged and remotely interested throughout.

“What did you think would happen?” Beauvoir pushed.

“I thought the prior would win.”

Frère Raymond had finally cracked. And now the words tumbled out.

“I thought after some debate the abbot would come to his senses. He’d finally see that doing another recording was the right thing to do. Even without the issue of the foundations.” Frère Raymond sunk to his seat and looked stunned. “We’d already done one recording, you see. How much harm could another do? And it would save the monastery. It would save Saint-Gilbert. How could that possibly be wrong?”

He searched Beauvoir’s eyes, as though expecting to find an answer there.

There was none.

In fact, Beauvoir was unexpectedly faced with a new mystery. When Frère Raymond had cracked more than just words had come out. A whole new voice had rushed out of the monk. One without the ancient dialect.

The thick accent was gone.

He spoke now in the cultured French of scholars and diplomats. The lingua franca.

Was he finally speaking the truth? Beauvoir wondered. Did Frère Raymond want to make sure, after all this struggle, he wasn’t misunderstood? That Beauvoir would grasp each and every painful word?

But far from having the impression Frère Raymond had dropped the act, Beauvoir suspected the monk had just assumed one. This was the voice his grandmother had used when she spoke to the new neighbors. And the notary. And the priests.

It was not her real voice. That she kept for people she trusted.

“When did you decide to defy your abbot?” Beauvoir asked.

Frère Raymond hesitated. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do. When did you realize he wasn’t going to change his mind and agree to the recordings?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“But you were afraid that’s what he’d announce. In the Chapter House. That there’d be no second recording. And once the abbot pronounced, it was game over.”

“I’m not his confidant,” said Raymond. “I didn’t know what the abbot was going to do.”

“But you couldn’t risk it,” Beauvoir pushed. “You’d promised the abbot not to tell anyone else about the foundations, but you decided to break that promise. To defy the abbot.”

“I didn’t.”

“Of course you did. You hated the abbot. And you love the abbey. You know it better than anyone, don’t you? You know every stone, every inch, every chip. And every crack. You could save Saint-Gilbert. But you needed help. The abbot was a fool. Praying for a miracle that had already happened. You’d been given the means to repair the foundation. Your voices. The recordings. But the abbot wasn’t listening. So you switched your loyalty to the prior. To the one man who might save Saint-Gilbert.”

“No,” Frère Raymond insisted.

“You told the prior.”

“No.”

“How many times are you going to deny it, mon frère?” Beauvoir growled.

“I never told the prior.”

The monk was almost weeping now, and finally Beauvoir stepped back. He glanced at Superintendent Francoeur, who was looking grave. Then he looked back at Frère Raymond.

“You told the prior, hoping to save Saint-Gilbert, but instead you sent him to his death.” Beauvoir’s voice was matter-of-fact. “And now you hide down here and pretend that isn’t true.”

Beauvoir turned and picked up the old plans.

“Tell me what you believe happened in that garden, Frère Raymond.”

The monk’s lips were moving but no sound came out.

“Tell me.”

He stared at the monk, whose eyes were now closed.

“Speak,” demanded Beauvoir. Then he heard a soft murmur.

“Hail Mary, full of grace…”

Frère Raymond was praying. But for what? Beauvoir wondered. For the prior to rise up? For the cracks to close?

The monk’s eyes opened and he looked at the Inspector with such gentleness, Beauvoir almost had to steady himself against the wall. They were his grandmother’s eyes. Patient and kindly. And forgiving.

Beauvoir saw then that Frère Raymond was praying for him.

Armand Gamache slowly closed the last dossier. He’d read it twice, pausing each time over one phrase in the coroner’s report.

The victim, Frère Mathieu, had not died immediately.

Of course, they already knew that. They could see that he’d crawled away, until there was no more “away” left. And there the dying man had curled into a ball. The very shape his mother had carried. Had comforted, when he’d entered this world, naked and crying.

And yesterday, Mathieu had curled up again, to leave this world.

Yes, it had been clear to Gamache and all the other investigators, and probably the abbot and the monks who’d prayed over the body, that Frère Mathieu had taken some time to die.

But they didn’t know how long.

Until now.

Chief Inspector Gamache got up and, taking the dossier with him, he left the prior’s office.

“Inspector Beauvoir,” Superintendent Francoeur’s voice was raised, “I need to speak with you.”

Beauvoir took another few steps along the basement corridor, then turned around.

“What the fuck did you expect me to do?” he demanded. “Just let him lie? This is a murder investigation. If you don’t like how messy it gets, then get out of the way.”

“Oh, I can cope with the mess,” said Francoeur, his voice hard but steady. “I just didn’t expect you to handle it in quite that way.”

“Is that right?” said Beauvoir, his voice filled with contempt. No need to hide it now. “And how’d you expect me to handle it?”

“Like a man without balls.”

This so surprised Beauvoir he didn’t know what to say. Instead he stared as Francoeur walked past him and up the stairs.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Francoeur stopped, his back to Beauvoir. Then he turned. His face was serious as he examined the man in front of him.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me.”

Francoeur smiled, shook his head, and continued up the stairs. After a moment Beauvoir ran after him, taking the worn stone steps two at a time until he’d caught up.

Francoeur opened the door just as Beauvoir arrived. They heard the sound of hard shoes on the stone floor of the Blessed Chapel, and saw Chief Inspector Gamache walking with purpose toward the corridor leading to the abbot’s office and garden.

Both men, as though by mutual consent, stayed quiet until the door into the hallway had closed and the sound of steps vanished.

“Tell me,” Beauvoir demanded.

“You’re supposed to be a trained investigator with the Sûreté du Québec. You figure it out.”

“Supposed to be?” Beauvoir called to the retreating back. “Supposed to be?”

The words echoed and grew and bounced back to Beauvoir without apparently ever reaching Francoeur.