The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 8

Clara looked up as the door opened and a gust of cold air blew in, bringing with it Armand and Jean-Guy.

A pretzel she’d absently stuck in her hair, thinking it was a pencil, fell to the old pine floor. Stooping to pick it up, she popped it in her mouth and wondered just how many pencils she might have eaten, mistaking them for pretzels. Since it didn’t bear thinking of, she stopped.

“Huh,” said Myrna, also turning to look. “Didn’t expect to see them.”

She began to rock her large body out of the deep sofa. But stopped when she saw Armand’s face.

Beside her on the sofa Rosa the duck muttered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and also looked surprised. But then ducks often did.

“Who’s that?” asked the woman in the armchair closest to the fire. Unused to winter, she wore layers of itchy wool under her flowing fuchsia caftan. A wool scarf around her neck met the hijab covering her head, framing her lined face.

Though only in her early twenties, Haniya Daoud looked much older.

Her lips were thin in displeasure. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Cops,” said Ruth Zardo. “Sûreté du Québec. Brutal. Especially to people of color, as Myrna knows. Probably heard you were here.” She looked around. “Too late to run.”

“For chrissake, Ruth,” snapped Myrna. She turned to Haniya. “It’s not true.”

But it was too late. The newcomer was gripping Ruth’s thin arm. “Save me. I know what police do to people like me. You have to help me.” Her voice had risen in panic. “Please. I’m begging you.”

Ruth, seeing what she’d created, was desperately trying to walk it back. “No. No, no, no” was all she could get out.

Haniya started to wail and rock back and forth. Rosa let out a mighty “Fuuuuuuck.”

Only when Myrna started to laugh did Ruth get it. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Haniya. “Are you messing with me?”

“And why would I do that?” the young woman said, perfectly composed now and smiling.

But there was a sharp glint in her eye, which Myrna the psychologist and Clara the artist both recognized. It wasn’t amusement, it was malice.

Armand and Jean-Guy had taken off their coats and were making their way across the bistro, with its wooden beams and wide-plank floor. Huge fieldstone fireplaces on either end were lit and throwing warmth.

Neither man acknowledged their friends and neighbors. They kept their eyes forward and kept walking.

A hush had descended. Everyone in the bistro knew what had happened at the University that afternoon. Ruth gave them her usual greeting, but they ignored the raised finger.

Jean-Guy in particular looked grim.

Armand passed any number of places before choosing a small round table far from everyone else.

He pointed, indicating Jean-Guy should sit at the far seat. The one in the corner. Jean-Guy wondered if that was on purpose. Like a naughty child.

Very little of what the Chief Inspector did was without purpose.

As he squeezed in, Jean-Guy glanced at the group by the fireplace. How he wished they were headed there. To sit by the fire and talk about a day that had been uneventful. To hear how many books Ruth had stolen from Myrna, claiming to believe her bookstore was a library. To hear about Clara’s latest painting and watch crumbs drop from her hair as she moved her expressive hands through it.

To exchange insults with the crazy old poet, and pretend not to hear the mutterings of that odd duck. To be joined by Olivier and Gabri, at the end of their day running the bistro, and pretend not to be interested in gossip about who’d be at the New Year’s Eve party the next night, up at the big house on the hill.

As they’d walked over to their table, he’d noticed there was someone else sitting by the fire. Someone he didn’t recognize. An older woman in a hijab.

And it came to Jean-Guy who this must be. Myrna had said she’d be picking her up in Montréal that evening. There was much excitement in the village about the arrival of Haniya Daoud. A woman who’d endured so much. Survived so much. Spoken at the UN. Led a movement for social justice. Led so many others to freedom. Was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Myrna Landers, with the support of others in Three Pines, had been among the first to answer Haniya Daoud’s call for help. A human rights campaign was launched, in a corner of the world few seemed to know about and fewer still seemed to care about.

Madame Daoud was in Canada to thank Myrna and others for their support.

Now Jean-Guy wondered, in passing, if she’d be at the New Year’s Eve party. Did people like that go to parties, or was it too frivolous?

He also wondered if he’d be going, or still be stuck in the corner.

All this flashed through his mind as he sucked in his stomach, whose size was beginning to surprise him, and maneuvered into the seat.

“What will you have?” Armand asked.

“I’ll get it,” said Jean-Guy, struggling to stand up again.

“Sit. I will. What do you want?”

As Armand spoke, Olivier was making his way across the room to their table.

The bistro owner was smiling. Not fully, but warmly. Like everyone else, he’d heard what had happened. Seen the reports on the internet and television.

“Armand,” he said, and put a hand on his arm. “All right?”

Armand smiled thinly and nodded. “Fine.”

“I believe it. You?” he asked Jean-Guy.

“Okay.”

Olivier studied them for a moment, and while wanting to say something that would help, he could see that whatever was wrong, it was beyond his ability to fashion comfort into words.

So he offered what he could. “We have some lemon meringue pie going begging.”

“Just a sparkling water for me, patron,” said Armand. “Merci.”

“I’ll have a Diet Coke. Thanks.” Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave.

Olivier left, offering a glance of support to Jean-Guy. While he could not fathom what was up, he knew a world of trouble when he saw it.

As he made his way back to the bar, he headed off Gabri. His partner had been on his way over to greet Armand and Jean-Guy and commiserate.

“Don’t.”

They waited to talk until their drinks were put in front of them.

A slice of lemon bobbed in Armand’s sparkling water. Though he hadn’t asked for it, it was, Olivier knew, how he liked it. And a twist of lime in Jean-Guy’s drink. As he liked his.

Gabri had insisted on being the one to take them their orders. Large and naturally voluble, he didn’t say a word as he placed a wedge of lemon meringue pie between them.

“Merci,” said Armand, while Jean-Guy stared at it as though at a holy relic.

The toe of St. Jude, of lost causes. The knucklebone of Ste. Marguerite, the patron saint of people rejected by religious orders, which made her Jean-Guy’s favorite saint.

And now the holy tarte of St. Gabri. Though Jean-Guy knew even this offering could not work miracles. Unless Gabri could also bake a time machine, there’d be no answer to his prayers.

When Gabri left, a crushing silence descended.

The red, blue, and green Christmas lights on the huge pines on the village green played on Armand’s face. The cheery lights at stark contrast to the look in his eyes as Armand waited for his second-in-command to say something.

“Would you like my resignation?” asked Jean-Guy, quietly.

“I’d like an explanation first, then I’ll decide.”

“I’m sorry.”

Chief Inspector Gamache remained silent. Waiting for more. But his hands, clasped together on the table, tightened, until the knuckles were white and the intertwined fingers almost purple, suffused with trapped blood.

“I wanted to hear her for myself,” said Jean-Guy. “I wanted to see what it was about. To get a sense of how much support she really has. How convincing she could be. How dangerous she really is.”

Jean-Guy waited for his father-in-law to say something. But in the prolonged silence he realized that would not happen.

His father-in-law was not there.

Jean-Guy was sitting across from his boss. The head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. A man who’d once led the entire provincial police and who’d turned down the offer to head the national Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Instead Armand Gamache had returned to homicide. To hunt killers.

Sitting across from Jean-Guy was the man who’d found him years ago, banished to some remote Sûreté outpost. Stuck in the basement evidence locker because none of the other agents could stand working with him.

Chief Inspector Gamache, there to investigate a murder, had gone down to the locker, taken one look at Agent Beauvoir, and requested he be assigned to the case. The station commander was all too happy to do it, no doubt in hopes Agent Beauvoir would get himself killed. Or disgraced and fired. Either would work for the commander.

As they’d driven through the woods, to the side of the lake where the body had washed up, Chief Inspector Gamache had talked. In a quiet voice he’d instructed the young agent on what to do, and what not to do.

Once parked, Gamache had stopped Beauvoir from getting out of the car. He’d looked him square in the face, holding him there.

“There’s something else you need to know.”

“Yes, I’ve got it. Don’t disturb the evidence. Don’t touch the body. You’ve told me all that, and it’s pretty obvious.”

“There are,” said the Chief, unbothered and undeterred by what he’d just heard, “four sentences that lead to wisdom. Do with them as you will.”

No one had ever spoken to Beauvoir in that way.

Do with them as you will. Who talks like that?

But, more than that oddly formal phrase, no one in Beauvoir’s experience had ever strung together three words without saying “fuck,” or “calice,” or “merde.” Including, especially, his father. And his mother, for that matter. And they sure had never mentioned wisdom in his presence.

He stared at this older man, who spoke so softly. And Jean-Guy Beauvoir found himself actually listening.

“‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I was wrong.’ ‘I don’t know.’” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “‘I need help.’”

Beauvoir looked into Gamache’s eyes and in them he saw something else that was new. It was kindness.

It had so shocked him that he blushed. And blustered. And practically fell out of the car in his hurry to get away from something he didn’t understand, and that terrified him.

But he’d never forgotten. That moment. When he’d met kindness for the first time. And been shown the path to wisdom in four simple, though not easy, sentences.

Jean-Guy had often wondered exactly what the storied head of homicide had seen in the fucked-up, insecure, neurotic, and egotistical agent. Probably the same thing Gamache saw in his other recruits.

The homicide department was made up of the dregs, the refuse. The lost and the broken. But each had been found by the man sitting across from Beauvoir now.

The night before, over Idola’s crib, he’d begged Armand to let him be part of the team.

That morning, Armand had agreed. And assigned him the duty of securing the outside of the auditorium.

After the briefing and just before they’d opened the doors, the Chief Inspector had taken Lacoste and Beauvoir aside. Gamache had reached behind him and taken his own handgun off his belt, and given it to Jean-Guy.

“You said no—” Beauvoir began.

“I know what I said, but we need at least one officer with a weapon, in case. And it needs to be you, the senior officer outside the building. If there’s trouble—”

“I’ll be there, patron,” said Beauvoir, taking the weapon in its worn holster and attaching it to his belt.

But he hadn’t been.

He’d abandoned his post. Disregarded orders. Left a junior agent in charge outside. Not because some crisis had arisen inside, but because he wanted to see Robinson for himself.

The cheery light from the Christmas trees in the Chief Inspector’s eyes could not hide the outrage there. In fact, they somehow made it worse. Like the angry placards in crayon.

“I’ve never believed in the temporary insanity defense,” said Jean-Guy, finding his voice. “I thought it was bullshit. Now I believe it. It was a moment of insanity.”

“That’s your explanation? Temporary insanity?”

“I don’t know.” Beauvoir dropped his gaze to the table, then he looked back up into those eyes. “I don’t really know why I did it. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“I think you do know.” Gamache’s voice was strained, his anger barely contained.

“I don’t. I’ve asked myself over and over. I can’t explain it.”

“Of course you can,” said the Chief. “You’re just too afraid to look that deep.”

Jean-Guy felt a flush as his own anger rushed up his neck to his face, burning his cheeks.

“I need more than ‘I don’t know.’” Gamache’s eyes bored into Beauvoir’s. “You abandoned your post. You essentially left the entrance unsupervised. You took a weapon into an incendiary situation, the very thing I’d said must not be done. You endangered lives. Do you realize how close it came to a tragedy? Not the professor or me getting shot, but hundreds of people trampling each other to death? The children—”

Gamache stopped, unable to go on. Overcome with the nightmare vision of what might have been.

The lines down his face became crevices. There was a noise in his throat, as he gagged on his own words, his own rage. It was almost the rattle they’d heard too often, in those about to die. And this felt to Beauvoir like a sort of death. The end of something precious and, as it turned out, fragile.

Trust.

Jean-Guy watched in dismay, knowing if trust had died, he’d murdered it.

Gamache composed himself and finally got the words out. “You made it worse.”

The words were like a slap across Beauvoir’s face. And with it he seemed to wake up. To come to. And he saw with clarity why he’d done it. It might not be enough to satisfy the Chief Inspector, but it might satisfy his father-in-law.

“Idola—” Jean-Guy began, but only got the one word out.

“Don’t you dare blame your daughter. This isn’t about her and you know it.”

And that was it. Jean-Guy exploded.

“What I know … sir, is that I’m her father. You’re only her grandfather.” All bonds had broken and he was again free from all constraint. “You’re nothing. You’ll be long dead and buried, and she’ll still be living with us. Forever. And then, one day, she’ll be Honoré’s burden. So don’t you ever, ever fucking tell me what is or is not about my daughter. Because everything is.”

By the time he finished, his snarl had turned into a shout. His hands gripped the table, and in his anger, his sudden madness, he jerked it and the lemon meringue pie bounced off and crashed to the floor.

The bistro had grown quiet as patrons stared, then looked away. As though Jean-Guy had unexpectedly stripped down to his underwear. To what normally never showed.

And then, with that one word, that too fell. Until he was as naked as the day he was born.

Burden. Burden.

Another silence enveloped them, punctured only by Jean-Guy’s small gasping cries as he struggled for breath, and fought off the tears that were taking him under.

He shoved his chair back, or tried to. Tried to get up. To get away. But he was too tightly wedged in.

And still Gamache said nothing.

About to yell at him again, to scream at Gamache to let him go, Jean-Guy looked directly at the Chief. And saw tears in his father-in-law’s eyes.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Haniya Daoud.

She alone had continued to stare.

“Nothing,” said Clara. “They’ve had a hard day.”

“Yes.” Haniya recognized the larger, older cop, from the news reports. “Why don’t you like them? What’ve they done to you?”

“Nothing,” said Ruth.

“Well, they must’ve done something. When they came in, you did this.” Haniya held up her middle finger. “I believe it means ‘go fuck yourself.’”

Myrna’s brows shot up in surprise.

“It’s also a term of endearment,” said Ruth. “If you win the Nobel Peace Prize, you might start with that.”

Haniya Daoud smiled, but her eyes were hard as she stared at the elderly woman. Then over to the two Sûreté officers.

“They’re angry. Unstable. And no doubt armed.” She looked around. “I don’t think I like it here.”