World of Curiosities

CHAPTER 26

“Monsieur Beauvoir.” Sam got to his feet. “Is this table okay? I asked for the best one.”

“It’s fine. It’s perfect.”

Jean-Guy tried, he really did, to keep up that professional wall between them. To be courteous but cool to this young man. But as soon as he’d spotted Sam sitting alone at the far end of the bistro by the bathrooms, at the worst table, his resolve began to crumble.

By the time he greeted the young man, the wall was rubble. He once again felt the child in his arms, clutching his new Sûreté-issue coat. The small face buried in it to stifle the sobs.

Those tears, of a ten-year-old whose mother had just been murdered, had stained the coat so that each day, for years, when Agent Beauvoir put it on to go with the Chief Inspector to investigate other murders, he saw the marks.

Every day Agent Jean-Guy Beauvoir was reminded that, as Gamache had said, this was not a puzzle. It wasn’t an exercise. It wasn’t even a job. This was a sacred duty. To the dead, and those who wept.

“What would you like?” Sam asked. “And please, you’re my guest.”

“No, of course not. The Sûreté will pay.”

“Are you sure—” Sam stopped suddenly.

“What?”

“No, never mind.”

“Say it.”

Sam shifted uneasily, then leaned forward and said, “I just don’t think Monsieur Gamache would approve.”

Beauvoir didn’t know where to begin with that. The idea that he needed the Chief Inspector’s approval to put a lunch on a tab. Sam’s comment made him wonder if that was everyone’s perception. That he was that much of an underling.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, picking up the menu. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do. I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

“I won’t,” snapped Beauvoir.

They both ordered steak frites. The most expensive thing on the menu. But what the hell. He was allowed.

Snapping the menu shut, he said to Sam, “Did you go into the Gamache home the other night?”

“No, of course not. Is that what this’s about?”

“I need the truth.”

“Why would I go into the home of someone who doesn’t want me?”

Exactly, thought Jean-Guy, studying the man, the man-child, across from him. Why would he?

“Did Monsieur Gamache say I did? Why would he even think that?”

“Some objects were moved. It seems someone was there. And you made some sort of gesture to him the next morning. Like the clicking of a camera.”

Sam looked puzzled. Then Jean-Guy showed him, lifting his hand and moving his index finger up and down.

“That’s not a camera,” said Sam. “This’s a camera.” He mimicked hitting the red photo “button” on a smartphone. “I don’t know what this”—he did what Jean-Guy did—“is. And I can’t think when I would’ve even done it.”

“Yesterday morning, when you and Harriet were standing outside here, and the Chief Inspector was getting into his car.”

Sam thought for a moment, then his brow cleared and he laughed. “Oh, you mean this.”

He made another gesture, close but not exactly what Gamache had shown Beauvoir.

“I was pointing to Harriet and smiling. I think I even winked, so he’d know I was happy, am happy. Being with her makes me happy and I guess I wanted to show him.” Sam heaved a sigh and looked bashful. “I think I want his approval. Pathetic, isn’t it?” He looked up at Jean-Guy. “You know?”

It was a rhetorical question. But yes, Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew.

And Sam had explained it all. Of course that gesture, for a kid his age, would not be a camera. He’d probably never held a real camera in his life. When lunch was over, he’d have to tell Armand that he could relax, at least about that. Sam had not been in their home.

If anyone had violated the Gamaches’ privacy, it was Fiona, though Sam had not thrown his sister under the bus.

The meals arrived. Their steaks were charbroiled and covered in chimichurri sauce. The frites were thin and seasoned. Jean-Guy’s mouth was actually watering.

As Sam moved aside to let the server put down his plate, his phone fell to the floor. He bent to get it, but Jean-Guy beat him to it.

The phone, on recognizing Sam’s face, had popped open revealing a photo. Of Armand and Reine-Marie’s bedroom.

“What the hell is this?” Jean-Guy gripped the phone, practically shoving it in Sam’s face.

When Armand arrived in the loft, he found Myrna at the window seat, head in her hands. Crying.

We sat down and wept. And wept …

He sat down beside her and waited. And waited. Then he got up and did the only thing he knew might comfort Myrna. He went into the kitchen at the far end of the open loft, passing by the huge hole in the wall, and put on the kettle.

“You spoke to her?” he said when she joined him.

“Yes.” She watched him swirl the hot water around in the pot to warm it. “I fucked up.”

He turned to her. “I doubt that.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Given your suspicions, you had to warn her. Your heart was in the right place.”

“The road to hell, remember?”

“That’s not true. You know the difference between a lost young man and a deeply disturbed one. Harriet is young and does not. Do you think Sam Arsenault is safe?”

Myrna considered and shook her head.

“Do you think he’s sane?”

Again, she shook her head.

“Then how could you not say something? You knew what might happen and you did it anyway. You put her safety ahead of your relationship. That’s love.”

Taking their seats again, he leaned toward her. Over Myrna’s shoulder he could see the gaping hole in the wall and the yellow bands of police tape.

“Tell me about psychopaths.”