World of Curiosities

CHAPTER 5

They’d taken their seats in the increasingly warm, increasingly stuffy auditorium.

Jean-Guy had arrived and was sitting, perspiring, on the other side of Reine-Marie. His knee bounced up and down. He might still get to the barbecue in time for a burger. Or two. If they started soon.

Though he knew his agitation had very little to do with the burgers. That was a distraction, a counterirritant, so he didn’t have to think about why they were there. And who else would be.

The hubbub slowly died down, then a stir could be heard as those at the back of the room got to their feet. Like a wave at a hockey game, though far more polite and contained, the audience rose row by row as the Chancellor and President of the Université de Montréal, as the professors and board of governors and honored guests, entered in procession.

They wore flowing black robes and caps, some of which were stiff and covered in silk, some velvety soft and floppy.

What would look ludicrous out on the street was impressive here.

The procession was solemn. Reflecting the importance of this day.

After they’d taken their places on the stage, the President nodded and the next procession began. This one was far different. Friends and family members, already on their feet, began applauding, unable to contain their excitement.

Some whistled, some shouted names. No doubt embarrassing, and secretly delighting, the young woman or man. Phones were held high, recording the event. To be shown later to friends and relatives who hoped the dinner was delicious enough to warrant having to watch.

The procession became a parade, a celebration, as graduates in their caps and gowns entered the hall in alphabetical order, to cheers from relieved and a few privately surprised parents.

Watching this, Jean-Guy, despite the dark stains under his armpits and the rumble in his stomach and his slight foreboding, could not contain a smile. One that grew as more young people arrived.

Their joy was infectious.

He thought of the day he and Annie would rise up and applaud as Honoré entered just such an auditorium. Idola never would, of course. But she had other gifts. Not everyone was cut out for academia.

He looked across Reine-Marie, to Armand. He actually looked like he might cry. Was that possible? He was certainly gripped with a strong emotion, probably never having dreamed this day would come.

Armand and Reine-Marie craned their necks to find her in the crowd. Fiona Arsenault.

And then, as Jean-Guy watched, Armand’s expression changed. It first froze and then the smile melted away, leaving something cold and flinty behind.

Jean-Guy followed Armand’s eyes, though he knew what, who, he’d find at the other end.

And sure enough. There he was. A young man, still handsome, perhaps even more handsome than when Beauvoir had first seen him. The same day he’d first met the Chief Inspector.

The young man was looking past the stream of joyful graduates. Past the cheering and applauding parents. He paused briefly to look at Jean-Guy and smiled in recognition before moving on. Past Reine-Marie.

Sam Arsenault’s stare landed on Chief Inspector Gamache, and stayed there.

“Turn right here,” said Gamache.

“But the detachment’s that way.” Agent Beauvoir jerked his head to the left.

“We’re not going to the detachment.”

“Then where … Oh.”

He drove in silence while Gamache reread the police report. Familiarizing himself with the family. With all those who’d been interviewed in an effort to find the missing woman.

It didn’t take long.

There was no mention of the children’s father or Clotilde’s partner. No mention of relatives or even friends. Neighbors were interviewed, but that was about all.

Clotilde Arsenault and her children had moved to the community six years earlier from a town down south.

She was a known prostitute and addict. But not, it seemed, a dealer.

Then he reread the news stories, which were, shamefully, more detailed and enlightening than the official police report. But even they had scant solid information.

No one knew anything, though he sensed they were not trying very hard. No one had seen her the day she disappeared. Or admitted—Gamache automatically inserted the qualifier—to seeing her.

There was about these interviews the whiff of wishful thinking. That Clotilde Arsenault was indeed gone. Forever.

The ambivalence was slightly softened by sympathy for her children. Though even then not as much as Gamache would have thought.

The sister and brother, ages thirteen and ten, respectively, lived alone with their mother. They’d gone to the police saying she hadn’t come home. She’d been away overnight before but never without telling them, and never two nights in a row.

They were worried.

The girl, Fiona, looked younger than her age. The boy, Samuel, looked older than his years.

Gamache searched the police report to see who was looking after the children in their mother’s absence but couldn’t find a name.

“Captain Dagenais, it’s Gamache,” he said into his phone. “Can you tell me who’s staying with Clotilde Arsenault’s children? Yes, we’ve positively identified her. I’m on my way over there now. I need to know—I’m sorry?”

Beauvoir glanced over at the Chief Inspector. Gamache’s eyes had hardened, his face grown rigid as he struggled to contain his outrage. To not let his rage out.

“Are you telling me that two children came to you about their missing mother, and you sent them home alone?” There was silence as Gamache listened, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his phone. “I don’t care that the girl is mature. She’s still a child. Her mother’s missing. Someone should’ve been found to stay with them, a friend, a state-appointed guardian, one of your agents. We’ll discuss this later. Send someone now. Then put in an urgent call to Child Protection.”

He hung up, cutting off the tiny, whiny voice.

“He’s a real—” Beauvoir began.

“That’s enough, Agent Beauvoir,” snapped Gamache, and looked out at the gloom. The sun set early in November, and even earlier this far north. The light swallowed by the mountains and ancient forests.

“We’re here.” The car turned into a small, single-story home.

The vehicle was barely stopped when Gamache got out and walked quickly up the front path, righting a rusted and dented garbage can blocking the way.

While part of Gamache wished he could give these children a few more moments of blissful ignorance, a few more minutes when their mother might still be alive, the Chief Inspector knew that false hope was not a kindness.

If they were watching, and he suspected they were, they’d have seen the car drive up, and they’d know. They probably knew, deep down, when they’d made the missing person report.

Their mother was not coming home.

He needed to put them out of that misery, and into the next. A loss like this was a progression of miseries, like stepping-stones. Until they reached the other side. The new continent. Where the terrible reality lived, and the sun never fully came out again. But where, with time and help, they might find acceptance and, with that, peace.

He knew, from experience, that there was no avoiding this pain. In a sense, they were fortunate. Their mother had been found and, as horrific as that was, the not knowing would have been worse.

It was cold comfort at best.

Agent Beauvoir was not in as much of a hurry to get to the door. With each step forward, the realization of what was about to happen dawned. What had started as a career opportunity was mutating into a human tragedy.

The Chief Inspector had barely raised his fist to knock when the door opened.

“Oui?”

The girl stood there, small for her age, thin, her eyes wide and filled with a plea.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

And yet, thought Beauvoir, she’d opened the door. She could have hidden. Pretended they weren’t home. She could have lived in blissful, or semi-blissful, ignorance for a little while longer.

But instead, the girl had chosen to face the truth.

He wanted to grab the Chief Inspector’s arm and drag him away, muttering apologies to the girl. They had the wrong home. The wrong person.

Never mind …

But he didn’t, of course.

“Fiona?” said Gamache, his voice gentle and steady. “My name is Armand Gamache. I’m with the Sûreté. This is my colleague Jean-Guy Beauvoir.” He paused. “We have news.” Pause. “May we come in?”

She didn’t ask why. She didn’t say anything, just nodded and backed up.

The home was barely more than a trailer. Single-story, with junk on the front yard and a rusty wreck of a car on blocks in the drive. Shingles had blown off the roof, and the siding was chipped and dirty, with green mold growing in places. Some rotted boards had pulled away, some had fallen off. It could barely be described as a structure. It was the bricks-and-mortar version of Clotilde Arsenault.

And yet, it was not, Beauvoir noted, made of brick. In fact, there wasn’t a brick in sight.

His face opened in realization. That’s what the Chief had meant when he said it was clear that Clotilde had been killed somewhere else and dumped. Had she been killed at the lake, it would have been with a rock. Or a knife. Or a gun. Or a scarf. Or a piece of petrified driftwood. Not a brick.

No. She was murdered where her killer could grab a brick and smash her with it.

As he followed the Chief Inspector through the door, he picked up a scent. It wasn’t the odor Jean-Guy had expected. He’d braced for the reek of sweat and decay. Of cheap drugstore perfume and stale makeup.

The ghost of Clotilde Arsenault.

Instead, what met them was the familiar and soothing scent of lemon cleaner.

But the most obvious sensation was noise. There were bells and applause and people shouting. It was a game show on a television turned up full blast.

Gamache looked around, quickly taking in his surroundings. The sounds. The smells. The feel.

The walls were covered in faux-wood paneling. There were scratches and dents and holes the size and shape of fists in the walls.

To their left was an opening into the living room, where the sound was coming from.

Straight ahead, down a short, dim corridor, Gamache could see a sink and a stove. The counters uncluttered.

While dreary, the home was neat and tidy. And clean. Almost sparkling. Given how Clotilde looked after herself, he’d expected her home, her children, to be in the same state of neglect.

And Gamache was reminded, yet again, of the folly of expectation. Especially in his job. How easy it was to go down the wrong road and turn his back on the real threat escaping down another path. Or creeping up behind.

The girl’s sweater and jeans were worn but washed. Her hair, no longer in pigtails, was long and blond and shiny. Not with grease but from a recent shampoo. Fiona Arsenault was about the same age as Annie, his daughter. Slightly younger, but close.

He wished he were anywhere else but here. Doing anything but this. But here he was, and there was no turning back.

Fiona paused in the hallway, uncertain.

“May we go into your living room?” Gamache asked, his deep voice kind but still firm.

Don’t do it, thought Beauvoir. How can you do this to her?

To them.

A boy was in the living room watching a huge television. He turned to them but didn’t stand up. He just stared.

Beauvoir almost gasped. He’d never seen such a handsome child. Like his sister, he was small for his age. His eyes were large and deep brown and thoughtful, almost soulful. His hair was light brown, thick and wavy around his face. His features looked like something an artist would draw, of a perfect waif.

Given what was about to happen, Beauvoir felt himself suddenly light-headed. To destroy such innocence seemed itself a murder.

“Are you Samuel?” Gamache asked.

“Sam. Oui.” The boy now looked suspicious.

Gamache again introduced himself. “May we sit down?”

Fiona indicated chairs.

“Not there!” Sam shouted. Beauvoir twisted away, a split second before his bottom hit the seat cushion.

While neither child said anything, it was clear that had been their mother’s chair. It still had her outline in it. And that sheen where her unwashed head had rested.

“Do you mind?” Gamache nodded toward the television.

He’d had to raise his voice to be heard. This was difficult enough without having to shout the news of their mother’s death, her murder, at the children.

“No!” snapped Sam when Fiona went to turn the TV off.

She stared at him, then relented, putting the remote down on a table. Sam snatched it up and held it tight to his chest. It reminded Beauvoir a little of the Chief Inspector’s white-knuckle grip on the phone when talking to the captain.

He glanced out the window, hoping to see another vehicle draw up. Someone who would stay with these children and absorb their grief and anger. So he didn’t have to.

But all he saw was his own reflection in the window, and darkness outside. Where the hell were they?

Gamache waited to see if Sam would turn down the TV. But nothing happened. The game show continued, with its cheering and applause and cheerful music when a contestant got an answer right. It was macabre, but probably necessary.

The child might need, Gamache suspected, some sense of control over something, if only the television.

He let it go.

While her brother stared at the TV, Fiona continued to stare at the senior cop.

As Gamache began to speak, Sam slid a glance his way. Where there was fear in Fiona’s face, there was something else in the boy’s. It was unmistakable.

It was, Beauvoir could see, loathing. And why not, he thought as he watched the riveting child. He loathed himself and the Chief at that moment too.

“You’re alone here?” Gamache asked, and when Fiona nodded, he went on, “Is there someone you can call? A friend of the family? One of your friend’s mothers? A neighbor? Someone who can come over?”

She shook her head. “We’re all right.”

He held her eyes. “I’m afraid I have news of your mother.”

As he spoke, the sound on the television increased. The cheering became manic, the applause an assault. The walls of the small room almost shook.

Beauvoir’s ears began to buzz. He wondered if maybe they were bleeding.

“She was found a few hours ago,” Gamache said, having to raise his voice, but trying, trying, to keep his tone steady. Gentle. Even as his ears also began to ring.

And still the sound increased. The game show host was shouting a question. There was a pause, while the contestant considered and the live audience fell silent. There was just the loud ticktock of the game show clock counting down.

Gamache took advantage of the near silence to say, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you that your mother is dead.”

The contestant answered.

Please, please, thought Beauvoir. Let it be the wrong answer. But it was not.

The audience, the television, exploded with cheering and applause. Canned celebratory music filled the tiny living room.

It was grotesque. But worse was to come.

“I’m afraid there’s more,” the Chief Inspector was saying. He was leaning closer to Fiona, his focus complete. As though the noise weren’t happening. While Sam stared straight ahead, at the leaping, joyous woman on the screen.

Dear God, thought Beauvoir, now glaring at Gamache. Do you have to tell them everything now?

Again, Gamache had to raise his voice, to shout this. He wished with all his heart he didn’t have to tell them this next bit, but they’d hear it soon enough. Best, he knew, to get it over with.

“Your mother was murdered.”

Are you a monster? thought Beauvoir, staring in disbelief at the Chief Inspector.

But the monster was yet to appear.

Gamache waited a moment, to let the children take in what he’d just said, though he was not certain that Sam had heard for the sound blaring out of the television.

Fiona’s eyes had widened, her mouth opened. Not to speak but to breathe.

Gamache wanted to take her small hands in his, but did not. He said something else, but Beauvoir, just a couple feet away, would never know what. The words were drowned out by more applause, and the howl in Agent Beauvoir’s head.

“I am so sorry,” said Gamache, his voice steady, his gaze intense. “We’ll find out who did it.” He paused. “People can blame themselves when something like this happens. I want you to know”—he held her eyes—“there was nothing you could have done to prevent this.”

He knew that loved ones often added guilt to the burden of grief. Making it even more crushing. Managing, against all evidence, to find things they could have, should have, done differently. That would have, could have, averted the tragedy. He wanted to spare these children that, if possible.

Fiona nodded, but he doubted she took it in.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. Probably Chernin, he thought, but didn’t answer. He sat there, waiting. Giving Fiona space and time. Every now and then, he glanced over to the boy Sam, who sat stiff-backed, eyes forward. Staring at the contestant, now grabbing the host and dancing him around the stage.

These children would need help. Lots of it. But first, they’d need someone here, preferably someone they knew, who could comfort and look after them.

He looked out the window. Nothing. No one came. No one cared.

These children were well and truly alone in the world. His heart ached for them, and he wished there was something he could do to ease their pain.

What he could do was not make it worse. But he couldn’t even do that. He had questions for them, things he needed to know about their mother. About her movements on her last day. But not just yet.

As Agent Beauvoir watched, Gamache got to his feet. Were they leaving? Beauvoir wondered. Could they leave now? Was it over?

The Chief said something to Fiona. Something about tea. Was that possible? Beauvoir thought he must have misheard.

Tea?

Gamache turned to him and … murmur. Murmur. Murmur. Not a word got past the howl in Beauvoir’s head and the jubilation on the television. Then the Chief Inspector left the room.

Leaving him alone with two grieving children??? What the fuck??

Get out, his mind screamed. Leave. Take the car, drive to the detachment. Hand in your resignation. Go back to civilization and take a job disarming bombs, or trucking toxic material. Or as a tightrope walker in Cirque du Soleil.

Where I’ll be safe. Where no one will look at me the way this girl is now.

The smell of lemon cleaner had become cloying. He could feel his gag reflex kicking in.

He needed to get away from the screaming contestants. Away from the look of despair on the girl’s face, and the boy’s rigid back. The bones of his spine visible through his thin shirt.

Away from the grief that was sucking up all the oxygen. Like a fire.

He looked outside. Still nothing, only some stranger staring back, wide-eyed, wild-eyed.

There would be no help.