A Great Reckoning Page 10

  “It was in a wall,” said Ruth. She too had broken eye contact and was looking down at the copy of the painting on the pine table.

  The duck, however, continued to glare at Amelia, winning the contest.

  “It’d been walled up,” said Ruth.

  “What?” asked Nathaniel. “Why?”

  “Why?” asked the Commander, putting bowls of warm apple and raspberry crisp with melting Coaticook vanilla ice cream in front of them. “That’s a very good question.”

  He could tell by their faces that the cadets were beginning to appreciate that an investigation wasn’t linear. It was like the map, with contour lines and winding roads. And obstacles. And every now and then you came across something completely unexpected.

  “Why put a map into a wall?” Gamache asked.

  “It was waiting,” said Ruth.

  “Now, Ruth,” said Reine-Marie. “Don’t play mind games with our young guests.”

  “It’s no game. There’s something strange about that map. I feel it. And I know you do too.”

  She’d spoken to Armand. After he gave a curt nod, the old woman turned to Amelia, resuming the staring contest.

  “And so do you.”

  “I feel nothing. None of this matters. It’s an exercise,” said Amelia. “An assignment. Nothing more. And not even a very interesting one.”

  “Then why’re you here?” asked Ruth, struggling to her feet. This time no one helped her. She walked to the door, followed by Armand.

  “Some things disappear for a reason, Armand,” she said, then turned back to the cadets at the table. So young. Trying to be unmoved by this creepy old woman. But their wide eyes betrayed them.

  “You asked what the map was waiting for. Maybe it was waiting for you,” said Ruth. “You found the village, maybe that’s enough. Maybe you should stop now. Sneak home and pray you’ll never know/the hell where youth and laughter go.”

  “Now there’s a woman who knows an exit line,” said Huifen as Ruth left. Even Amelia laughed. Though she expected to see her breath in the suddenly chill air.

  Through the kitchen window, they saw Commander Gamache supporting Ruth, keeping her upright on the icy road. He cradled the duck close to his body to keep it warm.

  “Alzheimer’s?” asked Huifen.

  Reine-Marie shook her head. “Poetry.”

  * * *

  “Bonne nuit,” said Armand when Ruth had opened her unlocked door and he’d handed Rosa back to her.

  “Yeah, right,” said Ruth, moving to close the door in his face.

  “Wait,” said Armand, putting out a gloved hand to stop the door. “Why did you just quote Siegfried Sassoon?”

  “Why do I say anything? It’s anyone’s guess really.”

  And then she did close the door and he walked back home, pausing to marvel at the stars. Many of which no longer existed. Just their light.

  His gaze dropped to the village. That did, and did not, exist.

  The map had been walled up. To become part of the building. To act as insulation, protection. Helping to keep the cold winds at bay.

  But it had been removed, and the cold winds were howling, were baying, again.

  He pulled his coat tighter around him, and as he passed the kitchen windows of his home, he stopped and looked in. Reine-Marie had her chin on her hand and was listening to the cadets. She was so beautiful. And they were so young.

  * * *

  The Gamaches invited the cadets to stay the night, and while Reine-Marie got them fresh pajamas and toothbrushes, Armand called the academy to let them know not to worry about the students.

  He spent a few hours in his study, going over coursework and making notes on upcoming meetings with professors and community leaders, while Reine-Marie sorted more archival material in the living room.

  The cadets, after sitting quietly in the living room for a nanosecond, decided to head over to the bistro.

  Just after midnight, Armand heard the front door open. Reine-Marie had gone to bed and he was waiting up.

  The cadets paused at the doorway into the study where he sat, legs crossed, reading glasses on and a dossier open.

  “Good night, sir,” said Nathaniel.

  “Thanks for the dinner,” said Huifen, “and for letting us stay.”

  “Did you have fun at the bistro?” he asked.

  “The owner showed us where the map was hidden,” said Jacques. “But he couldn’t tell us any more.”

  Amelia just kept walking, stomping up the stairs to bed. The others followed, and after finishing his reading, Gamache got up, locked the front door and checked the back door and windows. Though he knew if there was any danger, it probably wasn’t lurking in the snow-covered garden. Like the Great Wall of China, most threats were already inside.

  Armand was awoken in the small hours by the creak of old wood.

  He sat up, alert. Listening.

  Then he put on a dressing gown and crept to the top of the stairs, and crouched down.

  From there he could see a figure enter the living room from the kitchen.

  Was it the person in the second car? The one who’d followed them there, then disappeared? Only to reappear at two in the morning?

  The shape moved about the living room. The embers in the fireplace were almost out. There was just enough light to see the shadowy figure, but not enough to see who it was.

  Until they turned the light on, and Gamache almost fell onto his bottom. Standing in the living room, eating a chicken leg, was something that looked like a science experiment gone bad. Or mad.

  The head of a pierced and tattooed Goth was grafted onto a pink and frilly body. Amelia was wearing one of Reine-Marie’s flannel nightgowns, and rifling their home.

  Gamache made another mental note, to contact Professor McKinnon and ask her to go over how to do a clandestine search.

  Number one: get a search warrant.

  Number two: do not turn on a lamp.

  He shook his head before remembering the numbskull things he and Michel Brébeuf had done. Though they had never included rummaging through the Commander’s home.

  * * *

  Amelia studied the books on the shelves and picked up photographs of the Commander’s family. Her fingers, greasy from the chicken leg, left smudges on the photos. Finally she came to a wedding picture. A woman who was obviously the Gamaches’ daughter, now grown and gowned, and beside her was her new husband.

  Amelia clicked her stud against her teeth.

  * * *

  Armand knew exactly what she was looking at, though he couldn’t see the expression on her face. He’d wondered, when the cadets had arrived, whether he should hide the pictures, but decided against it. They were private, but not secret.

  And he was curious to see if any of them noticed.

  The living room went dark, and Armand prepared to withdraw as soon as he heard her foot on the bottom stair. But that creak didn’t come. Instead he saw another light go on. In his study.

  This was going too far, and he walked downstairs and found her sitting in his chair. Staring at another photo.

  “Put that down,” he said, and saw her jerk in surprise.

  He stood framed in the doorway, in a dressing gown and slippers.

  She put the black-and-white picture down.

  “Exactly as you found it,” he said.

  She adjusted it, noting the smiling man in the old-fashioned hat and winter coat, and the woman in a neat cloth coat and gloves and hat. She held a child in her arms, bundled up so well against the Québec winter it looked like she was holding a hamper of clothes. Only a tiny hand was visible, gripping her finger.

  For a moment, Amelia assumed it was Monsieur and Madame Gamache, but then she realized it was far too old.

  “Your parents?” she asked.

  “You’ve taken advantage of our kindness,” he said.

  “I was just looking for a book to read.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “At two in the morning? I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “This room is private. The things in it are personal, as you know very well.”

  “Personal,” she asked, getting up. “Or secret?”

  “Please leave.”

  * * *

  Upstairs in her room, under the duvet, Amelia pulled out the book she’d found in the shelves downstairs.

  I’m FINE, by one of her favorite poets, Ruth Zardo.

  She read the subtitle and laughed.

  Fucked-up. Insecure. Neurotic. Egotistical.

  Burrowing deeper into the bed, she ate the last of the cookies she’d taken from the kitchen and flipped through the poems. Some she already knew. Some she didn’t.

  You were a moth

  brushing against my cheek

  in the dark

  I killed you

  not knowing

  you were only a moth,

  with no sting.

  She splayed the book against her knees and wondered what the academy had been like before Gamache. When Professor Leduc was in charge.

  Jacques said it was way better, and that Gamache was undermining it, making it and the Sûreté weak. She knew he was just parroting what the Duke was saying, but she wondered if there was truth in it. And while Huifen didn’t agree, neither did she disagree with what Jacques said.

  There had been no commendations in Gamache’s study. No photographs of him in uniform. Leduc said Gamache was a disgrace, that he had been forced to “retire.” And there were rumbles around the academy about some corruption case.

  She found it hard to reconcile these rumors with the man himself, but Amelia knew that people were not always what they appeared.

  She reached for her iPhone to google Armand Gamache, something she’d been meaning to do since she’d arrived at the academy, but more pressing things kept occupying her. Like getting through each day.

  No connection. She tossed the iPhone on the bed in frustration. She’d forgotten. There was no Internet coverage here. Not only had mapmakers forgotten this place but so, apparently, had time. And technology.

  She pulled the duvet up higher and wondered who Armand Gamache really was. And if he knew that Huifen and Jacques and even Nathaniel quietly visited Professor Leduc regularly.

  The Duke met with a few select students. And she wondered if Gamache knew that she was among those selected.

  Sides had been chosen, allegiances declared, the game of Red Rover was over.

  Finally, eyes heavy with sleep, she went to turn off the light. Only then did Amelia notice the inscription at the front of the well-thumbed volume.

  For Clouseau, who will be just FINE one day. Ruth.

  Ruth?

  Ruth?

  She sat up in bed and stared at the book, then out the window at the village. That appeared and disappeared and contained all sorts of secrets within its thick walls.

  CHAPTER 11

  Another week passed and by then they were deep into the term.

  Some of the older students still grumbled, but less and less. Not necessarily, Gamache knew, because they were coming to terms with the realities of the new regime, but because they were kept too busy to complain.

  He was in his rooms early one morning, talking with Reine-Marie on the phone. He’d had late meetings and decided to stay the night at the academy.

  “Did I tell you that Clara got a new puppy yesterday?” she asked.

  “From that litter she talked about? That was a while ago.”

  “No, Billy Williams found these ones in a garbage can.”

  He inhaled deeply and exhaled the word “people.” Not so much an indictment as in wonderment. That there could be so much deliberate cruelty and so much kindness in one species.

  “Clara took one. A little male she’s called Leo. Adorable. But there is something—”

  And that’s as far as she got. Even down the phone line, she could hear the shouting. Reine-Marie couldn’t make out the words, but she could hear the panic.

  “I have to go,” said her husband, and the line went dead.

  * * *

  Gamache threw a dressing gown over his pajamas and was out the door in moments, the shouting hitting him in the face as he ran toward it.

  One voice. A man’s. Young. Frightened. The terror bounced off the marble floors and walls, magnifying.

  “Help,” the voice was screaming. “Help.” The single syllable elongating. “Heeeeelllll-p.” More a sound than a word.

  Other professors came out of their rooms, joining in behind Gamache. As he ran past Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s door, Gamache gave it a single pound with his fist, but kept going.

  Behind him, he heard the door open and the familiar voice, groggy.

  “What the—Jesus.”

  Up ahead, the screaming had stopped. But the hallway was still clogged with fear.

  Gamache rounded a corner and there, back to the wall, stood Nathaniel Smythe. On the ground in front of him was a tray, with broken glass and china and food.

  Stepping in front of the boy, to break his line of sight, Gamache looked quickly, expertly, over him.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  Nathaniel, eyes wide and not quite focusing on Gamache, shook his head.

  “Look after him,” Gamache said to whoever had arrived right behind him. “Take him to my rooms. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  “What’s happened?” Jean-Guy Beauvoir asked, skidding to a stop beside Gamache.

  Other professors were arriving and craning to see. But the Commander was blocking the open door, and their view.

  He himself had yet to look, but as Nathaniel was led away, he turned around.

  “Call the police,” he said, speaking to Beauvoir but still staring into the room. Then he looked at Jean-Guy. “Call Isabelle Lacoste.”

  “Oui, patron,” his voice betraying none of the surprise he felt. Though shock would be a better word.

  He knew what that meant. What Gamache was seeing.

  Jean-Guy ran back down the corridor to his rooms to call. As he went, he was met with worried and excited faces all asking, “What’s happened?”

  More professors were arriving, and behind them, staff. And behind them, the first of the students.

  “Lock the doors to the academy,” Gamache told two other professors. “No one gets in or out.”

  They took off down the corridor.

  The other professors were crowding around, trying to see what could possibly be in the room. But Gamache blocked their way.

  “The head of each year,” he said, scanning the now-crowded corridor. Three professors stepped forward.

  “Here, Commander.”

  “Make sure the cadets are safe. Get them into the dining hall and do a head count. Keep them there. Give them breakfast, but no one leaves until I say so.”

  He held their eyes. “Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Quickly, then. If someone is hurt or missing, we need to know.”

  The professors split up, shepherding reluctant students back down the hallway.

  Commander Gamache still had not entered the room.

  “Professor McKinnon, take a couple of teaching assistants and gather up the staff. Secretarial, grounds, maintenance, kitchen. Everyone. Take them into the dining hall as well. Ask the head of operations to confirm everyone is who they say they are, and that no one is missing.”

  “D’accord, Commander.” And she hurried down the hallway. Leaving just one other professor standing there.

  “What would you like me to do, Armand?”

  “Nothing,” came his curt response.

  Michel Brébeuf stepped away and watched as Gamache stared into the room.

  “Actually, there is one thing you can do,” said Armand, turning back to Brébeuf. “Get the doctor.”

  “Of course.”

  Brébeuf walked quickly down the corridor, though he knew he’d been given the least urgent, the least important, of the tasks. He knew by Gamache’s orders and actions that there was no real need of a doctor.

  “Isabelle’s on her way,” said Beauvoir, arriving back at Gamache’s side and marveling at the now-empty corridor.

  He looked at his watch at the same moment Gamache did.

  It was six twenty-three in the morning.

  There was silence now. Except for a tiny sound like a squeal. Both Gamache and Beauvoir looked up and down the corridor. It was still empty. But still the sound came closer.

  Then around the corner came Hugo Charpentier in his wheelchair.

  “What’s happened?”

  Professor Charpentier’s progress stopped when he saw Gamache’s face.

  “As bad as that?”

  Gamache didn’t move.

  “Where’re the others?” Charpentier asked.

  “Securing the building. The staff and students are being taken to the dining hall.”

  “And they forgot about me,” he said. He started to wheel forward. “Can I help?”

  “Non, merci. Just join the others, please.”

  As he turned back down the hall, Gamache also marveled that they’d forgotten Professor Charpentier. He felt slightly ashamed, but mostly he tucked that information away. How easily overlooked that man was. And he thought about what an invisible man could get away with.

  He also noted the squeal of Charpentier’s wheelchair, as he withdrew. Something Gamache had never noticed before.

  And then he turned his attention to the doorway and what lay beyond.

  Who lay beyond.

  Serge Leduc was crumpled on the floor.

  It was all too obvious what had happened. By the body, and the blood. He’d been shot in the head. The gun still lay by his side.

  And while it was also clear, by the glaring eyes and open mouth, and the pallor, never mind the wound, that he was dead, Gamache still bent down and felt for a pulse, his hand coming away with a bit of blood, which he wiped off with a handkerchief.

  Jean-Guy’s practiced eye swept the scene, then he looked toward the bedroom.

  Gamache gave a brief nod and Beauvoir covered the ground swiftly.

  “Nothing,” said Jean-Guy a moment later.

  “That’s enough,” said Gamache from the bedroom door, when Beauvoir opened a drawer in the nightstand. “I doubt the murderer’s in the drawer. Let’s leave it for Lacoste and the Scene of Crime team.”

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