A Great Reckoning Read online

  CHAPTER 16

  As he walked across the village green, Gamache could see the insignia on the visitor’s uniform. The crown above three Bath Stars, from the ancient order of chivalry.

  This man was a high-ranking Mountie. An assistant commissioner in the RCMP.

  Isabelle Lacoste opened her mouth to introduce them, but the man was already stepping forward to meet Gamache, his hand out, a smile on his face.

  It was a restrained smile, one of greeting rather than happiness. It was, after all, a tragedy that had brought them together.

  “Commander Gamache,” he said. “I’m sorry for the circumstances, but can’t say I’m sorry to finally be meeting you.”

  “This is Deputy Commissioner Gélinas,” said Isabelle Lacoste. “He’s here to help with the investigation.”

  “Help” was, of course, a euphemism. For all his courtesy, Deputy Commissioner Gélinas was there as a watchdog. Watching them. Dogging them.

  “Paul Gélinas,” said the Deputy Commissioner.

  “Armand Gamache,” said Gamache. “A pleasure.”

  The RCMP officer’s handshake was firm, but not crushing. There was no attempt, or need, to show force. It was assumed.

  “The Deputy Commissioner was visiting the RCMP headquarters in Montréal from Ottawa when Chief Superintendent Brunel called with a request for oversight,” said Lacoste.

  “Well, that was fortunate,” said Gamache.

  “Oui,” said Gélinas. “I asked that the three of us meet as soon as possible. Though I didn’t expect it to be here.” He looked around. “Pretty.”

  It was polite, but it was also clear Monsieur Gélinas would not be moving down to Three Pines anytime soon.

  “Désolé,” said Gamache. “I had to come back here briefly, but I’ll be returning to the academy as soon as possible. Sorry you had to come all this way.”

  “Well, to be honest, it’s even better for me,” said Gélinas, walking beside Gamache as they made their way up the path to his home. “Nice to get away from the city, and the truth is, these situations are always awkward. Inserting myself into someone else’s investigation. I did it once before. Not my favorite thing, but needs to be done. I always find it’s easier to have the initial talk away from the scene of the crime. More private. Fewer distractions and interruptions. Chief Inspector Lacoste and I had a chance to talk on the drive down.”

  “And now you’d like to talk to me?”

  “Yes. Privately, if possible.”

  Gamache gestured for the RCMP officer to go ahead of him up the porch steps. “Have you been to the crime scene?”

  “I have, and I scanned the preliminary report on the way down.”

  “Then you probably know more than I do.”

  “Oh, I doubt that, Commander.”

  It was said with warmth, and yet Gamache thought he detected a subtext. Perhaps even a warning.

  Don’t believe everything you think, he reminded himself. But still …

  A face suddenly appeared at the door. With bright eyes and ears that started in the frame of the mullion and looked like they ended close to the ceiling.

  Gamache laughed. Seeing Henri standing on his hind legs, eager face at the window, tongue lolling, body swaying as the tail wagged the dog, always made him happy. Then he heard the familiar voice and the familiar words, always the same.

  “Oh, Henri. Back up. Off the door. You know he can’t get in with you leaning on it. Good boy. Sit.”

  Armand mouthed along to the words, Good boy. Sit. Unperturbed by witnesses.

  But then other, unfamiliar, words followed.

  “Now, Gracie. Here, it’s okay. It’s okay. Please don’t. Oh.”

  Gracie? thought Gamache.

  He opened the door to find Henri sitting, tail wagging furiously, his mouth open in a smile, his satellite ears pricked forward. About to explode with happiness. And behind him, Reine-Marie, smiling.

  Apologetically.

  “You might want to…” she waved toward the puddle on the wide plank floor.

  “Oh,” said Armand, looking down at it. But that was not the most disconcerting thing in the room.

  Something was squirming in Reine-Marie’s arms.

  “Come in.” He turned to their guests. “But you might want to…” He too gestured and saw both Lacoste and Gélinas first grimace, then smile politely, as though the puddle was a welcome mat.

  They stepped carefully across it, into the room.

  “Here.” Reine-Marie thrust whatever was in her arms at her husband, then left to get something to clean up the moisture.

  “Ohhhh,” said Lacoste, approaching Gamache. “Now who’s this?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. He could feel it trembling violently. “But its name seems to be Gracie.”

  “It’s so small,” said Gélinas, also approaching. “May I?”

  He reached out and, when Gamache nodded, stroked its head. “And soft.”

  Reine-Marie had returned with a sponge and soapy water. And a disinfectant spray.

  “May I help, madame?” asked Gélinas.

  “Non, mais merci. Sadly this isn’t the first time in my life I’ve done this. Not even, to be honest, the first time today.”

  “Is there something we should talk about?” Armand asked.

  Gracie had stopped struggling in his arms, and slowly he could feel her relax. Her trembling eased as he stroked her. From nose to tail. She was about the size of his hand, so they were not long strokes.

  “I’ll explain mine, if you explain yours.” Reine-Marie gestured with the sponge toward their guests.

  Both Gélinas and Lacoste laughed.

  “Isabelle I know, of course,” said Reine-Marie, peeling off the kitchen gloves and leaning in to kiss her. “Welcome, ma belle.”

  “This is Paul Gélinas,” said Armand, as the two shook hands.

  “Un plaisir,” said Gélinas. “I’m sorry to barge in like this.”

  “RCMP,” said Reine-Marie. “The Mounties are always welcome.” She turned to Armand. “What have you done now?”

  “Deputy Commissioner Gélinas is here to help us investigate the murder of Professor Leduc,” said Isabelle.

  “I see.”

  Armand had already called to tell Reine-Marie about it, so it was no surprise. She did not, they noticed, offer the usual words of grief and shock and sadness. No need to add hypocrisy to an already complex situation.

  “Your turn.” Armand looked down at Gracie, now asleep in his arms.

  “Remember when I told you this morning that Clara had gotten her rescue puppy?”

  “And this is it?” asked Armand with relief.

  “Well, no.”

  “What have you done now?” he asked her. “And what is it?”

  It did not, in all truth, look like a puppy.

  “It looks like a groundhog,” said Isabelle Lacoste.

  “I think it might be one of those teapot pigs,” said Gélinas.

  “Oh, God, don’t tell me,” said Armand.

  “Some detectives,” said Reine-Marie with a smile, taking Gracie from him. “She doesn’t have trotters. She isn’t a pig.”

  “Well, Ruth doesn’t have cloven hooves,” said her husband, “but we all know…”

  “She’s not a teapot pig,” Reine-Marie assured him.

  “Then what is she? Not a puppy.”

  “Ummm,” said Reine-Marie. “We think so.”

  “You think?”

  “She hasn’t been to the vet yet. The litter was found in a garbage can by Billy Williams, out Cowansville way. He called around and—”

  “At least it’s not a skunk,” said Isabelle. “Is it?”

  “A ferret?” asked Gélinas.

  Reine-Marie put Gracie in the cage by the fireplace, soft towels and small chew toys keeping her company.

  The four adults and Henri bent over her, like surgeons examining a complicated case.

  She was so tiny it was difficult to tell what she was. She had rounded ears and a long thin tail, and paws with sharp nails. She was bald except for patches of black hair, not yet long enough for a combover. Her eyes opened and she looked back at them.

  “She’s a puppy,” Gamache declared and straightened up.

  “Don’t you need to say it three times for it to be true, patron?” asked Lacoste.

  “You don’t believe it?” he asked.

  “I reserve judgment.”

  “Smart,” said Deputy Commissioner Gélinas. “I myself will stand by ferret. Désolé, madame.”

  “Not at all,” she assured him. “I admire you for standing behind your conclusion, however misguided.”

  There was no mistaking the subtext, or the warning.

  Gélinas nodded. He understood. Mess with her family, you messed with her. And she had a ferret at her disposal.

  “We should talk,” said Gamache, after pulling the towel up around Gracie to keep her warm, and resting his hand on her.

  “Oui,” said Lacoste. “And I need to get back to the academy. You’re returning?”

  She held his eyes and saw a very slight nod.

  The cadets were here, in the village. Somewhere. Out of sight. Even from the Deputy Commissioner. And he wanted to keep it that way, for now.

  “Yes, later this afternoon,” said Gamache. “I’ll drive Monsieur Gélinas back after filling him in.”

  Isabelle Lacoste left and Madame Gamache offered them a late lunch. “You probably haven’t eaten much today.”

  “True,” said Gélinas. “But I don’t want to put you out. I noticed a bistro in the village…”

  “Probably best to have a more private discussion,” said Armand, leading him into the kitchen where he sliced fresh bread from Sarah’s boulangerie and Gélinas helped him grill sandwiches of Brome Lake duck, Brie and fig confit.

  “Your wife is very caring, monsieur,” said Gélinas, as they worked side by side. “And not just of the ferret—”

  “—puppy.”

  “You’re a lucky man. I miss this.”

  “A puddle of pee at the front door?”

  “Even that.” Paul Gélinas was looking down at the sandwiches as he sliced them. “My wife was a lot like Madame Gamache. Always bringing home strays. Animals. People.” Gélinas’s hands paused and he grunted in surprise. “She died three years ago. Sometimes it seems like she’s been gone forever. And sometimes I still smell her perfume and hear her footsteps and look up, expecting to see her. And then I remember.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Armand.

  “When a job came up at the embassy in Paris after she died, I took it. Needed to get away. A change. I came back a few months ago.”

  “Did it help?” asked Gamache. “Paris?”

  “It didn’t hurt,” said Gélinas, smiling.

  Gamache smiled back and nodded and turned the sandwiches over in the pan. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, or hollow.

  Paul Gélinas, roughly Gamache’s age, was living his nightmare.

  But Gamache knew something else.

  Deputy Commissioner Gélinas had not been seconded to Paris to serve canapés at diplomatic soirées. This man had been in the intelligence service. He’d almost certainly spent the last few years as a spy.

  And now he was here. Invited into the investigation, to spy on them.

  “You have a nice home here, monsieur,” said Gélinas as they took their sandwiches to the harvest table. “The Sûreté Academy must have held some powerful attractions, for you to leave this for that.”

  It was said pleasantly. A guest making polite conversation. But both men knew that, while polite, it was not simply conversation.

  “I left to clean up the academy,” said Gamache. “As I suspect you very well know.”

  Gélinas took a huge bite of his sandwich and nodded approvingly. “Delicious,” he managed to say as he chewed. Finally swallowing, he said, “Sometimes, to clean up a mess, we have to make an even bigger one. It gets worse before it gets better.”

  Gamache put down his sandwich and looked across the pine table at the RCMP officer.

  “Is this going somewhere?”

  “I think you’d do just about anything to protect your family, your home.”

  Gélinas glanced at the kitchen, then looked in the other direction, to the woodstove and comfortable chairs next to the windows looking out to the village green.

  “Are we talking about the death of Serge Leduc, or something else?” asked Gamache.

  “Oh, we’re still on topic. The Sûreté Academy is an extension of your home, isn’t it? And the cadets are extensions of your family, just as the homicide division of the Sûreté once was. You are a man with a protective instinct. To care that deeply is a blessing. But like most blessings, it can also be a curse.”

  Now Gélinas also carefully, regretfully, returned his sandwich to his plate.

  “I know.”

  “And what do you know?”

  “I know how much it hurts when someone we care about dies, or is threatened.”

  “I did not care for Serge Leduc.”

  Deputy Commissioner Gélinas broke into a smile at that. “I wasn’t referring to Leduc. From all I hear, he was a nasty piece of work. Non. I meant the academy.”

  “It’s true that I care about the academy,” said Gamache. “But it’s an institution. If it disappeared tomorrow I’d be sad, but I wouldn’t move to Paris.”

  Gélinas nodded and gave a small grunt. “Forgive me, but are you being intentionally obtuse, Commander? By academy, I mean the cadets. The flesh-and-blood young men and women who are your responsibility. While Leduc was in charge, there was misconduct, misappropriation of funds. Perhaps even abuse. I hear the rumors too, you know. But within months of you taking over, there was a murder.”

  “Who’s worse? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m asking,” said Gélinas. “I’ve followed your career, Commander Gamache. I know what you’re capable of doing. And believe me, I have only the greatest respect for you, for your choices. Doing what others could not. It’s only because of that respect that I am being this open with you. You must know why I’m here.”

  “I do,” said Gamache. “You’re not investigating the murder of Professor Leduc, you’re investigating me.”

  “Wouldn’t you? Who had it in for him from the very beginning?”

  “But I kept him on. I could have fired him.”

  “And isn’t that in itself suspicious, monsieur?” Gélinas wiped his mouth with his napkin, then placed it carefully on the table.

  “You’ve been open with me,” said Gamache. “Now let me be open with you. I detested Leduc, but I did not kill him. And you are here because I asked for you.”

  For the first time since they met, Gélinas showed surprise.

  “For me personally?”

  “Oui. I called Chief Superintendent Brunel just before Isabelle Lacoste placed her call. I asked for you.”

  “But Chief Inspector Lacoste didn’t mention that.”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  The RCMP officer cocked his head slightly and examined Gamache.

  “Why me?”

  “Because I wanted to meet you.”

  “Why? And how did you even know about me?”

  “I spent some time in retirement, you know. Recovering. Deciding what to do next. Figuring out what I really wanted to do.”

  “Yes, I’d heard.”

  “In that time, there were a number of job offers. Including from the RCMP.”

  “For Paris?”

  Gamache shook his head.

  “To head up the Québec detachment?”

  Gamache shook his head.

  “Ottawa?”

  Gamache sat still while Gélinas’s mind followed that path. Then stopped.

  “The Commissioner? You were offered the top job? He’s to retire in the next few months.”

  “I declined. Do you know why?”

  “To take over the academy?”

  “That was, actually, the major reason. But I also declined after doing a great deal of research.”

  “And what did you discover?”

  “That there is a better person for the job. You. This morning, when it was clear we needed an independent observer, I realized it was an opportunity to meet you. To see if I was right.”

  “I’m not one of your protégés,” said Gélinas. “And this is a murder investigation, not a job interview.”

  “No one knows that better than me,” said Gamache, also placing his napkin, like a flag of truce, on the table. “Now. Let me tell you about Serge Leduc.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Oui, je comprends.” Though Olivier sounded unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

  On the other end of the phone, Armand Gamache spoke swiftly, softly, not wanting to be overheard. He stepped from his study, out into the living room, and could see Gélinas and Reine-Marie still in the back garden of their home.

  Then he turned and looked through his study window, to the bistro. He could see movement in the window and wondered if it was the cadets.

  And he willed them to stay there. To stay put. To not leave the bistro.

  “I wish people would stop asking me if I’m sure,” he said.

  “They will, patron, once you stop making almost incomprehensible decisions.” He was whispering too, to match Gamache’s voice, though he had no idea why.

  “I’ll do my best. Can you keep the cadets there, Olivier? Just until we leave?”

  “Fortunately, I have a whip and a chair. Don’t ask.”

  “I’m assuming it has something to do with Ruth,” said Gamache, and heard Olivier chuckle softly, and then it stopped.

  “What’s this about, Armand? Are they in danger?” There was a pause. “Are we?”

  “I’m trying to prevent something terrible happening,” said Gamache, though something terrible had already happened.

  In bringing the cadets to Three Pines, he was trying to prevent something worse.

  * * *

  “Okay,” said Olivier, standing at their table. “Monsieur Gamache just called and said he couldn’t rejoin you after all.”

  “Just fucking great,” said Jacques, throwing himself back in his chair. “He drags us down here, away from the action, then just leaves us here? What’s he doing? Napping?”

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