The Long Way Home Read online

  Only then did they see what Peter had done.

  He hadn’t created something with these paintings. He’d captured something. A moment in a garden at dusk.

  What had looked like a circle of stones in the painting when it was the other way around was indeed a circle of stones. Tall, solid, gray.

  But now they saw something else. Long, strong slashes of color off the top of the stones.

  Rabbit ears.

  “Peter would never have believed such a thing,” said Clara. But in her heart she knew she had to stop saying that. If they had a hope of finding out what had happened to him, she had to accept that the man she’d known was indeed gone.

  Down the rabbit hole. Where impossible things happened.

  Where hares turned to rune stones.

  Where giddy smiles turned into vast sorrow. And back again. Depending on your perspective.

  When she’d started the search there’d been an element of guilt. Of responsibility. She’d wanted to find him, she wanted him to be safe. But she hadn’t been sure she wanted him back.

  But the more they discovered about Peter now, the more desperate she was to meet this man. To get to know him. And have him meet her, for the first time.

  Clara realized she was falling in love. She’d always loved Peter, but this was something else. Some deeper vein.

  “It doesn’t matter what we believe,” said Myrna, joining them to stare at the picture. “What matters is what Peter believed he saw.”

  They looked from the table over to the paintings on the wall.

  One was now quite clear. The waves of red lips. Frowning. Moaning. Sighing.

  They’d turned the other two paintings around as well, but those had yet to give up their secrets.

  “Should we go to Dumfries?” Clara asked. “See for ourselves? Talk to this Alphonse?”

  “Non,” said Armand. “Whatever happened there is in the past. Both Peter and time have moved on. We’re going there.”

  He pointed to the river of sighs.

  To a place Gamache knew well. It was in Québec but not of Québec. This area was unique in the world, having been created hundreds of millions of years earlier, by a catastrophe. A cosmic catastrophe.

  * * *

  Gamache, Jean-Guy, and Reine-Marie stood at the large map of Québec tacked up on their sitting room wall.

  How often, Beauvoir wondered, had they stood in front of this very map when it had been in the Gamaches’ Montréal home, plotting the best way to get to a crime scene? A body. A murder.

  He hoped that wasn’t what they’d find at the end of this journey too.

  But the silence from Peter was ominous, and the sooner they could get there the better. And at least now they knew where “there” was.

  The Chief’s finger traced a line from Three Pines, near the Vermont border, up to Autoroute 20. Along to Quebec City, then over the bridge, skirting the city, and up again.

  Up, up along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Traveling northeast.

  To their destination in the Charlevoix region.

  “Is that the best route?”

  As the men discussed various options, Reine-Marie stared at the dot on the map. How often had she stood in front of this very map, staring at a dot? Imagining Armand inside it. Willing him safe, willing him home.

  The dot had a name. Baie-Saint-Paul.

  Saint Paul. Another one who’d seen something unlikely on the road. And whose life had changed.

  “We’re on the road to Damascus,” said Armand with a smile. “Or Charlevoix anyway.”

  It was an area so beautiful, so unique, it had attracted visitors for centuries. At least one American president had had a summer home there. But what Charlevoix mostly attracted were artists, Québec artists, Canadian artists. Artists from around the world.

  And now it had attracted Peter Morrow.

  * * *

  “How long will you be gone?” Reine-Marie asked a few minutes later, as she helped Armand pack a suitcase.

  He paused, his hand full of socks. “Hard to say. It’ll take the better part of the day to drive there, and then we need to find out where he’s staying.”

  “If he’s still there,” she said, placing shirts in the suitcase. After considering, she added one more.

  Through the sitting room window, Gamache could see Jean-Guy loading two suitcases into the Volvo. Perplexed, Gamache slipped the small book into the pocket of his satchel and they went outside.

  As he walked down the path, Gamache saw Clara and Myrna standing by the car. Clara had Peter’s rolled-up canvases in her hand, and Myrna had a map.

  “You’re here to see us off?” asked Gamache, but he already knew that wasn’t true. Clara shook her head and looked toward their suitcases, already in the Volvo.

  “You’re coming with us?” Gamache asked.

  “No,” said Clara. “You’re coming with us.”

  It was said with a smile, but the distinction was clear.

  “I see,” said Armand.

  “Good.” Clara watched him closely. “I’m not kidding, Armand. I’m going to find Peter. You can come if you’d like, but if you do, you have to agree that I make the final decisions. I don’t want this to turn into a power struggle.”

  “Believe me, Clara, I have no wish for power.” He paused and became so still that Clara also stilled. “I’m not bringing any art supplies.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not an artist.”

  “And I’m not an investigator,” she said, grasping his meaning.

  “You don’t know what you’ll find,” he said.

  “No, I don’t. But I need to be the one looking.”

  “And what will you do when we get there?” he asked.

  “I’ll find out where Peter’s staying.”

  “And suppose he isn’t still there?”

  “Are you treating me like a child, Armand?”

  “No. I’m treating you like a responsible adult, but one who’s trying to do something she’s unprepared for. Not trained for. I can’t paint a very good picture. You can’t conduct a very good investigation. This is your life, yes. But it’s what we’ve done for a living.” He paused and leaned so close to her no one else could hear. “I’m very good at it. I will find Peter.”

  And she replied, so close that he felt the warm words in his ear, “You might know how to investigate, but I know Peter.”

  “You knew Peter.” Gamache saw the words slap her. “You think he’s the same man, and he’s not. If you don’t accept that, you’ll go off course. Fast.”

  She stepped back. “I know he’s not the same man.” She stared at him. “Peter’s changed. He’s following his heart now. That’s my territory. I can find him, Armand. I’ll know.”

  Gamache and Jean-Guy simply stared at her and she felt herself getting angry. Angry at them for not understanding, and angry at herself for not being able to explain it. And angry at the fact that it sounded so fucking lame.

  “You like Peter,” she finally said. “But I love him. Laugh if you want, but it makes a difference. I’ll be able to find him.”

  “If love was compass enough,” said Armand quietly, “there would be no missing children.”

  Clara felt the breath leave her body. There was nothing she could say to that. It was so monumentally true. And yet, and yet, Clara knew she needed to go. And not follow Gamache, but be in the lead.

  She could find Peter.

  “I would never laugh at you,” Armand was saying, though he seemed so remote. “And I would never, ever mock the power of love. But it can also distort. Slip over into desperation and delusion.”

  “Which is why you need to come with us,” said Clara. “Please. But I need to be in charge. I can find him.”

  Gamache nodded.

  “You’re in charge. We’re here to support you.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Jean-Guy whispered to Gamache as the two men walked around the car. “If
things start going bad, you’ll take over.”

  “They won’t go bad.”

  “But if they do?”

  “If they do, Clara’s in charge.”

  “Following what? Her heart? Love droppings?” asked Beauvoir.

  The Chief turned to him and lowered his voice. “And if Annie was missing? Would you let someone else look for her?”

  Jean-Guy paled at the very thought. “Never.”

  “Clara’s right, Jean-Guy. She has a better chance than anyone of knowing what Peter would do and where he’d go. If she follows her heart and we follow our heads, we might find him.”

  “I guess that leaves me with the stomach,” said Myrna, who’d overheard their conversation. She held up a paper bag filled with sandwiches from Sarah’s boulangerie. “Who wants to follow me?”

  She put the sandwiches and a cooler in the car while the others loaded up the men’s suitcases. They were about to get in themselves when Clara held out her hand.

  Jean-Guy looked at Gamache, who nodded. Beauvoir dropped the keys into Clara’s palm, walked around the car and was about to get into the passenger side when Myrna stepped in front of him. Once again Jean-Guy looked at Gamache, and once again the Chief nodded.

  The men got into the backseat.

  Clara was in the driver’s seat.

  “Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Beauvoir whispered to Gamache.

  “Clara’s an excellent driver. We’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t mean that, and you know it.”

  “Clara will be fine,” said the Chief.

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  Jean-Guy leaned forward just as the car started to move.

  “Are we there yet?” he asked.

  “Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Myrna asked Clara.

  “He’ll be fine.” She pressed the gas and turned the car toward the road out of the village. The north road.

  “I’m hungry,” said Jean-Guy. “I have to pee.”

  As they passed the bench at the top of the hill, inscribed with Surprised by Joy, Gamache turned in his seat. And looked back.

  And there he saw Reine-Marie standing in the middle of the road.

  He turned away, concentrating on the road ahead and trying to ignore the lump in his throat.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Now what?” asked Jean-Guy.

  He’d naturally turned to Gamache, but the Chief deflected the question over to Clara.

  They’d gone around to all the B and Bs in Baie-Saint-Paul. All the country auberges. All the hotels, both shabby and high-end.

  No Peter.

  To make matters worse, Baie-Saint-Paul was enjoying the height of the summer tourist crush, and it became clear that while they were having trouble finding Peter, they would also have trouble finding a place to stay that night.

  Clara looked this way and that, up and down the crowded main street. It was hot and she was frustrated. She’d thought they’d drive into Baie-Saint-Paul and find Peter standing on a street corner. Waiting.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Myrna said, and Clara nodded, grateful for the help. “I think we need to regroup. We have to find someplace to sit down and think.”

  She looked around at the crowded terrasses and the happy tourists eating and drinking and laughing. It was all very annoying.

  “We’ve thought enough,” said Clara. “That’s all we did for days and days in Three Pines. Now we need to act.”

  “Thinking is an action,” said Gamache from a few paces away. “Running around might feel good, but it accomplishes nothing. And at this stage, wasting time is doing damage.”

  “He’s right,” Myrna said, and received a filthy look from Clara.

  “I have to use the toilet.”

  “You said that all the way here,” snapped Clara.

  “Well, this time it’s true.”

  They turned to look at Jean-Guy, who was shifting from one foot to the other.

  Clara surrendered. “Oh, Christ. Okay. Let’s regroup.”

  “This way.” Jean-Guy pointed and led them down a slight hill, along a narrow side street, taking them further and further away from the tourist hubbub.

  These streets, not much more than alleyways, were lined with row homes and old-fashioned, unfashionable businesses. Hardware stores, family-run drugstores, dépanneurs selling cigarettes and lottery tickets and soft, white POM bakery bread. Every now and then they caught a glimpse of grayish blue between the bright clapboard and fieldstone buildings. The river. So vast, so wide it looked like the ocean. Jean-Guy Beauvoir led them away from the tourist crush, into an area only locals knew.

  “Over here.”

  They followed Beauvoir to a shabby inn.

  “But we’ve already asked here,” said Clara. “Haven’t we?”

  She turned around. Beauvoir’s serpentine route had disoriented her.

  “Oui,” he said. “But we came in the front way. This is the back.”

  “And you expect a different answer depending on which door we go through?” asked Myrna. “I suspect Peter still isn’t here, even if we climb in through the window.”

  Which, she thought, they might have to do if they didn’t find a place for the night soon.

  “We’re asking a different question.” Beauvoir now looked like his hair was on fire. “Through here.”

  He led them through a small archway, and suddenly they were confronted with the thing only hinted at through the cracks between buildings. Like catching glimpses of a huge creature, but just its tail, or nose, or teeth.

  But here it was before them, exploding into view as they walked through the archway.

  The St. Lawrence River. Magnificent, wild, eternal. Fought over, painted, turned into poetry and music. It stretched into infinity before them.

  “Where’re the toilets?” Beauvoir asked a server who came out onto the hidden terrace. Not waiting for an answer, Jean-Guy disappeared inside.

  Only one other table was occupied in this small fieldstone courtyard. Two locals drank beer, smoked pungent Gitanes and played backgammon. They looked at the newcomers with vague interest, then went back to their game.

  Clara chose a table right up against the wooden railing. On the other side was a sheer drop. And uninterrupted views of the baie of Baie-Saint-Paul.

  They ordered iced teas and nachos.

  Clara looked down at the place mat in front of her. As in many restaurants and brasseries across Québec, the place mat had a schematic of the village, not to scale, showing its history, as well as spots of interest and businesses. Inns, restaurants, galleries, and boutiques that had paid to be placed on the tourist map.

  Peter had been here. Perhaps not to this very terrasse, but to this area.

  “I’d forgotten that Cirque du Soleil started in Baie-Saint-Paul,” said Myrna, reading her place mat. “Some places are like that.”

  “Like what?” asked Jean-Guy, returning from the toilet.

  “Hot spots,” said Myrna. “Of creativity. Of creation. Three Pines is one. Charlevoix is obviously another.”

  “I see there was a syphilis epidemic in the late seventeen hundreds,” said Jean-Guy, reading the place mat. “Called the Evil of Baie-Saint-Paul. Quite a little hot spot.”

  He helped himself to nachos.

  “How’d you know this terrasse was here?” Clara asked.

  “It’s my superpower.”

  “Jean-Guy Beauvoir,” said Gamache. “Boy Wonder.”

  “They think we’re the sidekicks,” Beauvoir whispered to Myrna.

  “Oh, how I’d love to get you on my couch,” she replied.

  “Get in line, sister.”

  Myrna laughed.

  “I have an uncanny ability to find bathrooms,” he said.

  “Seems a limited sort of superpower,” said Myrna.

  “Yeah, well, if you really had to go, which power would you rather have? Flight? Invisibility? Or the ability to find a toilet?”

  “Invisibility might be
useful, but point taken, Kato.”

  “I told you, I’m not the sidekick.” He gestured surreptitiously toward Gamache.

  “Have you been here before?” Clara asked. “Is that how you knew?”

  “Non.” He looked out across the ravine and seemed momentarily caught by the view. Then he returned his eyes to Clara. And in them she saw trees on the shoreline desperate for root. And an endless river.

  “It’s not magic, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “I could tell there was a drop-off, and when we first came here I suspected no innkeeper would have access to this view and not take advantage of it.”

  “You guessed?” asked Myrna.

  “Yes.”

  But both women knew it wasn’t really a guess. Jean-Guy Beauvoir might behave like a boy wonder, a sidekick. But they of all people knew that was just the façade. He too had an archway, and a secret courtyard. And views he kept hidden.

  They sipped their drinks and caught their breath.

  “Now what?” Myrna asked.

  “We’ve been to the inns and B and Bs,” said Clara, ticking off the hotels on the place mat. “We’ve shown Peter’s picture around. Now we need to take around his paintings.”

  She pointed to the rolled-up canvases on the table.

  “To innkeepers?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “No. The galleries. Baie-Saint-Paul is thick with them.” Again she gestured toward the place mat. “If Peter is here, he probably visited one or more.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Jean-Guy, not bothering to disguise his surprise.

  “You two go to the ones on this side of Baie-Saint-Paul.” She drew a circle on the place mat. “And we’ll take the other.” She looked at her watch. It was nearing five. Nearing closing time. “We need to hurry.”

  She got up and they all took their place mats.

  “Where should we meet?” Myrna asked.

  “Here.”

  Clara’s finger fell onto a brasserie in the center of town.

  La Muse.

  Myrna and Clara took two of Peter’s paintings, including the one with the lips. Jean-Guy picked up the one that was left and examined it, not at all sure which way was up.

  He looked, briefly, from the painting to the view, and back to the painting.