A Great Reckoning Page 8

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s thinking was very clear and very simple. Did someone need to be stopped? Did their actions need to be arrested? Were they breaking the law, causing harm, intentionally or not?

  And for those two men, no action would be unintentional. Every act was well considered.

  But the same could be said, Beauvoir knew, about Armand Gamache, who had intentionally, Beauvoir now realized, placed his back to the door. To Brébeuf and Leduc.

  As though to invite attack. Or to send a message.

  Armand Gamache wasn’t just in command, he was in total command. He was invulnerable. Serge Leduc and Michel Brébeuf could do their worst, and it would never overwhelm Gamache’s best. He wasn’t worried.

  It might be the message Gamache was sending, but Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew it wasn’t the truth. And he suspected Gamache knew that too.

  The back, turned on evil, was symbolic. But nothing more.

  Serge Leduc had greeted the former superintendent of the Sûreté with no sign of censure for what Brébeuf had done.

  And Brébeuf? He’d know perfectly well what Leduc had done, and was capable of doing.

  He greeted the Duke as a king in exile welcomed a loyal subject.

  “You might not care, patron,” said Jean-Guy, “but what about them?”

  Gamache turned in his chair to see a clump of students standing behind the two professors. Waiting to be tossed a crumb of attention.

  Commander Gamache turned back to Jean-Guy.

  “I didn’t say I don’t care. I care very deeply. That’s why I’m here.”

  His voice, while calm, carried a gravity and even a censure that Beauvoir didn’t miss.

  “Désolé, of course you care. But shouldn’t we do something?”

  “We are doing something, Jean-Guy.”

  Gamache focused on the cadets who’d joined him and Madame Gamache and Jean-Guy around the fireplace. And Armand Gamache tried not to show his unease.

  Michel Brébeuf had not been invited to the party. He wasn’t even expected at the academy until the following day.

  Yet here he was. Out of the storm. And into the arms of Serge Leduc. It wasn’t, perhaps, surprising. But it was disappointing.

  And then some.

  He’d brought these two men together for a reason, but he thought he had some control over them. Now he saw he almost certainly had less than he thought.

  As he turned back to the bright hearth, Gamache felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

  * * *

  Most of the staff and students had left and Amelia was heading for the door when she noticed the brown paper folded on the side table, with a picture on top. She picked it up.

  “What do you think of it?” Commander Gamache asked, and Amelia started, then made to put the picture down, but it was too late.

  He’d caught her.

  She shrugged.

  “You can do better than that,” he said, holding out his hand. She gave him the painting.

  “It’s a map,” she said. “Somewhere in Québec.” She pointed to the snowman with the hockey stick. “But what’s with the pyramid?”

  Gamache’s eye never left her. Amelia Choquet had found the strangest thing in a strange picture.

  “I have no idea.”

  “I like the card,” she said. “Your friends expect you to fuck up?”

  “Always.”

  The ring piercing her lip twitched, betraying amusement.

  “Again?” she asked, pointing to the word hanging off the end of Ruth’s sentence.

  “You don’t get gray hair without having messed up a few times,” he said. “You know?”

  He held her eyes, and for the second time that day she saw intelligence there.

  He was, she told herself, just another large, white, middle-aged man. She’d had her fill of them. Literally.

  “Have you figured out what the academy motto means?” he asked.

  “Velut arbor aevo. ‘As a tree with the passage of time.’ It means you have to put down roots.”

  She was wrong, she knew. The motto might mean that, at a superficial level, but there was more to it. And more to this man.

  She’d noticed something else in his gaze. A shrewdness, as though he knew her better than she knew herself. As though he saw something in her, something she didn’t think he altogether liked.

  * * *

  “Well, that was interesting,” said Reine-Marie after they’d cleaned up and could finally collapse into the seats by the fire. “Did you happen to notice a slight tension?”

  It was asked with wide-eyed innocence, as though she could be wrong.

  “Maybe just a little,” said her husband, joining her on the sofa.

  “Want some?” asked Beauvoir. He’d gone down into the kitchens and grabbed a tray of sandwiches, which he held with one hand while eating with the other.

  Now he offered the tray to Armand and Reine-Marie, who each took one.

  “I don’t like it,” said Beauvoir, sitting in the Barcelona chair, which he now claimed as his own.

  “What?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “This whole thing,” said Beauvoir. “Socializing with cadets.”

  “The lower orders?” asked Reine-Marie. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

  “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted. “What’s with that Goth girl? How did she get in? She doesn’t seem to even want to be here. Some of the cadets might be a little soft, but at least they’re eager. She’s just…”

  He looked for the right word, then turned to his father-in-law.

  “No, not evil,” said Beauvoir, before Gamache could.

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “Then how would you describe her?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Adrift,” said Gamache. Then he paused. “No, not adrift. Drowning.”

  “Troubled, certainly,” said Reine-Marie. “Why did you admit her, Armand? When last I heard, she’d been rejected.”

  “What?” Beauvoir struggled to sit forward on the chair. “She’d been rejected and you changed that? Why?”

  “I went over the application for every first-year cadet,” said Armand. “They’re all here because I saw something in them.”

  “And what did you see in her?” Reine-Marie asked, getting in before Beauvoir could ask the same question, though not, she knew, with the same tone.

  “A last chance,” he said. “A lifeline.”

  There was a knock on the door and he got up.

  “This isn’t a reform school,” Beauvoir called after him. “The Sûreté Academy isn’t a charity.”

  At the door Gamache turned, his hand on the knob. “Who said the lifeline was for her?”

  Armand opened the door and came face-to-face with Michel Brébeuf.

  Reine-Marie stood up and walked to her husband’s side.

  “Armand,” said Brébeuf, then turning to her, “Reine-Marie.”

  “Michel,” she said, her voice curt but courteous. She could smell the Scotch on his breath but he didn’t seem drunk.

  “I’m sorry I showed up uninvited to your party.” He gave her an embarrassed, almost boyish, smile. “I didn’t mean to. I came in a day early because of the storm and wanted to drop by to let you know I was here. I walked right in on the party. I came back to apologize.”

  “I’m a little tired,” Reine-Marie said to Armand. “I think I’ll go to bed. Michel.”

  She nodded toward him, and he smiled.

  As Reine-Marie left the room, Jean-Guy caught a look pass between the Gamaches.

  She was angry, livid, at this further incursion into their private space, their private time. Jean-Guy had rarely seen his mother-in-law angry. Armand knew it too and acknowledged it with a quick squeeze of her hand before she walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Firmly.

  “You know Jean-Guy Beauvoir, of course,” said Armand, and the two shook hands.

  “Yes, Inspector. How are you?”

  “Fine,” said Beauvoir. ���As are you, obviously.”

  Superintendent Brébeuf had also been Beauvoir’s boss, but so far up the ladder that they rarely met. And now here they were, as though equals. As though nothing had happened.

  They were all playing the game. The charade.

  One word. Sounds like hypocrisy.

  But Beauvoir also knew there was more to it than that. Yes, the Gamaches were pretending to be civil. But there was history there. Not just of hurt, but of deep affection.

  Would the affection win? Should it? Was such a thing even possible? Beauvoir wondered.

  Jean-Guy watched as Gamache invited Brébeuf in. The former superintendent stood in front of the fire and waited for Armand to invite him to sit.

  It was a long, ripe moment.

  And then Armand gestured, and Michel sat.

  And Beauvoir left, taking the sick feeling in his stomach with him.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Help yourself,” said Armand, waving toward the sideboard and the bottles lined up there.

  Without waiting to see what Brébeuf did, he went into the bedroom and over to Reine-Marie, who was hanging up her clothes.

  “You okay?” he asked, watching her fluid movements, her back to him.

  Then she turned around and he could see she’d been crying.

  “Oh,” was all he managed, taking her in his arms.

  After a few moments, she pulled away and he handed her a handkerchief.

  “It’s just upsetting,” she said, waving the handkerchief as though to clear the air. “When I see Michel, and hear him, for a moment I forget. It’s like nothing has happened. And then I remember what happened.”

  She sighed. And looked toward the closed door.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked, dragging his handkerchief under her eyes to wipe away the mascara.

  “Michel Brébeuf is no threat,” he said, holding her hands and holding her eyes. “Not anymore. He’s a paper tiger.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I’m sure, ma belle. Are you all right? Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

  “Non. I’m fine. I have some reading to do. You go back and entertain that shithead.”

  Armand looked at her with surprise.

  She laughed. “I seem to be channeling Ruth. It’s quite liberating.”

  “That’s one word for it. After I get rid of Michel, I’ll call an exorcist.”

  He kissed her and left.

  At one in the morning, Reine-Marie turned out the light. Armand was still in the living room with Michel. She could hear their laughter.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, I’d forgotten that,” said Michel.

  The bottle of Scotch had been moved from the drinks table to the coffee table, and the level had moved down considerably.

  “How could you forget Professor Meunier?” said Armand, reaching for the bottle and pouring them each another shot. Then sitting back, he put his slippered feet on the footstool. “He was like something out of a cartoon. Barking orders and throwing chalk at us. I still have the scar.”

  He pointed to the back of his head.

  “You should’ve ducked.”

  “You shouldn’t have provoked him. He was aiming at you, as I remember.”

  Michel Brébeuf laughed. “Okay, I remember.” His laughter slowed to a chuckle and then silence. “Those were the longest three years of my life. The academy. I think they also might have been the happiest. We were so young. Is it possible?”

  “Nineteen years old when we entered,” said Armand. “I looked at the kids here tonight and wondered if we were ever so young. And I wondered how we got so old. It seems no time has passed. Came as a surprise that we’re now the professors.”

  “Not just professors,” said Michel, raising his glass in salute. “But the Commander.”

  He drank, then looking into the glass, he spoke softly.

  “Why…”

  “Oui?” said Armand, when the silence had stretched on.

  “Leduc.”

  “Why did I keep him on?”

  Brébeuf nodded.

  “You two seemed to hit it off tonight. You tell me.”

  “He invited me back to his rooms after the party,” said Brébeuf. “He’s a cretin.”

  “He’s worse than that,” said Gamache.

  “Yes,” said Brébeuf, studying his companion. “What’re you going to do about him?”

  “Ahhh, Michel,” said Armand, crossing his legs and raising his glass to his eyes, so that he saw Brébeuf through the amber liquid. “You worry about your side of the street. There’s enough mess there to keep you busy. I’ll worry about mine.”

  Brébeuf nodded, eating a stale sandwich as he thought. Finally he asked, “Have you told the cadets about Matthew 10:36 yet?”

  “Non. I’ll leave that up to you.”

  Michel tried to get up but couldn’t. But Armand did. He stood up and stood over Brébeuf, large, solid, almost threatening. No longer under the influence, it seemed.

  Putting out his hand, and with more strength than Brébeuf expected at that late hour in the day and in their lives, Armand hauled him to his feet.

  “Time you left. You have a job to do.”

  “But what job? Why am I here?” Michel asked, his eyes bleary, looking into Armand’s familiar gaze. “I need to know.”

  “You do know.”

  As he left, one bony hand like a claw brushing the wall of the corridor to keep him on course, Michel Brébeuf knew there were probably many reasons Armand had gone all the way to the Gaspé and brought him back. From Percé Rock. From the dead.

  Armand had always been the more clever of the two. And there was cleverness at work here.

  From that first visit, Brébeuf had known he wasn’t going to be simply a professor. He would be the object lesson, the walking warning to the cadets. What happened when you gave in to temptation. When you listened to the fallen angels of your nature.

  But after tonight he suspected there was even more to it than that. More expected. Armand had other things in mind.

  If Armand wasn’t going to tell him why he’d invited him to the academy, Michel wasn’t going to tell him why he’d accepted.

  And there was another question, just as tantalizing.

  Why was Armand really there?

  * * *

  Gamache closed the door and, leaning against it, he brought a hand to his head. It was all he could do not to slump to the floor. It had been a long time since he’d drunk that much. And a long time since he’d dredged up all those memories.

  Pushing off from the door, he turned off the lights and carefully made his way to the bedroom, wondering which hangover would be worse in the morning. The one from the alcohol or the emotions.

  * * *

  Over the following weeks the Sûreté Academy fell into a comfortable rhythm of classes, hockey practice, and meals. Of rigorous exercise and volunteering in the community.

  Mind, body, and spirit, the cadets were told. Over and over.

  It was a structured life, with just enough free time to get the troublemakers into trouble.

  After a while the cadets, new and old, came to know what was expected.

  The freshmen settled in more quickly than the older students, who found it difficult to adapt to the new set of rules and expectations that were at once more firm and more forgiving than those of the old regime.

  It was made clear by the new commander that there were no harsh punishments, but there were consequences. Over and over, the cadets were made aware that actions had effects. Swift and decisive and in proportion to the act. Something that seemed to come as an unpleasant surprise to many of the older cadets, who were used to currying favor.

  The new reality won Commander Gamache many supporters, and many more detractors.

  Once a week, Reine-Marie would drive in with Armand and that night they’d host a gathering of cadets. It was a chance to air, in confidence, grievances. To ask questions.

  They discussed, around the fireplace, old cases, difficult cases. Moral uncertainties, the place of policing in a free society. About when to take a stand, and when to step away.

  Issues most of these young people had never considered, but now must.

  As the days and weeks progressed, friendships were made. Groups were formed. Allegiances solidified. Rivalries flared. Enemies were made. Lovers attached, and detached.

  And Amelia Choquet remained alone. By choice. A class by herself.

  Except for the gatherings in the Gamaches’ quarters. It had not been her idea to go. She’d been invited, and she took the invitation as not really optional.

  “What is it?” asked Huifen one evening.

  She stood beside the Goth Girl, who’d been staring at a small framed picture by the door.

  “What does it look like?” asked Amelia.

  The Commander could command her to be there, but not to like it, or the other cadets.

  “A map,” said Huifen. “Hey, Jacques, look at this.”

  Jacques Laurin walked over. He was the head cadet, chosen the year before by Leduc and kept in place by Gamache.

  Amelia had never spoken to him, though she’d seen him drilling his squad. Jogging around the frozen quad. He was tall and attractive, with an air about him someone charitable might call assurance. Amelia saw it as arrogance.

  And yet, she noticed, he deferred to the small Asian girl.

  “So?” he asked.

  “It’s kinda neat,” said Huifen.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Jacques. “There’s a snowman and a rose? The two don’t go together.”

  Another cadet had joined them, standing slightly off to the side. The gay kid with the red hair from class, Amelia knew. Nathaniel Something.

  “I like it,” he said, and the other three looked at him, and Jacques gave a small, dismissive snort, then turned away from the freshman. The gay Anglo freshman.

  But Amelia continued to look at Nathaniel. Who had either the courage, or the stupidity, to contradict the head cadet.

  Amelia returned her gaze to the map.

  She had no idea why it had such a hold on her. When she’d seen it, that first evening, she’d thought, like Jacques, that it was ridiculous. But every week, during these gatherings, she found herself in front of it.

  Was it the cow? The snowman? Those trees that looked like children?

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