Reine-Marie smiled. How often had she heard Armand saying the same thing? Up and at ’em. Outside their son Daniel’s door?
Though the final few months Daniel had been at home had been less than amusing, given the reason he was passed out at ten in the morning. And she remembered the rage their son had felt when his father entered his room to wake him up.
It had verged on violence.
But still Reine-Marie smiled. It had started out as normal, and natural, for a young fellow to sleep in. And had been that way for a long while. Before it all changed.
“Can you come here, please?” Armand called down.
They looked at one another, then Annie gathered Honoré in her arms and they all walked upstairs.
“He’s not here,” said Armand, stepping aside so they could look through the open door.
They peered in. Not only was he not there but the bed hadn’t been slept in. Armand stepped into the room and looked around.
“His things?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Still here.”
Sure enough, the room was exactly as Benedict had left it the night before.
“I’ll make some calls,” said Reine-Marie, heading down the stairs and into the living room, picking up the phone while Armand and Jean-Guy put on their coats, tuques, mitts, and boots.
Armand had already been outside once that morning, walking around the village green with Henri and Gracie. But the sun had been barely up, and it was possible Armand had missed something. Someone. In a snowbank.
The bitter-cold snap had broken, and now it was merely cold. Once outside, Gamache glanced at the thermometer on the verandah. Minus six Celsius.
Cold enough.
The men broke into a trot, Armand pointing clockwise while he went counterclockwise around the village green.
He forced himself to slow to a rapid walk. He didn’t want to miss anything.
His eyes were sharp, scanning. His mind on the search. Trying to divorce action from emotion. Trying not to imagine Benedict curled up by the side of the road.
If that was the case, then there was no hurry, and yet they hurried. In case.
Jean-Guy came around the bend. “Nothing, patron.”
They went around again, slower this time. The snowbanks were steep, but Jean-Guy managed to scramble, with Armand’s help, to the top and walk, like a man on a tightrope, across the jagged ridge. Peering on either side.
Clara came out of her cottage, soon joined by Myrna from her bookshop. Even Ruth appeared.
“Reine-Marie called,” said the old poet. “Anything?”
“Nothing.”
Reine-Marie joined them. “I just spoke to Olivier. Benedict was in the bistro last night. He had a few beers but wasn’t drunk.”
She knew as well as Armand that sometimes people got disoriented in the cold and dark. Often helped along by drink and drugs.
“Nothing here,” said Jean-Guy, sliding off the snowbank.
“We need to split up,” said Armand. “Check the roads in and out of town.”
“I’ll take the Old Stage Road,” said Clara, not waiting for a response but heading in that direction.
They divvied up the paths while Ruth went into the bistro to talk to Olivier.
A few minutes later, they heard a sharp whistle. Ruth was calling them back to the bistro.
Their skin tingled and ached as they stepped into the warmth.
“He was here last night,” Olivier confirmed. “I didn’t see him leave—”
“But I did,” said Gabri, wiping his hands on his apron. “He left with Billy Williams. They’d been talking, and the two went out together.”
“Where did they go?”
“I have no idea, but I did see Billy’s truck drive away. I don’t know if the kid was with him.”
Gabri picked up the phone on the bistro bar and called. They saw him nod, listen, then hang up.
“Billy says he gave Benedict a lift to Madame Baumgartner’s farmhouse.”
Myrna stopped rubbing her hands by the fire and turned to him. “Why would he do that?”
“Benedict asked to go,” said Gabri. “Something about the kid’s truck. It’s on Billy’s way home, so he drove him over.”
“And just left him there?” asked Clara.
“I guess so,” said Gabri. Though it didn’t sound like Billy Williams. He maintained the roads and did odd jobs around the area, and he was well aware that the cold kills. “That’s all Billy knows.”
“Benedict must’ve driven back to Montréal,” said Olivier.
“Maybe,” said Armand.
“What is it?” asked Clara as Myrna went into her shop to get the papers from the notary, with Benedict’s phone number.
“He promised he wouldn’t drive his truck,” said Armand. “That’s why we left it behind. It doesn’t have winter tires.”
“Don’t tell me someone lied to you?” Ruth thrust out her lower lip and made a sad face.
“Did he cross his heart?”
And hope to die?
But she stopped short of saying that, to Armand’s surprise. Seemed Ruth had a filter after all.
“Wouldn’t he have told us if he’d returned to Montréal?” asked Reine-Marie.
“He’s probably still asleep in his apartment,” said Clara. “You’ll get a call when he wakes up.”
“Well, I’m not waiting,” said Myrna, waving the papers she’d retrieved and going to the phone. “I’m calling his cell.”
She placed the call. They watched. And waited. And waited.
She spoke into the receiver, then hung up.
“It clicked over to voice mail. I told him to call here.”
“There’s just the one number for him?” asked Jean-Guy, looking over Myrna’s shoulder at the papers. “No home phone?”
“Kids today don’t have home phones, numbnuts,” Ruth explained to Jean-Guy. “You’re old, so you wouldn’t know that.”
“We have to go to the farmhouse,” said Armand, heading to the door. “And make sure.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Myrna. “We’re a team. Liquidators stick together.” She returned Armand’s stare. “What? It’s a thing.”
“It’s a nothing,” said Ruth.
“I know,” said Myrna, responding more to Armand’s eyes than Ruth’s words.
He nodded. They both knew what they might find. And of the group, he and Myrna were closest to Benedict. The young man invited a kind of intimacy, a near-immediate affection. And Myrna was right. They did feel like an odd little team.
“I’m coming too,” said Beauvoir, walking to the car with them.
“So am I,” said Reine-Marie.
“Can you stay at home?” Armand asked her. “In case he calls there?”
“Let me know,” she said as they got into the car.
“Oh Christ,” said Myrna, straining forward in her seat belt as they turned the corner and saw the farmhouse.
“I’ll call 911,” said Jean-Guy.
Armand grabbed the shovel from the trunk of his car.
Benedict’s truck was parked where they’d left it. Armand walked quickly over and looked into the cab.
Empty. The keys were in the ignition, and it had been turned on but must’ve run out of gas. He pulled the keys out and pocketed them.
“Rescue team’s on its way,” said Beauvoir, catching up.
“No one here,” called Myrna. She was standing next to the other vehicle in the yard. Not one Armand recognized. “This wasn’t here when we left yesterday, was it?”
“Non,” said Armand.
Beauvoir had pulled a shovel out of the snowbank by the front steps and now held it like a weapon.
Myrna joined them, and all three stared.
Madame Baumgartner’s home had collapsed.
The roof and second floor had caved in, part of it crushing the main floor, part of it hanging loose, barely holding together.
“Call back. Tell them to bring the dogs,” said Gamache as he advanced, slowly.
Beauvoir made the call.
“Is he inside?” Myrna whispered.
“I think so.” Gamache glanced behind him, at the other car. “And he’s not alone.”
He took off his tuque and cocked his head toward the farmhouse.
“Did you hear that?”