“And you?”
“Me?”
“Is there more happening than you’re telling me?” Beauvoir asked.
Ask Gamache. Despite himself, Beauvoir had just done as Cournoyer suggested.
“Where did that come from?” Gamache asked. “Is that what’s been bothering you? Has someone said something?”
“Is there?”
“If there is, I’m as much in the dark as you. This is political. We both know that. But how high up it goes and what the purpose is, I don’t know. What I do know is that it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. All that matters is getting the drugs back. That’s it. My punishment for releasing them goes far beyond anything a disciplinary committee can possibly do.”
Jean-Guy could see that was true, and already happening. He could see the punishing weight of responsibility. Of guilt. Of fear.
He could sense the anxiety growing to near panic as the Chief struggled to find the last of the drugs.
It was evident in the lines at the mouth. Between the brows. The hands that even in casual conversation were clenched, as though in pain.
That bullet’s left the barrel, Cournoyer had said. And now Beauvoir could see it had reached its target.
“We’ll find it, patron.”
“We have to.”
It was said with cold determination, and Jean-Guy wondered at the lengths Gamache would go to to get the drugs back. But then he remembered their conversation. About Amelia Choquet. And he stopped wondering.
“Home?” Beauvoir asked, pointing the car in the direction of Three Pines.
“A home, for sure,” said Gamache. “But not ours quite yet.”
Half an hour later, they were at the Maison Saint-Rémy.
The head nurse greeted them and invited the Sûreté officers into her office.
“What can I help you with? You say you’re with the police?”
She spoke English, and the two officers quickly switched languages. As they’d waited for her at the front desk, Beauvoir had picked up a brochure and noted that this was an English seniors’ home. One of the few where services were primarily English.
Even those who were bilingual preferred, at the end of their lives, to live it out in the tongue they’d learned from their mothers.
“Oui,” said Beauvoir. “We’d like to know about the death of Bertha Baumgartner.”
“The Duchess?”
“The Baroness,” said Gamache.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“We just need a few questions answered,” said Beauvoir. “What did she die of?”
The head nurse turned to her computer and, after a moment, replied, “Heart failure.” She took off her glasses and turned back to them. “Vague, I realize. It’s almost always heart failure. Unless the family asks for an autopsy, that’s what the doctor writes. The people here are elderly and frail. Their hearts just stop.”
“Was it expected?” Beauvoir asked.
“Well, it’s almost always expected, and yet a surprise. She wasn’t sick. She just went to bed and didn’t wake up. It’s the way most of us hope to go.”
“Did she have many visitors?”
“Her sons and daughter would come, but they work and it’s difficult.”
Beauvoir heard what was unsaid. They did not visit often.
“They called her often, though,” said the head nurse. “Unlike some here, Madame Baumgartner clearly had a family who cared. They just couldn’t visit as often as they might have liked.”
“And the day she died?”
“I’d have to look it up.”
“Please do,” said Gamache, and they followed her to the reception desk, where there was a sign-in book.
Flipping back, she came to the date. It was empty.
“Joseph?” she called to a middle-aged man, who went over. “These men are with the Sûreté. They’re asking about Madame Baumgartner.”
“The Countess?”
“The Baroness,” said Beauvoir, barely believing he was defending the title. “You’re at the front desk?”
“Oui.”
“Did she have many visitors?”
“Non. Her family every now and then. Mostly on weekends. And the young woman, of course. She always made it a point to see her.”
“Young woman?” asked Beauvoir. “Do you have her name?”
“Yes, of course,” said the nurse, walking back to her office. “She’s the one we called when the Empress—”
“Baroness,” said Gamache.
“—died. Yes, here it is.” She was at her computer once again. “Katie Burke.”
“Can you spell that, please?” asked Beauvoir, pulling out his notebook.
He couldn’t see how the natural death of an elderly woman in what appeared to be a well-run and caring seniors’ home could possibly have anything to do with her son’s murder a month or more later. Still, he took down the information she gave him.
“Why did you call her when Madame Baumgartner died?” asked Gamache. “Is it that you couldn’t reach the family?”
“We didn’t try.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mademoiselle Burke’s name was at the top of the contact list. Ahead of her children.”
CHAPTER 26
“So, numbnuts, where’s your boss?”
“He’s at home, babysitting Ray-Ray,” said Jean-Guy, passing the salad bowl to Olivier, who was sitting next to him at Clara’s long kitchen table.
The fact he’d actually begun answering to “numbnuts” was a little worrisome to Beauvoir, though he’d been called worse. By murderers. Psychopaths. Ruth.
“Babysitting? Just the job for a fourteen-year-old girl,” said Ruth. “He’s reached his level of competence, I see.”
When Clara’s invitation for dinner came, Beauvoir at first thought to beg off. He was tired, and it was dark and cold.
He’d assigned an inspector to find this Katie Burke, then settled down to read the reports that were coming in. He’d head back to Montréal and the office first thing in the morning. But for now all he wanted was to put his feet up and nod off by the fire.
But then Annie had whispered the magic words.
Coq au vin.
There was a wild rumor, racing through the Gamache home, that Olivier had made his famous casserole and was taking it to Clara’s.
“Don’t toy with me, madame.”
“And for dessert? Salted,” she whispered again, her breath fresh and warm, “caramel—”
“Nooo,” he moaned.
“—and burnt-fig ice cream.”
“Okay, I’m in,” he said, getting up. “You coming?” he called into the study as he made his way to the front door.
When there was no answer, he backed up.
“Patron?”
Armand was peering at the computer, a book open beside it on the desk.
“What’re you doing?”
“Trying to translate something, isn’t that right, mein Liebling?”
He held Honoré on his knee as he read, consulted, blinked to clear his bleary eyes, and wrote longhand in a notebook.
“Coq au vin,” said Reine-Marie, joining Jean-Guy at the door.
“Ahh, so the rumor is true,” said Armand. “But we already have dinner plans, don’t we?” He looked at his grandson. “Sweet potatoes. Yum. Maybe some avocado. Yum-yum. Some gray stuff that they say is meat.” He looked up then. “You all head off, we’ll be fine. Eh, meyn tayer.”
“There you are,” said Annie. Her coat already on, she came over and kissed her son. “Don’t let him get into any mischief, now.”
“You’re talking to Honoré, aren’t you?” said her father.
“I am.”
“You sure you don’t want to bring him to Clara’s?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Non, merci,” said Armand. “We have a full evening planned. Dinner. A bath. A movie. A book. Some all-star wrestling—”
“Were you planning on putting him to bed at any stage?” asked Jean-Guy.