“If you have no more work to do, please leave.”
The young agent nodded, turned to get back to work, met the wall of other officers, and stopped. Then he walked around them, watched by Gamache and his homicide team. Their last view of the young officer before they turned away was of his back, and a furiously blushing neck.
“Join me please,” Gamache said to Beauvoir and Lacoste, who took their seats at the conference table.
“What do you think?” Gamache asked quietly.
“About the body?”
“About the boy.”
“Not again,” said Beauvoir, exasperated. “There are perfectly good officers already in homicide if we need someone. If they’re busy with cases there’s always the wait-list. Agents from other divisions are dying to get into homicide. Why choose an untested kid from the boonies? If we need another investigator let’s call one down from headquarters.”
It was their classic argument.
The homicide division of the Sûreté du Québec was the most prestigious posting in the province. Perhaps in Canada. They worked on the worst of all crimes in the worst of all conditions. And they worked with the best, the most respected and famous, of all investigators. Chief Inspector Gamache.
So why pick the dregs?
“We could, certainly,” admitted the Chief.
But Beauvoir knew he wouldn’t. Gamache had found Isabelle Lacoste sitting outside her Superintendent’s office, about to be fired from traffic division. Gamache had asked her to join him, to the astonishment of everyone.
He’d found Beauvoir himself reduced to guarding evidence at the Sûreté outpost of Trois Rivières. Every day Beauvoir, Agent Beauvoir then, had suffered the ignominy of putting on his Sûreté uniform then stepping into the evidence cage. And staying there. Like an animal. He’d so pissed off his colleagues and bosses this was the only place left to put him. Alone. With inanimate objects. Silence all day, except when other agents came to put something in or take something out. They wouldn’t even meet his eye. He’d become untouchable. Unmentionable. Invisible.
But Chief Inspector Gamache saw. He’d come one day on a case, had himself gone to the cage with evidence, and there he’d found Jean Guy Beauvoir.
The agent, the man no one wanted, was now the second in command in homicide.
But Beauvoir couldn’t shake the certainty that Gamache had simply gotten lucky so far, with a few notable exceptions. The reality was, untested agents were dangerous. They made mistakes. And mistakes in homicide led to death.
He turned and looked at the slight young agent with loathing. Was this the one who’d finally make that blunder? The magnificent mistake that would lead to another death? It could be me who gets it, thought Beauvoir. Or worse. He glanced at Gamache beside him.
“Why him?” Beauvoir whispered.
“He seems nice,” said Lacoste.
“Like the sunset,” Beauvoir sneered.
“Like the sunset,” she repeated. “He was standing all alone.”
There was silence.
“That’s it?” asked Beauvoir.
“He doesn’t fit in. Look at him.”
“You’d choose the runt of the litter? For homicide detail? For God’s sake, sir,” he appealed to Gamache. “This isn’t the Humane Society.”
“You think not?” said Gamache with a small smile.
“We need the best for this team, for this case. We don’t have time to train people. And frankly, he looks as though he needs help tying his shoes.”
It was true, Gamache had to admit, the young agent was awkward. But he was something else as well.
“We’ll take him,” said the Chief to Beauvoir. “I know you don’t approve, and I understand your reasons.”
“Then why take him, sir?”
“Because he asked,” said Gamache, rising up. “And no one else did.”
“But they’d join us in a second,” Beauvoir argued, getting up as well. “Anyone would.”
“What do you look for in a member of our team?” asked Gamache.
Beauvoir thought. “I want someone smart and strong.”
Gamache tipped his head toward the young man. “And how much strength do you think that took? How much strength do you think it takes him to go to work every day? Almost as much as it took you, in Trois Rivières, or you,” he turned to Lacoste, “in traffic division. The others might want to join us, but they either didn’t have the brains or lacked the courage to ask. Our young man had both.”
Our, thought Beauvoir. Our young man. He looked at him across the room. Alone. Coiling wires carefully and placing them in a box.
“I value your judgment, you know that, Jean Guy. But I feel strongly about this.”
“I understand, sir.” And he did. “I know this is important to you. But you’re not always right.”
Gamache stared at his Inspector and Beauvoir recoiled, afraid he’d gone too far. Presumed too much on their personal relationship. But then the Chief smiled.
“Happily, I have you to tell me when I make a mistake.”
“I think you’re making one now.”
“Noted. Thank you. Will you please invite the young man to join us.”
Beauvoir walked purposefully across the room and stopped at the young agent.
“Come with me,” he said.
The agent straightened up. He looked concerned. “Yes, sir.”
Behind them an officer snickered. Beauvoir stopped and turned back to the young officer following him.
“What’s your name?”
“Paul Morin. I’m with the Cowansville detachment of the Sûreté, sir.”
“Agent Morin, will you please take a seat at the table. We’d like your thoughts on this murder investigation.”
Morin looked astonished. But not quite as astonished as the burly men behind him. Beauvoir turned back and walked slowly toward the conference table. It felt good.
“Reports, please,” said Gamache and glanced at his watch. It was five thirty.
“Results are beginning to come in on some of the evidence we collected this morning in the bistro,” said Beauvoir. “The victim’s blood was found on the floor and between some of the floorboards, though there wasn’t much.”
“Dr. Harris will have a fuller report soon,” said Gamache. “She thinks the lack of blood is explained by internal bleeding.”
Beauvoir nodded. “We do have a report on his clothing. Still nothing to identify him. His clothes were old but clean and of good quality once. Merino wool sweater, cotton shirt, corduroy pants.”
“I wonder if he’d put on his best clothes,” said Agent Lacoste.
“Go on,” said Gamache, leaning forward and taking off his glasses.
“Well.” She picked her way through her thoughts. “Suppose he was going to meet someone important. He’d have a shower, shave, clip his nails even.”
“And he might pick up clean clothes,” said Beauvoir, following her thoughts. “Maybe at a used clothing store, or a Goodwill depot.”
“There’s one in Cowansville,” said Agent Morin. “And another in Granby. I can check them.”
“Good,” said the Chief Inspector.
Agent Morin looked over at Inspector Beauvoir, who nodded his approval.
“Dr. Harris doesn’t think this man was a vagrant, not in the classic sense of the word,” said Chief Inspector Gamache. “He appeared in his seventies, but she’s convinced he was closer to fifty.”
“You’re kidding,” said Agent Lacoste. “What happened to him?”
That was the question, of course, thought Gamache. What happened to him? In life, to age him two decades. And in death.
Beauvoir stood up and walked to the fresh, clean sheets of paper pinned to the wall. He picked out a new felt pen, took off the cap and instinctively wafted it under his nose. “Let’s go through the events of last night.”