“Why?” asked Evie. “Has something happened? Is this about the gun?”
“Gun?” said Al. His slack face tightened up, and his eyes came back into something like focus. “What gun?”
“I was just telling Evelyn,” said Clara. “But I didn’t get to the details. I don’t think Al knows.”
The two Sûreté officers looked at Laurent’s father, wondering, of course, whether that was true.
“I don’t understand,” said Al.
If he did know about the Supergun, thought Beauvoir, he was doing a pretty good imitation of someone who was completely ignorant.
“The thing that was hidden under the netting,” said Lacoste. “In the woods. Where Laurent died. It’s a gun.”
“A cannon, really,” said Beauvoir, studying them. “A missile launcher. It’s called a Supergun.”
“Laurent was telling the truth,” said his father, staring at Lacoste, his eyes pleading for something, though she didn’t know what.
Forgiveness? For ignorance? For her, and her news, to go away.
“I didn’t believe him. I laughed at him.”
“We both did,” said Evie.
“No, you wanted to go and see, in case it was real.”
“But then he told us about the monster,” Evie reminded him. “There was no way to believe that.”
“Christ,” said Al. It sounded more like a plea, a prayer, than a curse. “Oh no.” Lepage shut his eyes and hung his head, shaking it slightly. “I can’t believe it.”
“You’re not the only ones who didn’t believe him,” said Lacoste. “None of us did.”
While she spoke kindly, Chief Inspector Lacoste never lost sight of the fact that she might be speaking to Laurent’s killer.
“May we search your house?” Inspector Beauvoir asked.
Both Evie and Al nodded and followed them inside.
The agents who came with them began the search on the main floor, while Lacoste and Beauvoir went upstairs to the bedrooms.
While Lacoste searched Al and Evie’s room, Jean-Guy went through Laurent’s, opening every drawer, looking behind the posters tacked to the walls. He got on his hands and knees and looked under the bed, under the mattress, under the pillow, under the rug. He searched the closet and the pockets of Laurent’s clothing. Anywhere and everywhere a clever child could hide something. But there was nothing.
Laurent might be inquisitive, creative, but he was not by nature secretive. In fact, he seemed to want to tell everyone everything.
Nothing was hidden.
On the bedside table was a collection of rocks, with quartz and fool’s gold running through them. And a book, splayed open.
Le chandail de Hockey, by Roch Carrier. One of Jean-Guy’s favorite stories growing up. About a Québécois boy, a rabid Canadiens fan, who’s sent a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey sweater by mistake, and has to wear it.
Jean-Guy picked up the book and saw that Laurent was nearing the end of the short story. He replaced the book exactly as he’d found it, his hand lingering on the familiar illustration on the cover.
“Find something?” asked Lacoste.
“Nothing.”
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
Isabelle picked up one of the tiny lamb drawings, reading what was written carefully on the back. My Son. And then a heart. She replaced it. This was a job that had to be done, but it never stopped feeling like a violation.
“You?” Beauvoir asked.
“Nothing much.”
She’d found that Al had an enlarged prostate, and Evie waxed her facial hair, and one of them needed suppositories. They found that Al read books on solar power and historic fiction, and Evie read about organic gardening and biographies.
There was no television in the home and one old desktop computer.
Lacoste had turned it on and did a search and read emails from clients and family and friends. Condolences that petered out in the last few days.
After the search they met the Lepages and Clara in the sitting room of the small farmhouse. Clara had made tea, and offered the officers some, but they declined.
The room was dominated by a large brick fireplace inserted with a woodstove. Two old sofas faced each other across the hearth, each with a knitted afghan folded across the back. The floors were hardwood, and pocked and scratched. Braided rag throw rugs were scattered here and there on the floors. The old dog lay with its head on its paws by a rocking chair.
A guitar was propped on a stand next to the chair.
Beauvoir walked over to the stereo and looked at the LPs and cassettes.
He pulled out a vinyl album and recognized the smiling man on the cover. With a full head of red hair, a bushy red beard, wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and jeans with peace signs sewn in. He had everything but a joint.
He also recognized the background, with three tall pine trees.
The album was called Asylum.
“You?” asked Beauvoir, unnecessarily.
Al nodded. Evie took her husband’s hand.
“You’re American, is that right?” asked Lacoste. “A draft dodger?”
Al nodded. “There were lots of us.”
“I know,” said Lacoste. “It wasn’t an accusation. Why did you come here?”
“To get out of the war,” said Al.
“No, I mean, why here specifically?”
“I walked across the border from Vermont. I was tired. It was dark. I saw the lights of the village. So I stopped. Stayed.”
His speech was almost infantile, in spare declarative sentences.
“When was this?” asked Lacoste.
“Nineteen seventy.”
“More than forty years ago,” said Beauvoir.
“Do you know anything about that gun in the woods?” Lacoste asked.
“No. I hate guns.”
“Did Laurent say anything more after he found the gun? Did he talk to anyone else about it?” asked Beauvoir.
Both Al and Evie shook their heads.
“No?” asked Beauvoir. “Or you don’t know?”
“If he spoke to someone else he didn’t tell us,” said Evie. “But he must’ve, right? Was he killed because of the gun?”
“We think so,” said Lacoste. “Can you think of anything Laurent said, anything at all, that could help?”
“He came home, we had supper. Laurent read and Al and I did the vegetable baskets, then we went to bed. It was a normal night.”
“And next morning?” asked Lacoste.
“Breakfast, then he was out the door and on his bike as always.” Evie shut her eyes and both Lacoste and Beauvoir knew what she was seeing. The back of her little boy as he ran out into the sunshine. Never to return.
“We looked in his room but didn’t find anything,” said Beauvoir. “Has anything changed in there? Is there anything new?”
“Like what?” Evie asked.
Like the firing mechanism to a weapon of mass destruction, thought Beauvoir. Or plans for Armageddon.
“Just anything,” he said. “Did he bring anything home recently?”
“Not that I noticed.”
Isabelle Lacoste reached into her pocket, brought out an evidence bag, and placed it on the table between them. And waited for a reaction.
Al picked it up and his brows came together. “Where did you find this?”
“Is it yours?”
“I think so.”
Evie took the cassette out of his hand and read the label.
“Pete Seeger. It’s ours.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Beauvoir.
“Who else would have this?” she asked, holding it up. “Besides, the label’s torn where it got stuck in the cassette player in the truck.”
“One of Laurent’s favorites?” asked Lacoste.
Evie smiled slightly. “No. He hated it. It took a couple of months for Al to pry it out of the machine, so it was all we played when we were driving.”
“He liked it at first,” said Al.