So many summer evenings sitting on the dilapidated front porch of the ramshackle house, Ruth in her rocker, her cane across her lap. In another era it would have been a shotgun, thought Harriet. And she’d have had a corncob pipe.
Rosa, the mad duck, would hop up and settle on Harriet’s lap. Exhausted after a day of terrorizing the villagers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” one of them muttered, though it wasn’t always clear which one.
Harriet loved listening to the old poet and the duck while sipping lemonade and watching life in Three Pines come to a rest. Across the village green, she’d see light through the mullioned windows of the bistro. And above the bookshop, another light in the loft where her aunt lived.
On those summer evenings, Ruth often talked about the history of the village. Some of what she said was documented, though much had been passed down verbally. Some of the stories had the mist of myth about them.
There’d been people living there long before the huge pine trees were planted. Before Champlain “discovered” the territory.
“What he discovered,” said Ruth, “was that there were people already here. Of course, the Abenaki and Iroquois should have slaughtered them. An opportunity missed.”
Harriet had laughed, then noticed that Ruth was not actually joking.
Mostly, though, Ruth listened as Harriet talked about her dreams, her perceptions. Her demons.
“A poem begins,” Ruth had said one evening, as they watched Monsieur and Madame Gamache walk hand in hand, while their young dog Henri played on the village green, “as a lump in the throat.”
Harriet understood. She woke every day with a lump in her throat. Sometimes it felt more like a bone.
Except when she was there, in the peaceful little village.
“Okay,” she said now to her Auntie Myrna. “Let’s go.” They started for the door, but Harriet hesitated and looked back. “I need to thank Madame Provost.”
She paused, clearly hoping Auntie Myrna would tell her it wasn’t necessary.
“I’ll wait,” said Myrna and watched her niece, still clutching the bouquet of roses, go around the room, talking to strangers, despite the bone caught in her throat.
But Myrna’s eyes kept being dragged back to the handsome young man. And every time they did, he was staring at her.
“Are you all right?” Billy asked, putting his hand in hers.
Myrna smiled. She could never express why, but when she looked at this grizzled man, in his ill-fitting suit and unshavable face and untamable hair, who was about as far from an intellectual as possible, she felt safe and content and at peace.
She was happy before meeting him. But she was happier now. “I am.”
But that didn’t last long. Armand and Reine-Marie joined them moments later.
“He’s coming down to Three Pines,” Armand whispered.
He didn’t have to say who.
“Hardye?”
“Oui, patron.”
Agent Moel joined the Chief Inspector in the hallway.
“I’m going to the local detachment. Inspector Chernin’s coming with me. You’re in charge.” He glanced toward the Arsenault children in the living room. “How are they?”
She considered. “Numb. Disconnected. I’m hoping to stop them from completely disassociating. It’s a balance. I think right now they need to know they’re safe. Can you imagine? The abuse is traumatic enough, but to be pimped out by your own mother? And now to be told she’s dead?”
Armand shook his head. Every day he faced the unimaginable. But this was worse than most. “At least they have each other.”
“Oui.”
He looked at Agent Moel. “What is it?”
“There’s a strong, almost unnatural bond between them.”
“Unnatural?”
“Not, I think, in that way. It’s a sort of fusion. I’ve seen it before in deeply traumatized children. They lose themselves in someone else. Hiding there until they can heal.”
“Is it mutual?” Gamache asked and saw her smile.
“Now that’s an interesting question. Why do you ask?”
“It just seems…”
She nodded. “The boy.”
“Yes.”
“If what you think happened to them actually did—”
“It did. There’s video,” said Gamache.
“Christ,” she muttered. “Then, being the youngest, he’d be the most damaged. His personality sealed up tight. And we both know what happens to things left too long in the dark. And yet…” She considered them again. “He’s the one who cried. The girl still hasn’t.”
They both knew that was a bad sign. A warning sign.
CHAPTER 8
Chief Inspector Gamache slapped the photograph onto the desk. His hand hit with such force the sound reverberated beyond the four walls and out into the bullpen at the Sûreté detachment.
“Captain?” One of the agents peered into the office.
Linda Chernin used her boot to slam the door shut. The agents working in the outer room could still see through the window into the station commander’s office, but they couldn’t hear. Unless voices were raised, and it seemed likely they would be.
Captain Dagenais looked down at the screen grab, his face growing pale.
“Give me your gun.” Gamache held out his hand. “You’re under arrest.”
Dagenais looked up into the Chief Inspector’s eyes. Then he looked behind Gamache to the two officers standing on either side and slightly behind him.
Gamache’s second-in-command, a woman, had her hand on her gun, though it was still in its holster at her hip. The other, that fucker Beauvoir, also had his jacket open, ready if need be.
And he could see by the look on Beauvoir’s face that he hoped need would be.
Dagenais’s mind worked fast. He looked through the window at his agents, now all on their feet. Staring in. Alert. Ready. He’d long regretted that window and the lack of privacy. Now it just might save his ass.
Dagenais did a quick calculation. Six of them. Heavily armed. Seven if he counted himself. Three of Gamache’s people, including the unarmed Chief Inspector.
“On what charge?”
“Give me your weapon,” demanded Gamache.
Dagenais hesitated, then pulled it out of its holster. Chernin moved, but Gamache signaled her to stand fast.
Gamache hadn’t told Beauvoir what this was about. He’d been silent on the drive over to the station, though he had exchanged a few words with Chernin. Orders.
Now Beauvoir saw why they were so silent. So strained.
The picture on the captain’s desk showed the station commander clearly naked. Clearly nearing the climax of a sexual act. An act performed in that dim, filthy root cellar. Performed on …
Jean-Guy felt like retching.
How could anyone…?
His eyes traveled from the photograph to Dagenais’s gun. Still in Dagenais’s hand. Not actually pointed at Gamache, but close.
Beauvoir could feel his own, cold to the touch, under his hand but still in its holster.
Why wouldn’t Gamache let them draw them out? Because, Beauvoir suddenly realized, Gamache didn’t know the captain like he did. The man was a tyrant, running the isolated detachment as though it were his own personal army. He commanded, demanded, absolute loyalty. Which Beauvoir refused to give.
Which was why he’d been isolated in the basement, as though he were the contagion. Not because he was a rotten Sûreté officer, but because he was a good one.
Though he didn’t turn to look, Jean-Guy could feel the presence of the other agents in the outer room. Waiting for a signal from Dagenais.
Beauvoir knew their loyalties. Gamache did not.
This was not, Agent Beauvoir knew, going to end well.