Beauvoir looked around for Chernin. Surely the Inspector could stop this madness. But she was busy on the phone.
The three agents looked at each other in disbelief, then hurried out the door and into the darkness.
CHAPTER 10
“Are you insane?” Beauvoir seethed. “You’ll get us all killed.” He turned to Chernin, who was now off the phone. “He let them go.”
Chernin looked at the Chief Inspector with surprise but didn’t challenge him. Instead, she said, “The warrant for Dagenais’s property has come through.”
“Did you hear what I said?” Beauvoir demanded, looking from one to the other.
“Good,” said Gamache, ignoring him and replying to Chernin. “You’re in charge. Good luck, Linda.”
“And you, patron.” She watched as Gamache picked up one of the Glocks and loaded it.
“Agent Beauvoir,” said Gamache, fixing the gun to his belt, “do you know where Dagenais lives?”
“I don’t know the address, but I know how to get there.”
“Well, I know the address, but not how to get there. Come with me.”
At the door, Beauvoir looked back at Chernin. He needed reassurance that he wasn’t about to get into a car with a crazy man. An armed crazy man. But Inspector Chernin had already turned away.
As he drove, Jean-Guy was tempted to pepper the Chief Inspector with questions, but did not. He was afraid of the answers.
As they turned off the main road, Gamache asked, “Does Dagenais live alone?”
“Yes.”
“Let me know when we’re almost there.”
A few minutes later, Beauvoir said, “It’s down here a couple hundred meters.”
“Shut off your lights, please, and turn the car around in that cul-de-sac.”
The light rain of the early evening had turned to sleet. Once parked, Beauvoir reached for the door handle, but for the second time that endless day, Chief Inspector Gamache stopped him.
“Wait.”
Dear God, thought Jean-Guy. Not more poetry. Shoot me now.
But the Chief Inspector just sat, and stared out the window at the dark house, barely visible through the trees. One dim light shone in a downstairs window.
“Do you see any vehicles in the drive?”
Beauvoir squinted. “No. Dagenais’s car is at the station.”
Gamache would know that, thought Beauvoir. So why ask? And what were they waiting for? They had the warrant. None of this made sense.
A couple of minutes later a pickup truck drove by and turned into Dagenais’s driveway.
“Do you recognize it?”
Beauvoir did. His face, unseen in the dark, had gone pale.
“It’s the second-in-command. Dagenais’s man. The one who almost got us all killed. The one you released.”
Beauvoir expected some reaction from Gamache. An acknowledgment that he’d fucked up. The guy must be there for the same reason they were. To find the evidence. And Gamache was letting him do it.
“Oui,” said Gamache. “This’s why I released him.”
“You expected him to come here?”
“I hoped.”
It took Agent Beauvoir a few moments to adjust, and see the man beside him as not an incompetent lunatic.
“Holy shit, you expected him to come here.” The words were the same, but the tone and emphasis had changed. “You released him so he could do our work for us.”
“So he could find what we almost certainly never would,” said Gamache. “Dagenais would’ve hidden the evidence too well. But his second-in-command, also implicated, would know where.”
He reached for the door handle, as did Beauvoir. “Non. Stay here.”
“But—”
“I need you here. If he gets by me, if he tries to leave, stop him. Block the road. Assume he’s armed. Arrest him.”
“D’accord. And you?”
“When you have him secured, come find me. Got it? Whatever you hear, do not leave your post. Do you understand?”
Beauvoir knew what that meant. “Are you sure—”
“You’re the last line of defense, Agent Beauvoir. You have to stop him. We have to get that evidence. They’ll find other children. Might even be grooming some right now. You have to stop him. I’m counting on you, Jean-Guy.”
“Yessir.”
Beauvoir watched as the Chief Inspector disappeared into the swirling rain and snow.
The sleet hit Gamache’s face and made it difficult to see. But it also meant it would be difficult to be seen.
Crouching low, he approached the house slowly. Slowly.
Beauvoir was right, of course. In waiting, he’d allowed this man to get a head start on finding evidence. And maybe destroying it. This might’ve been a huge misjudgment.
He’d soon find out.
Going from window to window, he looked in. There was one light on, in the living room. But no one was there. Then Gamache noticed a dim glow in the woods.
He crept over, careful, careful not to step on any twigs. Not to lose his footing on the dead leaves, made slick by the sleet. Getting to a nearby tree, Gamache watched as the man knelt and brushed away a pile of leaves, revealing a large log half buried in the wet ground. Reaching into the rotten tree trunk, he withdrew first one package, then another. Gamache couldn’t see what they were. The objects were wrapped in something. The man shoved them into a knapsack and got up.
Then he stopped. And looked around.
Had he heard something? Sensed something? The man reached into his coat and brought out a gun.
The moment stretched on. The sleet kept falling, dribbling through Gamache’s hair and down his face. It tickled and he almost wiped it away. It was instinctive, but he stopped himself. Staying absolutely still. Barely breathing. Finally, the man lowered his weapon and started forward. He was approaching Gamache, who considered taking his own gun out now but decided against it. There was no way to do it without making a sound. Besides, he needed both hands free.
Wait. Wait.
The man was within a foot of him. One more step and Gamache would make his move. But now there was a hesitation, a change in the man’s body.
He was turning toward the tree. Toward Gamache. Lifting his weapon.
Gamache leapt. His hand, slick from the sleet, grabbed the man’s wrist. Groping for the hand, the gun.
It went off.
Beauvoir heard the shot and scrambled out of the car. Taking his gun from its holster, he started forward.
Then slid to a stop on the muddy road.
Breathing heavily, he stared into the snow and rain and darkness.
There were no more shots. Had that been the Chief? Or …
His heart pounding, Beauvoir stood frozen in place. Every instinct told him to run forward. To do something. Something.
Anything. But he knew the Chief was right.
If Dagenais’s man had shot, maybe killed Gamache, then he was the last line of defense. He had to use the car to block the road. The agent would assume Gamache was on his own, and not be expecting it.
Keeping his eyes on the forest, Beauvoir got back into the car and prepared himself.
Will this day never end?
It was over in a matter of moments.
“Fuck you,” the man shouted, spitting rotten leaves out of his mouth as Gamache turned him over. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
“Probably. You’re under arrest.”
“On what charge. I haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve assaulted me, you fuck-head.”
Gamache scooped up the gun and put it in his pocket, then he grabbed the knapsack and looked inside.
There they were. The video camera and an exercise book, with butterflies on the cover. And monstrosities inside.