A Great Reckoning (45 page)

Had they grown up in her home? Had the telegram been delivered there? Had they fluttered out of their mother's hand, to the flagstone floor, one after the other? Piling up. A storm of grief.

We regret to inform you
 …

Is that why her cottage always felt so soothing? It was used to offering comfort to the inconsolable.

Clara put the photograph on the sofa beside her and went back to the job at hand, searching through the boxes, looking for the boys in the window.

Photograph after photograph showed fields of mud where French and Belgian villages had been bombed to oblivion. Disappeared, until they were a divot in the landscape.

“Can we help?” Armand had asked when they'd changed out of their office clothes before heading to the bistro.

He'd spoken to Reine-Marie, but she was silent, staring into a shoe box on her lap. He leaned over and saw what was in there.

Telegrams.

“Look at this,” said Gabri, breaking the silence. He held a compass and was turning it this way and that. “I never did learn how to read one of these things.”

“A lost boy if there ever was one,” said Myrna, and Ruth snorted in amusement, or because she had an olive lodged in her nostril again.

“You should take up orienteering,” said Gamache as Gabri handed him the compass.

“I'm quite happy with my orientation, thank you,” said Gabri.

The glass was shattered, but as Armand turned it, the needle still found true north.

“When you stop playing with that, Clouseau, go see to your young people,” said Ruth. “They're over at the bistro. They want to speak to you.”

“Shall we?” Gamache asked Gélinas, who nodded.

“A quiet Scotch by the fire sounds good.”

After arriving at the bistro, Gamache gestured to Olivier for two Scotches, then he and Gélinas wound their way through the tables toward the cadets. Once at the table, the cadets rose and Commander Gamache waved them to sit back down.

“Ruth said you'd like to speak to me,” Gamache said, smoothing his hair, disheveled from his tuque, and sitting down. “Is something wrong?”

The four young people looked upset. Two of them pale, two of them flushed.

“We were just arguing,” said Huifen. “Nothing new.”

“About what?” asked Gélinas, taking a seat.

“These two found Roof Trusses, or Notre-Dame-de-Doleur, or whatever it's called,” said Huifen. “We gave up.”

“Hardly matters,” said Jacques. “There's nothing there but snow. And maple syrup.”

“Sap,” said Nathaniel. “And there was something there.”

“What did you find?” asked Gamache, after thanking Olivier for the Scotches.

“The cemetery.” Nathaniel's voice was eager now and his eyes bright.

“It was overgrown,” said Amelia. “But still there.”

“And?” asked Gamache.

Nathaniel shook his head. “No Antony Turcotte.”

“No Turcotte at all,” said Amelia.

Gamache sat back, surprised. Considering.

“Didn't the toponymie man say Turcotte had been buried there?”

“Yes. It was even in the Canadian Encyclopedia.”

Gamache leaned forward again and, putting his elbows on the table, he folded his hands together and rested his chin on them. And stared out at the darkness, the snowflakes furious in the bistro light.

“Could the gravestone have fallen over or been buried?” he asked.

“It's possible,” Amelia admitted. “But it's not a big cemetery and most of the stones were fairly easy to find. We can go back tomorrow and take a closer look.”

“But why bother?” asked Jacques. “He's just trying to keep us busy. Can't you see that? How can it possibly matter? Besides, he's not part of the investigation anymore.”

“And you're not Sûreté officers,” snapped Gamache. “You're cadets and I'm your commander. And you'll do as I say. I'm losing patience with you, young man. The only reason I tolerate your insubordination is because I think someone messed with your head. Told you all sorts of things that aren't true.”

“So you're here to reeducate me, is that it?” demanded Jacques.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. You're very close to graduation, and then what?”

“I'll be a Sûreté officer.”

“Will you? Things have changed at the academy and you're not changing with them. You're stuck. Frozen. Perhaps even petrified.” Gamache lowered his voice, though the rest of the table could still hear. “The time has come, Jacques, to decide if you are going to move forward, or not.”

“You have no idea who I am, and what I've done,” Jacques hissed back.

“What have you done?” Gamache demanded, holding the young man's eyes. “Tell me now.”

Huifen reached out. The warning touch. Again. Subtle, but Gamache saw it.

And the moment passed when Jacques might have said something.

Gamache glared at Huifen, then turned to Nathaniel and Amelia. “You've done well.”

“What should we do now?” Nathaniel asked.

“Now you join us for dinner,” said Gamache, getting up. “You must be hungry.”

“Us too?” asked Huifen, also rising along with Jacques.

The Commander looked at them and gave a brusque nod before going to the long wooden bar and paying for the cadets' food and drinks for that day, and inviting Olivier to join them.

*   *   *

“You okay?” asked Annie.

Jean-Guy was rubbing her swollen feet and both were on the sofa, watching the news. Though Jean-Guy was clearly distracted.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

He hesitated, not wanting to upset Annie with ideas that seemed at one moment crazy and the next perfectly plausible.

“Do you think your father could have ever…”

“Oui?”

She took a huge bite of the éclair she'd been having as an hors d'oeuvre.

Now, looking into his wife's unsuspecting gaze, it seemed crazy to Jean-Guy. Armand Gamache would never—

“Nothing.”

“What is it?” She lowered the éclair to a plate. “Tell me. Is Dad in trouble? Is something wrong?”

There, he'd upset her after all, and he knew she wouldn't let it go until he told her.

“There's a senior officer from the RCMP who's joined us as an independent observer and he seems to think your father might've—”

“Had something to do with the murder?” asked Annie.

“Well, no, not really, it's just, well—”

She swung her legs off his lap and sat up. Annie the lawyer was in the building.

“Is there any evidence?” she asked.

Jean-Guy sighed. “Circumstantial, at best.”

“And what's the worst?”

“Fingerprints.”

Annie's brows shot up. She hadn't expected that.

“Where?”

“On the murder weapon.”

“Jesus. Which was a revolver, right?”

“Your father said he never touched it, never even knew Leduc had it.”

“He wouldn't allow it,” said Annie, her eyes narrowing in thought.

“That's what he said. The prints are partials. His and one of the cadets and Michel Brébeuf's.”

“Partials?” The tension left her face. “Then they're not admissible. And they're obviously not his.”

“He told me this afternoon that they were.”

“Wait a minute.” She leaned toward her husband. “He says he never touched it, but also says the prints are his. That doesn't make sense.”

“I know. He said he thinks the solution to the murder lies in those prints.”

“The other ones, then. Uncle Michel and the cadet,” said Annie. “That's what he must mean. Who is he?”

“The cadet? She. Amelia Choquet.”

He watched his wife, but there was no reaction to the name. Jean-Guy struggled with what to say next and Annie homed in on that.

“There's more. What is it?”

“There seems a kind of connection between them.”

“Between Dad and Michel Brébeuf, yes, of course. You know that.”

“No, between Amelia Choquet and your father.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice guarded.

“I don't know. I just wondered if the name meant anything.”

“Should it? Come on, Jean-Guy, tell me what you're thinking.”

He heaved a sigh and wondered how much damage he was about to do.

“Do you think your father could've had an affair?”

The question landed on Annie like an anvil on a cartoon cat. She looked dazed and he could almost see stars and little birds flying around her head.

Annie stared at him, incapable of speech. Finally blurting out, “Of course not.”

“Many men do,” said Jean-Guy gently. “Away from home. Tempted. A moment of weakness.”

“My father is as human as the next man, and he has his weaknesses,” said Annie. “But not that. Never that. He would never, ever betray my mother. He loves her.”

“I agree. But I had to ask.” He took her hand and absently turned her wedding ring around and around. “Have I hurt you?”

“You've made me angry that you'd even ask. And if you have to ask, then what must others think? Like that RCMP person. He doesn't know Dad, does he?”

“No, but he's staying with your folks in Three Pines.”

“You have to go down there, Jean-Guy. You have to be with Dad. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.”

“Like kill someone or have an affair?”

“Well, seems you've already messed that up,” she said with a wan smile.

“I offered to go down, but he wanted me to be with you.”

“I'll be fine. Baby isn't due for a few weeks.”

He got up and hauled her off the sofa.

“You want me gone so you can finish off that box of éclairs, don't you?”

“Actually, the pizza boy's arriving in a few minutes. I need you gone by then. He's very jealous.”

“Replaced by a pepperoni. My mother said it would come to that.”

“So did Gloria Steinem.”

 

CHAPTER 37

“
Mary Poppins
,” said Clara. “Oh, perfect.”

She sighed with relief as she fell into the sofa and Armand opened the armoire to reveal the television.

They'd had dinner. Shepherd's pie made by Myrna. Fragrant crispy garlic bread brought by Clara. And a massive chocolate cake that Gabri had baked that afternoon, knowing they'd be working through dinner.

It had been rougher slogging than any of them realized. They'd been so focused on the mystery of the boys in the window, none of them had really thought about what those boxes, forgotten in the basement of the Legion, actually contained.

The remains of so many young men. The Great War had destroyed the flower of Europe and had taken with it the wildflowers of Canada. A generation of young men, gone. And all that was left of them sat forgotten in dusty old boxes in a basement.

One of the letters home contained a poppy. Pressed flat. Frail but still a vibrant red. Picked fresh one morning, just before a battle in a corner of Belgium called Flanders Fields.

The friends had given up then. Unable to go on.

Reine-Marie, Clara, Myrna, Ruth, and Gabri had put down the boxes and filed into the kitchen, where the others had prepared dinner. It was a somber meal until they noticed the young people, gobbling food as though they'd never seen it before. Huge forkfuls of shepherd's pie disappeared into the four bottomless pits.

They all went back for more. Since the villagers' appetites were gone, there was plenty for the cadets.

Even Ruth smiled at the sight. Though it might have been gas.

“Chocolate cake?” asked Gabri.

The magic words restored the villagers' appetites, and they all took their tall wedges of moist cake into the living room, along with coffees.

“Mary Poppins?”
asked Reine-Marie.

“
Mary Poppins
,” said Clara. “Oh, perfect.”

“The girls watch it every time they visit,” said Reine-Marie, handing the disk to her husband.

“Girls?” asked Huifen.

“Our granddaughters,” said Reine-Marie. “Florence and Zora.”

“Zorro?” asked Jacques, an earnest expression on his face.

But a stern look from Gamache wiped it away.

“Zora,” he corrected. “She's named after my grandmother.”

“Not really your grandmother, though,” said Gélinas. “Wasn't she one of the DPs after the Second World War?”

Gamache looked at him. The message, once again, was clear. Paul Gélinas had done his homework. And the home he'd worked on belonged to Gamache.

“DPs?” asked Nathaniel.

“Displaced persons,” said Myrna. “Those without a home or family. Many of them from the concentration camps. Liberated but with no place to go.”

“My father sponsored Zora to come to Canada,” Armand explained.

He knew he might as well tell them. After all, it wasn't a secret. And it wasn't going to remain private for long. Gélinas would see to that.

“She came to live with us,” said Gamache, turning on the receiver and the DVD. “We became her family.”

“And she became yours,” said Gélinas. “After your parents died.”

Gamache turned around and faced Gélinas.
“Oui
.
”

“Zora,” said Reine-Marie with fondness. “The name means ‘the dawn.' The beginning of light.”

“And she was,” said Armand. “Now, are we sure we want to watch
Mary Poppins
? We also have
Cinderella
and
The Little Mermaid
.”

“I've never seen
Mary Poppins
,” said Amelia. “Have you?”

The other cadets shook their heads.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” said Myrna. “You've never seen
Mary Poppins
?”