A Great Reckoning (41 page)

She sat next to Armand in the pew. He was staring straight ahead, and though his eyes were open, she had the impression he'd been praying.

Her question, she knew, wasn't accurate. What she really wanted to know was what he was feeling.

Armand took a deep breath and exhaled, forcefully. As though he'd been holding it in for a long time.

“I was remembering waiting for my mother and father. Kneeling on the sofa with my arms on the back of it. Looking out the window.
Batman
was on the television. I can still hear the theme song.”

As he softly hummed it—
dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah
—Reine-Marie imagined the little boy. Who always waited when his mother and father left, for their return.

Who roused from sleep when they tiptoed into his bedroom and kissed him good night.

Who always found a treat in the fridge in some elaborate tinfoil sculpture. He'd thought his mother had made them for him. And even when, later, all evidence pointed to some stranger at the restaurant making the swans and baskets and boats that contained the treats, Armand still clung to the certainty that his mother had created them. For him.

As far as Reine-Marie knew, he still believed it.

“
Batman
,” Armand sang beneath his breath. “I saw the headlights from the car, but I knew it wasn't them. It was too early. And there was something different about the lights. And then I saw the two men walking up the path. But I wasn't afraid. I thought they were just visitors.”

Reine-Marie took his hand. She'd heard this before. Once. And only once. Early in their courtship, when he knew he loved her, and he knew she loved him. And he'd wanted her to know.

He talked about his parents quite often, relating anecdotes of vacations and celebrations. But this was only the second time in their lives together that he'd talked to her about their deaths.

Lines appeared at his eyes and mouth.

“I was excited to meet these strangers. The doorbell rang and my grandmother came out of the kitchen and opened the door.”

Now the lines disappeared. And for an instant Reine-Marie saw the smooth face of a nine-year-old boy. In pajamas. Standing by the sofa.

“She turned to me and when I saw her face, I knew. They were gone.”

They sat in silence for a moment, not even the ticking of a clock to mark the passage of time. It could've been a few seconds, a minute. An hour. Decades.

“My grandmother tried to comfort me, but she had her own grief. It was Michel who stayed with me. He never left my side. He took me outside after their funeral to play king of the castle.” Armand smiled. “It was our favorite game. He always won.
I'm the king of the castle, and you're a dirty rascal
,” Armand sang under his breath. “I could barely walk and talk. For weeks. I just plodded along. And Michel never left me. Never went to find more fun friends. Though he could have. I miss him. And I miss them.”

Reine-Marie squeezed his hand. “Paul Gélinas shouldn't have brought it up. It was cruel.”

“It was almost fifty years ago.”

“It wasn't necessary,” she said, and wondered about the real reason Gélinas had told the cadets about the death of Armand's parents.

“I've been sitting here thinking of my mother and father, but not really how much I miss them. I was wondering what it must've been like for the parents of those boys. It's one thing to lose a mother or father, but can you imagine?” He paused to gather himself, to say the unthinkable. “Losing Daniel. Or Annie?”

He looked over to the stained-glass boys.

“Have you noticed their names? Not Robert, but Rob. Not Albert, but Bert. There's even a fellow named Giddy. Their real names, the ones their parents shouted when it was dinnertime. The names their friends screamed while playing hockey. Some would've been lost. Missing. They'd have gone over the top and disappeared. Forever. And their parents would never have known what happened to them. They'd have waited, forever.”

He took another deep breath.

“Losing Maman and Papa was devastating, but I've been sitting here thinking how lucky I am that I at least knew what happened, and I could stop waiting. But some of these parents never did.”

Reine-Marie dropped her eyes to his large hand and gathered her courage to ask the question.

“Armand?”

“Oui?”

“Who's the cadet? Who's Amelia? There's something special about her, isn't there?”

Reine-Marie's heart began to pound. But having gone this far, there was no going back. She knew she had to move forward.

Armand looked at her with such sadness that she wished she hadn't asked. Not for his sake now, but for her own.

Armand would never … Amelia couldn't possibly be—

“Patron?”

She felt like a woman saved from the gallows, but not grateful. Having finally found the courage to get there, who knew if she'd find it again?

Reine-Marie felt a flash of rage that was incandescent.

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” said Olivier.

He could see the backs of their heads, but neither turned to him, and he hesitated in the aisle.

Reine-Marie dropped her eyes from her husband's face and counted.

Un, deux, trois
 …

Until she felt she could look at Olivier without screaming at him to go away.

…
quatre, cinq
 …

Olivier stopped a few pews away. Uncertain what to do. Neither of them had turned. Neither had acknowledged him.

“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning forward. They were so still, like wax figures.

“Yes, we're fine,” said Reine-Marie, and for the first time truly understood that the title of Ruth's poetry book,
I'm FINE,
wasn't purely a joke.

“Are you sure?” he asked, edging forward.

Armand turned around and smiled. “We were just talking about the soldiers.”

Olivier glanced at the window, then took a seat across the aisle.

“I wasn't sure if I should follow you, but, well, that was strange. In the bistro. How the RCMP officer treated you. What he said.”

Armand raised his brow and smiled. “I've been treated worse. It's nothing. Just part of the cop culture.”

“It's more than that,” said Olivier. “And I think you know it. You're a suspect. He said it himself.”

“It's his job to suspect everyone, but I'm not worried.”

“You should be,” said Olivier. “He means to prove you killed that man. I could see it in his face.”

Gamache shook his head. “Whether he thinks it or not, there's no proof. And besides, I didn't do it.”

“So innocent people are never arrested?” demanded Olivier. “Never tried and convicted? For a crime they didn't commit? That never happens, right?” He glared at Gamache. “You should be afraid, monsieur. Only a fool wouldn't be.”

“Armand?” asked Reine-Marie. “Could that happen? Could Gélinas arrest you?”

“I doubt it.”

“Doubt?” asked Reine-Marie. “Doubt? Then there is a possibility? He can't seriously believe you murdered a man.”

“He does,” said Olivier. “I've seen that look before. On your husband's face, just before the arrest.”

“We have to do something,” said Reine-Marie, looking around as though proof of her husband's innocence could be found in the chapel.

“Here you are,” came the familiar voice of Jean-Guy from the door. “We've interviewed the cadets—”

“Do you think Armand killed that professor?” Reine-Marie stood, turned and faced her son-in-law, who stopped in his tracks.

“No, of course not.”

Lacoste had entered behind him, and Reine-Marie saw her look away, unwilling to meet Reine-Marie's eyes.

“Isabelle, do you?”

Reine-Marie was in full flight now. Pounding at the gates. Demanding the truth. Demanding to know who were allies and who were enemies.

This was another world war. Her world. Her war.

“I don't think Monsieur Gamache killed Serge Leduc,” said Isabelle.

“Reine-Marie,” said Armand, getting up and putting an arm around his wife's waist.

She stepped away.

“But you're not sure, are you, Isabelle?”

The two women stared at each other.

“You need to know something, madame. I held your husband's hand as he lay dying. On that factory floor. I've never told you this. You didn't need to know. He knew he was dying. I knew it. He could barely breathe, but he managed to say one last thing.”

“Isabelle—” said Gamache.

“I had to lean over to hear it,” said Lacoste. “He whispered, ‘
Reine-Marie
.' And I knew he wanted me to tell you how much he loves you. Forever. Eternally. I never had to tell you that. Until now. Armand Gamache would never murder anyone, for all sorts of reasons. One of them is that he would never, ever do anything to hurt you, Reine-Marie.”

Reine-Marie brought her hand to her mouth, and screwed her eyes shut. She stood there for a second, a minute. Years.

And then she dropped the hand and reached for the harbor of her husband, even as she noticed the look that passed between Lacoste and Beauvoir.

Armand kissed her, and whispered in her ear. Something that made her smile. Then he motioned to the pew at the front of the chapel, and while the investigators took seats there, Olivier and Reine-Marie sat at the very back.

“Did anything come out of your interviews?” asked Gamache.

“Not much,” said Lacoste. “But Cadet Choquet didn't seem surprised when I told her her prints were on the murder weapon.”

“It was an extrapolation,” Gamache reminded her.

“I didn't tell her that.”

“Did she explain it?”

“No. She did say that Leduc threatened to expel her if she didn't have sex with him.”

“And did she?” asked Gamache.

“She says not, but she's used to trading sex for what she wants.”

Gamache gave a curt nod.

“I haven't had a chance to tell you,” said Lacoste, “but I called the UK and spoke to the woman at the gun manufacturer that Jean-Guy interviewed.”

“Madame Coldbrook-Clairton?” asked Gamache.

Lacoste laughed. “I had this conversation with Jean-Guy on the drive down. There's no Clairton, just Coldbrook.”

“Then why—” Gamache began.

“Did she sign her name with Clairton?” asked Lacoste. “Good question. She says it was a mistake.”

“Odd,” said Gamache, frowning. “But she confirmed the revolver that killed Leduc and the one in the window are both McDermot .45s?”

*   *   *

“Did he say Clairton?” asked Olivier, sitting in the back with Reine-Marie. “There's a town in Pennsylvania called that.”

“Now how would you know that,
mon beau
?” asked Reine-Marie.

“I don't know how I know about Clairton,” said Olivier, drawing his brows together in concentration. “I just do.”

“Maybe you were born with the knowledge,” suggested Reine-Marie with a smile.

“That would be a shame. So many more useful things I could innately know. Like how to convert Fahrenheit into Celsius, or the meaning of life, or how much to charge for a croissant.”

“You charge?” asked Reine-Marie with exaggerated surprise. “Ruth says they're free.”

“
Oui
. Like the Scotch is free.”

*   *   *

“She confirmed the guns are the same,” said Jean-Guy. “But I can't see how it could matter.”

“Neither can I,” admitted Gamache.

He turned to look at the stained-glass window. He'd seen it so often over the years that he felt he knew each pane. And yet, he always seemed to discover something new. As though the person who made it stole into the chapel at night and added a detail.

He still marveled that over the years he'd never noticed the map poking out from the boy's rucksack.

Gamache realized he'd spent so much time staring at the one boy, he'd all but ignored the other two.

He looked at them now. Unlike the soldier who was looking straight at the observer, the others were in profile. Moving forward. One boy's hand was just touching the arm of the soldier in front. Not to pull him back. But for comfort.

Less effort had been put into them. Their faces looked exactly the same, like they were the same boy, with exactly the same expression.

There was no forgiveness there, only fear.

And yet they moved forward.

Gamache's eyes dropped to the third boy's hands. One grasped a rifle. But with the other he seemed to be casually pointing. Not ahead, though, but behind.

*   *   *

“Do you know something strange?” asked Reine-Marie.

“I know someone strange,” offered Olivier.

“I've been sorting through the papers from the archives of the historical society in Saint-Rémy. The letters and documents and photographs go back a few hundred years. Not the pictures, of course. Though some of them are very old. Fascinating.”

“That is strange,” said Olivier.

“No, not that,” she laughed, and gave him a little elbow. “I didn't realize until this very moment that I haven't found anything from the First World War. The Second, yes. All sorts of letters home, and pictures. But none from the Great War. If there were, I might be able to find that boy. Find all three of them, in fact, by comparing the faces in the window with photographs in the local archives.”

“How could all the documents be missing?” asked Olivier. “There must've been something, wouldn't you think?”

“There might be some boxes still in the basement of the historical society, but I thought we cleaned it out pretty thoroughly. I'll take a closer look tomorrow.”

“You could ask Ruth. I'm pretty sure she was a drunk old poet in the Great War.”