Bury Your Dead (23 page)

“Well, I’ve had quite a day,” said Porter, rocking on his feet in front of the fire. “Spent most of it giving interviews. Taped Jacquie Czernin’s show for CBC Radio. It’ll be on any minute. Want to hear it?”

He walked over to the stereo and turned on the CBC.

“I must’ve done ten interviews today,” Porter said, guarding the radio.

“I did the crossword puzzle,” said Mr. Blake. “Very satisfying. What’s a six-letter word for ‘idiot’?”

“Do proper names count?” asked Tom with a smile.

“Oh, here it comes.” Porter turned up the volume.

“As we heard in the news,” a melodious woman’s voice said, “the amateur archeologist Augustin Renaud was found dead yesterday morning at the Literary and Historical Society. Police confirm he was murdered though they haven’t made any arrests yet.

“Porter Wilson is the President of the Lit and His and he joins me now. Hello, Mr. Wilson.”

“Hello Jacquie.”

Porter looked around the rectory living room, expecting applause for his brilliance so far.

“What can you tell us about the death of Mr. Renaud?”

“I can tell you that I didn’t do it.”

Porter on the radio laughed. Porter in the rectory laughed. No one else did.

“But why was he there?”

“Frankly, we don’t know. We’re shocked, as you can imagine. It’s tragic. Such a respected member of the community.”

Porter, in the rectory, was nodding in agreement with himself.

“For God’s sake, Porter, turn it off,” said Mr. Blake, struggling out of his chair. “Don’t be a horse’s ass.”

“No, wait,” Porter stood before the stereo, blocking it. “It gets better. Listen.”

“Can you describe what happened?”

“Well, Jacquie, I was in the office of the Lit and His when the telephone repairman arrived. I’d called him because the telephones weren’t working. They should have been because, as you know, we’re in the middle of a huge restoration of the library. In fact, you’ve helped us with the fundraisers.”

What followed were five excruciating minutes of Porter plugging the fundraising and the interviewer desperately trying to get him to talk about anything other than himself.

Finally she cut off the interview and went to music.

“Is it over?” Tom asked. “Can I stop praying now?”

“What were you thinking?” Winnie asked Porter.

“What d’you mean? I was thinking this was a great chance to get more donations for the library.”

“A man was murdered,” snapped Winnie. “Honestly, Porter, this wasn’t a marketing opportunity.”

As they argued Elizabeth went back to reading the press. The papers were full of the Renaud murder. There were photographs of the astonishing-looking man, there were tributes, eulogies, editorials. He was barely cold and already he’d risen, a new man. Respected, beloved, brilliant and on the verge of finding Champlain.

In the Literary and Historical Society, apparently.

One paper,
La Presse,
had discovered that Renaud had approached the board shortly before his death and been turned down. Something that had seemed so reasonable, just following procedure, now seemed ominous, suspicious.

But the most disconcerting of all was the astonishment in all the French papers. Just as shocking as the discovery of Augustin Renaud’s dead body was the discovery of so many live bodies, so many Anglo bodies, among them all this time.

Quebec City seemed to only now be awakening to the fact that the English were still there.

“How could they not know we’re here?” said Winnie, reading over Elizabeth’s shoulder.

Elizabeth had felt the sting too. It was one thing to be vilified, to be seen as suspects, as threats. Even to be seen as the enemy, she was prepared for all that. What she was unprepared for was not being seen at all.

When had that happened? When had they disappeared, become ghosts in their home town? Elizabeth looked over at Mr. Blake who’d also lowered his newspaper and was staring ahead.

“What’re you thinking?”

“That it must be dinner time,” he said.

Yes, thought Elizabeth, going back to reading, best not to underestimate the English.

“I was also remembering 1966.”

Elizabeth lowered her paper.

“What do you mean?”

“But you remember, Elizabeth. You were there. I was telling Tom about it just a week or so ago.”

Elizabeth looked over at their minister, so young and vibrant. Laughing with Porter, charming the prickly old man. He hadn’t even been born in 1966 but she remembered it as though it was yesterday.

The thugs arriving. The Québec flag waving. The insults.
Maudits Anglais
.
Têtes Carré
and worse. The singing outside the Literary and Historical Society.
Gens du Pays
. The separatist anthem, with such achingly beautiful words, hurled as an insult at the building and to the frightened Anglos inside.

Then the attack, the separatists racing through the doors and up the sweeping staircase, into the library itself. Into the very heart of the Lit and His. Then the smoke, the books on fire. She’d run, trying to stop them, trying to put out the fires, pleading with them to stop. In her perfect French, appealing to them. Porter and Mr. Blake and Winnie and others, trying to stop it. The smoke, the shouting, the breaking glass.

She’d looked over and seen Porter breaking the fine leaded glass windows, windows that had been in place for centuries, now shattered. And she saw him tossing books out, at random. Handfuls, armfuls. And Mr. Blake joining him. While the separatists burned the books, the Anglos threw them out the windows, their covers splaying as though trying to take flight.

Winnie, Porter, Ken, Mr. Blake and others, saving their history before saving themselves.

Yes. She did remember.

Armand Gamache got home just in time for Henri’s dinner then they went for a walk. The streets of Québec were dark, but they were also clogged with revelers celebrating Carnaval. Rue St-Jean had been closed and filled with entertainment. Choirs, jugglers, fiddlers.

Man and dog wove in and out of the crowds, stopping now and then to appreciate the music, or to people watch. It was one of Henri’s favorite things, after the Chuck-it. And bananas. And dinner time. Lots of people stopped and made a fuss of the young shepherd with the unnaturally large ears. Gamache, beside him, might as well have been a lamppost.

Henri lapped up the attention, then they went home where the Chief Inspector glanced at the clock. Past five. He made a call.

“Oui allô?”

“Inspector Langlois?”

“Ah, Chief Inspector, I was just about to call you with an update.”

“Any news?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. You know what these things are like. If we don’t find someone immediately then it becomes a slog. This is a slog. I’m just over at Augustin Renaud’s home.” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t want to come, would you? It’s not far from where you are.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“Bring your reading glasses and a sandwich. And a couple of beers.”

“That bad?”

“Unbelievable. I don’t know how people live like this.”

Gamache got the address, played with Henri for a few minutes, wrote a note for Émile, then left. On the way he stopped at Paillard, the marvelous bakery on rue St-Jean, and at a
dépanneur
for beer then headed up rue Ste-Ursule, pausing to check the address he’d been given, unconvinced he had it right.

But no. There it was. 9¾ rue Ste-Ursule. He shook his head. 9¾.

It would figure that Augustin Renaud would live there. He lived a marginal life, why not in a fractional home? Gamache walked down the short tunnel and into a small courtyard. Knocking, he waited a moment then entered.

He’d been in homes of every description in his thirty years of investigating crime. Hovels, glass and marble trophy homes, caves even. He’d seen hideous conditions, and uncovered hideous things and yet he was constantly surprised by how people lived.

But Augustin Renaud’s home was exactly as Armand Gamache had imagined it would be. Small, cluttered, papers, journals, books piled
everywhere. It was certainly a fire hazard, and yet the Chief had to admit he felt more at home here than in the glass and marble wonders.

“Anybody here?” he called.

“Through here. In the living room. Or maybe it’s the dining room. Hard to say.”

Gamache followed the trail cleared, like snow, through the paper and found Inspector Langlois bent over a desk reading. He looked up and smiled.

“Champlain. Every single scrap of paper’s about Champlain. I didn’t think this much had been written about the man.”

Gamache picked up a magazine from the top of a stack, an old
National Geographic
detailing the first explorations of what is now New England. There was a reference to Champlain, whose name was on Lake Champlain in Vermont.

“My people are going through it all slowly,” said Langlois. “But I estimate it will take forever.”

“Would you like some help?”

Langlois looked relieved. “Yes, please. Could you?”

Gamache smiled and placing two bags on the desk he brought out an assortment of sandwiches and a couple of beers.

“Perfect. I haven’t even had lunch yet.”

“Busy day,” said Gamache.

Langlois nodded, taking a huge bite from a roast beef, hot mustard and tomato sandwich on a baguette then took a swig of beer.

“We’ve only really had a chance to fingerprint and get DNA samples here. Even that’s taken two days. The forensics people have been through and now the work begins.” He glanced round.

Gamache pulled up a chair, grabbed a baguette filled with thick sliced maple-cured ham, brie and arugula and took a beer. For the next few hours the two men went through Augustin Renaud’s home, organizing it, separating his original papers from photocopies of other people’s works.

Gamache found reproductions of Champlain’s diaries and scanned them. They were as Père Sébastien had said, little more than “to do” lists. It was a fascinating insight into everyday life in Québec in the early 1600s, but it could have been written by anyone. There was certainly
no personal information. Gamache came away with no feeling for the man.

“Found anything?” Langlois wiped a weary hand across his face and looked up.

“Copies of Champlain’s diary, but nothing else.”

“Don’t you think Renaud must have kept a journal or a diary himself?”

Gamache looked round the room and into the next, seeing stack after stack of papers. Bookcases stuffed to bursting, closets filled with magazines. “We might find some yet. Have you found any personal papers at all?” Gamache took off his reading glasses and looked across the desk at Langlois.

“Some letters from people replying to Renaud. I’ve made a file, but most seem to just be telling him with varying degrees of civility that he was wrong.”

“About what?”

“Oh, different theories he had about Champlain. That he was a spy, or the son of the King, or even that he was Protestant. As one said, if he was a Huguenot why give most of his money to the Catholic Church in his will? It was like all of Renaud’s theories. Close, but just a little wacky.”

Gamache thought Langlois was being charitable by calling Renaud “a little” wacky. He glanced at his watch. Ten to eight.

“Are you still hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Great. Let me take you to dinner. There’s a place just down the street I’ve been dying to try.”

On their way they stopped at a shop so Langlois could pick up a nice bottle of red wine then they carefully made their way just a few steps down the slide that was rue Ste-Ursule, to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the basement.

As soon as they entered they were met by warmth, by rich Moroccan spices and by the owner who introduced himself, took their coats and wine and led them to a quiet corner table by a wall of exposed stone.

He returned a moment later with the wine uncorked, two glasses and menus. After ordering they compared notes. Gamache told the Inspector about his day and his conversations with the members of the Champlain Society and Père Sébastien.

“Well, that dovetails nicely with my day. Among other things I spent much of it in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society with one very annoyed archeologist.”

“Serge Croix?”

“Exactly. Not pleased to be called out on a Sunday, though he did admit it often happens. They’re like doctors, I suppose. On call all the time in case someone suddenly digs up bones or an old wall or piece of pottery. Apparently it’s quite common in Québec.”

Their dinners arrived, steaming, fragrant plates of lamb tagine with couscous and stewed vegetables.

“Croix brought a couple of technicians and a metal-detector thing. But more sophisticated than anything I’d seen before.”

Gamache tore a piece of baguette off the loaf and dipped it in the tagine juices. “Did he think Renaud might have been right? That Champlain was there?”