Bury Your Dead (28 page)

Gamache downed the last of his
café au lait
and stood. “I called and left a message on Monsieur Patrick’s answering machine, saying we’d be there about noon. Before that I need to go to the Lit and His to ask them about that entry in Renaud’s diary. Could you do something for me while I do that?”

“Absolument.”

Gamache nodded out the window. “See that building?”

“9¾ rue Ste-Ursule?” said Émile, squinting at the building. “Does it really say that? What does a three-quarter apartment look like?”

“Want to see? It’s Augustin Renaud’s.”

The two men paid up and with Henri they walked across the snowy street and into the apartment.

“Good God,” said Émile. “It looks like a bomb went off.”

“Inspector Langlois and I spent much of last night putting it in order. You should have seen it before.” Gamache wound between the piles of research.

“All about Champlain?” Émile picked up a sheet at random and scanned it.

“Everything I’ve found so far is. His diaries were stuffed behind that bookshelf.”

“Hidden?”

“It seems so, but I’m not sure we can read much into that. He was pretty paranoid. Can you go through his papers while I go to the Lit and His?”

“Are you kidding?”

Émile looked like a kid loosed in the toy factory. Gamache left his mentor sitting at the dining table, reaching for a pile of papers.

Within minutes the Chief Inspector was at the old library, standing in the deserted hallway.

“May I tuna you?” Winnie asked from the top of the oak staircase.

“I was wondering if I could speak to you and whoever else is here.” He spoke English in hopes the librarian would switch to her mother tongue.

“Meet we maybe in bookstore reunion?”

She hadn’t taken the hint.

“Good idea,” said Gamache.

“Bunny day,” agreed Winnie and disappeared.

Gamache found Mr. Blake in the library and within minutes Winnie, Elizabeth and Porter had joined them.

“I have just a couple of questions,” said the Chief. “We’ve found evidence that Augustin Renaud came here a week before he died.”

He watched them as he spoke. To a person they looked surprised, interested, a little disconcerted, but none of them looked guilty. And yet one of them had almost certainly lied to him. One of them had almost certainly seen, perhaps even met, Renaud here. Let him in.

But why? Why had Renaud wanted to come here? Why had he brought four others?

“What was he doing here?” Gamache asked and watched as they first stared at him, then at each other.

“Augustin Renaud came to the library?” asked Mr. Blake. “But I didn’t see him.”

“Neither did I,” said Winnie, surprised into English.

Elizabeth and Porter each shook their heads.

“He might have come after the library closed,” said Gamache. “At six o’clock.”

“Then he wouldn’t have gotten in,” said Porter. “The place would’ve been locked. You know that.”

“I know you all have keys. I know it would be easy for one of you to let him in.”

“But why would we?” asked Mr. Blake.

“Do the names Chin, JD, Patrick and O’Mara mean anything to you?”

Again they thought and again they shook their heads. Like the Hydra. One body, many heads. But of a mind.

“Members, perhaps?” he pressed.

“I don’t know about JD, but the others aren’t members,” said Winnie. “We have so few I know their names by heart.”

It struck Gamache for the first time what an interesting English expression that was. To commit something to memory was to know it by heart. Memories were kept in the heart, not the head. At least, that’s where the English kept their memories.

“May I have a list of your members?” he asked. Winnie bristled and Porter jumped in.

“That’s confidential.”

“A library membership list? Secret?”

“Not secret, Chief Inspector. Confidential.”

“I still need to see it.”

Porter opened his mouth but Elizabeth jumped in. “We’ll get it for you. Winnie?”

And Winnie, without hesitation, did what Elizabeth asked.

As he left, membership list folded in his breast pocket, Gamache paused on the top step to put his heavy gloves on. From there he looked across to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and the rectory facing the old library.

Who would have the easiest time letting someone into the Lit and His, unseen? And, if lights were turned on after closing time, who was most likely to see it?

The minister, Tom Hancock.

After first going to the stone home Gamache found the minister at his office in the church, a cluttered and comfortable back room.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to know if you saw Augustin Renaud at the Lit and His a week before he died.”

If Tom Hancock was the one who’d let them in he would almost certainly deny it. Gamache wasn’t expecting the truth, only hoping to surprise a fleeting look of guilt.

But he saw none.

“Renaud was there a week before he died? I didn’t know that. How’d you find out?”

Alone among them Hancock hadn’t tried to argue. He was simply, like the Chief, baffled.

“His diary. He was to meet four others there, after hours we think.”

Gamache gave him the names but the minister shook his head. “Sorry, they mean nothing, but I can ask around if you like.” He paused and examined Gamache closely. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Help. I need help. Gamache shook his head, thanked him, and left.

When he got back to 9¾ Ste-Ursule, Émile was still reading.

“Any luck?” He looked up.

Gamache shook his head and took off his coat, brushing snow from it. “You?”

“I was just wondering about these. Did you notice them?”

Gamache walked over to the table and looked down. Émile was pointing to the diary page, the one that mentioned the meeting at the Lit and His with the four men. At the bottom of the page, in very small but legible writing, were two numbers.

9-8499 and 9-8572.

“A bank account? A license plate maybe? They’re not reference numbers,” said Gamache. “At least, not Dewey Decimal numbers. I noticed them too, but he has so many numbers scribbled everywhere. The diary’s littered with them.”

They didn’t seem to be phone numbers, certainly not for Québec. Map coordinates? Not like any he’d ever seen.

Gamache glanced at his watch. “I think it’s time to visit Monsieur Patrick. Will you join me?”

Émile snapped the diary shut and stood, stretching. “It’s amazing, all this paper and yet nothing new. All the research had been done by other people before him. You’d think in all those years Augustin Renaud might have found something new.”

“Maybe he did. People aren’t usually murdered because nothing’s happened. Something happened in his life.”

Gamache locked up and they made their way along the narrow streets with Henri.

“All this was forest in Champlain’s time?” said Gamache, as they walked along Ste-Ursule. Émile nodded.

“The main settlement stopped at about rue des Jardins but it wasn’t all that long after Champlain’s death that the colony expanded. The Ursulines built the convent and more settlers came once they realized it wasn’t going away.”

“And that fortunes could be made,” said Gamache.

“True.”

They stopped at rue des Jardins. Like most of the streets in the old city, this one curved and disappeared around a corner. There was nothing even approaching a grid system, just a higgledy-piggledy warren of tiny cobbled streets and old homes.

“Which way?” Émile asked.

Gamache froze. It took him a moment to remember where that came from. The last time someone asked him that question. Jean-Guy. Staring down the long corridor, first in one direction then the other, then at him. Demanding to know which way?

“This way.”

It had been a guess then and it was a guess now. Gamache could feel his heart thumping from the memory and had to remind himself it was just that. It was past, done. Dead and gone.

“You’re right,” said Émile, pointing to a gray stone building with an ornate, carved, wooden door, and the number above. 1809.

Gamache rang the doorbell and they waited. Two men and a dog. The door was opened by a middle-aged man.

“Oui?”

“Mr. Patrick,” said Gamache, in English. “My name is Gamache. I left a message on your machine this morning. This is my colleague Émile Comeau. I wonder if I might ask you some questions?”

“Quoi?”

“Some questions,” said Gamache more loudly, since the man seemed not to have heard.

“Je ne comprends pas,”
said the man, irritated, and began to close the door.

“No, wait,” said Gamache quickly, this time in French. “
Désolé
. I thought you might be English.”

“Everyone thinks that,” said the man, exasperated. “My name’s Sean Patrick.” He pronounced it Patreek. “Don’t speak a word of English. Sorry.”

Once again he went to close the door.

“But,
monsieur
, that wasn’t my question,” Gamache hurried on. “It’s about the death of Augustin Renaud.”

The door stopped closing, then slowly opened again and Gamache, Émile and Henri were admitted.

Monsieur Patrick pointed them to a room.

Gamache ordered Henri to lie down by the front door then they took off their boots and followed Monsieur Patrick into the parlor, an old-fashioned word but one that fit. It certainly didn’t seem to be a living room. Looking at the sofas Gamache could see no sign a body had ever touched those cushions, and weren’t about to now. Monsieur Patrick did not invite them to sit down. Instead they clustered in the middle of the stuffy room.

“Lovely furniture,” said Émile, looking around him.

“From my grandparents.”

“Are those them?” asked Gamache, wandering over to the photos on the wall.

“Yes. And those are my parents. My great-grandparents lived in Quebec City too. That’s them over there.”

He waved to another set of photos and Gamache looked at two stern people. He always wondered what happened the instant after the shot was taken. Did they exhale, glad that was over? Did they turn to each other and smile? Was this who they really were, or simply a function of a primitive technology that demanded they stay still and stare sternly at the camera?

Though—

Gamache was drawn to another photo on the wall. It showed a group of dirty men with shovels standing in front of a huge hole. Behind them was a stone building. Most of the workers looked glum, but two were grinning.

“How wonderful to have these,” said Gamache. But Patrick didn’t look like it was wonderful, or terrible, or anything. Indeed, Gamache thought he probably hadn’t looked at the sepia photos in decades. Perhaps ever. “How well did you know Augustin Renaud?” the Chief Inspector turned back into the room.

“Didn’t know him at all.”

“Then why did you meet him?”

“Are you kidding? Meet him? When?”

“A week before he died. He’d arranged to meet with you, Monsieur O’Mara and two others. A Chin and a JD.”

“Never heard of ’em.”

“But you do know Augustin Renaud,” said Émile.

“Of him. I know of him. I don’t know him.”

“Are you saying Augustin Renaud never contacted you?” asked Gamache.

“Are you with the police?” Patrick had grown suspicious.

“We’re helping the investigation,” said Gamache, vaguely. Fortunately Monsieur Patrick wasn’t very observant or curious, otherwise he might wonder why Gamache was there with an elderly man and a dog. A police dog, granted, but it was still unusual. But Sean Patrick didn’t seem to care. Like most Quebeckers, he was simply fixated on Augustin Renaud.

“I hear the English killed him and buried him in the basement of that building.”

“Who told you that?” asked Émile.

“That did.” Patrick waved toward
Le Journalist
on the table in the front hall.

“We don’t know who killed him,” said Gamache firmly.

“Come on,” insisted Patrick. “Who else but the Anglos? They killed him to keep their secret.”

“Champlain?” asked Émile, and Patrick turned to him, nodding.

“Exactly. The Chief Archeologist says Champlain isn’t there, but he’s almost certainly lying. Covering up.”

“Why would he do that?”

“The Anglos bought him off.” Patrick was rubbing his two fingers together.

“They did no such thing,
monsieur
,” said Gamache. “Believe me,
Samuel de Champlain is not buried in the Literary and Historical Society.”

“But Augustin Renaud was,” said Patrick. “You can’t tell me
les Anglais
didn’t have something to do with that.”

“Why was your name in Monsieur Renaud’s diary?” Gamache asked and saw a look of astonishment on Patrick’s face.