The Long Way Home (37 page)

“You can do it, I’ve done it before. And I insist. My name is Armand Gamache, I’m the Chief Inspector of homicide for Québec. Emeritus.” The last word was mumbled at best, and he looked at Clara and grimaced.

While the Emeritus seemed to have been lost on whoever was on the other end of the phone, Gamache’s tone of authority was not.

There was another brief pause while Gamache listened and finally said, “
Merci
.”

Clara took a step closer.

“He’s connecting us.” Gamache stared into the sky, as though that would help. Finally he gave Clara one curt nod.

“
Bonjour
. Is this Marc Brossard? My name is Gamache. You flew us to Sept-Îles today.”

Beside him Clara was praying the frayed, fragile connection held. Just a minute more. One minute.

“
Oui, oui
,” said Gamache. “Listen.” But the young man continued to talk. “Listen to me,” said Gamache sharply.

And the young pilot did.

“We showed you a photograph, on an iPhone. You said you recognized the man. Which man?”

Gamache held Clara’s eyes as he spoke. He listened now, with such intensity Clara felt her own heart racing.

“There were two men,” said Gamache clearly. Loudly. “An older and a younger.”

Clara could hear static. The connection was breaking up, but it hadn’t yet broken off. Not yet. Not yet.

“Where did you take him?”

Gamache listened.

“When?”

He listened, and Clara stared into his eyes.

“When?” he repeated, his eyes showing surprise. “Are you sure?”

Clara could feel her heart throbbing in her throat.

“We’re in Port-Menier,” Gamache was saying. “Can you pick us up?” After a pause he shook his head. “I understand.
Merci
.”

He hung up.

“It was Professor Massey he recognized,” Clara confirmed. “Not Peter.”

Gamache nodded, grim-faced. “He flew to Tabaquen yesterday.”

*   *   *

“Where’re you headed?” The old woman slid into the booth beside Beauvoir.

“Up the coast,” he waved.

“I figured that. Where?”

“Tabaquen.”

“Are you sure?”

He laughed. “Pretty sure.”

“Here,” she said. “You’ll need this.”

She took the hat from beside her on the torn Naugahyde seat and placed it on his head.

“It’s wet and cold out there.”

“I’m not heading into the North Atlantic,” he assured her, taking it off and smoothing his hair.

“You have no idea where you’re headed.” She brought something from the pocket of her cardigan and placed it on the table in front of him.

He looked at it.

A rabbit’s foot. No, not rabbit. Hare.

“No hares here on the island,” she said. “It was given to me years ago, by another visitor. Said it would bring me luck. And it has.”

She looked at all her sons. And all her daughters. Not of her loins, but the family of her heart.

“It’s yours.” She pushed it toward him.

“You need it.” Beauvoir pushed it back.

“I’ve had it. Now it’s your turn.”

Beauvoir put it in his pocket. And as he did he heard a long, deep horn.

The
Loup de Mer
was calling them.

*   *   *

“Yesterday?” Clara gaped. “I just saw him a few days ago. He didn’t say anything about going. What’s this about?”

“I don’t know,” said Gamache. He looked across the calm waters of the sheltered harbor. Then he dropped his eyes. Below the dock he could see fish darting. Flashes of silver in the cold, clear water.

“Professor Norman’s in Tabaquen,” he spoke to the fish. “And now Professor Massey’s gone there. Why?”

“Massey lied to us,” said Clara. “He said he didn’t know where Norman was.”

“And maybe he didn’t at the time,” said Gamache. “Maybe our questions got him to wondering, and he looked at the file too.”

“But why would he go there? It’s not just down the street, it’s halfway across the continent. You’d have to be pretty desperate.”

Yes, thought Gamache. That was the word. And he was feeling increasingly desperate to get there himself.

“I asked the pilot if he could pick us up here but he said the weather had closed in. All along the coast. He wasn’t flying in or out of the villages.”

“So we couldn’t have made it to Tabaquen today anyway?”

“I doubt it,” said Gamache. “Red sky in the morning.”

The ship’s horn sounded, deep and mournful. She looked at her watch. “It’s leaving.”

She started walking rapidly to the quai.

“Wait, Clara. I have another question. It’s about Chartrand.”

Clara stopped. And turned. “What about him?”

The ship’s horn gave another cry.

“Why do you think he came with us?”

Gamache could see Jean-Guy waving at them from beside the
Loup de Mer
.

“Because he likes our company?” Clara suggested.

“Our company?”

“You think he came because of me?”

“What do you think?”

The ship’s horn was now giving off short, insistent blasts.

“You think he’s only pretending to like me, as an excuse to get close to us.”

Gamache remained silent.

“You think I’m not reason enough for a man to close up shop and join us?”

“I’ve seen how he looks at you,” said Gamache. “How he’s drawn to you. And you to him.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t think it’s a complete lie.”

“Not a complete one. How nice.”

But Gamache, while trying to be gentle, wasn’t going to be baited. “We need to explore all possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“Chartrand knew No Man,” said Gamache. “I think it’s possible he was a member of his community, or cult, or whatever it was. I think it might even have been Chartrand who told Peter about Tabaquen. And sent him there.”

“That’s no crime, Armand. You’re turning it into something sinister.”

“You’re right,” Gamache admitted. “If Peter asked about No Man and Chartrand told him where to find him, there’s absolutely nothing sinister about it. In fact, it was doing Peter a favor. Except—”

“What?”

“If that’s what Chartrand did, why not tell us?”

That stopped Clara.

“Why keep it a secret, Clara? What’s he trying to hide?”

Clara was quiet for a moment. In the silence they could hear Jean-Guy calling to them.

“You asked why Marcel would join us, but you haven’t asked why I agreed.”

“I thought—”

“You thought I’d lost my heart to him? The lonely woman, vulnerable to a little attention? Do you really think that’s likely?”

“Well, now I don’t,” he said, and was so clearly embarrassed Clara smiled.

Jean-Guy was waving frantically from the dock and Myrna was standing in the middle of the gangway, refusing to move for the sailors.

“If Marcel knew where Peter went and didn’t tell us, it’s because he wanted to keep us away from Tabaquen,” said Clara. “He might be keeping an eye on us, but I’m watching him too. That’s why I wanted him with us.”

She turned and started walking rapidly toward the quai, but before she did she looked back and said, “And I am reason enough, Armand, for a man to give up everything.”

THIRTY-FIVE

“Huh,” said Gamache.

The sun was setting and their passage so far had been fairly smooth. The storm predicted by the pilot was ahead of them.

At the sound of Gamache’s grunt, Jean-Guy shifted his gaze to the Chief. Beauvoir had been looking at the window. Not through it, but at it. At his own reflection.

“What is it?” Beauvoir asked.

Gamache looked from his device to Beauvoir. It was difficult not to be distracted by the sou’wester. The hat sat at a jaunty angle, manipulated, shifted, arranged over the past half hour to appear as though Jean-Guy had simply grabbed it off a peg and crammed it onto his head as the skipper cried, “Thar she blows.”

“Very you, matey.”

“Have you ever been to sea, Billy?” Beauvoir leered at Gamache.

“What is it with you and elderly women anyway?” Gamache asked.

Beauvoir took the hat off and placed it on his knee.

“I think they know I don’t see them as elderly. Just people.”

And Gamache knew it was true.

“Just as I’ll never see Annie as old. Even though we will be. One day.”

And Gamache hoped that too was true. He looked at Beauvoir, beside him on the bench, and saw him decades from now. Sitting with Annie on the sofa. In what would be their home, their dwelling place, in Three Pines. Reading. Old and gray and by the fire. Annie and Jean-Guy. And their children. And grandchildren.

The days of their togetherness.

Just as he and Reine-Marie were having theirs. Until this.

Beauvoir gestured toward the device in Gamache’s hand. “What is it?”

“
Pardon?
”

“You were reading a message?” Beauvoir suggested.

“Ah,
oui
. From the Sûreté in Baie-Saint-Paul. The sniffer dogs found something.”

Beauvoir shifted on the hard bench so that he was looking directly at the Chief.

“A corpse?”

“No, not yet. It was a metal box, with cardboard rolls inside, like the one that Peter’s canvases came in. They were empty. Except for some powder.”

“Heroin? Coke?”

“Captain Nadeau’s having it tested.”

Gamache looked at the windows, wet with spray. It was dark now, and all he could see was the lit bow of the
Loup de Mer.
“Was the commune really a meth lab? Was the art a cover to distribute drugs?”

“We already know that heroin and cocaine come into Québec by boat,” said Beauvoir. “It’s almost impossible to stop.”

Gamache nodded. “Suppose it gets off-loaded in Baie-Saint-Paul, taken to No Man’s community in the woods—”

“That would explain why it was in the woods,” said Beauvoir. “And not overlooking the river, where the other artists’ colonies set up. They didn’t want a view, what they wanted was privacy, and warning if anyone approached.”

“No Man cuts and packages. Luc Vachon sends them south. Disguised as No Man’s paintings. Rolled into those tubes.”

The St. Lawrence, while a lifeline, was also a supply line. For all sorts of illegal activity, including hard drugs.

“Maybe it was No Man himself who started the rumors it was a cult,” said Beauvoir. “To keep the curious away. But then that cop starts paying attention to them, and No Man closes up shop and moves even further away. To Tabaquen. More remote. More privacy. Less scrutiny.”

Gamache shifted, uncomfortable on the hard bench.

He was under no illusion. If that’s what No Man was about in Tabaquen, they were in for a world of trouble when they arrived.

His fears, illusions while in Three Pines, were taking form. Taking shape. And coming closer. This was what happened when you ventured into the real world.

A brave man in a brave country
. It was easy to be brave, when the country was also brave. But what happened if it wasn’t? If it was corrupt, and grotesque, and greedy, and violent?

And what happened if it was waiting for them? Knowing they were coming?

“And Chartrand?” asked Beauvoir. “How does he fit in?”

“A respected gallery owner with connections worldwide? Beyond reproach?” asked Gamache. “Who’s better placed to coordinate the operation?”

That explained Chartrand, but what about Professor Massey?

What role did he play in this? He must have some involvement, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone all the way to Tabaquen.

“Suppose No Man was involved in drugs back in the days he worked at the college,” said Gamache, thinking out loud. “Suppose Massey suspected but couldn’t prove anything.”

Maybe, like Carlos Casteneda insisting peyote fueled creativity, Professor Norman had been pushing coke. To students eager to blow their minds, and put it on canvas.

“Maybe that was the tenth muse,” said Gamache. “Cocaine.”

Beside him, Beauvoir fidgeted with the hat. That made more sense to him than some flighty, prancing, embittered goddess.

The one that killed for pleasure.

Now meth. Or heroin. Or coke. The trinity of deadly drugs.

There was something that killed for pleasure.

“Could Massey have gone to Tabaquen to finally confront Norman?” Beauvoir asked. “When he found out Peter might’ve followed No Man there, he might’ve gone to protect him. He sounded like that sort of man.”

Both Clara and Myrna had said the elderly professor had reminded them of the Chief. And Gamache had gone to hell to bring back Jean-Guy. Maybe Massey was going to Tabaquen, the Sorcerer, to save Peter. To bring him back.

It was all supposition. But it fit.

Gamache’s phone rang and he took it.

“
Oui, allô?
”

“Armand, how’s the cruise?”

“We’re on the lido deck. The conga line just finished.” He tried to keep his voice light. “You should see our cabin. Thankfully those interminable baptisms of your ninety-seven nieces and nephews have trained me to sleep standing up. A blessing.”

“You’re going to hell,” she laughed.

He looked at the bow, heaving. And ho-ing. The inky waves had grown. The wind had picked up in the last few minutes, heading straight into their face as though trying to push them back. But the
Loup de Mer
kept chugging, slicing through the water, slicing through the night. Heading deeper into the darkness.

He knew where they were going and she wasn’t far wrong.

They chatted for a few minutes about the activities in Three Pines. As they spoke, Armand turned on the bench, until he was facing the stern. Looking back. To the home he’d left behind.

*   *   *

In the night the
Loup de Mer
stopped at a few more outports, depositing food, supplies, people, before moving on.

By morning they were well up the coast. Leaving roads and towns and most of the trees behind. The passengers awoke to a gray sky and a shoreline made of rocks worn smooth by waves.

“Strange place,” said Myrna, joining Armand on deck and handing him a strong, sweet tea.

They leaned on the railing. There was a chill in the air that belied the summer season. It was as though they’d left the calendar behind. Time had its own rules here.