The Long Way Home (42 page)

But that had stopped hours ago, the investigators could tell. When the heart had stopped. Hours ago.

Gamache felt for the man’s pulse. There was none. He was cold as marble.

“Did you put the pillow over his face?” Gamache called out the door.

“God, no,” came the reply.

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances. Then, steeling himself, Armand Gamache lifted the pillow, as Jean-Guy recorded the events.

And then Gamache sighed. A long, long, slow exhale.

“When did Professor Massey arrive?” the Chief asked, staring down at the bed. The dead man’s mouth was slightly open, as though a thought had occurred to him in the instant before he died.

What would he have said? Don’t do it? Please, please, for God’s sake. Would he have begged for his life? Would he have screamed recriminations? Empty threats?

Gamache doubted it. Rarely had he seen a man so apparently at peace with being murdered. With being driven to Samarra and dumped in front of Death.

But perhaps, Gamache thought as he looked at those calm eyes, this appointment was fated.

Two men whose lives had crossed decades before, walking to this terrible moment in this desolate place.

“He arrived a couple days ago, I think.” The voice drifted in through the open door as though the wider world was speaking to them. “I’ve lost track of time.”

“When did this happen?” Beauvoir asked. “Not a couple of days ago. He died fairly recently.”

“Last night. Early this morning maybe. I found him like that this morning.”

There was a pause and Gamache walked to the door. Peter was sitting, collapsed in the chair, stunned.

“Look at me,” said Gamache, his voice calm, reasonable. Trying to bring Peter back to reality. He could see Peter detaching, drifting away. From the cabin, from the coast, from the horrific discovery.

From the blood-sodden bed, and the stone man with the slit throat. Like a grotesque sculpture. Gamache couldn’t decide if the look of extreme peace made it better or worse.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t here. Professor Norman sent me away, asked me to leave the two of them alone and come back in the morning. This morning. When I did, I found—” He waved toward the cabin door.

Gamache could hear Beauvoir taking pictures and dictating into his device.

“White male. Cause of death, a wound to the throat made with a large knife, cutting from the carotid artery to the jugular. No sign of struggle. No sign of the weapon.”

“Did you touch anything?” Gamache asked.

“No, nothing.” And Peter sounded so revolted that Gamache believed him.

“Has anyone else been here since you arrived this morning?”

“Only Luc. He comes by every morning. I sent him away to call for help.”

Now Peter really focused on Gamache.

“Isn’t that why you’re here, Armand?” Then Peter became confused, flustered. “But what time is it?” He looked around. “It can’t be that late. How’d you get here so fast?”

“By Luc you mean Luc Vachon?” said Gamache, sidestepping the question for the moment. Peter nodded.

“A follower of No Man?” asked Beauvoir from inside the cabin.

“I suppose. A student, really.”

“Did Vachon get close to the body?” Gamache asked.

“Close enough to know what had happened,” said Peter. His own eyes widened, remembering the sight.

“Close enough to take something?” asked Beauvoir. “Like the knife?”

He’d come out onto the porch and was staring at Peter. So like the Peter they’d known for years, but so unlike him too. This Peter was vague, unsteady. At sea. His hair was long and windswept and his clothing, while clean, was disheveled. It was as though he’d been turned upside down and shaken.

“I don’t know,” said Peter, “he might have gotten close enough.”

“Think,” said Gamache, his voice firm, not bullying, but commanding.

Peter seemed to steady himself. “It was all so chaotic. We were yelling at each other. Demanding to know what had happened. He wanted to move the pillow, but I stopped him. I knew enough to know nothing should be touched.”

“But was Vachon close enough to take the knife?” Beauvoir asked.

“Yes, I guess so.” Peter was getting upset now, belligerent, feeling badgered. “But I didn’t see a knife and I didn’t see him take one. He seemed as shocked and upset as me. You don’t think Luc did it?”

Gamache looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon.”

But that meant nothing to Peter.

“When did you send Vachon to call?” asked Beauvoir.

“I got here about seven, as usual. Luc came a few minutes later.”

“Five hours.” Beauvoir looked at Gamache.

“Where would Vachon have gone to call?” Gamache asked. “Tabaquen?”

“Probably. Phone service is sketchy here, but the harbormaster generally has a good line. Needs it in case there’s an emergency on the water.”

“As far as we know, Luc Vachon never made that call,” said Gamache. “Either because he didn’t want to, or because he couldn’t.”

“If Luc did it, why’d he come back?” Peter demanded, his brain kicking in.

“Maybe he left the knife behind,” Gamache suggested. “Maybe he needed to make sure the professor was really dead. Maybe whoever did it sent him back, to retrieve the knife or other evidence.”

“‘Whoever did it’?” Peter asked. “Who do you mean?”

Gamache was looking at him. Not with the eyes of Armand, his friend. But the sharp, assessing, unrelenting gaze of the head of homicide.

“Me? You think I killed him? But why?”

“Maybe the Muse told you to do it,” Gamache suggested.

“The Muse? What’re you talking about?”

Gamache was still staring at him and Peter’s eyes widened.

“You think I’ve gone mad, don’t you? That this place has driven me insane.”

“Not just the place,” said Gamache. “But the company. Professor Norman lectured on the tenth muse. Isn’t that why you came here? To find him. And her?”

Peter flushed, either with rage or embarrassment at being caught out.

“Maybe it was all too much for you, Peter. You were lost, desperate to find a direction. Maybe the combination of Norman’s beliefs and this place was too much.” Gamache looked out at the vast, open, empty terrain. Sky and rock and water. “It would be easy to lose touch with reality.”

“And commit murder? I’m not the one who’s lost touch with reality, Armand. Yes, I can see how it might appear that I could’ve done it. And yes, Luc might’ve done it. But aren’t you forgetting something, or someone?”

“No,” said Gamache.

He wasn’t forgetting that someone was missing, besides Luc Vachon.

“Was Professor Norman surprised when Massey arrived?” Beauvoir asked.

“I think Professor Norman was beyond being surprised by anything,” said Peter. “He actually seemed pleased to see him.”

“And you left the two of them here, alone, last night,” said Beauvoir.

Peter nodded. Gamache and Beauvoir walked back into the cabin, and over to the bed.

Two young professors had met decades ago. Met and clashed. And then met again as old men. In the land God gave to Cain. They’d sat here. One on the chair. One on the bed.

And in the morning, one was dead. And one was missing.

Gamache looked down at the peaceful, almost joyous, face. And at the long, deep cut, from artery to vein.

Whoever did this had left nothing to chance.

He wanted to make sure Professor Norman, No Man, was dead.

And he was.

THIRTY-NINE

Armand Gamache didn’t know who had drawn the knife across Norman’s neck.

Professor Massey? Luc Vachon? Or Peter Morrow.

One of them had.

Gamache was sure of only one thing. He’d been wrong. Way off.

It wasn’t until that very morning, on the ship, in the pastel light of the new day, that he began to see the truth.

At about the same time Peter Morrow was staring down at this bed, he was staring down at Peter’s lip painting.

And once more Gamache had turned it around.

Changed the way he was looking at it.

That was what he’d needed to do with this case. Turn it around. They’d presumed so many things. Made so many conclusions fit the facts.

But they actually had it upside down.

If Professor Massey had painted that wonderful picture at the back of his studio, how had Norman, so far away, infected it with asbestos?

How? How?

The answer was, he couldn’t have.

The answer had to be that Professor Massey hadn’t painted that picture.

Norman had.

Norman hadn’t put the asbestos on. Massey had.

Gamache realized he had everything backward.

No Man wasn’t trying to kill Professor Massey.

Massey was trying to kill No Man.

And he’d succeeded.

Professor Norman’s throat might have been cut that morning, but this murder had actually been committed decades ago. With a sprinkle of asbestos on blank canvases. Shipped to the disgraced and dismissed Professor Norman. As a favor.

Norman had eagerly opened the containers of art supplies, like a child at Christmas. Inhaling the asbestos liberated into the air. Then he’d happily, gratefully, unrolled the blank canvases, further disturbing the deadly fibers. As though that wasn’t enough, Norman would then have stretched them onto a frame. And finally he’d have painted them.

All the while believing kindly Professor Massey was his friend.

If Reine-Marie’s and Myrna’s opinions were to be believed, Sébastien Norman had been a gifted, perhaps even masterful, painter. But each stroke of the brush had brought him closer to death. The very act of creation had killed him.

As Massey knew it would.

Gamache felt a fool. He should have seen this sooner, much sooner. Who had access to the asbestos? Not Norman. He was way far away in Baie-Saint-Paul by the time it was taken out of the walls of the art college.

No. Professor Massey had access to it.

“But why would Massey want to kill Norman?” Beauvoir asked. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Massey got Norman fired. Why would he then send Norman infected canvases for years?”

Instead of answering, Gamache turned to Peter, who was now standing in the doorway. His eyes averted from the bloody bed.

“We found your paintings. The ones you gave to Bean.”

“Oh.” Peter looked as though Gamache had just pulled down his pants. “Did Clara see them?”

“Would it matter?”

Peter thought about that, and shook his head. “It would have, a year ago. Even a few months ago. But now?” He searched his feelings and almost smiled. “It’s okay.” He looked at them with wonder. “It’s okay. They’re a mess, but they’ll get better. What did Clara think of them?”

This was all that really mattered to him. Not their opinion, only Clara’s.

“Do you want to know?”

He nodded.

“She thought they were a dog’s breakfast.” Gamache studied Peter as he said it. The old Peter would have gotten huffy, taken offense. Been deeply insulted that anything he did could be greeted with anything short of wild applause.

But this Peter just shook his head and smiled. “She’s right.”

“It’s a compliment, you know,” said Gamache. “She said her first efforts were the same. A lump in the throat.”

“Oh, God, I miss her so much.” The little energy Peter had summoned disappeared and he seemed to deflate.

His lower lip trembled and tears welled up. Saltwater. A sea of emotion, withheld. He looked desperate to say all the things unsaid, for decades. But all that came out was ragged breath.

“I want to sit in our garden and hear about her year, and tell her about mine,” he finally said. “I want to hear all about her art. And how she paints and how she feels. Oh, God, what’ve I done?”

*   *   *

Clara grabbed Peter’s rolled-up paintings. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Sit down,” Myrna commanded. “Sit.”

“Could we at least call them?” Clara pulled out her device.

“Give me that,” said Myrna, holding out her hand. “Give it.”

“But—”

“Now. Lives might be at stake. We don’t know what’s happening and we can’t interrupt. Armand said to wait for him.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to. This is what he does. What they both do. Leave them.”

Their coffees were cold and the lemon meringue pie sat untouched in the middle of the table.

“Do you think they’ve found Peter?” Clara asked.

“I hope so.” Myrna looked out the window and couldn’t imagine what might be beyond this place. Where else could they look? Where else could he hide?

“Does the Muse live here?” Clara asked. Of Chartrand.

“Why do you ask me?”

“Because you’ve been here before.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Are you sure?” Clara’s eyes held his, and wouldn’t let them drop.

“I’ve never been here in my life,” said Chartrand. “But I’m glad I’m here now.”

“Why?” asked Clara.

He smiled weakly, got up, and left. They could see him through the window of the diner, his hands shoved into his pockets, his collar turned up against the wind. He stood hunched, staring out at the water.

Clara clasped one hand tightly in the other under the table. How long would she have to wait? How long could she wait? She looked at the Bakelite clock on the diner wall. But while it told time, it wasn’t helpful. Clocks were meaningless here.

Time seemed measured in other terms. Here.

The clock said they’d been in the diner for three quarters of an hour, but Clara knew it was really an eternity.

*   *   *

“Why did you come here?” Gamache asked.

“To find the tenth muse?” asked Beauvoir.

“You know about that?” asked Peter, and when they said nothing he went on. “No. I came to tell Norman what a shit he was. When I visited Professor Massey at the art college, it all came back to me. I’d always regretted not telling Norman about the damage he’d done.”

“With the Salon des Refusés,” said Gamache.

“Yes. He’d hurt Clara, and I’d said nothing at the time. When I left Three Pines, I had no idea how she would feel about me when I returned. I suspected she’d want to end our marriage for good, and I couldn’t blame her. But I wanted to take her one special thing. A gift. I thought and thought about it, and realized what a coward I’d been all our lives. Never defending her or her art. Letting everyone criticize and belittle. And finally even doing it myself when I realized how brilliant she really was. I tried to ruin her art, Armand.”