The Long Way Home (43 page)

He looked down at his hands, as though he had blood all over them. The hollow gaze of a sin-sick soul.

“When Professor Massey mentioned Norman, I remembered the Salon des Refusés and knew what I could give her,” said Peter, raising his eyes again. “My apology. But not just words. A deed. Even if I had to go to hell and back, I’d find Professor Norman, and confront him. Only then could I go home. And face her.”

“You’d bring her the head of Professor Norman,” said Gamache.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

When Gamache continued to stare at him, Peter blanched.

“You don’t still think—” He waved toward the bed.

“Go on,” said Gamache, not taking his eyes off Peter.

“I went to Baie-Saint-Paul, where the files said Norman’s last check had been mailed, years ago. He wasn’t there, but it was so beautiful, and peaceful, and I’d been on the road for so long. So I rented a room and caught my breath. It was only then I remembered the paintings from my mother’s house. The ones I’d stared at for hours. Wishing myself into them. The Clarence Gagnons. They were done in Baie-Saint-Paul. So I found the Galerie Gagnon, and when I wasn’t painting I spent hours staring at them.”

“Why?” asked Beauvoir.

“Have you seen them?” Peter asked. Beauvoir nodded. “How did they make you feel?”

Jean-Guy answered without hesitation, “Homesick.”

Peter nodded. “They became like a window for me, back to Three Pines. Back to Clara and what I had. And what I’d lost. At first they made me indescribably sad. But then, the more I looked, the calmer I became. They gave me a sort of settled happiness. A hope.”

“The lips,” said Gamache.

Peter turned to him and smiled. “Yes. That’s when I painted the lips.”

“How’d you know No Man was here?” asked Beauvoir.

“Luc Vachon told me. He was still in contact with Professor Norman.”

“He’d belonged to the art colony Professor Norman created,” said Beauvoir.

Peter nodded. “But ‘create’ is probably the wrong word. It sorta grew up around him. People were drawn to him. Because he seemed to know.”

“Know what?” asked Beauvoir.

“That there was a tenth muse. And he knew how to find it,” said Peter. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. A derisive, unpleasant sound.

“You think it’s bullshit,” said Beauvoir.

“I think I didn’t have to come all the way to the end of the earth to find it,” said Peter. “It was there all along. Beside me in bed. Sitting in the garden. It was in the studio next to mine. In the chair next to mine. I came here to find what I already had.”

“You came here to confront Professor Norman,” Gamache reminded him.

“True. When I arrived it was clear Norman was very sick. This was a couple of months ago. He was dying and alone.”

Now Peter took a step forward, crossing the threshold.

“Did you confront him?” asked Beauvoir.

“No. The place was a mess. So I thought I’d clean it up first. After that, I’d let him have it. But then I realized he hadn’t eaten in a while, so I bought some food and cooked it. I’m not much of a cook, but I made scrambled eggs and toast. Something nutritious and light.”

“Did you tell him after that?” asked Beauvoir.

“No. His clothes and bedding were filthy. So I took them to the Laundromat in Tabaquen and washed them.”

Beauvoir had stopped asking, and was now just listening.

“His clothes and linen were clean then,” said Peter. “But he hadn’t had a bath in days. He was too weak.” Peter took a deep breath. “So I bathed him. I poured a bath and put in rosewater and lavender and a little essence of lily. Anything I could find.” Peter smiled. “I might’ve overdone it.” He looked down at the man in the bed. “I picked him up and put him in the bath. And washed him. It smelled like our garden in Three Pines.”

By now he’d come all the way into the room and was looking at the dead man with such tenderness. Seeing past the blood and the gaping wound. To the man.

“I stayed on, to look after him.”

Beauvoir’s voice broke the spell. “Did you know what was wrong with him? Did he?”

“If he did, he didn’t tell me. It was something to do with his lungs. I wanted him to go to the hospital in Sept-Îles, but he didn’t want to leave. I could understand that. He wanted to die at home.”

Peter looked at Beauvoir, then over to Gamache.

“Do you know what was wrong with him?” Peter asked.

“Do you know why Professor Massey came here?” Gamache countered.

“No.” Peter looked at Gamache closely. “But I get the feeling you do.”

“I think it might have been to confess,” said Gamache.

“Confess? To what?”

“You were right,” said Gamache. “Professor Norman was dying. Had been dying for a long time. Well before he realized it. Massey had killed him.”

“Massey? But that’s ridiculous. Why? How? Voodoo?”

“No. Asbestos.”

That stopped Peter.

“I think when Massey heard we were looking for you,” Gamache continued, “and that you were looking for Professor Norman, he realized we’d almost certainly find both of you. And learn everything.”

“But what’s there to learn?” Peter asked, lost.

“That Professor Massey had been sending him asbestos-infected canvases, for years.”

“Why?” Peter asked, astonished.

“Because Norman was a threat,” said Gamache. “Just like Clara was a threat to you. You loved Clara, but that didn’t stop you from trying to destroy her art, and actually destroying your marriage.”

Peter looked as though he’d been kicked in the gut. But Gamache didn’t let him off. He stood firm, staring at Peter until Peter nodded agreement.

“You loved her, and still you did that,” said Gamache. Drilling it home again. “Imagine what you might have done had the love not been there? Had there been hate instead? Love of Clara gave you some brakes, at least. A line beyond which you wouldn’t cross. But Massey had none. He felt he had everything to lose. And that Norman was about to take it away.”

“But he got Professor Norman fired,” said Peter. “Wasn’t that enough?”

“This wasn’t about revenge or vindictiveness,” said Gamache. “For Massey it was about survival. The art college was everything to him. It was his home, physically, emotionally, creatively. And the students were his children. He was the respected, revered professor. The brilliant one. The one they idolized and adored. But suppose a better painter, a more courageous artist, a truly avant-garde teacher appeared?”

Peter’s face had gone slack. And finally he conceded. He knew how that felt. To be usurped. Left behind. To see it all slipping away.

Massey was fighting for his survival. And getting Norman fired wasn’t enough. If Norman’s paintings started appearing in shows, then questions would be asked of the man who’d gotten rid of him.

Massey could not let that happen.

“When the asbestos was taken out of the walls of the college, he kept some, and sent asbestos-infected canvases to Norman,” said Beauvoir. “As a gift. One artist to another.”

“But how’d he do that, just logistically?” asked Peter. “Professor Norman lived in the middle of the woods, in Charlevoix.”

“He had help,” said Beauvoir. “Luc Vachon.”

Peter opened his mouth to protest, but paused, then closed it. And thought. And rethought all he knew.

“But if Professor Massey came to confess, then where is he?” Peter looked around. “And if he confessed, there’d be no need to kill Norman, would there? So who did that?”

He pointed to the bed.

Gamache turned to Jean-Guy. “Can you find Luc Vachon?”

“
Oui, patron
.”

“Arrest him. But be careful. He might still have the hunting knife.”

“
Oui.
And I’ll keep an eye out for Professor Massey.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that right now, Jean-Guy.”

“True.”

Beauvoir left, and Peter turned to Gamache.

“What was that about? Why shouldn’t he worry about Professor Massey?”

“Because he’s almost certainly dead,” said Gamache. “We’ll start a search once we’ve arrested Vachon.”

“Dead? How do you know?”

“I don’t know, for sure. But you were right—if he came here to confess, he’d have no reason to kill Professor Norman. And he allowed you to see him, so he didn’t try to hide his presence. No, I think Professor Massey might have regretted what he did. What seems acceptable, even reasonable, in youth can look very different in old age. I think he came here to confess to Norman, perhaps even ask for forgiveness. And then he was going to turn himself in. But Luc Vachon couldn’t allow that.”

“Holy shit,” Peter said, and sat down. Then he looked around again.

“But why isn’t Professor Massey here too? Why not kill them together?”

“We’ll have to wait until Jean-Guy arrests Vachon, but I think Vachon needed a scapegoat. I suspect his plan was to make it look like a murder-suicide. So that we’d think Massey killed Professor Norman and then killed himself. It wouldn’t be hard for Vachon to knock him out and hold him underwater.”

One more soul for the St. Lawrence, thought Gamache, and knew if that was the case they would almost certainly never find Professor Massey.

But they would find Vachon. If not here, then somewhere. Eventually. They would track him down and try him.

“Why would Vachon do it?” asked Peter.

“I’ve just explained,” said Gamache. “Though I might be wrong.”

“No, I mean why would he agree to help Professor Massey in the first place?”

“Why would anyone?” asked Gamache. “Money, almost certainly. Enough to start his own bar. To keep it running. To paint and travel. And all he had to do was deliver art supplies once or twice a year. And take the finished paintings back to Toronto.”

“And he could pretend he didn’t even know they were infected,” said Peter. “What did Massey do with the finished paintings?”

“He must have destroyed them,” said Gamache. “All except one. Myrna and Reine-Marie saw it, in Massey’s studio. Massey claimed it for his own, and they didn’t question it, but they did say it was far, far better than the rest.”

“Why’d he keep it?” Peter asked.

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” said Gamache. “Why would Massey keep one of Norman’s small masterpieces? As a trophy? Killers sometimes do.”

“I think it might be simpler than that,” said Peter. “For all his faults, Professor Massey loved art. Knew art. I think that painting by Professor Norman must’ve been so great even he couldn’t destroy it.”

Peter sighed, a deep exhale. And Gamache knew what he was thinking about. The masterpiece in his own life. The one he’d destroyed. Not Clara’s painting, but her love.

*   *   *

“I’ve come too far, and waited too long.” Clara got to her feet. “I’m going.”

Myrna stood in front of her in the diner, blocking her route out.

Clara stared at her.

“I have to know,” Clara whispered, so that only Myrna could hear. “Please. Let me go.”

Myrna stepped toward Clara, who stood her ground.

And then she stepped aside.

And let her go.

*   *   *

“Clara waited for you,” said Gamache quietly. “That night of your anniversary.”

Peter opened his mouth but the words were stuck at the lump in his throat.

“I wrote,” he said at last. “To say I wasn’t going to make it, but that I’d be home as soon as I could. I gave it to that young pilot.”

“She never got the letter.”

“Oh, my God. That shithead must’ve lost it. She must think I don’t care. Oh no. Oh, Christ. She must hate me.”

Peter stood up and started for the door. “I have to go. I have to get home. I have to speak to her, to tell her. The plane’ll be here soon. I have to be on it.”

Gamache put out his hand and gripped Peter’s arm.

Peter tried to jerk free. “Let me go. I have to go.”

“She’s here,” said Gamache. “She came to find you.”

FORTY

“Clara’s here?” Peter demanded. “Where?”

“She’s with Myrna at the diner,” said Gamache.

“I’m going,” he said.

“No, you need to stay here until Beauvoir returns and we know where we stand. I’m sorry, Peter, but the priority has to be to arrest Vachon for murder. Time enough to see Clara after that.”

Gamache walked to the door and stepped onto the porch, scanning the horizon in case Beauvoir was returning with Vachon. But there was no one, and nothing, there.

He turned back to the cabin and saw Peter approach the bed. Then Peter reached out and did what he knew he shouldn’t. He broke the rules, and brushed Norman’s hand with one finger. The lightest of strokes.

Gamache gave him that private moment. He stepped off the rickety porch and looked around, turning full circle in the bright sunshine.

There was no movement. There was no sound.

Nothing.

How bleak it must have been for No Man.

For Peter.

When the only sound was the hacking, rattling cough of a dying man.

When the only activity was shopping, cooking, cleaning. Bathing a dying man.

How tempting it must have been, to leave.

But Peter Morrow had stayed. Right to the end.

“I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country,” said Gamache.

“Pardon?”

Peter had come onto the porch and was watching Gamache.

Armand turned and said to Peter, “I will pray you find a way to be useful.”

Peter stood, as silent and solid as the world around them.

“Gilead,”
said Gamache. “The tenth muse is not, I think, about becoming a better artist, but becoming a better person.”

Gamache stepped onto the porch. “You found a way to be useful.”

Maybe this wasn’t Samarra after all, thought Gamache. Maybe it was Gilead.

Peter seemed to relax. Some tension, held all his life, escaped.

He followed Gamache inside.

Armand stared down at the body in the bed. Thinking, thinking.

Peter had been here alone this morning. Standing sentinel. Guarding the body until help arrived. But there had been one visitor.

Luc Vachon. Who’d helped Massey kill Norman. Who’d delivered the asbestos-infected supplies.

But, but … what had Beauvoir said? What had Peter said, when told?