A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(110)

The wolf, not at her door but in her home. In her life. And tearing it apart. With a smile.



* * *



Jean-Guy and Isabelle joined them in time for dinner.

Jean-Guy had spied Ruth and began walking toward her when Armand headed him off.

“Don’t.”

“But she needs to be told,” said Jean-Guy, watching the old poet swig scotch and talk with the critic, who seemed fascinated by her.

“Told what?”

“That the video she posted has hurt people. You. The families.” He paused. “Me. That she had no business doing that.”

“She did it out of kindness. She thought she was protecting me.”

“That doesn’t change anything. She should never have done it.”

“I agree. But it’s done now. Let it go, Jean-Guy.”

Still, as Jean-Guy passed Ruth, he whispered, “Dumb-ass.”

“Numbnuts,” she replied with a laugh. Clearly not understanding his message.



* * *



Armand was tired and wouldn’t normally have accepted Clara’s invitation. But he knew that Homer didn’t want to see him. Didn’t even want to know he was in the same house. And he’d promised the man time alone. This was one promise he could keep.

So they’d come here and left Homer and Lysette to have dinner by themselves.

Everyone at Clara’s had heard what had happened in court that day, though only Ruth had asked about it. If asking how they’d managed to make a clown-car disaster out of a sure thing was a sincere query.

Beauvoir seethed. Gamache remained quiet. Only Isabelle responded. She reached out and held the old woman’s veined hand and whispered, “Shut the fuck up.”

It delighted Ruth, who laughed. And, for once, did as she was told.



* * *



After dinner, while Armand and Reine-Marie cleared the table and Gabri made coffee, Jean-Guy took Dominica aside for a quiet word.

“Pottery?” Dominica asked when she and Beauvoir were far enough away from the others. She was clearly surprised this cop wanted to talk about ceramics of all things.

She launched into a discourse on the history of ceramic artworks, some of which survived beyond the peoples and cultures that made them. Some of which he even found interesting.

“What about in modern art?” asked Jean-Guy.

“What about it?”

“Can a person make a living from doing pottery stuff?”

She studied the man in front of her. Having grown up in the Bronx to an activist mother, Dominica found that she was wary, even privately afraid, of cops. She’d seen her brothers, her friends, her lovers harassed too often to see cops as anything other than threats.

She’d had very little respect for them and almost no contact with them socially. They lived on different continents and came from different tribes.

Gabri had told her about the murder of the young woman and what had happened in court that morning.

This officer had been involved. In charge. And now they were making small talk about pottery, over after-dinner drinks.

Though watching this cop, his intensity, Dominica Oddly began to suspect this was not actually small talk.

“Are you thinking of making a career change?” she asked, and was relieved to see him smile.

“Not to the art world. Way too dangerous.”

“Yes. I’ve heard the critics can be brutal.”

“It’s the artists who scare me.” Then his smile faded. “Ceramics,” he reminded her. “Pottery. Much of a market?”

“For art pottery? Not the kind we eat off of?”

“Oui.”

She considered. “There’s always a market at the high end. But you have to be very, very good. And very, very lucky. Lucie Rie, for instance. Highly collectible. Modern, but inspired by ancient Roman pottery. Grayson Perry in the UK is huge. Won the Turner Prize for his ceramics. Elisabeth Kley is a New York artist. Festive yet—”

“How about this?”

He brought out his phone and clicked on Photos.

Dominica Oddly felt a spike of annoyance. She wasn’t used to being interrupted. Most people were in awe of her and hung on every word.

But she realized they were not, in all probability, actually talking about pottery. They were discussing murder.

She leaned in.

Up came a picture of a vase. Then a bowl. Then another piece. One after another appeared. She asked him to stop scrolling as she examined a few. Enlarging them.

“Huh,” she finally said, looking up. “Whose is it?”

“A fellow named Carl Tracey. Ever heard of him?”

“No.” She stepped back and examined his face. “Is he the one who killed the girl?”

“We think so, yes. What do you think?”



* * *



“What do you think?” Clara asked.

She’d taken some of her friends into her studio, to show them copies of the miniatures that had been savaged by the critics. Including, and especially, the critic in her living room.

“Not bad at all,” said Gabri.

Clara felt her heart squeeze and a sort of panic wash over her. She was expecting an immediate and passionate, “They’re brilliant! She’s wrong!”