A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(113)

“It obviously wouldn’t be the only motive,” said Beauvoir. “There’re lots of reasons she’d want Vivienne dead. She’d get Tracey, for one. And any inheritance, real or imagined, coming his way as Vivienne’s husband. And if his pottery did hit, she’d be right there to collect. If there’s a scandal, like a murdered wife, to help it along, so much the better.”

Up until now, Gamache had preferred to listen as the two investigators tossed around ideas. Taking in what they were saying. Letting his mind both focus and be free. Now he got up from the comfortable armchair.

“Excuse me,” he said, bringing out his phone. “I just need to check something.”

He stepped over to the window, where the wavering signal was strongest, and returned a couple of minutes later. His face grim.



* * *



Dominica checked her site. The review of Clara’s art was up and getting good notice. Lots of hits. Lots of shares. The new item she’d just posted was also beginning to trend.

Not yet tired, she Googled around, and then, bored, she typed in “Jean-Guy Beauvoir.”

A few items came up, including a commendation. There was a photo of this Chief Inspector Gamache, giving him a medal. But the line under the photo identified him as Chief Superintendent Gamache. The head of the S?reté du Québec.

Curious, she put in “Armand Gamache. S?reté.”

Lifting her brows at the number of stories, she scrolled down. The photographs, clearly taken over the course of a long career, showed a man aging. From dark, wavy hair to gray. From smooth-faced to lines, growing deeper and deeper with each passing story.

And then that scar appeared. At his temple. The first time was in a photo of him in dress uniform. Grim-faced, with a cane. In a funeral procession.

But there was one constant. His eyes. Intelligent and thoughtful. And even kindly.

It was disconcerting. In a cop.

There was a link to a recently posted video, with half a million views already.

Dominica Oddly sat in her quiet room, in the quiet village, and watched, horrified, as the quiet man with the kindly eyes shot a succession of young, mostly black, kids.

She recognized that the video had been hacked together. And knew it was probably bullshit, but she found herself sucked in. Probably because she was predisposed to believe that’s what cops did.

Did that explain his demotion? Is this how the good folk of Canada react to mass murder? A wrist slap?

Then another video came up. Also newly posted. With almost the same number of hits.

Her eye, trained to see the manipulation of images, realized this was the real thing. Uncut. Unedited. Raw. The parent of the previous, perverse video. The place from which those images had been culled, to create a false, but compelling, narrative. Of a man, a cop, out of control.

But this second video showed something very different. A commander in complete control. Leading a raid on a factory. Against what were clearly heavily armed gunmen.

In shaky but clear images, she watched S?reté agents, including the three people she’d just met over a civilized dinner, advance through the gunfire.

Jean-Guy. Isabelle. Armand.

“Christ,” she whispered as she watched last rites hurriedly given by one agent to another.

As hoarse last words were placed by one dying officer into another.

She watched as Jean-Guy fell, hit in the abdomen, and Armand dragged him to safety, kneeling over him to stanch his wound. Then he headed back into the battle. But before he did, Chief Inspector Gamache bent down and, for all the world to see, kissed the frightened young man on the forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

Words they both must have believed would be the last Jean-Guy Beauvoir would ever hear.

Minutes later, Isabelle was holding Armand’s hand as blood ran from the wounds at his temple and chest, and he whispered to her, barely audible, words he must’ve thought would be his last.

“Reine-Marie.”

Dominica Oddly was shocked by the violence, and even more shocked by the tenderness.

She snapped her laptop shut. And for the first time felt real revulsion for social media.

That would cut, twist, put a lie to the truth.

That would nail decent people to posts.

And then she remembered what she’d just done.



* * *



“What is it?” asked Jean-Guy.

Armand turned his phone around for them to see.

There, beneath the title, “All Truth with Malice in It,” was the story of a man in the remote Québec countryside. An undiscovered but important ceramic artist. Who also happened to be, allegedly, a murderer.

“Merde,” said Jean-Guy as he read.

“How’d you know?” Isabelle asked Gamache.

“If you’re given a lead, don’t you follow it? She’s a critic, but she’s also a journalist and an entrepreneur. And a good one. We handed her a great story. What else was she going to do with it?”

“Be a decent human being?” suggested Isabelle. “Respect Homer Godin’s pain and not promote a murderer.”

“I handed it to her,” said Jean-Guy.

“We all did,” said Armand.

“It’s disgusting, but it won’t harm the case,” said Isabelle.

“What case?” demanded Jean-Guy. “And what’ll Homer make of this? It’s not enough that that asshole Tracey killed his daughter, now he’s profiting from it. Thanks to us.”