A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(123)

Isabelle Lacoste smiled and nodded. “Merci. I think we will.”

“Where’s Armand?”

“Out for a walk. He took the dogs. Is Monsieur Godin still asleep?”

“Yes,” said Reine-Marie. “I looked in but didn’t want to disturb him. Is Jean-Guy with Armand?”

“Non,” came the familiar voice.

Jean-Guy had gone to the study to print something and now returned to the kitchen holding the papers. “But I do need to find him. Be back soon. Don’t let Isabelle eat everything. You know what she’s like.”

Reine-Marie smiled and watched him go.

The home settled. The bacon sizzled and popped. The coffee perked. The fire in the woodstove roiled as the women went into the study to continue whatever they were talking about, and Jean-Guy left to find Armand.



* * *



A mist was rising from the thinning layer of snow. The air warmer now than the ground. Giving the pretty village an otherworldly feel. Except for the mud.

Beauvoir’s boots made a thucking sound as he walked quickly toward the bridge and the sandbags still in place against a threat no longer there.

The three huge pines, around which all life in the village revolved, stood in front of him now. Partly obscured by the mist. As though they existed in both this world and the other.

Whenever he and Annie visited with Honoré, Jean-Guy would bring him to the green to play. Sometimes, as he sat on the bench and watched his son, Jean-Guy had the oddest feeling that the little boy was playing not among the trees but with them.

He was almost at the bridge on his way to the incident room, where he expected Gamache had gone, when he noticed movement up on the ridge of the hill out of town.

Gamache and Cameron were standing, facing each other. It looked natural enough. But it was the posture of the dogs that alerted Beauvoir that this was not a pleasant discussion. For any of them.

And he knew what they must be talking about.

Picking up his pace, thuck, thuck, thuck, he headed up there. As he approached, he heard Cameron shout, “No. Never.”

He saw Gamache get right up into Cameron’s face.

While he couldn’t hear what the Chief Inspector said, he could hear Cameron’s reply. Another “No” blasted.

Cameron raised his hands.

Henri crouched.

Gracie barked.

And Armand braced.

When the blow landed, he staggered back.

Beauvoir shouted.

But neither heard.

They continued to stare. Cameron at the man accusing him of murder. Gamache at a man who could so easily be provoked into an act which, under different circumstances, would prove fatal.



* * *



“Are you going to lay charges?” Beauvoir asked as he and Gamache walked a dozen paces away from Agent Cameron.

Gamache looked behind him.

Cameron wasn’t watching them. Instead, he gazed, dazed, out over the village.

Gamache wondered what he saw. The forests and mountains, the shifting reds and purples of the sunrise, with the mist rising pink-tinged below?

Did he see Vivienne? As she hung between the bridge and the water.

Cameron’s huge hands were grasping the back of the bench. So that the words etched there now read “SURPRISED BY—”

The joy had disappeared.

“For assault? Non,” said Gamache. “We’re after bigger fish.”

“A whale, even?” asked Beauvoir. “Look at this.”

Gamache took the paper, then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and brought out his reading glasses. But they were broken.

Wordlessly, he replaced them and squinted to read the printout.

He made a guttural noise that sounded like “Huh.” Then his eyes focused on the man in front of him. “What do you think it means?”

“I have an idea, but I think we need to ask him.”



* * *



Homer Godin looked down at the printout.

He’d stared at it for a while, clearly trying to focus his mind.

They’d left Cloutier and Cameron in the kitchen while the senior officers met with Homer in Gamache’s study.

“Viv’s bank statements,” he finally said, raising his eyes to Lacoste, then over to Beauvoir.

“Yes. They show that every month since last July you transferred two thousand dollars into her account.”

“True.”

“Why?”

“She asked for it. Said they needed it to pay their mortgage. I didn’t want her to be homeless.”

“And yet, it just sat there, accumulating,” said Beauvoir. “There’s eighteen thousand dollars in that account.”

Homer shook his head. “Maybe she didn’t need it after all.”

“Then why did she keep taking it?” asked Beauvoir. When Homer didn’t answer, Jean-Guy went on. “I think she was saving up. To leave Tracey. I think that was her plan for a long time.”

“Could be,” said Homer.

“I think with a baby on the way, she decided now was the time to get out and start a new life, with the money you’d given her.”

“I hope so.” Homer seemed confused now. As though what Beauvoir described were still possible.

Beauvoir looked over at Gamache, then to Lacoste, all thinking the same thing.