A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(134)

“So that’s why Tracey killed Vivienne,” said Cameron. “He knew about that money.”

“But how would he?” asked Beauvoir. “Would she really have told him? I think if she was going to confide in anyone about the money, it would be someone she trusted. A lover, for example. Don’t you?”

His voice had grown quiet. Almost a whisper. As he locked eyes with Cameron across the fire.

Cameron flushed red, almost purple. And closed his hands into fists.

“There was something else Homer said on the bridge,” said Gamache. “Before you all arrived. Or, actually, something he didn’t say.”

He looked at the circle of faces, all of them focused on him. Even Cameron broke contact with Beauvoir and shifted his gaze.

“When he was preparing to take Tracey with him, he said it was punishment for all the years Tracey had hurt Vivienne.”

“Yes,” said Cameron. “Exactly.”

“You’re not listening,” said Beauvoir.

“Wait,” said Lysette Cloutier, who understood what Gamache was saying. “Wait. That can’t be true.”

“Yes it is,” said Lacoste.

“What?” said Cameron, looking from one to the other.

“Homer Godin was punishing Tracey for abusing his daughter,” Beauvoir explained. “But not for killing her.”

He let that sink in.

“He never once said that, not on the bridge anyway,” said Gamache. “Before, yes. I think he’d convinced himself Vivienne’s death was Tracey’s fault. If Tracey hadn’t been abusing her, she’d never have needed to get away. Never have needed to demand the money. Never have needed to meet her father on the bridge.”

“And Homer would not have killed her,” said Beauvoir.

The words sat there. No one protesting. No one denying them.

It was, finally, the truth.

Lysette Cloutier hung her head, dropping it toward her heart. While Bob Cameron, wide-eyed, absorbed what had been said.

“I should’ve seen it sooner,” said Beauvoir quietly. “Only two numbers were called from the house that day. One a wrong number. The other was to her father. Vivienne was on that bridge to meet someone, and it could only be the one person she’d spoken to that day. Her father.”

Finally it was that simple. That obvious.

“But what about Fred?” asked Reine-Marie. And once again the dog raised his head. Then lowered it to his paws. “Why did she leave him behind?”

“Her plan was never to go away that night,” said Armand. “She wanted to get the money from her father, then return home and talk to you.” He turned to Cameron. “That’s why she didn’t leave when Tracey was at the art store, and that’s why she didn’t take Fred to the bridge. You didn’t break off the affair last fall, did you?”

“No. I broke it off just after Christmas. I couldn’t do that to my family.”

Gamache nodded. “I think she genuinely believed the child was yours.”

“She wanted to tell you,” said Beauvoir, “and see if maybe—”

“I’d go with her,” he said.

He didn’t tell them what his answer would have been, nor did they ask.

“She called over and over, trying to get through to you,” said Beauvoir. “She finally gave up and went to the bridge to meet her father.”

“But if she’d refused to see him since she left home, why agree to meet him that night?” asked Cameron.

“Yes,” said Cloutier. “The money could’ve been wired into her account, like all the rest. No need to see him at all.”

“The baby,” said Beauvoir. “That changed everything. The idea of being a parent changes you.”

Cameron nodded. Remembering his own mounting terror as his first child grew in his wife’s womb. That maybe he’d be his father. Maybe he’d be impatient. Cruel. Violent.

Maybe he’d lash out. With fists. With a belt. With a baseball bat.

“She needed to face her abuser,” said Cameron. “Look him in the eye. Confront him.”

As he’d confronted his own father. Before his son was born.

Only then did he know, in his heart, that he would love his children, protect his children. He would never hit them. And he had not.

“Yes,” said Beauvoir. “Vivienne met her father on the bridge for one reason. To look him in the eye and tell him what he’d done to her. She had to do it for her own sake, but also for her daughter’s.”

“It wasn’t about the money,” said Lacoste. “That was the excuse to get him there.”

There was silence as some looked down at the floor, some stared into the fire, and others looked out the window, at the bright, cheerful day. At the three huge trees, swaying, playing in the breeze.

“Do you think her plan was to kill him?” asked Cameron.

“No,” said Gamache. “If it was, she’d have taken Tracey’s rifle. She had no weapon. I think it was as Chief Inspector Beauvoir says. She wanted her freedom. Not another burden. Killing her father would’ve bound him to her for the rest of her life.”

But oh, thought Armand, the courage it must have taken to face him. And in doing that, turn her back on all the justified rage. All that had maddened and tormented her her entire life.