A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(3)

Had Gamache failed, and for a while it appeared he would, the S?reté would have been crippled, leaving Québec defenseless against an onslaught of gang violence, trafficking, organized crime.

Gamache had prevailed. But just barely, and at a cost.

Any reasonable person making those decisions would expect a consequence, no matter the outcome. The Chief Superintendent was reasonable. He must’ve expected to be suspended. Investigated.

But had he expected to be humiliated?

In their own coup de grace, the political leadership had decided to save their own skins by putting Gamache’s career out of its misery. Though vindicated in the investigation, he would be offered a job he could not possibly accept. Chief Inspector of homicide. A position he’d held for many years. One he’d handed over to Lacoste when he’d been promoted to head of the S?reté. After she’d been wounded, it was a job now filled by Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

It was a demotion, the leadership knew, that Armand Gamache could not agree to. The humiliation would be too great. The cut too deep. He would resign. Retire. Disappear.

But Armand Gamache refused to go. To their astonishment, he’d accepted their offer.

His fall from grace would be completed here. In this room. Today.

And it appeared he’d land, with a thump, right on top of Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

It was seven minutes to eight. The two men would soon walk through the door. Both holding the rank of head of homicide.

And then what would happen?

Even Isabelle Lacoste found herself glancing at the door. Wondering. She didn’t expect trouble but couldn’t help thinking about what George Will called the “Ohio Event.”

In 1895 there were only two automobiles in the whole state. And they’d collided.

No one knew better than Lacoste that the unexpected happened. And now she found herself bracing for the collision.



* * *



“It’s your own fault,” said Ruth Zardo. “You should never have agreed to it, if you ask me.”

No one had.

“Listen to this one,” the elderly poet continued, reading off the phone. “Clara Morrow’s contribution is trite, derivative, and banal. They left out clichéd and pedestrian. Or maybe someone says that further down the thread.”

“I think that’s enough, Ruth,” said Reine-Marie Gamache.

She glanced at her watch. Nearly eight. She wondered how her husband was getting on. It did not take a savant to know how Clara was doing.

Her friend had dark circles under her eyes and looked drawn. And slightly painted. There were dabs of cadmium red and burnt umber on her face and in her hair.

Clara was wearing her usual jeans and a sweater. Success as an artist had not changed her fashion sense. Such as it was. Perhaps because recognition had come later in Clara’s life. In her late forties now, she’d been working in her studio for decades, creating works that went unnoticed. Her greatest success had been her Warrior Uterus series. She’d sold one. To herself. And given it to her mother-in-law. Thereby weaponizing her art. And her uterus.

Then, after an evening in the bistro with women friends from the village, Clara had gone back to her studio and started something different. Portraits. Oil paintings. Of those women.

She’d painted them as they really were, their lines and lumps and wrinkles. But what she’d really captured, in her bold strokes, were their feelings.

The portraits burst onto the art scene, lauded as revolutionary. Bringing back a traditional form but revitalizing it. Her portraits were luminous. Joyous. Vibrant. Unsettling at times, as the loneliness and brute sorrow in some faces became apparent.

Her portraits of the women were challenging and bold and audacious.

And now, this April morning, many of those same women had joined Clara in the bistro. They’d celebrated her successes here. Today they came to comfort.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Myrna. “It’s just mean, malicious.”

“But if I believed them when they loved the works, shouldn’t I believe them now?” asked Clara. “Why were they right then but wrong now?”

“But these aren’t art critics,” said Reine-Marie. “I bet most of them haven’t even seen the exhibition.”

“The art critic for the New York Times just posted,” reported Ruth. “He says in light of this disaster, he’s going to go back to your earlier works, the portraits, to see if he’d been wrong about them. Shit. He can’t mean the portrait you did of me, can he?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” muttered Rosa. The duck was sitting on Ruth’s lap and looked irritated. But then, ducks often did.

“It’ll be fine,” said Myrna.

“That I believe,” said Clara, running her hands through her thick hair so that it stood out from her head. Making her look like a mad madwoman.

Perversely, Ruth, who almost certainly really was mad, looked perfectly composed.

“The good thing is, nobody will see your crap,” said Ruth. “Who goes to an exhibition of miniatures? Why in the world would you agree to contribute to a group show of tiny oil paintings? It’s what bored society women in the 1700s painted.”

“And many were far better than their male counterparts,” said Myrna.

“Right,” said Ruth. “Like that can be true.”