A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(79)

That was almost as bad as seeing colleagues go down. Gunned down.

Seeing Gamache himself hit. Lifted off the ground. And collapse.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir pushed that image, that memory, away. Unable still to really face it. Face the fact he himself had done it once. Had seen Gamache through his sights and fired. Felt the report. Smelled the discharge.

Seen him rise and watched him fall.

It was the worst moment of Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s life. And it had changed his life.

His hand now closed briefly over the holster, but instead of feeling the usual reassurance, he felt a wave of revulsion.

And he knew, in his gut, it was time to leave. He’d done his bit, done his best.

Time to take a job where the only weapon was his mind. Where there were no victims, only clients. And no suspects, only competitors. Where everyone who started the day with a heartbeat ended the day with one.

Or, if not, it wasn’t his doing.

But he wasn’t there yet. Soon. Just this one, last case. Jean-Guy Beauvoir just had to get across the finish line.



* * *



Instead of answering Clara’s question, why she’d never reviewed her shows, Dominica Oddly had hauled herself out of the sofa and was wandering around the studio. Nodding as she took in the collection of stuff.

A jumble of old works. Failed and abandoned pieces sat beside finished and lauded portraits. There were stones and twisted tree roots. Feathers and sticks and assorted broken eggs, fallen from nests. It was as though Clara had left the door to her studio wide open and the wilderness had blown in.

Oddly took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The studio smelled of oil paint and turpentine and wet dog. And something else.

Clara had given up trying to look sophisticated and had rolled off the low sofa onto her hands and knees, and now she got to her feet with a grunt.

To Clara’s horror, Oddly had stopped in front of a collection of dusty ceramic pieces. And was taking photographs.

“What do you call these?” she asked.

“Warrior Uteruses.”

Oddly laughed. A deep, rich rumbling sound that filled the space with genuine amusement.

“Perfect. Have you shown them?”

“They’re old. I did them maybe ten years ago,” Clara explained. “Showed them once.”

“And?”

“Not a success.”

Oddly nodded, clearly not surprised. Then she turned back to Clara. “I’ve been to all your shows, you know. Privately.”

She walked over to the small portrait lounging against the wall. The one of Ruth. The old woman glared back at the young woman, her whole being filled with rage and pain, with bitterness and disappointment. Ruth gripped her worn blue shawl at her scrawny throat and looked out at a world that had left her behind.

“I didn’t get it at first,” Dominica admitted, as though talking directly to the old woman. “Didn’t see what others saw. All I saw were portraits done in a predictable, conventional style. Granted, the subjects were interesting, but that struck me as a sort of cheat. A shorthand to cover up for a lack of technique. A lack of depth.”

Dominica Oddly turned away for a moment, to look at Clara, and then returned her gaze to the portrait.

“I had my review all written. Scathing. I especially hated her.”

She lifted her chin toward Ruth. Who clearly hated her right back.

“But something stopped me from publishing it. I decided to reserve judgment. I went to all your other shows and slowly, slowly began to see.”

“See what?”

“That I was wrong. But more than that. I saw why. When I looked at your portraits, I saw the work of a middle-class, middle-aged white woman, living in middle-of-nowhere Canada. Working in a traditional, conventional medium. I was prejudiced. I couldn’t believe that you, Clara Morrow, could come out of nowhere and possibly rock the art establishment. But you have.”

She turned back to Ruth.

“This’s the woman who contacted me about your work, right? Who convinced me to come here, isn’t it? This’s the poet, Ruth Zardo?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, her dreadlocks bouncing on her shoulders.

“Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair?” She muttered the words of Ruth’s most famous poem, then looked at Clara. “You painted her as the Virgin Mary. The mother of God. Forgotten, bitter, filled with despair. Which would have been amazing enough. Without—” She reached up her hand and pointed. At a small white dot in the rheumy eye. “That.”

It was the smallest hint of light. In a soul that had known much too much darkness.

“No fraud could do that. Once I saw that, I revisited all your other paintings and saw what you were really doing. You’re subversive, my friend. A sort of artistic agent provocateur. Appearing to be one thing while actually being something else. Something quite extraordinary. Undermining all conventions. You don’t just paint people, you capture them. Make them give you their emotions. Not just despair and hope but joy. Hatred. Jealousy. Love. Contentment. Rage. How you managed to capture belonging is beyond me, but you did. The Three Graces? I actually wept. I stood in front of it, all alone in the gallery, crying. I still don’t know why it made me cry.” She turned to Clara. “Do you?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But I think you do.”