A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(114)
“Are you sure?”
The woman clearly suspected Reine-Marie had either lost or stolen the items. Reine-Marie was feeling slightly defensive when she realized she’d almost certainly given that very same look to researchers who claimed not to have something she believed was in the material they’d been given.
She looked at the courteous, suspicious face. And smiled.
“I know it sounds unbelievable, but I really did look and it really isn’t there.”
“Hmmm.” The woman sat back in her plastic chair. “Now where could it be?”
While she pondered, and Reine-Marie waited, Clara and Myrna passed the time by wandering the permanent exhibit in the large room that opened up behind the volunteer desk. It was filled with clothing, and photographs, and maps.
“Look, this one’s signed,” said Clara. “Turcotte.”
“And dated. 1919.”
It clearly showed Saint-Rémy, a bustling lumber town, and Williamsburg, and it even had Roof Trusses. Not yet rebaptized Notre-Dame-de-Doleur.
But it did not have Three Pines.
“Why?” asked Clara.
But Myrna had no answers. Instead she’d wandered over to a mannequin wearing a lace wedding dress. The mannequin’s waist was about the size of Myrna’s forearm.
“People were smaller then,” she explained to Clara. “Lack of nutrition.”
“Lack of croissants.”
“How did they survive?” asked Myrna, shaking her head.
“The pioneer spirit,” said Clara.
“Got it,” Reine-Marie called from the front desk. “We’re off.”
“Where to?” asked Clara and Myrna, hurrying to catch up.
“The Legion. The show was there, and the secretary thinks the things might’ve been boxed up and put in the basement, and they forgot about them.”
“Ironic,” said Myrna.
*
Commander Gamache spent most of the day in his office at the academy. The door closed, if not actually locked.
But the message was clear.
Stay away.
Beauvoir could not.
For the umpteenth time that day, Jean-Guy Beauvoir stood outside the closed door and stared at it.
“He’s inside?” he asked the Commander’s assistant, sitting at her desk, for the umpteenth time.
“Oui. Has been all day,” said Madame Marcoux.
“What’s he doing?”
She looked at Beauvoir, incredulous and amused. He knew she wouldn’t tell him, even if she could. But he had to ask.
He leaned closer to the door, but couldn’t hear anything.
Now the amusement disappeared from Madame Marcoux’s eyes, to be replaced by disapproval.
“He asked not to be disturbed. Have you found out who killed Professor Leduc?” she asked.
“Not yet, but—”
“Then maybe you should be doing that, don’t you think?”
It wasn’t a question.
Finally, at the end of the day, Jean-Guy returned, hoping to find the assistant gone, but she was still there.
Beauvoir smiled at her, walked right by, tapped. And entered. As she stood and called, “Stop.”
Armand Gamache looked up sharply, his hand instinctively going to the lid of his laptop.
And as he looked at Jean-Guy Beauvoir, he slowly closed it. In a gesture that felt more like a slap to the face than any hand ever could.
The two men stared, then Jean-Guy’s eyes dropped to the slender computer, closed.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the assistant, standing at the door and glaring at the intruder.
“It’s not a problem, Madame Marcoux,” said Gamache, rising behind his desk. “You can leave us. I’m finished for the day anyway. Thank you for staying.”
Madame Marcoux hesitated at the door.
“It’s all right, Chantal.”
With a severe look at Beauvoir, she left, closing the door softly behind her while the two men stared at each other.
“We found out about the silencer,” said Beauvoir. “Made by a company in Tennessee. It specializes in customized weapons. They have a record of Leduc’s order. He must have smuggled it across the border.”
Gamache made a sound of disapproval but not of surprise, and waved toward the sitting area of his office. Away, Beauvoir noticed, from his desk. And the closed laptop.
“Is that what you came here to tell me?” asked Gamache, sitting down and taking off his reading glasses.
Beauvoir took the chair across from him and leaned forward. “The joke’s over, patron. What’s this about? What’re you doing in here?”
“Beyond the fact it’s my office?” There was an edge of annoyance in Gamache’s normally composed voice. “What do you want, Jean-Guy?”
Beauvoir, faced with such a simple question, felt overwhelmed.
He wanted to know why Monsieur Gamache had hidden away all day.
He wanted to know why he’d just closed his laptop. What was on it?
He wanted to know why he’d really taken those students down to Three Pines.
He wanted to know why Gamache’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon.
He wanted to know why he’d specifically asked for Paul Gélinas to join the investigation, and lied to Chief Inspector Lacoste, and himself, in the process.