A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(53)

“I see.”

Armand had already called to tell Reine-Marie about it, so it was no surprise. She did not, they noticed, offer the usual words of grief and shock and sadness. No need to add hypocrisy to an already complex situation.

“Your turn.” Armand looked down at Gracie, now asleep in his arms.

“Remember when I told you this morning that Clara had gotten her rescue puppy?”

“And this is it?” asked Armand with relief.

“Well, no.”

“What have you done now?” he asked her. “And what is it?”

It did not, in all truth, look like a puppy.

“It looks like a groundhog,” said Isabelle Lacoste.

“I think it might be one of those teapot pigs,” said Gélinas.

“Oh, God, don’t tell me,” said Armand.

“Some detectives,” said Reine-Marie with a smile, taking Gracie from him. “She doesn’t have trotters. She isn’t a pig.”

“Well, Ruth doesn’t have cloven hooves,” said her husband, “but we all know…”

“She’s not a teapot pig,” Reine-Marie assured him.

“Then what is she? Not a puppy.”

“Ummm,” said Reine-Marie. “We think so.”

“You think?”

“She hasn’t been to the vet yet. The litter was found in a garbage can by Billy Williams, out Cowansville way. He called around and—”

“At least it’s not a skunk,” said Isabelle. “Is it?”

“A ferret?” asked Gélinas.

Reine-Marie put Gracie in the cage by the fireplace, soft towels and small chew toys keeping her company.

The four adults and Henri bent over her, like surgeons examining a complicated case.

She was so tiny it was difficult to tell what she was. She had rounded ears and a long thin tail, and paws with sharp nails. She was bald except for patches of black hair, not yet long enough for a combover. Her eyes opened and she looked back at them.

“She’s a puppy,” Gamache declared and straightened up.

“Don’t you need to say it three times for it to be true, patron?” asked Lacoste.

“You don’t believe it?” he asked.

“I reserve judgment.”

“Smart,” said Deputy Commissioner Gélinas. “I myself will stand by ferret. Désolé, madame.”

“Not at all,” she assured him. “I admire you for standing behind your conclusion, however misguided.”

There was no mistaking the subtext, or the warning.

Gélinas nodded. He understood. Mess with her family, you messed with her. And she had a ferret at her disposal.

“We should talk,” said Gamache, after pulling the towel up around Gracie to keep her warm, and resting his hand on her.

“Oui,” said Lacoste. “And I need to get back to the academy. You’re returning?”

She held his eyes and saw a very slight nod.

The cadets were here, in the village. Somewhere. Out of sight. Even from the Deputy Commissioner. And he wanted to keep it that way, for now.

“Yes, later this afternoon,” said Gamache. “I’ll drive Monsieur Gélinas back after filling him in.”

Isabelle Lacoste left and Madame Gamache offered them a late lunch. “You probably haven’t eaten much today.”

“True,” said Gélinas. “But I don’t want to put you out. I noticed a bistro in the village…”

“Probably best to have a more private discussion,” said Armand, leading him into the kitchen where he sliced fresh bread from Sarah’s boulangerie and Gélinas helped him grill sandwiches of Brome Lake duck, Brie and fig confit.

“Your wife is very caring, monsieur,” said Gélinas, as they worked side by side. “And not just of the ferret—”

“—puppy.”

“You’re a lucky man. I miss this.”

“A puddle of pee at the front door?”

“Even that.” Paul Gélinas was looking down at the sandwiches as he sliced them. “My wife was a lot like Madame Gamache. Always bringing home strays. Animals. People.” Gélinas’s hands paused and he grunted in surprise. “She died three years ago. Sometimes it seems like she’s been gone forever. And sometimes I still smell her perfume and hear her footsteps and look up, expecting to see her. And then I remember.”

“I’m sorry,” said Armand.

“When a job came up at the embassy in Paris after she died, I took it. Needed to get away. A change. I came back a few months ago.”

“Did it help?” asked Gamache. “Paris?”

“It didn’t hurt,” said Gélinas, smiling.

Gamache smiled back and nodded and turned the sandwiches over in the pan. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, or hollow.

Paul Gélinas, roughly Gamache’s age, was living his nightmare.

But Gamache knew something else.

Deputy Commissioner Gélinas had not been seconded to Paris to serve canapés at diplomatic soirées. This man had been in the intelligence service. He’d almost certainly spent the last few years as a spy.

And now he was here. Invited into the investigation, to spy on them.