A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(87)

Amelia did and looked up a minute later. “The Commission de toponymie du Québec?”

Huifen nodded. “I think that should be our next stop. There’s a government building here in Cowansville.”

“But it says here the toponymie department only started in the 1970s.”

“Read further.”

Amelia did. “Oh.”

“Oh,” said Huifen. “Let’s go.”

They folded up the map and left, waving to the young woman behind the counter, who was gracefully and rapidly moving from station to station.

Huifen drove while Amelia punched the coordinates of the government office into the GPS, asking it to choose the quickest route.

Their research, albeit superficial, had uncovered that while the Commission de toponymie had only existed since 1977, it had been the job of successive government employees to map Québec towns, villages, mountains, lakes and rivers and to give them their official names since 1912.

*

“You wanna know who owned a building in the early 1900s?” asked the town clerk in Saint-Rémy.

The two young men nodded.

“Why?”

Nathaniel could see Jacques bristling at the question and jumped in.

“A school project,” he said. “History of the area. They’re public record, aren’t they?”

The clerk admitted they were. “But good luck finding the information.”

“Why?”

“Our property records go back two hundred years or more,” he said. “But they’re not all on computer.”

“Then where are they?” asked Nathaniel.

“On cards. In the basement.”

“Of course they are,” said Jacques.

The clerk opened the wooden door and turned on the light. A single dirty bulb hung by a suspiciously old cord from the ceiling, lighting the stairs down.

“Keep your coats on,” he advised.

“It’s cold?” asked Nathaniel.

“Among other things. You might want gloves too.” He made a face and all but crossed himself as the two young men descended the wooden steps.

They stood on the dirt floor, wiping real or imagined cobwebs from their faces. Rows of gunmetal gray filing cabinets lined the cinder-block walls, containing the records of ownership. Somewhere in there was a card telling them who’d owned the bistro when it had been a private home.

And that would tell them who’d made the map, and sealed it in the wall.

“Shit,” said Jacques, surveying the banks of records.

*

“You’ve got the wrong department,” said the receptionist.

She was middle-aged and tired. The only members of the public who ever came into her office were there to complain. And seemed to blame her personally for their tax bills, the potholes in their roads, blackouts, and one mother screamed at her for twenty minutes because her child had measles.

“We want to find out who made this map,” said Huifen, pushing it across the worn counter toward the weary woman.

“And I want you to understand,” she said, slowly pushing it back. “I. Don’t. Care.”

“But the Commission de toponymie has an office here, doesn’t it?” asked Amelia.

The clerk looked at her with distaste, then turned back to the least objectionable of the two. The Chinese Girl.

“The commission puts names on places,” she explained. “It doesn’t map them.”

“But it used to, didn’t it?” asked Amelia, but now the receptionist refused to even look in her direction.

“Can we speak to the person anyway?” asked Huifen, and beamed at the receptionist, who was impervious to good humor.

“Fine.”

“Yeah,” said Amelia. “I bet you are.”

The clerk picked up the phone and jabbed her finger at a button.

“Someone here to speak to you. No, I’m not kidding. Some Chinese Girl. Stop laughing, it’s true.”

Hanging up, she waved at the waiting area, then turned back to her desk.

“I’ve become the Invisible Woman,” said Amelia, as they took their seats.

“That must be a new experience for you,” said Huifen, and Amelia smiled.

After a few minutes of waiting, Huifen turned to Amelia. “Why did you apply to the academy? You don’t exactly fit in.”

“And you do? Chinese Girl.”

Huifen smiled. “Ahh, but Chinese Girl with Gun fits in everywhere.”

Amelia laughed, and the receptionist looked over, disapproving.

“I can’t actually remember why I applied,” said Amelia. “I must’ve been drunk or stoned.”

The landlady, fat legs splayed, cigarette hanging loosely between her yellowed fingers. And on the TV, a smartly dressed woman, feminine and poised.

Amelia saw her two futures, right there.

“I didn’t think I’d be accepted,” she admitted. “And you’re right, I don’t fit in. Anywhere. Might as well not fit in there.”

“With the academy, that’s not exactly a bad thing,” said Huifen. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

“What? When? I am listening to you.”

“I don’t mean now, I mean at that first party, in the Commander’s rooms. I told you to stay away from him.”