Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(37)

“What is it?” Myrna asked, watching his face.

“Just thinking about the cobrador.”

But that wasn’t altogether true. He was thinking of the small plastic bag he’d pulled from Marchand’s pocket.

With the cobrador gone, he’d go in to work and call up the lab to see what was in the bag. But he knew the answer.

Fentanyl. The plague.

Ashes, ashes, he thought. We all fall down.

“All shall be well,” Myrna reassured him.

“Well, well,” said a familiar voice behind them, and both turned to see Ruth and Rosa waddling and limping down the hill, from tiny St. Thomas’s Church.

“You’re up early,” said Armand, as the old poet joined them.

“Don’t sleep much.”

Armand and Myrna exchanged glances. Their experience with Ruth was that she slept, or perhaps was passed out, most of the time. Waking up once an hour or so to hurl an insult, then back to sleep. The village cuckoo. Clock.

“Went to St. Thomas’s for some peace and quiet,” said Ruth.

Again, Armand and Myrna exchanged glances, wondering what riot could possibly be going on in her home, or more likely her head, that she needed to seek refuge.

“Was he gone when you came out?” asked Armand.

“Who?”

“Who do you think?” asked Myrna.

“You mean the toreador?”

“Yes,” said Myrna, not bothering to correct her, since she suspected Ruth knew perfectly well that a bullfighter hadn’t descended on the village. Though, God knew, they could use help fighting all the bull.

“He was gone,” said Ruth. “But Michael was hanging around. Making a pest of himself.”

“The archangel?” asked Armand.

“Who else? Man, that angel can talk. God this, God that. So I went to the chapel to get away.”

“From God?” asked Myrna, looking at the rumpled woman. “What did you do there?”

“I prayed.”

“Preyed?” Myrna mouthed at Armand, making a talon gesture with her hands.

Armand flattened his lips to stop from smiling.

“What for?” he asked the old poet.

“Well, I start off praying that anyone who’s pissed me off meets a horrible end. Then I pray for world peace. And then I pray for Lucifer.”

“Did you say Lucifer?” asked Myrna.

“Why so surprised?” asked Ruth, looking from one to the other. “Who needs it more?”

“I can think of a few who deserve it more,” said Myrna.

“And who are you to judge?” asked Ruth, not completely unkindly. Though Myrna was now a little afraid she’d be added to that prayer list. “The greatest sinner. The most lost soul. The angel who not only fell to earth, he fell so hard he broke through.”

“You pray for Satan?” Myrna asked again, still unable to get past that, and beseeching Armand for help. But he only shrugged as though to say, “She’s all yours.”

“Shithead,” muttered Myrna.

Then something occurred to her. “For him? Or to him?”

“For him. For him. For him. Jeez, and they call me demented. He was Michael’s best friend. Until he got into trouble.”

“And by trouble, you mean the war in heaven where Lucifer tried to overthrow God?” asked Myrna.

“Oh, you know the story?”

“Yes, there was a movie of the week.”

“Well, none of us is perfect,” said Ruth. “We all make mistakes.”

“That would seem bigger than most,” said Myrna. “Especially since Lucifer hardly seems repentant.”

“And is that a reason not to forgive?” asked Ruth. She seemed genuinely perplexed by the question. Losing herself for a moment. “Michael says Lucifer was the most beautiful, the brightest of them all. They called him the Son of the Morning. He was luminous.”

Ruth looked around, at the cottages, the gardens, the forest. The fragrant mist, and the struggling sun.

“Stupid, stupid angel,” she muttered, then turned to them. “It’s generally thought that a conscience is a good thing, but let me ask you this. How many terrible things are done in the name of conscience? It’s a great excuse for appalling acts.”

“Did your friend Lucifer tell you that?” asked Myrna.

“No, the Archangel Michael told me that, just before he asked me to pray for the greatest sinner of all.”

“Who had no conscience,” Myrna pointed out.

“Or a warped one. A conscience is not necessarily a good thing. How many gays are beaten, how many abortion clinics bombed, how many blacks lynched, how many Jews murdered, by people just following their conscience?”

“And you think that’s what we had here?” asked Armand. “A conscience gone astray?”

“How should I know? I’m a crazy old woman who prays for Satan and has a duck. It would be nuts to listen to me, wouldn’t it? Come on, Rosa, time for breakfast.”

The two limped and waddled over to the Gamache home.

“A conscience guides us,” Myrna called after her. “To do the right thing. To be brave. To be selfless and courageous. To stand up to tyrants whatever the cost.”

Ruth stopped and turned back to look at them.