Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(38)

“You might almost say it’s luminous,” she said, pausing on the steps up to the porch. Holding their eyes. “Sometimes all is not well.”





CHAPTER 12

With the Conscience gone, Chief Superintendent Gamache felt it safe to return to Montréal and work. Driving through the November mist that persisted, he arrived at S?reté headquarters and went about his day, getting caught up on the paperwork and meetings that had been put on hold while the cobrador had occupied Three Pines.

He had lunch with the new head of Serious Crimes at a bistro in Old Montréal. Over the soup of the day and grilled sandwiches, they discussed organized crime, cartels, drugs, money laundering, terrorism threats, biker gangs.

All on the rise.

Gamache pushed his sandwich aside and ordered an espresso, while Superintendent Toussaint finished her grilled cubain.

“We need more resources, patron,” she said.

“Non. We need to use what we have better.”

“We’re doing the best we can,” said Toussaint, leaning forward toward the Chief Superintendent. “But it’s overwhelming.”

“You’re new to this post—”

“I’ve been in the Serious Crimes division for fifteen years.”

“But being in charge is different, non?”

She put down her sandwich, wiped her hands, and nodded.

“You’ve been handed a huge task. But it’s also a great opportunity,” said the chief. “You get to reinvent your entire department. Organize it, define it, put your stamp on it. Toss out all the old ideas, and begin fresh. I chose you because you stood up to the corruption and paid the price.”

Madeleine Toussaint nodded. She’d been on her way out when Armand Gamache had reached down and pulled her back.

She wasn’t so sure she should thank him.

All sorts of eyes were on her.

The first woman in charge of Serious Crimes. The first Haitian to head up any department.

It was, her husband had made clear, an impossible task. It was as though a ship filled with shit was sinking in an ocean of piss.

And she’d just been promoted to captain.

“They chose you because you’re a black woman,” her husband had said. “You’re expendable. If you fail, that’s okay. You can do their dirty work, clean up their house, as Haitians have for decades. And you know what you’ll get?”

“No, what?” Though she knew where this was heading.

“Even more shit. You’ll have their merde all over you, and you’ll be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb—”

“All these farm animals, André. Is there something you need to tell me?”

He’d grown angry then. But then he was often angry. Not abusive, not violent. But he was a thirty-nine-year-old black man. He’d been stopped so many times by the cops, he’d stopped counting. They’d had to train their fourteen-year-old son, from the time he could walk, how to behave when stopped by the cops. When harassed. When targeted. When pushed and provoked.

Don’t react. Move slowly. Show your hands. Be polite, do as you’re asked. Don’t react.

André had a right to his anger, his cynicism.

She was also angry, enraged often. But she was willing to give it one last chance. As she’d been given one last chance.

“You might be right,” she said. “But I have to try.”

“Gamache is like all the rest,” he’d said. “Just wait. When the shit starts flying, he’ll step aside and it’ll hit you. That’s why he chose you.”

“He chose me because I’m very, very good at what I do,” she said, getting angry herself. “If you can’t see that, then we have to have another discussion.”

She’d glared at him, her anger heightened by her suspicion he was right.

And now she sat with Chief Superintendent Gamache, at a little wooden table, surrounded by laughing, chatting diners.

And he was asking her to build the ship mid-ocean. The shit ship was taking on piss, and he wanted her not just to repair it, but to redesign it?

Madeleine Toussaint looked across the table, into his worn face. If that was all she saw, she’d think him spent and those who followed him doomed. But she saw that the creases radiating from his eyes and mouth were made more from humor than weariness. And the eyes, deep brown, were not just intelligent, they were thoughtful.

And kind.

And determined.

Far from being spent, here was a person at the height of his power. And he’d reached down, into the muck, and pulled her up. And given her power beyond imagining. And asked her to stand beside him. To stand with him.

To run Serious Crimes.

“When you feel overwhelmed, come talk to me,” he said. “I know what it’s like. I’ve felt like that myself.”

“And who do you talk to, sir?”

He smiled, and the lines down his face deepened. “My wife. I tell her everything.”

“Everything?”

“Well, almost. It’s important, Madeleine, not to cut people out of our lives. Isolation doesn’t make us better at our job. It makes us weaker, more vulnerable.”

She nodded. She’d have to think about that.

“My husband says you’ve made me captain of a sinking ship. That this is an unsalvageable situation.”