Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(43)

Joining them, Gamache asked if they’d stay with Reine-Marie until he returned.

“Of course,” said Clara.

Then he and Beauvoir walked swiftly down the path from the front porch to the dirt road, pausing briefly to speak to the agent.

“Stay here, please.”

“Oui, patron.” He was one of the agents who’d been called to Three Pines the evening before.

“What did you do with Monsieur Marchand, the man from last night?”

“As you asked. We kept him overnight. By morning he’d cooled down. Then drove him home.”

“What time?”

“Ten. He refused to tell us where he got the stuff in the packet. What was it?”

Gamache remembered the email, the lab report he’d been reading when Reine-Marie called. “Fentanyl.”

“Ffff—” But the agent stopped himself.

Chief Superintendent Gamache nodded agreement, then continued down his walkway, noticing Gabri approaching from the bistro, taking long strides toward them. Not exactly running. Gabri did not run. He lumbered at speed.

Still holding a dish towel, he intercepted Gamache and Beauvoir.

“What’s happened? The cops won’t tell us anything.” He looked accusingly at the agent, who pretended not to hear.

“And neither can I,” said Gamache.

“It’s something to do with Reine-Marie,” said Gabri. “Is she all right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thank God for that. But someone isn’t…” He gestured toward the church, and the other agent.

Gamache shook his head and noticed more people heading their way, led by Lea Roux with Matheo close behind.

“You go. I’ll take care of this,” said Gabri. He turned to head them off, allowing Armand and Jean-Guy to escape.

The agent guarding the church was waiting for them. Behind her rose the small white clapboard chapel. Pretty. Innocuous. Like thousands of others in villages throughout Québec.

Only this one held not a relic, a saint’s knuckle or molar, but an entire body.

A dead creature from another time.





CHAPTER 14

Isabelle Lacoste, the head of homicide for the S?reté, arrived just as Gamache and Beauvoir reached the church. Her car, followed by the Scene of Crime van, pulled in behind the vehicle driven by the local agents.

Investigators unloaded equipment while Gamache, Beauvoir and Lacoste quickly consulted.

“Can you swab and fingerprint this?” Gamache handed an agent the key in the tissue.

“Tell me what you know,” said Lacoste, turning to Gamache.

Beauvoir suppressed a smile and wondered if either of them realized it was exactly what Gamache used to say when he was head of homicide.

“We haven’t been in yet,” said the Chief Superintendent. “Madame Gamache found the body in the basement, then locked the church. It appears to be the cobrador.”

“The what?” asked Lacoste.

Gamache, so familiar now with the thing, had forgotten that Isabelle Lacoste knew nothing about it.

“You’ll see,” he said.

“Done.” The forensics agent handed the large latchkey back to Gamache, who gave it to Lacoste.

At the top of the stairs, Gamache stepped aside while she unlocked the door and went in, followed by her Scene of Crime and forensics teams. As they streamed past him, Gamache turned and looked at the village and the villagers.

They were standing outside the bistro in a line, a semicircle. It looked, from where he stood, like a frown.

Sleet, part snow and part icy rain, was beginning to fall. And still they stood there, staring. A cluster of dark figures in the distance. Unmoving. Staring at him.

And then he went inside the church. A place that had offered peace and calm and sanctuary, even to an old woman praying for the Son of the Morning.

He went down the stairs, into near darkness.

*

The basement was really just one large room, with worn, scuffed linoleum floors, acoustic tile ceiling stained by water damage here and there, and fake wood siding on the walls. Chairs were stacked against the walls, and long tables, their legs folded up, leaned against one another.

Isabelle Lacoste looked around, her sharp eyes taking in the fact there was no other entrance, and while there were windows, they were covered in layers of grime. It would be easier for light, or an intruder, to enter through the walls.

But, windows aside, it was clean. Uncluttered. Didn’t even smell of mildew.

There was a kitchen at one end, with avocado appliances. And a door, open, off to the side of that.

She turned as she heard the familiar tread on the stairs, and saw Gamache walk into the room.

He gestured toward the open door.

“A root cellar,” he said, as they walked across the basement. “Madame Gamache came down looking for a vase. That’s when she found him.”

“What time?”

“About one forty-five. She locked the church and called me as soon as she got home, and Inspector Beauvoir called you.”

They both, instinctively, looked at their watches. It was three fifteen. An hour and a half.

Armand was familiar with the church basement. It was where funeral receptions were held. Where wedding feasts were often prepared. Where bridge clubs and exercise classes and bake sales took place.