Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(74)

They all had them. Secrets. But some stank more than others.

“I have a court order to get into Katie’s home. Would you come with me?”

Yvon stayed behind to look after the kids, and they drove the short distance to Katie and Patrick’s home.

Alone now with her, Beauvoir said, “Is there really nothing else?”

Beth was silent, as they sat in the car, in the dark, in the cold rain outside the home. It was larger, less modest than Beth’s, but hardly a trophy home. There were no lights on.

“Please, don’t tell anyone.”

“I can’t promise that,” said Beauvoir. “But you need to tell me.”

“Katie had an abortion. She got pregnant in high school and had it done. I went with her.”

“Did she regret it?” Beauvoir asked. “Was she ashamed of it?”

“No, of course not. It was the right decision for her at the time. She regretted it was necessary, but not her decision. It’s just that our parents wouldn’t have understood. She didn’t want to hurt them.”

“You’d be surprised what parents understand,” said Beauvoir. He looked at her. “And?”

He could sense there was one more.

“And my husband wouldn’t understand.”

“Why not?”

“It was his. They went out for a few weeks in high school before breaking up. I don’t think he knows that I knew they dated. And he sure doesn’t know Katie was pregnant and had an abortion. He and I didn’t start seeing each other until long after high school. By then Katie and Patrick were married.”

“And how would he react, if he knew?”

She thought. “I don’t know. I think enough time’s gone by that it wouldn’t bother him. And honestly, when he was in high school? He’d have been terrified to hear that the girlfriend he’d just dumped was pregnant. It was the right decision, and Katie didn’t regret it. But neither was she proud of it. And she sure didn’t feel the need to broadcast it. I think that’s why after graduation she went to Pittsburgh. Fresh start.”

“Why Pittsburgh?” asked Beauvoir.

“She took a fine arts course in the summer at Carnegie Mellon University, but realized fairly quickly that she wanted to be an architect. They wouldn’t let her transfer, so she applied to the Université de Montréal and got into their program.”

“How would you describe your sister? For real, now. This’s important.”

Beth wiped her face and blew her nose, and thought. “She was kind. Mothering. Maybe that’s why she was attracted to Patrick. If a man ever wanted mothering, it’s him. Though I’m not sure she was doing him any favors. If a man ever needed to grow up, it’s him.”

“Why didn’t she and Patrick have children?”

“Well, there’s still time, you know,” said Beth, without thinking.

In the dark car, he heard the tapping of ice pellets, and the groaning silence. And then the sobs.

He waited until they’d passed.

“Her plan, her hope, was to get the business up and then start having children. She isn’t, wasn’t, even thirty-five. Plenty of time,” she said in a whisper.

They went into the home, and Beth turned on the lights.

It was a surprise. From the outside it looked like any other house on the street. Fairly nondescript. But inside it was completely redone. The colors were muted, but not washed out. Calming, warm. Almost pastel, but not quite that feminine.

“Cheerful” was the word. Homey. The bookcases had books. The closets had organizers, and were organized. The kitchen smelled of herbs and spices and he could see implements in jugs, and a coffeemaker, and a teapot. None of it placed for effect.

This kitchen was used.

It was open to the living room, and the ceiling was beamed.

It was a home, Jean-Guy knew, he could easily and happily see his own family living in.

It took half an hour to search the place. There was nothing that screamed, or even whispered, a secret, or a double life. There was some erotic literature. Some cigarettes. He sniffed them to make sure that’s all they were. They smelled and felt stale.

On the dresser in the bedroom, he picked up a photo. Four of the people he recognized. The fifth he did not.

“From the Université de Montréal,” said Beth. “First year. Lifelong friends. Hard to believe she met Patrick that long ago. So young.”

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Beauvoir asked.

He wrote out a receipt. It was the only thing he took.

They headed slowly over to Katie’s parents. He was about to tell them when Beth broke in. And broke the news. And when it was over for him, but just beginning for them, he drove home. To hug Annie and kiss Honoré and read him to sleep, before returning to Three Pines.





CHAPTER 24

Patrick Evans was rocking back and forth, back and forth, on the sofa of the B&B.

What had been a chilly November day had become a cold November night.

“I don’t understand,” he kept repeating. “I don’t understand.”

At first the words were said as a statement, an appeal. But as time had gone by and no explanations came, and all efforts to comfort him had failed, the words and the rocking became simply rote. A primal whisper.