The Long Way Home(86)

Oh, dear God. Take me now.

“This is my first posting.”

She stared at him.

“And where are you from?” Gamache asked.

He looked interested.

“Baie-Comeau, up the coast.”

Merde, merde, merde, she thought. He knows where it is. Merde.

Gamache nodded. “They’ve cleaned up the bay there. A beautiful place.”

He smiled.

“Yes, sir. It is. My family’s been working in the mills for a long time.”

“Are you the first of your family in the S?reté?” he asked.

“Oui. They didn’t want me to join. Said it wasn’t respectable.”

Maudit tabarnac, she thought, and looked around for a gun to stick in her mouth.

But the large man in front of her, with the scar by his temple, just laughed and lines radiated from his kind brown eyes. “And do they still feel that way?”

“No, sir, they don’t.” And now all her nerves calmed and she met his gaze. “Not after what you did. Now they’re proud of me.”

Gamache held her eyes and smiled. “They’re proud of you, and they should be. It has nothing to do with me.”

By now other agents and inspectors had heard Chief Inspector Gamache was there, and they drifted by. Some said hello. Some just stared and moved on.

“Chief Inspector.” A middle-aged woman in uniform came out of an office, her hand outstretched. “Jeanne Nadeau. I’m the station chief.”

She led them into her office. It was an even tighter squeeze than the reception area.

“This isn’t, of course, official business,” he said. “We’re trying to find a friend of ours and he was last seen in your area in late spring.”

“He’s my husband,” Clara said, and showed Captain Nadeau a picture of Peter and described him.

“Can we make copies?” Nadeau asked, and when Clara agreed she made the arrangements.

“How can I help?”

“I take it no one matching his description has come to your attention lately?” Gamache asked, and they all recognized the code. Nadeau shook her head and her intelligent eyes went from Gamache to Clara.

“Why was he here?”

Clara explained it, succinctly.

“So you think he was looking for this Professor Norman,” Nadeau said. She turned from Clara to Chartrand. “You say he was known as No Man when he lived here?”

“Well, that’s what he called himself.”

Nadeau barely reacted. It was clear that this was not the first oddity she’d run into in Baie-Saint-Paul. Artists were not, perhaps, best known for conventional behavior.

“Did you know him?” Clara asked.

“No Man?” Nadeau shook her head. “Before my time.” She walked over to the wall, where a detailed map of the area was pinned.

“Where was this art colony of his?”

Chartrand showed her and she made a note of it.

“But you say it’s long gone?”

“At least ten years, probably more,” said Chartrand.

“Any suggestion of criminal activity?” she asked.

“No,” said Chartrand. “They seemed to keep to themselves.”

Nadeau picked up her phone and spoke into it. A short time later, a bulky older man in uniform came into the office. He smelled of bachelorhood and fried fish.

“Oui?”

He looked like he might be in trouble, and his eyes shifted from his station commander to Gamache, who was squeezed into a corner and felt the coat tree digging into his back, as though it was a stickup.

“This is Agent Morriseau,” said Nadeau. “He’s been here longer than anyone. These people are asking about a man named Norman. He lived here a number of years ago and started an artist retreat, a sort of colony out by the second concession.”

“You mean No Man?” Morriseau asked, and suddenly had everyone’s attention.

“That’s the one,” said Clara.

“Got quite popular for a while,” said Morriseau. “But then they do, don’t they?”

“They?”

“Cults.” He looked at their surprised faces. “You must’ve known. Otherwise, why’re you asking?”

“It was a cult?” asked Chartrand.

“Yes.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Clara.

“It wasn’t just a bunch of artists painting away,” said Morriseau. “They were into some sort of weird religion.”

“How do you know that?” asked Jean-Guy.

“I made it my business to know,” said the agent. “These places can start out pretty normal and then take a nasty turn. I wanted to make sure they stayed on this side of crazy.”

There was that word again, thought Gamache.

“Why do you say crazy?”

Morriseau turned in the direction of the talking coat tree.

“And what would you call it, sir?” he asked politely.

Gamache decided not to ask him if he ever prayed his lottery ticket numbers won, or the skidding car stayed on the road.

“And did they?” he asked instead. “Stay on this side of the line?”

“As far as I know they did. Then that No Man disappeared. The spaceship must’ve come and taken him away.”