The Long Way Home(88)

Chartrand swung the door open and they entered.

They found themselves in a low living room, with wooden floors and beams. It would have felt claustrophobic, but Chartrand had used a traditional milk wash to paint the beams and the plaster walls white.

The result was a welcoming, homey feel. Two armchairs and an old sofa were arranged around the large open fireplace. Windows on either side looked out onto the St. Lawrence.

Once settled into their rooms, they poured drinks then gathered in the kitchen to make a meal of pasta, garlic butter baguette and chicory salad.

“You met No Man,” Gamache said to Chartrand as he made the salad and Chartrand set the table. “You’re the only one here who has—”

“That’s not strictly true,” said Chartrand. “Clara, you knew him.”

“I guess I did,” she said. “I keep forgetting. It was so long ago and I didn’t take his course. I’d see him in the hallway, but that was all. Barely recognized him from that self-portrait in the yearbook, but I guess that was the fashion at the time. Everyone wanted to look tortured.”

“They might have wanted to look it, but Norman actually was,” said Myrna.

“But you lectured at the art colony,” said Gamache, getting back to Chartrand. “Did it strike you as a cult?”

Chartrand stopped what he was doing and thought. “I don’t think so. But what would a cult look like? Would you necessarily know?”

“What’s the difference between a commune and a cult?” asked Beauvoir.

“Both have a sort of guiding philosophy,” said Myrna. “But a commune is open—members can come and go. A cult is closed. Rigid. Demands conformity and absolute loyalty to the leader and the beliefs. It shuts people off from the greater society.”

“Interesting then that No Man invited Marcel in to lecture,” said Clara. “That doesn’t seem the act of a cult leader.”

“No,” said Myrna. She looked at Chartrand, then looked away.

Gamache, watching closely, thought he knew what she was thinking.

Maybe Chartrand wasn’t invited in. Maybe he was already there.

Gamache had suspected for a while that Marcel Chartrand might’ve been a member of No Man’s community. Not because he knew so much about it, but because he pretended not to.

Chartrand looked up and smiled at Gamache. It was friendly, disarming. A comradely look. And Gamache wanted to believe they were indeed on the same side.

But instead of resolving, his doubts were growing.

“Did they show you any of their works?” Clara asked. She, alone among them, seemed to have no suspicions of Chartrand.

“No, and I didn’t ask to see them.”

Now Myrna did look up, then over at Clara. Willing her to see what was so odd. Here was an art gallery owner who seemed completely disinterested in any art.

Most gallery owners had a specialty, but were at least curious about art in general. Indeed, most were passionate and quite obnoxious about it.

Clara, who was putting garlic butter on the rounds of sliced baguette, didn’t seem to register anything peculiar.

“Did No Man ever show you his works?” Gamache asked.

“No.”

“Let me guess,” said Beauvoir. “You didn’t ask.”

Chartrand found that amusing. “When you find what you love, there’s no need to look further.”

“It’s a shame Luc Vachon has taken off,” said Clara. “He could’ve told us more about the colony.”

“Yes,” said Gamache. “It is.”

“You’d think he’d tell someone where he went,” said Beauvoir. “The server said ‘down the coast,’ but that could be anywhere.”

His knife that had been cutting tomatoes for the salad paused.

“You know, I asked her where he went, but I’m not sure—”

As he thought, the knife slowly descended until it was resting on the cutting board. He was staring ahead, replaying the conversations in the brasserie.

“Merde,” he said at last, dropping the knife altogether. “Where’s your phone?”

Chartrand pointed into the living room. “Why?”

“I asked the server where Vachon went and she didn’t know. Then I asked the guy at the bar when he’d be back and if I could contact him. But I didn’t ask him where Vachon goes. The young server didn’t know, but he might. Tabarnac.”

He reached into his pocket, brought out his notebook, and found the phone number for La Muse.

They could hear him in the living room, punching in the numbers.

Myrna and Gamache were standing together at the sink.

“What’re you thinking, Armand?” she asked quietly.

“I’m thinking that No Man disappears, then Peter disappears, and now Luc Vachon, the only member of the art colony still around, disappears.”

“And now we’ve disappeared,” Myrna whispered.

“True.”

“Come on, Armand, out with it. What’re you really thinking?”

“I’m thinking”—Gamache dried his hands on the towel and turned to face her—“that No Man lived here quietly for a number of years, and then word spread that he was a cult leader, and he was driven out.”