A Fatal Grace

‘Like RCMP or DOA.’

‘Always a cop, but that’s the idea. For instance, I’m FINE,’ she pointed to Ruth’s book now on Gamache’s desk. ‘I bet that stands for something else. What did the bookstore say?’

‘Ruth Zardo launched this book a few days ago, at the Ogilvy store. December twenty-second.’

‘The day Elle died,’ said Reine-Marie.

Gamache nodded. Why would Ruth give a copy to a vagrant and sign it ‘love Ruth’? He knew the old woman well enough to know she didn’t toss around the word ‘love’. He reached for the phone again, but it rang just as he touched it.

‘Oui, allô? Gamache here.’

There was silence for a moment on the other end.

‘Oui, bonjour?’ He tried again.

‘Chief Inspector Gamache?’ A voice came down the line. ‘I didn’t think you’d answer your own phone.’

‘I’m a man of many parts.’ He laughed disarmingly. ‘How may I help you?’

‘My name is Robert Lemieux. I’m the duty officer at the Cowansville police station in the Eastern Townships.’

‘I remember. We met during the Jane Neal investigation.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘What can I do for you, son?’

‘There’s been a murder.’

After getting the information Gamache hung up and looked at his wife. She sat in the chair composed and calm.

‘Do you have your long underwear?’ she asked.

‘I do, madame.’ He slid open his top desk drawer to reveal a lump of deep blue silk.

‘Don’t most officers keep guns there?’ she asked.

‘I find long underwear protection enough.’

‘I’m glad.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’ll leave you, my dear. You have work to do.’

At the door she watched as he made his calls, his back to her, staring out the window at the Montreal skyline. She watched him move in ways she knew, and she noticed how his hair curled slightly at his neck and she watched his strong hand as it held the phone at his ear.

Within twenty minutes Armand Gamache was on his way to the scene, his second in command Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir at the wheel as they drove over the Champlain bridge and onto the autoroute for the hour and a half trip into the heart of the Eastern Townships.

Gamache stared out the window for a few minutes then opened the book once again, finishing the poem Reine-Marie had begun reading to him.

When my death us do part

Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again,

Or will it be, as always was, too late?

NINE

‘Her name was Cecilia de Poitiers,’ said Agent Robert Lemieux in answer to Gamache’s first question. ‘But everyone called her CC. This is where it happened, sir.’ Lemieux was trying not to sound too eager. But best not to sound blasé either. He stood up straighter and tried to look like he knew what he was doing.

‘Here?’ Gamache was bending over the snow.

‘Yes sir.’

‘How do you know?’ Jean Guy Beauvoir asked. ‘It all looks the same to me.’

And it did. Snowy footprints everywhere. The Santa Claus parade might as well have marched through his murder scene. Beauvoir shoved his black ski hat further down his head and tugged the ear flaps into place. It was the closest thing he could find to an attractive hat that was also almost warm. Jean Guy Beauvoir was constantly at war with himself, at odds over his need to wear clothes that showed off his slender, athletic build, and his need not to freeze his tight ass off. It was nearly impossible to be both attractive and warm in a Quebec winter. And Jean Guy Beauvoir sure didn’t want to look like a dork in a parka and stupid hat. He looked at Gamache, so composed, and wondered whether he was as cold as Beauvoir, but just didn’t show it. The chief was wearing a gray tuque, a yellow cashmere scarf and a long Arctic-weight parka in soft British khaki. He looked warm. And Beauvoir was struck by how attractive warm looked at minus ten, parka, funny hat, bulbous gloves and all. He began to suspect maybe he was the one who looked funny. But he pushed that unlikely thought away as a gust of wind tore through his attractive bomber jacket and lodged deep in his bones. He shivered and stomped his feet. They were standing on a frozen lake, bleak and cold. The shore was a hundred yards behind them and the far shore just a dark strip in the distance. Beauvoir knew that round the rugged point of land off to their left was the town of Williamsburg, but standing there now he had the impression they were very far from civilization. They were certainly standing at a spot where something very uncivilized had take place.