“The police aren’t letting anyone close. Not yet,” he said.
“I don’t care, they’ll let me.”
Gamache stood in front of her and held her eyes. “No, madame. Not even you, I’m afraid.”
She looked at him with loathing. It was a look he’d received often enough, and understood. And he knew it would get worse.
Gamache left them to their sorrow, taking Reine-Marie with him, but he quietly motioned the Sûreté officer into a corner.
Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir stepped out of the car and looked at the sky. Unremitting gray. It would rain for a while yet. He looked down at his shoes. Leather. His slacks designer. His shirt. Casual linen. Perfect. Fucking middle of nowhere murder. In the rain. And mud. He slapped his cheek. And bugs. Flattened to his palm were the remains of a mosquito and some blood.
Fucking perfect.
Agent Isabelle Lacoste opened an umbrella and offered him one. He declined. Bad enough to be here, he didn’t need to look like Mary Poppins.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache came out of the auberge and waved. Beauvoir waved back then slapped his forehead. Gamache hoped it was a bug. Beside Beauvoir, Agent Lacoste walked with an umbrella. In her late twenties, she was married and already a mother of two. Like most Québécoises, she was dark and petite with a comfortable flair and confidence. She wore a blouse and slacks that managed to be both sensible and soignée, even with rubber boots.
“Salut, Patron,” she said. “How’d you manage to find the body?”
“I’m staying here.” He fell into step between them. “The victim is a guest at the Manoir.”
“Hope she gets a discount,” said Beauvoir. They turned the corner of the lodge and Gamache introduced the local Sûreté officers.
“Anyone come out?” he asked. Beside him Beauvoir was staring over at the scene, anxious to get there.
“Some older woman,” said a young female agent.
“English?” asked Gamache.
“No, sir. Francophone. Offered us tea.”
“Tall, with a deep voice?”
“Yes, that’s her. Looked a little familiar, actually,” said one of the men. “Suppose I’ve seen her in Sherbrooke.”
Gamache nodded. Sherbrooke was the nearest town, where the detachment was based.
“That would be the chef here, Véronique Langlois. Did she seem interested in the scene?” Gamache looked over to where the agents had encircled the site in yellow tape.
“Who wouldn’t be?” The young woman laughed.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. He turned somber, kindly eyes on her. “There’s a woman over there who was alive hours ago. It might be an accident, it might be murder, but either way, this isn’t the time or place for laughter. Not yet.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re too young to be hardened and cynical. So am I.” He smiled. “It’s no shame to be sensitive. In fact, it’s our greatest advantage.”
“Yes sir.” The young agent could have kicked herself. She was naturally sensitive but had thought she should hide it, that a certain cavalier attitude would impress this famous head of homicide. She was wrong.
Gamache turned to the scene. He could almost feel Beauvoir vibrating beside him. Inspector Beauvoir was the alpha dog, the whip-smart, tightly wound second in command who believed in the triumph of facts over feelings. He missed almost nothing. Except, perhaps, things that couldn’t be seen.
Agent Lacoste also stared at the scene. But unlike Beauvoir she could become very still. She was the hunter of their team. Stealthy, quiet, observant.
And Gamache? He knew he was neither the hound nor the hunter. Armand Gamache was the explorer. He went ahead of all the rest, into territory unknown and uncharted. He was drawn to the edge of things. To the places old mariners knew, and warned, “Beyond here be monsters.”
That’s where Chief Inspector Gamache could be found.
He stepped into the beyond, and found the monsters hidden deep inside all the reasonable, gentle, laughing people. He went where even they were afraid to go. Armand Gamache followed slimy trails, deep into a person’s psyche, and there, huddled and barely human, he found the murderer.
His team had a near perfect record, and they did it by sorting facts from fancy from wishful thinking. They did it by collecting clues and evidence. And emotions.
Armand Gamache knew something most other investigators at the famed Sûreté du Québec never quite grasped. Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn’t a whim, wasn’t an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke lose. And a man became a murderer.
