The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

Finally he found it. The narrow walkway running above and around the Blessed Chapel. Beauvoir climbed the winding steps and sat on the narrow stone bench carved into the wall. He could stay there without being seen.

Once sitting, though, he felt he might never get up. They’d find him decades from now, ossified. Turned to rock, up there. A gargoyle. Perched and permanently looking down on the bowing and genuflecting men in black and white.

Beauvoir longed at that moment to slip into a robe. To shave his head. To tighten the cord around his waist. And see the world in black and white.

Gamache was good. Francoeur was bad.

Annie loved him. He loved Annie.

The Gamaches would accept him as their son. As their son-in-law.

They’d be happy. He and Annie would be happy.

Simple. Clear.

Beauvoir closed his eyes and took deep breaths, smelling the incense. Years and years of it. Instead of bringing up bad memories, of hours wasted on hard pews, it actually smelled good. Comforting. Relaxing.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

In his hand he clasped a pill bottle he’d found on the table in his cell, a note scribbled beside it.

Take as needed. The signature was illegible, but it looked like Frère Charles’s. He was a doctor, after all, thought Beauvoir. There could be no harm.

He’d stood in his cell, uncertain. The familiar bottle rested in his hand as though the small cavity in the center of his fist was designed for it. He knew what the bottle contained without even reading the label, but he read it anyway and felt both alarm and relief.

OxyContin.

Beauvoir was tempted to bolt down a pill right then and there, in his cell. Then lie down on the narrow cot. And feel the warmth spread and the pain ebb.

But he was afraid Gamache might walk in. Instead, he’d found a place he suspected the Chief, afraid of heights, wouldn’t go, even if he knew it was there. The exposed catwalk above the Blessed Chapel.

Now Beauvoir looked at the bottle in his hand, clasped so tightly the cap had left a purple circle in his palm. It was, after all, from a doctor. And he was in pain.

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, and opened the bottle. A few moments later, in the Blessed Chapel, Jean-Guy Beauvoir found blessed relief.

*   *   *

The bells of Saint-Gilbert rang out. Not the thin call to prayers of earlier in the day, but all the bells pealed in a hearty, robust, full-bodied invitation.

Chief Inspector Gamache looked at his watch, out of habit. But he knew what the bells signaled. Five o’clock service.

Vespers.

The Blessed Chapel was empty when he slid into a pew. He put the murder weapon on the seat beside him, and closed his eyes. But not for long. Someone had joined him in the pew.

“Salut, mon vieux,” said Gamache. “Where’ve you been? I was looking for you.”

He’d known it was Jean-Guy without looking.

“Here and there,” said Beauvoir. “Investigating a murder, you know.”

“Are you all right?” Gamache asked. Beauvoir seemed dazed and his clothes were disheveled.

“Fine. I went for a walk and slipped on the path outside. I need to get out every now and then.”

“I know what you mean. Any luck with Frère Raymond in the basement?”

Beauvoir looked lost for a moment. Frère Raymond? Then he remembered. Had that even happened? It seemed so long ago.

“The foundations look OK to me. And no sign of a steel pipe.”

“Well, no need to look further. I’ve found the murder weapon.”

Gamache handed the towel to his second in command. Above them the bells stopped ringing.

Beauvoir carefully unwrapped the package. There, in the folds, was the iron knocker. He looked at it, not touching, then up at Gamache.

“How d’you know this’s what killed him?”

The Chief Inspector told him about his conversation with Frère Simon. The Blessed Chapel was very quiet now and Gamache kept his voice in the lowest register. When he looked up it was to see that the Chief Superintendent had arrived and was sitting in a pew across from them and down a row.

The gap between them, it seemed, was widening. This was fine with Gamache.

Beauvoir wrapped the length of iron back up. “I’ll put it in an evidence bag. Not much hope of forensics, though.”

“I agree,” whispered the Chief.

From the wings of the chapel came a now familiar sound. A single voice. Frère Antoine, Gamache recognized, alone, came in first. The new choirmaster.

Then his rich tenor was joined by another voice. Frère Bernard, who collected eggs and wild blueberries. His voice was higher, less rich but more precise.