The Long Way Home(10)

“Isabelle’s doing fine.”

“You mean Ruth Zardo ‘fine’?” asked Gamache.

“Pretty much. With a little work she’ll get there. She had you as a role model, sir.”

Ruth had called her latest slim volume of poetry I’m FINE. Only people who read it realized that FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.

Isabelle Lacoste called Gamache at least once a week, and they met for lunch in Montréal a couple times a month. Always away from Sûreté headquarters. He insisted on that, so he wouldn’t undermine the new Chief Inspector’s authority.

Lacoste had questions only the former Chief could answer. Sometimes procedural issues, but often questions that were more complex and human. About uncertainties, about insecurities. About her fears.

Gamache listened and sometimes talked about his own experiences. Reassuring her that what she felt was natural, and normal, and healthy. He’d felt all those things almost every day of his career. Not that he was a fraud, but that he was afraid. When the phone rang, or there was a knock on the door, he worried there would be a life-and-death issue he could not resolve.

“I have a new trainee, patron,” Isabelle had told him over their lunch at Le Paris earlier in the week.

“Ah, oui?”

“A young agent just out of the academy. Adam Cohen. I think you know him.”

The Chief had smiled. “Merci, Isabelle.”

Young Monsieur Cohen had flunked out on his first try and had taken a job as a guard at a penitentiary. Gamache had met Cohen months ago, when almost everyone else was attacking the Chief. Professionally. Personally. And finally, physically. But Adam Cohen had stood beside him. Hadn’t run away, despite having every reason to. Including to save his own skin.

The Chief hadn’t forgotten. And when the crisis had passed, Gamache had approached the head of the Sûreté academy and asked that Cohen be given a rare second chance. And then he’d tutored the young man, guided him. Encouraged him. And had stood at the back of the hall, during graduation, and applauded him.

Gamache had asked Isabelle to take Cohen on. To, essentially, take him under her wing. He could not imagine a better mentor for the young man.

“Agent Cohen started this morning,” said Lacoste, taking a forkful of quinoa, feta, and pomegranate salad. “I called him into the office and told him that there were four statements that lead to wisdom. I said I was only going to recite them once, and he could do with them as he wished.”

Armand Gamache lowered his fork to his plate and listened.

“I don’t know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Lacoste recited them slowly, lifting a finger to count them off.

“I need help,” the Chief said, completing the statements. The ones he’d taught young Agent Lacoste many years ago. The ones he’d recited to all his new agents.

And now, sitting at home in Three Pines, he said, “I need your help, Jean-Guy.”

Beauvoir grew still, alert, and gave a curt nod.

“Clara came to see me this morning. She has a…” Gamache searched for the word. “Puzzle.”

Beauvoir leaned forward.

* * *

Clara and Myrna sat side by side in the large wooden Adirondack chairs in Clara’s back garden. The crickets and frogs were singing and every now and then the women heard rustles in the dark woods.

Below that sound, beyond that sound, the Rivière Bella Bella burbled its way from the mountains, past the village, and out the other side. Heading home, but in no big hurry.

“I’ve been patient,” said Myrna. “Now you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

Even in the dark, Myrna knew the expression on Clara’s face as her friend turned to her.

“Patient?” asked Clara. “It’s been an hour since the party broke up.”

“Okay, ‘patient’ might be the wrong word. I’ve been worried. And it’s not just since dinner. Why have you been sitting with Armand every morning? And what happened today between you? You practically ran away from him.”

“You noticed?”

“For God’s sake, Clara, the bench is on top of the hill out of Three Pines. You might as well have been sitting on a neon sign.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide.”

“Then you succeeded.” Myrna softened her voice. “Can you tell me?”

“Can you guess?”

Myrna turned her entire body until she was facing her companion.

Clara still had paint in her wild hair, not the speckles that come from painting a wall or ceiling. These were streaks of ochre and cadmium yellow. And a fingerprint of burnt sienna on her neck, like a bruise.

Clara Morrow painted portraits. And in the process, she often painted herself.