The Long Way Home(94)
“South like Florida?” asked Myrna.
“No, south like Montréal. No Man apparently had a gallery there, or a representative. He sent art off and got canvases and art supplies in return. The guy didn’t know the name of the gallery, but Vachon would probably know.”
Gamache had put on his reading glasses and was studying the signature on the drawing.
“I looked,” said Beauvoir. “It’s signed Vachon. Not No Man.”
Gamache nodded and gave the menu to Clara. “It’s a nice drawing.”
“Pretty,” said Clara, her voice neutral.
It wasn’t, they all felt, the muse. It was Vachon’s idea of a muse. Someone he clearly had not personally met. Yet.
But it was a lone figure, not the classic nine sisters. La Muse. Not Les Muses.
“The community fell apart when No Man suddenly took off. Didn’t tell anyone. He just left.”
Gamache shifted in his seat, but said nothing. He glanced down at the dancing figure on the menu, but in his mind he was seeing the clearing. The bracken, the wildflowers, the bumps and lumps where homes had once been.
That looked so much like burial mounds.
He looked at his watch. It was past six in the evening.
“I’m afraid we might have to impose on you another night,” he said to Chartrand, who smiled.
“I consider you friends now. You’re welcome for as long as you’d like.”
“Merci.”
“What now?” Clara asked. “I think we’ve spoken to everyone in Baie-Saint-Paul.”
“There is one place we could try,” said Gamache.
* * *
Jean-Guy Beauvoir entered first, and this time he brought out his Sûreté ID.
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
Beauvoir waited for the young agent behind the counter to size him up, and when she didn’t he looked at her. She was young. Very young. Fifteen years younger than him. She could almost be …
But while a brave man, he wasn’t quite brave enough to go there. But he did wonder how, and when, it had happened. That he’d gone from clever, young, whip-smart Jean-Guy Beauvoir, the enfant terrible of homicide, to Inspector Beauvoir. Sir.
Not all transformations were miracles or magical. Or improvements.
“We’d like to speak to your station chief.”
The young agent looked at him, then behind him to the others who were crammed into the entrance of the small Sûreté detachment.
And then her eyes widened.
Standing at the back, patiently waiting, was a man she recognized.
She stood up, then sat down. Then stood up again.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir suppressed a grin. He was used to this reaction and had been expecting it. Waiting for it.
“Chief Inspector,” the agent said, practically bowing.
“Armand Gamache.” He stepped forward and, squeezing his arm between Clara and Chartrand, offered his hand.
“Agent Pagé,” she said, feeling his grip. “Beatrice Pagé.”
She could have cursed. Why’d she give him her first name? He doesn’t care. He’s the Chief Inspector of fucking Homicide. Or was. Until that whole rotten business. Until he retired.
Agent Pagé had joined the Sûreté months before it all blew up. And she knew that while she’d spend most of her career with other superiors, this man would always be, in her mind, the Chief Inspector of homicide.
“I just started,” she said, and her eyes widened. Stop talking, stop talking. He doesn’t care. Shut the fuck up. “My shift, I mean. And in the Sûreté.”
Oh, dear God. Take me now.
“This is my first posting.”
She stared at him.
“And where are you from?” Gamache asked.
He looked interested.
“Baie-Comeau, up the coast.”
Merde, merde, merde, she thought. He knows where it is. Merde.
Gamache nodded. “They’ve cleaned up the bay there. A beautiful place.”
He smiled.
“Yes, sir. It is. My family’s been working in the mills for a long time.”
“Are you the first of your family in the Sûreté?” he asked.
“Oui. They didn’t want me to join. Said it wasn’t respectable.”
Maudit tabarnac, she thought, and looked around for a gun to stick in her mouth.
But the large man in front of her, with the scar by his temple, just laughed and lines radiated from his kind brown eyes. “And do they still feel that way?”
“No, sir, they don’t.” And now all her nerves calmed and she met his gaze. “Not after what you did. Now they’re proud of me.”
Gamache held her eyes and smiled. “They’re proud of you, and they should be. It has nothing to do with me.”