A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,117
review.
Leo placed his magnificent head on her lap, and they both stared into the roiling fire.
* * *
“I’ve been thinking about Tracey and his pottery,” said Isabelle.
“Yes?” said Beauvoir.
They’d walked over to Gabri and Olivier’s bed-and-breakfast, where Isabelle had “her” room. With its familiar four-poster bed and eiderdown comforter, the fireplace laid and ready to be lit. The armchair in front of it. With a carafe of tawny port, a glass, and a small box of her favorite chocolates.
While Dominica Oddly had gone upstairs to work, Isabelle had deposited her bag in her room and returned to the living room of the B&B to join the others.
And work.
“Isn’t that just a little bit of a stretch?” asked Isabelle. “To think Tracey killed his wife so that his art would be noticed? Besides, he’s not smart enough to think that far ahead. I doubt he even knows what he’s having for lunch most days.”
“Tracey couldn’t plan it,” Jean-Guy agreed as he poked the fire, then grabbed a chocolate chip cookie off the tray on the sideboard and joined the others. “But like we said, Pauline Vachon might.”
Isabelle nodded. “I can see her planning it. But really, would she kill Vivienne on the off chance it would give Tracey’s career a boost? Seems a pretty drastic marketing tool. I don’t believe it.”
“It obviously wouldn’t be the only motive,” said Beauvoir. “There’re lots of reasons she’d want Vivienne dead. She’d get Tracey, for one. And any inheritance, real or imagined, coming his way as Vivienne’s husband. And if his pottery did hit, she’d be right there to collect. If there’s a scandal, like a murdered wife, to help it along, so much the better.”
Up until now, Gamache had preferred to listen as the two investigators tossed around ideas. Taking in what they were saying. Letting his mind both focus and be free. Now he got up from the comfortable armchair.
“Excuse me,” he said, bringing out his phone. “I just need to check something.”
He stepped over to the window, where the wavering signal was strongest, and returned a couple of minutes later. His face grim.
* * *
Dominica checked her site. The review of Clara’s art was up and getting good notice. Lots of hits. Lots of shares. The new item she’d just posted was also beginning to trend.
Not yet tired, she Googled around, and then, bored, she typed in “Jean-Guy Beauvoir.”
A few items came up, including a commendation. There was a photo of this Chief Inspector Gamache, giving him a medal. But the line under the photo identified him as Chief Superintendent Gamache. The head of the Sûreté du Québec.
Curious, she put in “Armand Gamache. Sûreté.”
Lifting her brows at the number of stories, she scrolled down. The photographs, clearly taken over the course of a long career, showed a man aging. From dark, wavy hair to gray. From smooth-faced to lines, growing deeper and deeper with each passing story.
And then that scar appeared. At his temple. The first time was in a photo of him in dress uniform. Grim-faced, with a cane. In a funeral procession.
But there was one constant. His eyes. Intelligent and thoughtful. And even kindly.
It was disconcerting. In a cop.
There was a link to a recently posted video, with half a million views already.
Dominica Oddly sat in her quiet room, in the quiet village, and watched, horrified, as the quiet man with the kindly eyes shot a succession of young, mostly black, kids.
She recognized that the video had been hacked together. And knew it was probably bullshit, but she found herself sucked in. Probably because she was predisposed to believe that’s what cops did.
Did that explain his demotion? Is this how the good folk of Canada react to mass murder? A wrist slap?
Then another video came up. Also newly posted. With almost the same number of hits.
Her eye, trained to see the manipulation of images, realized this was the real thing. Uncut. Unedited. Raw. The parent of the previous, perverse video. The place from which those images had been culled, to create a false, but compelling, narrative. Of a man, a cop, out of control.
But this second video showed something very different. A commander in complete control. Leading a raid on a factory. Against what were clearly heavily armed gunmen.
In shaky but clear images, she watched Sûreté agents, including the three people she’d just met over a civilized dinner, advance through the gunfire.
Jean-Guy. Isabelle. Armand.
“Christ,” she whispered as she watched last rites hurriedly given by one agent to another.