A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,38
day. You’ve done well. Leave it and start fresh in the morning. And for God’s sake, don’t contact this woman, right? We don’t want Tracey to know we’re interested in his private Instagram. Right?”
“Right.”
Lysette Cloutier hung up but did not take that advice.
She should have.
* * *
Clara put on the outdoor lights at the back of her home.
On warm summer evenings, she and her friends would sit in the garden having drinks and dinner. The lights were placed to illuminate the perennial beds of delphiniums and phlox and old garden roses.
Beds that had been first planted more than a century ago.
But on this cold April evening, Clara had climbed the ladder and repositioned the lights so that they pointed into the night, to where her garden met the river.
Now the lights illuminated an expanse of mud and the wall of sandbags.
“Floodlights,” said Gabri, standing beside Myrna in the kitchen and staring out the window.
They’d gathered in Clara’s home, partly out of habit, partly out of a need to be together, partly because it was the best vantage point to monitor the Bella Bella and still be protected.
And privately out of fear that this would be the last time.
The neighbors put the food they’d brought onto the kitchen island, buffet style. And now they gathered around the window, to see if they could see anything.
But Clara herself had left them and gone back to the doorway into her studio, where Reine-Marie joined her.
“You okay?”
“I’m well in body,” said Clara. “But considerably rumpled up in spirit.”
Reine-Marie laughed. Easily recognizing the lines from the Anne of Green Gables books she, her daughter, and now her granddaughters loved so much.
She put her arm through Clara’s. “Fortunately, you’re among kindred spirits.”
Clara squeezed her hand and continued to stare into the studio.
“What’re you thinking?” Reine-Marie asked.
“I’m thinking that if we need to leave, I can’t take all my paintings. So which do I choose, if any?”
“If any?”
Clara turned to look at her. “Are they crap?”
“Why would you say that?”
“You know why.”
“You haven’t let those comments get into your head, have you? Those people are ignorant—”
“It was the New York Times. And Art World. Thank God the Oddly Report hasn’t said anything.”
“The what?” asked Ruth, who’d sensed pain and had gone over to bask in and, with luck, magnify it. “The Oddly Report? What’s that?”
“The one major art journal that’s never reviewed my work. Wouldn’t you know it? It’s the biggest, the most prestigious. Most people just call it Odd.”
“And obviously the smartest,” said Ruth.
“Now I’m glad they’ve ignored me,” said Clara, snapping off the lights.
But, having reexamined the miniatures, she was both heartened and confused. They were, she felt, actually very good. Exceptional, even. Why couldn’t others see what she saw?
She joined her friends, crowded around the kitchen window, while Ruth limped into the living room and stood behind the one person not watching the Bella Bella.
Homer Godin was staring out a window in the other direction. Into the forest.
Ruth’s reflection, like an apparition, hovered in the window just over his shoulder. The rain coursed down both their faces.
“She’s out there somewhere.” Homer’s words fogged the windowpane. He didn’t turn around, but his eyes in the reflection met Ruth’s. “Please. Can you help me?”
In the background, the CBC was broadcasting continuous updates on the flooding.
Reports were coming in from all over Ontario, Québec, the Maritimes, while Vivienne’s father stared at Rosa’s mother.
She reached out and touched his arm.
Homer closed his eyes tight. “Oh, please. Help.”
* * *
Armand checked the wall of sandbags.
Floodlights had been set up on either side of the river. One pointing upriver, the other pointing down. So that the villagers could see what was happening. From where he stood, he could also see the lights in Clara’s back garden.
The rain mixed with snow was teeming down, and he hunched deeper into his coat as a gust of wind lashed water into his face.
Every half hour since getting back, he went out to check the height of the river. It was, Ruth had made clear, his assignment. The least he could do.
“You don’t think you can just swan in here and relax by the fire after we spent all day building the goddamned wall?” said Ruth.
Rosa, in her arms, bristled. She didn’t like swans.
“Clearly the Sûreté doesn’t think you’re much use, or you wouldn’t be back here. And don’t get me started on what they’re saying on Twitter, the dumb-asses. Not that I disagree.”