A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,8
train them properly.”
They had. And now, under Chief Inspector Beauvoir, those agents had become leaders themselves. Battle-hardened and trusted.
Which wasn’t to say they didn’t have their own opinions, opinions they were keen to voice.
Those had been the very homicide agents Beauvoir had heard questioning Gamache, just before he had arrived in the conference room.
With the Monday-morning meeting about to wrap up, something caught Beauvoir’s attention, and he looked down the long conference table.
“Are we boring you?”
Agent Lysette Cloutier looked up, and her eyes grew round.
“Désolée,” she said, fumbling with her phone.
Chief Inspector Beauvoir continued to stare at her until she put it down.
The meeting continued, but only for another minute, before Beauvoir stopped it again.
“Agent Cloutier, what’re you doing?”
Though it was clear what she was doing. She was typing on her phone. Again.
She looked up, flustered.
“I’m sorry. So sorry, but—”
“Is it a personal emergency?” Beauvoir asked.
“No, not really. I don’t think—”
“Then put it away.”
She lowered the phone to the table, then picked it up again. “I’m sorry, sir, but there is something.”
“For us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
The final report was wrapping up, and the others in the meeting wanted to finish and get out of there. Which meant they wanted her to put down the damned phone and shut up.
Feeling all eyes on her. Feeling her heart pounding in her chest. In her neck. In the vein at her temple. Agent Cloutier clutched the phone and spoke up.
“A friend has emailed me. His daughter is missing. Been gone since Saturday night.”
“Where?” asked Beauvoir, pulling a pad of paper toward him.
“In the Eastern Townships.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-five.”
His pen stopped. He was expecting a child. He was relieved, but also slightly annoyed. Agent Cloutier could see this and tried to get him onside.
“She was on her way to visit him up north but never arrived.”
“Is she married?”
“Yes.”
“What does her husband say?”
“Nothing. Homer, her father, has called him over and over, but Carl just says there’s nothing wrong and to stop calling.”
“But she isn’t at home?”
“Apparently not. Carl won’t say where she is. He just hangs up on Homer. Now he isn’t answering at all.” She was talking rapidly, trying to get it all in. Searching the Chief Inspector’s face for some sign of concern. Some sign she was getting through to him.
“Where does the father live?”
“North of Montréal. In the Laurentians. Ste.-Agathe.”
“Has he gone down?”
“No. He wanted to give it until today.”
Beauvoir considered the woman at the far end of the table. This was, as far as he could remember, the first time Agent Cloutier had spoken in a meeting.
“I can see why you’d be concerned, but this is a local issue. Let the local detachment handle it.”
Beauvoir returned his attention to the inspector, who was just wrapping up her report.
“Homer called the local Sûreté. They sent a car but didn’t find anything. That was yesterday. She’s still missing. He’s getting really worried.”
“Then he needs to file a missing-persons report. You can help him with that.”
He didn’t mean to sound callous, but there were clear delineations of duties, and best not to step into someone else’s lane.
“Please, patron,” said Cloutier. “Can I go down? Take a look around?” She could see that Chief Inspector Beauvoir was undecided. Teetering. “She’s pregnant.”
Cloutier felt everyone turn to her. Flushing wildly, she kept her eyes on the Chief Inspector.
Beauvoir considered her again and weighed his options.
The fact this woman was pregnant shouldn’t change anything. And yet, for Beauvoir, it did.
Missing. Pregnant. Unhelpful husband.
These were worrying signs. Warning signs.
Lysette Cloutier was not an experienced or, let’s face it, effective criminal investigator. If he freed her up to look into it, just for the day, she’d come back with nothing. Probably because there was nothing to find.
The missing woman had probably just gone away for the weekend. Told her husband she was visiting her family but was really with girlfriends. Or a lover.
Far from the first person to do that.
“What do I tell her father?” Cloutier pressed. “He’s really worried. It’s not like her.”
“He might not know her as well as he thinks he does.”
“But he knows his son-in-law.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s never said it outright, but I know he doesn’t like him.”
“That’s not a reason to engage the resources of the homicide department, Agent Cloutier.”
“He thinks something bad’s happened.” She could see she was losing him. She racked her brains for something else to say. “How would you feel, sir? If your child didn’t come home?”
She could see that the words had hit home, but not in the