A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,60
stepped from his study, out into the living room, and could see Gélinas and Reine-Marie still in the back garden of their home.
Then he turned and looked through his study window, to the bistro. He could see movement in the window and wondered if it was the cadets.
And he willed them to stay there. To stay put. To not leave the bistro.
“I wish people would stop asking me if I’m sure,” he said.
“They will, patron, once you stop making almost incomprehensible decisions.” He was whispering too, to match Gamache’s voice, though he had no idea why.
“I’ll do my best. Can you keep the cadets there, Olivier? Just until we leave?”
“Fortunately, I have a whip and a chair. Don’t ask.”
“I’m assuming it has something to do with Ruth,” said Gamache, and heard Olivier chuckle softly, and then it stopped.
“What’s this about, Armand? Are they in danger?” There was a pause. “Are we?”
“I’m trying to prevent something terrible happening,” said Gamache, though something terrible had already happened.
In bringing the cadets to Three Pines, he was trying to prevent something worse.
* * *
“Okay,” said Olivier, standing at their table. “Monsieur Gamache just called and said he couldn’t rejoin you after all.”
“Just fucking great,” said Jacques, throwing himself back in his chair. “He drags us down here, away from the action, then just leaves us here? What’s he doing? Napping?”
“What is wrong with you?” asked Olivier. “Is it just him or are you rude to everyone?”
“You don’t know him,” said Jacques. “You think you do, but you don’t. You know the nice neighbor. You don’t know the real man.”
“And you do?”
“Professor Leduc did. He told us all about Gamache.”
“Really? And what did he say?”
“That he was caught up in the corruption scandal. That he resigned one step ahead of being fired. That Gamache is a coward. He ran away from the mess he made and now he’s trashing the academy.”
“Enough.”
Behind them, the old poet and the bookstore owner had risen to their feet. But it wasn’t Ruth Zardo who’d spoken. It was Myrna.
“It’s all right, dear,” said Ruth. “They don’t know what they’re saying.”
Beside her, Myrna was so angry she was actually shaking. Her face so filled with rage, she was almost unrecognizable.
Jacques stood abruptly and faced her.
“You’d defend him? Do you know how many agents died while he was Chief Inspector? Do you know he murdered his own superior? You think we don’t know that he killed Professor Leduc? Of course he did. A shot to the head of an unarmed man. It has coward written all over it. It has Gamache written all over it.”
“You stupid, stupid man,” was all Myrna could get out, while Ruth’s hand held her arm. The human contact, if not her strength, restraining Myrna from going further.
“You—” said Jacques. Huifen had gotten to her feet and put her own hand on his arm, stopping him from saying what everyone in the room heard anyway. It throbbed out of him. What he was thinking. What he was seeing.
A big, fat black. Not a woman. Not a person. Just a black. Though he was clearly longing to shoot another word at her.
And now Myrna did step forward, and Ruth went with her.
Jacques Laurin glared and dared them to go further.
Myrna Landers had seen that look many times. When stopped for traffic tickets. While walking in civil rights marches through Montréal. She’d seen it in reports of riots and police shootings. She’d seen it in color and in black and white. In recent news reports and in old newsreels. And archival photographs. Of the Deep South. And the enlightened North.
And now it was here. In Three Pines.
He didn’t just loathe her. He dismissed her, as subhuman.
And in just a few months, Myrna knew, he’d have a gun and a billy club and permission to use them. On anyone he wanted.
“Well,” said Olivier. “That little contretemps makes this even more difficult.”
“What?”
“Monsieur Gamache has handed out billeting assignments.”
“Aren’t we staying in the B and B?” asked Huifen.
“All of you at our place?” said Olivier. “I don’t think so.”
“Then where’re we staying?”
Amelia looked over at Ruth Zardo.
Please, let me stay with her.
Ruth sneezed and wiped her nose on Myrna’s caftan.
Please let me stay anywhere else.
“Cadet Huifen Cloutier will be billeted with us in the B and B.”
Huifen smiled and looked at her fellow cadets, who didn’t even pretend to be happy for her.
“Cadet Amelia Choquet—”
Ruth. Not Ruth. Please, please, not Ruth. Please, Ruth.