A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,124
and yet you did it to her.”
Now Gamache did look tired. He met Beauvoir’s gaze. At first Jean-Guy thought Monsieur Gamache was trying to make up his mind whether to confide in him, but then it became something else.
Monsieur Gamache was holding on to Jean-Guy’s eyes like a mariner clings on to a bit of flotsam in a gale.
He was a man overboard.
“It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up,” said Gamache. “The Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP actually visiting Montréal. I had to ask.”
“But you could’ve gone through Lacoste.”
“Yes, but I doubt he’d have come down for her. He doesn’t know her.”
“He doesn’t know you, if he suspects you of murder.”
“You suspect me too, don’t you?”
“I do not,” snapped Beauvoir, though they both knew that was a deception, if not a lie. “Is Gélinas going down to Three Pines with you again tonight?”
“He is. I invited him down again.”
“Why?” asked Beauvoir.
“So he can keep an eye on me,” said Gamache, then smiled. “And I can keep an eye on him.”
“Do you want me to come down with you? I can stay over.”
“No, you need to be with Annie. I spoke with her this afternoon. She sounds happy.”
Armand Gamache offered his hand to the younger man in a gesture that was oddly formal.
Jean-Guy took it.
“Don’t believe everything you think,” said Gamache, before releasing the hand and opening the door. “Pema Chödrön. A Buddhist nun.”
“Of course,” said Beauvoir and gave a heavy sigh as the door closed behind him. He turned to go, only to come face-to-face with Chantal Marcoux, who was standing by her desk in a long cloth coat. She was just putting a knitted hat on her head.
She opened the door to the corridor and ushered him out.
As he walked one way down the hallway, and she walked the other, Beauvoir wondered how much Madame Marcoux had heard. And he wondered if she’d been Serge Leduc’s assistant, before the putsch and the arrival of Commander Gamache.
CHAPTER 36
“So that was Roof Trusses after all,” said Jacques, when Nathaniel and Amelia finally joined them at their table in the bistro. “You can’t tell the little shithole was ever there.”
“True,” agreed Amelia. “It wasn’t obvious. We had to actually work at it.”
She glared at Jacques before taking the rich hot chocolate, topped with fresh whipped cream, from Olivier. “Merci.”
Slightly startled by the pleasantry, Olivier smiled. “De rien.”
“And after all that, all you found were a couple of buckets of maple syrup.” Jacques shoved his empty mug toward Olivier, who took it and left. “Well done.”
“Sap,” said Nathaniel.
Huifen had been watching the younger cadets’ earlier conversation with the old poet, and while she couldn’t hear what was being said, she could see that it had held the crazy old woman’s attention.
It was more than sap they’d found.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“What’s it to you?” asked Amelia.
“What’s it to us?” asked Huifen. “We might not have been there, but we’re all working together.”
“No, we’re not,” said Nathaniel. “You left me on the side of the road. You got in the car and were about to drive away.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Jacques. “I just turned it on to get heat and to hurry you up.”
“I wasn’t slow, I was still looking for Roof Trusses and you gave up, you lazy shit.”
“You little piece of crap—” Jacques leaned toward Nathaniel, who jerked away. But Huifen stopped Jacques with a hand to his arm.
Amelia noticed the subtle gesture and not for the first time wondered at the power this small woman held over the large man. And, not for the first time, wondered just how much influence she did have over Jacques.
Huifen could stop him from doing something, but could she also get him to act?
“You’re just afraid to admit you were wrong,” said Amelia.
“I’m not afraid. Of anything.” Jacques glared at Amelia. “How many times do I have to prove it?”
“Oh, you’re afraid now,” Huifen said quietly. “And you were afraid then. We all were.”
The laughter, the warmth of the bistro disappeared as the four young people stared at each other.
And then with a bang they were brought back to the bistro, as the front door slammed shut.
Commander Gamache and Deputy Commissioner Gélinas had just arrived, the door blowing closed behind them.
They stomped their feet, brushed wet snow off their coats, and slapped their hats against their legs. It was a singular Québec jig learned in the womb.
The snow had turned back to sleet as night fell and now it was pelting against