seemed a perfect fit for a man more inclined to track down a rare book than a murderer. But find killers he’d done, for thirty years. And he’d been strangely good at it. He’d hunted serial killers, singular killers, mass murderers. Those who premeditated and those who meditated not at all, but simply lashed out. All had taken lives, and all had been found by her husband, with very few exceptions.
Yes, Reine-Marie had been relieved when, after reviewing all the offers and discussing them with her, Armand had decided to take on the task of commanding the Sûreté Academy. Of clearing up the mess left by years of brutality and corruption.
She’d been relieved, right up until the moment she’d surprised that grim look on his face.
And then a chill had seeped into her. Not a killing cold, but a warning of worse to come.
“You’ve been looking at that for a day now,” said Myrna, breaking into Reine-Marie’s thoughts and gesturing toward the paper in Ruth’s hand. The old poet held it delicately, at the edges.
“May I see it?” Reine-Marie asked, her voice gentle, her hand out as though coaxing a lost dog into a car. Had she had a bottle of Scotch, Ruth would’ve been wagging her tail on the front seat by now.
Ruth looked from one to the other, then she relinquished it. But not to Reine-Marie.
She gave it to Clara.
CHAPTER 5
“It’s a map,” said Armand, bending over it.
“What was your first clue, Miss Marple?” asked Ruth. “Those lines? They’re what we call roads. This”—she placed her knotted finger on the paper—“is a river.”
She spoke the last few words slowly, with infinite patience.
Armand straightened up and looked at her over his reading glasses, then went back to studying the paper on the table under the lamp.
They’d gathered at Clara’s place this wintery night for a dinner of bouillabaisse, with fresh baguette from Sarah’s boulangerie.
Clara and Gabri were in the kitchen just putting the final ingredients into the broth. Scallops and shrimp and mussels and chunks of pink salmon, while Myrna sliced and toasted the bread.
A delicate aroma of garlic and fennel drifted into the living room and mingled with the scent of wood smoke from the hearth. Outside, the night was crisp and starless as clouds rolled in, threatening yet more snow.
But inside it was warm and peaceful.
“Imbecile,” mumbled Ruth.
The fact was, despite Ruth’s comments, it wasn’t obvious what the paper was.
At first glance, it didn’t look like a map at all. While worn and torn a little, it was beautifully and intricately illustrated, with bears and deer and geese placed around the mountains and forests. In a riot of seasonal confusion, there were spring lilac and plump peony beside maple trees in full autumn color. In the upper-right corner, a snowman wearing a tuque and a habitant sash, a ceinture fléchée, around his plump middle held up a hockey stick in triumph.
The overall effect was one of unabashed joy. Of silliness that somehow managed to be both sweet and very affecting.
This was no primitive drawing by a rustic with more enthusiasm than talent. This was created by someone familiar enough with art to know the masters, and skilled enough to imitate them. Except for the snowman, which, as far as Gamache knew, had never appeared in a Constable, Monet, or even Group of Seven masterpiece.
Yes, it took a while to see beyond all that, to what it really was, at its heart.
A map.
Complete with contour lines and landmarks. Three small pines, like playful children, were clearly meant to be their village. There were walking paths and stone walls and even Larsen’s Rock, so named because Sven Larsen’s cow got stuck on it before being rescued.
Gamache bent closer. And yes, there was the cow.
There were even, faint like silk threads, latitude and longitude lines. It was as though a work of art had been swallowed by an ordnance map.
“See anything strange?” asked Ruth.
“Yes, I do,” he said, turning to look at the old poet.
She laughed.
“I meant in the map,” she said. “And thank you for the compliment.”
Now it was Gamache’s turn to smile as he went back to studying the paper.
There were many words he’d use to describe it. Beautiful. Detailed. Delicate yet bold. Unusual, certainly, in its intersection of practicality and artistry.
But was it strange? No, that wasn’t a word he’d use. And yet he knew the old poet. Ruth loved words and used them intentionally. Even the thoughtless words were used with thought.
If she said “strange,” she