How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,115
what Gamache had said. “We knew the Quints?”
He turned to his wife. She didn’t seem pleased. Unlike her husband, she seemed to remember why Gamache was there.
“Her death couldn’t have been because she was a Quint, could it?” she asked.
“We don’t know.”
“But it was so long ago,” she said, holding his eyes.
“What was?” Gamache asked. “They might have grown up, might have changed their name, but they would always be the Quints. Nothing could change that.”
They stared at each other while Monsieur Michaud muttered, “I can’t believe it. The Quints.”
Armand Gamache left the warmth of their home. The aroma of pot roast was embedded in his coat and followed him out the door and into his car.
He drove back across the Champlain Bridge, the traffic now thinned as the worst of the rush hour ended. He wasn’t sure he’d gotten any closer to the answer. Was he creating his own myth? The missing Quint? The one who rose from the dead? Another miracle.
* * *
“Where is he now?” Francoeur asked.
“He’s over the Champlain Bridge,” said Tessier. “And heading south. I think he’s heading back down to that village.”
Francoeur leaned back in his chair and regarded Tessier, but the Inspector knew that look. He wasn’t really seeing him; the Chief Superintendent was mulling something over.
“Why does Gamache keep going back to that village? What’s in that place?”
“According to his case file, the Quint, the one who was killed, had friends there.”
Francoeur nodded, but in an abstract way. Thinking.
“Are we sure it’s Gamache?” Francoeur asked.
“It’s him. We’re tracking his cell phone and car. When he left here he went to see some fellow named”—Tessier consulted his notes—“André Pineault. Then he called Isabelle Lacoste, I have the transcript here. He then returned to the home where the murder happened and spoke to the neighbor. He just left. He seems focused on the case.”
Francoeur pursed his lips and nodded. They were in his office, the door closed. It was almost eight in the evening, but Francoeur wasn’t ready to go home. He had to make sure everything was set. Every detail was taken care of. Every contingency thought of. The only blip on an otherwise clear horizon was Armand Gamache. But now Tessier was saying that blip had disappeared into that village, into the void.
Francoeur knew he should be relieved, but a sick feeling had settled into his stomach. Maybe he was so used to being locked together with Gamache, so used to the struggle, he couldn’t see that the fight was over.
Francoeur wanted to believe it. But Sylvain Francoeur was a cautious man, and while the evidence said one thing, his insides told him something else.
If Armand Gamache went over the edge, it wouldn’t be willingly. There’d be claw marks all the way over. This was a trick, somehow. He just didn’t know how.
It’s too late, he reminded himself. But the worry remained.
“When he was here at headquarters, he went to see Jean-Guy Beauvoir,” said Tessier.
Francoeur sat forward. “And?”
As Tessier described what happened, Francoeur felt himself relax.
There were the claw marks. How perfect this was. Gamache had pushed Beauvoir and Beauvoir had pushed Gamache.
And both men had finally fallen.
“Beauvoir won’t be any trouble,” said Tessier. “He’ll do anything we say now.”
“Good.”
There was one more thing Francoeur needed Beauvoir to do.
“There’s something else, sir.”
“What?”
“Gamache went to the SHU,” said Tessier.
Francoeur’s face went ashen. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that first?”
“Nothing happened,” Tessier rapidly assured him. “He stayed in his car.”
“Are you sure?” Francoeur’s eyes drilled into Tessier.
“Absolutely certain. We have the security tapes. He just sat there and stared. The Ouellets are buried nearby,” Tessier explained. “He was in the area. That’s why he went.”
“He went to the SHU because he knows,” said Francoeur. His eyes, no longer on Tessier, were flicking around, as though moving from thought to thought. Trying to follow a fast-moving foe.
“Merde,” he whispered, then his eyes focused back on Tessier. “Who else knows about this?”
“No one.”
“Tell me the truth, Tessier. No bullshit. Who else did you tell?”
“No one. Look, it doesn’t matter. He didn’t even get out of the car. Didn’t call the warden. Didn’t call anyone. He just sat there. How much could he know?”
“He knows Arnot’s involved,” shouted Francouer, then reined himself in and took a deep breath. “He’s made that connection. I don’t know how, but he has.”
“He might suspect,” said Tessier, “but even if he knows about Arnot, he can’t know it all.”
Francoeur again shifted his eyes from Tessier and looked into the