“Really? How extraordinary. Why do you think that is?”
“The incense, I think. I hope. Either that or she’s the antichrist.”
“That would mess up the wedding,” said Gamache.
“Not to mention the marriage. I’ve asked and she assures me she isn’t.”
“Well, good enough. Have you considered a pre-nup?”
Paul Morin laughed.
May your days be good and long upon this earth, thought Gamache.
“You asked to speak with me?”
Gamache’s eyes flew open, jolted. A middle-aged man in a cassock was staring down at him.
“Père Sébastien?”
“That’s right.” The voice was clipped, efficient, officious.
“My name is Armand Gamache. I was hoping for some of your time.”
The man’s beady eyes were hard, wary. “It’s a busy day.” He looked closely at Gamache. “Do I know you?”
Since the priest showed no interest in sitting Gamache stood. “Not personally, no, but you might have heard of me. I’m the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.”
The man’s face cleared of annoyance and he smiled. “Of course, Chief Inspector.” Now he put out a slender hand and greeted him. “I’m sorry. It’s dark in here, and, do you normally wear a beard?”
“No, I’m incognito,” smiled Gamache.
“Then you might not want to be telling people you’re the head of homicide.”
“Good suggestion.” Gamache looked around. “It’s been a while since I was in the basilica. Not since the premier’s funeral a few years ago.”
“I was one of the celebrants,” said Père Sébastien. “Beautiful service.”
Gamache remembered it as formal, stilted, and very, very long.
“Now,” Father Sébastien sat and patted the wood next to him. “Tell me what you’d like to know. Unless it’s the confessional you need?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the young voice repeated, over and over. Gamache had reassured him it wasn’t his fault, and assured Morin he’d find him before it was too late.
“You’ll be having dinner with your parents and Suzanne tonight.” There’d been a pause and Gamache thought he heard a sob. “I’ll find you.”
Another pause.
“I believe you.”
“No,” Gamache said to the priest, “just information.”
“How can I help?”
“It’s about the murder of Augustin Renaud.”
The priest didn’t look surprised. “Terrible. But I don’t think I can be of much help. I hardly knew the man.”
“But you did know him?”
Père Sébastien looked at Gamache with some suspicion now. “Of course I knew him. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Frankly I don’t know why I’m here, except someone suggested I speak with you. Can you think why?”
The priest became prickly, offended. “Well, maybe because I’m the leading scholar on the early settlement of Québec and the role of the church. But maybe that’s not important.”
Dear God, thought Gamache, save me from a huffy priest. “Forgive me, but I’m not from Quebec City so I’m unfamiliar with your work.”
“My articles are published worldwide.”
This wasn’t getting better.
“Désolé. It’s not an area of expertise for me, but it’s clearly of immense importance and I desperately need your help.”
The priest relaxed a bit, his hackles slowly lying flat. “How can I help?” he asked, coldly.
“What can you tell me about Augustin Renaud?”
“Well, he wasn’t crazy, I can tell you that.” He was the first person to say that and Gamache leaned forward. The priest continued, “He was passionate and obstinate and he was certainly offensive, but he wasn’t crazy. People called him that in order to dismiss the man, take away his credibility. It was a cruel thing to do.”
“You liked him?”
Père Sébastien shifted a little on the hard pew. “I wouldn’t say that. He was a difficult man to like, not very socially adept. Maladroit, in fact. He had only one goal in life and everything else was trivial to him, including people’s feelings. I can see how he’d make a lot of enemies.”
“Could someone have hated him enough to kill?” asked Gamache.
“There’re a lot of reasons for murder, Chief Inspector, as you know.”
“Actually, mon Père, I’ve found there’s only one. Beneath all the justifications, all the psychology, all the motives given, like revenge or greed or jealousy, there lies the real reason.”
“And what’s that?”
“Fear. Fear of losing what you have or not getting what you want.”
“And yet, fear of eternal damnation doesn’t stop them.”
“No. Neither does fear of getting caught. Because they don’t believe in either.”
“You think it’s not possible to believe in God and commit murder?”
The priest was staring at Gamache now, his face relaxed, amused even. His eyes calm, his voice light. Then why was he clutching his cassock in his fist?
“Depends on the God you believe in,” said Gamache.
“There is only one God, Chief Inspector.”
“Perhaps, but all sorts of humans who see imperfectly. Even God. Especially God.”
The priest smiled and nodded but his hand tensed even more.
“I’m afraid we’ve wandered off topic,” said Gamache. “My fault. It was foolish of me to debate faith with such a celebrated priest. I am sorry, mon Père. We were talking about Augustin Renaud and you were saying he was dismissed as crazy, but in your view he was quite sane. How did you know him?”
“I found him in the basement of the chapel to St. Joseph. He was digging.”
“He’d just started digging?”
“I told you he was monomaniacal. He lost all judgment when it came to Champlain. But he actually found something.”
“What?”
“Some old coins from the 1620s and two coffins. One was very plain and semi-collapsed, but the other was lead-lined. Our theory is that Champlain, like other dignitaries, would have been buried in a lead-lined coffin.”
“And this was where the original chapel stood, before the fire.”
“You’re not quite as ignorant as you pretend, Chief Inspector.”
“Oh, my ignorance knows no bounds, Father.”
“The dig was immediately shut down by the city. It was unauthorized and considered akin to grave robbing. But then Renaud went to the media and made a huge stink. Champlain finally found, the tabloids declared, but uptight, regulation-bound bureaucrats had stopped the excavation. The media decided to portray it as a David and Goliath fight. Little old Augustin Renaud, valiantly struggling to find the man symbolic of French Québec, and the official archeologists and politicians stopping him.”
“Serge Croix must have loved that,” said Gamache.
Père Sébastien chuckled. “The Chief Archeologist was livid. I had him in here dozens of times over that period, ranting and raving. It wasn’t clear how much of his anger was directed at Renaud personally and how much was fear that Renaud might be right, and maybe this little amateur archeologist would make the biggest discovery of anyone’s career.”
“Champlain.”
“The Father of Québec.”
“But why is it important? Why’re so many people so passionate about where Champlain might be buried?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m curious, absolutely. And if he was found I’d visit the site and read everything I could about the discovery, but I don’t take it personally.”
“You think not? I wonder if that’s true. I see a lot of people who don’t realize they have a belief, a faith, until they’re dying, and then they discover it buried deep inside them. There all along.”
“But Champlain was a man, not a faith.”
“Perhaps at first, but he’s become more than that, to some. Co
me with me.”
Père Sébastien stood, bobbed briefly toward the gold crucifix at the altar and hurried out of the vast church. Gamache followed. Up wooden stairs, through back halls and finally into a cramped office, piled high with books and papers. And on the wall two reproductions. One of Christ, crucified, the other of Champlain.
The priest cleared magazines off two chairs and they sat.
“Champlain was a remarkable man, you know, and yet we know almost nothing about him. Even his birthday is a mystery. We don’t even know what he looked like. This painting? Does it look familiar?”
He motioned to the one on the wall. It was the image of Champlain every Quebecker knew, every Canadian knew. It showed a man about thirty wearing a green doublet, a lace collar, white gloves and a sword and hilt. His hair was in the style of the 1600s, long, dark and slightly curled. He had a trim beard and moustache. It was a handsome, intelligent face, a lean, athletic face with large, thoughtful eyes.
Samuel de Champlain. Gamache would pick him out of any lineup.
He nodded.
“That’s not him,” said Père Sébastien.
“It isn’t?”
“Look at this.” Sébastien pulled a book from the burdened bookcase. Flipping it open he handed it to the Chief Inspector. “Look familiar?”
There was the painting of a man, slightly pudgy, standing in front of a window with a verdant scene behind him. He was about thirty, wearing a green doublet, a lace collar, white gloves and a sword and hilt. His hair was in the style of the 1600s, long, dark and slightly curled. He had a trim beard and moustache. It was a handsome, intelligent face, with large, thoughtful eyes.
“That’s Michel Particelli d’Emery, an accountant for Louis XIII.”
“But it’s Champlain,” said Gamache. “Slightly heavier, and turned in the other direction, but essentially the same man, even down to the clothing.”
He handed the book back to the priest, stunned. Father Sébastien was smiling and nodding. “Someone lifted this image, tweaked it to make him look more courageous, more our image of a brave explorer, and called it Champlain.”
“But why would anyone have to? If there’re paintings of minor aristocrats and tradesmen, isn’t there a portrait of Champlain?”
The priest leaned forward, animated. “There’s not a single portrait of the man done during his life. We have no idea what he looked like. That’s not all. Why wasn’t Champlain ever given a title, or land here? He wasn’t even officially the Governor of Québec.”
“Have we exaggerated his significance?” asked Gamache and immediately regretted it. Again the priest bristled as though the Chief Inspector had thrown dirt on his idol.
“No. Every document we do have confirms he was the father of Québec. The records were written at the time by the Récollets. They founded the mission and the chapel. Champlain left half his money to them. He had the church built to celebrate the return of Québec from the English. He hated the English you know.”
“Hard not to hate an enemy. I suspect the English felt the same about him.”
“Perhaps. But it wasn’t just because they were enemies. He considered the English the real savages. Considered them cruel, especially to the natives. Reading Champlain’s diaries it became clear he’d developed a special relationship with the Huron and Algonquins. They taught him how to live in this country, and gave him detailed information on the waterways.
“He hated the English because they were more interested in slaughtering the Indians than working with them. Don’t get me wrong, Champlain saw the Indians as savages too. But he knew he could learn from them and he worried about their immortal souls.”
“And their furs?”
“Well, he was a businessman,” admitted Père Sébastien.
Gamache looked again at the painting on the wall next to the crucified Christ. “So we don’t know what Champlain looked like, when he was born, or where he’s buried. What do his diaries tell us about him?”
“That’s interesting too. They tell us next to nothing. They’re basically agendas about his travels and daily life here, but not his internal life, not his thoughts and feelings. He kept his private life private.”
“Even in his own diaries? Why?”
Sébastien put his palms to the ceiling in a stupefied manner. “There’re some theories. One is that he was a spy for the King of France, another is even more compelling. Some think he was actually the son of the King. Illegitimate, of course. But that might explain the mystery of his birth and the secrecy surrounding a man who should have been celebrated. It might also explain why he was sent here, to the middle of nowhere.”
“You said Augustin Renaud found a lead-lined coffin beneath one of the sanctuaries along with some coins but that the dig was stopped. Could he have been right? Might it be Champlain?”
“Would you like to see?”
Gamache stood. “Please.”
They walked back the way they came, each pausing to cross himself, and across the knave to a small grotto area with a tiny altar lit by votives.
“It’s through here.” Sébastien squeezed behind the altar and through a tiny archway. A flashlight balanced on a rough rock ledge and the priest turned it on, flooding the cramped area. The center of the beam played over the stones and came to rest on a coffin.
Gamache felt a thrill. Could this be him?
“Has it been opened?” Gamache dropped his voice.
“No,” whispered the priest. “After all that publicity the city finally agreed to let Renaud continue the dig, under their supervision. Privately the official archeologists were furious, publicly they sounded happy with the compromise. But after more imaging was done and records pored over it was decided this wasn’t Champlain but a much more recent coffin of a mid-level curate.”
“Are they sure?” Gamache turned to Father Sébastien, barely visible in the gloom. “Are you sure?”
“I was the one who convinced the city to continue the dig. I actually respected Renaud. He didn’t have a degree and he wasn’t trained, but he wasn’t a fool. And he’d found something no one else had, including me.”
“But had he found Champlain?”
“Not here. I wanted to believe it was. It would’ve been a coup for the church, brought in more people, and yes, more money. But when we looked closer and added it all up, it just wasn’t going to be Champlain.”
“But the coins?”
“They were from the 1600s and confirmed this was once the site of the original chapel and the cemetery, but nothing more.”
The two men emerged into the light of the little sanctuary.
“What do you think happened to Champlain, Father?”
The priest paused. “I think after the fire he was reburied. There’s a reference to a reburial taking place, but they don’t say where, and no official documents exist. This church has burned down a few times, taking valuable records with it each time.”
“You’ve studied Champlain most of your life, what do you think?”
“You asked me earlier why he mattered, why any of this mattered, and certainly why finding his body matters. It does. Champlain wasn’t simply the founder of a colony, there was something different about him, something that separated him from every explorer who’d gone before. And that I think explains how he managed to succeed where others failed. And why he’s remembered today, and revered.”
“What made him different?”
“He never referred to Québec as New France, you know. In France they did. Later regimes did. But never Champlain. Do you know what he called this place?”
Gamache thought about that. They were in the body of the church again and he stared, almost unseeing, down the long empty path that ended in the golden altar and the saints and martyrs, angels and crucifixes.
“The New World,” said Gamache at last.
“The New World,” agreed Père Sébastien. “That is why he’s loved. He’s a symbol of all that is great, all that is brave, all that Québec co
uld have been and might be again. He’s a symbol of freedom and sacrifice and vision. He didn’t just create a colony, he created a New World. And he’s adored for it.”
“By the separatists.”
“By everyone,” the priest eyed Gamache closely. “By yourself included, I think.”
“It’s true,” admitted Gamache and thought of that painting of Samuel de Champlain, and realized it reminded him of someone. Not just the plump and prosperous accountant, but someone else.
Christ. Jesus Christ.
They’d made Champlain look like the savior. And now the man who would raise him was dead. Killed, if you believed the tabloids, by the English, who may very well be also hiding the body of Champlain.
“Could Champlain be buried in the Literary and Historical Society?”
“Not a chance,” said Père Sébastien without hesitation. “That was wilderness in his day. They’d not have reburied him there.”
Unless, thought Gamache, the founder wasn’t quite the saint he’d become.
“Where do you think he is?” Gamache asked, again.
They were standing at the door, on the icy steps of the Basilica.
“Not far.”
Before ducking back into the church the priest nodded. Across the street. To the Café Buade.
ELEVEN
It wasn’t quite five in the afternoon and the sun was down. Elizabeth MacWhirter looked out the window. A small crowd had been milling outside the Literary and Historical Society all day. A bold few had come inside, almost daring the members to toss them out. Instead Winnie had greeted them, given them the bilingual brochures and invited them to join.
She’d even given some of the more brazen a brief tour of the library, pointing out the fine pillows on the walls, the collection of figs on the shelves and asking if any of them would like to become umlauts.
Not surprisingly few did. But three people actually paid twenty dollars and joined, shamed into it by Winnie’s obvious kindness and handicap.
“Did you mention that the night is a strawberry?” Elizabeth asked when Winnie returned with a membership payment.
“I did. They didn’t disagree. Ready?”