A Great Reckoning

  It was silly, but it was also sad. It was, she thought, strange. Maybe that’s why she liked it.

  Gamache noticed the group and, walking over, he took the map off the wall. He stared at it, then looked into their expectant faces.

  “There’s a mystery about this,” he said. “Any idea what it is?”

  He handed it to Huifen, who looked at it more closely and passed it around.

  “Why do you have it on the wall?” said Jacques. “I don’t see anything great about it.”

  “Then why are you looking at it?” Gamache asked.

  The head cadet was as tall as the Commander, but not yet filled out. Not yet substantial.

  “There’s no shame in showing curiosity,” said Gamache. “In fact, it’s sort of a prerequisite in an investigator. The more interested you are in things, in people, the better you’ll be at your job.”

  Commander Gamache looked down at the map. “This shows the place where Madame Gamache and I live. It was a gift from friends.”

  Then, making up his mind, he turned it over and carefully removed it from the frame.

  “I have an assignment for you,” he said to the four of them. “Solve the mystery of the map.”

  “But it’s not a crime,” said Nathaniel. “Is it?”

  “Not every mystery is a crime,” said the Commander. “But every crime starts as a mystery. A secret. Some hidden thought or feeling. A desire. Something not yet illegal that evolves, with time, into a crime. Every homicide I’ve investigated started as a secret.”

  He looked at them, as serious as they’d ever seen him.

  “You all have your secrets. You might be surprised how many of them I know.”

  “And you, sir?” asked Huifen. “Do you have any secrets?”

  Gamache smiled. “Lots. I’m a warehouse of other people’s indiscretions.”

  “She meant your own,” said Amelia.

  “I certainly have things I keep private, and yes, I do have a few secrets.” He turned from her to the other three. “Most of our secrets are pretty benign. Things we’re ashamed to tell others because they make us look bad. But there are a few that fester, that eventually consume us. Those are what we look for, as police. We investigate crimes, but first we investigate people. The things they don’t want others to know. Secrets aren’t treasure, you know. Secrets don’t make you powerful. They make you weak. Vulnerable.”

  He looked down at the painting in his hands.

  “The skills you’ll need to investigate a crime are the same ones you’ll need to solve the mystery of the map. I want you to work together, as a unit, and come up with the answers.”

  “Together?” said Jacques.

  “Maybe we can split into teams?” suggested Huifen. “The seniors versus the freshmen?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Nathaniel. “That’s not fair.”

  “Why not?” demanded Amelia, though she knew the answer.

  “How about guys versus girls?” asked Nathaniel.

  “There is no ‘versus.’ You’ll do it together,” said Gamache. “As a unit. In the Sûreté, we can’t choose our colleagues. They’re assigned. Get used to it.”

  “Is this for credit?” Jacques asked.

  “No, it’s for experience. If you don’t want to do it, just excuse yourself from the exercise. It’s all the same to me.”

  Jacques looked at the map, and despite himself, he wanted to know.

  “I’m in.”

  “Bon. I’ll have copies made and dropped off to each of you before the end of classes tomorrow.”

  The rest of the evening was spent with the students huddling, working out strategies.

  The next afternoon, copies of the map were handed to the four cadets, and the day after that there was a knock on the door of Commander Gamache’s office.

  “Oui,” he called, and looked up from his desk.

  Huifen, Jacques, Nathaniel, and Amelia entered. He took off his reading glasses and gestured toward the sitting area.

  “We’ve solved the mystery,” said Jacques.

  “Well, you didn’t do much,” said Amelia.

  “I was busy.”

  “Yes, being head cadet. I’ve heard.”

  “I did most of the work,” said Nathaniel.

  “How can you—” Huifen began before the Commander raised his hand and silence descended.

  He turned to Jacques.

  “And?” he asked.

  “And this place doesn’t exist.” Jacques gestured dismissively toward the painting. “It can’t be your home, unless you live in a hole in the ground or a tree trunk. There’s no village there. Nothing. Just forest and mountains. We checked on Google Maps and GPS.”

  “I even found some old paper maps of the Townships,” said Nathaniel. “Williamsburg is there, Saint-Rémy. Cowansville. But not the village, the one the map is designed around.”

  “Three Pines,” said Gamache.

  “You lied,” Jacques repeated.

  “Be careful, cadet, with your words,” he said softly.

  “That’s the mystery though, isn’t it?” said Huifen. “It’s a map to a fictional place. Why would someone do that? Isn’t that what you really want us to find out?”

  Gamache stood up and, walking to the door, he showed them out.

  They stood in the hallway, looking at the closed door.

  “We fucked up somewhere,” said Amelia, clicking her stud up and down.

  “Calling him a liar didn’t help,” said Huifen. “Why would you do that? He’s the Commander.”

  “In name only,” said Jacques.

  “Isn’t that enough?” asked Nathaniel.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Back to the map,” said Amelia. “We were right, weren’t we? The place doesn’t exist.”

  “And yet the Commander said he lives there,” said Huifen.

  “He’s fucking with us,” said Jacques. “Like the Duke said he would.”

  “Well, I know one way to find out,” said Huifen.

  * * *

  Armand looked in the rearview mirror. They were still there.

  It was early evening and already dark. He’d spotted them as soon as he turned out of the academy parking lot to drive home.

  At first he thought there was just one car, but after a few kilometers he noticed a second, hanging further back.

  He nodded approval. Someone had been paying attention in class.

  It was early March and winter still had its grip on Québec. His headlights caught the ragged edges of snowbanks on either side of the secondary road. He drove through the clear, crisp evening, the two cars still behind him.

  And then he lost them. Or, more precisely, they lost him.

  Sighing, Gamache pulled over into a Tim Hortons outside Cowansville. Parking under the lights, he waited. One of the cars circled once, twice, and on the third time, they spotted him and turned in, parking well away.

  The second car had managed to follow him and had pulled off the road a hundred yards beyond the doughnut shop.

  Huifen, he suspected. With Jacques, maybe. But he wondered why they hadn’t just called the others in the first car when they pulled over.

  They needed, perhaps, another lesson on what teamwork meant.

  As Gamache drove out of the parking lot the first car pulled right out, determined not to lose him again. The second hung back.

  Yes. There was more skill there. And confidence.

  He decided to take the scenic route home.

  * * *

  “Where’s he going?” asked Huifen.

  “I don’t know,” said Jacques, bored and hungry. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe he’s lost,” said Amelia.

  “Maybe he can’t find the door back into the parallel universe,” said Nathaniel.

  It was difficult to tell when he was serious.

  “Has anyone been taking notes on where we’re going?” asked Amelia. “I’m lost.”

  “That was
your job,” said Huifen.

  “Mine? I’m in the backseat. I can barely see.”

  “Well, I’m driving.”

  They argued some more until the road ahead went dark. Very dark. No streetlights. No taillights. No car.

  “Tabernac,” said Jacques. “Now where’d he go?”

  * * *

  Gamache shook his head.

  “I’ll be a little later than expected,” he said into the Bluetooth.

  “Lost them again?” said Reine-Marie. “Well, I’ll set more places at the table. They’ll be hungry when they finally find you again.”

  “Merci.”

  He put his car in gear and started looking for the cadets, finally finding them parked in a service station. He pulled in, and though he didn’t need any, he decided to gas up. Just to see them scramble. And also to explain his own presence there.

  * * *

  “Shit, there he is,” said Amelia, sliding down in the backseat. “Get down.”

  By now they’d gotten so well into the exercise, they’d almost convinced themselves their lives, and those of others, depended on following this man.

  They got down. So far down they missed it when the Commander pulled out.

  * * *

  Gamache sighed and paused at the exit to the service station, his blinker on. He all but honked to get their attention.

  First thing in the morning, he thought, I’m going to call Professor McKinnon and get her to take the students out and refresh them on trailing a suspect.

  Tiring of the exercise and wanting his own dinner, Commander Gamache drove straight home. A motorcade behind him.

  * * *

  “Don’t lose him,” said Jacques.

  “I’ll make a note of that,” said Huifen. She was starving and they still had to figure out how to get back to the academy after this. By that time, they’d have missed dinner and would have to break into the kitchens or do with the crackers they had stashed in their rooms.

  Up ahead, the Commander’s car disappeared from sight, as though he’d driven off a cliff.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Jacques.

  Huifen slowed down and edged the car forward. Then she stopped.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered. Behind her Amelia and Nathaniel sat up.

  Below them, in the middle of the dark forest, was a radiant village.

  Huifen turned off the car and the cadets got out, walking forward. Their boots crunching on the snow and their warm breath coming out in puffs.

  They stopped at what felt like the edge of the world.

  Amelia tilted her head back, feeling the fresh air raw on her cheeks.

  Above them, a riot of stars formed horses and birds and magical creatures.

  And below the stars, the village.

  “It does exist,” whispered Nathaniel.

  Gamache’s car drove slowly by old brick and fieldstone and clapboard homes.

  Light spilled from mullioned windows and glowed on the snow.

  At the far end of the village, the cadets could see people coming and going from what looked like a brasserie, though the view was obscured by three huge pine trees grown up in the very center of the village.

  “We should go.” Nathaniel tugged at Huifen’s coat, but the older girl just stood there.

  “Not yet. We need to know for sure.”

  “Know what?” he asked. “We followed him and found the village. This is the mystery. Not that it doesn’t exist, but that it does. Let’s go before we get into trouble.”

  “Aren’t you curious?” Amelia asked him.

  As they watched, the car came to rest in front of a two-story white clapboard home, all lit up. Smoke came out of the chimney into the crisp night air. Puffs. As though the home was breathing.

  The Commander got out of the car, but instead of walking up the path cut through the snow to the sweeping front veranda, he turned in the other direction. And walked away from the home. Toward them.

  “Oh, shit. Don’t move,” whispered Nathaniel. “He’ll see movement. He’ll hear us.”

  At the bottom of the hill, the Commander stopped and peered.

  “Be quiet,” Nathaniel whispered. “Be quiet.”

  “You be quiet,” hissed Amelia.

  “Dinner’s on,” Gamache called into the darkness. “Boeuf bourguignon, if you’re interested.”

  Then he retraced his steps. Followed shortly by the munching of tires on snow. He stopped and watched as a car made its way down the hill and around the village green. A single car. He looked up and saw a very faint glow approach the edge of the hill. And recede. It crept back until there was complete and utter darkness up there.

  Armand Gamache walked slowly along the path to his home. Thinking. And realizing he’d been wrong.

  The cadets were all in one car.

  So who was in the other?

  CHAPTER 10

  “Are you mad at us?” asked Nathaniel.

  “Mad?” asked Armand, passing him the basket of fresh rolls. “Why would I be angry?”

  “Well, we followed you,” he said, taking a warm roll and holding it in his still chilled hands.

  “After a fashion, yes. I’m not angry about the fact you did it, just the way you did it.”

  “And we doubted you,” said Huifen. “We thought you were lying when you said you lived in the village.”

  Her voice petered out as she watched Madame Gamache ladle huge spoonfuls of beef stew onto plates of egg noodles.

  The young people stared as though they’d never seen food before.

  Except for Amelia, who was engaged in a staring contest of her own with the other person at the table.

  A broken-down old wreck. And her duck.

  Commander Gamache smiled. “Doubt is never a bad thing in a Sûreté du Québec agent. You did exactly as I’d hoped. You didn’t take me at my word, you looked for proof.”

  “But why doesn’t this place show up on any map?” asked Jacques, speaking into his fork of boeuf bourguignon.

  “There’re way smaller villages that’re on the maps,” said Huifen, managing to look at Gamache. “We didn’t believe you lived here because, well, there is no here, here.”

  That brought a smile to Reine-Marie’s face as she held out her hand for Nathaniel’s plate. He’d wolfed down the first helping at a speed that would put Henri to shame, and now she spooned out more chunks of tender beef and onions and carrots along with the rich, fragrant broth.

  The food in the academy dining hall had improved since the contract had been taken from a national chain and given to a local chef. But it wasn’t this.

  Amelia had finished her dinner quickly, putting her head down and scooping the stew into her mouth, barely chewing. Wiping the gravy up with the rolls, she’d cleaned her plate, then sat back, her arms across her chest.

  The elderly woman also sat back, and crossed her arms. Amelia had the impression that if the demon duck could have crossed its wings, it would have.

  The woman, who’d been introduced to them as the Gamaches’ neighbor, Ruth, seemed to be intentionally mirroring Amelia’s actions. When Amelia reached for a drink, so did the creepy old lady.

  Only, Amelia’s glass held Coke. The old woman’s was Scotch.

  When Amelia ate, she ate. When Amelia sat back, she sat back.

  And now they were in a staring contest.

  “Well, you found the village,” said Gamache. “And solved the first mystery. And now you’ve come face-to-face with the second mystery. Why isn’t it on any map, except that one?”

  “Even Google Maps doesn’t have it,” said Huifen. “And the GPS thinks we parked in the middle of the forest.”

  “The middle of nowhere,” said Jacques.

  “It’s still recalculating,” said Nathaniel. “She seemed quite concerned for us.”

  Huifen picked up the old map from the pine harvest table and examined it again.

  “And you don’t know the answer to that question?” she said, looking
from the Commander to Madame Gamache and back again. “Why the village only shows up here but nowhere else?”

  They shook their heads.

  “What gets me is that this shows things a normal map never would,” said Huifen.

  “Like the snowman and the cow,” said Jacques, leaning toward her. “Why a snowman? It can’t possibly be a landmark since it would melt away.”

  “Then there’s the pyramid,” said Nathaniel.

  “Maybe it was just an exercise, to pass the time,” said Huifen. “Like those old embroideries. What were they called?”

  “Samplers,” said Madame Gamache.

  “That’s not a sampler,” said Amelia, keeping her eyes on the wretched old wreck in front of her. “All those little lines. They’re contours. Showing elevation. It’s a real map.”

  “Why was it made?” asked Huifen.

  “And that’s the third secret this map has yet to give up,” said Gamache. “What’s its purpose?”

  The map had seemed almost laughable when they’d first seen it hanging on the wall of the Commander’s rooms, but now it was ripe with intrigue.

  “It’s sort of nice that Three Pines isn’t on any official map,” Reine-Marie admitted. “It means we won’t be disturbed.”

  “Too late,” said Amelia, gesturing to Ruth.

  Armand said nothing, remembering the glow on the hill.

  Someone had found them.

  “So where did the map come from?” asked Amelia, breaking eye contact with the crazy old lady.

  Throughout dinner, the kitchen had been filled with the scents of cinnamon and brown sugar, mingling and mixing with the earthy aroma of the boeuf bourguignon and rolls.

  Now Armand got up and brought something out of the oven, and the fragrance became even more pronounced.

  Taking off the oven mitts, he turned to Amelia.

  “It was a gift from the person who found it. He could see how much I’d admired it.”

  “Olivier didn’t find it,” snapped Ruth. “I did.”

  They were the first words she’d spoken, besides the “Fuck off” to Huifen when she’d tried to help the frail old woman to the table.

  “True,” said Reine-Marie. “But it belongs to Olivier. Not sure if you noticed the bistro when you arrived. He and his partner Gabri own it.”

  “But where did he find it?” asked Amelia. “It wasn’t drawn yesterday, it must’ve been lying around for years.”