He smiled.
“Yes, sir. It is. My family’s been working in the mills for a long time.”
“Are you the first of your family in the Sûreté?” he asked.
“Oui. They didn’t want me to join. Said it wasn’t respectable.”
Maudit tabarnac, she thought, and looked around for a gun to stick in her mouth.
But the large man in front of her, with the scar by his temple, just laughed and lines radiated from his kind brown eyes. “And do they still feel that way?”
“No, sir, they don’t.” And now all her nerves calmed and she met his gaze. “Not after what you did. Now they’re proud of me.”
Gamache held her eyes and smiled. “They’re proud of you, and they should be. It has nothing to do with me.”
By now other agents and inspectors had heard Chief Inspector Gamache was there, and they drifted by. Some said hello. Some just stared and moved on.
“Chief Inspector.” A middle-aged woman in uniform came out of an office, her hand outstretched. “Jeanne Nadeau. I’m the station chief.”
She led them into her office. It was an even tighter squeeze than the reception area.
“This isn’t, of course, official business,” he said. “We’re trying to find a friend of ours and he was last seen in your area in late spring.”
“He’s my husband,” Clara said, and showed Captain Nadeau a picture of Peter and described him.
“Can we make copies?” Nadeau asked, and when Clara agreed she made the arrangements.
“How can I help?”
“I take it no one matching his description has come to your attention lately?” Gamache asked, and they all recognized the code. Nadeau shook her head and her intelligent eyes went from Gamache to Clara.
“Why was he here?”
Clara explained it, succinctly.
“So you think he was looking for this Professor Norman,” Nadeau said. She turned from Clara to Chartrand. “You say he was known as No Man when he lived here?”
“Well, that’s what he called himself.”
Nadeau barely reacted. It was clear that this was not the first oddity she’d run into in Baie-Saint-Paul. Artists were not, perhaps, best known for conventional behavior.
“Did you know him?” Clara asked.
“No Man?” Nadeau shook her head. “Before my time.” She walked over to the wall, where a detailed map of the area was pinned.
“Where was this art colony of his?”
Chartrand showed her and she made a note of it.
“But you say it’s long gone?”
“At least ten years, probably more,” said Chartrand.
“Any suggestion of criminal activity?” she asked.
“No,” said Chartrand. “They seemed to keep to themselves.”
Nadeau picked up her phone and spoke into it. A short time later, a bulky older man in uniform came into the office. He smelled of bachelorhood and fried fish.
“Oui?”
He looked like he might be in trouble, and his eyes shifted from his station commander to Gamache, who was squeezed into a corner and felt the coat tree digging into his back, as though it was a stickup.
“This is Agent Morriseau,” said Nadeau. “He’s been here longer than anyone. These people are asking about a man named Norman. He lived here a number of years ago and started an artist retreat, a sort of colony out by the second concession.”
“You mean No Man?” Morriseau asked, and suddenly had everyone’s attention.
“That’s the one,” said Clara.
“Got quite popular for a while,” said Morriseau. “But then they do, don’t they?”
“They?”
“Cults.” He looked at their surprised faces. “You must’ve known. Otherwise, why’re you asking?”
“It was a cult?” asked Chartrand.
“Yes.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Clara.
“It wasn’t just a bunch of artists painting away,” said Morriseau. “They were into some sort of weird religion.”
“How do you know that?” asked Jean-Guy.
“I made it my business to know,” said the agent. “These places can start out pretty normal and then take a nasty turn. I wanted to make sure they stayed on this side of crazy.”
There was that word again, thought Gamache.
“Why do you say crazy?”
Morriseau turned in the direction of the talking coat tree.
“And what would you call it, sir?” he asked politely.
Gamache decided not to ask him if he ever prayed his lottery ticket numbers won, or the skidding car stayed on the road.
“And did they?” he asked instead. “Stay on this side of the line?”
“As far as I know they did. Then that No Man disappeared. The spaceship must’ve come and taken him away.”
Morriseau laughed, then stopped, having misjudged his audience. It worked in the bar. It worked in the squad room. But these people just stared, as though he was the one who’d crossed a line.
“Any idea where he went?” Beauvoir asked.
“Non. I think people were just happy to see him go.”
Driven out of another place, thought Gamache. Or maybe not.
“Is there anyone still living in Baie-Saint-Paul who was a member of the community?” Clara asked.
“Yes. Luc Vachon.”
“We already know about him,” said Beauvoir. “He’s off painting. Anyone else?”
The agent thought about it, then shook his head.
“Merci,” said the station chief and Morriseau left. She looked at them expectantly. “Is there anything else I can do?”
There wasn’t.
Before they left, Gamache ducked back into Captain Nadeau’s office and asked if they had any sniffer dogs.
“For drugs?” she asked.
“For the other,” he said.
“You think not everyone left,” she said.
“I think there was no spaceship,” he said.
She gave one brusque nod. “I’ll make arrangements.”
He gave her his coordinates, and as he left he saw her walk to the map on the wall.
* * *
They returned to the Galerie Gagnon expecting to spend the night there, but Marcel Chartrand surprised them.
“I think I mentioned that this isn’t my main home. I stay here on weekends when the gallery’s busy. My main home is up the coast a few miles. I need to go back there tonight, but you’re welcome to stay here.”
“What would you prefer?” Clara asked.
“I’d prefer it if you came with me,” he said. And while his eyes swept the group and included them all, they came to rest on Clara.
She didn’t shy away from the gaze.
“I think—” Beauvoir began.
“We’d love to come to your home. Merci,” said Clara.
As they packed, Beauvoir whispered to Gamache, “You should’ve said something, patron. We’re better off here than in a house in the middle of nowhere. If we’re going to track down Peter, we need to be asking more questions.”
“And what questions are those?” Gamache asked.
“Was it really a cult? Did No Man leave voluntarily or was he kicked out of his own community? Where did he go?”
“Good questions, but who would we ask?” Gamache zipped up his case and turned to face Beauvoir.
Jean-Guy considered. They seemed to have hit a dead end.
“Are we so sure No Man really did leave?” Beauvoir asked.
Gamache gave one curt nod. “Captain Nadeau is looking into that. They’re bringing in sniffer dogs.”
“For corpses?”
Gamache nodded again. He wasn’t sure if they’d find anything. And if they did, whether the body would be ten years old, or ten weeks.
Like Beauvoir, he also found it curious that Marcel Chartrand wanted to take them away from Baie-Saint-Paul. They could have stayed above the Galerie for another night. They were already s
ettled in. Surely it was easier, even for Chartrand, to stay.
And yet the gallery owner wanted to move them to a remote home.
Beauvoir was right. There were questions to be asked here. But Gamache suspected most of the answers could be found with Chartrand.
THIRTY-ONE
After stopping for groceries, they drove up the coast highway, the road following the hills and rock cuts and cliffs.
Marcel Chartrand was ahead of them in his van, while Clara drove the others in the car.
Chartrand’s turn signal went on after a few miles. Instead of turning left, away from the river, he was signaling right. But there didn’t seem to be any “right” to be had. Just a cliff. But they went around a corner and there was a spit of land jutting into the river. And on it a cluster of brightly painted, cheerful homes.
“Once belonged to one family,” Marcel explained as he came over to meet them. “All daughters. None married. They built their homes together.”
The houses were modest in size, painted bright red and blue and yellow. Lighthouses, it seemed, in the gray landscape. The style of each house was similar, but slightly different, with swooping dormers and fieldstone chimneys and wooden porches. The roofs were sheet metal and looked like silver fish scales. They caught the fading light and turned soft blues and pinks.
“Does it have a name?” Myrna asked.
“The community? No. No name.”
“No Name,” Myrna repeated.
“Who lives here now?” Clara asked, following Chartrand to the home nearest the river.
“Those places belong to summer people.” He pointed to the other two houses. “I’m the only one who lives here year-round.”
“Does it ever get lonely?” Myrna asked.
“Sometimes. But what compensation.”
His arm swept in an arc, taking in the trees and rocks and cliffs and great dome of sky. And the dark river. Marcel Chartrand was staring as though each was a close friend.
But none had a heartbeat, thought Myrna. It was no doubt glorious, but was it really compensation?
“I bought the place twenty-five years ago. Had been on the market for years, since the last sister died. No one else wanted it. It was derelict by then, of course.”
Chartrand swung the door open and they entered.
They found themselves in a low living room, with wooden floors and beams. It would have felt claustrophobic, but Chartrand had used a traditional milk wash to paint the beams and the plaster walls white.
The result was a welcoming, homey feel. Two armchairs and an old sofa were arranged around the large open fireplace. Windows on either side looked out onto the St. Lawrence.
Once settled into their rooms, they poured drinks then gathered in the kitchen to make a meal of pasta, garlic butter baguette and chicory salad.
“You met No Man,” Gamache said to Chartrand as he made the salad and Chartrand set the table. “You’re the only one here who has—”
“That’s not strictly true,” said Chartrand. “Clara, you knew him.”
“I guess I did,” she said. “I keep forgetting. It was so long ago and I didn’t take his course. I’d see him in the hallway, but that was all. Barely recognized him from that self-portrait in the yearbook, but I guess that was the fashion at the time. Everyone wanted to look tortured.”
“They might have wanted to look it, but Norman actually was,” said Myrna.
“But you lectured at the art colony,” said Gamache, getting back to Chartrand. “Did it strike you as a cult?”
Chartrand stopped what he was doing and thought. “I don’t think so. But what would a cult look like? Would you necessarily know?”
“What’s the difference between a commune and a cult?” asked Beauvoir.
“Both have a sort of guiding philosophy,” said Myrna. “But a commune is open—members can come and go. A cult is closed. Rigid. Demands conformity and absolute loyalty to the leader and the beliefs. It shuts people off from the greater society.”
“Interesting then that No Man invited Marcel in to lecture,” said Clara. “That doesn’t seem the act of a cult leader.”
“No,” said Myrna. She looked at Chartrand, then looked away.
Gamache, watching closely, thought he knew what she was thinking.
Maybe Chartrand wasn’t invited in. Maybe he was already there.
Gamache had suspected for a while that Marcel Chartrand might’ve been a member of No Man’s community. Not because he knew so much about it, but because he pretended not to.
Chartrand looked up and smiled at Gamache. It was friendly, disarming. A comradely look. And Gamache wanted to believe they were indeed on the same side.
But instead of resolving, his doubts were growing.
“Did they show you any of their works?” Clara asked. She, alone among them, seemed to have no suspicions of Chartrand.
“No, and I didn’t ask to see them.”
Now Myrna did look up, then over at Clara. Willing her to see what was so odd. Here was an art gallery owner who seemed completely disinterested in any art.
Most gallery owners had a specialty, but were at least curious about art in general. Indeed, most were passionate and quite obnoxious about it.
Clara, who was putting garlic butter on the rounds of sliced baguette, didn’t seem to register anything peculiar.
“Did No Man ever show you his works?” Gamache asked.
“No.”
“Let me guess,” said Beauvoir. “You didn’t ask.”
Chartrand found that amusing. “When you find what you love, there’s no need to look further.”
“It’s a shame Luc Vachon has taken off,” said Clara. “He could’ve told us more about the colony.”
“Yes,” said Gamache. “It is.”
“You’d think he’d tell someone where he went,” said Beauvoir. “The server said ‘down the coast,’ but that could be anywhere.”
His knife that had been cutting tomatoes for the salad paused.
“You know, I asked her where he went, but I’m not sure—”
As he thought, the knife slowly descended until it was resting on the cutting board. He was staring ahead, replaying the conversations in the brasserie.
“Merde,” he said at last, dropping the knife altogether. “Where’s your phone?”
Chartrand pointed into the living room. “Why?”
“I asked the server where Vachon went and she didn’t know. Then I asked the guy at the bar when he’d be back and if I could contact him. But I didn’t ask him where Vachon goes. The young server didn’t know, but he might. Tabarnac.”
He reached into his pocket, brought out his notebook, and found the phone number for La Muse.
They could hear him in the living room, punching in the numbers.
Myrna and Gamache were standing together at the sink.
“What’re you thinking, Armand?” she asked quietly.
“I’m thinking that No Man disappears, then Peter disappears, and now Luc Vachon, the only member of the art colony still around, disappears.”
“And now we’ve disappeared,” Myrna whispered.
“True.”
“Come on, Armand, out with it. What’re you really thinking?”
“I’m thinking”—Gamache dried his hands on the towel and turned to face her—“that No Man lived here quietly for a number of years, and then word spread that he was a cult leader, and he was driven out.”
“That’s not thinking,” said Myrna. “That’s recapping. You can do better than that.”
“I’m thinking,” said Gamache, giving her a censorious look, “that I need to make a phone call.”
“Give Reine-Marie my love,” she called after him.
Gamache nodded and, stepping outside, brought out his cell phone. He didn’t tell Myrna that this call wasn’t to his wife. It was to someone else in Three Pines.
“What the hell do you want?”
It was Ruth’s version of “Hello.”
r /> “I want to talk to you about your visit to the art college today.”
“Didn’t you talk to your wife about that? Why bother me?”
“I wanted to ask you something Reine-Marie couldn’t answer.”
“What?” came the impatient voice, but he could hear the note of curiosity in it.
“That couplet of yours keeps coming up.”
“Which one, Miss Marple? I’ve written hundreds of poems.”
“You know which one, ma belle.” He could almost hear her cringe. Gamache had long ago learned that if you wanted to endear yourself to Ruth, you gave as good as you got. But if you wanted to terrify her, be kind. “I just sit where I’m put … That one.”
“So?”
“So Reine-Marie said you and Professor Massey quoted it together today. I’ve never heard you do that before. You must have liked him.”
“What’s your point?”
“Reine-Marie says he was quite taken with you.”
“You sound surprised.”
“And you with him.” That brought a pause. “And that when she asked you about it you said something. She thought it was in Latin. What was it?”
“None of your business. Is it so laughable that two old people could find each other attractive? Is it so unbelievable?”
Something else that was inexplicable?
Far from being angry, Ruth sounded on the verge of tears. Gamache remembered then, though it was never far from the surface, some of the things he despised about his job.
“What did you say, Ruth, when Reine-Marie asked you about your feelings for Professor Massey?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I was quoting one of my favorite poets,” she said. “And no, it wasn’t me.”
“Who was it?”
“Seamus Heaney.”
“A line from one of his poems?” Gamache asked.
“No. It was the last thing he said. Before dying. He said it to his wife. Noli timere.”
Gamache felt a lump in his throat but pressed forward.
“The poem you and Professor Massey quoted,” he said. “I just sit where I’m put, composed of stone and wishful thinking.”
He waited for her to complete it, as she had with the elderly professor. But she didn’t, and Gamache finished it himself.
“That the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal.”