“A puddle of pee at the front door?”
“Even that.” Paul Gélinas was looking down at the sandwiches as he sliced them. “My wife was a lot like Madame Gamache. Always bringing home strays. Animals. People.” Gélinas’s hands paused and he grunted in surprise. “She died three years ago. Sometimes it seems like she’s been gone forever. And sometimes I still smell her perfume and hear her footsteps and look up, expecting to see her. And then I remember.”
“I’m sorry,” said Armand.
“When a job came up at the embassy in Paris after she died, I took it. Needed to get away. A change. I came back a few months ago.”
“Did it help?” asked Gamache. “Paris?”
“It didn’t hurt,” said Gélinas, smiling.
Gamache smiled back and nodded and turned the sandwiches over in the pan. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, or hollow.
Paul Gélinas, roughly Gamache’s age, was living his nightmare.
But Gamache knew something else.
Deputy Commissioner Gélinas had not been seconded to Paris to serve canapés at diplomatic soirées. This man had been in the intelligence service. He’d almost certainly spent the last few years as a spy.
And now he was here. Invited into the investigation, to spy on them.
“You have a nice home here, monsieur,” said Gélinas as they took their sandwiches to the harvest table. “The S?reté Academy must have held some powerful attractions, for you to leave this for that.”
It was said pleasantly. A guest making polite conversation. But both men knew that, while polite, it was not simply conversation.
“I left to clean up the academy,” said Gamache. “As I suspect you very well know.”
Gélinas took a huge bite of his sandwich and nodded approvingly. “Delicious,” he managed to say as he chewed. Finally swallowing, he said, “Sometimes, to clean up a mess, we have to make an even bigger one. It gets worse before it gets better.”
Gamache put down his sandwich and looked across the pine table at the RCMP officer.
“Is this going somewhere?”
“I think you’d do just about anything to protect your family, your home.”
Gélinas glanced at the kitchen, then looked in the other direction, to the woodstove and comfortable chairs next to the windows looking out to the village green.
“Are we talking about the death of Serge Leduc, or something else?” asked Gamache.
“Oh, we’re still on topic. The S?reté Academy is an extension of your home, isn’t it? And the cadets are extensions of your family, just as the homicide division of the S?reté once was. You are a man with a protective instinct. To care that deeply is a blessing. But like most blessings, it can also be a curse.”
Now Gélinas also carefully, regretfully, returned his sandwich to his plate.
“I know.”
“And what do you know?”
“I know how much it hurts when someone we care about dies, or is threatened.”
“I did not care for Serge Leduc.”
Deputy Commissioner Gélinas broke into a smile at that. “I wasn’t referring to Leduc. From all I hear, he was a nasty piece of work. Non. I meant the academy.”
“It’s true that I care about the academy,” said Gamache. “But it’s an institution. If it disappeared tomorrow I’d be sad, but I wouldn’t move to Paris.”
Gélinas nodded and gave a small grunt. “Forgive me, but are you being intentionally obtuse, Commander? By academy, I mean the cadets. The flesh-and-blood young men and women who are your responsibility. While Leduc was in charge, there was misconduct, misappropriation of funds. Perhaps even abuse. I hear the rumors too, you know. But within months of you taking over, there was a murder.”
“Who’s worse? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m asking,” said Gélinas. “I’ve followed your career, Commander Gamache. I know what you’re capable of doing. And believe me, I have only the greatest respect for you, for your choices. Doing what others could not. It’s only because of that respect that I am being this open with you. You must know why I’m here.”
“I do,” said Gamache. “You’re not investigating the murder of Professor Leduc, you’re investigating me.”
“Wouldn’t you? Who had it in for him from the very beginning?”
“But I kept him on. I could have fired him.”
“And isn’t that in itself suspicious, monsieur?” Gélinas wiped his mouth with his napkin, then placed it carefully on the table.
“You’ve been open with me,” said Gamache. “Now let me be open with you. I detested Leduc, but I did not kill him. And you are here because I asked for you.”
For the first time since they met, Gélinas showed surprise.
“For me personally?”
“Oui. I called Chief Superintendent Brunel just before Isabelle Lacoste placed her call. I asked for you.”
“But Chief Inspector Lacoste didn’t mention that.”
“She doesn’t know.”
The RCMP officer cocked his head slightly and examined Gamache.
“Why me?”
“Because I wanted to meet you.”
“Why? And how did you even know about me?”
“I spent some time in retirement, you know. Recovering. Deciding what to do next. Figuring out what I really wanted to do.”
“Yes, I’d heard.”
“In that time, there were a number of job offers. Including from the RCMP.”
“For Paris?”
Gamache shook his head.
“To head up the Québec detachment?”
Gamache shook his head.
“Ottawa?”
Gamache sat still while Gélinas’s mind followed that path. Then stopped.
“The Commissioner? You were offered the top job? He’s to retire in the next few months.”
“I declined. Do you know why?”
“To take over the academy?”
“That was, actually, the major reason. But I also declined after doing a great deal of research.”
“And what did you discover?”
“That there is a better person for the job. You. This morning, when it was clear we needed an independent observer, I realized it was an opportunity to meet you. To see if I was right.”
“I’m not one of your protégés,” said Gélinas. “And this is a murder investigation, not a job interview.”
“No one knows that better than me,” said Gamache, also placing his napkin, like a flag of truce, on the table. “Now. Let me tell you about Serge Leduc.”
CHAPTER 17
“Oui, je comprends.” Though Olivier sounded unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
On the other end of the phone, Armand Gamache spoke swiftly, softly, not wanting to be overheard. He stepped from his study, out into the living room, and could see Gélinas and Reine-Marie still in the back garden of their home.
Then he turned and looked through his study window, to the bistro. He could see movement in the window and wondered if it was the cadets.
And he willed them to stay there. To stay put. To not leave the bistro.
“I wish people would stop asking me if I’m sure,” he said.
“They will, patron, once you stop making almost incomprehensible decisions.” He was whispering too, to match Gamache’s voice, though he had no idea why.
“I’ll do my best. Can you keep the cadets there, Olivier? Just until we leave?”
“Fortunately, I have a whip and a chair. Don’t ask.”
“I’m assuming it has something to do with Ruth,” said Gamache, and heard Olivier chuckle softly, and then it stopped.
“What’s this about, Armand? Are they in danger?” There was a pause. “Are we?”
“I’m trying to prevent something terrible happening,” said Gamache, though something terrible had already happened.
In bringing the cadets to Three Pines, he was trying to prevent something worse.
*
“Okay,” said Olivier, standing at their table. “Monsieur Gamache just called and said he couldn’t rejoin you after all.”
“Just fucking great,” said Jacques, throwing himself back in his chair. “He drags us down here, away from the action, then just leaves us here? What’s he doing? Napping?”
“What is wrong with you?” asked Olivier. “Is it just him or are you rude to everyone?”
“You don’t know him,” said Jacques. “You think you do, but you don’t. You know the nice neighbor. You don’t know the real man.”
“And you do?”