The Long Way Home

As they watched, a figure slowly unfolded from a chair. Lanky, gangly, like a puppet or scarecrow. He stood, framed in the dark rectangle of the door. Then he took a step toward them. Then another.

And then he stopped. Paralyzed.

*

The man stood up when he saw them on the hill. He stood, and he stared. And then he reached out to grasp the weather-beaten post holding up the porch. He gripped it tight, clinging to it, and to his reason. Knowing what he saw could not possibly be real.

It was a mirage, a jest, a trick. Conjured from exhaustion and shock.

He leaned against the rough post and stared at the men.

It could not be.

*

Gamache and Beauvoir stared at the man on the porch.

And then they broke into a rapid walk that verged on a run.

The man on the porch saw this and backed up. He looked behind him, into the cave of the small house.

Then he looked at the specters, making their way toward him. Swarming toward him, down the hill. From Tabaquen.

“Peter?” Jean-Guy called.

Peter Morrow, frozen in place, stared.

“My God, it is you,” he said.

Peter was disheveled, his hair unruly, unkempt. The normally well-groomed man had two days’ stubble on his face, and purple under his eyes.

He hugged the post and looked like he’d buckle to the ground if he let go. When Gamache was within reach, Peter let go of the post and gripped Armand.

“You came,” Peter whispered, afraid to blink in case they disappeared. “Armand, thank God. It’s you.”

He squeezed Gamache’s arms to make sure this wasn’t some illusion.

Armand Gamache stared into Peter Morrow’s blue, bloodshot eyes. And saw exhaustion and desperation. And perhaps, just there, the tiniest glint of hope.

He took Peter by the shoulders and sat him in a chair on the porch.

“Is he inside?” Gamache asked, and Peter nodded.

“Stay here,” said Beauvoir, though it was clear that Peter Morrow had absolutely no intention of going anywhere.

*

Inside the one-room cabin, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir stared down at the bed.

A pillow lay over the head of the body. And from underneath it the blood had poured, flooding out, turning the white sheets a brilliant red.

But that had stopped hours ago, the investigators could tell. When the heart had stopped. Hours ago.

Gamache felt for the man’s pulse. There was none. He was cold as marble.

“Did you put the pillow over his face?” Gamache called out the door.

“God, no,” came the reply.

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances. Then, steeling himself, Armand Gamache lifted the pillow, as Jean-Guy recorded the events.

And then Gamache sighed. A long, long, slow exhale.

“When did Professor Massey arrive?” the Chief asked, staring down at the bed. The dead man’s mouth was slightly open, as though a thought had occurred to him in the instant before he died.

What would he have said? Don’t do it? Please, please, for God’s sake. Would he have begged for his life? Would he have screamed recriminations? Empty threats?

Gamache doubted it. Rarely had he seen a man so apparently at peace with being murdered. With being driven to Samarra and dumped in front of Death.

But perhaps, Gamache thought as he looked at those calm eyes, this appointment was fated.

Two men whose lives had crossed decades before, walking to this terrible moment in this desolate place.

“He arrived a couple days ago, I think.” The voice drifted in through the open door as though the wider world was speaking to them. “I’ve lost track of time.”

“When did this happen?” Beauvoir asked. “Not a couple of days ago. He died fairly recently.”

“Last night. Early this morning maybe. I found him like that this morning.”

There was a pause and Gamache walked to the door. Peter was sitting, collapsed in the chair, stunned.

“Look at me,” said Gamache, his voice calm, reasonable. Trying to bring Peter back to reality. He could see Peter detaching, drifting away. From the cabin, from the coast, from the horrific discovery.

From the blood-sodden bed, and the stone man with the slit throat. Like a grotesque sculpture. Gamache couldn’t decide if the look of extreme peace made it better or worse.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t here. Professor Norman sent me away, asked me to leave the two of them alone and come back in the morning. This morning. When I did, I found—” He waved toward the cabin door.

Gamache could hear Beauvoir taking pictures and dictating into his device.

“White male. Cause of death, a wound to the throat made with a large knife, cutting from the carotid artery to the jugular. No sign of struggle. No sign of the weapon.”

“Did you touch anything?” Gamache asked.

“No, nothing.” And Peter sounded so revolted that Gamache believed him.

“Has anyone else been here since you arrived this morning?”

“Only Luc. He comes by every morning. I sent him away to call for help.”

Now Peter really focused on Gamache.