The Long Way Home

They went back to studying the three paintings on the table.

Now and then one of them, as though repelled by these three, broke away and went over to the paintings on the floor.

Then, as though repelled again, they returned to the table.

“Well,” said Gabri, after consideration. “I have to say, they stink.”

The paintings were garish, splashes and clashes of color. Reds and purples, yellows and oranges. Fighting with each other. Dashed on the paper and canvas. It was as though Peter had taken a club to every rule he’d learned. Hacking away at them. Breaking them like a pi?ata. And out of those shattered certainties paint had poured. Gobs and gobs of brilliant paint. All the colors he’d sniffed at, sneered at, mocked with his clever artist friends. All the colors he’d withheld and Clara had used. They poured out. Like blood. Like guts.

They hit the paper and this was the result.

“What does this say about Peter?” Gamache asked.

“Do we really need to look in that cave?” Myrna whispered to him.

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But is there any difference between these”—he pointed to the ones on the table—“and those?” He gestured toward the floor. “Do you see an improvement? An evolution?”

Clara shook her head. “They look like an exercise in art school. You see here?”

She pointed to a checkerboard pattern in one of the paintings on the table. They leaned in and nodded.

“Every high school art student does something like that, to learn about perspective.”

Gamache’s brows came together in consideration. Why would one of the most successful artists in Canada paint these? And include an exercise kids are taught in school?

“Is this even art?” Jean-Guy asked.

It was another good question.

When Beauvoir had first met these people, and this village, he knew little about art and what he knew was more than he found useful. But after many years of exposure to the art world, he’d become interested. Sort of.

What mostly interested him wasn’t the art, but the environment. The infighting. The casual cruelty. The hypocrisy. The ugly business of selling beautiful creations.

And how that ugliness sometimes grew into crime. And how the crime sometimes festered into murder. Sometimes.

Jean-Guy liked Peter Morrow. A part of him understood Peter Morrow. The part Beauvoir admitted to very few.

The fearful part. The empty part. The selfish part. The insecure part.

The cowardly part of Jean-Guy Beauvoir understood Peter Morrow.

But while Beauvoir had fought hard to face that part of himself, Peter had simply run from it. Increasing the chasm, the tear.

Fear didn’t make the hole bigger, Beauvoir had learned. But cowardice did.

Still, Jean-Guy Beauvoir liked Peter Morrow, and was worried that something horrible had happened to the man. But at least no one would kill for these pictures. Except perhaps Peter. He might kill to suppress them.

But he hadn’t, had he? In fact, far from suppressing them, he’d actually taken pains to make sure they were safe.

“Why did he keep these?” Jean-Guy asked. “And why give them to Bean?”

Instead of answering any questions, the paintings had created even more.

*

Ruth left. Bored and more than a little revolted.

“They’re revolting,” she’d said, in case anyone had missed how she felt. “I’m off to clean out Rosa’s litter box. Anyone want to help?”

It was tempting, and shortly after Ruth left, Gabri made his excuses.

“I think I should dig the hair out of the bathroom drains,” he said as he made for the door.

Peter’s works seemed to remind people of disgusting chores. If he’d set out into the world to find a way to be useful, this probably wasn’t what he had in mind.

Armand, Reine-Marie, Clara, Myrna, and Jean-Guy were left standing uncertainly around the paintings.

“Okay,” said Gamache, walking over to the canvases on the floor. “These are the more recent works. Mailed by Peter in late spring. They’re on canvas, while the earlier works”—he took three long strides over to the pine table—“given to Bean in the winter, are on paper.”

They looked like some living thing had fallen from a great height. And hit the table.

They could not be considered a triumph. Or a success. Or a good end.

But these, Gamache knew, weren’t anywhere close to an end. These were the beginning. They were signposts. Markers.