The Long Way Home

They’d turned the other two paintings around as well, but those had yet to give up their secrets.

“Should we go to Dumfries?” Clara asked. “See for ourselves? Talk to this Alphonse?”

“Non,” said Armand. “Whatever happened there is in the past. Both Peter and time have moved on. We’re going there.”

He pointed to the river of sighs.

To a place Gamache knew well. It was in Québec but not of Québec. This area was unique in the world, having been created hundreds of millions of years earlier, by a catastrophe. A cosmic catastrophe.

*

Gamache, Jean-Guy, and Reine-Marie stood at the large map of Québec tacked up on their sitting room wall.

How often, Beauvoir wondered, had they stood in front of this very map when it had been in the Gamaches’ Montréal home, plotting the best way to get to a crime scene? A body. A murder.

He hoped that wasn’t what they’d find at the end of this journey too.

But the silence from Peter was ominous, and the sooner they could get there the better. And at least now they knew where “there” was.

The Chief’s finger traced a line from Three Pines, near the Vermont border, up to Autoroute 20. Along to Quebec City, then over the bridge, skirting the city, and up again.

Up, up along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Traveling northeast.

To their destination in the Charlevoix region.

“Is that the best route?”

As the men discussed various options, Reine-Marie stared at the dot on the map. How often had she stood in front of this very map, staring at a dot? Imagining Armand inside it. Willing him safe, willing him home.

The dot had a name. Baie-Saint-Paul.

Saint Paul. Another one who’d seen something unlikely on the road. And whose life had changed.

“We’re on the road to Damascus,” said Armand with a smile. “Or Charlevoix anyway.”

It was an area so beautiful, so unique, it had attracted visitors for centuries. At least one American president had had a summer home there. But what Charlevoix mostly attracted were artists, Québec artists, Canadian artists. Artists from around the world.

And now it had attracted Peter Morrow.

*

“How long will you be gone?” Reine-Marie asked a few minutes later, as she helped Armand pack a suitcase.

He paused, his hand full of socks. “Hard to say. It’ll take the better part of the day to drive there, and then we need to find out where he’s staying.”

“If he’s still there,” she said, placing shirts in the suitcase. After considering, she added one more.

Through the sitting room window, Gamache could see Jean-Guy loading two suitcases into the Volvo. Perplexed, Gamache slipped the small book into the pocket of his satchel and they went outside.

As he walked down the path, Gamache saw Clara and Myrna standing by the car. Clara had Peter’s rolled-up canvases in her hand, and Myrna had a map.

“You’re here to see us off?” asked Gamache, but he already knew that wasn’t true. Clara shook her head and looked toward their suitcases, already in the Volvo.

“You’re coming with us?” Gamache asked.

“No,” said Clara. “You’re coming with us.”

It was said with a smile, but the distinction was clear.

“I see,” said Armand.

“Good.” Clara watched him closely. “I’m not kidding, Armand. I’m going to find Peter. You can come if you’d like, but if you do, you have to agree that I make the final decisions. I don’t want this to turn into a power struggle.”

“Believe me, Clara, I have no wish for power.” He paused and became so still that Clara also stilled. “I’m not bringing any art supplies.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not an artist.”

“And I’m not an investigator,” she said, grasping his meaning.

“You don’t know what you’ll find,” he said.

“No, I don’t. But I need to be the one looking.”

“And what will you do when we get there?” he asked.

“I’ll find out where Peter’s staying.”

“And suppose he isn’t still there?”

“Are you treating me like a child, Armand?”

“No. I’m treating you like a responsible adult, but one who’s trying to do something she’s unprepared for. Not trained for. I can’t paint a very good picture. You can’t conduct a very good investigation. This is your life, yes. But it’s what we’ve done for a living.” He paused and leaned so close to her no one else could hear. “I’m very good at it. I will find Peter.”

And she replied, so close that he felt the warm words in his ear, “You might know how to investigate, but I know Peter.”

“You knew Peter.” Gamache saw the words slap her. “You think he’s the same man, and he’s not. If you don’t accept that, you’ll go off course. Fast.”