The Long Way Home

“We’ve been to the inns and B and Bs,” said Clara, ticking off the hotels on the place mat. “We’ve shown Peter’s picture around. Now we need to take around his paintings.”


She pointed to the rolled-up canvases on the table.

“To innkeepers?” asked Jean-Guy.

“No. The galleries. Baie-Saint-Paul is thick with them.” Again she gestured toward the place mat. “If Peter is here, he probably visited one or more.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Jean-Guy, not bothering to disguise his surprise.

“You two go to the ones on this side of Baie-Saint-Paul.” She drew a circle on the place mat. “And we’ll take the other.” She looked at her watch. It was nearing five. Nearing closing time. “We need to hurry.”

She got up and they all took their place mats.

“Where should we meet?” Myrna asked.

“Here.”

Clara’s finger fell onto a brasserie in the center of town.

La Muse.

Myrna and Clara took two of Peter’s paintings, including the one with the lips. Jean-Guy picked up the one that was left and examined it, not at all sure which way was up.

He looked, briefly, from the painting to the view, and back to the painting.

And shook his head.

How does that become this? he wondered. Perhaps, he thought, as he rolled up the canvas and followed the others back through the archway, he was the boy wonder after all.

There was, in Beauvoir’s opinion, a great deal to wonder about.

*

Gamache and Jean-Guy were the first to make it back to La Muse.

Two of the five galleries in their area were already closed by the time they got there, including the Galerie Gagnon.

Gamache adored the works of Clarence Gagnon and was pleased that Clara had given them the territory that included the gallery dedicated to the Québécois artist. But Gamache could only peer through the front window, the paintings tantalizingly close.

Jean-Guy had gone to the back door and pounded, hoping the curator or someone else would still be there, but it was locked up tight.

Now, sitting on the verandah of La Muse, Gamache realized why he felt so relaxed here.

He was, essentially, sitting in a Clarence Gagnon painting, not unlike the one he’d seen on the wall of Peter’s mother’s home. Lucky man, Peter, to have been raised with a Gagnon. Though he’d also been raised with a gorgon. Not so lucky.

Gamache squinted slightly. If he took away the people, it would look almost exactly like the works the old master had painted of Baie-Saint-Paul more than seventy years ago. The brightly colored homes lining the village street. The sweep and swoop of the mansard roofs. The pointy dormers. The tall spires of the churches in the background. It was quaint and comforting and very Québécois.

All that was missing was a workhorse pulling a cart in the background, or kids playing. Or snow. So many of Gagnon’s works featured snow. And yet the images were far from frigid.

He called Reine-Marie and brought her up to speed on the search.

“And the other three galleries?” she’d asked.

“Two were really more framing places, but we asked anyway and they didn’t know Peter and showed no interest in the painting. The other carried works by contemporary local artists. Some really wonderful pieces.”

“But no Peter Morrow?”

“No. The owner hadn’t even heard of him.”

“Did you show him Peter’s canvas?” Reine-Marie asked.

“Yes. He was…” Gamache searched for the word.

“Repulsed?”

Armand laughed. “Polite. He was polite.”

He heard Reine-Marie groan.

“It is worse, isn’t it?” he said.

“Have you found a place to stay yet?”

“No. Jean-Guy’s gone off to see if there’ve been any cancellations. I’ll let you know.”

“And do you have a plan B?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do. There’s a very nice park bench across the way,” he said.

“Vagrancy. My mother said it would come to this. I’m sitting on our porch with a gin and tonic and some old cheese.”

“And me,” came a familiar voice.

“You’re the ‘some old cheese,’” said Reine-Marie, and Gamache heard Ruth’s grinding laugh. “She’s been telling me all about her misspent youth. Did you know she was—”

And they got cut off.

Gamache stared at his phone and smiled. He suspected Reine-Marie had hung up on purpose, to tease him. A minute later he received an email saying she loved him and to hurry home.

“Nothing, patron,” said Beauvoir, taking his seat beside the Chief.

Nothing. Their search of Baie-Saint-Paul had yielded no Peter, no sign of Peter and no bed for the night. This might not, Gamache thought, have been his very best idea.

Jean-Guy nudged him and pointed down the winding street. Clara and Myrna were walking quickly toward them. Clara was waving the rolled-up canvases and both men could see both women were pleased.

Something. Finally something. Beauvoir was so relieved he forgot to be annoyed that Clara and Myrna were the ones who’d found something.