The Long Way Home

It was possible Chartrand was older than he first appeared. And yet there was an unmistakable vitality about the man.

Gamache wandered the room. The walls were thick fieldstone. Cool in summer and warm in winter. The windows were small and recessed and original to this old Québécois home. Chartrand clearly respected the past and the habitant who’d built this place by hand hundreds of years ago. It was made in a hurry, but with great care, to protect himself and his family from the elements. From the approaching winter. From the monster who marched down the great river, picking up ice and snow and bitter cold. Gaining in strength and power. So few early settlers survived. But whoever had built this home had. And the home was still offering shelter to those in need.

Behind him, Chartrand was offering Clara and Myrna another glass of cognac. Myrna declined, but Clara took a half shot.

“Perhaps to take to bed, with a cookie,” said Clara.

“There’s that pioneering spirit,” said Myrna.

The floors were original. Wide pine planks, made of trees that stood tall on this very site, and that now lay down. They were darkened by generations of smoky fires. Two sofas faced each other across the fireplace and an armchair faced the fire, a footstool in front of it, with books piled on a side table. Lamps softly lit the room.

But it was the walls that intrigued Gamache. He walked around them. Sometimes leaning closer, drawn into the original Krieghoff. The Lemieux. The Gagnon. And there, between two windows, was a tiny oil painting on wood.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Chartrand had come up behind Gamache. The Chief had sensed him there, but hadn’t taken his eyes off the painting. It was of a forest and a spit of rocks jutting into a lake. And a single tree clinging to the rocky outcropping, its branches sculpted by the relentless wind.

It was stunning in both its beauty and its desolation.

“Is this a Thomson?” Gamache asked.

“It is.”

“From Algonquin Park?”

The rugged landscape was unmistakable.

“Oui.”

“Mon dieu,” said Gamache on an exhale, aware that he was breathing on the same painting as the man who’d created it.

The two men stared at the tiny rectangle.

“When was it done?” Gamache asked.

“1917. The year he died,” said Chartrand.

“In the war?” asked Jean-Guy, who’d wandered over to join them.

“No,” said the gallery owner. “In an accident.”

Now Gamache straightened up and looked at Chartrand. “Do you believe that?”

“I want to. It would be horrible to think otherwise.”

Jean-Guy looked from Chartrand to Gamache. “There’s a question?”

“A small one,” said Gamache, walking back to the sofa, as though not wanting the painting to overhear their conversation.

“What question?”

“Tom Thomson painted mostly landscapes,” Chartrand explained. “His favorite subject was Algonquin Park, in Ontario. He seemed to like his solitude. He’d canoe and camp by himself, then trek out with the most wonderful paintings.”

He gestured toward the small one on his wall.

“Was he famous?” asked Beauvoir.

“No,” said Chartrand. “Not at the time. Not many knew him. Other painters, but not the public. Not yet.”

“It took his death for him to come to their attention,” said Gamache.

“Lucky for whoever had his paintings,” said Beauvoir.

“Lucky for his gallery owner,” Chartrand agreed.

“So what’s the mystery? How’d he die?”

“The official cause was drowning,” said Gamache. “But there was some question. Rumors persist even now that he was either murdered or killed himself.”

“Why would he do that?” Beauvoir asked.

They were sitting down, Gamache and Beauvoir on a sofa, Chartrand on his chair facing the empty fireplace.

“The theory is that Thomson was despondent because he wasn’t getting any recognition for his work,” said Chartrand.

“And the murder theory?” asked Beauvoir.

“Perhaps another artist, jealous of his talents,” said Chartrand.

“Or someone who owned a lot of his works,” said Gamache, looking directly at their host.

“Like his gallery owner?” Chartrand smiled in what appeared to be genuine amusement. “We are greedy, feral people. We love to screw both the artist and our clients. We’d do anything to acquire what we want. But perhaps not murder.”

Though Beauvoir and Gamache knew that was not true.

“Who’re you talking about?”

Clara and Myrna had been across the room admiring a Jean Paul Lemieux, but now Clara sat on the sofa opposite Gamache.

“Tom Thomson.” Chartrand waved toward the small painting, like a window on the wall that looked into another time, another world. But one not so unlike Charlevoix.

“Désolé,” said Gamache quietly, not taking his eyes off Clara. “That was insensitive.”