The three men, seeing the hole between cars at the same time, ran across the four-lane street together, making it safely to the other side.
Thierry paused, turning to look at Gamache.
“It’s so sad, you know. She was getting her life back together. Everyone liked her. I liked her.”
“This woman?” asked Beauvoir, taking the photo from his pocket, his amazement obvious. “Lillian Dyson?”
Thierry looked at it and nodded. “That’s Lillian. Tragic.”
“And you say everyone liked her?” Beauvoir pressed.
“Yes,” said Thierry. “Why?”
“Well,” said Gamache. “Your description doesn’t match what others are saying.”
“Really? What’re they saying?”
“That she was cruel, manipulative, abusive even.”
Thierry didn’t say anything, instead he turned and began walking down a dark side street. The next block over they could see the familiar Tim Hortons sign.
“There she is,” said Thierry as they entered the coffee shop. “Suzanne,” he called and waved.
A woman with close-cropped black hair looked up. She was in her sixties, Gamache guessed. Wore lots of flashy jewelry, a tight shirt with a light shawl, a skirt about three inches too short on her barrel body. There were six other women, of varying ages, at the table.
“Thierry.” Suzanne jumped up and threw her arms around Thierry, as though she hadn’t just seen him. Then she turned bright, inquisitive eyes on Gamache and Beauvoir. “New blood?”
Beauvoir bristled. He didn’t like this bawdy, brassy woman. Loud. And now she seemed to think he was one of them.
“I saw you at the meeting tonight. It’s OK, honey,” she laughed as she saw Beauvoir’s expression. “You don’t need to like us. You just need to get sober.”
“I’m not an alcoholic.” Even to his ears it sounded like the word was a dead bug or a piece of dirt he couldn’t wait to get out of his mouth. But she didn’t take offense.
Gamache, though, did. He gave Beauvoir a warning look and put out his hand to Suzanne.
“My name is Armand Gamache.”
“His father?” Suzanne gestured to Beauvoir.
Gamache smiled. “Mercifully, no. We’re not here about AA.”
His somber manner seemed to impress itself on her and Suzanne’s smile dimmed. Her eyes, however, remained alert.
Watchful, Beauvoir realized. What he’d first taken to be the shine of an idiot was in fact something far different. This woman paid attention. Behind the laughter and bright shine, a brain was at work. Furiously.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I wonder if we could talk privately?”
Thierry left them and joined Bob and Jim and four other men across the coffee shop.
“Would you like a coffee?” Suzanne asked as they found a quiet table near the toilets.
“Non, merci,” said Gamache. “Bob very kindly got me one, though it was only half full.”
Suzanne laughed. She seemed, to Beauvoir, to laugh a lot. He wondered what that hid. No one, in his experience, was ever that amused.
“The DTs?” she asked and when Gamache nodded she looked over at Bob with great affection. “He lives at the Salvation Army, you know. Goes to seven meetings a week. He assumes everyone he meets is an alcoholic.”
“There’re worse assumptions,” said Gamache.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m with the S?reté du Québec,” said Gamache. “Homicide.”
“You’re Chief Inspector Gamache?” she asked.
“I am.”
“What can I do for you?”
Beauvoir was happy to see she was a lot less buoyant and more guarded.
“It’s about Lillian Dyson.”
Suzanne’s eyes opened wide and she whispered, “Lillian?”
Gamache nodded. “I’m afraid she was murdered last night.”
“Oh, my God.” Suzanne brought a hand to her mouth. “Was it a robbery? Did someone break into her apartment?”
“No. It didn’t seem to be random. It was at a party. She was found dead in the garden. Her neck was broken.”
Suzanne exhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just shocked. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”
“What about?”
“Oh, it was just a check in. She calls me every few days. Nothing important.”
“Did she mention the party?”
“No, she said nothing about it.”
“You must know her well, though,” said Gamache.
“I do.” Suzanne looked out the window, at the men and women walking by. Lost in their own thoughts, in their own world. But Suzanne’s world had just changed. It was a world where murder existed. And Lillian Dyson did not.
“Have you ever had a mentor, Chief Inspector?”
“I have. Still do.”
“Then you know how intimate that relationship can be.” She looked at Beauvoir for a moment, her eyes softening, and she smiled a little.
“I do,” said the Chief.
“And I can see you’re married.” Suzanne indicated her own barren ring finger.
“True,” said Gamache. He was watching her with thoughtful eyes.
“Imagine now those relationships combined and deepened. There’s nothing on earth like what happens between a sponsor and sponsee.”
Both men stared at her.
“How so?” Gamache finally asked.
“It’s intimate without being sexual, it’s trusting without being a friendship. I want nothing from my sponsees. Nothing. Except honesty. All I want for them is that they get sober. I’m not their husband or wife, not their best friend or boss. They don’t answer to me for anything. I just guide them, and listen.”
“And what do you get out of it?” asked Beauvoir.
“My own sobriety. One drunk helping another. We can bullshit a lot of people, Inspector, and often do. But not each other. We know each other. We’re quite insane, you know,” Suzanne said with a small laugh.
This wasn’t news to Beauvoir.
“Was Lillian insane when you first met her?” Gamache asked.
“Oh, yes. But only in the sense that her perception of the world was all screwy. She’d made so many bad choices she no longer knew how to make good ones.”
“I understand that as part of this relationship Lillian told you her secrets,” said the Chief.
“She did.”
“And what were Lillian Dyson’s secrets?”
“I don’t know.”
Gamache stared at this fireplug. “Don’t know, madame? Or won’t say?”