*
Jean Guy Beauvoir picked up an armful of dirty laundry and threw it into a corner.
“There,” he smiled, “make yourself at home.”
“Merci,” said Gamache, sitting down. His knees immediately and alarmingly bounced up almost around his shoulders.
“Watch out for the sofa,” Beauvoir called from the kitchen. “I think the springs are gone.”
“That is possible,” said Gamache, trying to get comfortable. He wondered if this was what a Turkish prison felt like. While Beauvoir poured them each a drink, the Chief looked around the furnished efficiency apartment right in Montréal’s downtown core.
The only personal touches seemed to be the stack of laundry now in the corner, and a stuffed animal, a lion, just visible on the unmade bed. It looked odd, infantile even. He’d not have taken Jean Guy for a man with a stuffed toy.
They’d strolled the three blocks from the coffee shop to his apartment, comparing notes in the clear, cool night air.
“Did you believe her?” Beauvoir had asked.
“When Suzanne said she couldn’t remember Lillian’s secrets?” Gamache considered. The trees lining the downtown street were in leaf, just turning from bright, young green to a deeper more mature color. “Did you?”
“Not for a minute.”
“Neither did I,” said the Chief. “But the question is, did she lie to us intentionally, to hide something, or did she just need time to gather her thoughts?”
“I think it was intentional.”
“You always do.”
That was true. Inspector Beauvoir always thought the worst. It was safer that way.
Suzanne had explained that she had a number of sponsees, that each told her everything about their lives.
“It’s step five in the AA program,” she’d said, then quoted. “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. I’m the ‘other human being.’”
She laughed again and made a face.
“You don’t enjoy it?” Gamache asked, interpreting the grimace.
“At first I did, with my first few sponsees. I was honestly kinda curious to find out what sort of shenanigans they’d gotten up to in their drinking careers and if they were at all like mine. It was exciting to have someone trust me like that. Hadn’t happened much when I was drinking, I’ll tell ya. You’d have had to be nuts to trust me then. But it actually gets boring after a while. Everyone thinks their secrets are so horrible, but they’re all pretty much the same.”
“Like what?” asked the Chief Inspector.
“Oh, affairs. Being a closeted gay. Stealing. Thinking horrible thoughts. Getting drunk and missing big family events. Letting down loved ones. Hurting loved ones. Sometimes it’s abuse. I’m not saying what they did was right. It’s clearly not. That’s why we buried it for so long. But it’s not unique. They’re not alone. You know the toughest part of step five?”
“‘Admitted to ourselves’?” asked Gamache.
Beauvoir was amazed the Chief had remembered the wording. It seemed just a big whine to him. A bunch of alcoholics feeling sorry for themselves and looking for instant forgiveness.
Beauvoir believed in forgiveness, but only after punishment.
Suzanne smiled. “That’s it. You’d think it’d be easy to admit these things to ourselves. After all, we were there when it happened. But of course, we couldn’t admit what we’d done was so bad. We’d spent years justifying and denying our behavior.”
Gamache had nodded, thinking.
“Are the secrets often as bad as Brian’s?”
“You mean killing a child? Sometimes.”
“Have any of your sponsees killed someone?”
“I’ve had some sponsees admit to killing,” she finally said. “Never intentionally. Never murder. But some accident. Mostly drunk driving.”
“Including Lillian?” Gamache asked quietly.
“I can’t remember.”
“I don’t believe you.” Gamache’s voice was so low it was hard to hear. Or perhaps it was the words Suzanne found so difficult to hear. “No one listens to a confession like that and forgets.”
“Believe what you want, Chief Inspector.”
Gamache nodded and gave her his card. “I’ll be staying in Montréal tonight but we’ll be back in Three Pines after that. We’ll be there until we find out who killed Lillian Dyson. Call me when you’ve remembered.”
“Three Pines?” Suzanne asked, taking the card.
“The village where Lillian was killed.”
He rose, and Beauvoir rose with him.
“You said your lives depend on the truth,” he said. “I’d hate for you to forget that now.”
Fifteen minutes later they were in Beauvoir’s new apartment. While Jean Guy opened and closed cupboards and mumbled, Gamache hauled himself out of the torturous sofa and strolled around the living room, looking out the window to the pizza place across the way advertising the Super Slice, then he turned back into the room, looking at the gray walls and Ikea furniture. His gaze drifted over to the phone and the pad of paper.
“You’re not just eating at the pizza place, then,” said Gamache.
“What d’you mean?” Beauvoir called from the kitchen.
“Restaurant Milos,” Gamache read from the pad of paper by the phone. “Very chic.”
Beauvoir looked into the room, his eyes directly on the desk and the pad, then up to the Chief.
“I was thinking of taking you and Madame Gamache there.”
For a moment, the way the bare light in the room caught his face, Beauvoir looked like Brian. Not the defiant, swaggering young man at the beginning of his share. But the bowed boy. Humbled. Perplexed. Flawed. Human.
Guarded.
“To thank you for all your support,” said Beauvoir. “This separation from Enid, and the other stuff. It’s been a difficult few months.”
Chief Inspector Gamache looked at the younger man, astonished. Milos was one of the finest seafood restaurants in Canada. And certainly one of the most expensive. It was a favorite of his and Reine-Marie’s, though they only went on very special occasions.
“Merci,” he said at last. “But you know we’d be just as happy with pizza.”
Jean Guy smiled and taking the pad from the desk he slid it into a drawer. “So no Milos. But I will spring for the Super Slice, and no arguments.”
“Madame Gamache will be pleased,” laughed Gamache.
Beauvoir walked into the kitchen and returned with their drinks. A micro-brewery beer for the Chief and water for himself.
“No beer?” asked the Chief, raising his glass.
“All this talk of booze turned me off it. Water’s fine.”
They sat again, Gamache this time choosing one of the hard chairs around the small glass dining table. He took a sip.
“Does it work, do you think?” Beauvoir asked.
It took a moment for the Chief to figure out what his Inspector was talking about.
“AA?”