FORTY
It took a split second to break through the Yale lock, then they were in the schoolhouse.
Tessier stepped through first, followed by the two large agents. Sylvain Francoeur strolled in last and looked around. Monitors, cables, wires, and boxes were against one wall. Five empty chairs circled the still warm woodstove.
Francoeur took off his gloves and let his hand hover over the cast-iron woodstove.
Yes. They’d been here, and not long ago. They’d gotten out in a hurry, leaving behind all that incriminating equipment. Gamache, the Brunels, and Agent Nichol were shut down and on the run. Incapable of more damage. It was just a matter of time before they were found.
“How’d you know?” Francoeur asked Beauvoir.
“The schoolhouse was closed,” Beauvoir explained. “But the path to it’s been cleared. Like the Longpré place.”
“Gamache makes a habit of abandoning places,” the Chief Superintendent said. “And people.”
He turned his back on Beauvoir and joined the others at the computers.
Jean-Guy watched for a moment, then left.
His boots crunched on the snow, munch, munch, munch, as he walked across the village green, which was very, very, suspiciously, quiet. Normally kids would be playing hockey, parents either watching or out cross-country skiing. Families would be tobogganing down the hill, shedding passengers as they flew over bumps.
But today, despite the sunshine, Three Pines was quiet. Not abandoned, he felt. Not a ghost town. Three Pines seemed to be waiting. And watching.
Jean-Guy walked over to the bench and sat down.
He didn’t know what Francoeur and Tessier were about. He didn’t know why they were here. He didn’t know how Gamache figured in. And he didn’t ask.
He pulled a pill bottle out of his pocket, shook two out and swallowed them. He looked at the OxyContin bottle. He had two more in his apartment, and a nearly full bottle of anti-anxiety pills.
Enough to do the job.
“Hello, numb nuts,” said Ruth, as she sat on the bench beside Jean-Guy. “Who’re your new friends?”
Ruth waved her cane toward the old schoolhouse.
Beauvoir watched as one of Francoeur’s agents carried something from the van into the schoolhouse.
Beauvoir said nothing. He simply stared ahead of him.
“What’s so interesting over there?” Ruth asked him.
Olivier had tried to stop her from going outside, but when Ruth saw Beauvoir sit on the bench alone, she put on her coat, picked up her duck, and left, saying, “Don’t you think he’d find it strange if the village was completely deserted? I won’t tell him anything. What do you think I am? Crazy?”
“As a matter of—”
But it was too late. The old poet had left the building. Olivier watched with trepidation. Myrna and Clara watched from the window of the bookstore. In the loft, Gabri, Nichol, and the Brunels watched as Ruth crossed the road and joined Beauvoir on the cold bench.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Thérèse asked Gabri.
“Oh, no. It’ll be fine,” said Gabri, and grimaced.
“I have a clear shot,” said Nichol, her voice hopeful.
“I think Nichol and the crazy poet might be related,” Jér?me said to Thérèse.
Down below, Ruth, Rosa and Jean-Guy sat side by side, watching the activity at the schoolhouse.
“Who hurt you once,” Ruth whispered to the young man, “so far beyond repair?”
Jean-Guy roused, as though finally noticing he wasn’t alone. He looked at her.
“Am I, Ruth?” he asked, using her first name for the first time. “Beyond repair?”
“What do you think?” She stroked Rosa, but looked at him.
“I think maybe I am,” he said softly.
Beauvoir stared at the old schoolhouse. Instead of taking the computers out, new equipment was being brought in from the van. Boxes and wires and cables. It looked familiar, but Beauvoir couldn’t be bothered to dig through his memory for the information.
Ruth sat quietly beside him, then she lifted Rosa from her lap, feeling it warm where the duck had been. She carefully placed Rosa on Jean-Guy’s lap.
He seemed not to notice, but after a few moments he brought his hand up and stroked Rosa. Softly, softly.
“I could wring her neck, you know,” he said.
“I know,” said Ruth. “Please don’t.”