Louise Penny: Bury Your Dead

He’d closed his eyes tight then and raised his face to the sky in a grimace, a moment of private sorrow he could no longer contain. His right hand clamped tight.

It became the image of grief. The image on every front page and every news program and every magazine cover.

Ruth reached out and clicked the video closed. They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” she finally said. “I don’t believe a word of it. All done on a soundstage I bet. Good effects, but the acting sucked. Popcorn?”

Beauvoir looked at her, holding out the plastic bowl.

He took a handful. Then they walked slowly through the blizzard, heads bowed into the wind, across the village green to Peter and Clara’s home. Halfway across, he took her arm. To steady her, or himself, he wasn’t really sure.

But she let him. They made their way to the little cottage, following the light through the storm. And once there, they sat in front of the fireplace and ate dinner. Together.

Armand Gamache rose.

“Are you all right?” Émile got up too.

Gamache sighed. “I just need time alone.” He looked at his friend. “Merci.”

He felt nauseous, physically sickened. Seeing those young men and women, shot. Killed. Again. Gunned down in dark corridors, again.

They’d been under his command. Hand-picked by him against Chief Superintendent Francoeur’s protests. He’d taken them anyway.

And he’d told them there were probably six gunmen in the place. Doubling what he’d been told. What Agent Nichol had told him.

There’re three gunmen, the message had said.

He’d taken six officers, all he could muster, plus Beauvoir and himself.

He thought it was enough. He was wrong.

“You can’t do this,” Chief Superintendent Francoeur had said, his voice low with warning. The Chief Superintendent had burst into his office as he’d prepared to leave. In his ear Paul Morin was singing the alphabet song. He sounded drunk, exhausted, at the end.

“Once more please,” Gamache said to Morin then whipped off his headset and Chief Superintendent Francoeur immediately stopped talking.

“You have all the information you need,” the Chief Inspector glared at Francoeur.

“Gleaned from an old Cree woman and a few sniff-heads? You think I’m going to act on that?”

“Information gathered by Agent Lacoste, who’s on her way back. She’s coming with me, as are six others. For your information, here are their names. I’ve alerted the tactical squad. They’re at your disposal.”

“To do what? There’s no way the La Grande dam is going to be destroyed. We’ve heard nothing about it on the channels. No one has. Not the feds, not the Americans, not even the British and they monitor everything. No one’s heard anything. Except you and that demented Cree elder.”

Francoeur stared at Gamache. The Chief Superintendent was so angry he was vibrating.

“That dam is going to be blown up in one hour and forty-three minutes. You have enough time to get there. You know where to be and what to do.”

Gamache’s voice, instead of rising, had lowered.

“You don’t give me orders,” Francoeur snarled. “You know nothing I don’t and I know no reason to go there.”

Gamache went to his desk and took out his gun. For an instant Francoeur looked frightened, then Gamache put the pistol on his belt and walked quickly up to the Chief Superintendent.

They glared at each other. Then Gamache spoke, softly, intensely.

“Please, Sylvain, if I have to beg I will. We’re both too old and tired for this. We need to stop this now. You’re right, it’s not my place to give you orders, I apologize. Please, please do as I ask.”

“No way. You have to give me more.”

“That’s all I have.”

“But it doesn’t make sense. No one would try to blow up the dam this way.”

“Why not?”

They’d been over this a hundred times. And there was no time left.

“Because it’s too rough. Like throwing a rock at an army.”

“And how did David slay Goliath?”

“Come on, this isn’t biblical and these aren’t biblical times.”

“But the same principle applies. Do the unexpected. This would work precisely because we won’t be expecting it. And while you might not see it as David and Goliath, the bombers certainly do.”

“What are you? Suddenly an expert in national security? You and your arrogance, you make me sick. You go stop that bomb if you really believe hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.”

“No. I’m going to get Paul Morin.”

“Morin? You’re saying you know where he is? We’ve been looking all night,” Francoeur waved to the army of officers in the outer office, trying to trace Morin. “And you’re telling me you know where he is?”

Francoeur was trembling with rage, his voice almost a scream.

Gamache waited. In his peripheral vision he could see the clock, ticking down.

“Magog. In an abandoned factory. Agent Nichol and Inspector Beauvoir found him by listening to the ambient sound.”

By listening to the spaces between words they’d found him.

“Please, Sylvain, go to La Grande. I’m begging you. If I’m wrong I’ll resign.”

“If we go there and you’re wrong I’ll bring you up on charges.”

Francoeur walked out of the office, out of the incident room. And disappeared.

Gamache glanced at the clock as he made for the door. One hour and forty-one minutes left. And Armand Gamache prayed, not for the first time that day, or the last.

“It could’ve been worse,” said Émile. “I mean, who knows who made this video? They could’ve made the entire operation look like a catastrophe. But it doesn’t. Tragic, yes. Terrible. But in many ways heroic. If the families have to watch, well . . .”

Gamache knew Émile was trying to be kind, trying to say the editing could have made him out to be a coward or a bumbling idiot. Could have looked like those who died had squandered their lives. Instead everyone had looked courageous. What was the word Émile used?

Heroic.

Gamache slowly climbed the steep stairs, Henri at his heels.

Well, he knew something Émile didn’t. He suspected who had made the video. And he knew why.

Not to make Gamache look bad, but to make him look good, too good. So good the Chief would feel as he did. A fraud. A fake. Lionized for nothing. Four Sûreté officers dead and Armand Gamache the hero.

Whoever had done this knew him well. And knew how to exact a price.

In shame.

TWENTY–FIVE

The storm blew in to Quebec City a few hours later and by two in the morning the capital was lashed by high winds and blowing snow. Highways were closed as visibility fell to zero in white-out conditions.

In the garret of the old stone home on St-Stanislas, Armand Gamache lay in bed, staring at the beamed ceiling. Henri, on the floor beside him, snored, oblivious to the snow whipping the windows.

Quietly, Gamache rose and looked out. He couldn’t see the building across the narrow street and could just barely make out the street lamps, their light all but blotted out by the driving snow.

Dressing quickly, he tiptoed down the stairs. Behind him he heard the clicking of Henri’s nails on the old wooden steps. Putting on his boots, parka, toque, heavy mitts and wrapping a long scarf around his neck Gamache bent down and petted Henri.

“You don’t have to come, you know.”

But Henri didn’t know. It wasn’t a matter of knowing. If Gamache was going, Henri was going.

Out they went, Gamache gulping as the wind hit his face and took away his breath. Then he turned his back and felt it shoving him.