Page 135 of The Grey Wolf
Irene’s eyes remained closed. “I don’t know anything.”
“You do. You know everything that matters. In here.”
Isabelle touched her cross. Sister Irene opened her eyes, staring into Isabelle’s, just inches away.
“You know that I’m the help you’ve been praying for.”
His guest was already there when Gamache arrived at Chez Mama.
“Monsieur Gamache.”
“Madame Dorion.” The woman did not stand up to greet him, and he did not offer a handshake.
She never, ever called him by his Sûreté rank. It was a minor insult, meant to graze, to annoy. To belittle.
She was barely twenty-three and unmarried, but he’d given her what was considered the honorific of “Madame,” not “Mademoiselle,” which tended to diminish a grown woman.
Shona Dorion looked younger than her years. She dressed younger too, like a schoolgirl. Though it was a “look,” a role. Dressing like a child was a challenge to those around her. Her veneer, her public face, was meant to be ironic. A finger to those who’d dismiss her for being young and Black and female.
This was the vlogger of the hostile questions. Made, and meant to be, all the more shocking for apparently coming from a schoolchild.
They were almost always directed at Gamache. If he didn’t know why she targeted him, had made it her professionalraison d’êtreto take him down, he would never have asked her here.
But he knew. And he had. And she’d accepted.
She’d already ordered breakfast and a huge pile of pancakes arrived along with maple-smoked bacon and a sticky jug of syrup with an ant stuck to the base.
“I’m glad you came.”
“Almost didn’t, but I was curious. And who could turn down breakfaston the Sûreté at such a great place?” She looked around. “Bring your wife here, do you?”
Gamache bristled at the mention of his wife, but didn’t show it. He’d chosen this dive not far from The Mission for the very reason that no one he knew would voluntarily come here. Indeed, the place was completely empty, except for the server making her slow way over, her feet making a Velcro sound as she walked across the linoleum.
“What do you want?” the server asked.
“Café, s’il vous plaît.”
“That’s it?”
“And a croissant.”
“Fine.”
When it came, he pushed the pastry away. He could see bits of green mold on some of the flakes, and what looked like nibble marks on one end. He also decided not to drink the coffee. He was hungry and badly needed caffeine. And was deeply regretting his choice of restaurant.
“Why’re we here? Are you going to threaten me?” Shona looked at him with undisguised scorn.
Gamache glanced at the phone on the table and knew they were being recorded.
“Non.And I never have.”
“You arrested my mother. She was put in prison, where she hanged herself. You don’t think that was threatening? I was eight years old.”
“Oui.”
It was the part of his job he hated and would have to face one day, when he retired. The damage his investigations did to innocent people. They were lined up behind him, along with the ghosts. Ready for a “chat.” But it would have to wait.
He’d first looked into Shona’s eyes when he’d knocked at their door, a warrant in hand. The girl was clinging to her mother and staring at him. Not in anger or fear, but in curiosity. Then, on hearing his words, he could see in the child a growing realization that people could be mean. And adults could be wrong.
