Page 156 of The Grey Wolf
Though in fact, Gamache was perspiring. There were dark marks under his armpits and down his back.
Finally, the rifle disappeared, and a few moments later the front door opened and a wiry older man, unshaven and disheveled, came out still holding the .22.
“Raymond Rousseau, what do you think you’re doing?”
The voice came from the corner of the house where Valerie Michaud stood. Her gun, Gamache saw, was still in its holster. He was grateful for that. It meant the situation would not escalate.
“You should be offering us hot tea, not threats. Where’s Miriam?”
The station commander strolled forward as though she’d already been invited in for tea and cookies.
The rifle lowered. “In the basement.”
“Well, get her up here. We need to talk.”
“Miriam!”
Armand lowered his arms, scooped up his jacket, and just like that, it was over. Or almost.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir was so stunned it took him a full thirty seconds of staring at the paused image before he noted the time on the Mission security tape. Then he hit play again.
The video was at double speed so he could get through it quickly. He now knew what he was looking for. And who he was looking for.
And there it was. A section they’d already seen, but hadn’t fully appreciated. Once again, he stopped the recording.
There was Charles Langlois in the kitchen of The Mission. He was talking with Jeanne Caron. They’d seen that part already. Thought that was the headline, and it still was. But the scene had more to tell them.
In the foreground a grinning politician heaped food onto the plate of one of the residents. The resident was wearing an old grey suit, too big for him.
Beauvoir could almost smell the mothballs.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered and started the tape again.
Jean-Guy’s quick eyes, trained after years of scanning for threats, moved from one security camera to another, and finally found them again.
Charles Langlois was opening the locked front door late one night and admitting Jeanne Caron. But there was someone else standing in the shadows.
Enlarging, brightening, focusing the image, Jean-Guy was still unable to make out who it was, but thought it was again Dom Philippe. Watching them.
He hit play, and the scene played out. They’d already seen Langlois and Caron going into his office. They’d also seen the two of them leave a few minutes later, and had followed them to the door, where Langlois let her out and relocked it. But this time Beauvoir slowed down the tape and lingered on the office. He saw Caron and Langlois leave. And he saw something else, just as the door swung closed.
A third person had been in that meeting, and now he stood alone in the office, as though it belonged to him.
It was Dom Philippe.
“Holy shit,” Beauvoir whispered and sat back in the chair, staring in disbelief. But the image was unmistakable, as was the look on the Abbot’s face. He was content. Certainly satisfied.
This meant the person in the shadows by the front door hadn’t been Dom Philippe. It must have been Parisi.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“Where’s your brother?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table, cups of strong tea in front of them.
Gamache had brought in the bags of groceries. He’d bought them suspecting the elderly couple, if still alive, might be running low on food if they hadn’t left the house in days.
Raymond at first refused the offering, but Miriam brushed that aside and grabbed the bags, calling her husband an old fool. Though it was said with affection.
