Page 110 of The Grey Wolf
Gamache was glad he’d decided to tell at least part of the truth. The part they could verify and clearly had.
“The young biologist I met with who was killed worked for an environmental group. Action Québec Bleu.” As he spoke, he studied her, though he kept his face placid, almost disinterested. “One of the lakes he’d tested was up there. I recognized it as the one with the monastery. I thought the monks might be able to help. Maybe he’d stayed there.Told them something. But they hadn’t seen him, and they sure didn’t let him in.”
“So you have no idea why he was at the lake?”
“He seemed to be testing lakes at random for pollution. Acid rain, mercury, that sort of thing. It was a waste of time. Apologies.”
He stood up and noticed the Chief Superintendent was looking at him strangely.
“It’s not like you to waste time and resources like that, Armand. Is anything wrong?”
He heaved a sigh. “Honestly? I’m at a loss why he was killed. There must be a reason. I keep thinking he must’ve told me something, or hinted at something. But I can’t think what. I feel responsible, and I’m not sure where to turn next. Any thoughts, Madeleine?”
He looked like an older man who was perhaps slightly beyond it now. No longer the investigator he once was.
“I think you should go home, get some rest. Things will be clearer tomorrow. There’s no hurry.”
“I think I will.Merci.”
It did not escape his notice that the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté had essentially told him to slow down his investigation. As he walked to the elevator, nodding vaguely to colleagues, Chief Inspector Gamache made sure to look just a little hangdog. Not too much, but enough so that gossip would start and spread.
Several turned and watched him go. A shadow, really, of the once authoritative officer they’d known.
Gamache closed his office door and quickly retrieved Langlois’s map. It was twenty past two. He’d be late for the appointment with the Archbishop. Stuffing the map into his satchel, he strode across to the door. There he paused, then backtracked and stood in front of the huge map of Québec on his office wall.
Time was ticking, but still he took precious moments to contemplate it.
Then he snapped several photos. As he left, he glanced at the framed poster he’d hung by his office door. The last words of the poet Seamus Heaney.
Noli timere.
Be not afraid.
“I need to get to DC,patron,” said Beauvoir.
Gamache was driving across town to the archdiocese when the call came in.
“This isn’t to avoid going back to Three Pines, is it?”
Armand had called Reine-Marie from the car, and he’d heard, in the background, screaming. The sort of eardrum-splitting shrieks only children could make.
“Why would I do that?” asked Jean-Guy. “You aren’t saying six kids under the age of ten might be a problem?”
He’d also spoken to his wife, and Annie seemed on the verge of weeping.
“They found the marshmallows, Jean-Guy,” she’d told him. “Ate most. The rest, somehow, have ended up stuck to the ceiling. How is that possible?” She lowered her voice. “They’re monsters.”
“Okay, why DC?” asked Armand.
“I think I’ve found our guy.”
“Which one?”
“Sébastien. It’s his real name, by the way. Sébastien Fontaine. He’s from La Tuque. There’s a photo of him from when he took his vows as a Dominican. It’s a few years old, but still recognizable.”
“Make sure Isabelle has it.”
“I’ll send his file to you both. He taught at the main seminary in Washington. I think that’s where he met our other Dominican. I need to interview teachers and staff and see who Frère Sébastien hung out with. I’ll focus on men whose names begin with the letterB.”
