Page 67 of The Grey Wolf
Then the engine roared and they gained height, zooming up. Into the clouds. Into the storm.
“We need to turn around,” Gamache yelled at the pilot over the noise.
“Too late.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”
“We’ve gone too far. We have to keep going. We’ll be out of the weather soon.”
That would have been reassuring had it not been for the blind panic in the pilot’s voice and another crackling, then bang of thunder so loud the small craft shook.
Gamache thrust himself back against the seat and continued to brace as the craft and their bodies were flung to the left and right, up and down. This was a Sûreté plane and a pilot he’d used many times before, including on his recent trips to Les Îles de la Madeleine and the Saguenay, to investigate what still seemed to him to be mob executions.
He’d contacted his investigators on site that morning when he’d arrived at Sûreté headquarters, having gone straight there from Three Pines.
Ruth had gone over to their home and relieved Reine-Marie andAnnie and the others of the need to babysit. Somehow the mad old poet cast a spell over children and they behaved with her.
Armand tried not to think of what had happened to Hansel and Gretel.
He’d last seen Reine-Marie and the others in the bistro, staring wide-eyed into the mumbling fire. Gripping mugs of coffee and recovering their wits.
He now thought they’d probably been muttering,Oh God, oh God, oh shit.
Armand, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle had split up when they’d arrived at the Sûreté. Beauvoir to take the envelope and note to forensics and get an update, while Lacoste called the phone number Dom Philippe had put on his B&B reservation.
Armand sat at his desk and made some calls, including to the Sûreté hanger at the airport, while he looked out at the rain streaming down his window. Then he used a secure app to send a message.
Can we meet?
Yes. When? Where?
Ninety minutes. Broken Kettle in Vankleek Hill.
There was no reply and none needed.
Before heading out, Armand called his officers investigating the murders on Les Îles de la Madeleine, and in the Saguenay region.
“Sorry,patron, no progress yet,” said the senior investigator. “No connection between the murders, and nothing I can find to link the dead guy here to the mob. But we’ll keep looking.”
He got virtually the same report from his lead investigator in the other execution-style killing, this one in Chicoutimi, in the Saguenay area north of Québec City. No leads. No apparent connection to the other murder, or the mob.
“Talk to her colleagues again. Someone knows something.”
On his way out, he dropped in on Evelyn Tardiff, who ran the Organized Crime division.
“Anything?”
“Nothing, Armand. None of my informants report hit men traveling to either area. Doesn’t mean there weren’t any.”
“The killings are too similar, Evelyn. Hands zip-tied. Shot to the base of the skull. Same caliber, though not the same weapon. Neat, efficient, effective. These were executions.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I can’t find any evidence of a mob hit.”
“No evidence? It has all the hallmarks.”
“Okay, if it was, what did these two do to make them targets of the mob?” She sat back and stared at him.
“We can’t find any reason they’d be hit,” he admitted. “And there’s no connection to the mob, or between them, that we can see. But there’s something there, Evelyn. And I think you agree.”
