Page 72 of The Grey Wolf
Then the plane lurched again and, in the chaos and confusion, Armand was no longer certain if it had righted itself or if they were now upside down. Then he saw the whitecaps just feet away and threw his arm across Jean-Guy’s chest. As one would a child’s, anticipating a sudden stop. It was useless but instinctive.
The pilot screamed, “Look out!”
There was a violent thud and the rending of metal. Jean-Guy and the pilot shouted as they were all thrown forward. Armand thought he shouted too. A sort of cry.
And he waited. Numb now.
Nothing.
Opening his eyes, he could see water all around. But the plane bobbed on top of it, on its pontoons, not in the water, sinking.
“Oh shit,” exhaled Jean-Guy. “Oh, God.”
Up front, the pilot seemed to be weeping.
Armand blinked a few times and caught his breath. If he was ever going to have a heart attack, this would be it. He waited. But his heart, thudding in his chest, began to calm.
“You okay?” he asked the other two, and got silent, stunned nods.
Wiping his sleeve across the window to clear away the vapor and the smudge from his face-plant, he saw two monks standing on the shore, like apparitions. In unison they made the sign of the cross.
Dear God, thought Armand.
CHAPTER18
Isabelle Lacoste knew, of course, why she hadn’t been assigned to go along with the Chief and Beauvoir. A woman would not be allowed into any cloistered monastery, and certainly not Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
There was a good chance Gamache and Beauvoir would not be allowed in either. No one crossed that threshold. The only reason the Chief and Beauvoir had been admitted last time was because of the body. Murder, it seemed, was a skeleton key.
Besides, there was a lot to do back in Montréal.
The first thing Lacoste did was call the number Dom Philippe had given Olivier when making the reservations at the B&B. It was answered by a man who said he’d never heard of Dom Philippe or Monsieur Gilbert.
He was home sick from work, with a cold. A summer cold.
The man was clearly about to go into detail, but Lacoste thanked him and hung up.
It seemed to Lacoste fairly telling that the Abbot had given a false number. Which, in Lacoste’s experience, spoke of guilt. Or at the very least, something to hide.
She also wondered if this Dom Philippe, whom she’d never met and so had no preconceptions, was really the decent man the Chief seemed to think. Decent people did not, generally, have so many secrets. And so much to hide.
The next thing she did was go to the morgue.
“No ID?” she asked, standing with Dr. Harris over the remains of the man who’d murdered Charles Langlois, then been murdered himself.
“No. Shot in the head, once. His clothes are with forensics, but there was nothing in his pockets. We might be able to ID him through dental records. You have his prints and DNA.”
“Nothing there,” said Lacoste. “Not in the Québec system, or nationally. I’m going to send them to the Americans and Interpol. What else can you tell me about him?”
“Pretty much what you see. Male, Caucasian,” said Dr. Harris. “Between twenty-five and thirty years old. His last meal was a burger and fries, two hours before he was killed. Oh, he also has alcohol in his system. Not enough to get drunk, but enough to take the edge off.”
Lacoste stared down at the slender body. “Getting up courage, maybe.”
She looked over at the other body, covered in a sheet. Charles Langlois. Murdered and murderer, side by side.
They moved over to Charles’s body. The autopsy had already been done on him.
“We know his name and age,” said Dr. Harris. “And what killed him. I can tell you that he has all the signs of a very serious addiction that’s damaged part of his brain and some internal organs. But nothing recent. I’d say he was clean, and had been for at least a year, maybe two.”
