Page 75 of The Grey Wolf
“Non, chef.”
“Anything that could be considered a poison?”
“No. We found a lot of references to poisons, but those were in their investigations into polluters. Did you know that the pulp and paper industry—”
“Yes,” she said wearily. “I know. Wrap it up. Bring any suspicious files with you. And I want that map from her basement. With the pins still in it.”
“D’accord, chef.” He went away, trying to figure out how to remove the map without the flags falling out.
CHAPTER19
The first thing Beauvoir did when he’d scrambled out of the plane and was standing on a pontoon, lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping in the waves, was throw up.
The storm, like some cosmic joke, had blown itself out as soon as they’d landed. But the wind was still strong, churning up the water and their stomachs.
They’d managed to motor over to the dock, and soon all three stood on the wharf, their legs weak, their heads still spinning.
The fresh air was bracing and reviving. Armand closed his eyes for a moment and turned his face into the wind. He took a deep breath and smelled pine. It smelled of home.
The next thing Jean-Guy Beauvoir did, once his brain focused, was attack the pilot.
“You fucker.” Beauvoir lunged at the man. “You almost got us killed.”
Gamache just managed to grab Beauvoir, dropping the phone he’d been clutching.
“Stop it!” he yelled, stepping between the two men.
“I saved us, you moron,” shouted the pilot. “Without me you’d be dead.”
“Without you I’d be safe at home. You took off when you shouldn’t have.” He was glaring over Gamache’s shoulder and almost weeping now. “I have two children. A wife. I can’t… I can’t…” He pulledhimself together and stood straight, gathering himself. “I’m not getting back in that thing.” He threw his arm out toward the plane. “It’s a death trap. It’s falling apart.”
The pilot flung his own arm out toward the craft. “It held together, which is more than I can say for you.”
Beauvoir lunged forward again, but again Gamache, predicting it, held him back.
“Enough! Inspector Beauvoir is right. We should never have taken off. But I’m as responsible as the pilot. I agreed. But we’re here now. We have a job to do. We can’t turn on each other.”
Gamache glared from one to the other, and waited for each to nod. Then he stepped closer to Beauvoir, looking the younger man in the eyes. He saw fury in them. And something else. Some other strong emotion. No, thought Gamache. A strong memory, provoking this outburst.
And he knew what it was. It was the same memory he’d been struggling with. One that had come on him suddenly, the moment they’d stepped onto the dock. As they’d listened to the waves lapping, and the pontoon bumping up against the fenders, and the birds shrieking, and the wind through the forest and flapping their clothing.
They were both recalling, reliving, the last time they’d stood on this dock. On this very spot. When Dom Philippe had told him about the grey wolf, and Jean-Guy had made a choice.
What Armand saw in those familiar, those beloved eyes was shame.
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” he said quietly to Jean-Guy. He smiled, and saw his second-in-command, his son-in-law, relax.
Jean-Guy took a deep breath and smiled too. “Oui.” He looked over Gamache’s shoulder to the pilot. “Désolé.I was just…”
“So was I,” the pilot admitted. “I’m sorry too.” Then he turned to Gamache. “I’ll get the plane ready for the return flight,patron.”
“Bon, merci.”
Armand bent down and picked his phone off the wharf. Wiping the moisture off on his slacks, he looked at its face, hoping, in all the jostling and dropping, the message hadn’t been sent to Reine-Marie.
He scrolled and searched with increasing anxiety but couldn’t find it. That meant it had either been erased or…
“Oh no,” he mumbled. “Oh no, oh no, no, no.”
