Page 10 of The Grey Wolf
“I’m not sure. Don’t go home just yet.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Please, just stay away until you hear from me.”
Reine-Marie was about to agree, but found herself holding a dead phone. He’d already hung up.
“Patron,” said Jean-Guy. “What is it?”
“This’s my coat.”
“Yours?” said Lacoste. “Are you sure?”
“I recognize the stain from Florence’s strawberry ice cream.”
He’d meant to throw the coat into the wash but had forgotten.
Lacoste was smiling with relief. “Well, that’s good news. We don’t have to blow it up. You must’ve left it in a restaurant or shop, and someone dropped it off.” But even as she spoke, she took in his grim expression. “What is it?”
“I didn’t leave it anywhere.” Gamache continued to stare at the coat. The one he’d looked for the night before. “It was in our apartment.”
“Then how did it get here?” Lacoste asked, but Beauvoir had a sick feeling that he knew the answer.
“Tabernak.The alarm,” he said.
“Oui.”
Beauvoir got on his phone and asked the Montréal police to send a squad car to the apartment. “And wait outside. We’ll be there soon.Merci.”
“What alarm?” asked Lacoste.
“Yesterday. At our apartment in the city. We thought it was a broken sensor or a door that was jiggling in a draft, setting off a false alarm.”
“It wasn’t?”
Instead of answering, Armand was staring down at his coat. “I looked for this last night and couldn’t find it.”
Now it was here. On his desk. In his office. At the Sûreté.This might interest you.
And it did.
“Wait a minute,” said Isabelle. “You’re saying someone broke in and took the coat? Nothing else?”
“I checked,” Jean-Guy explained. “Nothing was disturbed. The door was still locked.”
“But—” began Lacoste.
“Why take just this?” said Gamache. “I don’t know.”
“And why return it?” said Beauvoir, not expecting an answer and not getting one.
Gamache picked up the coat and let it unfold, half expecting something nasty to fall out. But nothing did.
It was only when he went through the pockets that he found the note.
Please, I need to speak to you. Meet me today. Four o’clock at Open Da Night. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was your home.
He handed it to Beauvoir, who stumbled, “What…? Why…? Wha…?”
