A Better Man

by Louise Penny

  Not this muted reply.

  She looked over at Reine-Marie, whose head was tilted, as though maybe that would help. There was a strained look on her face, like a child with the beginnings of indigestion.

  “These are the ones that didn’t make the cut, right? The ones you were less happy with?” Reine-Marie asked, barely meeting Clara’s eyes.

  “Yes,” she said. She lied.

  The tiny oils on the easel in her studio were almost exact replicas of the series she’d sent to the collective show in New York.

  The critics, the other artists, even the gallery owners could all be dismissed. The crap on social media certainly could be. Or if not outright dismissed, at least explained.

  Jealousy. Nothing more.

  But now her own friends, her cheering section, were tilting their heads, squinting their eyes, and offering faint praise.

  Damn, thought Clara. Damn.

  That Oddly woman had poisoned the well. Turned even her most ardent supporters against her. Or, at least, against her art. Which was almost the same thing, so deeply intertwined were the woman and her creations. An attack on one felt like an attack on the other.

  She felt her world sinking, and Clara Morrow was far from certain she could keep her head above the swiftly rising tide of opinion.

  * * *

  Ruth put a thin, veined hand on Armand’s. “You did your best, you know.”

  He looked down at her hand, then into her rheumy eyes.

  “But he got away. Thanks in large part to me.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You’re a cop, doesn’t intent always matter? If you didn’t intend to hurt…”

  He wondered if this was Ruth’s way of apologizing for posting that video. Knowing now the pain she’d caused.

  “That could be true,” he said. “But Vivienne is dead, and her killer is free.”

  “Not for long. Homer’s going to kill the man who killed his daughter, isn’t he?”

  “He’s going to try.”

  “Will you stop him?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “In a halfhearted way?”

  Armand turned to her in surprise. “No. With all my heart.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at him with genuine curiosity. As did the duck. But then, ducks were often curious.

  Why would he stop Homer?

  “Because it’s not for us to be judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cliché. And in the real world, when the system fails?”

  “Then we have to look somewhere else for a solution.”

  “You mean revenge.”

  “For some, yes.”

  “And others?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “You mean giving up? Just”—she waved her hand—“letting it go and getting on with life?”

  “I mean grabbing hold of something other than rage and revenge. You came over to the house this afternoon.”

  “Yes,” said Ruth. “What of it?”

  “You said something to Homer.”

  “So?”

  “I think that’s why you visited him. To offer Homer that option, a way out. If not to forgiveness, perhaps to peace. It was a quote from St. Francis, to a woman who’d lost her child in a river. The thing is, I looked it up, or tried, and couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, does it exist?”

  “Does it matter? Isn’t the power in the belief and not the proof?” She looked at him, hard. “Wouldn’t you want to believe, Armand? If it had been Annie?”

  In the silence that followed, he met her eyes.

  “Clare, Clare,” she said, her voice shaky and her eyes steady, “do not despair. Between the bridge and the water, I was there.”

  * * *

  “Does she always carry the duck around?” Dominica Oddly asked Reine-Marie as they left to walk home.

  The cold April night air seeped past Dominica’s light coat and into her bones. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Always,” said Reine-Marie. “Would you leave your child behind?”

  “Child…?” Dominica began to dismiss the statement but then heard Rosa muttering and saw the resemblance between mother and duck.

  They took a few steps in silence before Reine-Marie spoke again.

  “You do know how much your review hurt Clara, don’t you?”

  “It was brutal,” said Olivier.

  “I was just telling the truth.”

  “All truth with malice in it,” said Ruth.

  “But it’s still the truth.”

  “Maybe,” said Reine-Marie. “But you need to also own the malice.”

  * * *

  Jean-Guy dropped back to where Armand and Isabelle were walking, a few paces behind the others.

  Isabelle was tired, and her limp was more pronounced.

  “I asked her”—Jean-Guy indicated Dominica Oddly—“about Tracey’s pottery. She said it was quite good. Showed actual promise.”

  “Jesus,” said Isabelle, “don’t tell Clara that. Her head’ll explode.”

  “I was thinking that might be another motive,” said Jean-Guy. “To kill Vivienne.”

  “How?” asked Isabelle.

  “If Tracey knew he was about to be a success?” said Jean-Guy. “He sure wouldn’t want to share it with Vivienne.”

  “But isn’t ‘success’ relative? Even successful ceramicists couldn’t make much money, could they?” asked Isabelle.

  “They can make hundreds of thousands, even millions, if they become collectible,” said Jean-Guy, as though he knew that from experience.

  “Does she think Tracey’s likely to be that successful?” asked Armand.

  “Not sure. She said it’s possible. Takes a lot of luck, of course.”

  “I wonder,” said Isabelle, then lapsed into silence.

  “Wonder what?”

  “If a scandal could be considered luck.”

  “A scandal like being a murder suspect. Shit.” Beauvoir broke away and jogged up to Dominica Oddly. “I have a question for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “If an up-and-coming artist is accused of murder, then let go on a technicality, what would that do to his career?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. Staring at him. “You’re not seriously thinking—”

  “The question. Please answer it.”

  They’d stopped, and now Armand and Isabelle joined them.

  Dominica Oddly thought about it, but not for long. “He wouldn’t be the first artist to benefit from something like that. The cult of celebrity can be pretty perverse. Just look at—”

  “Tracey,” Jean-Guy reminded her, before the lecture began. “Would getting away with murder help him?”

  She nodded. “Probably. But how would he know he’d get away with it?”

  “Maybe it didn’t matter,” said Isabelle.

  “Would matter to him,” said Oddly. “His art might start selling for tens of thousands, or more, but what good would it do him if he’s executed?”

  “We don’t actually kill prisoners in Canada,” said Lacoste.

  “Are you sure?” asked Oddly.

  “What’re you thinking?” Gamache asked Lacoste.

  “Who would benefit,” she whispered to Gamache and Beauvoir, “if Vivienne was murdered and her suddenly famous artist husband was convicted?”

  “Pauline Vachon,” said Beauvoir. “You think she’s that clever?”

  “You met her, what do you think?”

  * * *

  Myrna and Billy helped Clara clean up, though most of it had already been done by the others.

  “You okay?” Myrna asked her friend.

  “Just fine.”

  “Pour yourself a vat of wine, cut a huge slice of chocolate cake, sit by the fire, and know you’re loved. You and your art. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll walk yo

u home,” said Billy as they put on their coats to leave.

  “That’s all right. It’s not far.”

  “I know. I’d like to.” He put on his gloves and hat and was glad Myrna couldn’t see his face.

  “Billy—” Myrna began as they walked along the road.

  “Don’t say it. Please.”

  If only he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine their lives together. What might have been. The quiet nights. Reading. Cooking. Having friends over. Meals in the bistro. Together.

  Growing old. Together.

  He left her at her door, then got in his truck and drove home. Alone.

  * * *

  Clara took Myrna’s advice, as she almost always did.

  It helps, she thought, as she cut herself a huge wedge of cake and carried it into the living room, to have a wise friend. Who can bake.

  As she sat in front of the fireplace with Leo, Clara tried to clear her mind. But found it cluttered with Dominica Oddly. And that review.

  Leo placed his magnificent head on her lap, and they both stared into the roiling fire.

  * * *

  “I’ve been thinking about Tracey and his pottery,” said Isabelle.

  “Yes?” said Beauvoir.

  They’d walked over to Gabri and Olivier’s bed-and-breakfast, where Isabelle had “her” room. With its familiar four-poster bed and eiderdown comforter, the fireplace laid and ready to be lit. The armchair in front of it. With a carafe of tawny port, a glass, and a small box of her favorite chocolates.

  While Dominica Oddly had gone upstairs to work, Isabelle had deposited her bag in her room and returned to the living room of the B&B to join the others.

  And work.

  “Isn’t that just a little bit of a stretch?” asked Isabelle. “To think Tracey killed his wife so that his art would be noticed? Besides, he’s not smart enough to think that far ahead. I doubt he even knows what he’s having for lunch most days.”

  “Tracey couldn’t plan it,” Jean-Guy agreed as he poked the fire, then grabbed a chocolate chip cookie off the tray on the sideboard and joined the others. “But like we said, Pauline Vachon might.”

  Isabelle nodded. “I can see her planning it. But really, would she kill Vivienne on the off chance it would give Tracey’s career a boost? Seems a pretty drastic marketing tool. I don’t believe it.”

  “It obviously wouldn’t be the only motive,” said Beauvoir. “There’re lots of reasons she’d want Vivienne dead. She’d get Tracey, for one. And any inheritance, real or imagined, coming his way as Vivienne’s husband. And if his pottery did hit, she’d be right there to collect. If there’s a scandal, like a murdered wife, to help it along, so much the better.”

  Up until now, Gamache had preferred to listen as the two investigators tossed around ideas. Taking in what they were saying. Letting his mind both focus and be free. Now he got up from the comfortable armchair.

  “Excuse me,” he said, bringing out his phone. “I just need to check something.”

  He stepped over to the window, where the wavering signal was strongest, and returned a couple of minutes later. His face grim.

  * * *

  Dominica checked her site. The review of Clara’s art was up and getting good notice. Lots of hits. Lots of shares. The new item she’d just posted was also beginning to trend.

  Not yet tired, she Googled around, and then, bored, she typed in “Jean-Guy Beauvoir.”

  A few items came up, including a commendation. There was a photo of this Chief Inspector Gamache, giving him a medal. But the line under the photo identified him as Chief Superintendent Gamache. The head of the Sûreté du Québec.

  Curious, she put in “Armand Gamache. Sûreté.”

  Lifting her brows at the number of stories, she scrolled down. The photographs, clearly taken over the course of a long career, showed a man aging. From dark, wavy hair to gray. From smooth-faced to lines, growing deeper and deeper with each passing story.

  And then that scar appeared. At his temple. The first time was in a photo of him in dress uniform. Grim-faced, with a cane. In a funeral procession.

  But there was one constant. His eyes. Intelligent and thoughtful. And even kindly.

  It was disconcerting. In a cop.

  There was a link to a recently posted video, with half a million views already.

  Dominica Oddly sat in her quiet room, in the quiet village, and watched, horrified, as the quiet man with the kindly eyes shot a succession of young, mostly black, kids.

  She recognized that the video had been hacked together. And knew it was probably bullshit, but she found herself sucked in. Probably because she was predisposed to believe that’s what cops did.

  Did that explain his demotion? Is this how the good folk of Canada react to mass murder? A wrist slap?

  Then another video came up. Also newly posted. With almost the same number of hits.

  Her eye, trained to see the manipulation of images, realized this was the real thing. Uncut. Unedited. Raw. The parent of the previous, perverse video. The place from which those images had been culled, to create a false, but compelling, narrative. Of a man, a cop, out of control.

  But this second video showed something very different. A commander in complete control. Leading a raid on a factory. Against what were clearly heavily armed gunmen.

  In shaky but clear images, she watched Sûreté agents, including the three people she’d just met over a civilized dinner, advance through the gunfire.

  Jean-Guy. Isabelle. Armand.

  “Christ,” she whispered as she watched last rites hurriedly given by one agent to another.

  As hoarse last words were placed by one dying officer into another.

  She watched as Jean-Guy fell, hit in the abdomen, and Armand dragged him to safety, kneeling over him to stanch his wound. Then he headed back into the battle. But before he did, Chief Inspector Gamache bent down and, for all the world to see, kissed the frightened young man on the forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

  Words they both must have believed would be the last Jean-Guy Beauvoir would ever hear.

  Minutes later, Isabelle was holding Armand’s hand as blood ran from the wounds at his temple and chest, and he whispered to her, barely audible, words he must’ve thought would be his last.

  “Reine-Marie.”

  Dominica Oddly was shocked by the violence, and even more shocked by the tenderness.

  She snapped her laptop shut. And for the first time felt real revulsion for social media.

  That would cut, twist, put a lie to the truth.

  That would nail decent people to posts.

  And then she remembered what she’d just done.

  * * *

  “What is it?” asked Jean-Guy.

  Armand turned his phone around for them to see.

  There, beneath the title, “All Truth with Malice in It,” was the story of a man in the remote Québec countryside. An undiscovered but important ceramic artist. Who also happened to be, allegedly, a murderer.

  “Merde,” said Jean-Guy as he read.

  “How’d you know?” Isabelle asked Gamache.

  “If you’re given a lead, don’t you follow it? She’s a critic, but she’s also a journalist and an entrepreneur. And a good one. We handed her a great story. What else was she going to do with it?”

  “Be a decent human being?” suggested Isabelle. “Respect Homer Godin’s pain and not promote a murderer.”

  “I handed it to her,” said Jean-Guy.

  “We all did,” said Armand.

  “It’s disgusting, but it won’t harm the case,” said Isabelle.

  “What case?” demanded Jean-Guy. “And what’ll Homer make of this? It’s not enough that that asshole Tracey killed his daughter, now he’s profiting from it. Thanks to us.”

  “He might not see it,” said Isabelle. “Why would he?”

  “Why would we see the video?” said Jean-Guy. “Because people sent us the link.”

  “There’s something else,” said Gamache, looking at the two of them. “Something I should have thought about earlier. Vivienne’s dog.”

  “Fred?” asked Jean-Guy. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

  “Exactly,” said Armand. “Ruth told Dominica that she never leaves Rosa behind. And we’d never move and leave Henri and Gracie. So why didn’t Vivienne take Fred with her to the bridge? Agent Cloutier told me Vivienne rescued him as a puppy and adored him.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t take him with her,” said Isabelle. “Maybe she was going someplace where a dog wasn’t allowed.”

  Armand was shaking his head. “She’d never leave him with Carl. She must’ve known what he’d do to Fred.”

  “So what’re you saying?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “I don’t know,” said Armand slowly.

  * * *

  As they walked back to the Gamache house, Armand and Jean-Guy noticed that the light was out in Homer’s room. But Reine-Marie was still awake.

  Reading in bed and waiting for him, Armand knew.

  “Long day,” said Reine-Marie when he finally got into bed. “Bad day.”

  “Oui.” No use denying it.

  Though the walls of the old home were thick, Armand could still hear Jean-Guy’s voice. He couldn’t make out the exact words, nor did he try. But he knew that he was speaking to Annie. Telling her about the long, bad day. Not hiding anything.

  After a few minutes, there was silence, except for Reine-Marie’s steady, deep breathing.

  The minutes ticked by. Armand found he couldn’t settle. It was midnight. Then 1:10 a.m. Then 1:35.

  Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

  At 2:07 he heard a sound. Movement. Footsteps in the hall outside their room. Then down the stairs.

  Armand got up. The room was chilly as the fresh spring air drifted through the open window. The curtains billowing slightly.

  Slipping his phone into the pocket of his dressing gown, he stepped out into the hallway. Going carefully, slowly, to the stairs, he looked down and saw Homer by the front door. His coat and boots on.

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