A Better Man

by Louise Penny

  Homer knelt and said something to Fred, who’d followed him there. Then, kissing the dog on the forehead, he left. Leaving Fred to stare at a closed door.

  Armand raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Throwing on his outdoor clothes and grabbing the flashlight, he, too, slipped out.

  It was a clear, cold night. Below freezing. The moon was full, and he didn’t need to turn on his flashlight.

  Still, it took him a moment to make out Homer, up ahead. Walking up the hill out of Three Pines. His feet crunching on the frozen ground.

  Armand followed. This was it, he knew. And he also knew he’d almost missed it. Had he been asleep, Homer would have left unnoticed. And walked those kilometers to Tracey’s home unhindered.

  At the top of the hill, Homer stopped. Getting his bearings, Armand suspected. He, too, stopped.

  He wanted to give Homer a chance to change his mind. He felt he owed it to the man.

  Homer took a few steps forward, then hesitated again. And finally made up his mind.

  Turning left, he climbed the steps to the front door of St. Thomas’s chapel. And entered.

  * * *

  Armand sat at the back, in the very last pew. While Homer sat at the front.

  If he knew Armand was there, he didn’t show it.

  Homer didn’t kneel. Didn’t cross himself. He just sat there, staring at the stained glass.

  Armand wondered if Homer was thinking of St. Francis. Thinking that there was another way forward.

  As the minutes ticked by, into an hour, Armand’s mind wandered. Not to a prayer but to Dominica Oddly’s piece on Carl Tracey.

  And the now familiar refrain.

  He sat there, and in the quietude he turned the case around. In the calm, he saw what had eluded him before.

  Armand rose to his feet, then slowly sat back down as the import of it struck him.

  Until all he knew to be fact was revealed as fiction.

  Until the givens were gone and another story emerged from the cold, dark depths of this murder.

  All truth with malice in it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “I saw a light down here,” said a groggy Jean-Guy. “How long have you been up?”

  “A little while,” said Armand, gazing over his reading glasses.

  He’d left the church an hour earlier, with Homer, who’d finally turned around and, looking at Armand without surprise, said that he was ready to go home. To bed.

  The two men had walked in silence back to the Gamaches’ place, and from there Armand had gone to the old railway station. He picked up files and laptops and, returning home, settled into the living room.

  Where he could see if Homer tried to leave again.

  When Jean-Guy came down, he found Armand in front of the lit fireplace with a mug of coffee, reading.

  Armand was unshaven. His hair messed. But his eyes were bright and alert. No sign of fatigue.

  Outside, clouds had once again rolled in and brought with them snow. Again. Huge soft flakes, as though the clouds themselves were breaking up and drifting down in pieces.

  “Can you call Isabelle?”

  “It’s five twenty. In the morning. It’s still dark out.”

  But Armand just looked at him as though none of that mattered.

  And it didn’t, Jean-Guy realized.

  “What’s up?” he asked as he walked into the study and dialed the familiar number.

  “I’ll tell you when Isabelle gets here.”

  As he waited for the line to engage, Jean-Guy looked across the village green, past the three tall trees. And noticed that theirs wasn’t the only light in Three Pines.

  “Oui, allô,” said Isabelle, instantly awake.

  * * *

  Clara sat on the stool in her studio. Stale chocolate crumbs and icing in her hair. Leo at her feet.

  The miniatures on the easel in front of her.

  Suppose, her drunken mind had allowed the traitor thought in. Suppose …

  * * *

  “Suppose,” Gamache began as they sat with their coffees around the warm wood fire, “we were wrong.”

  Isabelle had arrived, looking more than a little scruffy herself, but at least fully dressed.

  Jean-Guy had also showered and dressed while they waited for Isabelle. Armand stayed in the living room, not wanting to risk Homer sneaking out.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, putting her mug of coffee down and leaning closer. “Wrong about what?”

  “Just suppose,” Gamache said, “Carl Tracey was telling the truth.”

  Jean-Guy’s eyes narrowed. “How much wine did you have last night?”

  Gamache ran his hand through his hair, but instead of smoothing it down, he just managed to make it stand up even more. Far from looking comical, he looked deadly serious.

  Armand Gamache might hold a rank equal to or even below their own, for now. But both knew he was in fact their superior. Always would be. And had earned the right to be heard. If not agreed with.

  So now, they supposed …

  Gamache remained quiet, watching their faces. Seeing the concentration and the skepticism. Seeing them try to imagine the inconceivable. What it might look like if Carl Tracey had been telling the truth.

  Isabelle was the first to put into words what Jean-Guy could not. “But that would mean Tracey didn’t kill his wife?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know. What I do know is that we’re stuck. There seems no way to convict him.”

  “So we try to convict someone else?” asked Jean-Guy. At the look of surprise on Gamache’s face, he backtracked. “Désolé. I didn’t mean you were suggesting we arrest an innocent person, just … I can’t quite get my head around what you’re saying. And why.”

  “There’re enough things in this case that we can’t explain,” said Gamache. “Why Vivienne left her dog behind. Why was she on that bridge at all? Why would Carl Tracey kill her there and not at home? Who was she calling in the last hour of her life?”

  “Why she didn’t want her father to come get her when he offered earlier in the day,” said Isabelle.

  “All last night a phrase kept repeating itself. Dominica Oddly even used it as the title of her piece on Tracey.”

  “All truth with malice in it,” said Beauvoir. “It’s a quote, right? Where’s it from? Not ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus,’ I hope.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Gamache, clearing his throat in advance of a recitation.

  He smiled slightly as Jean-Guy’s eyes widened and he recoiled from what promised to be an onslaught of poetry. It was a familiar bit of mutual self-mockery.

  Dear God, thought Isabelle. How’re they going to live without each other?

  “Non,” she said, smiling at this set piece. “It’s from Moby-Dick.”

  “You were thinking about a fish?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “About human nature,” said Armand. “About obsession. About allowing rancor to cloud judgment. About what happens when we see the malice but fail to see the truth. We were all appalled by what happened to Vivienne. Even before she was found, we more than suspected that her drunken, abusive husband had done something to her. I thought that myself. I had absolutely no doubt that if something had happened to Vivienne, her husband did it.”

  “It wasn’t a wild guess,” said Isabelle. “Experience points to him. The statements of others, including a local Sûreté cop, point to him. Her father. Even Agent Cloutier.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” said Gamache.

  He leaned forward. Trying to get them to see what he saw.

  “And that’s the point. It was all so obvious, we never even considered anything, anyone else. Not seriously, anyway. I’m not saying Tracey didn’t murder Vivienne. I am saying we owe it to her to look at all possibilities. Including that he was telling the truth.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing all night?” asked Beauvoir, looking at the papers scattered on the coffee table and sofa.

  “Yes.” Ga

mache sorted through them until he found Tracey’s statements.

  “I’ll call in Cloutier and Cameron,” said Beauvoir. “We’ll need their help to go back over all this. Again.”

  It was impossible to miss the exasperation in his voice. This was, Beauvoir knew, a waste of time. They should be concentrating on nailing Tracey, not looking elsewhere.

  But then he wondered if that wasn’t exactly what Chief Inspector Gamache was doing. Trying to get Tracey. Sometimes, sometimes, if you didn’t look directly at a thing, something caught your attention. Out of the corner of your eye.

  When Beauvoir looked at Gamache, as he did now, he saw a man who would easily, even in a bathrobe, perhaps especially in a bathrobe, pass as a college professor. A decent and thoughtful man. Who loved sitting by the fire, or in his garden, or in the bistro with a book. He loved good food and poetry and friends. He loved his wife and children and grandchildren. And Armand Gamache loathed violence.

  But out of the corner of his eye, Jean-Guy Beauvoir saw cunning. A man who was calculating. Shrewd. Ruthless at times.

  And determined. He would stop at nothing to catch a murderer. To catch Tracey.

  “Why don’t you look over these.” Gamache handed over Tracey’s statements. “I’ll call Cameron and Cloutier.”

  “But before you do…” Beauvoir looked him up and down, and Gamache smiled.

  “Good point.”

  He left Beauvoir and Lacoste by the fireplace. With their coffees. Reading.

  As he mounted the stairs, Gamache looked back at Jean-Guy. He saw a man carefully held together. Taut. Intense. Nervous energy simmering close to the surface. Curt at times. Fierce in a fight. A man who blew off tension by happily smashing opponents into the boards in his hockey games.

  But out of the corner of his eye, Armand Gamache saw kindness. Loyalty. A deep, almost inconceivable capacity for love.

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir would stop at nothing to catch a killer. This killer.

  * * *

  “Oh, shit,” said Clara.

  She was sober now. She felt she’d never been more sober.

  Getting up from the easel, she had a shower, put on clean clothes, made a pot of strong coffee, and took a mug over to her kitchen window.

  It was dawn. But barely light. Huge flakes only April could produce were falling. Plump with moisture, they hit the ground and melted. But not all. Some stayed behind.

  A thin layer of white covered the grass, the road. It clung to the three huge pines. The cars and bench.

  It should have been beautiful, except that by April most yearned to look out and see green. Not winter, clinging on.

  Clara returned to her studio, but instead of going in, she snapped off the light and closed the door.

  Then, needing fresh air, she took Leo for a walk. Their feet making dark tracks in the bright snow.

  * * *

  While Isabelle and Jean-Guy read over the files, Armand showered, shaved, and changed into slacks and shirt and tie. Quietly. So as not to awaken Reine-Marie.

  Gray light and a cool breeze were now coming through the windows.

  Before going downstairs, he looked in on Homer, to make sure he was all right and to see if Fred was hungry and eager to go out. Homer was asleep, and Fred just lifted his head, then lowered his gray muzzle to his paws.

  Armand returned with food and water bowls, which he placed on the floor, then softly closed the door.

  When he returned to the living room, he looked up the numbers for Agents Cameron and Cloutier in the Sûreté files. He reached for the phone, but that was as far as he got.

  “When you’re ready, patron.”

  Jean-Guy’s voice broke into Armand’s thoughts. Broke his concentration. His hand still resting on the phone, Armand looked over and saw Jean-Guy and Isabelle staring at him. Waiting for him.

  “Alors,” said Jean-Guy, adjusting his glasses. “We went through Carl Tracey’s statements and cross-checked with those of others, including Pauline Vachon and Homer Godin.”

  “And made a list of what it might mean if he was telling the truth,” said Isabelle.

  Gamache nodded. Listening. He had his own notes beside him on the sofa.

  “He said she was alive when he left her,” said Jean-Guy. “If that’s true, then someone else murdered her. If that’s the case, my money’s on Pauline Vachon. With or without Tracey’s knowledge.”

  “But probably with,” said Isabelle.

  By habit, they glanced at Gamache to gauge his reaction, but the Chief was noncommittal. Simply listening. Though it seemed to Jean-Guy that Gamache was struggling to remain focused.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Non, non, go on. Pauline Vachon. I’m following.”

  Jean-Guy glanced quickly at Isabelle, who’d also noticed the uncharacteristic distraction.

  “I’ll get to that later,” said Jean-Guy, “but for now let’s go back to what Carl Tracey told you when you first visited his home. Before Vivienne was found. He said they’d both been drinking. That was later confirmed by the autopsy report on Vivienne’s blood-alcohol level.”

  “Oui,” said Isabelle. “So that much was true. He said she was drunk. That was an exaggeration. They had an argument. She told him the baby wasn’t his.”

  “This’s directly contradicted by Monsieur Godin,” Jean-Guy pointed out. “In his statement, he said Vivienne wanted to sneak away. That she was afraid of her husband. She’d never have provoked him like that.”

  “So does that mean Homer was lying?” asked Isabelle.

  “It could mean that Vivienne meant to sneak away,” said Jean-Guy, “as she told her father, but then had a drink. Maybe for courage. But it backfired. She had too many, and things got out of control.”

  “So let’s say Vivienne had just enough alcohol to lower her defenses,” said Lacoste. “She said things she hadn’t planned to. What does Tracey do? He hits her. Then he said he left her, alive, and went into his studio to start a new piece but passed out instead. When he woke up, Vivienne was gone.”

  It was the picture of a catastrophically unhappy home. Of a sick relationship. That could not possibly continue. And into which a baby was going to be born.

  Unless something changed.

  “Can that be true?” asked Jean-Guy. “Are we supposed to believe that Tracey left her alive?”

  “For now,” said Gamache. “For argument’s sake. Yes.”

  They sat quietly, trying to argue.

  “So,” Jean-Guy finally said. “Who killed her if not Tracey?”

  They looked at Gamache.

  He had no definite answers, though he had spent the better part of the night looking into the dark corners of the case. Beyond the malice, to where some fact, some feral truth, might be waiting to be found.

  “Pauline Vachon,” said Isabelle. “She had motive. She wants desperately to get out, to have a better life. And she’s brighter than Tracey.”

  “That’s not saying much. Henri here is brighter than Tracey,” said Jean-Guy.

  The shepherd raised his head and swiveled his mighty ears toward Jean-Guy. He was not, they all knew, a dog of great intellect. The main purpose of his head seemed to be to support his formidable ears, which were tuned to key words. Treat, dinner, walk, Henri.

  Henri kept all he needed to know, all that really mattered, safe in his heart. Where there was not need of words. Except, maybe, good boy.

  Armand lowered his hand and stroked Henri until the shepherd dropped his head to his paws.

  “Pauline Vachon could plan it and pull it off,” Isabelle was saying. “Shoving a woman who’d had a few drinks, who wasn’t expecting to be attacked, from a bridge wouldn’t take much. Those bruises could’ve been made by anyone.”

  “And the boot prints,” said Jean-Guy. “She could’ve been wearing Tracey’s. Trying to implicate him.”

  “But how did she arrange to meet Vivienne on the bridge?” asked Isabelle. “There were no calls into the house that day and only those two numbers dialed out.”

  “Tracey told Vivienne to go to the bridge,” said Jean-Guy.

  Isabelle stared at him in disbelief. “Now, that’s really stretching it. You actually believe she’d go? To meet her husband’s lover? All Vivienne wanted was to get as far away, as fast as possible. There’s no way she’d agree to meet Pauline Vachon on a lonely bridge at night. Why would she?”

  “To confront Pauline,” said Jean-Guy. “To give her hell. Suppose Tracey tells Vivienne he’s meeting his lover on the bridge, knowing she’ll go there.”

  “Come on. Maybe on paper that works, but in reality?” said Isabelle. “Everyone who talks about Vivienne describes a woman frightened out of her wits.”

  She looked over at Gamache, who was considering it.

  The scenario Jean-Guy described was possible. Just. In normal circumstances a wife might go to confront her husband’s lover. Except these were not normal circumstances.

  “Why the bridge?” he asked. “If they wanted her dead, there’re easier ways. Why go through all that rigmarole?”

  “Rigmarole?” asked Jean-Guy, always amused when Gamache used odd Anglo words.

  “Yes,” said Gamache. “It means either taking or luring a young woman to a bridge and throwing her off.”

  “Really?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “Non. But it does mean making something complicated that could be simple. There’s something else that argues against Vachon,” said Gamache.

  “What?” asked Jean-Guy, not liking the sound of that.

  Gamache picked up the notes at his side and, putting on his reading glasses again, scanned them until he found what he was looking for.

  “Stuff’s in the bag,” he read. “Everything’s ready. Will be done tonight. I promise.” Gamache looked up at them. “The messages between Carl Tracey and Pauline Vachon on the day of the murder. And her reply: Finally. Good luck. Don’t mess it up.”

  “Pretty damning,” said Isabelle.

  “But the person it damns isn’t Pauline Vachon,” said Gamache, removing his glasses. “It shows that while Pauline Vachon knew about the murder plans, she wasn’t actually there. So suppose there’s another interpretation?”

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