Chapter 2

C HAPTER 2

"What was that about?" asked Ruth, joining them on the back patio of the bistro, in the shade of the tall maples.

"What do you mean?" asked Myrna.

"The phone calls." The old poet jabbed a crooked finger at the Gamaches. "The racket went on all morning. I almost called the cops."

"You do know that Armand is the police," said Clara, brushing a hand through her wild hair and looking surprised when a licorice allsort fell out.

No one else was surprised.

She ate it.

"Don't tell me you believe that bullshit?" said Ruth. "Like Clouseau here could possibly be a senior officer with the S?reté. Next you'll be saying the library is a bookstore, and these two are married." She pointed to Olivier and Gabri. "Like that's even possible."

"Hag," muttered Gabri, putting a pain au chocolat in front of Armand and dragging a chair over to join them.

"Fag," muttered Ruth, sliding the plate over and sticking a bony finger into the middle of the pastry, as though it were a country and her finger a flag.

Armand sighed, then smiled when Olivier placed a second pastry in front of him. " Merci, patron. "

Then noticed Ruth was staring at him, expecting an answer.

Ruth Zardo. The poet. The laureate. Who from her ramshackle home in this little lost village managed to see things others did not.

Now here's a good one:

you're lying on your deathbed.

You have one hour to live.

Who is it, exactly, you have needed

all these years to forgive?

She was one of Armand's favorite poets, if not favorite people. Though he had to admit, she was close there too.

"So who was on the phone?"

"It was no one."

Myrna Landers, the owner of the bookshop, sat beside her best friend, the painter Clara Morrow. Olivier and Gabri, the owners of the bistro, had joined them.

"Jesus, you must really hate it when no one calls," said Ruth. "Four times in a row. The way you shouted." She looked knowingly at the others. "At no one."

Now they all, as though choreographed, tilted their heads and looked at him.

Really? Myrna thought. Armand was shouting?

Like everyone else, she'd seen him on the news being hammered by reporters, fielding accusations of incompetence, corruption. One blogger in particular, a young woman, really had it in for him.

But Chief Inspector Gamache kept his head, his answers measured and thoughtful.

She could not image Armand actually shouting.

What would provoke that? Who would provoke that?

Myrna Landers knew the Gamaches well. They'd often wander into her bookstore to browse, pulling new and used books from the shelves and glancing through them until something caught their interest. But sometimes Armand would come by on his own. On snowy winter days they'd sit by the woodstove, sip strong tea, and share confidences.

He'd tell her what it was like to crawl into sick minds, moving ever deeper into dark caverns until he had the answers he needed. Until he had a killer.

And she'd tell him what it had been like to be Dr. Landers, a senior psychologist specializing in criminal behavior. Until one day she'd wandered too deep into a mind, into a cave, and gotten lost. She needed to find her way back to the sunshine. To a world where goodness existed.

She'd quit her job, packed up her small car, and left the city, without a particular destination in mind. Just, away.

Stopping in the unexpected village for a break, she went into the bistro, had a café and a croissant, discovered the shop next door was for rent, as was the loft above, and Myrna Landers never left.

She had found her quiet place in the bright sunshine. And Dr. Landers became Myrna.

Then one day the head of homicide for the S?reté du Québec and his wife bought the rambling old home across the village green. He'd wandered into her shop, sat down, and Chief Inspector Gamache became Armand.

The only difference, and she knew it was huge, was that while she was out of those caves, he was still in them.

Who had been on the other end of the phone that morning? And what had that person said, what had they wanted, that pushed this steady man so far off balance he found himself shouting in his peaceful garden on a bright Sunday morning?

For his part, Armand knew he'd let his rage overpower his reason. It didn't happen often; he'd worked hard to disarm those triggers, ones that could, in his job, have catastrophic consequences. He'd seen it often enough with colleagues.

Unresolved rage and a loaded gun were a very bad combination.

He got angry more often than most knew. You could not look at the body of a murdered child and not be enraged. But anger clouded judgment. It became another problem, not a solution.

Though Armand Gamache was honest enough with himself to know that he had his own caverns, his own sinkholes. One in particular. And he'd fallen into it that morning. Pushed over the edge by a reasonable voice many, many miles away, with a simple request.

To meet.

To steady himself now, he took a bite of the soft, still-warm pastry, oozing dark chocolate. As a further balm, he looked across the patio to the Rivière Bella Bella, its fresh mountain water rushing by, catching the sun and gleaming golden. It was calming. Meditative.

His heart slowed and his shoulders dropped.

Was it a mistake to answer that call?

Why hadn't he turned off the phone after the first ring? Why hadn't he moved the phone into the study and shut the doors between it and them?

He knew why. Because he always had intended to answer. Because he had to know.

Because knowledge really was power. Where some cops thought of their guns as their weapon, Chief Inspector Gamache knew the only real weapon, and protection, was knowledge.

And yet, and yet…

And yet he'd stopped short of getting all the information. He'd run away. Refused to meet. Refused to find out what the person wanted. He'd hung up not because he was angry, but because he was afraid.

Just then, his phone rang again.