Chapter 26

C HAPTER 26

As soon as the plane landed, Jean-Guy picked up the text with information on Gamache's contact.

He raised his brows when he saw the name. Then checked his watch. He had just enough time for his meeting at the Washington seminary where Brother Sébastien had taught before going to the Hay-Adams hotel bar to see the contact.

"How can I help you?"

Sister Joan was in her late thirties. Much younger than Beauvoir had expected. All the priests and nuns at his school had been, or seemed, elderly. Dried-up. Stern. Angry. Tired. Unhappy.

The head teacher, Père Pierre, had worn a long cassock, all black, except for the white priest's collar and the huge ivory cross that hung on his chest.

The big black Bible on the desk. The cross. The cane.

The very smell of the seminary was beginning to get to him. Disinfectant and chalk and sweet cloying incense. The walls here were painted the same light green as his school. A sort of faded chartreuse. The color of fear and powerlessness. Of shame and guilt and undefined but definite sin.

"I'm looking for information on one of your former teachers." Beauvoir was surprised to hear the voice of a grown man come out of his ten-year-old body. "A Brother Sébastien Fontaine. He's from Québec. A Dominican."

"Let me look." She put on glasses and went around to sit at her computer. "Yes. Here he is. You're right, he was a teacher but left the seminary."

"Really? Why would he do that?"

Taking off her glasses, the administrator met Beauvoir's gaze. "His personal information is confidential."

"I was hoping you could see your way clear—"

"To breaking our ethical agreement with students and staff, to a perfect stranger who wandered in off the street?" She smiled. "Would you?"

Despite his annoyance, Jean-Guy could see her point. He could also see that she was not Père Pierre. And this was not his school. And he was not ten years old.

"I didn't just wander in. I took a flight from Montréal to get here. I'm a homicide investigator, and my questions aren't just for fun. Do you know who his friends were? Did he hang out with other teachers?" Here Beauvoir paused, but decided to plow ahead. "I'm especially looking for another Dominican monk or priest. An American. His name begins with B ."

"That's strangely specific while still managing to be vague, Inspector."

But he saw the head teacher's eyes flit over to the computer screen, then back again.

"I'm sorry. I can't answer your questions."

"Look, Sister." Even to his own ears he sounded like James Cagney. "Is there anything you can tell me about Sébastien? About his time here"

Nothing.

"About why he left?"

There. Again that very slight shifting eye to the computer. Years interrogating suspects, interviewing witnesses, had attuned Beauvoir to what would be invisible to others.

The important question wasn't about Sébastien's time at the seminary, it was why he left.

"I can tell you a couple of things, Inspector. According to his file, Brother Sébastien had two close friends here. Both teachers."

"Are they still here? Can I speak with them?"

"I'm afraid they've moved on now."

"Where to?"

"I can't tell you that. The only reason their names are noted is because of what happened."

Beauvoir didn't dare speak. He held his breath, willing her to go on.

"The three of them shared a common passion. One that finally got them into trouble, and that's what led to Brother Sébastien leaving." On seeing Beauvoir's face, Sister Joan hurried to say, "No, the passion isn't what you're thinking. In fact, it's one Brother Sébastien, if I'm right, now uses with the full blessing of the church. Though at the time it crossed what the seminary considered a line, especially for a teacher, a role model."

"And that line was?" He had to ask, though he knew she would not answer.

And he was right. So he forged ahead. "Brother Sébastien left. I'm assuming that's a euphemism for fired." When she didn't deny it, he went on. "The other two were allowed to stay."

"Yes."

"But they eventually left. Did one go to Rome too?"

Sister Joan raised her brows and Jean-Guy smiled. She was surprised he knew about Rome. She was thinking, trying to formulate a reply that didn't violate her ethics.

But he had his answer.

Armand arranged to meet Dom Philippe's best friend at a local brasserie in the town of Saint-Alphonse-de-Granby, where the priest had retired.

Armand looked around, and his eyes landed on a man sitting alone. Despite the crowd, Armand knew exactly who he was. It wasn't difficult to spot a retired cleric.

"Father David?"

"Monsieur Gamache." The older man struggled to stand in the booth.

" S'il vous pla?t. " Armand waved him down and shook the priest's offered hand.

The man was physically frail but exuded well-being and a bonhomie that was contagious.

Armand slid into the booth. They talked about the weather and the Canadiens' draft picks until their cold drinks and sandwiches arrived.

"You mentioned Dom Philippe. As I told you on the phone, it's been years, decades, since we were in touch."

"Yes, but I'd like to know everything you remember about him from your student days."

"Is this somehow connected to the death of that young man? I saw what happened to him. To you."

"I'm not sure. Investigating can be less about discovering what's important than eliminating what's not."

While Armand took a sip of his iced tea, the priest smiled. "Not that different from what I used to do. Each day people would come to me to confess their sins and ask for absolution. Minor sins, mortal sins, cardinal sins, original sins. We have a truckload of them in the church. As a priest, I had to investigate, to ask questions. To decide on the category. Which are we talking about, Monsieur Gamache?"

"A mortal sin."

Father David put down his tuna sandwich and sat back in the banquette. "Committed by Yves?"

"Yves was his birth name?"

" Oui. Yves Rousseau. Did he—"

" Non. I believe he's trying to prevent deaths. But that's put him in danger. I need to find him. And I need to find out what he knows. I think he tried to tell me but didn't feel he could let it all out. I suspect he needed to do more investigating."

"You're worried about him."

"I am."

"You care about him."

"I do."

"So do I. I think these might help." He dug into the pocket of his cardigan and brought out some letters. "When you called and asked about him, I went looking. These were from Yves, years ago, after we'd left the Grand Séminaire but before we'd taken up our missions."

"Have you heard from him again? Recently?" Gamache watched him closely.

Dom Philippe, as Armand still thought of him, must have gone to someone when he left the monastery. He'd need help getting to Rome to meet Sébastien. Why not his former best friend?

" Non. If you find him, please ask him to get in touch. I've returned to my childhood home. Funny how clerics often do." His smile was almost whimsical. "We were so young, so innocent, when we left."

Armand picked up the yellowed letters. As he did, a black-and-white photo fell out.

It was of a very young man, with a young woman on one side of him and a little girl on the other. Almost certainly, Armand thought, a copy of the same photo Frère Simon had mentioned. The only personal item Dom Philippe had kept from his old life.

Armand turned it over. Nothing.

"Who are these people?"

"It's Yves with his sister and her daughter, his niece. It was taken outside their home."

The trio looked relaxed. Happy. Armand thought the little girl might've just said something funny because her uncle looked on the verge of laughing and was in the process of turning toward her when this moment was captured.

It was the image of a happy family. Though Armand knew that images could lie. And that no family was completely happy.

Frère Simon wasn't wrong when he'd described the background as desolate. It also looked vaguely familiar.

Armand opened the first letter.

My dearest David,

How strange it is to call you that. I wonder how long it will be, if ever, before I stop thinking of you as Jean. I've decided to take the name Philippe and join the Gilbertines. What? I can hear you mutter. Are you scratching that full head of hair I so envy?

Armand looked up at the bald priest, who was watching him. Then he went back to reading.

I haven't told the family. They'll be upset. I've tried to fight it. I sit on the rock (God knows I have my choice of rocks here, but I do have a favorite) and stare out at the water. In the relentless waves I hear the voice of God. Day and night. It's a sort of chant. A calming but inexorable calling. And I know I belong in that monastery. In that little lost order. To spend my life singing the word of God in the voice of God. To spend the rest of my days, and nights, in silent contemplation. In simplicity.

I am not looking forward to telling Mama and Papa, never mind the others. I will miss them terribly. I'll even miss the rock.

Pray for me, as I pray for you, my dear David.

Armand thought to ask his companion about their relationship, but realized it didn't matter. There was love there, and love was never wrong.

He looked at what did matter. The return address.

"Dom Philippe was from Blanc-Sablon?"

" Oui. " Now Father David laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Yves's accent was so thick when he first arrived, his vocabulary such an odd mix of old French and old English, that few of us could understand him. But he had such a calm about him. A certainty. I was drawn to him. As the weeks went by, he adjusted his speech when around others, but in private Yves reverted."

"To who he really was."

Armand picked up the photo again and stared into the amused eyes of the young man who would come to lead the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. Who would become the grey wolf. Leaving his sanctuary to track down the other one.

It was as though they were talking about two different people. One Yves Rousseau, the innocent young novitiate. The other Dom Philippe, the elderly cleric, the Abbot in charge of his monastery. Trying to prevent a catastrophe.

"Tell me, Father, do you have a passport?"

" Oui. I go across to a seminary in Vermont from time to time. Why?"

"May I see it?"

"Well, I don't have it on me, but I can send you a photo."

"Better if we have a video call. You can show me then. Your birth name is Jean. And your family name?"

"Beauchemin."

"So the name on the passport would be Jean Beauchemin?" Gamache took it down. Then he looked the elderly priest in the eye. "Did you give your passport to Dom Philippe?"

"No, sir, I did not. But I would have, had he asked."

Gamache nodded, slowly. He'd do the same thing. Commit a victimless crime to help a friend. Would he lie about it if asked directly? Probably.

He tended to believe Father David but would still check to see if Jean Beauchemin had taken a flight recently.

"May I keep these?" At a nod from his companion, Armand picked up the letters and photo. "I'll get them back to you as soon as I can."

He knew why the background of the photo was familiar. He'd been to that tiny fishing outport at the very edge of Québec, where it joined Labrador.

Many who lived there were the descendants of survivors of shipwrecks centuries past. Fishing boats from Newfoundland that had been dashed onto the rocks in storms. Thought lost by their families back home, they had in fact made a new life on that rugged coast.

So desolate was this area that mariners six centuries earlier had called it the Land God Gave to Cain.

A gift to the firstborn. The first murderer. The first to commit a mortal sin.

Staring at the photo of the monk, born and raised in the Land God Gave to Cain, Armand remembered Jean-Guy's question as they'd left Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

Were they really so sure who was the grey wolf, and who was the black?