Chapter 31

C HAPTER 31

For reasons Armand Gamache could never understand, when it rained, the entrance to S?reté headquarters in Montréal smelled like wet dog.

They had a canine unit, but it was not kenneled in the lobby.

Gamache's shoes left wet marks on the floor, joining all the others who'd arrived for work that damp August morning.

He'd stopped at the café on the corner and picked up a fresh croissant and double-shot cappuccino, the scent of which now mixed with wet fur. As he waited for the elevator, he realized it reminded him of Henri and Fred in the bistro on rainy days.

While others wrinkled their nose in distaste, he inhaled deeply.

Once at his floor, the first thing Armand did was go to the bathroom to scrub his hands and face clean after that restaurant. As the water poured out of the tap, he took a handful and smelled it; then he dipped his tongue in. Though he knew that botulinum had no odor or taste, he still needed to do it.

Just in case.

Nothing. Yet.

Standing at the door into the open bullpen where his officers were working, he once again had the near overwhelming urge to shout, Leave! Now. Take your families and get off the island. Run! But instead of warning these men and women it was his duty to protect, he just stood there watching, and felt a wave of nausea so strong he had to steady himself. For a terrible moment, he wondered if it was from the tap water he'd tasted. If…

But no. This was a self-inflicted toxin. A guilty conscience.

He shoved it away. It did no good and only messed with his mind. He needed clarity, needed all his focus. Ironically, the only way to save his agents was to keep them there. In the dark. In danger.

It was necessary to give the impression of normalcy. After spending a few minutes discussing ongoing cases with his officers, he called into his office the S?reté officer assigned as liaison with the Montréal cops investigating the Langlois and Parisi homicides.

He hung up his damp coat and sat behind his desk, waving the agent to a chair on the other side.

"Tell me what you have."

"The Parisi family has been told. It's all over the news in Italy and has just hit the internet. We're getting calls from journalists here and in Italy. It's a big story and getting bigger."

"What progress?" He tried not to sound impatient. The media was not his first concern.

The inspector looked down at his notes as the Chief took a long sip of coffee.

Rarely had it tasted so good.

"Parisi stayed at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City for five nights, then checked out. We think that's when he crossed into Québec, but we have no record from Canada Customs. And so far none of the hotels in Montréal have him registered. I have agents going around with the photos the cops in Italy sent when Parisi was alive."

"He obviously had help here."

" Oui. The Parisi family has been asked about Montréal connections. The only one is an importer who deals with their olive oil. The importer doesn't have any known mob connections. I've sent an agent over to interview him."

"Nothing personal? No friends here?"

"Parisi says no. The theory the Italian cops are putting out is that Paolo was targeted by the mafia as payback to his parents. The family, through their attorney, has also issued a statement to that effect."

"That's for public consumption," said Gamache. "What does the family say privately?"

"They're denying that their son had anything to do with the murder of Charles Langlois."

Gamache raised his hands. Of course they were. Even though an eyewitness was the head of homicide for the S?reté du Québec.

"Did the head of their Anti-Mafia task force have any theories?"

"He wouldn't take my calls."

"Here." Gamache reached out. "Give me the name and number."

"I can try again, patron ."

" Non. Just give it to me. It's a rank thing." And "rank," he thought, was the word for it. "Not your fault. Anything on the woman who signaled Parisi?"

"Nothing. She's vanished."

They both knew what that might mean. More landfill.

When the inspector left, Gamache placed the call.

"So sorry, Inspector, but Superintendent Genori is occupied."

The line went dead.

Gamache stared at the phone in disbelief, then placed the call again, getting through to the same officious voice.

"Inspector—"

"It's Chief Inspector, and tell him to answer my goddamned call. Tell him I'm head of homicide and the eyewitness to the Parisi murder. The one Parisi committed." Then he said more slowly, with emphasis, "The one that almost killed me. I'm sure he's seen the video."

The line went silent, but this time not dead. Twenty seconds later another voice came on the line. "My sincere apologies, Chief Inspector. Gamache, is it not?"

The words were highly accented but understandable, and Gamache appreciated that the man's English was far better than his own Italian.

"No harm done. I'll get right to the point. Does the Parisi family have ties to organized crime?"

"I think we've already answered that. Their ties are deep, but not in the way you're suggesting. Both Signore and Signora Parisi have spent much of their energy, professionally and personally, fighting the mafia. At considerable risk to themselves and, clearly, their family."

"Clearly? What's so clear?"

"The mafia murdered their son, Paolo. In your jurisdiction. Surely that's obvious."

Now the head of the task force sounded more accusatory than conciliatory.

"And the murder of Charles Langlois?"

"A terrible accident. The young man lost control of his vehicle. Probably fleeing what he recognized as those trying to do him harm. I am just grateful you yourself were not killed."

He did not sound grateful.

"You aren't telling me you believe that, Superintendent. You've seen the video, you've read the official reports, including my witness account. There is no doubt that Paolo Parisi meant to kill Charles Langlois."

"I see no such evidence. I see an honorable and beloved young man fleeing for his life and making a terrible mistake along the way. What possible motive would he have?"

Gamache pushed back from his desk in exasperation. The jolt sent his cup flying, splashing coffee over the reports he had yet to read.

He jumped up, and tried to save the now sodden papers. This small diversion gave him a beat or two to disengage from his frustration.

He had on the line the person who led the efforts to stop organized crime for all of Italy. A courageous man, surrounded by other brave men and women who risked their lives and those of their families to bring down the mob.

No one on earth was smarter, more steeped in mafia structure, strategies, members, lore, than the man on the other end of the phone. He must see what was obvious on the video. He must believe what the reports said. What the head of homicide for Québec, an eyewitness himself, said.

He must know more. But could not say. Indeed, this ridiculous denial told Gamache more than any agreement could have.

This man might not have proof, but he had his suspicions about Paolo Parisi, if not the entire Parisi family. The trick was getting him to share what he knew.

"I'm willing, because of my respect for you, to believe what you say," said Gamache slowly, sitting down again. "Can you still send me what you have on the young man?"

"Because he has never committed a crime, Chief Inspector, there isn't much, but I will get someone in my department to send what little we have."

" Grazie. How is the family taking it?"

"How do you expect?"

"Are they personal friends of yours?"

"Yes. The father, Alberto Parisi, and I were at school together. We watched our fathers beaten by mafia thugs for protection money. My own uncle was murdered. Signore and Signora Parisi hate the mafia as much as I do."

" Merci. Please send me anything useful."

There was a pause. "I will, Chief Inspector. I am sorry."

Sorry for what? Gamache wondered as he hung up. But he thought he knew. Sorry for not being able to tell the truth.

Gamache now believed that the parents had nothing to do with the mafia, indeed, that they fought it. But the son was a different matter. Children, as Gamache well knew, often rebelled, and when they did, they chose targets that would hurt their parents the most.

For the Parisis, it was the mafia.

Armand looked at the coffee-stained reports and sighed. He had to go through them. It had to appear it was business as usual in the homicide department. And there were other cases that needed attention.

He made notes on some of the files. Signed off on others.

One of the newer agents, nervous about an upcoming court appearance, knocked on his door wanting advice.

He called in another to discuss an imminent arrest.

Leave. Get out of the city!

"You okay, patron ?" she asked.

"Just fine. Now, what's your plan?"

A day like any other. Nothing unusual… really… truly…

Leave!

He made a few calls to agents in the field, then got on a conference call with his inspectors investigating the unsolved murders in the Saguenay and the Magdalen Islands.

"Still no progress?" he asked, and heard their exasperation when they said, in unison, " Non. "

"We agree, patron, that the two must be connected, but we can't see how."

"The murdered woman in Chicoutimi worked for Canada Post," said Gamache. "Is it possible she saw some mail she shouldn't have? Perhaps opened something?" He was thinking of Frère Simon, the mail monk at the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, who'd done exactly that.

"We've checked. Nothing. She worked in the back offices, so didn't have access to the mail. Never married," Innez continued. "Friendly, but private. Belongs to a church book club. That seems to be her only outside interest."

Gamache already knew this. Had spent a few days up in the Saguenay looking into the murder. He had the file practically memorized. But still, they'd go over it, and over it, until they found whatever they were missing.

Someone went to this woman's home, a modest bungalow in a nice part of Chicoutimi, in the early evening. She'd begun to prepare dinner, a stir-fry, and had the television on. She'd left with the person. It seemed voluntary, though that was hard to tell. There was no evidence of a struggle, but then there probably wouldn't be.

Her neighbors hadn't seen anything. It had been a pleasant summer evening, and those on either side of her were in their backyards barbecuing.

It was immediately obvious to the investigators that this was no random home invasion gone sideways. Her handbag was left on the chair by the door, with money and credit cards still in it. Her home hadn't been ransacked or even, from what they could tell, searched. The killer was not looking for anything except her.

"I'm beginning to wonder if it was mistaken identity, patron ."

It was possible. But surely the killer would have realized that by now. If this murder was a mistake, wouldn't he have corrected it? Gone after the real target.

But there had been no other murders in the Saguenay since. And it was hard to see how a quiet bureaucrat could be mistaken for anyone else. Though it was even more difficult to see why she was taken to a park, had her hands zip-tied behind her back. Her mouth covered. Pushed to her knees.

He imagined what that had been like for the poor woman. How terrified she must have been. Then she was shot in the base of the skull. Why? Why her?

It was a classic execution.

The killing of the teacher on the Magdalen Islands was just two days later.

Gamache had no doubt the two were connected. He'd considered the possibility that the real target was the schoolteacher, and somehow the Canada Post clerk got mixed up in it. But that made even less sense.

They had absolutely nothing in common and lived a thousand kilometers apart.

The teacher was days away from retirement when he'd been murdered.

Why? His widow had pleaded through sobs, alternately clinging to the Chief Inspector when he'd joined the investigation for a few days, and hitting him in the chest with her fists. As though, in a twist of logic, his failure to find the killers was somehow responsible for her husband's death.

Gamache knew that in the face of sudden, violent death, especially murder, logic was overwhelmed by grief. And one question drowned out all the rest. Not who, but…

Why? his grown children had demanded.

Why? the man's colleagues had asked.

Why? Gamache asked himself.

Why had a schoolteacher, beloved by pupils and coworkers, been taken to a cliff edge, where his hands had been zip-tied behind his back. His mouth covered. Pushed to his knees, he'd been shot at the base of the skull. Execution-style.

Exactly like the postal clerk. Exactly. With no effort made on the part of the murderer to disguise that fact.

There was a pause. "I'm sorry, Chief, but I can't think where else to look. I spoke to her sister again in case she'd remembered something. But nothing."

"She had a nephew, right?"

"Yes. Ferdinand. But they haven't been in touch for years. No estrangement, just grew apart. He isn't in her will. She left most everything to the church, though there wasn't much. I can't find a motive."

"Same here, Chief," said the investigator on the Magdalen Islands. "No motive. No connection to the other. Someone said they saw a boat land at one of the jetties where the victim liked to fish. It wasn't there in the morning. I'm trying to figure out why the killer didn't dump the body in the ocean. Why take him to the edge of a cliff, kill him, and not just kick the body over?"

"Well, there's one obvious reason."

"Yes, I know. The murderer wanted him to be found. But why? For the insurance? His wife is in the clear. His children live in BC and Ontario and are all doing well. I can't find a motive, or any sense to this killing, especially if it's a hit. It must be mistaken identity."

Gamache grunted. Not another one. The killer could not be a made man if he'd made two mistakes like that. If he really had, there was a pretty good chance he'd be the next victim, and not by mistake.

No, this was a professional hit. He might, might , have made one mistake, but not two. And despite what Chief Inspector Tardiff in Organized Crime said, these were mob executions.

If the murderer wanted his victims found, it was because he wanted no doubt that the same person had done both jobs. And that he was a pro. And that there was some connection.

"Their mouths being taped shut is an interesting detail," said one of the investigators.

"It seems unnecessary," said the other. "They were in the middle of nowhere. Even if they screamed, no one would hear."

Gamache was nodding. "If it was a mob hit, then this was part of the message. Sometimes they cut out the tongue. It means someone has broken the code of silence."

"Or it's a warning to someone not to," said one of the investigators.

"But to who?" asked the other.

Gamache wondered, in passing, if Paolo Parisi might have been responsible. Was he trying to make his bones, gaining credibility with his capo by committing these murders?

But Parisi was still in New York at the time.

Gamache also now wondered if these murders were related to the death of Charles Langlois. All three killings, it seemed, had ties to the mafia. Though those ties were mere threads, and tenuous at best.

"I'm going to switch you around. Get to Chicoutimi and take over the Saguenay investigation, and Innez, you go to the Magdalen Islands. No reflection on either of you. I just want fresh eyes on both of the cases."

It was the time-tested strategy of the desperate.

" D'accord, patron. "

Gamache hung up and reached for his coffee, then remembered he'd spilled it. He was tempted to get another but didn't have time.

An update from Isabelle had come in while he'd been on the phone.

Sister Irene still wouldn't tell her anything, but the nun had at least agreed to go to the monastery. Probably, Lacoste wrote, to try to warn or protect Brother Robert, but that was a problem for later. For now the immediate one was solved.

Lacoste, the nun, and Claude Dussault were heading to Grande Chartreuse.

Once again Gamache brought out the two pieces of the formula for the old liqueur. Flattening them on his desk, he slid them together and considered.

One part had been left by Dom Philippe, who Armand hoped to meet in Blanc-Sablon in a few hours. But the other was more problematic.

He was troubled by the question of why Jeanne Caron had sent it to him. It wasn't like two halves of a decoder ring, where putting them together solved everything. When these two halves formed a whole page, it still did not make a whole lot of sense. They created a single page of a recipe that must be many pages long. It was useless but not, he knew, meaningless.

The only thing he could think of was that Caron was playing with him, trying to distract him with some archaic secret formula. Maybe even daring him to come to her. For her. To step into some trap he couldn't yet see.

And soon he might have to.

Sweeping up the pages, he put them back in his pocket and drove to the airport to catch his flight to the Land God Gave to Cain.

The three passengers looked out the bubble-like glass of the helicopter as it made a pass over the monastery.

What they saw was extraordinary. Sitting in the cleft of a mountain range, holding the encroaching pine forests at bay by force of will and hard labor, was the monastery of Grande Chartreuse. As it had stood for centuries, a citadel in the wilderness.

There was a brutal beauty about it. It was a place where the fiercely independent lived in silence. A community of hermits, where few questions were asked. And where those wanting to disappear could hide.

"Are those the monks?" Isabelle asked.

A dozen men working in what looked like a huge vegetable garden in the center of the fortress held on to their straw hats and tipped their heads back to look up. At them.

"Lay monks," shouted Sister Irene over the rotors. "They do most of the physical labor, freeing up the monks to spend their days and nights in their cells, praying."

While magnificent, there was something ominous about the place. About the layers of concealment behind which these monks worshipped. First the mountain peaks, then the forest, then the high thick walls that encircled the abbey, and finally the cells, which the brothers rarely left. All served to separate them from the world.

They lived in silence and solitude. And wanted to keep it that way.

No visitors were allowed inside.

No vehicles were allowed on the roads around the monastery.

Few messages traveled in and fewer still made it out. The world could end, and these Carthusian monks would never know. It had essentially ended for them already. They lived now in limbo, between this world and their reward.

Dussault brought his hand to his breast pocket. As the former head of the Paris police, few things worried Claude Dussault anymore. He'd seen the worst, and then worse still.

But now he was worried.

Violating the monastery could be, would be, a national scandal. And certainly a logistical nightmare. How to get inside and serve the search warrant without force?

Fortunately, the monks probably were not armed. But if the cops went in there, rifles raised against clerics with pitchforks and shovels, it would be worse than a scandal. It would be a disgrace.

And yet it might come to that. His hand dropped from his breast pocket.

"Armand better be right. This Brother Robert had better be in there," said Dussault.

They looked at the nun, who also looked worried.

On the flight over Sister Irene had heard the other two conferring. She was now convinced they were who they said they were. They were trying to help, at considerable risk to themselves, professionally and personally. Their sincerity, their desperation, their own commitment and possible sacrifice, were clear.

But there was a fine line between helping and unintentionally lighting a fuse that could not be stopped.

"He is."

It was the first information she'd volunteered. And it was what they needed.

Lacoste and Dussault looked at each other. Their cheeks puffed out in a long simultaneous exhale. They'll actually have to do this thing.

"I hear you can drive a bulldozer," said Dussault, in what struck Lacoste as a bizarre non sequitur.

The helicopter put down half a kilometer away, and they started walking.

"Look at this."

Armand, realizing their schedules at the airport matched, met Jean-Guy's flight before heading to his own.

Jean-Guy, barely off the plane, was shoving his phone at the Chief.

Armand exchanged it for the small paper bag he was carrying.

"A croissant?"

"Bought it at the café near HQ. A video?"

"Found on YouTube."

Armand hit play, and while Beauvoir devoured the croissant, the Chief watched three achingly young people, including an almost unrecognizable Frère Sébastien, sing.

Armand had expected "Let It Be," but instead, he got—

I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary,

See my baby there;

She's stretched out on a long, white table,

She's so sweet, so cold, so fair.

It was riveting. Far from the drunken, sloppy singing usually found in karaoke bars, the two monks and the nun had beautiful voices, in perfect harmony.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,

Wherever she may be,

She will search this wide world over,

But she'll never find another sweet man like me.

"This was posted on YouTube?" he asked.

" Oui. With more than a hundred thousand views. And lots of likes. Only one thumbs-down."

Armand wondered if the Pope watched YouTube videos.

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches,

Put on a box-back coat and a Stetson hat,

They sang the old blues song slowly, their robes swaying, their eyes closed as though in a sort of ecstasy.

An' give me six crap-shooting pall bearers,

Let a chorus girl sing me a song.

Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head

So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along.

It was beautiful, soulful, but not wise.

"I'm thinking their robes and that article in the local paper might not have been the only problems," said Gamache, handing the phone back. "It looks like Robert is the leader of the group."

" Oui. So I wonder why Sébastien was the one made to leave."

"So do I."

"Want me to come with you, patron ?"

"To Blanc-Sablon? Non, merci. I want you to coordinate the investigation into Paolo Parisi. I'll send you what the head of the Anti-Mafia task force in Italy passes along, as soon as I get it." Though Gamache was beginning to wonder if the fellow would actually send anything. It had been a couple of hours since their conversation. "And see what you can find out about the woman who signaled Parisi at Open Da Night."

"And probably killed him. I'm on it."

They were almost at Gamache's gate. "Parisi must've had help getting across the border. Either a fake ID or…"

"The frontier is a federal responsibility," said Beauvoir. "Caron?"

"Maybe. I want to know his movements once he got here."

"I'll go to The Mission."

They could hear the final boarding call for Gamache's flight and picked up their pace.

"Why?"

"He had to stay somewhere. So far the hotels are a bust, so where better than a place where you don't need to register or pay, and they ask no questions. If he was working for Caron, she'd have told him to go there."

"And where her showing up wouldn't be odd." Gamache smiled. "Brilliant. Keep me informed."

"You too." Beauvoir wanted to say, Be careful , but stopped himself. Though as he watched the Chief scan his ticket and be waved down the gangway, he wished he had.

Armand put in his earbuds and listened to Cab Calloway as he looked down at the increasingly rugged coastline. There was a brutal beauty about it. It was a place where the fiercely independent lived. Where few questions were asked. And where those wanting to disappear could hide.

He took out the faded photograph he'd borrowed from Dom Philippe's best friend and stared at the smiling, almost laughing young woman and girl. But his eyes rested on the young man, Yves before Philippe. A man-child who so loved his home he even had a favorite rock.

The prop plane hurtled toward the fishing village, the farthest point in Québec and the limit of Armand Gamache's power.

So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along.