The Long Way Home (33 page)

“Once belonged to one family,” Marcel explained as he came over to meet them. “All daughters. None married. They built their homes together.”

The houses were modest in size, painted bright red and blue and yellow. Lighthouses, it seemed, in the gray landscape. The style of each house was similar, but slightly different, with swooping dormers and fieldstone chimneys and wooden porches. The roofs were sheet metal and looked like silver fish scales. They caught the fading light and turned soft blues and pinks.

“Does it have a name?” Myrna asked.

“The community? No. No name.”

“No Name,” Myrna repeated.

“Who lives here now?” Clara asked, following Chartrand to the home nearest the river.

“Those places belong to summer people.” He pointed to the other two houses. “I’m the only one who lives here year-round.”

“Does it ever get lonely?” Myrna asked.

“Sometimes. But what compensation.”

His arm swept in an arc, taking in the trees and rocks and cliffs and great dome of sky. And the dark river. Marcel Chartrand was staring as though each was a close friend.

But none had a heartbeat, thought Myrna. It was no doubt glorious, but was it really compensation?

“I bought the place twenty-five years ago. Had been on the market for years, since the last sister died. No one else wanted it. It was derelict by then, of course.”

Chartrand swung the door open and they entered.

They found themselves in a low living room, with wooden floors and beams. It would have felt claustrophobic, but Chartrand had used a traditional milk wash to paint the beams and the plaster walls white.

The result was a welcoming, homey feel. Two armchairs and an old sofa were arranged around the large open fireplace. Windows on either side looked out onto the St. Lawrence.

Once settled into their rooms, they poured drinks then gathered in the kitchen to make a meal of pasta, garlic butter baguette and chicory salad.

“You met No Man,” Gamache said to Chartrand as he made the salad and Chartrand set the table. “You’re the only one here who has—”

“That’s not strictly true,” said Chartrand. “Clara, you knew him.”

“I guess I did,” she said. “I keep forgetting. It was so long ago and I didn’t take his course. I’d see him in the hallway, but that was all. Barely recognized him from that self-portrait in the yearbook, but I guess that was the fashion at the time. Everyone wanted to look tortured.”

“They might have wanted to look it, but Norman actually was,” said Myrna.

“But you lectured at the art colony,” said Gamache, getting back to Chartrand. “Did it strike you as a cult?”

Chartrand stopped what he was doing and thought. “I don’t think so. But what would a cult look like? Would you necessarily know?”

“What’s the difference between a commune and a cult?” asked Beauvoir.

“Both have a sort of guiding philosophy,” said Myrna. “But a commune is open—members can come and go. A cult is closed. Rigid. Demands conformity and absolute loyalty to the leader and the beliefs. It shuts people off from the greater society.”

“Interesting then that No Man invited Marcel in to lecture,” said Clara. “That doesn’t seem the act of a cult leader.”

“No,” said Myrna. She looked at Chartrand, then looked away.

Gamache, watching closely, thought he knew what she was thinking.

Maybe Chartrand wasn’t invited in. Maybe he was already there.

Gamache had suspected for a while that Marcel Chartrand might’ve been a member of No Man’s community. Not because he knew so much about it, but because he pretended not to.

Chartrand looked up and smiled at Gamache. It was friendly, disarming. A comradely look. And Gamache wanted to believe they were indeed on the same side.

But instead of resolving, his doubts were growing.

“Did they show you any of their works?” Clara asked. She, alone among them, seemed to have no suspicions of Chartrand.

“No, and I didn’t ask to see them.”

Now Myrna did look up, then over at Clara. Willing her to see what was so odd. Here was an art gallery owner who seemed completely disinterested in any art.

Most gallery owners had a specialty, but were at least curious about art in general. Indeed, most were passionate and quite obnoxious about it.

Clara, who was putting garlic butter on the rounds of sliced baguette, didn’t seem to register anything peculiar.

“Did No Man ever show you his works?” Gamache asked.

“No.”

“Let me guess,” said Beauvoir. “You didn’t ask.”

Chartrand found that amusing. “When you find what you love, there’s no need to look further.”

“It’s a shame Luc Vachon has taken off,” said Clara. “He could’ve told us more about the colony.”

“Yes,” said Gamache. “It is.”

“You’d think he’d tell someone where he went,” said Beauvoir. “The server said ‘down the coast,’ but that could be anywhere.”

His knife that had been cutting tomatoes for the salad paused.

“You know, I asked her where he went, but I’m not sure—”

As he thought, the knife slowly descended until it was resting on the cutting board. He was staring ahead, replaying the conversations in the brasserie.

“
Merde
,” he said at last, dropping the knife altogether. “Where’s your phone?”

Chartrand pointed into the living room. “Why?”

“I asked the server where Vachon went and she didn’t know. Then I asked the guy at the bar when he’d be back and if I could contact him. But I didn’t ask him where Vachon goes. The young server didn’t know, but he might.
Tabarnac
.”

He reached into his pocket, brought out his notebook, and found the phone number for La Muse.

They could hear him in the living room, punching in the numbers.

Myrna and Gamache were standing together at the sink.

“What’re you thinking, Armand?” she asked quietly.

“I’m thinking that No Man disappears, then Peter disappears, and now Luc Vachon, the only member of the art colony still around, disappears.”

“And now we’ve disappeared,” Myrna whispered.

“True.”

“Come on, Armand, out with it. What’re you really thinking?”

“I’m thinking”—Gamache dried his hands on the towel and turned to face her—“that No Man lived here quietly for a number of years, and then word spread that he was a cult leader, and he was driven out.”

“That’s not thinking,” said Myrna. “That’s recapping. You can do better than that.”

“I’m thinking,” said Gamache, giving her a censorious look, “that I need to make a phone call.”

“Give Reine-Marie my love,” she called after him.

Gamache nodded and, stepping outside, brought out his cell phone. He didn’t tell Myrna that this call wasn’t to his wife. It was to someone else in Three Pines.

“What the hell do you want?”

It was Ruth’s version of “Hello.”

“I want to talk to you about your visit to the art college today.”

“Didn’t you talk to your wife about that? Why bother me?”

“I wanted to ask you something Reine-Marie couldn’t answer.”

“What?” came the impatient voice, but he could hear the note of curiosity in it.

“That couplet of yours keeps coming up.”

“Which one, Miss Marple? I’ve written hundreds of poems.”

“You know which one,
ma belle
.” He could almost hear her cringe. Gamache had long ago learned that if you wanted to endear yourself to Ruth, you gave as good as you got. But if you wanted to terrify her, be kind.
“I just sit where I’m put
 … That one.”

“So?”

“So Reine-Marie said you and Professor Massey quoted it together today. I’ve never heard you do that before. You must have liked him.”

“What’s your point?”

“Reine-Marie says he was quite taken with you.”

“You sound surprised.”

“And you with him.” That brought a pause. “And that when she asked you about it you said something. She thought it was in Latin. What was it?”

“None of your business. Is it so laughable that two old people could find each other attractive? Is it so unbelievable?”

Something else that was inexplicable?

Far from being angry, Ruth sounded on the verge of tears. Gamache remembered then, though it was never far from the surface, some of the things he despised about his job.

“What did you say, Ruth, when Reine-Marie asked you about your feelings for Professor Massey?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“I was quoting one of my favorite poets,” she said. “And no, it wasn’t me.”

“Who was it?”

“Seamus Heaney.”

“A line from one of his poems?” Gamache asked.

“No. It was the last thing he said. Before dying. He said it to his wife.
Noli timere.
”

Gamache felt a lump in his throat but pressed forward.

“The poem you and Professor Massey quoted,” he said. “
I just sit where I’m put, composed of stone and wishful thinking
.”

He waited for her to complete it, as she had with the elderly professor. But she didn’t, and Gamache finished it himself.

“
That the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal
.”

“What of it?”

Gamache looked back to the house and saw Clara and Chartrand framed by the panes, their heads bowed together over the meal they were preparing.

Noli timere
, he thought.

“Who was that poem written for?” he asked Ruth.

“Does it matter?”

“I think it might.”

“I think you already know.”

“Peter.”

“Yes. How’d you know?”

“A few things,” said Gamache. “It occurred to me that in French ‘stone’ is
‘pierre.’
And Pierre is Peter. It’s a play on his name, but it’s far more than that. You wrote it years ago. You could see it even then?”

“That he was made of stone and wishful thinking? Yes.”

“And that there was a deity that killed for pleasure,” said Gamache. “But that it could also heal.”

“That’s what I believe,” said Ruth. “Peter didn’t. Here was a man who was given everything. Talent, love, a peaceful place to live and create. And all he had to do was appreciate it.”

“And if he didn’t?”

“He would remain stone. And the deities would turn on him. They do, you know. They’re generous, but they demand gratitude. Peter thought all his great good fortune was because of himself.”

Unseen by Ruth, Gamache nodded.

“Peter always had a ‘best before’ date stamped on his forehead,” said Ruth. “People who live in their heads do. They start out well enough, but eventually they run out of ideas. And if there’s no imagination, no inspiration to fall back on? Then what?”

“What?”

“In the words of Emily Dickinson, you’re screwed. What happens when the stone shatters, when even the wishful thinking disappears?”

Gamache felt in his pocket, like a weight, the small book. And the smaller bookmark. Marking a spot beyond which he’d never been.

“Their creations eventually die of neglect, of malnourishment,” said Ruth, answering her own question. “And sometimes, when that happens, the artist also dies.”

“Driven to it by a deity who kills for pleasure,” said Gamache.

“Yes.”

“But it also heals? How?”

Gamache found himself keenly interested. And he was honest enough to know it wasn’t just for Peter.

“By offering a second chance. One last chance. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.”

“And between the two is the lump in the throat,” said Gamache.

“Yes. Most people can’t get over that. Some are born to be brilliant. Peter was. But he just couldn’t get there. He got so close he could see it, smell it. He probably even believed he was there.”

“Wishful thinking,” said Gamache.

“Exactly. He was given a taste of brilliance, of true creativity, and then, like a jest of God, he had it taken away. But the gods weren’t finished with him yet. They gave him a wife who was truly gifted. So that he would have to see it every day. Witness it. And then the gods took even that away.”

She sounded as though she was telling a ghost story. A horrible, haunting tale, of the thing she herself most feared. Not that a monster would appear, but that what she loved would disappear.

Peter Morrow was living her nightmare. All their nightmares.

“But he was given one last chance?” said Gamache. “To find it again?”

“Not again,” said Ruth, her voice sharp. Making sure this ordinary man understood. “For the first time. Peter had to find something he never had.”

“And what was that?”

“His heart.” She paused before speaking again. “That’s what Peter was missing, all his life. He had the talent, the brains. But he was riddled with fear. And so he kept going over the same territory, over and over again. As though Lewis and Clark had gotten to Kansas, then turned back and started over. The same loop. Mistaking movement for progress.”

“Peter was doing that?” Gamache asked.

“All his life,” said Ruth. “Don’t you think? The subject of each painting might be different, but if you’d seen one Peter Morrow, you’d seen them all. Still, not everyone’s a Lewis and Clark. Not everyone’s an explorer, and not every explorer makes it back alive. That’s why it takes so much courage.”

“
Noli timere
,” said Gamache. “But supposing he found the courage, what next? Did he go to Toronto looking for help, for guidance? To continue your analogy, wouldn’t he need a map?”

“What’re you on about? Jeez, we’re talking about creative inspiration, not geography. Knucklehead,” she muttered. “And why’d you bring up something as confusing as Martin and Lewis?”

Gamache sighed. He was losing her. And getting a little lost himself.

“What was Peter looking for in Toronto?” Gamache asked, trying to keep it as clear, as simple as possible.

“He was looking for a map,” said Ruth, and Gamache shook his head and breathed in deeply. “And he went to the right place. But—”

“But what?” said Gamache.