A Better Man
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #15
- Год: 2019
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781466873711
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «A Better Man». Краткое содержание книги:
It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.
As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.
Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.
As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.
In the next novel in this constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.
What would you do if your child's killer walked free?
“No, I was speaking to my husband.” Putting her hand over the receiver, she called, “Start without me.” Then she returned to Cloutier. “Is there anything incriminating on the sites?”
“Not that I can see, but there might be a private Instagram account that they use, just the two of them.”
“That no one else can see? That’s possible?”
“Yup.”
“How would we know?”
“We wouldn’t, unless we asked and she told us.”
“And to get access to the private account?” asked Lacoste. By now she’d found the public Instagram account. It was pretty standard, clearly meant for marketing his pottery.
“Need to be invited.”
“Why would they have a private account?” Lacoste asked.
“Dunno.” Then Cloutier thought. “Private messages. That’s why.”
She sounded both triumphant and a little surprised she’d managed that answer.
“Things they don’t want public,” said Lacoste.
Cloutier sang, “Someone’s trying to hide their privates.” Then she definitely snorted.
Lacoste looked at the phone. She’d mentored the older woman since she’d been transferred, kicking and screaming, from accounting into homicide. Never once had the accountant snorted. Or even made a joke. She’d barely smiled.
She’s drunk, Lacoste knew. Now, why would Lysette Cloutier get drunk?
“Are you all right?”
“Just fine.” Now Cloutier sounded insulted. “I thought you’d be pleased about this.”
Now she sounded hurt and a little irritated.
“I am. Look, it’s been a long, difficult day. You’ve done well. Leave it and start fresh in the morning. And for God’s sake, don’t contact this woman, right? We don’t want Tracey to know we’re interested in his private Instagram. Right?”
“Right.”
Lysette Cloutier hung up but did not take that advice.
She should have.
Clara put on the outdoor lights at the back of her home.
On warm summer evenings, she and her friends would sit in the garden having drinks and dinner. The lights were placed to illuminate the perennial beds of delphiniums and phlox and old garden roses.
Beds that had been first planted more than a century ago.
But on this cold April evening, Clara had climbed the ladder and repositioned the lights so that they pointed into the night, to where her garden met the river.
Now the lights illuminated an expanse of mud and the wall of sandbags.
“Floodlights,” said Gabri, standing beside Myrna in the kitchen and staring out the window.
They’d gathered in Clara’s home, partly out of habit, partly out of a need to be together, partly because it was the best vantage point to monitor the Bella Bella and still be protected.
And privately out of fear that this would be the last time.
The neighbors put the food they’d brought onto the kitchen island, buffet style. And now they gathered around the window, to see if they could see anything.
But Clara herself had left them and gone back to the doorway into her studio, where Reine-Marie joined her.
“You okay?”
“I’m well in body,” said Clara. “But considerably rumpled up in spirit.”
Reine-Marie laughed. Easily recognizing the lines from the Anne of Green Gables books she, her daughter, and now her granddaughters loved so much.
She put her arm through Clara’s. “Fortunately, you’re among kindred spirits.”
Clara squeezed her hand and continued to stare into the studio.
“What’re you thinking?” Reine-Marie asked.
“I’m thinking that if we need to leave, I can’t take all my paintings. So which do I choose, if any?”
“If any?”
Clara turned to look at her. “Are they crap?”
“Why would you say that?”
“You know why.”
“You haven’t let those comments get into your head, have you? Those people are ignorant—”
“It was the New York Times. And Art World. Thank God the Oddly Report hasn’t said anything.”
“The what?” asked Ruth, who’d sensed pain and had gone over to bask in and, with luck, magnify it. “The Oddly Report? What’s that?”
“The one major art journal that’s never reviewed my work. Wouldn’t you know it? It’s the biggest, the most prestigious. Most people just call it Odd.”
“And obviously the smartest,” said Ruth.
“Now I’m glad they’ve ignored me,” said Clara, snapping off the lights.
But, having reexamined the miniatures, she was both heartened and confused. They were, she felt, actually very good. Exceptional, even. Why couldn’t others see what she saw?
She joined her friends, crowded around the kitchen window, while Ruth limped into the living room and stood behind the one person not watching the Bella Bella.
Homer Godin was staring out a window in the other direction. Into the forest.
Ruth’s reflection, like an apparition, hovered in the window just over his shoulder. The rain coursed down both their faces.
“She’s out there somewhere.” Homer’s words fogged the windowpane. He didn’t turn around, but his eyes in the reflection met Ruth’s. “Please. Can you help me?”
In the background, the CBC was broadcasting continuous updates on the flooding.
Reports were coming in from all over Ontario, Québec, the Maritimes, while Vivienne’s father stared at Rosa’s mother.
She reached out and touched his arm.
Homer closed his eyes tight. “Oh, please. Help.”
Armand checked the wall of sandbags.
Floodlights had been set up on either side of the river. One pointing upriver, the other pointing down. So that the villagers could see what was happening. From where he stood, he could also see the lights in Clara’s back garden.
The rain mixed with snow was teeming down, and he hunched deeper into his coat as a gust of wind lashed water into his face.
Every half hour since getting back, he went out to check the height of the river. It was, Ruth had made clear, his assignment. The least he could do.
“You don’t think you can just swan in here and relax by the fire after we spent all day building the goddamned wall?” said Ruth.
Rosa, in her arms, bristled. She didn’t like swans.
“Clearly the Sûreté doesn’t think you’re much use, or you wouldn’t be back here. And don’t get me started on what they’re saying on Twitter, the dumb-asses. Not that I disagree.”
“Ruth!” said Reine-Marie.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“All truth with malice in it,” said Armand.
“But still the truth,” said Ruth.
Reine-Marie walked Armand to the door. “That was from Moby-Dick, wasn’t it?”
Rosa turned and looked at Ruth, who whispered reassuringly, “Dick. Not duck.”
“Yes,” said Armand. “Someone quoted from the book today. Now it’s lodged in my mind.”
“Well, there’s a coincidence,” Ruth said to Clara. “You were talking about it, too.”
“What were you hearing? I was talking about my art, not a book.”
“You were talking about your critics, and the big one that got away,” said Ruth. “Your white whale.”
Armand went to put on his heavy rubber boots, then realized he’d grabbed the wrong pair. Looking around, he noticed they all had much the same boots, all bought at Monsieur Béliveau’s general store.
“Don’t let Homer out of your sight,” he said to Reine-Marie as he did up his coat. “And whatever happens, make sure he doesn’t get any car keys.”
“You don’t want him bolting,” said Reine-Marie.
He nodded. “Bolting” was one way of putting it.