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?
“Pour yourself a vat of wine, cut a huge slice of chocolate cake, sit by the fire, and know you’re loved. You and your art. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll walk you home,” said Billy as they put on their coats to leave.
“That’s all right. It’s not far.”
“I know. I’d like to.” He put on his gloves and hat and was glad Myrna couldn’t see his face.
“Billy—” Myrna began as they walked along the road.
“Don’t say it. Please.”
If only he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine their lives together. What might have been. The quiet nights. Reading. Cooking. Having friends over. Meals in the bistro. Together.
Growing old. Together.
He left her at her door, then got in his truck and drove home. Alone.
Clara took Myrna’s advice, as she almost always did.
It helps, she thought, as she cut herself a huge wedge of cake and carried it into the living room, to have a wise friend. Who can bake.
As she sat in front of the fireplace with Leo, Clara tried to clear her mind. But found it cluttered with Dominica Oddly. And that review.
Leo placed his magnificent head on her lap, and they both stared into the roiling fire.
“I’ve been thinking about Tracey and his pottery,” said Isabelle.
“Yes?” said Beauvoir.
They’d walked over to Gabri and Olivier’s bed-and-breakfast, where Isabelle had “her” room. With its familiar four-poster bed and eiderdown comforter, the fireplace laid and ready to be lit. The armchair in front of it. With a carafe of tawny port, a glass, and a small box of her favorite chocolates.
While Dominica Oddly had gone upstairs to work, Isabelle had deposited her bag in her room and returned to the living room of the B&B to join the others.
And work.
“Isn’t that just a little bit of a stretch?” asked Isabelle. “To think Tracey killed his wife so that his art would be noticed? Besides, he’s not smart enough to think that far ahead. I doubt he even knows what he’s having for lunch most days.”
“Tracey couldn’t plan it,” Jean-Guy agreed as he poked the fire, then grabbed a chocolate chip cookie off the tray on the sideboard and joined the others. “But like we said, Pauline Vachon might.”
Isabelle nodded. “I can see her planning it. But really, would she kill Vivienne on the off chance it would give Tracey’s career a boost? Seems a pretty drastic marketing tool. I don’t believe it.”
“It obviously wouldn’t be the only motive,” said Beauvoir. “There’re lots of reasons she’d want Vivienne dead. She’d get Tracey, for one. And any inheritance, real or imagined, coming his way as Vivienne’s husband. And if his pottery did hit, she’d be right there to collect. If there’s a scandal, like a murdered wife, to help it along, so much the better.”
Up until now, Gamache had preferred to listen as the two investigators tossed around ideas. Taking in what they were saying. Letting his mind both focus and be free. Now he got up from the comfortable armchair.
“Excuse me,” he said, bringing out his phone. “I just need to check something.”
He stepped over to the window, where the wavering signal was strongest, and returned a couple of minutes later. His face grim.
Dominica checked her site. The review of Clara’s art was up and getting good notice. Lots of hits. Lots of shares. The new item she’d just posted was also beginning to trend.
Not yet tired, she Googled around, and then, bored, she typed in “Jean-Guy Beauvoir.”
A few items came up, including a commendation. There was a photo of this Chief Inspector Gamache, giving him a medal. But the line under the photo identified him as Chief Superintendent Gamache. The head of the Sûreté du Québec.
Curious, she put in “Armand Gamache. Sûreté.”
Lifting her brows at the number of stories, she scrolled down. The photographs, clearly taken over the course of a long career, showed a man aging. From dark, wavy hair to gray. From smooth-faced to lines, growing deeper and deeper with each passing story.
And then that scar appeared. At his temple. The first time was in a photo of him in dress uniform. Grim-faced, with a cane. In a funeral procession.
But there was one constant. His eyes. Intelligent and thoughtful. And even kindly.
It was disconcerting. In a cop.
There was a link to a recently posted video, with half a million views already.
Dominica Oddly sat in her quiet room, in the quiet village, and watched, horrified, as the quiet man with the kindly eyes shot a succession of young, mostly black, kids.
She recognized that the video had been hacked together. And knew it was probably bullshit, but she found herself sucked in. Probably because she was predisposed to believe that’s what cops did.
Did that explain his demotion? Is this how the good folk of Canada react to mass murder? A wrist slap?
Then another video came up. Also newly posted. With almost the same number of hits.
Her eye, trained to see the manipulation of images, realized this was the real thing. Uncut. Unedited. Raw. The parent of the previous, perverse video. The place from which those images had been culled, to create a false, but compelling, narrative. Of a man, a cop, out of control.
But this second video showed something very different. A commander in complete control. Leading a raid on a factory. Against what were clearly heavily armed gunmen.
In shaky but clear images, she watched Sûreté agents, including the three people she’d just met over a civilized dinner, advance through the gunfire.
Jean-Guy. Isabelle. Armand.
“Christ,” she whispered as she watched last rites hurriedly given by one agent to another.
As hoarse last words were placed by one dying officer into another.
She watched as Jean-Guy fell, hit in the abdomen, and Armand dragged him to safety, kneeling over him to stanch his wound. Then he headed back into the battle. But before he did, Chief Inspector Gamache bent down and, for all the world to see, kissed the frightened young man on the forehead and whispered, “I love you.”
Words they both must have believed would be the last Jean-Guy Beauvoir would ever hear.
Minutes later, Isabelle was holding Armand’s hand as blood ran from the wounds at his temple and chest, and he whispered to her, barely audible, words he must’ve thought would be his last.
“Reine-Marie.”
Dominica Oddly was shocked by the violence, and even more shocked by the tenderness.
She snapped her laptop shut. And for the first time felt real revulsion for social media.
That would cut, twist, put a lie to the truth.
That would nail decent people to posts.
And then she remembered what she’d just done.
“What is it?” asked Jean-Guy.
Armand turned his phone around for them to see.
There, beneath the title, “All Truth with Malice in It,” was the story of a man in the remote Québec countryside. An undiscovered but important ceramic artist. Who also happened to be, allegedly, a murderer.
“Merde,” said Jean-Guy as he read.
“How’d you know?” Isabelle asked Gamache.
“If you’re given a lead, don’t you follow it? She’s a critic, but she’s also a journalist and an entrepreneur. And a good one. We handed her a great story. What else was she going to do with it?”
“Be a decent human being?” suggested Isabelle. “Respect Homer Godin’s pain and not promote a murderer.”
“I handed it to her,” said Jean-Guy.
“We all did,” said Armand.
“It’s disgusting, but it won’t harm the case,” said Isabelle.
“What case?” demanded Jean-Guy. “And what’ll Homer make of this? It’s not enough that that asshole Tracey killed his daughter, now he’s profiting from it. Thanks to us.”