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?
“This’s directly contradicted by Monsieur Godin,” Jean-Guy pointed out. “In his statement, he said Vivienne wanted to sneak away. That she was afraid of her husband. She’d never have provoked him like that.”
“So does that mean Homer was lying?” asked Isabelle.
“It could mean that Vivienne meant to sneak away,” said Jean-Guy, “as she told her father, but then had a drink. Maybe for courage. But it backfired. She had too many, and things got out of control.”
“So let’s say Vivienne had just enough alcohol to lower her defenses,” said Lacoste. “She said things she hadn’t planned to. What does Tracey do? He hits her. Then he said he left her, alive, and went into his studio to start a new piece but passed out instead. When he woke up, Vivienne was gone.”
It was the picture of a catastrophically unhappy home. Of a sick relationship. That could not possibly continue. And into which a baby was going to be born.
Unless something changed.
“Can that be true?” asked Jean-Guy. “Are we supposed to believe that Tracey left her alive?”
“For now,” said Gamache. “For argument’s sake. Yes.”
They sat quietly, trying to argue.
“So,” Jean-Guy finally said. “Who killed her if not Tracey?”
They looked at Gamache.
He had no definite answers, though he had spent the better part of the night looking into the dark corners of the case. Beyond the malice, to where some fact, some feral truth, might be waiting to be found.
“Pauline Vachon,” said Isabelle. “She had motive. She wants desperately to get out, to have a better life. And she’s brighter than Tracey.”
“That’s not saying much. Henri here is brighter than Tracey,” said Jean-Guy.
The shepherd raised his head and swiveled his mighty ears toward Jean-Guy. He was not, they all knew, a dog of great intellect. The main purpose of his head seemed to be to support his formidable ears, which were tuned to key words. Treat, dinner, walk, Henri.
Henri kept all he needed to know, all that really mattered, safe in his heart. Where there was not need of words. Except, maybe, good boy.
Armand lowered his hand and stroked Henri until the shepherd dropped his head to his paws.
“Pauline Vachon could plan it and pull it off,” Isabelle was saying. “Shoving a woman who’d had a few drinks, who wasn’t expecting to be attacked, from a bridge wouldn’t take much. Those bruises could’ve been made by anyone.”
“And the boot prints,” said Jean-Guy. “She could’ve been wearing Tracey’s. Trying to implicate him.”
“But how did she arrange to meet Vivienne on the bridge?” asked Isabelle. “There were no calls into the house that day and only those two numbers dialed out.”
“Tracey told Vivienne to go to the bridge,” said Jean-Guy.
Isabelle stared at him in disbelief. “Now, that’s really stretching it. You actually believe she’d go? To meet her husband’s lover? All Vivienne wanted was to get as far away, as fast as possible. There’s no way she’d agree to meet Pauline Vachon on a lonely bridge at night. Why would she?”
“To confront Pauline,” said Jean-Guy. “To give her hell. Suppose Tracey tells Vivienne he’s meeting his lover on the bridge, knowing she’ll go there.”
“Come on. Maybe on paper that works, but in reality?” said Isabelle. “Everyone who talks about Vivienne describes a woman frightened out of her wits.”
She looked over at Gamache, who was considering it.
The scenario Jean-Guy described was possible. Just. In normal circumstances a wife might go to confront her husband’s lover. Except these were not normal circumstances.
“Why the bridge?” he asked. “If they wanted her dead, there’re easier ways. Why go through all that rigmarole?”
“Rigmarole?” asked Jean-Guy, always amused when Gamache used odd Anglo words.
“Yes,” said Gamache. “It means either taking or luring a young woman to a bridge and throwing her off.”
“Really?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Non. But it does mean making something complicated that could be simple. There’s something else that argues against Vachon,” said Gamache.
“What?” asked Jean-Guy, not liking the sound of that.
Gamache picked up the notes at his side and, putting on his reading glasses again, scanned them until he found what he was looking for.
“Stuff’s in the bag,” he read. “Everything’s ready. Will be done tonight. I promise.” Gamache looked up at them. “The messages between Carl Tracey and Pauline Vachon on the day of the murder. And her reply: Finally. Good luck. Don’t mess it up.”
“Pretty damning,” said Isabelle.
“But the person it damns isn’t Pauline Vachon,” said Gamache, removing his glasses. “It shows that while Pauline Vachon knew about the murder plans, she wasn’t actually there. So suppose there’s another interpretation?”
“What?” asked Jean-Guy, not liking the sound of that either.
“Suppose Carl Tracey and Pauline Vachon were telling the truth.”
“Oh, come on,” said Jean-Guy. “You’re kidding.”
“You think I’m joking?” Gamache stared hard at Jean-Guy. “Just suppose that this exchange”—Gamache held up the page and shook it—“is about Tracey’s pottery. He was out of clay and went to the art-supply store. The Instagram post originated from there. We know that. And we found a new bag of clay, unopened, in his studio. Stuff’s in the bag. Everything’s ready. Will be done tonight. He might’ve been referring to new works.”
They stared at him in disbelief. Did Gamache really think that was possible?
“So you’re saying Tracey didn’t pack Vivienne’s bag?” asked Jean-Guy. “That Vivienne did, and she tossed in those abortion pills even though she was well along in her pregnancy? The clothes she packed were for summer, even though it was minus five degrees that night. Why’d she do that?”
Gamache turned to Isabelle. “You answered that yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Oui. And so did Madame Fleury, when we talked with her about the shelters.”
Gamache looked at Jean-Guy, though try as he might, Jean-Guy couldn’t come up with anything.
But Isabelle did. “You mean my overnight bag. I keep it in the car, in case.”
“Exactement,” said Gamache. “In case. Simone Fleury said many abused women pack a bag and keep it hidden. Sometimes for months—years, even. Ready to grab when the moment is right.”
A knot was forming between Jean-Guy’s brows.
Was it possible?
And suddenly Vivienne came into stark relief. A shattered, frightened young woman. Her bag packed. Waiting for her chance. Waiting. Enduring the loneliness, the humiliations. The beatings.
And when she was pregnant, deciding she really did need to leave. For her baby.
This one she’d save. This one she’d protect from Carl Tracey.
It would explain the timing. And it would explain the clothing.
“She packed in the summer,” he said. “And the bag sat in her car since then.”
“Until Saturday,” said Isabelle.
“I think so, but there’s a problem with that, too,” said Gamache. “How did it get into the river? Would Carl Tracey or whoever killed her know it was in her car? Presumably he didn’t realize before, so why would he look for a bag after he killed her?”
“She must’ve taken it out of the car with her,” said Isabelle.
“But why?” asked Jean-Guy, imagining that cold night. On the bridge.
“Maybe she was getting into another car,” said Isabelle. “Her lover’s?”
“But wasn’t she going to drive to her father?” asked Jean-Guy.