The Black Wolf: A Novel By Louise Penny - 2

Clara Morrow brought the mug of tepid coffee to her mouth, forgetting that she had a paintbrush clasped between her teeth, like some gunslinger preparing to have a bullet removed.

The analogy wasn’t that far off. This stage in her creations was always painful, wracked as she was with insecurities. The bleeding was internal. The wound worse than it appeared.

Survival was not guaranteed.

Through the window of her small home in the Québec village of Three Pines she could see a light at the rambling white clapboard house across the village green, and smoke rising from the chimney.

Someone was up and functioning at the Gamache home. And so early.

Then she noticed a soft glow over the forests and hills that surrounded the village. The sun was rising.

What time was it? Last time she looked, it was 2:17 in the morning, when That Familiar Voice had screamed that she was a fraud. That she was fucked.

It had propelled her out of bed, down the narrow stairs, and into her studio to stare at the canvas and the merde that someone, surely not her, had put there.

This was to be the centerpiece of her solo show at Montréal’s Musée d’art contemporain.

Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck!

The only comfort was that the bistro would open soon and she could escape into the company of toasted cinnamon buns, dripping butter. And maple-smoked bacon. And, and …

Myrna.

The two women would drink strong café au lait in front of the muttering fire, and for those few minutes Clara could forget the six-shooter pointed at her heart. The trigger being pulled. Pulled …

Putting down the mug and spitting out her brush, Clara Morrow turned her back on the easel and the series she’d been working on for two years.

It was called Just before something happens …

“Mario!” Joseph Moretti put his hand on the elderly man’s shoulder. “How’re your plums?”

“As juicy as ever, Don Moretti.”

Both men laughed.

This was an old joke started decades ago when Mario had been a virile young man, and Joseph a child trailing his grandfather around the Marché Jean-Talon. At the time, the boy had thought his grandfather’s question was literal, which confused him since Mario was a butcher and did not sell plums.

The joke had been passed down to son and now grandson, who’d finally understood it about the time his own plums appeared. It was clear that the old joke, never clever or even funny, was now distressing to the dignified older man. And always had been. Which was why Moretti, like his father and grandfather, repeated it. Each and every weekend.

Joe Moretti had been coming, man and boy, to this farmers’ market in Little Italy every Saturday morning since he was younger than his daughter. Before the market opened, he’d hold his father’s hand and walk the aisles a few steps behind his grandfather, amid the hubbub of farmers unloading their produce. Setting up their stalls of bright gourds and multicolored peppers, of fragrant apples and earthy potatoes and assorted onions.

The men and women called to each other. Some singing, some arguing over a football match. A miscalled penalty. Groaning over a free kick that hit the crossbar.

It was good-natured, and young Joe had envied them. Their comradery. The ease with which they laughed and even argued. The apparent simplicity of their lives. The certainty and predictability. What to do. How to do it. While crops might sometimes fail, it was through no fault of their own. They were blameless.

Even as a child, he’d envied that and understood the difference between them.

Young Joseph had also noticed that as his grandfather approached, as his father and even he approached, the farmers fell silent, the laughter stopped. The jocularity dying on their lips, they touched their caps and nodded. Each hoping Don Moretti would stop. Would admire their produce and give them a chance to offer the family the best they had.

And now, decades later, the place looked, sounded, even smelled the same. It was still buzzing. Still fragrant with the scent of fresh-picked autumn fruits and vegetables. Even the blood from the slaughtered animals smelled good to Moretti. Or at least familiar. Now.

As a child, as a teen, as a young man, he’d taken it all in, just as his daughter did now. The young Joe had noted, subconsciously, the respect, the reverence, in which his grandfather and father, his entire family was held. It was their due, his birthright.

Or so it seemed.

A decade later, in his late teens, he’d watched it seep away when the old man had been arrested for running guns into the States and the leadership had passed to Joe Jr.’s father. A man ill-suited to the job. He was too nice, too willing to forgive, too ready to compromise and collaborate with other Québec crime families. To make alliances with the biker gangs, the East End gang. The Irish and Jewish crime families. Too willing to give up territory to preserve peace.

He was weak.

Joe Jr. knew it. And had known from a young age what would have to be done to guarantee survival.

The signs of disrespect when the grandfather had been arrested and the son took over were subtle but immediate and unmistakable. The pies held out to Joe Sr. were charred on the edges. They were ones that could only be given away. To the poor, or the Morettis.

Produce was still offered, but perhaps not the best cuts of meat. Not the choicest of fruit or vegetable. Bruises were evident. As was the message.

But still Joe Sr., the new Don, took the offerings and even thanked the farmers, while Joe Jr.’s lips curled and his emotions curdled, and he took note of names as the Moretti empire crumbled.

But the satisfaction, bordering on glee, of those who enjoyed the downfall was short-lived. As were they.

With the death in prison of the grandfather, the grandson had moved swiftly to establish himself, leapfrogging over his own father. A bold, some said foolish move that threatened all-out war. Until Joseph Moretti Sr. had been killed in Sainte-Émiline, north of Montréal, in a fire at the country home of his mistress. A fire ruled accidental by a young investigator in the Sûreté’s Arson division.

Then the reprisals, swift, relentless, merciless, had begun.

And when it was over, Joe Moretti the younger emerged as the new capo di tutti capi. The head of the Sixth Family. The most powerful mob boss in Canada and one of the most powerful in North America, behind the five New York–based mafia families.

On this bright Saturday in early October, while Don Moretti strolled the aisles of the Marché Jean-Talon, collecting gifts and signs of respect, “ Bonjour , Don Moretti,” enjoying the fruits of others’ labors, the former arson investigator sat looking at her reflection in the window of the Métro car as it careered through another tunnel.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir stood just inside the church and looked around for his father-in-law.

He’d woken early to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and a cold breeze scraping his face. He opened his eyes and stared with rancor at the curtains puffing out at the open window.

Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck.

He snuggled deeper into the bed, spooning Annie and feeling her body heat combined with his own warming the duvet around them. He pulled it tighter and pretended the cold air wasn’t rushing into the room.

He nudged Annie gently, hoping she’d wake up and shut the window. But she didn’t move.

Getting up, he ran to the window with every intention of shutting it, then hopping back into bed. But as he reached it, he saw his father-in-law walking through the soft predawn light along the dirt road that led out of the village. Followed, Dr. Dolittle–like, by the small parade of animals. Henri, the ears that walked like a dog; old Fred; and little Gracie.

Jean-Guy looked back at his warm bed, where Annie was snoring, then returned to the window, but Armand had disappeared.

Closing the window, he kissed Annie and whispered, “I know you’re awake, awful woman.”

Her snoring grew slightly louder.

After checking on Honoré and Idola, he quickly showered, shaved, put on his heavy fall sweater that smelled of the cedar closet, and his cords. Following the scent of fresh-brewed coffee to the kitchen, he poured two mugs; then he too left the quiet house.

The sun was barely visible through the forest. There was a hint of light, rather than light itself. A promise of things to come. It was a few minutes past seven and the day glistened, bright and fresh and filled with promise. Anything might happen.

A mist hung over the village nestled in the valley as the cooler autumn air mingled with the warm earth. The vapor rose thicker over the Rivière Bella Bella, creating a sinewy ribbon over the forest as it followed the freshwater spring through Three Pines and out the other side.

All this gave a village already steeped in mystery an almost mystical feel, heightened even further by the near impossible fall colors of the surrounding forest.

The vapor from the mugs joined the mist, adding coffee to the fragrance of fresh grass and mud and the musky fallen leaves. Jean-Guy took a big breath and inhaled a deep sense of peace.

He knew it was temporary, perhaps even illusionary, but he welcomed it as he followed in Armand’s footsteps up the hill to St. Thomas’s.

Once at the church, he climbed the stairs and paused to look back at the fieldstone and rose brick and white clapboard homes that circled the village green. Three immense pines stood in the middle of the Québec village, towering over the homes and shops, as though sentinels. In fact, as Jean-Guy had learned, three pines planted in formation was an old code, meant to tell those fleeing for their lives that they were finally safe. They had found sanctuary.

People still got sick, still died in Three Pines. Were still hurt, wounded. Terrible things still happened here, as elsewhere. The village did not, could never, guarantee safety from the blows life dealt. That would be ridiculous. The safety they found in the village wasn’t physical but emotional.

Whatever happened, they were not alone. There was help and company, and finally, at the end, there was comfort. A hand to hold.

Jean-Guy saw Olivier leave the Bed-and-Brunch he shared with Gabri and walk across the village green to their bistro. Light soon appeared through the mullioned windows. Before long a thin line of smoke would rise from the bistro chimneys, and villagers would take it as a sign far more important in their lives than any papal election.

Breakfast was ready.

Their Saturday would begin in front of the large open fires, with strong coffee and crêpes, or French toast sprinkled with fresh fruit and doused in maple syrup drawn from trees Jean-Guy could see from where he stood.

There’d be scrambled eggs with melted Brie and maple-smoked bacon, flaky croissants and warm cinnamon buns from Sarah’s Boulangerie next door.

Most of all, the villagers would start their day with each other. While Armand walked up to the church alone. He sat in the same pew each morning, under the stained-glass image of the boys, the brothers who’d left Three Pines more than a century earlier for the Great War and never returned.

It was an image that haunted not for its heroism, though there was that, but for the fear etched deep and forever into the faces of two of the boys while the third, the youngest brother, looked out at the congregation. Not with accusation, though that would have been understandable, but with something more terrifying. Almost unfathomable.

At the age of seventeen he marched with his brothers to certain death in a futile battle that only presaged the next slaughter. And then he spent the next century staring out at the congregation, at those who’d let this happen, who’d let them go. He wanted them to know one thing.

That he forgave them.

Sneak home and pray you never know / the hell where youth and laughter go.

Each morning Armand sat in that fear and forgiveness and pulled the copy he’d made of Charles’s notebook from his pocket, struggling to see what he was missing. Fighting to understand what was written in those pages by another young man who’d also given his life for others.

Armand knew if he got it wrong, it would be unforgivable.

All this Jean-Guy also knew as he turned away from the peaceful view and entered the church.

The lines between Armand’s brows deepened.

There was still so much they did not know, but what was clear to the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec was that something else was planned. Which meant there were others still out there. Those who had avoided arrest. And to do that, their influence must extend to the highest levels of government, the judiciary, industry. Organized crime.

The police.

Even, he feared, within the Sûreté. He didn’t know who, though he had suspicions. Some officers had been arrested in that first sweep, but where there were bad apples, the rot spread. Which was why Armand kept the fact he had not stopped investigating to his tight circle. Only a few knew. Very few. A carefully chosen few.

“There must be more,” Armand had whispered that morning as he’d gripped the side of the sink and stared at his reflection.

There must , he’d thought as he’d entered the quiet church, followed by the small parade of creatures. And the ghosts that never left.

“There must,” he muttered as he stood very still and stared straight ahead. As he fought to understand what was happening. What was about to happen.

If anything.

A part of him still hoped he was wrong. Hoped he was reading far too much into a dead man’s indecipherable notes. Had the screaming in his ear, in his head, made him deaf to reason?

Everyone else was convinced the danger was over. The plotters had been arrested. Were in prison. Including the man behind it all.

The former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.

Marcus Lauzon denied he was involved, but the evidence against him was overwhelming. While the evidence against Don Moretti had evaporated. Disappeared.

How could that be? How could that man, that murderer, not even be arrested?

The answer was, of course, clear. Someone high up had corrupted the process.

But following that train of thought brought Gamache to an even more troubling question: Why had Moretti gotten off while Marcus Lauzon had been convicted? Would Lauzon, as the Black Wolf, not make sure the evidence against him disappeared, and Moretti fell?

Why the other way around? Why?

There were, of course, two possible answers.

Lauzon preferred to be in prison, beyond suspicion, when something else happened.

Or …

Armand closed his eyes and, teetering on the edge, he took a deep breath, then took the plunge.

Or … he’d been wrong. Marcus Lauzon was not the Black Wolf.

After the inquiry wrapped a few weeks earlier, Armand had called the head of the Sûreté’s Organized Crime division. In person was always better, but for now, video and virtual would have to do.

“I have the same questions, Armand.” Evelyn Tardiff’s words were transcribed at the bottom of the screen for him to read. “It seems incredible that Moretti got off. Who else is involved? And why did the head of the crime family even agree to work with anyone? He’s notorious for killing rivals, not partnering with them.”

“ Oui. He murdered his own father for doing the same thing.”

“Unfortunately, that could never be proven. God knows I tried. As you know, I was the arson investigator on that case.”

“ Oui. ”

There was something else he knew. At the time of the fire that killed Moretti’s father, then Agent Tardiff had been approached by the head of the Sûreté to let young Moretti know she’d be open to a bribe. To make the investigation go away.

She did. And slowly over the years she’d gained more and more access to the head of the Montréal mob, even as she rose through the Sûreté ranks.

But what worried him now was that Evelyn Tardiff might have known about the poisoning plot and said nothing. What really worried him now was that he no longer knew whose side she was on.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” she said. “Though the question is now moot, thankfully. It’s over.”

Armand left it at that. He wasn’t ready to tell her about the suspicions that propelled him out of his warm bed, to sit within the light of the luminous boys and ponder the unimaginable. The unforgivable.

“Morning, numbnuts.”

Jean-Guy started, spilling a bit of coffee out of each mug. For a moment a trick of the young light made it look as though one of the stained-glass boys had spoken. And called him numbnuts. That could not be good.

Though Jean-Guy quickly realized who it must be. It was not much better.

Ruth Zardo, the elderly poet, popped up in the pew where she’d apparently been napping.

“Sleeping it off, you old hag?” He slipped onto the bench beside her. Rosa the duck looked at him, clearly pissed off at having been woken up. But then ducks were often pissed off. At least, this one was.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Rosa muttered before once again burying her beak between her chest and wing.

“Looking for Clouseau?” Ruth took one of the mugs from Jean-Guy. “For me?”

“Actually—”

Before he could stop her, she took a long sip. “Just coffee. Blech. Why would you bring me that?”

“I—”

“He’s in the basement. No doubt hiding from you. Can’t say I blame him.”

Jean-Guy stared at the mug and wondered how to get it away from her. Armand needn’t know she’d taken a sip. “How does he seem to you?”

Ruth considered the question. “Perhaps a bit better. Hard to tell. He seems worried.” Now she looked at Jean-Guy more closely. “What’s going on? What’s he worried about? Why’s he down there?”

“Hiding from you, I suspect. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Shit-head.”

“Witch.”

He looked at the warm mug cupped in her cold hands and decided not to wrestle her for it. She’d probably win.

As he walked to the stairs, he heard, “Say hi to your boss.”

Though on leave from the Sûreté, Armand Gamache was still, and would always be, Beauvoir’s mentor and boss. His Chief Inspector. No matter what happened.

And a lot had.

“ Bonjour , Jean-Guy.”

Beauvoir stopped dead at the bottom of the basement stairs, his eyes wide with surprise. “Did you hear me coming?”

Armand’s back remained to him, his hands clasped together behind him. Jean-Guy could see the red slashes, scars where the zip ties had bitten into Armand’s wrists.

Then the older man turned, and his face broke into a smile of genuine pleasure. At over six feet tall, he was solidly built. His face was worn from days and nights in windswept fields, trudging through forests, kneeling in deep snow beside some unfortunate who had become a corpse, but never just a case.

And yet, if met by chance at a party, Chief Inspector Gamache would easily be mistaken for a professor of ancient history at the Université de Montréal. Someone who studied the lives of those long dead instead of the head of homicide, hunting those who dealt out fresh death.

Jean-Guy had watched him at social events, listening closely as strangers told Armand the minutiae of their lives. He listened and nodded, asking questions. He let whoever he was with know they were not just fascinating, they were precious. Their stories heard and valued.

Though Armand did not go to many parties anymore, and the listening part had changed, after what had happened.

Perhaps the biggest reason Armand would never be taken for a homicide cop was what Jean-Guy saw now. The smile. Radiant, it radiated from the corners of his eyes and mouth, cutting across the worry lines.

Here was a clearly happy man despite, or perhaps because of, all that he’d knelt beside. All that he’d seen.

And he’d seen the worst. But Armand Gamache had also seen the best, and insisted his people see it too and not get mired in the all-too-obvious darkness.

“How else are we going to survive,” he told them, “unless we also see the kindness, the courage, the decency in people? There’s more goodness than cruelty in this world.”

And he believed it.

“I smelled coffee and thought it must be you,” Armand explained, his voice only slightly louder than it should have been. He’d become good at modulating it. “Ruth has a whole other smell. Besides, when you and Annie and the children spend the weekend, you always join me here.”

“Upstairs, yes, but not down here.” Jean-Guy spoke slowly, making sure he faced his father-in-law. “Why’re you here?”

The basement, with its low, acoustic-tiled ceiling and florescent lights, wasn’t just gloomy, it was cold. Jean-Guy looked at his untouched mug of warm coffee, then held it out.

“For you.”

“Me? Isn’t it yours?”

“No. I’ve had mine. I brought it for you.”

Armand studied him, then took the mug.

Like Ruth upstairs, Armand held the warm mug in his cold hands for a moment. He knew perfectly well the coffee was Jean-Guy’s. But he also knew to refuse the kind gesture would have been much worse than accepting.

He took a long sip and exhaled. “ Merci. ” He saw the pleasure on Jean-Guy’s face, then turned and gestured at the wall of the church basement.

“That’s why I’m here.”

Evelyn Tardiff’s breath came out in puffs as she walked through the chilly morning. The streets of north end Montréal were quiet. It was going to be one of those picture-perfect autumn days. Bright and fresh, the air crisp and clean.

As she made her way to the farmers’ market, she wondered how many of the people she passed would be dead now, had the plot to poison the drinking water succeeded. At least half was the official estimate, maybe more. Maybe that child across the street. Probably that elderly couple walking arm in arm toward the bagel place.

Don Moretti blamed her, probably rightly, for Gamache managing to stop the plot. But there was an advantage to what had happened. Or didn’t happen.

Not only were the investigations and postmortems focused elsewhere, but everyone now believed those responsible were behind bars and the water supply safe.

But water security had all sorts of meaning. The danger to it was not simply from pollution or even deliberate poisoning. A whole new threat was emerging globally, and Canada was about to demonstrate to the rest of the world how insecure a water-rich country could be.

It surprised her that no one saw it. It seemed so obvious.

Yes, Moretti and the others were home free as long as no one thought to dig deeper into the notebooks. As long as they were the only things Gamache had found.

As long as Joe Moretti hadn’t seen, hadn’t sensed, the one who was really in charge. Far more powerful than him. Far viler. Vastly more dangerous.

Some malady is coming upon us. We wait. We wait.

And the head of Organized Crime for the Sûreté knew that wait was almost over.

Armand had pinned a creased and marked-up map of the province of Québec to the wall of the church basement and was staring at it. He swayed slightly, in contemplation. Or perhaps exhaustion.

Jean-Guy had seen this map before. In fact, he’d been the one to find it in the monastery on the shores of that remote lake. They’d studied it closely, knowing if the biologist and the Abbot had hidden it, it must be important.

But try as they might, the map had yielded precious little.

When the poison plot had been uncovered and the perpetrators arrested, Armand had rolled up the map and hidden it in a cylinder under his desk at home. Telling no one except his closest confidants about the find. After all, he’d told himself, he wasn’t concealing evidence. The map had nothing to do with the poison plot.

And yet the young biologist and the elderly Abbot had taken great pains to hide it. Which was another reason Armand suspected there was more coming.

This was the first time since the arrests that the map had seen the light of day.

It was a risk. But all they had left was risk.