The Black Wolf: A Novel By Louise Penny - 7

Reine-Marie tacked the crisp new map of Vermont below Charles Langlois’s worn map.

Then they stepped back.

“What do you see?” Armand asked.

Reine-Marie was adept at reading maps, especially hand-drawn curiosities or those containing oddities. It stemmed from her time working in the archives of Québec. Old explorers’ and mariners’ maps and charts had been a large part of her job, and her interest.

Though these mass-produced maps were on the border of also becoming oddities. Still to be found in gas stations but fast disappearing, these particular maps had something else in common with their ancestors. The consequences of a misread could be disastrous.

“Charles’s dotted line would come out here. May I?” She held up the pencil she’d brought with her. He nodded and watched as she consulted the young biologist’s markings, then drew a line from Québec, across the frontier, into Vermont.

“It’s impossible to tell where it went from here,” she said, tapping the eraser head against her lips.

“And where he went,” said Armand. “I have a query in to see when and where Langlois crossed into Vermont and back into Canada. Of course he might have gone in illegally. Maybe by boat down here.”

Armand pointed to Lake Champlain, that huge expanse of water that spanned the US-Canada border and stretched from Venise-en-Québec to the city of Burlington, Vermont, and beyond.

“It would be easy enough, at night, to paddle across,” he said and got an amused look from her.

“Easy, monsieur ? I dare you to try.”

He laughed. “Well, for a twenty-five-year-old, maybe.” He paused, contemplating the map. “Though the lake is heavily patrolled on both sides. It would be a risk. One I’m not sure he’d take.”

“Why not? If he was investigating something possibly criminal, wouldn’t he want to sneak across?”

“True, but if caught, he could end up in the hands of the very people he was trying to avoid.”

She nodded and went back to studying the map. The pencil was now in her mouth, being nibbled. How many bright yellow HB pencils had he found throughout their lives, throughout their homes, with teeth marks? Daniel did the same thing, though not with the same vigor and appetite as his mother.

“If we draw a line straight down, it heads off into the Green Mountains.” She looked at her husband. “What’s there?”

He frowned. “Well, there’s Jay Peak. We’ve skied there.”

“True. And the Appalachian Trail, non ? ”

“I’ve heard of the Green Mountain Boys,” said Armand. “It’s the nickname for the Air National Guard out of the Burlington airport. But Langlois’s line doesn’t go through the airport.”

“We need to follow it, at least partway into the Green Mountains. See what’s there.”

“Though we don’t know how far down Langlois went. Still, it’s a start. I’ll send Jean-Guy.” Then, remembering the imminent arrival of his visitor, he said, “Unless you’d like to—”

She was about to agree when she read the look on his face. “What haven’t you told me?”

He took a deep breath but didn’t have to actually say it. Only one thing could explain his expression.

“You haven’t,” Reine-Marie said. “My God, you have. You’ve invited her here, haven’t you.”

“Yes. I need to talk to her.” Neither used Jeanne Caron’s name. “She’ll meet me here in the church.”

Reine-Marie looked at him as though he’d raised his fist to her. It shocked and hurt him. But he understood. He had, in her view, invited what might as well have been their son’s murderer into their safe place. For a chat.

Reine-Marie sighed. “I hate this. I hate her. And at this moment I don’t much like you. But I understand.” She looked around. “And at least it’ll be easy to perform the exorcism.”

She gave him a cursory kiss on the cheek, then left. And for the first time in months, he wished he hadn’t understood what had been said to him.

“Over there.”

Isabelle Lacoste’s keen eyes had picked out not just a small clearing by the water’s edge, but also what looked like a stone circle. It was either a very, very small megalith, a minilith, or—

“Looks like an encampment,” said Vivienne LaPierre.

Once the seaplane got as close as the pilot dared, Lacoste inflated the raft and the two women paddled to shore.

They wore their heaviest sweaters under thick wax coats. This far north they were on the cusp of winter. It was certainly cold enough to sleet, if not snow.

“This is fairly recent,” said Vivienne, kneeling beside the campfire and examining the black muck in the middle that had been charred firewood.

“Agreed. Looks like a tent was pitched over there, but the grass and underbrush has had time to grow back.”

“We make camp?” asked Vivienne.

“We make camp, but first I need to go over the area to make sure we don’t destroy any evidence.”

“ Bon. While you look, I’ll get our stuff onshore. Good to keep moving.”

The chill had seeped through her coat and was menacing her thick sweater. The last line of defense before her skin.

By the time Isabelle had been over the campsite and even into the surrounding woods, Vivienne had brought everything over from the plane.

Puffing from the exertion, she said, “The pilot says he’ll come back for us tomorrow at this time. Is that okay?”

Isabelle saw the pilot watching them from the cockpit. She gave him the thumbs-up, he returned it, and within minutes he’d gathered speed, bumping down the lake; then he lifted off in a graceful arc over the trees. And disappeared.

It took a while for the sound of the plane to die in the distance, for the waves the plane created to stop slapping against the rocky shore and the startled birds to return. But eventually peace and tranquility had been restored, except for the grunting as Vivienne lugged another large backpack farther ashore.

“Hope your work isn’t too much for you,” she said as she dropped the heavy satchel with a thud and watched Isabelle sitting at the base of a large tree. “Really, don’t worry about me.” She wiped her brow, inadvertently putting a streak of muck there, and walked over. “What’re you looking at?”

Isabelle pointed to a smooth stone nestled against the tree trunk. “That didn’t get there on its own. It’s a river rock.”

Vivienne automatically reached for it, but Isabelle stopped her. “Don’t touch.”

The biologist knelt beside the Sûreté officer and together they studied it. The stone was completely smooth.

“You think someone put it there?” asked Vivienne.

“I think Charles Langlois put it there.”

It seemed a leap of logic. And yet the biologist had to agree, a river rock didn’t get this far from the shore without help.

Isabelle put on latex gloves and now carefully picked it up, brushing dirt off its underside.

But the rock was just that. A rock. Not a message from a dead young man.

Could they be wrong? If this place was so important, why didn’t Charles tell Chief Inspector Gamache about it when they’d met at Open Da Night?

After taking a photo of the stone and the area where it was found, Isabelle placed it in an evidence bag, then into her knapsack.

“Great,” muttered Vivienne. “Now we’re putting rocks in them.”

While she set up camp, Isabelle walked an ever-widening perimeter around the site, looking for whatever the young biologist might have found. And might have left behind.

There must, Isabelle thought, be something.

But she found nothing. It might not even be his campsite. For all they knew it could have been hunters, or fishers, or tourists on a wilderness adventure.

Isabelle picked up a rock by the shore and skipped it across the calm water while in the distance a loon called.

Welcome to Jericho.

Reine-Marie sat in her car and stared at the sign.

Charles Langlois’s dotted line, if it had continued, would have gone straight through this small Vermont town.

Population 5,101.

It seemed oddly precise. She liked that. It felt as though the townspeople valued each and every person, young and old. They were all counted. They all counted.

And yet, as she stared at the pockmarked sign, she was reluctant to enter Jericho. The only thing she could remember, from her days studying to be confirmed, was that it was on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem where the parable of the Good Samaritan occurred.

The traveler who helped his fellow, despite their differences.

Reine-Marie looked back down the road she’d just traveled. And she thought of Armand, meeting with that woman.

“Jeanne Caron.” She said the name aloud for the first time in decades.

Jeanne Caron. Who’d almost killed Daniel, and who had saved Armand.

Reine-Marie took a deep breath; then, turning the car around, she headed home along the road between Jericho and Three Pines.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Last time I was here…” Jeanne Caron glanced up to the ceiling. To the altar above them, where her uncle had been killed and she herself had been wounded.

Then she turned back to Gamache. “How are you?”

He seemed older. And there was that strained look on his face as he fought to understand what was being said. Was it just his hearing, or had more been blown away by that explosion?

He looked unsure. Perplexed. Slightly lost.

“I’m doing well. You?”

“To be honest, I’m a bit confused. Why did you bring me here?”

Armand motioned to one of the plastic garden chairs, but Caron had seen the map on the wall and was walking toward it.

She stood studying it, while Jean-Guy and Armand studied her.

Armand was far from certain having his former adversary see Langlois’s map was wise. But something had to be shaken loose, and this was one way.

Finally, she turned and said, “What’s all this?”

She swept her arm in an arc to indicate the maps, in a movement reminiscent of Isabelle Lacoste’s television meteorologist.

“ S’il vous plaît .” Armand again indicated a chair. This time she took it, while both he and Jean-Guy dragged theirs over so that they now formed a tight circle. Of three.

“We have a problem.”

She cocked her head. “How so?”

Jean-Guy wondered how far Armand would go. He had his answer almost immediately.

“Something else is about to happen. Something much worse.”

“Than killing most of the population of Montréal and setting off a global panic?” She seemed almost amused.

As Jean-Guy watched, her amusement slid away and was replaced by something close to pity. It was obvious to him, and probably Armand, exactly what she was thinking, if not saying.

That Chief Inspector Gamache had fabricated some crisis to make himself important. Again. Give himself purpose again.

Did she really think he was that pathetic? Apparently so. Though Jeanne Caron’s opinion of him did not seem to bother Armand one bit. Instead of explaining or defending himself, he persevered.

“Where’s your assistant?” he asked.

There was silence as Caron stared from one to the other, her rapid mind trying to catch up to this change of direction.

“Frederick? Castonguay? Him?”

“ Oui. ”

“Why in the world would you suddenly be asking about him?”

“Because he’s disappeared,” said Beauvoir.

“So? He’s no longer my assistant. I’m unemployed. Unemployable. Frederick Castonguay is the least of my worries. Who cares where he is?” Though even as she said it, she was examining them. “You care. Which means you’ve been looking for him. Which means…” Now she stopped and stared in open astonishment. “You’re investigating. Still. Good God, you really do believe this isn’t over. Have you lost your minds?”

She seemed to be trying to figure out who was the most unhinged, Gamache or his number two. She settled on the Chief Inspector.

“Okay, let’s say you are investigating.” She did not add, but it was clear she wanted to say, the mythical second plot . “Why would you be looking for Frederick?”

Though she spoke to Gamache, it was Beauvoir who answered, clearly covering for his Chief.

“He was here that night. You were wounded but managed to get into the car with Frederick. What happened then?”

“You know what happened. I’d been shot and needed to stop the bleeding.” By instinct, she brought her left elbow closer to her side, as though protecting it. “I had him pull over at a pharmacy and get painkillers, antiseptic, bandages. When Frederick came back, he tossed the bag into the car and ran away. I got as far as Montréal before I pulled over and passed out. I came to just in time to get to the water-treatment plant.”

It was unsaid but implied, and never forgotten: And save your life, Armand.

“Have you seen Castonguay since?”

“ Non. I’ve looked, but not too hard. Honestly, I have nothing to say to him except good luck and goodbye, you cowardly shit.”

Beauvoir barely suppressed a grin. He and Honoré had been watching The Wizard of Oz . Over and over. The Cowardly Shit would make a good character in an alternative production. He’d watch that.

“We’ve looked for him since the events in the plant,” said Beauvoir. “He wasn’t initially a priority, just a loose end. But we can’t find him. It’s actually quite difficult for people to disappear completely. Unless…”

“Unless he’s dead.” Caron studied their faces, remaining on Gamache’s, who’d been silent. “You think he’s dead?” She spoke the words clearly.

Armand nodded, understanding. “If he is, it means he knew enough to be dangerous to someone still out there.”

“Funny how people around you get killed,” said Beauvoir.

“I could say the same about you.” She threw him an angry glance before her eyes drifted slowly, meaningfully, back to Gamache, as though she could see the ghosts that surrounded him.

Ignoring that gibe, Armand walked over to the wall. “This map belonged to Charles Langlois, the biologist who alerted me—”

“Yes, I know who he was.” She’d joined him. “I was the one who recruited him. Remember?”

“What I remember, Jeanne, is that you hired Charles Langlois to quietly investigate what was happening at the water-treatment plants. What you didn’t assign him to do, what you didn’t even know he was doing, was visiting remote lakes.”

As he spoke, Armand’s tone was growing harder, harsher. “He hid this map.” His glare was now icy. Glare ice. “From you.”

The air crackled between them. By instinct, Jean-Guy stepped closer to Armand.

Jeanne Caron shifted her attention from Gamache to the map. Her ire forgotten.

“Why did Charles Langlois go to these lakes?” Then a thought struck her. “He was working part-time for that environmental agency. What’s it called? Agence Québec Bleu.”

“Action Québec Bleu,” Beauvoir corrected, while Gamache continued to watch Caron.

“Right. Maybe it has something to do with his work there. Maybe it’s meaningless.”

“Then why hide it?” asked Beauvoir.

She turned to look squarely at them. “You really think there’s more going on? Something else?” She watched their faces. “Something worse?”

“ Oui ,” said Beauvoir. “We think the poisoning of the water was the first step.”

“But if we stopped that, then maybe there is no second step.”

“Why did Marcus Lauzon, the Deputy Prime Minister, approve the sales of primary industries to Americans?” Jean-Guy asked, in what appeared to be another ninety-degree turn. “He knew it was illegal. He must’ve known if it came out, his political career would be in ruins.”

“Why do you think? He got huge kickbacks, that’s why. And thought he could cover it up.”

“With your help,” said Beauvoir.

“ Oui. ” There was no use denying it. She’d been given immunity in exchange for her testimony against her former boss and in light of her actions in stopping the poison attack.

“But these lakes that Langlois visited,” she said, looking again at the map, “aren’t the ones with industry. They have nothing to do with those agreements or the poisoning plot.”

They waited for her to say more, which she finally did. “Charles Langlois wrote on some of them. I recognize approval numbers, but what are the others?”

“Dates when he visited. This”—Beauvoir tapped the paper—“is the last lake he went to before he was killed.”

“But there are other numbers and symbols on it. What’s that about?”

“No idea,” admitted Armand, speaking at last.

Caron dropped her eyes to the bottom of the map. “What does this mean? This line.”

She was pointing to the dotted line that bled into Vermont.

“We don’t know,” said Beauvoir.

“Where does it go?” asked Caron.

“Jericho.”

They turned and saw Reine-Marie standing at the foot of the stairs.

“It goes to Jericho,” she said, looking straight at Jeanne Caron.