The Long Way Home

“How many embittered employees go into their workplaces with a gun?” said Myrna. “The paintings were Norman’s gun.”

“But where did he get the asbestos? And where’re the paintings now?” asked Clara. “Where did Professor Massey put them? We didn’t see any on the walls.”

“They might be in a storage room,” said Gamache. “Maybe that was the hot spot they found. I’ll call the principal back.”

“Fortunately it looks like No Man’s plan didn’t work,” said Myrna, as Gamache placed the call.

“What do you mean?” asked Beauvoir.

“I keep forgetting that you didn’t see Professor Massey. A more healthy eighty-five-year-old would be hard to find. If those paintings began arriving decades ago, and the asbestos had done its job, he’d be either dead or dying.”

“What was it Julie called it?” said Clara. “A twist of fate.”

“Sometimes the magic works…” said Beauvoir. “But why would Massey suddenly go to Tabaquen now?”

Gamache hung up, having left a message on the principal’s voice mail with both his and Beauvoir’s numbers.

“Why would Peter go all the way to Tabaquen?” asked Clara.

“To find the tenth muse,” Myrna reminded her. “To become a better painter. He didn’t know any of this stuff. All he knows is that he’s desperate and lost and Professor Norman was offering an easy way to get from his head to his heart. The quick fix. A muse for the modern man.”

The ship shuddered as it hit a particularly massive wave. The river leapt up and beat against the windows.

But while slowed for a moment, the Loup de Mer plowed ahead. Getting closer and closer to its destination. The Sorcerer. The source.

THIRTY-SEVEN

They spent the afternoon apart. Each trying to just ride out the storm.

Armand Gamache came upon Clara in the men’s cabin, the so-called Admiral’s Suite. She’d brought soup and bread down to Chartrand, who was still asleep on the narrow bunk. There wasn’t much soup left in the bowl, most of it having slopped out as Clara tried to carry it.

The gale was upon them now. Battering the ship. Pushing it and pulling it, so that the people inside were tossed this way and that, without warning.

“I was just coming to check on him myself. Is he okay?” Gamache whispered as he clung on to the door frame.

“Yes. Just really seasick.”

Clara put the bread on the bedside table, but held on to the soup. No use leaving the bowl, it would just end up on the floor. Or on Chartrand.

She got up, but not before feeling Chartrand’s forehead. It felt like a cod and looked like underwear. An improvement. She rested her large hand on his chest. Just for a moment.

They left him and fought their way back to the observation deck. The river was froth and foam. The deck was awash.

Clara had chosen a bench next to the window and Gamache sat beside her, as they had each morning in Three Pines. Like strangers waiting for a bus.

Clara had her sketchbook and pencil case on her lap, but kept them unopened.

“Were you planning to do a drawing?” Gamache asked.

“No. I just feel safe, holding them.”

She brushed the metal pencil holder with her finger, like a rosary. And held on to her sketch pad like a bible.

A wave battered the window and they pulled back. But the Plexiglas held. They sat in silence then. The sort of strained silence mariners for centuries would recognize, as they rode out a storm.

Gamache looked at Clara, in profile, as she watched the waves batter the shore. Leaping onto the rocks. Wearing them down. Wearing them smooth.

Her eyes were both calm and concentrated. Taking in every detail. Of the physical and the metaphysical world.

“It was particularly cruel, wasn’t it?” she said, still staring at the shore. “Using art to kill.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he said.

Now it was Clara’s turn to look at his face in profile. She believed him.

“I mean, to use something you love against you,” she said.

“I knew what you meant,” he said.

The Loup de Mer lurched and shuddered, and both were tossed forward, just managing to stop themselves from falling off the bench completely.

“Coward,” said Clara.

“Pardon?”

“Norman. He’s a coward. He didn’t have to see it. Didn’t have to face what he’d done. He could just smear the asbestos in, mail it off, and get on with his own life. Cowardly.”

“Most murder is,” said Gamache. “It’s done by weak people, or strong people in a moment of weakness. But it’s almost never a courageous thing to do.”