The Nature of the Beast

They were still in their clothes from the funeral, Reine-Marie in a navy blue dress and Armand in a dark gray suit, white shirt and tie. Tailored and classic.

They were not yet ready to remove the clothes, as though to do that was to remove their grief and leave Laurent behind.

Olivier and Gabri must have felt the same way. They too were still in their dark suits and ties.

Olivier waved to one of his servers and a couple of beers and a bowl of mixed nuts appeared.

Gabri and Olivier sipped their beers and stared at each other, goading each other on.

“Was there a reason you were looking for us?” Armand finally asked.

“You go,” said Gabri.

“No, you go,” said Olivier.

“It was your idea,” said Gabri.

“Please, one of you tell us,” said Armand, looking from one to the other. He was not really in the mood for twenty questions.

“It’s a small thing,” said Olivier.

“Hardly worth mentioning,” said Gabri. “We were just wondering.”

Gamache opened his eyes wide, inviting something more precise.

“It’s the stick,” said Olivier at last.

“Laurent’s stick,” said Gabri.

They stared at Gamache, but when he stared back blankly, Olivier took the plunge.

“At the reception when we were talking about Laurent we all remembered him with that stick of his.”

“His rifle,” said Reine-Marie.

“His rifle, his sword, his wand,” said Olivier. “How many times did we see him roaring down the hill on his bike into Three Pines holding that stick out in front of him like a knight in battle?”

“He was a menace,” said Gabri with a smile, remembering the fearless, fearsome boy tilting at God knew what, determined to save the village and the villagers.

The Gamaches stared at Olivier and Gabri, expecting more.

“He never went anywhere without it,” said Gabri. “We just thought maybe Al and Evie would want it back.”

“Oh, right,” said Armand. “That’s probably true.”

He wished he’d thought of that but was glad the guys had.

“The police must’ve picked it up,” said Olivier. “Do you know when they’ll release it? Can we get it back now?”

Armand opened his mouth to say that he imagined all of Laurent’s possessions would have been returned already. But then he stopped himself. And thought, searching his memory of the Sûreté report. It said nothing about a stick, but then even had the investigators seen it on the ground they probably wouldn’t have picked it up. It would look like any other tree limb.

But he also searched his own memory of the scene.

The hill, the gravel, the long grass, the bike with the helmet still tied to the handlebars. He scanned his memory but there was no stick. No limb. Just a gully and grass and a keening mother and cold child.

He got up. “The police didn’t find it. We need to go back there and look. Why don’t we all change and meet back here?”

Twenty minutes later they got out of the Gamaches’ car wearing slacks, sweaters, jackets and rubber boots. The four of them slid down the small embankment and started looking.

But Laurent’s stick wasn’t there.

Not in the gully. Not on the verge of the dirt road. It wasn’t in the tall grass, or the circle of flattened grass, or along the edge of the forest.

Armand walked up to the top of the hill and stood there, imagining Laurent hurtling down it on his bike. He retraced Laurent’s final moments.

Down, down, down. Laurent would have gained speed, his legs pumping, the stick almost certainly out in front. A lance in a heroic charge.

And then something happened. He’d hit a rut or a hole or a heave. What old townshippers called a cahoo.

Armand stood at a likely spot, a pothole. Had Laurent been frightened as he took flight? Gamache suspected not. The boy had probably been giddy with excitement. Maybe even shouting, “Caaaaah-hoooo.”

He was airborne. And then he wasn’t.

Blunt force trauma, it was called in the report. What the autopsy couldn’t show was the ongoing trauma to everyone who loved the child.

Armand stood on the pothole and lifted his body up on tiptoes, stretching his arms out in front of him. Mimicking taking off. He imagined sailing through the air. Up, up, and then down. Into the gully.

And where would the stick have landed? Perhaps quite a distance from Laurent, released from the little hand like a javelin slicing through the air.

Reine-Marie, Olivier and Gabri followed his actions and searched in the likeliest places. And then the least likely places.