The Nature of the Beast

Where to go?

To a place already sullied beyond redemption, he thought. Though the only place that came to mind was the forest, where a boy had been murdered and a gun designed to kill en masse had sat for decades. But there were too many people and he didn’t want to have to explain himself.

So if not a place that was damned, there was only the alternative. The divine. A place that could withstand the onslaught of John Fleming.

He and Henri walked to the edge of the village. They climbed the stairs to the doors of the old chapel, always unlocked, and stepped inside.

No one was in St. Thomas’s Church but it didn’t feel empty. Perhaps because of the stained-glass boys, there in perpetuity. Sometimes Armand would go up to St. Thomas’s just to visit them.

He sat now on the comfortably cushioned pew and put the play on his lap. Henri lay at Gamache’s feet, his head on his paws.

The two of them looked at the window, created at the end of the Great War. It showed soldiers, impossibly young, clutching guns and moving forward through no-man’s land.

Armand came here sometimes to sit in the light thrown by their images. To sit in their fear and to sit in their courage.

This place was sacred, he knew, not because it was a church but because of those boys.

He felt the weight of the script on his legs, and the weight of memory. Of what Fleming had done. It came crashing, crushing, down until the script felt like a slab of concrete, pinning him to those memories.

And he heard again the testimony of the shattered officers who’d finally found Fleming. And seen what he’d done. And Armand saw, again, the photographs from the crime scene. Of the demon another demon had created.

The seven-headed monster.

Armand dropped his eyes to the script, red and gold light spilling from the boys onto the title page.

He gathered his courage, took a breath, and opened the script.

CHAPTER 14

“I see you’re back. Do you mind if I join you?”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir sat down across from Professor Rosenblatt at the bistro. The elderly scientist smiled, clearly welcoming the company.

“I just unpacked my things at the B and B and thought I’d come over for lunch,” said Professor Rosenblatt.

“You’re making notes,” said Jean-Guy, looking at the open notebook. “On the gun?”

“Yes. And trying to remember all I can about Gerald Bull. Fascinating character.”

“I see you also stopped by the bookstore.”

A slim volume sat on the table between them.

“I did. Wonderful place. I can’t resist a bookstore, especially a secondhand one. I found this.”

He gestured to the copy of I’m FINE.

“I was actually going to buy something else, but some old woman stood by the cash register and said she wanted every book I chose. This was the only book she let me buy. Fortunately I’m a fan.”

Beauvoir smirked. “You like the poet who wrote I’m FINE?”

“I do. I think she’s a genius. Who hurt you once/so far beyond repair/that you would greet each overture/with curling lip.” Rosenblatt shook his head and tapped the book. “Brilliant.”

“Ruth Zardo,” said Beauvoir.

“Ahhh, I see you know her too.”

“Actually I was introducing you. Professor Michael Rosenblatt, may I present Ruth Zardo and her duck, Rosa.”

The elderly scientist looked up, startled, into the pinched face of the old woman who’d essentially bullied him into buying her book.

He struggled to his feet.

“Madame Zardo,” he said, and practically bowed. “This is an honor.”

“Of course it is,” said Ruth. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Rosa, nestled against Ruth, stared beady-eyed at Professor Rosenblatt.

“I, well, I was just—”

“We asked him here to help,” said Beauvoir.

“With what?”

“With what we found in the woods, of course.”

“And what was that?” she demanded.

“It’s a—” Rosenblatt began, before Jean-Guy cut him off.

Ruth glared at the professor. “Have we met?”

“I don’t think so. I’d have remembered,” he said.

“Well,” said Jean-Guy, looking at the empty chair at their table, then at Ruth. “Good-bye.”

Ruth gave him the finger, then limped away to join Clara at a table by the fireplace.

“Well,” said the professor, regaining his seat. “That was unexpected. Is that her daughter?”