The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11)

The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) Page 70

*   *   *

“Like some, numbnuts?”

Ruth tilted the Glenfiddich bottle toward Beauvoir.

“You know I don’t drink anymore,” he said.

“This isn’t alcohol. I took it from the Gamaches’,” she said. “It’s tea. Earl Grey. They think I don’t know.”

Beauvoir smiled and accepted, though part of him still felt uncomfortable seeing the amber liquid flow from the Scotch bottle into his glass. He smelled it. There was no medicinal scent of alcohol.

Nevertheless, he pushed the glass away from him and slid the photograph he’d had copied toward her.

It was black and white, and showed a substantial man in a suit and narrow tie, a coat slung over one arm. The image of a businessman, whose business was in trouble. While the stance might be casual, there was no mistaking the anxiety in his face, as though he’d heard a shot in the distance.

“Do you know this man?”

Ruth studied it. “Should I?”

“You know about the gun?”

“I heard something. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“That man built it. His name’s Gerald Bull.”

“Then it’s true. About the gun, I mean.”

Jean-Guy nodded.

“They’re calling it a Supergun,” said Ruth.

Again he nodded. “Bigger than any weapon I’ve ever seen.”

“Laurent was telling the truth,” said the old poet.

To Jean-Guy’s eyes she’d never looked older.

“It was built in the mid to late eighties,” he said. “You were here then. Do you remember anything? It must’ve made a racket in the forest. You couldn’t miss it.”

“It’s a question only a city person would ask. You think the countryside is silent, but it isn’t. It would put New York City to shame some days. Chain saws are going around here all the time. Clearing land, cutting down trees, sawing off branches hanging too close to Hydro lines. People getting wood for the winter. Between the chain saws and the lawnmowers it can be deafening. And don’t get me started on the frogs and beetles in spring. No one would notice, or remember, a particular racket in the woods thirty years ago.”

Beauvoir nodded. “He didn’t hire locals?”

“Well, he didn’t hire me,” said Ruth. She slugged back the tea.

*   *   *

Monsieur Béliveau looked more morose than ever.

“Désolé, I wish I could help. I was here at the time and running the general store, but I don’t remember anything.”

“The gun is huge,” Chief Inspector Lacoste said. “Massive. Whoever built it would’ve needed help clearing the land and bringing in the pieces, and then assembling it. Can you remember any activity in the forest?”

“Non,” he said, shaking his head.

She waited for more, but no more was offered. She would have to go in and get the information, pull it from him.

“If he was going to hire someone to clear the site, who would it have been back then?”

“Gilles Sandon did a lot of work in the woods,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “But he’s too young. And Billy Williams has a backhoe and is handy with a chain saw, but he’s had the municipal contract for forty years. Keeps him pretty busy.”

Lacoste had already spoken to both men. Neither knew Gerald Bull. Neither knew anything about the gun. Neither had been hired to clear the land or bring in strange machinery back in the mid to late 1980s.

“Most everyone around here has a chain saw and cuts wood for the winter. Most do odd jobs for cash.” He shook his head. “Not exactly skilled labor.”

“No.”

“How’s this supposed to help find who killed the Lepage boy?” asked Monsieur Béliveau.

Isabelle Lacoste picked up the photograph.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But that gun and Laurent’s death are connected. He was killed because he found it. I don’t suppose you remember anyone, a stranger, coming here in the last few years, asking about a gun in the woods?”

“Non, madame, no one came into my store asking for a Supergun.”

His morose and serious tone made his answer all the more ludicrous.

She put the photograph of Dr. Bull back into her pocket. They were doing the forensics, doing the interviews, collecting all the facts. But it wasn’t a fact that had killed Laurent. It was fear. Someone was so frightened of what the boy had found, by what the boy would do or say, that they had to kill him.