The Beautiful Mystery

What pleasure there must be, Beauvoir thought, in doing the same thing over and over. In the past the very idea had revolted him. Routine, repetition. It was death, or at least, deadly dull. To lead a predictable life.

But now Beauvoir wasn’t so sure. Here he was zooming toward a new case, in an open boat. The wind and spray on his face. But all he longed to do was sit down with Annie and share the Saturday papers. To do what they did every weekend. Over and over. Over and over. Until he died.

Still, if he couldn’t be there, this was his second choice. He looked around, at the forests. At the rock cuts. At the empty lake.

There were worse offices than this.

He smiled a little at the stern boatman. This was his office too. And when he dropped them off would he find a quiet bay, pull out his rod, and cast?

Cast, and reel in.

It was, now that Beauvoir thought of it, not unlike what they were about to do. Cast for clues, for evidence, for witnesses. And reel them in.

And eventually, when there was enough bait, they’d catch a killer.

Though, unless things became terribly unpredictable, they probably wouldn’t eat him.

Just in front of the boatman sat Captain Charbonneau, who ran the Sûreté du Québec station in La Mauricie. He was in his mid-forties, slightly older than Beauvoir. He was athletic and energetic and had the intelligent look of someone who paid attention.

He was paying attention now.

Captain Charbonneau had met them at the plane and driven them the half kilometer to the dock and the waiting boatman.

“This is Etienne Legault.” He introduced the boatman, who nodded but didn’t seem inclined to a fuller greeting. Legault smelled of gasoline and smoked a cigarette and Beauvoir took a step back.

“It’s about a twenty-minute boat trip, I’m afraid,” Captain Charbonneau explained. “No other way to get there.”

“Have you ever been?” Beauvoir had asked.

The captain smiled. “Never. Not inside anyway. But I fish not far from there sometimes. Like everyone else, I’m curious. Besides, it’s great fishing. Huge bass and lake trout. I’ve seen them at a distance, also fishing. But I’ve left them on their own. I don’t think they want company.”

They’d all climbed into the open boat and now were halfway through the trip. Captain Charbonneau was looking ahead, or appeared to be. But Beauvoir realized the senior Sûreté officer wasn’t focused completely on the thick forests or into the coves and bays.

He was stealing glances at something he found much more riveting.

The man in front of him.

Beauvoir’s eyes shifted and came to rest on the fourth man in the boat.

The Chief Inspector. Beauvoir’s boss and Annie’s father.

Armand Gamache was a substantial man, though not heavy. Like the boatman, Chief Inspector Gamache squinted ahead, creating creases at his mouth and eyes. But unlike the boatman, his expression wasn’t glum. Instead his deep brown eyes were thoughtful, taking everything in. The glacier-stunted hills, the forest turning brilliant autumn colors. The rocky shoreline, unbroken by docks or homes or moorings of any kind.

This was the wilderness. Birds flew over them who might never have seen a human being.

If Beauvoir was a hunter, then Armand Gamache was an explorer. When others stopped, Gamache stepped ahead. Looking into cracks and crevices and caves. Where dark things lived.

The Chief was in his mid-fifties. The hair at his temples curled slightly above and behind his ears and was graying. A cap almost hid the scar at his left temple. He wore a khaki-colored waxed field coat. Beneath that was a shirt and jacket and gray-green silk tie. One large hand clasping the gunwale was wet with cold spray, as the boat chopped across the lake. The other rested absently on a bright orange life preserver, on the aluminum seat beside him. When they’d stood on the dock looking at the open boat with its fishing rod and net and tub of squiggling worms, and the outboard motor that looked like a toilet, the Chief had handed a life preserver, the newest, to Beauvoir. And when Jean-Guy had scoffed, he’d insisted. Not that Beauvoir had to wear it, but that he had to have it.

In case.

And so, Inspector Beauvoir’s life jacket sat on his lap. And with each bounce he was privately happy to have it there.

He’d picked up the Chief at his home before eleven. At the door, Gamache paused to hug and kiss Madame Gamache. They lingered a moment before breaking the embrace. Then the Chief had turned and walked down the steps, his satchel slung over his shoulder.

When he’d gotten into the car Jean-Guy had smelled his subtle cologne of sandalwood and rosewater and been overwhelmed at the thought that this man might soon be his father-in-law. That Beauvoir’s infant children might be held by this man, and smell that comforting scent.