The Nature of the Beast

“It’s so beautiful,” he said, almost under his breath.

She followed his gaze and looked at the cottages, the gardens, the three soaring evergreens on the village green. And she knew those weren’t what made this village so attractive.

Gabri came out of the bistro and headed to the B and B. He spotted them on the ridge and waved. Sarah stood at the door of her boulangerie and flapped a towel embedded with flour. They could see movement through the window of Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore.

Isabelle suddenly felt horrible, for making him feel this shouldn’t be enough.

Gamache lifted his gaze from the village to the rolling mountains covered in a forest that had taken root thousands of years ago. The brilliant autumn leaves interspersed with pines.

“Look at it,” he said, shaking his head slightly, almost in disbelief. “I sometimes sit here and imagine the wildlife, the lives, going on in that forest. I try to imagine what it must’ve been like for the Abenaki, before the Europeans came. Or for the first explorers. Were they amazed by it? Or was it just an obstacle?”

He spent a moment imagining himself an early explorer.

He’d have been amazed. He was even now.

“Not surprising the gun wasn’t found,” he said. “Even if you knew it was there, and were looking for it, you’d probably never find it. You could walk within a foot of the thing and still miss it.”

Isabelle Lacoste stared across the village to the vast forest.

“What’s shocking is that it was found at all,” he said.

“What’s shocking is that it’s there,” said Lacoste, and saw him nod.

“After you left this morning I asked Professor Rosenblatt about that.”

He told her about the two theories put forward by the scientist. That the Supergun was either a display model to show potential buyers, or it was placed deliberately to hit targets in the United States.

“But either way, why here?” she asked. “Why not the forests of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia? Or somewhere else in Québec along the U.S. border? Why here?”

She pointed to the ground.

Armand Gamache had been sitting there wondering the same thing. Someone had planned this, probably for a very long time. And then placed it. Carefully. Intentionally. Here.

“Three Pines isn’t on any map,” he said. “That would be an advantage when trying to hide something, but at the same time the village would provide services and workers when needed.”

“Except according to all our interviews, no local worked on the site,” she said.

“No one willing to admit it.”

“Oui,” said Lacoste.

Armand Gamache returned his gaze to the forest. He wasn’t sitting there with Henri simply marveling at the wildlife it contained. He was also scanning it. For new growth among the old. For holes in the canopy.

For evidence of one reference in the redacted notes the censors had failed to find. And black out.

“Professor Rosenblatt read the notes Reine-Marie printed out,” said Gamache.

“Did he find them interesting?” asked Lacoste.

“He didn’t seem to. And he either missed, or chose not to mention, the plural.”

The one letter among hundreds, thousands. Like a single tree in a forest. But one that changed everything.

“The s,” said Lacoste. “Superguns.”

Then she too looked across at mile after mile of forest.

“We told the Lepages about the gun,” she said. “Today, when we searched their place again.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No, though they admitted the Pete Seeger cassette was theirs but didn’t know how it got near the gun. But that’s another interesting thing. When we told them about the Supergun, they seemed surprised but neither of them asked any questions about it. Not one.”

“They might be absorbed in grief,” he said. “People don’t behave normally when there’s been a death, especially a violent one. Especially a child.”

“True.” After a few moments she spoke, under her breath. “Why here?”

“The gun?” he asked.

“No, the man. I asked Al Lepage that question. Why did he come to Three Pines, when he was dodging the draft.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he’d walked across the border from Vermont and saw the lights of the village.”

Now she turned to look at her former boss. His brows were raised, but he said nothing.

“But he couldn’t have, could he?” she said. “The forest is too thick. No one would just walk across the border, unless they wanted to get lost in the woods. He’d have to have known where he was going.”