Bury Your Dead (48 page)

When the Chief Inspector and Émile Comeau arrived at the Literary and Historical Society, Elizabeth, Porter Wilson, tiny Winnie the librarian and Mr. Blake were assembled in the entrance hall, waiting.

“What’s going on?” Porter launched right into it before Gamache and Émile had even closed the door behind them. “The Chief Archeologist is back with some technicians and that Inspector Langlois is also there. He’s ordered us to stay away from our own basement.”

“Had you planned to go down there?” Gamache asked, taking off his coat.

“Well, no.”

“Do you need to go down there?”

“No, not at all.” The two men stared at each other.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Porter, this is embarrassing,” said Elizabeth. “Let the men do their work. But,” she turned to Armand Gamache, “we would appreciate some information. Whatever you can give us.”

Gamache and Émile exchanged glances. “We think Augustin Renaud might have been right,” said the Chief Inspector.

“About what?” snapped Porter.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Mr. Blake. “About Champlain, what else?” When Gamache nodded Mr. Blake frowned. “You believe Samuel de Champlain is in our basement and has been all this time?”

“For the last 140 years anyway, yes.
Pardon
.”

The men squeezed past the gathering and made their way through
the now familiar halls to the trap door into the first basement, then down another steep metal ladder to the final level.

Through the floorboards of the level above they could see glaring light, as though the sun was imprisoned down there. But once down they recognized it for what it was, a series of brilliant industrial lamps trained, once again, on the dirt and stone basement.

The Chief Archeologist was standing in the center of the room, his long arms hugging his chest perhaps trying, unsuccessfully, to contain his anger. The same two technicians who’d accompanied him before were there again, as was Inspector Langlois, who immediately took Gamache aside.

“I can explain,” Gamache began before being interrupted.

“I know you can, it’s not that. Let Croix stew for a while, he’s an asshole anyway. Have you heard?”

Langlois searched the Chief Inspector’s face.

“About the video?
Oui.
But I haven’t seen it.” Now it was Gamache’s turn to examine his companion. “Have you?”

“Yes. Everyone has.”

It was, of course, an exaggeration but not, perhaps, by much. He continued to examine Langlois’s face for clues. Was there a hint of pity?

“I’m sorry this has happened, sir.”

“Thank you. I’ll be watching it later this afternoon.”

Langlois paused, as though he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Instead he turned swiftly to look back at the Chief Archeologist.

“What’s this all about,
patron
?”

“I’ll tell you,” smiled Gamache, touching the man on the arm and guiding him back to the larger room and the gathering. He spoke to Serge Croix.

“You were here almost a week ago, I know, to see if maybe Augustin Renaud’s wasn’t the only body in this basement. To see if the man you considered a menace might actually have been right, that Champlain was buried here. Not surprisingly, you found nothing.”

“We found root vegetables,” said Croix to the snickers of the technicians behind him.

“I’d like you to look again,” said the Chief, smiling too, and staring at the archeologist. “For Champlain.”

“Not here I’m not. It’s a waste of time.”

“If you don’t, I will.” Gamache reached for a shovel. “And you must know, I’m even less of an archeologist than Renaud.”

He took his cardigan off and handed it to Émile then, rolling up his sleeves, he looked around the basement. It was pocked with fresh-turned earth, where holes had been dug and filled back in.

“Maybe I’ll start here.” He put the shovel in the earth and his boot on it.

“Wait,” said Croix. “This is absurd. We searched this basement. What makes you think Champlain would be here?”

“That does.”

Gamache nodded to Émile, who opened the satchel and handed the old bible to Serge Croix. They watched as the Chief Archeologist’s life changed. It began with the tiniest movement. His eyes widened, fractionally, then he blinked, then he exhaled.

“Merde,”
he whispered. “Oh,
merde
.”

Croix looked up from the bible and stared at Gamache. “Where did you find this?”

“Upstairs, hiding where you’d hide a precious old book. Among other old books, in a library no one used. It was almost certainly put there by the murderer. He didn’t want to destroy it, but neither could he keep it himself, so he hid it. But before that it was in Renaud’s possession and before that it belonged to Charles Chiniquy.”

Gamache could see the man’s mind racing. Making connections, through the years, through the centuries. Connecting movements, events, personalities.

“How’d Chiniquy find this?”

“Patrick and O’Mara, those two Irish laborers I told you about, found it and sold it to Chiniquy.”

“You asked me to find out about digging sites in 1869, is this what that was about? They were working at one of the sites?”

Gamache nodded and waited for Croix to make the final connection.

“The Old Homestead?” the Chief Archeologist finally asked, then brought his hand to his forehead and tilted his head back. “Of course. The Old Homestead. We’d always dismissed it because it was outside the range we considered reasonable for the original hallowed ground.
But Champlain wouldn’t have been buried in hallowed ground. Not if he was a Huguenot.”

Croix gripped the bible and seemed himself in the grip of something, a great excitement, a sort of fugue.

“There’d been rumors, of course, but that’s the thing with Champlain, so little’s known about the man, there were rumors about everything. This was just one more, and a not very likely one, we thought. Would the King put a Protestant, a Huguenot in charge of the New World? But suppose the King didn’t know? But no, it’s more likely he did and this would explain so much.”

The Chief Archeologist was now like a teenager with his first crush, giddy, almost babbling.

“It would explain why Champlain was never given a royal title, why he was never officially recognized as the Governor of Québec. Why he was never honored for his accomplishments, while others were honored for much less. That’s always been a mystery. And maybe it explains why he was sent here in the first place. It was considered almost a suicide mission and maybe Champlain, being a Huguenot, was expendable.”

“Would the Jesuits have known?” one of the technicians asked. It was a question that had puzzled Gamache as well. The Catholic Church played a powerful role in the establishment of the colony, in converting the natives and keeping the colonists in line.

The Jesuits were not famous for tolerance.

“I don’t know,” admitted Croix, thinking. “They must have. Otherwise they’d have buried him in the Catholic cemetery, not outside it.”

“But surely the Jesuits would never have allowed him to be buried with that.” Gamache pointed to the Huguenot bible, still in Croix’s grip.

“True. But someone must have known,” said Croix. “There’re all sorts of eyewitness accounts of Champlain being buried in the chapel, a chapel he himself had supported. Left half his money to them.”

The Chief Archeologist stopped, but they could see his mind racing.

“Could that be it? Was the money a bribe? Did he leave half his fortune to the church here so they’d give him a public burial in the chapel then later, let him be reburied beyond the Catholic cemetery, in a field? With this?” He held up the bible.

Gamache listened, imagining this great leader dug up in the dead of
night, his remains lugged across the cemetery, across hallowed ground, and beyond.

Why? Because he was a Protestant. All his deeds, all his courage, all his vision and determination and achievements finally stood for nothing. In death he was only one thing.

A Huguenot. An outsider, in a country he’d created, a world he’d built. Samuel de Champlain, the humanist, had been lowered into the New World, in ground unblessed, but unblemished too.

Had Champlain come here hoping it would be different? Gamache wondered. Only to find the New World exactly like the Old, only colder.

Samuel de Champlain had lain in his lead-lined coffin with his bible until two Irish workers, living in squalor and despair had dug him up. He’d made their fortune. One, O’Mara, had left the city. The other, Patrick, had left lower Québec, buying a home on des Jardins among the affluent.

Had he been happier there?

“And now you think he’s here?” Serge Croix turned to Gamache.

“I do.” And Gamache told them the rest of the story. Of the meeting with James Douglas, of the payoff.

“So Chiniquy and Douglas buried him here?” Croix asked.

“That’s what I think. Champlain was too powerful a symbol for French Québec, a rallying point. Better never found. 1869 was only two years after Confederation. A lot of French Québec wasn’t happy about joining Canada, there were calls for separation even then. Finding Champlain would do no good to the Canadian cause, and might do a great deal of harm. Chiniquy probably didn’t care greatly, but I suspect Dr. Douglas did. He was aware of the political forces, and a conservative by nature, the less fuss the better.”

“And the remains of Champlain would cause a fuss,” said Inspector Langlois, nodding. “Better to bury the dead, and leave it be.”

“But the dead had a habit of leaving the grave,” said Croix. “Especially around James Douglas. You’re familiar with his activities?”

“As a grave robber?” said Gamache. “Yes.”

“And the mummies,” said Croix.

“Mummies?” Langlois asked.

“Another time,” said the Chief Inspector. “I’ll tell you all about it. Now we have another body to find.”

For the next hour the archeologist and his technicians searched the basement again, finding more tin boxes, more vegetables.

But under the stairs, exactly where the metal steps landed, they found something else. Something dismissed in their first sweep earlier in the week as just the blip from the stairs themselves but now, examined closer, proved to be something else.

Digging carefully but without enthusiasm or conviction, the technicians hit something, something larger than the tin boxes. Something, indeed, not tin at all but wood.

Digging more carefully now, excavating, taking photographs and recording the event, they slowly, painstakingly, uncovered a coffin. The men gathered round and by rote crossed themselves.

The Inspector called his forensics team and within minutes the investigators had arrived. Samples were taken, more photographs, prints.

Cameras recording, the coffin was raised and the Chief Archeologist and his head technician pried up the nails, long and rusty red. With a slow shriek they came out of the wood, reluctant to leave, reluctant to reveal what they’d hidden for so long.

Finally freed of the nails the lid was ready to be lifted. Serge Croix reached out then hesitated. Looking over at Gamache he gestured, beckoning him forward. Gamache declined, but when the Chief Archeologist insisted he agreed.

Armand Gamache stood before the worm-eaten coffin. A simple maple wood, made from the ancient forests hacked down to build Québec four hundred years earlier. Gamache could feel the tremble in his right hand, and knew it showed.

He reached out and touched the coffin, and the tremble stopped. Resting his hands there he considered what was about to happen. After centuries of hunting, after lifetimes spent in the singular search for the Father of Québec, after his own childhood spent reading about it, dreaming about it, reenacting it with friends. A stick in his hand, he’d stood astride rocks in Parc Mont Royal, commanding the great ship, fighting noble battles, surviving terrible storms. Valiant. Along with every other school child in Québec his hero had been Samuel de Champlain.

Exploring, mapping. Creating. Québec.

Gamache looked down at his large hands, resting gently on the old wood.

Samuel de Champlain.

Gamache stepped aside and gestured to Émile to take his place. The elderly man shook his head but Gamache walked over and led him to the coffin then stepped back and smiled at his mentor.

“Merci,”
Émile mouthed. Together he and the Chief Archeologist slowly, carefully, raised the heavy, lead-lined lid.

A skeleton lay there. Finally, found.

After a long silence the Chief Archeologist, gazing into the coffin, spoke.

“Unless Champlain had another big secret, this isn’t him.”

“What do you mean?” Gamache asked.

“It’s a woman.”

Something had changed. Jean-Guy Beauvoir could feel it. It was the way people looked at him. It was as though they’d seen him naked, as though they’d seen him in a position so vulnerable, so exposed it was all they could see now.

Not the man he really was. An edited man.