“I’m afraid so.”
Gabri hesitated just an instant before asking, “She’s dead?”
The Chief nodded.
Gabri hugged the parka and stared at Gamache. While he longed to ask more questions, he didn’t. He could see the Chief’s exhaustion. Instead he finished hanging up the coat and walked to the stairs.
Gamache followed the immense, swaying dressing gown up the stairs.
Gabri led them along the passage and stopped at a familiar door. He flicked a switch to reveal the room Gamache always stayed in. Unlike Gabri, this room, indeed the entire bed and breakfast, was a model of restraint. Oriental throw rugs were scattered on the wide-plank floor. The dark wood bed was large and inviting and made up with crisp white linens, a thick white duvet, and down pillows.
It was uncluttered and comforting. Simple and welcoming.
“Have you had dinner?”
“No, but I’ll be fine until morning.” The clock on the bedside table said 12:30.
Gabri crossed to the window, opened it a sliver to let the fresh, cold air in, and pulled the curtains closed.
“What time would you like to get up?”
“Six thirty too early?”
Gabri blanched. “Not at all. We’re always up at that hour.” At the door he paused. “You do mean six thirty P.M., right?”
Gamache placed his satchel on the floor by the bed.
“Merci, patron,” he said with a smile, holding Gabri’s eyes for a moment.
Before changing, Gamache looked at Henri, who was standing by the door.
The Chief stood in the middle of the room, looking from the warm, soft bed to Henri and back again.
“Oh, Henri, you’d better want to do more than just play,” he sighed, and fished in Henri’s satchel for the tennis ball and a bag.
They went quietly down the stairs. Gamache put his parka, gloves, and hat back on, unlocked the door and the two headed into the night. He didn’t put Henri on the leash. There was very little danger he’d run away, since Henri was among the least adventurous dogs Gamache knew.
The village was completely dark now, the homes just hinted at in front of the forest. They walked over to the village green. Gamache watched with satisfaction and a silent prayer of thanks as Henri did his business. The Chief picked it up with the bag, then turned to give Henri his treat.
But there was no dog. Every walk, over hundreds of walks, Henri had stood beside Gamache, looking up expectantly. One treat deserved another. A quid pro quo.
But now, inconceivably, Henri wasn’t there. He’d disappeared.
Gamache cursed himself for a fool and looked at the empty leash in his hand. Had Henri gotten a whiff of deer or coyote, and taken off into the woods?
“Henri,” the Chief called. “Come here, boy.”
He whistled and then noticed the paw prints in the snow. They headed back across the road, but not toward the bed and breakfast.
Gamache bent over and followed them at a jog. Across the road, over a snow bank. Onto a front lawn. Down an unshoveled walkway. For the second time that day, the Chief felt snow tumble down his boots and melt into his socks. Another soaker. But he didn’t care. All he wanted was to find Henri.
Gamache stopped. There was a dark figure, with immense ears, looking up expectantly at a door. His tail wagging. Waiting to be let in.
The Chief felt his heart simmer down and he took a deep, calming breath.
“Henri,” he whispered vehemently. “Viens ici.”
The shepherd looked in his direction.
Gone to the wrong house, thought Gamache, not altogether surprised. While Henri had a huge heart, he had quite a modest brain. His head was taken up almost entirely by his ears. In fact, his head seemed simply a sort of mount for those ears. Fortunately Henri didn’t really need his head. He kept all the important things in his heart. Except, perhaps, his current address.
“Come here,” the Chief gestured, surprised that Henri, so well trained and normally so compliant, hadn’t immediately responded. “You’ll scare the people half to death.”
But even as he spoke, the Chief realized that Henri hadn’t made a mistake at all. He’d meant to come to this house. Henri knew the B and B, but he knew the house better.
Henri had grown up here. He’d been rescued and brought to this house as a puppy, to be raised by an elderly woman. Emilie Longpré had saved him, and named him, and loved him. And Henri had loved her.
This had been, and in some ways always would be, Henri’s home.
Gamache had forgotten that Henri knew Three Pines better than he ever would. Every scent, every blade of grass, every tree, every one.