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“Please, patron,” said Cloutier. “Can I go down? Take a look around?” She could see that Chief Inspector Beauvoir was undecided. Teetering. “She’s pregnant.”
Cloutier felt everyone turn to her. Flushing wildly, she kept her eyes on the Chief Inspector.
Beauvoir considered her again and weighed his options.
The fact this woman was pregnant shouldn’t change anything. And yet, for Beauvoir, it did.
Missing. Pregnant. Unhelpful husband.
These were worrying signs. Warning signs.
Lysette Cloutier was not an experienced or, let’s face it, effective criminal investigator. If he freed her up to look into it, just for the day, she’d come back with nothing. Probably because there was nothing to find.
The missing woman had probably just gone away for the weekend. Told her husband she was visiting her family but was really with girlfriends. Or a lover.
Far from the first person to do that.
“What do I tell her father?” Cloutier pressed. “He’s really worried. It’s not like her.”
“He might not know her as well as he thinks he does.”
“But he knows his son-in-law.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s never said it outright, but I know he doesn’t like him.”
“That’s not a reason to engage the resources of the homicide department, Agent Cloutier.”
“He thinks something bad’s happened.” She could see she was losing him. She racked her brains for something else to say. “How would you feel, sir? If your child didn’t come home?”
She could see that the words had hit home, but not in the way she’d hoped.
Chief Inspector Beauvoir now looked angry.
Beside him, Superintendent Lacoste watched and braced. There’d be a collision after all, but not with Gamache. Chief Inspector Beauvoir was about to run over Agent Cloutier.
“My son is an infant,” Beauvoir said, his voice cold. “There’s a difference.”
“But if you love them, age doesn’t matter, does it? Really?” she persisted, barely believing she was doing this. “They’re still our children.”
Beauvoir stared at her, the whole room holding its breath while the Chief Inspector weighed the options.
“What’s the name?”
“Vivienne. Vivienne Godin.”
Beauvoir wrote that down. “And husband?”
“Carl Tracey.”
If this Vivienne Godin really was missing, then something bad had happened, and time counted.
Unfortunately, Cloutier was pretty much their Clouseau. She would not find the woman, even if standing next to her in line for a Double Double at Tim Hortons.
It wasn’t that Cloutier was an idiot, just that this was not her strength. It wasn’t why she was brought into homicide.
In a swift glance, Beauvoir took in the officers around the table. All had their hands full with active murder investigations. Where murders had indeed been committed and killers needed to be found. Urgently.
