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“He was in charge of the mail room.”
“Merci.”
Once off the phone to Lacoste, Jean-Guy snapped his laptop shut on the faces of a Saskatoon family and followed the Chief out.
They were silent on the drive, each in his own thoughts.
They found parking close to the Réunion office on St. Viateur, in the Mile End quartier of Montréal, and were about to get out when a call came through from Isabelle. Gamache put her on speaker.
“The technicians have cleaned the gravestone. It’s not a name, it’s a picture, patron. Of a flower.”
“Miss Wolcott’s Ghost?”
“No. It’s a sprig of rosemary”
“The herb?”
“Oui. I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, but I found some dead rosemary tied together in a small bouquet on one of the graves.”
“Not the one with the body?”
“No. This one has a very small headstone. There’s no name or date. I’m sending the bouquet to forensics, but it looks like it’s been there for a while.”
“Years?”
“More like months. Chief, it seems in the language of flowers, rosemary means remembrance.”
She let the silence stretch on, knowing the Chief was absorbing that.
“Any theories?” he finally asked her.
“It’s too much of a coincidence that the headstone has an etching of rosemary, then we find sprigs of it nearby.”
“Agreed. But why nearby? Why not on the grave itself?”
“I’m wondering, patron, if the tiny grave is also important.”
More silence. She could almost imagine the Chief nodding. Thinking. Trying to find the connective tissue.
“Can you send photos?”
“Already done, patron. And I have that call in to Dr. Lagacé about James Clybourne.”
“Good. Get an agent to go through the list of the passengers and crew—”
“To see if there was a Rosemary. Already in process. They’re also checking for a Daisy Wolcott. I know records show she died in 1910, but best to be sure.”
Armand smiled. It still astonished him that Isabelle’s former Chief had let her go, and it was only dumb luck, or fate, that he’d had a conversation with the young agent in the elevator as she was about to leave.
He’d hired her on the spot.
“We’ll be down after our visit to Réunion,” said Gamache.
“Don’t eat all the butter tarts,” Jean-Guy shouted, but Armand had already hung up.
The two men got out of the vehicle and walked to the converted warehouse that served as the Réunion offices.
They hadn’t made an appointment, preferring their visit to be a surprise.
