The Long Way Home

As the ship continues its journey, Gamache and Clara talk about the nature of love, and what it means to miss someone. Gamache confides that The Balm in Gilead was his father’s book; when Gamache was nine years old, both his parents were killed in a car accident with a drunk driver. Gamache found the book on his father’s bedside table and kept it; the bookmark indicates the page his father never read beyond, and Gamache has never read beyond it either. As he confides to Clara, “I don’t want to leave him behind” (333).

Clara and Gamache are interrupted by Jean-Guy, who has received more information from the art college. All the asbestos detected in Massey’s office is concentrated in traces at the back of one painting. To everyone’s surprise and confusion, the toxin is located on a painting created by Massey, the one that everyone who visited the studio remarked upon as being exceptional. It makes no sense that Norman could have put asbestos on it. Everyone is more confused than ever, but at least they have almost arrived in Tabaquen. The ship docks there the following morning.

As soon as Gamache, Jean-Guy, Marcel, Myrna, and Clara disembark, they ask the first person they see about anyone who goes by Norman or Noman. The elderly fisherman first tells them to go away but then reluctantly directs them toward a hill beyond the village. Gamache insists that Myrna and Clara wait in the village while he and Jean-Guy go look.

Myrna, Clara, and Marcel go to a small diner, while Jean-Guy and Gamache walk up the hill and toward a small house. They find Peter Morrow on the porch outside the house, looking stunned, overwhelmed, and extremely relieved to see Jean-Guy and Gamache. Jean-Guy and Gamache enter the house. Norman is lying dead.

Peter quickly fills them in: Peter and Norman had been at the cabin for some time. Vachon stopped by every day to replenish their supplies and see if they needed anything. Massey arrived at the cabin a couple of days ago (aligning with the pilot’s account of flying Massey to Tabaquen). The night before, Norman sent Peter away for the night and told him to come back in the morning. Peter returned to the cabin to find Norman with his throat slit. In a state of shock, Peter waited until Vachon arrived. Peter then sent Vachon for help and, in his confusion, he thinks Jean-Guy and Gamache have come in response.

Gamache asks if Vachon could have taken the knife during his brief time at the cabin. Peter is unsure but thinks it could be possible. It has now been hours since Vachon came to the cabin, and it seems unlikely that he ever called for help, making him a possible suspect. Gamache also hints that Peter is a suspect, although Peter vehemently denies it. Peter says that when Massey arrived Norman was happy to see him, and the two men seemed to be getting along well when he left the two of them alone. Gamache wonders about the confrontation between “two young professors who had met decades ago. Met and clashed. And then met again as old men. In the land God gave to Cain” (349).

There are three key suspects for Norman’s murder: Vachon, Massey, and Peter. Gamache reviews his new understanding of the case, which he had started to develop aboard the ship. He realizes that the contaminated painting had been painted by Norman, not Massey. Massey is responsible for poisoning the canvases. Massey must have sent Norman canvases after Norman lost his job, seemingly as one last act of kindness, while contaminating those canvases with asbestos he obtained from the walls of the college before it was renovated.

Peter explains how he ended up in Tabaquen. When he left Three Pines more than a year ago, he knew his marriage was probably over, but he longed to make one last grand gesture to show Clara how much she meant to him. When he was visiting Massey in Toronto, Norman’s name came up in their conversation, and Peter reflected on how painful it must have been for Clara to be mocked by a professor. Peter decided to confront Norman on her behalf and, based on Norman’s file, learned that the professor had gone to Baie-Saint-Paul after being fired. Peter went there as well and fell in love with the tranquil beauty of the place, even though he could not find Norman. Eventually, Vachon told Peter that Norman was in Tabaquen, and Peter went there in pursuit of him. Norman was sick with some sort of lung disease and living in poor conditions but insistent on dying at home. Despite himself, Peter ended up taking care of the older man.

Peter says he does not know why Massey appeared, and Gamache explains that he believes Massey came to confess. Massey is responsible for Norman’s illness, and Gamache surmises that once Massey realized that Peter was looking for Norman and that investigators were looking for Peter, Massey would have realized that his crime might come to light. Gamache and Jean-Guy summarize their theory that Massey sent Norman canvases contaminated with asbestos because he was jealous and resentful of his greater artistic and intellectual gifts. They think Massey might have come to regret his crime because “what seems acceptable, even reasonable, in youth can look very different in old age” (359).

Gamache sends Jean-Guy to find and arrest Vachon while he waits with Peter. When the two are alone, Peter asks Gamache why he is not trying to find Massey, and Gamache says that he thinks Massey is dead. He believes that Massey, knowing the truth was going to come to light, came to confess to Norman that he had been poisoning him for years and to potentially turn himself in. However, Vachon had been implicated in the crime because he acted as the intermediary for the poisoned canvases, so he killed both Norman and Massey. Gamache surmises that Vachon hoped to pass the crimes off as a murder-suicide, in which Massey killed Norman and then killed himself.

Gamache explains that Clara has been looking for Peter, and Peter is surprised since he wrote a letter telling her that he was delayed and would come back as soon as he could. The pilot who was supposed to deliver the letter must have lost it. Meanwhile, Clara is growing increasingly anxious about what might be happening and whether Gamache and Jean-Guy have found her husband. Eventually, she can bear it no longer and goes off to see what is happening.

As soon as he learns that Clara is in Tabaquen, Peter wants to rush her, but Gamache insists they stay put until Vachon has been arrested. As the two men wait in the cabin, Gamache reflects on the kindness and courage Peter showed in nursing the dying man. He also starts to think more about Vachon and wonders whether Vachon was ignorant of Massey’s criminal plan.

Gamache looks at the portrait from the yearbook again, realizing now that it is not a self-portrait but a depiction of Massey showing his inner evil. Looking more closely at it, Gamache realizes with horror that the fisherman he saw when he first disembarked from the ferry was Massey. Massey, not Vachon, is the one who killed Norman and is trying to cover up the crime. Gamache is about to spring into action when he looks up and sees Clara and Massey standing in the doorway of the cabin. Massey is holding a knife to Clara’s throat.

Massey confirms that Vachon never knew he was involved in criminal activity and that he planned to pin Norman’s murder on Vachon. Knowing he was at risk of being found out with Gamache investigating his activity, Massey had given the appearance of coming to confess and then planned to fake his death, leaving it to appear that Vachon was guilty of killing both him and Norman. Massey was concerned that someone had recognized him, and when he saw Clara rush out of the restaurant towards the cabin, he went after her because he thought she might have figured it out. Ironically, Clara did not know anything, and “had Professor Massey stayed where he was […] he might have gotten away” (367). Gamache is terrified because Massey is highly agitated and could easily kill Clara before either he or Peter could help her.

From his position, Gamache can see Jean-Guy approaching and prays he can keep Massey calm until Jean-Guy arrives. As Gamache sees Massey momentarily distracted, he lunges for Clara. Massey strikes out, stabbing Peter in the chest as he reaches to help his wife. Gamache seizes Massey and gets the knife from him. Jean-Guy arrives and calls for help, but Peter dies in his wife’s arms, telling her that he was trying to make his way home. 

The community of Three Pines holds a beautiful funeral for Peter. At the funeral, Ruth tells Gamache that she could sense the rage and emptiness in Massey when she met him. She explains that “Professor Massey was nothing. Empty. Like the canvas. I found that terrifying” (372). The day after the funeral, Clara and Gamache sit on the bench together. He reads from The Balm in Gilead, finally moving beyond the bookmark, while Clara opens the letter that Peter had sent her but which had not reached her until now.