The Madness of Crowds--A Novel

by Louise Penny

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seem to have had an intimate relationship.”

  She smiled and sat down next to him. “I guess we did. But not in the way you might mean. He was older than me. A combination of mentor and older brother. It was more a meeting of the minds than the hearts.”

  “And his wife, Abigail’s mother? How did she feel about your relationship?”

  “I never met her. She’d died. Why’re you interested? It was decades ago. Maybe you want to concentrate on the living.”

  He smiled. “I’ve chased ghosts before, but no, I just like to get a full picture. With both her mother and father dead, Abigail must’ve grown close to you.”

  “No, not really. After Oxford she went back to BC, and Jean-Paul and I returned to Québec.”

  “And there was no one else? No brother or sister?”

  “She had Debbie. That seemed to be enough.” She smiled. “What’s that suspicious mind of yours conjuring?”

  Creases appeared at the corners of his eyes and ran deep down his face as he too smiled. “Nothing. An occupational hazard. Seeing specters where none exist.”

  “And accomplices?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure they exist.”

  He got up and, walking over to the bookcase, pulled out a volume he’d noticed as he’d entered the study.

  He looked at the cover, then turned it around to show her. The Chancellor laughed.

  “That was a gift from my husband when we got engaged.” She took it and looked down at it as though at a beloved face.

  The book was called How to Lie with Statistics.

  From the kitchen he could hear the kids making noise again, and knew the interview must be over. Bringing out his phone, Armand checked Abigail Robinson’s social media account and saw the numbers clicking, churning, sweeping upward. As fast, he thought, as the American national debt meter he’d seen in New York City. And now he watched with the same alarm as Professor Robinson’s numbers flew up. A barometer of a moral deficit.

  Armand pocketed his phone and walked to the door of the study. Down the hall he could see Inspector Lacoste standing with Abigail and Debbie. He caught her eye and nodded.

  They were leaving.

  He turned to the Chancellor. “Please don’t let them go off the property. Not until we catch the accomplice.”

  “Suppose you never do?”

  “You have a big house…”

  She laughed. “I’ll do my best. Bonne année, Armand. Let’s hope the new year starts better than the old year has ended.”

  “Inshallah. Bonne année, Colette.”

  As Lacoste turned the car out of the driveway, she asked, “What do you make of the Chancellor? Do you think she’s involved?”

  “Oh, she’s involved. I just don’t know how.”

  * * *

  Jean-Guy stood on the threshold and rang the bell. This was where the sound tech lived.

  He’d already interviewed the lighting tech, who’d said he spent the event dozing off in a booth at the back of the auditorium.

  He spoke no English and had been out drinking with buddies the night before. The English lecture on statistics held absolutely no interest for him.

  The young man was a theater major at the University and did the lighting part-time, to make money.

  Since the old cop had told them to keep the lights up the whole time, there wasn’t much to do, he told Beauvoir. So he slept. Only waking up when the firecrackers went off.

  No, he didn’t see who did it. By the time he was fully awake, they’d stopped and the crowd was beginning to panic. Then there were the shots.

  “Scared the shit outta me. Ostie.”

  “Did you record any of it?”

  “I do lighting, not audio.”

  “I realize that,” Beauvoir said, his voice and patience strained. “But you can see everything from that booth. It’s right at the back of the auditorium and up high. If someone wanted to record an event, that would be the perfect spot. Right?”

  “I guess. But why would I want a recording?”

  “You wouldn’t, but someone else might.” He gave the kid a shrewd look. “Did someone ask you to record it? Maybe even pay you?”

  “To record an event? Without signed permission of the principals? That’s against the law.”

  “Merci,” said Beauvoir. “Now, I’ll ask you again, because I like you and I don’t want you to get into even bigger trouble by obstructing justice in an attempted murder inquiry. Are you sure you didn’t record the event?”

  “Look, the job’s easy and pay’s decent, so I’m not gonna fuck it up by illegally recording something. I’m asked all the time, especially by kids who want to bootleg a concert. Like you said, I have a great view of the stage. But I don’t do it. Anyone watching the video would know where it was shot from and I’d be in shit.”

  “Have you been to the building in the last week?”

  “No, why would I?”

  “Did anyone give you anything to bring in?”

  “Like firecrackers?” When the Inspector didn’t say anything, the boy’s eyes widened. “You mean the gun? I wish.”

  The Chief’s wrong, thought Beauvoir, as he got back into his car. That kid’s not a ferret. He’s a wolverine.

  Next was the sound tech. He parked in the driveway of her home, where a huge Père Noël on the roof waved at him. From the car, Jean-Guy considered the herd of reindeer on the front lawn, all with blinking red noses. It was ridiculous.

  He kinda liked it.

  A text came in from Isabelle saying they were on their way to the local detachment to interview the gunman, Édouard Tardif.

  Join you soon, he replied, then walked up the front steps and rang the bell.

  * * *

  “What’ve you found out?” Gamache asked, half an hour later.

  The head of detachment had given them his office. It was a space they knew well from previous investigations.

  “I spoke to the sound and lighting techs,” said Beauvoir. “Both are theater students at the University.”

  He didn’t bring out his notes. Didn’t have to. There wasn’t much to remember.

  “Lighting guy says he slept through until the firecrackers went off. He says he didn’t record the lecture for anyone, but he’s a bit of a shit. I doubt he follows rules.”

  Gamache suppressed a smile. It was almost word for word what the station chief had said about Agent Beauvoir when they’d first met.

  “The student doing sound?” asked Isabelle. “Did she see anything?”

  “No. She only got the call that morning to go in. She showed up an hour before Robinson went on and hadn’t been to the auditorium since the Christmas break. She stayed backstage the whole time. She’s still pretty shaken. I’ve set up an appointment for her with our psychologist.”

  Gamache nodded. This was the Jean-Guy he’d met years ago. A kind man in shit’s clothing.

  There was a knock on the door and an agent put his head in.

  “The lawyer’s here, Chief Inspector.”

  “Merci. Can you show her into the interview room, please? Then wait ten minutes and bring Monsieur Tardif.”

  “Entendu.”

  * * *

  “Fine way to spend New Year’s Eve, Armand,” said Maître Lacombe as she placed a notepad and her phone on the metal table. She nodded to Beauvoir and Lacoste. “The holy trinity? That’s a lot of firepower for a case that’s over.”

  “Is it?” asked Gamache, taking a seat.

  “Over? I think so. My client had no priors. He’s cooperating. Didn’t resist arrest and it was clearly not a serious attempt.”

  “Well, that’s quite a list of lies and half-truths,” said Isabelle. “My people had to wrestle the gun from him, he took shots in a crowded enclosed place almost causing a riot, and it was only because the Chief Inspector shoved Professor Robinson aside that she wasn’t killed.”

  “Perception, Inspector.” She leaned forward. “L
isten, Édouard Tardif’s a decent, if deluded, man. He’s gotten it into his head that what Professor Robinson is saying is somehow a threat. He’s been wound up by a hostile media. By fake news. He took a wild shot—”

  “Two,” said Beauvoir. “That barely missed.”

  “But they did miss. And who’s to say he didn’t intend to miss all along? He’s an expert shot. Had he wanted to kill her, he would have.”

  At a nod from Gamache, Édouard Tardif was brought in.

  It was the first time Gamache had met him, beyond a brief exchange at the gym.

  Here was a fifty-three-year-old man. Large, powerfully built.

  “You can take them off,” Gamache said to the agent, pointing to the cuffs around Tardif’s thick wrists. After introducing themselves, Gamache said, “We have some questions for you, sir.”

  “Before we start,” said Tardif, “how’re the people taken to hospital?”

  His voice was as he looked. Gruff, rough. A kind of growl. But not, Gamache thought, vicious.

  “Mostly scrapes and bruises,” said Isabelle. “Shock. One man is still in hospital for observation. A suspected heart attack.”

  “I hope he’s all right.”

  “If he dies, you’ll be charged with murder,” said Isabelle.

  “Manslaughter at most,” said Maître Lacombe.

  “Shall we begin?” asked Gamache. “We hope you can clear up some things.”

  He looked at Lacoste, who began.

  She asked deceptively simple, easy questions to begin with, to get him relaxed. Where he lived, his age, his workplace.

  “The forest,” said Monsieur Tardif, in answer to that question.

  It was the simple truth, said without sarcasm. Édouard Tardif cut and hauled trees for firewood out of the forest. He did it with his horse, because the woods were too thick for a tractor.

  He felled the trees, then together they dragged them out, one by one.

  “Ones,” he explained, “that were about to die anyway.”

  “You do this alone?” asked Gamache.

  “Sometimes with my brother but mostly alone.”

  “Dangerous work to do by yourself,” said Lacoste. “Deep in the woods.”

  “Well, young people today don’t want to work hard. And I like it by myself. No one to bother me.”

  “Or save you.”

  Now Tardif looked at Jean-Guy, who’d just spoken. “There’re worse places to die than in the forest. Worse ways.”

  “Like being shot or crushed in a crowded auditorium?” asked Beauvoir.

  Tardif’s lower teeth gripped his upper lip, drawing it in.

  “Monsieur Tardif did not mean to hurt Professor Robinson,” said his lawyer. “It was meant to scare, that’s all.”

  “We’re not interviewing you, Maître Lacombe,” said Gamache. “Please let your client answer.” He turned back to Tardif. “I suspect you can speak for yourself. I also think what happened yesterday wasn’t some sudden flight of fancy. What did you intend?”

  “I advise you not to answer that,” said Maître Lacombe.

  Tardif looked at her, then at the three Sûreté officers. “I learned my trade from an old woodsman named Tony. I was a kid, and only knew maples. And chestnuts. And pines, of course. He taught me that there’re different types of maples, of pines, of oaks and cherry. The weed trees, the hardwoods. The evergreens. The ones that were dying and the ones that could be saved. I learned to listen to people who know more than I do. Why would I have a lawyer and not listen to her? I’ll pass on that question.”

  His answer, so well reasoned, so succinctly put into context, surprised even Maître Lacombe.

  “What you do in the woods,” said Jean-Guy, “choosing which trees will die soon anyway and cutting them down, that’s gotta be good for the health of the whole forest. The other trees benefit.”

  “Sure.”

  “So why do you have such trouble with what Professor Robinson is saying? Isn’t it the same thing? The ill, the terminal, sacrificed for the greater good?”

  “I guess I have trouble with it because there’s a difference between a tree and a person.”

  Maître Lacombe laughed. “Touché.”

  “You’re a member of the gun club, an expert shot,” said Isabelle. “You know what guns, what bullets can do. And yet you chose to fire one off, twice, in a crowded hall. You almost caused a riot. Hundreds could’ve been killed, including children.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Bullshit,” said Beauvoir. “You’re clever. You want us to know you’re clever. And now you’re saying you didn’t think of the obvious? You just didn’t care. You didn’t care about those kids. Those elderly men and women. Who’d be killed in the riot? Probably not the young, healthy ones. It would be the vulnerable, the sick, the slower, the weaker. You’re no better than Robinson.”

  Beauvoir was all but shouting at the man.

  Gamache let it happen, curious to see what Tardif would do.

  “I care,” exploded Tardif. “Why do you think I did it.”

  “Why?” demanded Beauvoir.

  “Don’t answer that,” snapped Tardif’s lawyer, laying a hand on his large arm.

  “To save others. To stop her.”

  Maître Lacombe moaned and sat back. “There we go.”

  “Why?” demanded Beauvoir.

  “Wouldn’t you? Do you want her to go killing old people? Kids? What sort of person wouldn’t want to stop her? I knew I’d be caught, and it was worth it. Someone had to do it. Someone had to try.” Now the woodsman glared at Gamache. “But you saved her.”

  Those few words contained all the disgust nature had placed in this man. He all but spat at Gamache.

  “I did. No one has the right to take another life without permission.” Only a slight flush gave away Gamache’s feelings. “Not Professor Robinson, not the government. And not you, Monsieur Tardif.”

  Now it was Tardif’s turn to redden.

  “Why were you so far back in the room?” Lacoste asked, her voice matter-of-fact.

  “I didn’t expect so many cops. My plan was to be at the front and shoot from there.”

  “From there you couldn’t miss,” said Lacoste.

  “Don’t,” warned his lawyer.

  “But when I saw so many cops, I backed off. I thought if I stood in the middle I could get away.”

  “So you did want to get away,” said Beauvoir.

  “If I could, yes. I didn’t want to get caught. But I expected to.”

  “Who set off the firecrackers?”

  “I did.”

  There was silence. Until Gamache spoke.

  “That’s not true, is it.”

  “It is.”

  “What was the purpose of the firecrackers?”

  “To distract.”

  “Really? And yet they had the opposite effect. Everyone was now looking in your direction. Who was your accomplice?” Lacoste asked.

  “No one.”

  “Someone hid the gun and firecrackers three days before the event,” said Lacoste. It was the first time Tardif looked surprised. Off balance. “While you distracted the caretaker. Who was it?”

  Tardif’s face hardened.

  “Was it your brother, Alphonse?”

  Tardif stared at her, stone-faced.

  “He left for the Abitibi the day of the attack. It’s impossible to see that as a mere coincidence.”

  “He had nothing to do with what happened. I acted alone.”

  “We know that isn’t true.” Her voice grew cold and hard. “Listen, despite what happened, no one was actually killed. If you cooperate, we can move forward and end this. We’ll find out soon enough. You must know that. We’re having your brother picked up. It would be better for you, for him, if you just tell us.”

  Édouard Tardif crossed his huge, muscled arms over his chest. Isabelle Lacoste pushed some more, but it was obvious that the interview was over.

  “The arraignment’s sche
duled for tomorrow,” said Gamache as he walked Maître Lacombe to the front door of the detachment.

  “Merci, Armand. I’ll be there.”

  “Tell your client to cooperate,” he said. “If there’s a co-conspirator out there, we don’t want him harming Abigail Robinson, or anyone else. If he succeeds, Monsieur Tardif will be charged with murder. And that charge will hold. You know that.”

  Maître Lacombe slipped on her gloves and nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Bon.”

  At the door, Gamache said, “It sounds as though you agree with Professor Robinson.”

  She paused and looked at him. “Don’t you? What sort of society allows its people to suffer when there’s no hope? It would be a kindness.”

  “It would be a cull.”

  “Culls happen for the health of the community. They’re unfortunate, but necessary. Bonne année, Armand.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The party was in full swing when Armand and Reine-Marie walked into the Auberge just before ten o’clock that evening.

  A huge spruce, fragrant and festooned with sparkling glass ornaments, candy canes and strings of popcorn, dominated one corner of the living room.

  Pine boughs with bright red bows rested on the mantelpiece along with tall columns of flickering candles. Beneath the mantel, a fire crackled in the grate.

  Marc Gilbert had hung a sprig of mistletoe on the chandelier in the entrance, and people were hugged and kissed as they arrived.

  Armand smiled as he looked around. And felt a wave of relief.

  A year ago … a year ago … this had seemed impossible. Gone forever. As the second wave hit and the virus spread, taking with it more shops, more jobs, more freedoms, more lives.

  But just as things had fallen apart so quickly, so too did they recover once the vaccine was discovered and shared among nations.

  Like a forest after a fire, he thought, as he took their coats to a back room where a bed was heaped high with them. There was loss, but vivid new life had also emerged from the ash.

  Stores had reopened. Hotels and restaurants were packed. Employment was higher than ever. It was as though people were awakening after a long nightmare and wanting to make up for lost time. To enjoy a freedom they no longer took for granted.