The Madness of Crowds--A Novel

by Louise Penny

  Written on one of the weathered slats was part of a prayer.

  May you be a brave man in a brave country.

  And underneath that, Surprised by Joy.

  The night was completely still. Isabelle and Armand sat side by side, their breaths coming out in puffs.

  And in one of the puffs were the words “How are you, Isabelle?”

  “Better,” she said.

  “Better than?”

  “Before.” She smiled and sat in peace for a moment before speaking again. “The day after I got home from the hospital, you came over. You made us tea and brought treats from the bistro and we talked. Do you remember?”

  “I’ll never forget.”

  “You told me that you were stronger than you had been before you were wounded a few years earlier. I could see that was true. For you. But I was afraid I’d never get there. I could barely speak or move on my own. I had to have help feeding myself.”

  How well she remembered the Chief, sitting beside her, tearing the flaky croissant into bite-sized pieces. Then, instead of feeding her as everyone else did, he placed a small piece into her hand, and closed her fingers over it, until she gripped it.

  Then, as tears of embarrassment streamed down her cheeks, he gently lifted her hand to her mouth. It took a couple of tries. The bread kept slipping from her grasp, but the tears had stopped. As she concentrated.

  And finally, they had it.

  They cheered. As though she’d done something remarkable. Which she had.

  They did it again. And again. Until the croissant was all eaten.

  It tasted better than anything she’d ever had before, or since.

  From then on, that was how she asked her husband, her parents, her carers, her children, to do it. It took far more time, and was often frustrating, even humiliating. But finally she could do it on her own.

  She turned to him now. His face was outlined against the stars. The deep scar on his forehead was invisible. But if she reached out, she’d be able to feel it. Etched there.

  “I still have days when I struggle,” she said.

  He nodded. “Me too. When I’m tired.”

  “I search for words,” she said. “And when I find them, I slur. But that just reminds me how far I’ve come.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve had to make that journey, Isabelle.”

  Her actions had saved not just his life, but the lives of most of the villagers. She’d been shot, almost killed, right there. In the bistro. In the safe place.

  But they, better than most, knew that no place was really safe from physical harm. Anything could happen to anyone, at any moment. What made a place safe were the people. The caring. The kindness. The helping. Sometimes the mourning. And often the forgiveness.

  “I am stronger, in every way,” she said. “But I feel badly for my children. I tell myself it’s made them stronger too, more resilient. They saw that it’s possible to overcome. But…”

  But.

  “They were wounded too,” he finished her thought.

  “Oui.”

  They sat in companionable silence, breathing in the thin, cold air. Breathing out words unspoken. Until Isabelle spoke.

  “I’ve been thinking about Abigail. What happened to her mother is something a child would never fully get over.”

  She saw Gamache nod, then he got up. Together they walked past the New Forest and into the village. Both of them limping slightly.

  Daniel was out with the dogs, the last walk of the day. Armand joined him, while Isabelle headed to her bed in the B&B.

  “Dad?”

  “Oui?”

  “Do you think Professor Robinson will be successful? In her campaign, I mean.”

  Armand turned to his son. Large, sturdy like his father. Strong and kind. And sensitive. One day it might fall to Daniel to make that decision. To pull the plug, to remove the respirator. To let his father die. To let nature take its course.

  But what “nature” were they talking about? Human nature? Was that what Abigail Robinson was relying on? Armand knew it was not always pretty. Or compassionate. Or brave.

  If human nature was allowed to take its course, unchecked, what would happen?

  He remembered the smear on the window. The elongated handprint. And had some idea. Though he also had an overriding belief in the decency of people. While he’d seen the worst, Armand Gamache had also seen the best. And he believed the best would prevail.

  “I hope not.” But was hope enough?

  “Would it be such a bad thing if Professor Robinson died?” Daniel asked.

  Armand looked at his son, hardly believing what he heard. “You can’t mean that.”

  “I do.” Daniel examined his father for a moment. “Do you regret saving her life?”

  No one had, as yet, asked him that. Not directly. “I had to try.”

  “I understand,” said Daniel. “But do you regret it? Do you wish you’d failed?”

  Armand breathed in, and out, unable to answer.

  “Would you do it again?” Daniel asked, quietly.

  Over his son’s shoulder Armand could see the hill out of Three Pines where the bench, invisible in the darkness, sat. And on that bench, the words, unseen, were etched.

  May you be a brave man in a brave country.

  Armand Gamache realized he no longer knew what bravery might look like. What “the best” might be.

  CHAPTER 37

  Dr. Sharon Harris was having a café au lait and brioche in the bistro when Armand, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle arrived.

  “I thought you’d email the answers to us,” said Armand, sitting down after greeting Gabri and Olivier. “Or call. I didn’t expect you to actually come here.”

  “Though we’re not complaining about meeting you in the bistro,” said Jean-Guy. He’d slept in and missed breakfast. Now he ordered French toast, with maple-smoked bacon and syrup from the cabane à sucre down the road.

  The other two had coffee.

  It was a few minutes past eight on this crisp January morning. The sun was just coming up, and the bistro was just filling up. Children were beginning to hit the rink. Some literally. As parents stood in the snow, rubbing their arms, stamping their feet and glancing longingly at the bistro.

  “I wanted to talk it over,” said the coroner. “The reports you sent on the three deaths in the Robinson family are … suggestive.”

  “Of what?” Isabelle asked.

  “Of something more going on,” said Sharon Harris.

  “Like?” said Jean-Guy.

  “I think you already know.”

  Gamache held her steady gaze and said nothing.

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” said Dr. Harris. “I think the doctor’s notes are right. Kathleen Robinson, the mother, killed herself. The drugs she was prescribed are consistent with depression. The report says she’d given birth a few years earlier, so it might’ve been a prolonged, extreme case of postpartum. In an unusual death like this, it would be normal to do an autopsy. But none was performed. I’m guessing it’s because the doctor and coroner knew exactly what she died of.” She glanced around the table. “You don’t look surprised.”

  “We’re not,” said Lacoste. “We think it was…” She searched for the word. “Provoked.”

  “How?”

  “She came to Québec to be treated for her depression, by Ewen Cameron.”

  Sharon Harris’s eyes widened and she gave a short sharp inhale. “I see.”

  And what she saw was an otherwise healthy, happy woman suffering temporary, though acute, depression put into the hands of a monster. To be cured.

  What she saw was that after months of torture, Kathleen Robinson was sent home to her husband and children. She’d left depressed, she returned in despair.

  And killed herself.

  “I see.”

  What Sharon Harris saw was that it wasn’t really suicide. It was morally, if not legally, murder.

  “If you knew all this, why send me the reports?�
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  “I think you already know,” said Gamache, with only a slight smile.

  Dr. Harris gave a small grunt of amusement. “Touché.” She glanced down at the printouts. “It wasn’t about Madame Robinson’s death, was it? That was for context. It’s about the others. The husband and daughter. The report on the man’s death, Paul Robinson, also says heart failure. You’re wondering if there’s more there?” She exhaled. “Might be, but it’s impossible to tell. In his case it could really have been heart failure. He was in his early fifties, so a heart attack or stroke aren’t out of the question. Equally, he could have killed himself. Like his wife’s, the report on his death is vague.”

  She hesitated, then looked directly at the Chief Inspector. “But you’re head of homicide, not head of suicide. What do you suspect, Armand?”

  “You tell me.”

  She dropped her head and muttered what sounded like “bastard.” “All right,” she said, when she looked up again. “I’ll tell you, but this isn’t official. It can’t be. And I doubt at this point it can ever be proven.”

  The three investigators waited. Sharon Harris shuffled the papers in front of her. Bringing one to the top.

  “I think the child Maria Robinson’s death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Meaning?” Isabelle leaned forward.

  “Meaning I think she was murdered. I think her father killed her, then later took his own life.”

  “But the deaths are years apart,” said Isabelle.

  “True. But there can be a delayed reaction.”

  “Of years?” she asked, clearly not buying it.

  “When you investigate a murder,” said Dr. Harris, “don’t you go back into the past? To find some wound that festered? That erupted years later in murder? I’ve heard you talk about that. Why not self-murder? Suicide. Paul Robinson must’ve been deeply scarred by what happened to his wife. And then the pressure of caring for a severely disabled child alone. The mind can warp and twist and land in a very dark place. Chalk another one up to Ewen Cameron.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Beauvoir, holding up his hand. “You think Robinson killed his own daughter? A defenseless little girl? Wh … wh…”

  “Why do I say that?” asked Dr. Harris. “Because of this.”

  She placed her finger on a word. One single word buried, intentionally or not, among so many.

  Beauvoir bent over, studying it as though examining a tiny body.

  Petechiae.

  He looked up at Lacoste, who’d also bent to see the word. Then they both looked at Gamache. Who had no need to read it. He’d seen the word the night before.

  That was why he’d sent Dr. Harris the reports, without comment. To see what she’d think. If she’d see what he saw.

  Petechiae.

  Tiny red dots on the girl’s face. Like freckles, only not. They were, the homicide investigators knew, signs of strangulation or smothering.

  “She choked on a peanut butter sandwich,” said Jean-Guy. “That’s how she died. It says it right there. The hemorrhages were caused by that. Not…”

  He could feel his hands and feet grow cold, as though he’d been on thin ice all along. And it had given way.

  He fought for control. Fought to give the impression all was fine.

  Ça va bien aller.

  But he was overcome with the thought that if it could happen to Paul Robinson, a loving father, it could happen to … anyone.

  “The child’s condition had deteriorated,” said Dr. Harris, watching him closely. “She’d be on puréed food by then. No parent would give her a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “But maybe a carer did,” Beauvoir said, his voice rising, even as his heart sank. “Someone unfamiliar with her.”

  “The report says she was alone with her father,” said Dr. Harris.

  Armand shifted his eyes from Dr. Harris to Beauvoir. He knew what fear looked like. Had seen it often enough in young agents. In experienced investigators. As they’d prepared for an especially dangerous action.

  He saw it now in his son-in-law. And he could guess why.

  “It looks to me like Maria’s father smothered her, probably with a pillow, then shoved the sandwich down her throat postmortem,” the coroner was saying.

  “Non. Non,” said Jean-Guy, shaking his head. “No father would do that.”

  And there it was.

  “Most wouldn’t,” said Armand. You wouldn’t.

  It was the nightmare, the worst fear. Not just that his child would die, but that he’d somehow be responsible for it. Even, God help him, do it. In a moment of madness.

  “We’ve seen it before—” Isabelle began.

  “Yes,” snapped Jean-Guy, cutting her off. Not wanting to be reminded of the terrible things they’d seen. What happened when human nature went feral.

  Yes, sometimes they discovered that a parent had killed their child, though it was more often the other way around.

  “Let’s leave it there,” said Armand. “Thank you for coming here, Sharon, and walking us through what might’ve happened.”

  “You saw that in the autopsy, didn’t you, Armand,” Dr. Harris said, as she got up. “Petechiae. That’s why you sent all three reports to me.”

  “Yes. But as you said, it’s a long time ago. There’s no way to prove any of this.”

  “I can’t see how it can relate to the murder of Deborah Schneider on New Year’s Eve,” said the coroner, pulling her coat off the back of the chair.

  “Neither can I,” admitted Gamache. “We’re just assembling the pieces. Most are not helpful.”

  Dr. Harris turned to Beauvoir. “You might be right. It could’ve been an accident, not murder at all. With no way to prove it either way, maybe we choose to believe that.”

  “Excusez-moi.” Without waiting to be excused, Beauvoir put his coat on and left.

  * * *

  “Forget something?” Stephen asked. He was holding Idola on his lap and reading to her. From the Financial Times.

  “Yes. I just need to…” He held out his arms, and Stephen, a little surprised, handed the child to her father.

  Jean-Guy felt Idola’s breath on his neck, and felt her supple body conform to his. And he knew he could never, ever hurt her.

  In fact, he’d hurt anyone who tried.

  That’s what he’d forgotten. For one horrific moment. That he would die before he’d let anything happen to either of his children. In fact, he would kill.

  So what had happened to Paul Robinson?

  Jean-Guy carried his daughter into the study and sat at the desk. On the laptop he looked up Paul Robinson. Not much came up. But there was a photograph from a conference he’d been at.

  It showed a middle-aged man. Slender, geeky, with glasses and graying hair and a bow tie.

  He was standing in front of an easel with a poster on it and smiling into the camera. He looked a little goofy.

  Was Paul Robinson, at that moment, contemplating murdering his daughter?

  Maria. Beloved, vulnerable. Ave Maria. Blessed Mary.

  But there was another daughter. The Abby to her Maria.

  Bright. Brilliant even. So like her father in so many ways.

  Abby Maria. Conjoined sisters. Not by some cartilage or artery. They didn’t share an organ, they shared a father and a fate. That bound them forever.

  He looked down at Idola, and when he made eye contact, she laughed.

  Her flat features no longer said Down syndrome.

  They said daughter.

  * * *

  As he left the house, Jean-Guy saw his father-in-law standing on the far side of the frozen pond. Watching the children play.

  Armand looked up, and their eyes met. He’d been waiting. Patiently. In the cold. For him.

  They didn’t speak as they walked through the bright sunshine, up the hill to the Auberge. Past the chapel. Past the New Forest. Past the bench.

  May you be a brave man in a brave country.

  * * *

  R
eine-Marie was more than halfway to Enid Horton’s home, the box in the back seat of her car, when she slowed down. Stopped. And turned around.

  Parking at the Inn, she went in and found Haniya standing at the window, looking out over a field of snow, her arms wrapped around herself.

  Without turning she said, “It’s so white. And cold. Everything looks dead. I don’t know why anyone lives here.”

  She coughed, and Reine-Marie stopped where she was. And had to remind herself that a cough was no longer a threat. A sneeze wasn’t an attack.

  The vaccine had worked. It was one of the great global shared experiences. The plague and the cure. But still, she had to force herself forward, to stand beside the young woman with the sniffles.

  “Voltaire described Canada as quelques arpents de neige,” said Reine-Marie. “A few acres of snow. It was, of course, dismissive. An insult.”

  “No offense. I didn’t mean to insult your home.”

  Reine-Marie smiled. “I think you know the difference between an insult and a compliment.” Then she too looked out the window. Where Haniya Daoud, and Voltaire, saw a few acres of snow, of misery, she saw tobogganing. Skiing. Snowshoeing. Hockey games on frozen lakes. Sitting by a fire with a hot chocolate, while a blizzard pounded the windows and walls. Was there anything more comforting than being safe and warm inside during a snowstorm?

  “Each snowflake is unique, you know.”

  “Really?” It would be impossible to convey less interest.

  “Oui. A fellow named Snowflake Bentley proved that, more than a century ago. He was a Vermonter. Lived not far from here. A backwoods man who was fascinated by the new invention of photography. He figured out how to take a picture of a single flake. Sounds easy, but just try to capture one, never mind take a picture of it. His photographs are amazing. Beautiful. It was only then that scientists confirmed what they suspected. That each snowflake is different. Trillions and trillions.” She turned to Haniya. “All unique. All exquisite. Each a work of art. Imagine that.”

  “His name was Snowflake?” asked Haniya.

  “His name was Wilson. Snowflake was an affectionate nickname.” Reine-Marie returned to the view. “Without that thick layer of snow, the crops, the flowers, even many of the animals would die. It’s insulation against a killing frost. Then in the spring it melts. Liquid gold, the farmers call it. They pray for as much as possible. Perception’s an interesting thing, non?”