The Madness of Crowds--A Novel

by Louise Penny

  “With the packing?”

  She smiled at him. “Never. That’s your job. No one does it better. Please, come sit.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Armand.

  “Jean-Paul knows it all, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes were kindly, but blank.

  “You said the letter reached you the day after Paul Robinson died?” said Beauvoir.

  “Yes. It came with the book. I knew what it was after the first line. It was so clearly a suicide note, admitting that he killed Maria and couldn’t live with himself any longer. As he says, he’d known the moment it happened that he’d have to take his own life, but he also knew he’d have to wait until Abigail was grown and out of the house. He sent her to me at Oxford, and asked that I look after her.”

  “Which you did,” said Armand. “And earned his eternal gratitude.”

  “Oui,” she said quietly. “Jean-Paul and I had rented a cottage in nearby Lower Slaughter. Abby came every weekend and stayed until after Sunday roast. She’d often bring a friend. Abby was a bright, happy young woman. Ambitious, but most at that level are. And then this”—she glanced at the letter—“happened.”

  “What did you do when you read it?” Armand asked.

  “I called him. I thought maybe … But it was already done. A neighbor answered and told me Paul was gone. It looked like a stroke or heart attack, but of course, I knew.”

  “And didn’t say anything.”

  “No, why would I? If he’d wanted people to know, he’d have left a note there, but he didn’t.”

  “But he did send one to you. Why was that?”

  “I’ve wondered myself. The closest I can come is that he felt the need to confess. To tell someone who loved him, and might even understand, what had happened.”

  “But,” said Armand, leaning forward, “he also says at the end that you should let Abigail read the letter.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why would he want her to know what he’d done to her sister? Surely that’s something he might, at a stretch, want you to know, but not his other daughter.”

  His eyes were imploring her to explain it to him.

  Colette smiled a little, a sort of grin. “You didn’t know Paul.” She looked at her husband, who was pulling tissues from the Kleenex box and folding them methodically.

  “He was a scientist. Meticulous in his research, in his notes, his files. Always neat and clear. He was dedicated to the truth. I think he wanted someone to know.”

  “Someone, yes,” said Armand. “But Abigail?”

  “She’s cut from the same cloth. You can see that, in her insistence that her findings get a proper airing, no matter how foul. I think he knew she’d want the truth. It’s possible he thought she already suspected, and wanted to end her speculation, so she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering.”

  Armand sat back and considered. It wasn’t what he’d want. To burden, to hobble one of his children with such a truth. Some things really did not have to be said.

  But then Colette was right. He didn’t know Paul Robinson. He’d learned long ago the folly of expecting others to behave, to feel, to think and make the same choices as he would.

  “And did you?” Beauvoir asked.

  “What?”

  “Did you tell Abigail about the letter?”

  “She did more than that,” said Jean-Paul Roberge, his voice strong, his eyes clear. “She showed it to her. She was very upset.”

  “Abigail would be,” said Beauvoir.

  “Not Abigail. The other one.”

  * * *

  “Bonjour,” said Isabelle. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  She’d found Abigail sitting alone in the library.

  “I didn’t think cops asked.” Abigail closed her laptop.

  “My mother raised me to be polite. And the Chief Inspector gave me a gun, in case that doesn’t work.”

  Abigail smiled. She looked wan. Tired.

  Lacoste took the armchair across from her so that they were sitting on either side of the lit fire. She cast a glance toward the stack of wood, where Vincent Gilbert, two nights earlier, had found a murder weapon.

  “Are you hiding?”

  “Not a great hiding place if I am. You found me.”

  “I don’t think I’m the one you’re hiding from.”

  Abigail heaved a sigh. “I needed to get out of my room, but I didn’t want to see him. I don’t trust myself.”

  “You think you might finish what you came here to do?”

  Abigail smiled again and shook her head. “I came here to humiliate him. To scare him. To wound his ego but leave his body intact. So that he’d spend the rest of his life writhing. Like my mother.”

  “You’ve already done that. So what are you afraid you might do now?”

  “Kill him. We all know he killed Debbie, thinking it was me. Gamache and the other one as much as told me that the night Debbie died. Debbie was killed by mistake. But I didn’t take it in.” She rubbed her forehead, hard enough to leave red marks. “Is there always a delayed reaction?”

  “Often, yes.” Isabelle leaned forward. “Can you tell me about the day your sister died?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Maria. What happened that day?” As she asked her question, her phone pinged with a message from Beauvoir and a photo of a letter. She’d read it later.

  “Why do you want to know that?” Abigail asked. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Please, just tell me.”

  Another sigh. Not of exasperation, but of exhaustion.

  “It was a Friday. Dad had just come back from a conference—”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yes. He’d been there with Colette, but she didn’t come to Nanaimo with him.” She paused. “I always wondered if she and Dad … But I guess not. And then the thing happened, and they almost never saw each other again.”

  “Huh,” said Lacoste, her mind moving quickly. “Where were you when your sister died?”

  If Abigail heard a slight suspicion in the question, she didn’t show it. “Debbie and I were looking after Maria. But we’d gone out for a bike ride—”

  “And left Maria?”

  “She was asleep. We wanted to go to the store, and I knew Dad would be back soon. Debbie decided she’d rather go home, so I went to the store alone. By the time I got home Dad was there, but Maria was…”

  “What did your father say?”

  “Nothing, not then. He was working on her. Trying to bring her back. She was on the kitchen floor and he had his fingers down her throat. I must’ve shouted because he turned and looked at me. I’ll never forget his expression.”

  “Yes?”

  “He looked terrified. Panicked. He told me to leave. To call nine-one-one. Then all sorts of people arrived and I was pushed out of the way.”

  “Was Debbie there?”

  “No, like I said, she’d gone home.”

  Lacoste leaned forward and her eyes and voice became intense. “Think carefully. Before you left to go to the store, was Debbie alone with Maria?”

  “No, why would she be?”

  “Were you together the whole time?”

  “Well, I went to the bathroom, and Debbie wasn’t with me.” She smiled, then it faded. “Why’re you asking?”

  “Could your sister’s death have been more than a terrible accident?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. Why are you asking? What does any of this have to do with Debbie’s murder?”

  “Have you seen this picture before?”

  Isabelle handed her the photograph of the four of them. The last one.

  As Abigail stared down, her chin puckered and she took a deep breath. “Yes. But not for years. Where did you find it?”

  “At Debbie’s home. It was locked in her desk.”

  Abigail’s brows drew together. “But why would it be there? Why would she h
ave it?”

  “We don’t know.”

  What Isabelle did know, and suspected all along, was that their theory was wrong. Abigail hadn’t found the photo among her father’s things and given it to Debbie, starting a chain of events that led to murder.

  No. The picture of that happy day had probably sat in Debbie’s desk for years, forgotten. Debbie Schneider’s murder had nothing to do with the picture, or what had happened to Maria.

  Her phone dinged again. Another message from Beauvoir, asking if she’d read the letter.

  Not yet, she typed and hit send.

  She turned back to Abigail, but was interrupted by a call.

  “Yes, what is it?” she demanded. “I’m in the mid—”

  “Read the damned letter,” he hissed, and hung up.

  * * *

  Gamache looked at Beauvoir and raised his brows.

  Jean-Guy smiled tightly. “All’s well.”

  “That bad?” said Colette.

  Gamache turned back to the Chancellor and her husband. “You said the other one was upset by Paul Robinson’s letter. Who was that?”

  Jean-Paul had gone back to the tissues, but Colette answered. “Debbie Schneider.”

  “She was with you when you showed Abigail the suicide note?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was this?”

  “Shortly after Paul’s funeral. It’s my understanding Abby and Debbie had had a falling-out, but they reconnected at the service. Abby returned to Oxford, and Debbie went with her for support. They stayed with us for a weekend, and I decided if I was ever going to show Abby the letter, it would be then, when she had a friend with her.”

  “What was the reaction?” Beauvoir asked.

  “What you’d expect. Abby was shocked, she didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that her father would do that to Maria. As you read, he explained in his letter that it was to free them both. Maria from her misery and Abigail from her obligation, her burden. She was freed to live her life.”

  The letter had been deeply disturbing and painful, even for a stranger to read. A father trying to justify killing his daughter. But what had struck Jean-Guy, and he suspected Armand too, was that last bit.

  Even if it was true, why lay some of the motive, and therefore indirectly the blame, for the murder on the other child? How could she not, then, spend the rest of her life feeling guilty? Her sister had been sacrificed so she could have a better life.

  Did that explain Abigail Robinson’s headlong pursuit of terminating pregnancies of children who’d be born less than perfect? So no other parent need make that choice?

  “Debbie’s reaction to the letter was even stronger than Abigail’s?” asked Gamache.

  “Yes, well, she seemed to show emotions that Abigail felt. They had a strange, almost symbiotic relationship. One was reason, one was intuition. Head and heart.”

  “Was it an unhealthy relationship, would you say?” Gamache asked.

  “You mean sexual?”

  “No, I don’t consider that at all unhealthy. I mean codependent. So that it’s impossible for them to distinguish where one life ends and another begins.”

  Colette thought about it. “I’m not sure. What I do know is that there was a deep love there. Certainly on Debbie’s part. She was devoted to Abby. You could see that.”

  “You were with Paul Robinson that week. That day. The man in that picture doesn’t look like he was about to kill his child.”

  “I agree, but if we could tell by looking at someone that they were about to commit murder, we wouldn’t need you, would we, Chief Inspector?”

  “That’s a good point,” said Gamache. And it was.

  Even after a murder was committed, he could be sitting right in front of the killer and not know it.

  * * *

  Isabelle Lacoste lowered her phone. She’d stepped across the room, away from Abigail, to read the letter Jean-Guy had sent.

  Abigail was staring into the fire, still. Like a waxwork. No longer fully human, no longer fully functioning.

  Lacoste pulled her chair up so that she was sitting close to Abigail. Then she began to read out loud, off her phone. Three words in, Abigail sprang to life. Standing up so suddenly her laptop crashed to the floor.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I see you recognize the letter,” said Lacoste. “You lied to me.”

  After a moment’s struggle to bring herself under control, Abigail sat. “Wouldn’t you? If your father had done such a thing? Why drag that up? My God, what’re you people doing? What’re you doing?”

  Abigail Robinson stared at Isabelle Lacoste, partly in rage but mostly in bewilderment.

  “Why would you do this?” she said. “Drag up what happened to Maria? To my father. Why? This has nothing to do with Debbie’s death. How can it?”

  “When people lie, we need to know why.”

  “Do you? How can it matter?”

  “I’ll tell you what the Chief thinks,” said Lacoste. “He thinks Debbie killed your sister and in clearing out your father’s things you came across evidence of that and took your revenge.”

  Abigail stared at her. “You think Debbie killed Maria? And then I killed her, forty years later? But that’s insane. Why would Debbie hurt Maria? And if she did, why would my father confess to something he didn’t do? And what possible evidence could there be among his things? None of this makes sense.”

  The problem Isabelle had was that it didn’t make sense to her either. She had no answers, so she just sat back and tried to look knowing.

  Abigail’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe it either, do you. You said this was the Chief Inspector’s theory, not yours.” Professor Robinson leaned forward. “What do you really think happened to Debbie?”

  * * *

  “Jean-Paul and I have been patient with you, Armand, as you turn our home upside down,” said Colette. “But don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”

  “Perhaps we should talk in private.” Armand looked at Jean-Paul, who was organizing the tissues in neat rows on the coffee table.

  Colette hesitated, then said to her husband, “You know, it would be really helpful if you could finish the puzzle. That way we’ll be able to see the whole picture.”

  She walked with him back to the table, got him settled, whispered a few things in his ear, then straightened up.

  “Let’s go into the next room. He’ll be fine for a while.”

  When they arrived in the living room, Gamache indicated a seat, but she refused, preferring to stand facing him. Staring at him. Waiting.

  “All sorts of people have a motive for killing Abigail,” he said. “And one theory we have, the leading theory, is that Debbie Schneider was mistaken for her.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So if Abigail was the target, who had motive and opportunity?”

  As he looked at her, she began to smile. “Me?”

  “You invited her to Québec, set up the talk, had her stay at your place, and then took her to the party. Without you, none of this would have happened.”

  “Setting aside the question of why I’d want Abigail dead, aren’t you forgetting something? I’m the only one who knew for sure it wasn’t Abigail in the woods. What’re you hoping to find with all this?” Her arm swept the room, taking in the Sûreté agents continuing the search.

  “Evidence.”

  “Of what? That in a fit of madness I mistook Debbie for Abby and killed her? Search away. I had no reason to want either of them dead, and certainly not Debbie Schneider. I barely knew the woman. Certainly not enough to hate her.”

  “No, I don’t think hate was the motive. I think love might’ve been.”

  “Now you have lost me.”

  Armand gestured toward the book. “Paul Robinson asked you to watch over his daughter. He gave you his eternal gratitude. You couldn’t kill her, but you had to stop Abigail’s campaign of mandatory euthanasia. It was bad enough when you saw how much support s
he was getting, but then you realized at the party that she had something to hold over Vincent Gilbert.”

  “His work with Ewen Cameron,” said Beauvoir. “You knew about it, but no one else did. Except now Professor Robinson had found out.”

  “So I murdered Debbie to protect Vincent Gilbert? How does that make sense?”

  “You’re a problem solver, a rational thinker,” said Gamache. “You probably worked out that if Abigail was going to accuse him of that, as she essentially did at the party, she’d have some proof. And that proof would have been carried by Debbie, like she carried all the papers.”

  “Ahh, I see it now. I knocked her on the head, stole the papers, and burned them. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  Gamache opened his hands, in agreement.

  “You’ve made a few leaps of logic. If you were one of my students, you’d get a fail. The biggest leap is that my love of Vincent Gilbert is so great that I’d actually kill to protect his ego.”

  “No. Not protect his ego, protect him from his ego. You were afraid that Gilbert would bend to the blackmail. Would lend his support to what Abigail was advocating.”

  “Politicians are already climbing on board,” said Beauvoir. “More and more people are voicing support.”

  “A prominent scientist, a renowned humanitarian publicly supporting Professor Robinson’s proposal could be the hundredth monkey,” said Gamache.

  “The what?”

  “The tipping point. You couldn’t take that chance. You’d do anything to protect the one you love.”

  “Vincent Gilbert?” She laughed.

  “Non. Not Gilbert. You knew that if Abigail was successful, Jean-Paul would be in line, one day, for a mercy killing.”

  Colette stood up straighter. Raised her chin. But said nothing.

  “The real motive, the final push, was to protect him,” said Armand. “It was for love.”

  CHAPTER 42

  “So Abigail admitted to knowing about the letter from her father,” said Beauvoir.

  They were once again in the basement of the Auberge. Shut off from the rest of the world, in their own bubble of suspects and suspicion.

  It was a pretty crowded place.