by Louise Penny
“You’re not kidding,” said Beauvoir, then said to Honoré, “It’s a Heffalump.”
The two men and a baby looked at the old poet.
“More like Eeyore, don’t you think?” said Gamache. “With just a hint of Pooh.”
“Depending on how you spell it,” said Jean-Guy, and saw Ruth’s mouth twitch slightly into a smile.
She’d heard them talking, that much was clear. And now she stared, like some old witch in the Hundred Acre Wood who gathered secrets like honeypots.
Their apparent amusement was for Honoré’s sake. The truth was, this was the worst possible turn of events. Ruth was one of the few people who might put it all together. Who might be able to work out what they’d discovered in the church basement. It was, after all, something she’d said in that first interview after the murder that had started them down this path.
Fortunately, even if she guessed, she couldn’t possibly know why it was vital that it be kept a secret.
She looked from one to the other, then her eyes too came to rest on the child she called Ré-Ré. Ray-Ray.
To Jean-Guy’s apparent annoyance, but actual relief, the nickname was beginning to stick, and most people in Three Pines now called him Ray-Ray. Honoré being a bit formal. A bit much for a child.
Ray-Ray fit. He was just that. A ray of bright sunshine in all their lives. The fact the nickname should come from the dark, demented old poet only seemed to add to its perfection.
“What were you talking about?” she demanded. “Something about Katie Evans. The trial’s about to begin, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Gamache, his voice light, friendly. “Jean-Guy was just going over some strategy.”
“Ahhh,” she said. “I thought I heard laughter. And what’s to discuss? You tell the truth, don’t you?”
She cocked her head to one side, and Gamache’s smile froze.
“But you don’t think he should,” she said to Beauvoir. “Now, what is it we’re not supposed to know? Let’s see.” She cast her eyes to the sky, apparently deep in thought. “That you arrested the wrong person? No, that’s probably not it. I wouldn’t put it past you, but I think you got the right person. That you don’t have enough evidence to convict? Am I closer?”
“He said he wasn’t going to lie,” said Jean-Guy.
“And I think that’s a big fat fib, don’t I, Ray-Ray,” she said in a childish voice, leaning toward the infant. “Now, what would make your father advocate lying, and your grandfather actually do it?”
“That’s enough, Ruth,” said Gamache.
She shifted her gaze back to Gamache. Sharpening, honing. Preparing to debone.
“The truth shall set you free, isn’t that right? Or don’t you believe it, Armand? But I think you do.” Her sharp eyes were working to scrape away layers of skin. “Did I get it right? Is it freedom that you fear? Not yours, but the murderer’s? You’d lie to get a conviction?”
“Ruth,” Jean-Guy warned, but he was now on the outside of a world that contained only Armand Gamache and Ruth Zardo.
“I like you more and more,” said Ruth, staring at Gamache. “Yes. This is definitely an improvement over Saint Armand. But you got some dirt on your wings when you fell to earth. Or is that shit?”
She sniffed.
“Ruth,” Beauvoir exclaimed.
“Sorry. Pardon my French,” she said to Ray-Ray before turning back to Gamache. “Sounds like you’re between a rock and a pile of merde.”
“Ruth,” said Jean-Guy. Her name now took on the complexion of an oath. It substituted for all the swear words he wanted to throw at her.
He was no longer really trying to stop her. Yet, always contrary, the old poet stopped. She considered for a moment.
“Maybe that’s the dark thing. The shit show you call a trial.”
“All shall be well,” said Armand, and Ruth smiled.
“At least you’re a good liar. That’ll help.”
Then her head disappeared behind the fence, like Jack stuffed back in the box.
“When we finish this”—Jean-Guy pointed to the swing—“we need to build a higher fence.”
“It’s not the length that matters”—came the voice from the next garden—“it’s the girth.”
Jean-Guy met Armand’s gaze and raised his brows.
Neither man spoke, there was nothing to say. But there was a lot to consider.
Jean-Guy handed Honoré back to his grandfather, in a gesture that was more than a gesture.
When the time came, would he lie? Beauvoir wondered, as he bent once more to the task of making the swing.
Under oath?
If he did, he’d be committing perjury. But if Chief Superintendent Gamache told the truth, their entire investigation would be blown. Putting all sorts of agents and informants in danger and ruining their one great chance of stopping the largest single trafficker in Québec. Of, in effect, crippling the drug trade. Of winning an unwinnable war.
Beauvoir was pretty sure he knew what Gamache would do.
That day, that warm afternoon as they worked together in the sunshine making a swing that would hang from the tree for generations, a swing Honoré would one day place his own children on, Jean-Guy had vowed to be in the courtroom when the question was asked. And answered.
So that everyone could see him declare his allegiance. No matter how Chief Superintendent Gamache chose to answer it. So that Armand Gamache could see. He was not alone.
But instead Jean-Guy Beauvoir found himself leaving. No, not just leaving. He was running away.
The guard stood up and opened the doors.
“We’re waiting for your answer, Chief Superintendent. It’s a simple question. The murder weapon, the bat, was just leaning against the wall. For all to see.”
As the heavy doors closed behind Beauvoir, something slipped out of the courtroom with him. And pursued him down the marble hallway.
The chief’s voice.
Had the bat been there, the Crown had asked, in full view for all to see?
“Oui.”
And there it was.
Chief Superintendent Gamache had perjured himself.
Until it happened, Jean-Guy hadn’t really believed the chief would do it. Lie under oath. Commit professional suicide. And worse, betray all his convictions. For a conviction.
But then, Beauvoir would never have believed he’d leave the chief and commit this act of personal treason.
Jean-Guy leaned against the wall, feeling the cool marble against his flushed face. He closed his eyes and gathered himself.
He wanted to go back in. But it was too late.
Jean-Guy took a deep breath, straightened up, and walked swiftly down the corridor, through the heavy air, batting away at the fly that had followed him.
He looked behind him, instinctively. In case something, or someone, was following. Dogging his steps. But there was no one there. The corridors were oddly empty. Not a soul in sight. All the courts were in session.
Making his way out the front door of the Palais de Justice, Beauvoir stood on the sweeping steps in the glaring sunshine and wiped his face, resting it, burying it for a moment, in the handkerchief.
Then he gave a quick scrub and, raising his head, he took a deep breath.
He felt a tickling on his arm and slapped at it, watching as the fly fell to the ground, its wings like delicate panes of stained glass in the sun. With just a bit of dirt sticking to them.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He’d acted instinctively, and now something was done that could never be undone.
But there was something he could do, now that he was out here, and Gamache was in there. And that was to make sure the lie was worth it. That it achieved what they all hoped.
The Sûreté, under Chief Superintendent Gamache, would hit hard and fast and decisively. The target would never see the blow coming, shrouded as it was in lies and apparent incompetence. And all tied to a macabre murder in a tiny border village.
And a root cellar with a secret.
But as he headed along the cobbled streets of Old Montréal toward Sûreté headquarters, Jean-Guy couldn’t shake the thought that they’d risked everything on this one maneuver. This coup de grâce. That might not work.
There was no fallback plan. No alternate route. No plan B.
Not for Gamache. Not for Beauvoir. Not for any of them.
Chief Superintendent Gamache had just set their ship aflame. There was no going back now.
CHAPTER 22
Chief Superintendent Gamache looked at the closed doors of the courtroom, then he wiped his eyes again, and shifted his attention back to the Crown Prosecutor.
He watched Zalmanowitz, and saw what he thought was the tiniest of acknowledgments.
Both men knew what Gamache had just done. And what Zalmanowitz had helped orchestrate.
It was, potentially, a huge step toward their goal. And it was almost certainly the end to both of their careers. And yet, the waving of papers in the courtroom continued. The hum of the little fan continued. The jury continued to listen, semi-attentively, unaware of what they’d just witnessed. Of what had just happened.
All quiet on the western front, thought Gamache.
“So the defendant was responsible for Katie Evans being in the costume?”
“Yes.”
“It was an act of revenge?”
“Yes.”
“As was her murder.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why any of it. Why the costume? Why the root cellar? Why the baiting and tormenting? And why kill her? I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of motive. Did you not look for one?”
“Tone, please,” said Judge Corriveau.
Had she really just seen that look of understanding pass between these men? And then just heard the unmistakable goading on the part of the Crown? Her senses were in conflict.
“My apologies.” Though Zalmanowitz did not sound contrite.
“We did,” said Gamache. “All that you describe is accurate, and yet it’s also misleading. It’s all too easy in a homicide investigation to be drawn off course. To follow great screaming leads and miss the subtler, smaller clues. What seemed the stalking and eventual murder of Madame Evans only appeared macabre because we didn’t understand. But once it was clear, then all that fell away. These were trappings of a murder, but the murder itself was simple. Most are. It was committed by a human being. For human reasons.”
“And what were those? And please don’t recite the Seven Deadly Sins.”
Gamache smiled and rivulets of perspiration coursed into the crevices in his face.
“Oh, it was one of them.”
“All right,” said Zalmanowitz, apparently too drained to spar anymore. “Which one? Greed? Lust? Wrath?”
Gamache raised his hand and pointed a finger.
Got it.
Wrath. That had become a wraith. That had consumed its human host, and gone out into the world. To kill.
It had started, as these things did, naturally enough. As steps in the grieving process.
But where the final step should have been toward acceptance, the person had veered off. Stepped away from the path and walked deeper and deeper into sorrow and rage. Fueled by guilt. Until they’d gotten themselves all turned around. And when they were well and truly lost, they’d found refuge. In revenge.
Comforting, consoling. They’d warmed themselves by that fire, for years.
Justifiable anger had shot right past rage, and become wrath, that became revenge. And made them do something unjustifiable. And led them all to where they were now. In this hellhole of a courtroom, trying Katie Evans’s murderer.
But there was more to it than that. Gamache knew it. The melting Crown Prosecutor knew it.
Gamache looked out at the crowd. He hoped and prayed that no one in the courtroom figured out what the police had discovered. In that church basement.
And what Chief Superintendent Gamache had just done.
Though he knew that someone was listening very, very closely to his every word. And reporting back.
* * *
“We need to talk,” said Inspector Beauvoir, standing in the doorway of the office at Sûreté headquarters.
“Bon,” said Superintendent Toussaint, rising from her chair. Everyone else in the room also got up. “The meeting is over.”
“But—”
“We can discuss this later, François,” she said, nodding toward her tablet and putting a sympathetic hand on his arm.
“I have your word?” he asked, then dropped his voice. “We’ll do something?”
“You have my word.”
She walked her agents to the door as Beauvoir stepped back to let them through.
“Patron,” they said to Beauvoir, examining him closely as they filed past for any hint as to why he was there. And why their own boss had abruptly ended their meeting to meet with him.
They knew Jean-Guy Beauvoir was second-in-command at the Sûreté. And they knew he was a formidable investigator in his own right. Not simply an adjunct to Chief Superintendent Gamache.
Inspector Beauvoir had been offered the promotion to chief inspector when he’d taken the job, but refused, saying inspector was fine with him. He was proud to be one of the troops.
All the agents and inspectors in the Sûreté, upon hearing that, turned their respect for the man into near adoration. And he became patron.
Though he didn’t feel like one now.
These men and women, his peers, had no idea what he’d just done. And what he’d just failed to do. As each of them walked past him and said, “Patron,” it felt like a shot to the gut.
“Patron,” said the last of the inspectors.
And Beauvoir closed the door.
“Court’s adjourned already?” asked Toussaint, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t yet four o’clock. When Beauvoir didn’t answer, she motioned to a chair. “How’s it going?”
Beauvoir sat but still didn’t say anything.
“That bad?” she asked, and took a deep breath. Not so much a sigh as a sign of exhaustion. “How’s he holding up?”
“He’s doing what needs to be done.”
Toussaint dropped her eyes, not wishing to meet Beauvoir’s.
Giving a curt nod, she tapped her tablet and turned it around for him to read.
“I had a report on that shipment we talked about.”
“The big one.”
“Yes. My informant says it has crossed into the States. Eighty kilos of fentanyl.”
“I see.” He felt the now perpetual knot in his stomach grow and tighten. “Where we expected?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hard, almost bitter. “Exactly where we expected. We watched the goddamned thing.” She opened her eyes wide, with anger. “Yes, everything was as we expected. Except, unexpectedly, we did nothing. I don’t know who was more surprised. The traffickers, that it was so easy, or our informant, that we had the largest-known haul of fentanyl in our sights. In our grasp. And we did nothing. Just”—she grimaced and waved—“let it cross into the States.”
Even as she said it, she could barely believe it was true.
Beauvoir held her eyes, his gaze steady and noncommittal.
This was what they’d hoped and feared would happen. A huge shipment had made it across the border, with the Sûreté apparently none the wiser. Because, had they known, surely they’d have stopped it.
If the Sûreté, under its new commander, was laying a trap for the cartel by simply pretending to be incompetent, this would flush them out. No police force could ignore a shipment of opioids this massive.
It was a test.
And the Sûreté, under well-meaning but burned-out Chief Superintendent Gamache, had failed.
The Québec cartel could drag a container of heroin down rue St.-Catherine in Montréal, and the idiots at the Sûreté would still miss it.
Gamache, Beauvoir, Toussaint and the rest of the inner circle at the Sûreté had waited a long time for this. But it didn’t feel like a victory. There was no celebration on the part of the senior officers. They all felt sick.
No, there was no joy in that room.
“Are you tracking it?”
“Non. Chief Superintendent Gamache ordered us not to, remember?”
It was impossible to hide her disgust.
“We just stepped aside. Didn’t even warn the Americans. Oh, but I didn’t tell you. The dealers were generous enough to leave several kilos behind. For local consumption. We’ve also lost track of that.”
“Merde.”
He did the calculation. The internal Sûreté research ordered by Gamache at the outset, so they’d all go into this with a clear understanding of the consequences, estimated that six people died for every kilo of cocaine that hit the streets. Even more for heroin.
Way more for fentanyl.
In doing nothing, they’d just killed hundreds. Perhaps thousands.
More bombs on Coventry.
“You know what that meeting was about?” She waved toward the now empty chairs around the table. “They don’t know about the shipment, but they do know that there’ve been no significant arrests for trafficking in almost a year. They’re apoplectic, and I don’t blame them. Fortunately you arrived before I had to come up with some sort of near-reasonable explanation. But I’ll tell you, Jean-Guy, there’re rumors. You’ve probably heard them.”
“I have.”
“They want to believe in Gamache. They want to trust him. But he isn’t making it easy. And it’s not just Gamache, it’s all of us. Every superintendent, every chief inspector, is facing a possible revolt. A mutiny. You think this’s funny?” she asked, on seeing his face.
“Just the word. I was imagining you with a peg leg and a parrot.”
“Those’re the mutineers. I’m the one set adrift in the Pacific, drinking my own piss and eating cuticles for dinner.” She held up her hands for him to see her cuticles, which were in fact nibbled. “There’ve been no significant arrests in my division in months. None. Apparently there are no more serious crimes. Most of my agents have been reassigned to community policing or prevention—”
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