by Louise Penny
“One of you will have to tell me,” she said.
“It’s something Mahatma Gandhi said.” Gamache turned in the witness box and she could see the gleam of perspiration on his face.
“Go on,” she said.
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”
She could hear the now manic clicking as the press wrote that down.
“Are you quoting,” she asked. “Or advocating?”
Because it sounded like those were his words. His thoughts. His belief.
And Maureen Corriveau knew then that this wasn’t a puzzle piece. It was the key to decoding the whole damn thing. She’d been presiding over one court, while these men had been in a whole other one. A higher court.
She was both enraged and overwhelmed. And more than a little frightened. Of what she’d just unearthed. And what she still didn’t know. Like what could possibly make these senior officials, both sworn to defend the law, consider breaking it.
And might have already.
“Quoting,” said Gamache. His eyes held a plea but also a warning. Let it pass.
Then he turned back to the Crown Prosecutor, while Judge Corriveau considered what she’d just heard. And seen. What had, in effect, just been admitted. And what she should do next.
“So you already suspected Katie Evans had been killed by someone who knew her?” said Zalmanowitz, gathering himself and forging ahead. There was, after all, no going back.
“Oui. This was a crime that was a long time in the planning, so the killer must have known her for a long time.”
“And knew her well enough to want her dead. That must’ve narrowed it down.”
“It did.”
CHAPTER 23
“I have some questions,” Jean-Guy Beauvoir said, his voice quiet. But also businesslike.
He’d driven through the sleet, into Montréal, to break the news first to Katie’s sister, Beth. He needed her now to focus, not to sink deeper into sorrow. That could wait. Right now he needed answers.
“Did Katie ever mention a cobrador?”
Beth looked at her husband, beside her on the sofa. From the basement they could hear the children, arguing over a laptop.
“A what? No.”
“Did she sew?”
Now they looked at him like he must be crazy. Beauvoir couldn’t blame them. These questions sounded nonsensical even to him.
“Sew? Ho—wha—” Beth struggled to get a word out.
“She was wearing a sort of cloak and we wondered if she made it.”
“No, she isn’t handy in that way. She cooks,” said Beth, her voice hopeful, as though that might help.
Beauvoir smiled. “Merci.” And making a note that he would never need, he saw Beth look at her husband and give him a strained smile.
“You’re close to your sister?”
“Yes. We’re only a year and a half apart. She’s younger. I always protected her, though she didn’t really need it. It became a kind of joke. She lives just a couple streets over, and Mom and Dad are a couple blocks away. Oh, God.”
Again, Beth turned to her husband, who put his arm around her shoulder.
“Mom and Dad.”
“I’ll tell them,” said Beauvoir. “But it would help if you were there.”
“Yes, yes of course. Oh, Christ.”
“You and Katie told each other everything?” he asked.
“I think so. I told her everything.”
Beth’s husband lifted his brows just a bit. Very little, but it was enough to show surprise. And some discomfort.
“I’m sorry, but you need to tell me anything she shared with you that could be compromising.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she ever break the law? Did she ever do anything that she was ashamed of, that she never admitted to anyone? That someone could hold against her?”
“No, of course not.”
“Please, think.”
And she did.
He watched her pale, blotchy face. The rigid body, trying to contain the pain. Trying to hold it together.
“Katie used to take money from our mother’s purse. So did I. I think Mom knew. It wasn’t much, just a quarter or fifty cents. She once cheated on an exam. Cribbed from the girl next to her. Geography. She was never good with that.”
“Anything else?”
Beth thought, then shook her head. “No.”
“Her marriage was good.”
“It seemed good. They work together too, Katie and Patrick.”
Again, her husband, Yvon, shifted. And Beauvoir looked at him.
Recognizing the scrutiny, Yvon said, “We, I, never liked him. I thought he was taking advantage of her.”
“How so?”
“She was clearly the brains, the one who got things done. But she always, oh, what’s the word…?”
“Kowtowed?” said Beth. “Not so much gave in to him, but whatever Patrick wanted, Patrick got.”
“He’s manipulative,” said Yvon. “Doesn’t work on us.”
“Doesn’t work on most people,” said Beth. “Only Katie. It was the only sore spot. We love her, and don’t really like him. But she’s happy with him and so we put up with it.”
Beauvoir nodded. It wasn’t unusual to find couples where one was dominant, though it was often not the one it would appear to be. From the outside, it probably looked like Katie, the architect, the successful one, had the upper hand, when in fact it was Patrick.
“The tyranny of the weak,” said Yvon. “I read that somewhere. It described Patrick.”
“Tyranny,” wrote Beauvoir. It was a powerful word.
“Anything else?”
They thought.
It was clear Beth was just trying to hold herself together, after the initial shock and the tears. She was trying very hard to help.
Beauvoir liked her. Liked them. And he suspected he would have liked Katie too. Except, perhaps, for whatever she’d been keeping secret.
They all had them. Secrets. But some stank more than others.
“I have a court order to get into Katie’s home. Would you come with me?”
Yvon stayed behind to look after the kids, and they drove the short distance to Katie and Patrick’s home.
Alone now with her, Beauvoir said, “Is there really nothing else?”
Beth was silent, as they sat in the car, in the dark, in the cold rain outside the home. It was larger, less modest than Beth’s, but hardly a trophy home. There were no lights on.
“Please, don’t tell anyone.”
“I can’t promise that,” said Beauvoir. “But you need to tell me.”
“Katie had an abortion. She got pregnant in high school and had it done. I went with her.”
“Did she regret it?” Beauvoir asked. “Was she ashamed of it?”
“No, of course not. It was the right decision for her at the time. She regretted it was necessary, but not her decision. It’s just that our parents wouldn’t have understood. She didn’t want to hurt them.”
“You’d be surprised what parents understand,” said Beauvoir. He looked at her. “And?”
He could sense there was one more.
“And my husband wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“It was his. They went out for a few weeks in high school before breaking up. I don’t think he knows that I knew they dated. And he sure doesn’t know Katie was pregnant and had an abortion. He and I didn’t start seeing each other until long after high school. By then Katie and Patrick were married.”
“And how would he react, if he knew?”
She thought. “I don’t know. I think enough time’s gone by that it wouldn’t bother him. And honestly, when he was in high school? He’d have been terrified to hear that the girlfriend he’d just dumped was pregnant. It was the right decision, and Katie didn’t regret it. But neither was she proud of it. And she sure didn’t feel the nee
d to broadcast it. I think that’s why after graduation she went to Pittsburgh. Fresh start.”
“Why Pittsburgh?” asked Beauvoir.
“She took a fine arts course in the summer at Carnegie Mellon University, but realized fairly quickly that she wanted to be an architect. They wouldn’t let her transfer, so she applied to the Université de Montréal and got into their program.”
“How would you describe your sister? For real, now. This’s important.”
Beth wiped her face and blew her nose, and thought. “She was kind. Mothering. Maybe that’s why she was attracted to Patrick. If a man ever wanted mothering, it’s him. Though I’m not sure she was doing him any favors. If a man ever needed to grow up, it’s him.”
“Why didn’t she and Patrick have children?”
“Well, there’s still time, you know,” said Beth, without thinking.
In the dark car, he heard the tapping of ice pellets, and the groaning silence. And then the sobs.
He waited until they’d passed.
“Her plan, her hope, was to get the business up and then start having children. She isn’t, wasn’t, even thirty-five. Plenty of time,” she said in a whisper.
They went into the home, and Beth turned on the lights.
It was a surprise. From the outside it looked like any other house on the street. Fairly nondescript. But inside it was completely redone. The colors were muted, but not washed out. Calming, warm. Almost pastel, but not quite that feminine.
“Cheerful” was the word. Homey. The bookcases had books. The closets had organizers, and were organized. The kitchen smelled of herbs and spices and he could see implements in jugs, and a coffeemaker, and a teapot. None of it placed for effect.
This kitchen was used.
It was open to the living room, and the ceiling was beamed.
It was a home, Jean-Guy knew, he could easily and happily see his own family living in.
It took half an hour to search the place. There was nothing that screamed, or even whispered, a secret, or a double life. There was some erotic literature. Some cigarettes. He sniffed them to make sure that’s all they were. They smelled and felt stale.
On the dresser in the bedroom, he picked up a photo. Four of the people he recognized. The fifth he did not.
“From the Université de Montréal,” said Beth. “First year. Lifelong friends. Hard to believe she met Patrick that long ago. So young.”
“Do you mind if I keep this?” Beauvoir asked.
He wrote out a receipt. It was the only thing he took.
They headed slowly over to Katie’s parents. He was about to tell them when Beth broke in. And broke the news. And when it was over for him, but just beginning for them, he drove home. To hug Annie and kiss Honoré and read him to sleep, before returning to Three Pines.
CHAPTER 24
Patrick Evans was rocking back and forth, back and forth, on the sofa of the B&B.
What had been a chilly November day had become a cold November night.
“I don’t understand,” he kept repeating. “I don’t understand.”
At first the words were said as a statement, an appeal. But as time had gone by and no explanations came, and all efforts to comfort him had failed, the words and the rocking became simply rote. A primal whisper.
Matheo had tried to comfort Patrick. His instincts were good, but his technique was lacking.
“Shove over,” Lea had said. “He’s got grief, not gas. You look like you’re burping him.”
Matheo had been patting Patrick on the back and repeating, “It’ll be all right.”
“And by the way”—Lea leaned over and lowered her voice—“it won’t be all right.”
Matheo watched as his wife took Patrick’s hand. Patrick looked at Lea, his focus still hazy after the pills and the sleep.
Matheo felt a pang of the old jealousy.
What was it about Patrick that brought out the mother in women? Whatever it was, it brought out the bully in Matheo. All he wanted to do was kick the guy in the ass.
Even now. He knew it was unreasonable, even cruel, but he wanted to scream at him to get a grip. Sit up straight. Do something besides rock and cry. They had to talk. They had to work this out. And Patrick, once again, was no use at all.
Matheo got up and walked to the fireplace, taking his frustrations out on the logs. Hitting them with the poker.
This was first-year university all over again. Lord of the Flies all over again.
When they’d all intertwined. And never really disentangled.
That first year, when they met. When this all began. The events that had brought them to this terrible place in a beautiful spot.
“I thought you might like something,” said Gabri, standing in the archway between the dining and living room of the B&B, holding a tray with a teapot. “I’ll have dinner ready before long. I didn’t think you’d want to go to the bistro.”
“Merci,” said Matheo, taking the tray from him and setting it on the coffee table beside the brownies he and Lea had bought at the bakery.
Gabri returned a minute later with another tray. Of booze. And put it on a sideboard by the crackling fireplace.
Then, bending over the grieving man, he whispered, “I don’t understand either, but I do know they’ll find out who did this.”
But the words didn’t comfort Patrick. He seemed to collapse more into himself.
“Do you think so?” Patrick mumbled.
“I do.”
As Gabri straightened up, he wondered if the lament, I don’t understand, was about more than his wife’s murder.
He also wondered why he had the insane desire to slap the man.
Gabri returned to his kitchen and poured himself a bulbous glass of red wine. And sat on a stool by the counter, looking out the back window into the darkness.
Getting up to prepare the shepherd’s pie, comfort food for their dinner, Gabri suspected his guests would find very little peace in whatever Gamache discovered. And probably no comfort in the food.
As the kitchen filled with the aromas of sautéing garlic and onions and gravy and ground meat browning, he thought about the four friends and the close bond they shared. It had been obvious from that first visit, years earlier.
It had always seemed such a wonderful thing, this friendship. This camaraderie. This trust.
Until this visit.
Something had been off, from the start. And not just the timing of it. Late October instead of August, which itself was baffling. Why come when it was cold and gray and the world was going to sleep or going to die?
Why now?
The darkness and chill of November was not simply outside. It had crept into the B&B, with these guests. These friends.
They were friendly, but less friendly. They were happy. But less happy. They were enjoying being together. But less so. They spent less time together and, despite invitations, less time with Gabri and Olivier and the others in the bistro.
Then the cobrador had arrived and the chill had spread over the entire village.
And now this. Katie was dead. Someone had taken her life.
“Gone,” he said out loud, in hopes maybe it would sink in.
But more than Katie was gone. He could feel it in the living room. It was unmistakable.
They were still a close-knit circle. An old circle, that much was obvious. If the Stonehenge rocks could breathe, they’d be these friends. But now Gabri, as he drained the potatoes, found himself wondering what their relationship, through the years, over lifetimes, really had been.
Had they been comrades-in-arms in the trenches? Protecting each other? Brothers and sisters, perhaps, in the same nursery? Wives and husbands and lovers? Eternal best friends?
Or something else entirely. They were a circle, and probably always had been. But now something was clear that had been hidden before.
He had an image of the great Stonehenge rocks, leaning forward, leaning inward. Drawn to each other.
But t
he very force that drew them together made them fall.
And when the dust settled, they were all down. Crumbled. What was once mighty, a thing to behold, was now destroyed.
“Gone,” muttered Gabri as he poured cream onto the steaming Yukon Golds and slapped in pats of butter, then considered the potatoes.
“Oh, what the hell.”
Going to the fridge, he got out a brick of Gruyère and carved off chunks of cheese, watching them melt into the butter and cream and potatoes.
Then Gabri started to mash. Rocking back and forth, putting his considerable weight into getting every lump out.
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled as he rocked. Back and forth.
*
“How could this have happened?” Matheo whispered to Lea as they stood warming themselves by the fire.
This had been a bad idea from the beginning. But at least it hadn’t been his idea. That was some comfort and some protection.
But just now he’d begun to worry. It could be made to look like his idea. Easily.
It wouldn’t be hard to convince Gamache that he’d been the instigator. And from there it was a fairly short jump to murderer.
Matheo began to wonder if that’d been the plan all along. To not just have plausible deniability, but someone plausible to hang it on.
But that would mean this had been a very long time in the planning. Longer than even he realized. And it would need the collaboration of others. Of Lea.
Was that possible?
Matheo put his glass on the mantelpiece.
“What is it?” asked Lea. She could see his anxiety.
“It’d be easy to blame one of us,” he said, lowering his head and dropping his voice.
“For Katie’s murder?”
“For everything. Have you thought of that?”
The fact was, Lea was just coming to the same conclusion. That whoever got to Gamache first had the advantage of framing the story. Framing them.
There was a slight tapping on the windowpanes. Not rain. Not snow. But something in between.
The world outside was changing. And not for the better.
And they were out there. Everywhere, it seemed. Everywhere they turned. The police. Scurrying around. Crawling around. Looking in dark corners. Opening locked doors. Dragging things into the open that should remain hidden.