by Louise Penny
“Was it a last-minute decision?” she asked.
Myrna thought and shook her head. “No. Lea wrote me back in May that they’d be coming around Halloween.”
Isabelle nodded. “Did she ever talk about Katie?”
Myrna shifted a little. No one was comfortable giving out details of conversations that were understood to be private. But she knew this wasn’t gossip, this was a murder investigation.
“She talked about all of them, but not Katie in particular.”
“Did she like Katie?”
“Ahh, well, not at first. No one did. Like we heard last night, I think they were protective of the one who died. Edouard.”
“Did they blame Katie for what happened to him?” asked Isabelle.
“A bit, at first, I think. Katie dumped Edouard for Patrick and shortly after that he took his life. They all want to think it was an accident. He lost his balance and fell off the roof, but Lea says none of them really believe it. They think he jumped. While stoned.” She shook her head. “I doubt he really meant to kill himself. Probably momentarily overwhelmed. And the drugs took away any brakes he had. Fucking drugs.”
Off to the side, by the fire, Gamache took a breath so deep Reine-Marie looked at him. It was the sort of inhale someone takes before plunging headfirst into cold water.
“The one they really blamed was the pusher, but no one could find him after Edouard died,” said Myrna. “He took off.”
“Lea told us last night that the family did try,” said Clara. “Even hired a private investigator, but the guy had disappeared.”
Lacoste turned to Gamache. “Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“Which part?”
“Well, it always sounds so easy. To disappear,” she said. “But we both know it isn’t. And a good investigator should’ve been able to track him down.”
Gamache was nodding. She was right.
“Maybe he wasn’t such a good investigator,” Myrna suggested.
“And maybe,” said Reine-Marie, “it wasn’t drugs and it wasn’t an accident.” She turned to Armand. “Maybe he was pushed. You wondered that last night, didn’t you?”
“I always wonder that,” he said with a smile. But it didn’t fool her.
It was still on his mind.
Yes, it was tragically easy to imagine a distraught and fragile young man getting high and jumping in the middle of a roof party.
But it was equally easy to imagine someone, in the middle of the dancing and laughing and chaos of a rave, giving him a little push.
“We need to contact this young man’s family,” said Lacoste. “What was his name? Edouard what?”
“Valcourt,” said Gamache. “And I think that’s a good idea.”
“But that doesn’t explain the murder of Katie Evans,” said Reine-Marie.
“Non,” agreed Isabelle. She turned once again to Myrna. “Did any of them ever say anything about Katie? Something she might’ve done that could explain—”
“Her murder?” asked Myrna.
“And the cobrador. If it really was here for her, then there must be a reason. Even one from long ago.”
“Maybe he wasn’t here for her. Have you thought about that?” asked Clara. “The only reason we think that is because she was killed.”
“A pretty good indication,” said Myrna.
She looked at Armand, but he wasn’t agreeing. Or disagreeing.
He couldn’t get away from the feeling that this was far simpler than it appeared, and all this other stuff was just muddying the waters.
Something happened, perhaps long ago, to create a motive. To propel someone into killing Katie Evans.
An old inheritance.
*
“Back up, you brute,” said Jean-Guy, trying to get past the threshold of the Gamache home while tiny Gracie tried to stop him.
“What is that?” asked Anton in a whisper, so as not to offend the creature. “I’ve seen Monsieur and Madame Gamache walking the two of them.” He looked over at Henri, who was standing back and wagging his tail so furiously his entire body was swaying. “He’s a shepherd, I know that.” But even so, Anton stared at Henri for a moment. Judging by the ears, he seemed to have some satellite dish in him. Then Anton turned back to Gracie and lowered his voice even more. “Is it a piglet?”
“We have no idea what she is. Pup, pug, pig. Wolverine. Though we’re pretty sure she’s a she,” said Jean-Guy, as they took the food into the kitchen.
“Well, progress not perfection,” said Anton, and Jean-Guy paused while turning on the oven.
Anton glanced around as he unpacked the dinner, noticing the worn butcher block countertops, the open shelving with dishes and glasses.
At the far end of the kitchen, by the windows that looked onto the village green, two armchairs sat on either side of a woodstove. Books and newspapers and magazines were stacked on side tables. Not messy, but neither was it overly neat.
The room was restful and inviting. As was the living room they’d walked through.
After tossing a small piece of wood into the woodstove to get the embers going again, Beauvoir joined Anton.
“You used a phrase just now,” said Beauvoir, putting out the napkins and trying not to step on Gracie, still underfoot.
“Did I?” Anton followed him around the pine table, folding the napkins nicely.
“Progress not perfection. It’s one I recognize.” He stopped and looked at Anton. “Are you a Friend of Bill?”
“I wondered about you too,” said Anton with a smile. “Hot chocolate in a bistro? When everyone else is drinking wine or scotch. Six years’ sobriety. You?”
“Two years and three months.”
“Well done. Booze?”
“And drugs,” said Beauvoir. “Painkillers.”
It wasn’t something he ever talked about, except to other members, and people who knew. Like Annie, of course, and the Gamaches.
Friend of Bill was code. For a member of AA. Of which this Anton was clearly one. It was like finding a member of his tribe, unexpectedly.
The two men stood in the warm kitchen, the sleet hitting the windows, and realized that while they knew nothing about each other, they actually knew each other better than almost anyone else on earth.
“Drugs were my problem too,” said Anton. “Pharmaceuticals. Almost killed me. I had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, as they say. Ended up in treatment, and finally kicked the drugs, but took up drinking. Seemed a sensible decision.”
Jean-Guy laughed. It was, absolutely, the logic of an addict.
“Finally kicked that too,” said Anton, putting the casserole in the oven to stay warm.
“You have a moment?” Beauvoir asked, indicating the chairs by the woodstove.
One of the problems with investigations was being away from his sponsor and meetings. It was helpful to talk to another member. Someone who knew the terrain.
“When did you start?” asked Beauvoir, taking a seat. Lifting Gracie onto his lap, he wrapped her in his sweater to keep her warm.
“Using? A bit in high school but it really got out of control at university. I’m not sure I was ever cut out for higher education, but the drugs sure hurried along the inevitable.”
“Flunked out?”
“Left just before that happened.” Anton shook his head. “You know, some kids could handle it, but some, like me, it was like putting nitro in my system.”
“Did you ever deal?” asked Beauvoir.
Anton brought his hand up to his mouth and regarded Beauvoir as he gnawed on his nails.
“I won’t arrest you,” smiled Jean-Guy. “Besides, it must’ve been years ago.”
“Not that long,” Anton protested, then smiled. “Yeah, I dealt, but not as much as some. I ended up using most of it myself. Big mistake. What a shit storm.” Anton shook his head at the memory. “Flunking out became the least of my worries. You know what a supplier does to a dealer who becomes a junkie?”
“So have I. That’s really why I left. I ran away and hid. Put shit up my nose and my head up my own ass. And hoped no one would find me.”
“So how’d you get straight?”
“Family sent me to treatment. They’d had enough.”
He glanced into the fire and put his stocking feet up on the hassock, taking a small book off it first.
Opening the book, he flipped through it, then stopped and gave a single harrumph and looked up at Beauvoir.
“Have you read this?”
Jean-Guy sighed. “I have.”
“Not a fan?”
“Between us?” He leaned toward Anton. “I am. But don’t tell anyone.”
Anton went back to the book and read out loud,
“From the public school to the private hell
of the family masquerade,
where could a boy on a bicycle go
when the straight road splayed?”
Beauvoir smiled. He recognized those lines, and he recognized how a straight road could splay.
“Ruth Zardo,” he said, cradling Gracie as though she were Honoré.
It was a comfort, feeling the little body, the little heart, next to his.
“Oui. Madame Zardo,” said Anton, closing the book and looking at the back cover, where the author’s photo looked like something he’d seen when his head was up his ass. “Who’d have thought an eighty-year-old madwoman would know the heart of a little boy.”
“Pain is universal,” said Beauvoir.
Anton nodded. “That she knows.”
“That she causes,” said Jean-Guy, and Anton laughed, one burst of genuine amusement.
“So your family put you into treatment?” asked Beauvoir.
Anton tossed the book back onto the hassock. “Yeah. I hated them for it for a long time, but whatever their motives, they did me a huge favor. I finally got clean and sober, but something else happened. After treatment I went into a halfway house. We had to take turns doing chores. When it came my time to cook, I discovered I love it. Never knew it before. All I ate at university was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. It was amazing, to discover that passion. And legal too.”
He grinned.
The kitchen was filling with proof of Anton’s passion. The subtle scents of the casserole he’d made for them—garlic, onions, herbs, slight musky mushrooms and beef—mixed with the fragrance of the maple logs on the fire.
If the Gamaches and Isabelle didn’t return soon, thought Beauvoir, he’d start without them.
“That’s how you became a chef?” he asked Anton.
“Oui. Couldn’t get a job in a restaurant, but did find one with that family.”
“They didn’t care about your history?” asked Beauvoir.
“I didn’t tell ’em,” said Anton. “If you provide a good enough service, and work for cash, people don’t ask.”
“What was it like, working for the Ruizes?”
“It was okay. He was a little weird. Very guarded, like he was dealing with state secrets.”
“Was he?”
Anton guffawed dismissively. “Please. His job was looking after plants that make cheap toys. Knockoffs, probably.”
He stopped and looked at Beauvoir. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“Toys and cooking? You can’t talk about that? You met Jacqueline there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Became friends?”
“Well, kinda had to. There was no one else.”
“More than friends?” asked Jean-Guy.
Anton laughed. “Why does everyone think that? No, she’s more like a sister than anything. Great baker. Have you tried her brownies? My God.”
Poor Jacqueline, thought Beauvoir. And wondered if she realized he only loved her brownies. Though that love did seem profound.
“It was nice when Monsieur Ruiz was gone. More relaxed.”
“Did he travel a lot?” asked Beauvoir.
“Fortunately, yes. His territory was all of North America and into Central America. I think he got the job because he could speak Spanish. Couldn’t have been his winning personality.”
“He was Spanish, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
Beauvoir contemplated his companion. The fire crackled, and the cast-iron stove threw gentle heat, enveloping the two men in a sense of well-being. Of safety. Their own little world.
Beauvoir cradled Gracie, who was snoring in the crook of his arm. As he waited for his companion to speak, he tapped his fingers, counting to himself. Two, three.
Seven, eight. Then decided Anton needed help. A prod.
“You knew what it was, didn’t you?” he said. “On the village green. From your time with that family. You knew it was a cobrador.”
Anton compressed his lips. “I promised Jacqueline I wouldn’t say anything. She wanted to be the one to tell you. But we’re both afraid.” He lowered his voice in a way that would have been laughable, had his eyes not looked so desperate. “You have no idea what that man was like.”
“Ruiz? You’re afraid of him? But he’s back in Spain, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, well…”
“Who is he?”
Anton looked around.
“He isn’t here,” Beauvoir assured him.
“I wasn’t looking for him. I was looking for a computer. Monsieur Gamache must have one.”
“He does. In the study.”
He placed Gracie carefully in the hollow of Henri’s belly, as he lay curled and sleeping in front of the fire.
“Follow me.”
The two men walked through the kitchen to the living room, and into the study.
Jean-Guy woke up the computer, making sure there was nothing private or sensitive on it, while Anton stood at the door.
Only when he’d brought up a fresh search engine did he motion Anton forward.
Anton sat, hit a few keys, clicked on a few links. Waited. Waited.
Eventually he pushed his chair back so Beauvoir could get a better look.
There on the screen was a report from a Spanish news program. A man was being scrummed on the steps of what looked like a courthouse.
“Is that Antonio Ruiz?” Beauvoir asked.
“No, that’s his lawyer. Señor Ruiz is in the background. There.”
He pointed to an elegant man in a well-tailored suit. In his late forties, maybe early fifties. Looking pleased and confident.
“What’re they saying?”
“I don’t know, but I can guess. Señor Ruiz was arrested for money laundering. The entire company was under investigation, but exonerated.”
“They got off?”
“The verdict came with a public apology.” He stared at the screen. “Someone got to someone.”
Beauvoir pursed his lips. Where there was dirty money, there was organized crime. And where there was the syndicate, there were drugs. Lots of them.
He wondered if Anton knew that too.
The news story continued. The lawyer answering questions and finally, waving reporters aside, he took Ruiz’s arm and guided him through the melee.
And then the report was over.
“Did you see it?” Anton asked.
“What?”
Anton replayed the video. And hit pause.
Just as the image started to dissolve, as the black seeped over the screen, it appeared.
From the top of the courthouse steps.
“A cobrador,” said Beauvoir.
And not the top hat and tails, Fred Astaire type.
This was the carrier of the conscience.
“How did you find this?” Beauvoir asked.
“Someone from Spain came for dinner,” said Anton. “A colleague of Señor Ruiz. I was serving, and the man used the word cobrador, before Ruiz shut him up. The man turned so pale, I decided to look it up. That’s what I found.”
“Did you tell Jacqueline?”
“Yes
.”
“What happened to Ruiz? Did the family really return to Spain?”
“That’s what they told us, but I don’t really know, and I don’t really care.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you, when that cobrador showed up here, I thought I’d piss my pants. Scared the crap out of me.”
“You thought it’d come for you?”
Anton opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head. “I thought Ruiz had sent it, to scare us. Or worse.”
“But why would he want to scare you? Do you know something about him?”
“No.”
“About the murder of Katie Evans? If you do know something, Anton, you have to tell me.”
“I don’t. I promise.”
“But there is something, isn’t there,” said Jean-Guy. “You have to tell me.”
“Just between us?”
“Depends what it is, you know that. Is it to do with Antonio Ruiz?”
“Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“I can’t. Come on, Anton. Tell me. I know you want to.”
*
Myrna was shaking her head.
“I wish I knew Katie better and could help. But what I do know is that those friends really do like each other. They’re not pretending. I just can’t see one of them plotting to kill her. Katie was bright and kind. The mother hen of the group. Not the wild child she once was. We all grow up.”
Not all, thought Gamache. Some, like Edouard, fall down. And never get up. Never grow up.
His mind left the warm loft and the murmur of conversation, and traveled across the cold village green, through the snow and ice, to his home. And the book in his desk. And the notes written there, in black ink. Like charcoal.
His plague diary.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
“And the cobrador?” Clara’s voice cut through Gamache’s wandering mind and brought him back to the loft. “Who the hell was he? How does he fit in?”
“Well, he obviously wasn’t one of them,” said Isabelle. “Or even someone from the village. No one was missing.”
“Then who was he?” asked Reine-Marie.
“There’re a couple of other possibilities,” said Lacoste. “He could’ve followed Madame Evans here, playing out some old grudge. Or he was hired by someone here. Someone who knew that Matheo Bissonette had written about the cobrador phenomenon and would recognize it.”