by Louise Penny
“There is, of course, a simpler answer,” said Reine-Marie.
“Matheo Bissonette himself hired the cobrador,” said Isabelle. “And then told everyone, including Madame Evans, what it was. Yes, we thought of that. For it to work, she had to know what the thing was. Though it doesn’t answer why he, or anyone, would do it.”
They looked at Myrna.
“I don’t know why. Lea didn’t come to me to say Matheo was planning to kill Katie. Not that I remember, anyway.”
“Maybe he wasn’t,” said Armand. “Maybe the cobrador was just there to shame her. Murder was never part of the plan. But someone saw an opportunity, and took it. And you’re right,” he said to Clara. “It’s possible the cobrador’s target was someone else completely. Would you excuse me?”
He stood up and turned to Reine-Marie, who was also getting to her feet, a look of some surprise on her face at his abrupt need to leave.
“Would you ask Jean-Guy to meet us in the Incident Room, please? Isabelle, can you join me?”
They said their goodbyes to Myrna and Clara.
“Jeez,” said Clara, watching them out the window. “It’s like someone kicked him in the pants. Did we finally say something useful?”
“If we did, I can’t imagine what it was.”
“Maybe we’re out of cheese.” Clara turned around to look, but there was still plenty left.
Then the two women watched from the warmth of the loft as Armand, Reine-Marie and Isabelle paused on the village green, at about the spot the cobrador had stood vigil.
The evening was dire, with snow and ice pellets and freezing rain. A full English of crap.
Then Isabelle headed to the B&B. Armand put his head down and walked straight into the driving snow while Reine-Marie went home, which by now was just a faint glow through the flurries.
“I’m heading back to my studio,” said Clara.
“To finish your painting?” asked Myrna.
“It is finished. I’m going to start a new one.”
“Clara,” Myrna began. “Your show’s coming up. I just…”
She opened and closed her mouth.
“You’re a good friend,” said Clara. “And I know you mean well. But you’re just getting me upset. Making me doubt myself. Please,” she took Myrna’s large hands, “don’t say anything more. Trust me. I know when something’s finished. And when it’s not.”
Myrna walked her to the stairs, and heard the tiny bell tinkle as Clara left.
She wondered if Clara was right. Some things might appear done, complete. But were actually unfinished.
*
At the steps up to the church, Chief Superintendent Gamache paused.
Instead of hurrying inside, he made his way around the corner of the building.
Once at the back, where no one could see, he turned on the flashlight mode of his phone and examined the ground.
The snow in the beam was pristine. No tracks at all. But then, there wouldn’t be. The freshly falling snow would obliterate any tracks made the night before. And Lacoste’s team would have already looked.
But they wouldn’t have found what he was looking for.
Playing the light over the back wall of the church illuminated the weathered white clapboard.
He stepped closer, then back, closing one eye as the snow slapped the side of his face, then he turned to peer into the dark woods.
*
The guests at the B&B were just sitting down to dinner when Isabelle Lacoste arrived.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, but it did not look like she was interrupting much.
The shepherd’s pie, which smelled wonderful, sat on each of their plates, practically untouched.
“Would you like to join us?” Matheo asked. “There’s plenty.”
Isabelle recognized it for what it was. A vastly insincere invitation. She wondered what would happen if she accepted.
This had been a horrible day for them. Or, at least, for most of them.
They stared at her and, as Chief Inspector Lacoste looked at them, she suspected she was seeing a killer. She just didn’t know which of them it was.
“Merci. But I have a small question. Something we need to pursue to put to rest.” She turned to Patrick. “I understand that you kept in touch with the family of Edouard Valcourt. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to speak with them, and need their address or phone number or whatever you have.”
“But why?” asked Lea.
Lacoste turned to her and smiled. “I’d forgotten that you sponsored a bill in his name, didn’t you? You must’ve been in touch with the family too. Do you have a way to contact them?”
“I do, absolutely,” said Lea. “Not on me, of course, but I can contact my assistant at the National Assembly and ask him to get it for you. I have your email, I believe.”
Lacoste had given them each her card at the end of their interviews.
“Merci. I’d like to try to contact them tonight.” She turned back to Patrick. “Do you have their information in your contacts list?”
“I think I probably deleted it, when I upgraded devices,” he said.
“Why would you want to speak with the Valcourts?” asked Lea again. “You don’t think they’re somehow involved in Katie’s death?”
“No,” she assured her. “I don’t think they were, but we do have to wonder about Madame Evans’s past, and one unresolved issue seems to be the death of your friend Edouard.”
“There’s nothing unresolved,” said Matheo. “He was stoned and fell off the roof. Katie had nothing to do with it. She wasn’t even there. Neither was Patrick.” He turned to him. But Patrick just stared.
Matheo suppressed the overwhelming desire to slap the back of his head and knock that pathetic puppy-dog look off his face.
“I have no problem at all giving you their phone number and address,” said Lea. “But it’ll have to wait until morning. Is that all right?”
“If you can’t get it sooner, yes.”
And Lacoste left them to their dinner and headed out into the snowy evening once again.
She came away without the Valcourts’ coordinates, but with something else. The certainty that whatever had happened, Lea Roux was at the center of it. She was in charge.
And Lacoste remembered the advice given to Mossad agents. Advice Lacoste had found abhorrent, wrong on every level. Until it had been explained.
The instruction given the Israeli agents, if they met resistance during an assault, was kill the women first.
Because if a woman was ever driven so far as to pick up a weapon, she would be the most committed, the least likely to ever give up.
Kill the women first.
Lacoste still hated the advice. The simplicity of it. The baldness. But she also hated that the philosophy behind it was almost certainly true.
*
Gamache took a few steps through the snow, into the woods. Not far.
Then he turned around to face the back wall of the church and as he did, lights went on, illuminating the ground around him. The snowflakes, like crystals caught in the light, gleamed.
He stood for a moment, taking in the sight, so bright, then he turned and looked into the gloomy woods.
With a last puzzled glance at the back wall, Gamache retraced his steps, climbed the stairs, and entered the warm church, where Jean-Guy was whacking his gloves against his coat.
“Madame Gamache said you wanted to see me here.” His stomach growled and he covered it with his hand while giving Gamache an accusing look. They could be eating by now instead of standing in the chilly church. “Why were you outside? What’re you looking for?”
“Rum runners.”
“They went thataway.” He pointed toward the cemetery.
Gamache turned in that direction, his brow furrowed, thinking. Snow trickled along his scalp and down his face and the back of his neck, as though the effort of thinking was melting it. The rivulet
found its way past his collar and dribbled straight down his spine, making him roll his shoulders in discomfort as he led the way downstairs to the Incident Room.
CHAPTER 29
A fine line of perspiration trickled down Chief Superintendent Gamache’s neck and soaked into his collar.
In the powerful air-conditioning of Sûreté headquarters, he could feel his sodden shirt growing clammy as it clung to his body.
He wished he’d had time for a quick shower and change into clean clothes, but that would have to wait until after this meeting.
The officers had stood as he entered the conference room, but he waved them to their seats and took his own chair at the head of the table.
Gamache looked at each of them, men and women of all ages, all ranks. Who’d sat around this table, in those same seats, at least once a week for almost a year.
He remembered the private interviews, as he’d decided the members of this inner circle. From the thousands of officers, he’d chosen these few, for their intelligence, their determination. Their ability to work as a team. To both lead and follow. They were chosen for their bravery and boldness and their loyalty.
Not to Gamache. Not to the Sûreté. Not even to Québec. But to the Québécois. To protect them. Perhaps at great cost.
He’d taken the most promising, and asked them to possibly, probably, almost certainly, destroy their careers. And they’d agreed.
Not, it must be admitted, without a fight sometimes, as the long view was obscured by leaping and waving and screaming immediate needs. And by their own training and morals. To stand aside, to do nothing, as crimes were committed. It was soul-destroying.
But they’d held together. Finally.
And now here they were.
For almost a year they’d put their plan into place. As well constructed, as focused, as hidden as the cartel they were trying to bring down.
A glass house, Judge Corriveau had called it. Transparent.
That’s what it was. And that’s what they were. Now.
A good hunter, Gamache knew, learned from his prey. And he’d learned from the cartel to be lean. Focused. Invisible.
To appear to be weak, while actually gathering strength.
But the time had come for exposure, on both sides. By the end of this night, one would be victorious. One would be shattered.
Grabbing a tissue, he wiped the perspiration from his face, no longer concerned about how it would be perceived.
“Tell me what you know.”
His gaze moved around the table and settled on Superintendent Toussaint, who was looking uncomfortable.
“Seems we were wrong, patron.”
“Is that so? About what?”
He knew the importance of appearing calm and controlled, even as his heart began to pound.
“The nesting dolls. There were two shipments, we now learn. One with the chlorocodide and the other without.”
“I see. And?”
“The one with the drugs left Mirabel last night. As soon as that huge shipment of fentanyl got across the border.”
“Has it crossed the border?” Gamache asked. His voice remained steady, though all depended on the answer to that question.
The room felt like it was teetering on the edge of a cliff.
“We don’t think so. We think it’s in the holding area.”
“You think?” asked Beauvoir, trying, with less success than the Chief Superintendent, to sound calm.
“Yes,” said Toussaint, an edge now to her voice. “Think.” She turned back to Gamache. “As far as our informant knows, it’s still in Québec. We have some indications that he’s right.”
“Really, now this is the same informant who told us earlier today that the shit, the krokodil, was still in the warehouse?” said Beauvoir.
“It is. He made a mistake.” Superintendent Toussaint’s voice was icy now. “You’ve heard of those. But he went back to confirm, at great personal risk. Then he contacted me.”
Toussaint and Beauvoir stared at each other.
“We have no way to be sure?” asked Gamache.
“Not without exposure, no,” said Toussaint.
“So we don’t really know where the drugs are,” said Beauvoir. “Except that they’re not in the warehouse.”
“Correct.”
“You said you have other indications, though,” said Gamache. “What’re those?”
“The head of the syndicate for the East Coast is in Vermont. Burlington.”
The officers looked at each other, then at Gamache.
“He could be there for any number of reasons,” said Toussaint. “We don’t know for sure…”
“It’s a short drive from there to the border,” said Beauvoir, his excitement overcoming his annoyance. “One of those reasons could be to meet the shipment.”
“And not just the shipment,” said Toussaint. She turned to look at Gamache. “It could mean they fell for it. More completely than we dared hope.”
“Go on,” said Gamache. He was thinking the same thing, but Toussaint had had more time to consider, and he needed to hear her thoughts.
“I think the head of the East Coast syndicate is in Vermont for more than a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. And more than the krokodil.”
Gamache nodded, slowly. Taking this in. Trying not to let his elation override his good sense. Trying not to race ahead to a conclusion he was desperate to arrive at.
It fell to Beauvoir to say what Gamache was thinking. What they were all thinking.
“A meeting’s been set up. When the exchange is made,” his voice was low, almost a whisper. “The heads of both the Québec and the East Coast cartels will be together, in one spot.”
“Holy shit,” said several of the officers.
“But which side of the border?” asked one. “Would he come into Québec? Would he dare?”
“What’s to stop him?” another asked. “Not the Sûreté, that’s for sure.”
That brought a round of laughter that verged on hysteria.
Chief Superintendent Gamache was relieved too, but he was also wary. It was at about this time that mistakes were made.
Just as he thought he was luring them into a trap, perhaps they were luring him. If they’d learned one thing about the cartel, it was that they were smart. They might be invisible, but that didn’t mean they didn’t see everything that was happening around them.
Gamache let the celebration go on. There’d been precious little to be happy about in recent months. Let them enjoy this moment. Eventually the excitement died down.
“Walk me through your thinking, Madeleine,” said Gamache.
“This’s the first shipment of chlorocodide across the border. It looks poised to become a significant drug, a huge moneymaker. Cheap to produce and an easy sell to a population always looking for the next great high.”
“It turns their skin into scales,” said one of the agents, reading the briefing bullet on krokodil.
“Right, and their brains to mush and eventually kills them young,” said Toussaint. “When has that ever stopped a junkie? These are not reasonable people making rational choices.” She turned back to Gamache. “You want my thinking? I think they’re meeting to discuss territory. Borders are for politicians, not drug runners. But I also think they’re meeting to size each other up. This is an indication of just how powerful the Québec cartel has become. What else would bring the head of the largest syndicate in the U.S. into the woods of Vermont?”
“He feels threatened?” asked Beauvoir.
“I think he might.”
“You think he’s come to kill the head of the Québec cartel?” asked another agent.
Toussaint thought. “No. I think he might be prepared to, but these are also businesspeople. It’s bad business to kill your supplier, unless there’s no choice. I think they want to come to an understanding.”
“The head of the Québec cartel is smart enough to figure all this out,” said Beauvoir.
“Oui,
certainly,” said Toussaint. “And clever enough to be prepared to strike first.”
“Hell of a tête-à-tête,” said an agent.
“I think it’s time to let the DEA know,” said Toussaint. “This meeting can get out of control real fast and we’re going to need help.”
“When do you think this’s going down?” asked Gamache.
“Tonight, for sure. Probably shortly after nightfall. Before midnight, I think. They’ll want to get it done.”
“And you think they’ll meet at the crossing point?” asked Beauvoir.
“I do. It’s the safest place. We’ve proven to them that we have no idea it’s being used. The krokodil will be given to the U.S. syndicate. The money will come to the Québec cartel. And the heads of both syndicates will at least start the process of coming to a new understanding.”
Everyone, except Gamache, looked at the clock on the wall. He was perfectly aware of the time, but also of the folly of being pushed into a near-panicked decision.
“We do not tell the DEA,” he said.
There was a commotion, as everyone spoke at once. Objected at once. He let that die down too. And when there was silence, he spoke.
“If we told them that the heads of two of the largest syndicates in North America will be coming out into the open, that they’ll be meeting tonight, when a drug deal is going through, what do you think they’d do?”
He let them think, but only briefly.
“They’d mobilize,” he answered his own question. “They’d have to. We would too, if told the same thing. Even if they were willing to let us take the lead, there’d be so much activity, the syndicates couldn’t help but notice. No. There’re risks either way, but my decision stands. We do this alone. We stick to the plan that has brought us this far.”
“But what happens if the meeting is on the other side of the border, sir? Where we have no jurisdiction?”
“We might lose them both,” someone else jumped in.
“You let me worry about that,” said Gamache. “Focus on your own jobs tonight, and I’ll focus on mine.”
He’s not going to let that happen, Jean-Guy realized. One way or another, the head of one or both cartels would be brought to justice, if Armand Gamache had to drag them back across the border by the hair.