by Louise Penny
“You played me for a fool.”
“No. I realized I’d been wrong about you, and that you’re not a coward. Far from it. You were and are a very brave man.”
“You think I care what you think of me?” demanded Zalmanowitz.
“No. Nor do I care, really, what you think of me. What I care about today are the results. I don’t regret what I did. I wish with all my heart it hadn’t been necessary. I wish there’d been another way. But if there was one, I couldn’t think of it. Do you regret it?” Chief Superintendent Gamache asked again. “Burning our ships?”
Chief Crown Prosecutor Zalmanowitz took a deep breath, and regained control of himself.
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“That doesn’t excuse you,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I forgive you. You could have told me.”
“You’re right. I know that now. I made mistakes. You were brave and selfless and I treated you like an outsider. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“Shithead,” Zalmanowitz muttered, but his heart didn’t seem in it. “What were you keeping from me? What was so important?”
“The bat.”
“The murder weapon?” asked the judge.
“Yes. Do you remember in the testimony, in Reine-Marie’s statement, she said she hadn’t seen the bat when she found the body?”
“Yes. But it was there when Chief Inspector Lacoste arrived,” said Zalmanowitz. “You testified that Madame Gamache must’ve made a mistake.”
“I lied.”
He looked at Reine-Marie, who nodded.
Maureen Corriveau wished she’d chosen that moment to use the bathroom, but it was too late. She’d heard.
And, to be fair, while the specific lie was news, she already knew this trial was rife with half-truths and outright perjury.
“Well then, what did happen?” asked the Crown, slipping naturally into prosecutor mode. Cross-examining a possibly hostile witness.
“I knew Reine-Marie was describing exactly what was there when she found the body. And what was not. So how did the bat return, without anyone seeing?”
“I’d locked the church door. The only way in,” she said.
“So.” Zalmanowitz lifted his hands. “How do you explain it?”
“I couldn’t. Until a casual conversation later that day with friends. One mentioned that the root cellar already had a criminal past. It’d been used by bootleggers during Prohibition.”
Both the Crown and the judge were nodding now. It was quite a famous chapter in Québec history, one many prominent families wished would go away.
“That’s when it began to come together,” said Gamache. “The smugglers would never have hauled the contraband liquor out the front door of the church. There must be, I realized, another door. A hidden door, in the root cellar.”
“That’s how the murder weapon reappeared,” said the judge. “The murderer used the hidden door. But how did she even know about it?”
“Jacqueline followed Anton to the Ruiz home,” said Beauvoir. “And got a job there to be close to him, to watch him. Then, when Ruiz went back to Spain, she followed Anton to Three Pines. She was watching him closely, and one night she saw him use the door.”
“But then, how did he know about it?”
“Anton grew up in a household where old war stories meant turf wars, speakeasies, bootlegging,” said Gamache. “Stories of getting booze across the border. How they did it. Where they did it. His father, his uncle, his uncle’s best friend, all saw these as part of the lore, their history, almost mythology, but not pertinent today. What separated Anton from the rest of his family, from the rest of the leadership of the cartels, is that he dismissed nothing. If something was history, it didn’t make it less useful. He took everything in. Some he discarded, some he kept in his mind for later use. And some he repurposed. To others, the Prohibition stories were a way to pass cold winter nights. For Anton, they were a revelation.”
“He did his homework,” said Beauvoir. “And discovered where all the crossing points, all the hidden rooms and passages used by the bootleggers were. He used them all, but as his main crossing point he chose a hidden room in a hidden village.”
“It was perfect,” said Gamache.
“So you discovered how the bat, the murder weapon, got in and out, or out and in,” said Judge Corriveau. “But how did you know it was being used for drug smuggling?”
“The hinges,” said Beauvoir. “They’d been oiled. And not recently. The room, and the door, had been used far longer than the cobrador had been in residence.”
“And when asked, none of the friends admitted using the door. They had no idea it was there,” said Gamache. “So the hinges must’ve been oiled for another purpose. I didn’t know right away, of course. But I began to think maybe the smugglers were back. It had perplexed us for a while, how so many drugs were getting across the border. The traditional routes we knew about, but far more was crossing than we could account for.”
“But wait a minute,” said the Crown. “Everything you’re saying still points to Anton being the murderer. How did you figure out it was Jacqueline?”
“If Anton Boucher wanted someone killed, do you think he’d do it himself?” asked Beauvoir. “And even if he did, would he panic, and take, then replace the murder weapon? Why not just burn it? That’s when Jacqueline came to us and confessed about the cobrador.”
Jean-Guy remembered the bitterly cold November night when Gamache and Lacoste, along with the dogs, had blown back into the house, as he’d gotten off the phone with Myrna and Ruth.
Both admitted knowing about the little room. Ruth had told Myrna, and Myrna, after some thought, remembered telling Lea. Though while he’d gently probed, neither seemed to know about the hidden door.
“She didn’t confess to the murder of Katie Evans,” said Gamache. “Her confession was about the cobrador. But the bat continued to worry us. I knew the bat’s only purpose, after it had killed Madame Evans, was to point to the murderer. But not, of course, the real one.”
“She wanted Anton Boucher charged with the crime,” said Zalmanowitz.
“Oui. That was Jacqueline’s plan all along. Again, very simple. Kill Katie, and blame Anton. The two people she considered responsible for her brother’s death. The Conscience had more than one debt to collect. Edouard jumped while out of his mind on drugs sold to him by Anton. But what sent him over the edge was his breakup with Katie. It broke his heart, and the drugs warped his mind. He was, by all reports, a gentle, sensitive young man, who loved her too much. And Katie Evans was a gentle, kind woman whose crime was that she didn’t love him back.”
“Edouard told his sister all about it,” said Beauvoir. “He was enraged. He painted Katie as cruel. Heartless. He didn’t mean it, of course. He was insane with jealousy and the drugs had warped his thinking. I know what they can do. How we turn on the very people who care for us the most.”
“And then, having placed all his bile in his sister’s head, he killed himself,” said Gamache. “Leaving Jacqueline to despise Katie. Neither Katie, nor the drug dealer, had paid any price for her brother’s death. But she would see to that.”
Barry Zalmanowitz was nodding. While others might not understand that obsession, he did. If his daughter had died, he’d have spent his lifetime getting justice. In whatever form it took.
*
The Premier Ministre du Québec listened to the explanation, without comment, without question.
Then he turned to Judge Corriveau.
“How much of this did you know?”
It was time. To link arms with Gamache and cross the bridge at Selma.
To stand in front of a home, and refuse entry to those who would deport, who would hang, who would beat and bully.
The knock was at the door. The Jews in the attic.
It was her time, her turn. To stand up.
“I knew none of it,” she heard herself say.
Beside her in the Premier’s
office, Gamache was silent.
“This was all you, Armand?” the Premier asked.
“Oui.”
“But your people went along with it. The Chief Crown went along with it.”
“Yes.”
It was no use saying they were just following his orders, Gamache knew. That was no defense, nor should it be.
“You know what I have to do,” said the Premier. “Breaking the law, perjuring yourself, crossing the border and killing a citizen of another country, no matter how deserving that person was, cannot go unanswered.”
“I understand.”
“You will, of course, be—”
“I knew,” said Maureen Corriveau. She turned to Gamache. “Forgive me, I should’ve admitted it earlier.”
“I understand,” he said. And then, under his breath he said to her, “You’re not alone.”
“Explain,” said the Premier Ministre.
“I didn’t know the specifics, but I did know that something was happening in the trial. Something unusual. I suspected perjury and called Messieurs Gamache and Zalmanowitz into my chambers. They all but admitted it. Enough to have had them arrested, certainly detained. But I let them go.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew there must have been a very good reason. And if they were willing to risk so much, it seemed the least I could do.”
The Premier nodded. “Thank you for that. You do know that if you had detained Monsieur Gamache, all this would have fallen apart. His plan would’ve collapsed, and the cartel would have really and truly won.”
“I do.”
He turned to Gamache.
“You will be relieved of duty. You’ll be on suspension, pending an investigation. As will your second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir. I believe you were the leaders?”
“Yes.”
“Superintendent Madeleine Toussaint will be promoted to acting head of the Sûreté. She’s certainly been implicated and will be investigated, but someone has to take over, and thanks to you, Armand, all the senior officers are now compromised. That means I either appoint Toussaint, or the janitor.”
“And Chief Inspector Lacoste?” asked Gamache.
“She will stay as head of homicide.”
Armand nodded his thanks. It was a battle he was prepared to fight, but relieved he didn’t have to.
“And me?” asked Judge Corriveau.
“You’re the judge,” he said. “What do you think I should do?”
Maureen Corriveau appeared to think for a moment, then said, “Nothing.”
The Premier lifted his hands. “Sounds reasonable to me. Nothing it is.”
“Pardon?” asked Corriveau. She’d been kidding when she said “nothing.”
“I spoke to the Chief Justice yesterday and told him what I thought might have happened. He agreed that while technically improper, you acted in the best interest of the province. Of the people. You used great judgment.”
The Premier Ministre du Québec stood up and put out his hand.
Judge Corriveau stood and shook it.
“Merci,” he said.
Then he turned to Gamache, also on his feet now.
“I’m sorry, my dear friend, that any punishment should come your way. We should be giving you a medal—”
Gamache leaned away from that suggestion.
“—but I can’t,” continued the Premier. “I can, though, promise you and Inspector Beauvoir a fair investigation.”
He walked them out, then the Premier Ministre closed the door, and closed his eyes. And saw again the charming bistro, and the kindly man with the knife.
CHAPTER 35
“Well,” said Clara. “What do you think?”
In the wake of the attacks, she’d canceled her art show. The vernissage would have been that very day, at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal. But instead, she’d hung her latest works in the bistro.
“Certainly covers up the holes,” said Gabri.
It was the best that could be said of the paintings. They couldn’t cover all the huge pockmarks in the plaster walls, but the worst were now hidden behind these strange portraits.
Gabri was not completely convinced it was an improvement.
The debris had been cleaned up. The shattered glass and wood and broken furniture thrown into bins.
The injured were healing. Olivier stood beside him, his arm bandaged and in a sling.
The insurance people had been and gone. And been again, and gone again. And were returning. They could not quite believe the claim that said the damages came from automatic weapons fire. Until they saw. And still, they needed to return.
And yet, there it was. Holes blasted in the walls. The old bay window shattered, a makeshift replacement put in by a local contractor.
People from surrounding villages had come to help. And now, if you didn’t look too closely, the bistro was almost back to normal.
Ruth was standing in front of a painting of Jean-Guy.
There was a light, airy quality about it. Probably because the canvas wasn’t obscured by a lot of paint. In fact, there was very little.
“He’s undressed,” said Ruth. “Disgusting.”
This was not completely true. What body there was had clothes. But it was really more a suggestion of a body. A suggestion of clothing. His handsome face was detailed. But older than the man himself.
Clara had painted Jean-Guy as he might look in thirty years. There was peace in the face and something else, deep in his eyes.
They walked around, drinks in hand, staring at the walls. Staring at themselves.
Over the course of a year, Clara had painted all of them. Or most of them.
Myrna, Olivier, Sarah the baker, Jean-Guy. Leo and Gracie.
She’d even painted herself, in the long-awaited self-portrait. It looked like a middle-aged madwoman staring into a mirror. Holding a paintbrush. Trying to do a self-portrait.
Gabri had hung that near the toilets.
“But there’re no holes here,” Clara had pointed out.
“And isn’t that lucky?” said Gabri, hurrying away.
Clara smiled, and followed him into the body of the bistro, taking up a position at the bar and sipping a cool sangria.
She watched. And wondered. When they’d get it. When they’d see.
That the unfinished portraits were in fact finished. They were not, perhaps, finished in the conventional sense, but she had captured in each the thing she most wanted.
And then, she’d stopped.
If Jean-Guy’s clothes weren’t perfect, did it matter?
If Myrna’s hands were blurry, who cared?
If Olivier’s hair was more a suggestion than actual hair, what difference did it make? And his hair, as Gabri was always happy to point out, was becoming more of a suggestion every day.
Ruth was staring at the portrait of Rosa, even as she held the duck.
The Rosa in Clara’s painting was imperious. Officious. Had Napoleon been a canard, he’d have been Rosa. Clara had pretty much nailed her.
Ruth gave a small snort. Then she shuffled along to the next painting. Of Olivier. Then the next and the next.
By the time she’d done the circuit, everyone was watching her. Waiting for the explosion.
Instead she went up to Clara, kissed her on the cheek and then went back to the painting of Rosa and stood there for a very long time.
The friends stared at each other, then one by one they joined Ruth.
Reine-Marie was the next to see it. Then she went to the next painting, following Ruth’s tour of the room, going from one canvas to the next.
Then Myrna got it. And she too followed Reine-Marie around the bistro. Then Olivier saw it.
Deep in Rosa’s haughty eyes, there was another tiny perfect finished portrait. Of Ruth. She was leaning toward Rosa. Offering the nest of old flannel sheets. Offering a home.
It was a portrait of adoration. Of salvation. Of intimacy.
It was a moment so t
ender, so vulnerable, Reine-Marie, Myrna, Olivier felt like voyeurs. Looking into a glass home. But they didn’t feel dirty. They felt lucky. To see such love.
They went from painting to painting.
There, in each of their eyes, a loved one was perfectly reflected.
Myrna turned to Clara, across the room. Across the shattered, broken bistro. Across the lifetimes of friendship.
Clara, who knew that bodies might come and go, but love was eternal.
*
Armand had called and spoken with Reine-Marie and then Jean-Guy, telling them what the Premier Ministre had decided.
Suspended, with pay for Beauvoir, without pay for Gamache, pending an investigation. He hoped they would take their time, because Armand had unfinished business.
He had fentanyl to find.
As for Barry Zalmanowitz, the Québec Bar Association would investigate the Crown attorney. In the meantime, his cases would be taken over by another prosecutor. But he’d remain on the job.
It was the very best they could hope for, and Gamache knew that the Premier himself would come under fire from the opposition for not doing more.
“And Isabelle?” asked Jean-Guy.
“She stays as head of homicide,” said Gamache.
There had clearly been no debate about that.
“I’m heading over to the hospital now,” said Armand. “I’ll see you soon.”
Jean-Guy hung up and went out into the back garden, where Annie was sitting with a jug of iced tea. Honoré was upstairs, napping, and everyone else was at the bistro.
They had a quiet few minutes to themselves.
His leg was doing much better and he’d put aside the cane, with some regret. He quite liked the accessory.
Jean-Guy opened the book he’d taken from his father-in-law’s study, but soon lowered it to his knee, and stared in front of him.
Annie noticed, but didn’t say anything. Leaving him to his thoughts. And it was clear what he was thinking about. Who he was thinking about.
*
He and Gamache had come down the hill, Beauvoir limping and the chief stumbling a few times.
Their bodies were screaming to stop, to rest. But they kept moving, desperate to get back to the village. To their families. To Isabelle.