A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  “True to his profit and his pride,” said Isabelle Lacoste, standing beside Gamache. “He made them weep before he died.”

  “Jonathan Swift, again,” said Gamache.

  “A poem on the death of a duke,” said Isabelle quietly as they watched Leduc’s final progress down the hallway. “You quoted it earlier today. I looked it up. Come hither, all ye empty things,/Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;/Who float upon the tide of state,/Come hither, and behold your fate.”

  They saluted as the body was wheeled past.

  “Let pride be taught by this rebuke,” said Gamache quietly. “How very mean a thing’s a Duke.”

  “We need to talk,” said Lacoste.

  “Oui.”

  Professor Leduc’s body left the building, a dark spot in the bright sunshine that streamed in.

  “But I have one more duty,” said Gamache.

  Down the long hallway he walked, toward the open door through which Leduc’s body had exited and a fresh breeze entered. The students saluted the Commander. He knew better than to read any respect into the action. After all, they’d just saluted a dead man.

  But he noticed that some looked at him with newfound deference. And Gamache knew why. He’d heard the rumors. They thought he was responsible for the body. There was a new tyrant in town.

  Once outside, Gamache stood behind the morgue vehicle, watching them load the body.

  “Making sure he really goes, Armand?”

  Gamache turned to see Michel Brébeuf.

  “I know it’s a shock, but it must also be a bit of a relief,” said Brébeuf.

  “If you had anything to do with this, Michel, I’ll find out. You know I will.”

  Brébeuf smiled. “And what will you do? Let me go again? Whoever did this cleaned up a mess, and you know it. Besides, if I had something to do with it, you were my accomplice. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. This time you were the one who opened the gate. You knew who I was, and you let me in.”

  “Is that a confession?”

  Brébeuf laughed and the morgue attendants looked over. It wasn’t often that hilarity accompanied a corpse.

  “A reminder, that’s all. He was on his way out anyway, wasn’t he?” Brébeuf turned and contemplated the body bag. “He held no real power anymore, though he didn’t realize it. Strutting around like he was still in charge. I’ve known officers like that. Petty, officious, vicious. And not very bright. He was already gone. He just hadn’t left. No, that’s a waste of a good bullet.”

  Gamache turned and walked back to the large open doors of the academy.

  “Be careful, Armand.”

  Gamache stopped and turned. Something in the voice had drawn his attention. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t hatred. It was the gentleness with which those words were uttered that stopped him. So much more arresting than rage.

  Michel Brébeuf stood there, the vast prairie behind him.

  “You did me a good turn a few years ago—”

  “Did I?”

  “You let me resign. Didn’t have me sent to prison, though on your evidence alone I would have been.”

  “Are you telling me you haven’t been in prison all this time?” asked Armand, and saw Brébeuf blink. “If I did you a favor, Michel, it wasn’t years ago, it was months ago. Don’t stand here now and tell me I made a terrible mistake. Or if I did, at least admit it.”

  “I did not kill Serge Leduc.”

  The two men squared off, while the body was driven away.

  Then Gamache turned and walked back through the doorway. Followed, a few paces behind, by his former best friend.

  * * *

  The cadets had moved from the bistro, which was getting too crowded to talk, over to the B and B. It was past four in the afternoon of a day that never seemed to end.

  The sun was getting low on the horizon and a fire had been laid in the grate. Amelia lit it while Huifen made tea and Nathaniel found biscuits and cake in Gabri’s kitchen. Something, he was pretty sure, that would be in short supply in the home of the crazy old woman who was putting him up.

  The thought of what might be in that home made his skin crawl.

  The cadets sat around the fireplace sipping tea, eating cake, and discussing the brutal murder of a man they all knew. Better than they cared to admit.

  It seemed so far removed from this peaceful place that Nathaniel had to remind himself that what he’d discovered at the academy that morning wasn’t a dream. This—he looked around at the comfortable faded furniture, the cheerful fire in the grate, the chocolate cake and biscuits—was the dream.

  That other thing was real life.

  The village had lulled him, however briefly, into forgetting that terrible things happened. He wondered if it was a gift, to forget however briefly, or a curse.

  “Gamache brought us here to investigate the map,” said Huifen, laying hers on the table. Nathaniel and Jacques did the same with theirs.

  Then they looked at Amelia.

  “I don’t have mine,” she said.

  “Where is it? We were told to bring them,” said Huifen.

  “It’s missing.”

  They stared at her.

  “Missing?” asked Jacques. “Or found in the Duke’s drawer?”

  “Look, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about the map since we were here before. I put it away and now it’s gone.”

  She looked at them defiantly.

  “I believe you,” said Nathaniel.

  “You believe her?” demanded Jacques. “Why?”

  “Why not?” he said. “We have no evidence either way. Might as well believe her.”

  “Some investigator you’re going to make,” said Jacques.

  “He’s a freshman,” Huifen reminded him. “He’ll learn.”

  “What?” asked Amelia. “What’ll he learn? To judge without facts? To condemn without evidence? To be cynical and suspicious? Like you?”

  “Not cynical, realistic,” said Huifen. “The world’s a dangerous place. We’ll soon be up against organized crime. Drug dealers. Murderers. This isn’t a tea party.”

  Despite the fact that it actually appeared to be.

  “We have to assume the worst,” said Jacques. “Every person, every situation, is a potential threat. Our lives depend on our ability to take charge.”

  “And how do you do that?” Amelia asked.

  “Leduc told us,” said Jacques. “Said it’s not something we’d ever learn in a classroom or from a book. You find one person in a crowd and make an example of him. Everyone else falls into line.”

  “And by ‘example,’” said Amelia, “you mean beat the shit out of him.”

  “If we have to, yes.”

  She looked at Jacques with disgust, then turned to Nathaniel.

  “Thank you. And just so you know, I really didn’t give my map to the Duke. I have no idea if the one they found was mine, or how it got there.”

  “Good enough,” he said happily.

  And looking at that open, trusting face, even Amelia had a sinking feeling that Nathaniel would not survive long in the force. At least, this Nathaniel wouldn’t.

  “Okay,” said Huifen. “Let’s assume you’re telling the truth. That means someone took your map and gave it to the Duke. Why would they do that?”

  “It could mean something else,” said Nathaniel.

  “What?” asked Jacques, exasperated with the freshman.

  “Maybe someone discovered their own map was missing and stole Amelia’s to replace it.”

  “By ‘someone,’ you mean one of us,” said Huifen.

  “Well, yes,” said Nathaniel. “Who else could I mean? Or maybe the Duke wanted to see the map, and instead of giving him their own, they stole Amelia’s.”

  “Again,” said Huifen, “you mean one of us.”

  “I mean either you or Jacques, yes. I know it wasn’t me. You had maps and were the closest to him, after all.”

  “Were we?” asked Jacques, staring hard at

the younger man.

  Amelia amended her opinion of Nathaniel. It was both comforting and disconcerting to see how cunning he actually was. And how clearly he saw things.

  “I’m not accusing you,” Nathaniel hurried on. “I’m just saying there’re lots of ways to look at this.”

  “Okay, then, let’s look at what we do know,” said Huifen. “The facts. A copy of the map was found in the Duke’s drawer. Why?”

  Though the real question still seemed to be who.

  Their eyes drifted from the three maps on the table to Amelia.

  CHAPTER 19

  The photos of the crime scene were spread out on the long boardroom table in front of the investigators. Chief Inspector Lacoste was bringing Gamache and Gélinas up to speed.

  “Most of the professors have been interviewed, along with the students.”

  “Did that produce anything?” asked Deputy Commissioner Gélinas.

  “Not much so far. Leduc was very private, almost to the point of compulsion. Yesterday, from what we gather, was the same as every other day. Serge Leduc taught his classes, worked in his office without interruption in the afternoon, then dined last night at the professor’s table. I believe you were there.”

  Gamache nodded.

  “Professor Godbut is here, Chief Inspector,” said an agent, popping her head in.

  “Good.” She turned to Gamache. “I thought you’d like to be here when we spoke with him.”

  “Merci,” said Gamache, with just a hint of sarcasm.

  “Show him in, please,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste.

  A large man entered. He might have had muscle tone once, but now his middle jiggled and shifted as he walked.

  “Marcel Godbut,” he introduced himself, then took the chair offered. “This is terrible. I can’t quite believe it.”

  “You’ve been at the academy for five and a half years, it says in your record,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste.

  “Oui.” He looked at Lacoste the way an uncle looked at a pretty young niece. “Before that I was a senior investigator in the Abitibi detachment.”

  “Of the Sûreté,” said Deputy Commissioner Gélinas.

  “Of course,” said Godbut, regarding the RCMP officer with slight distaste.

  “And you teach forensics?” said Gélinas, consulting his notes. “But not the DNA kind. You teach the cadets how to investigate records, finances. To look for fraud, racketeering. A paper trail, not a blood trail.”

  “Oui. Not very sexy, but effective. Not all of us get to chase murderers.”

  “Important work,” agreed Gamache, but he was watching Godbut through narrowed eyes.

  This was a man who, until Gamache arrived, had patrolled the hallways sniffing out cadets who were a little late for class, whose uniforms were slightly askew, whose hair a little long.

  And he made them pay.

  He humiliated and belittled students. While never actually beating them, he made them beat themselves up, giving them exercises in the quad, in their underwear, in winter. He made them run stairs and do near impossible numbers of push-ups and sit-ups. And when they failed, he doubled the numbers.

  Marcel Godbut took them to the very edge of breakdown. Then brought them back.

  It was an age-old form of torture. Some considered it training. Torment, relent. Torment. Relent.

  They were made an example of. So that other students fell into line quickly. Eagerly. Some even, by third year, joined in the humiliation. Those were considered the successes and fast-tracked into good jobs in the Sûreté.

  If Leduc was the architect, this man was the builder. Taking good material and making it rotten.

  When he’d taken over as commander, Gamache had been sickened by what he’d found. The degree and depth of the abuse. And Marcel Godbut had not even been the worst. Those Gamache had summarily fired. One he’d had arrested. But he didn’t quite have enough on Godbut. It was all anecdotal. Professor Godbut, the master of paper trails, would be careful not to leave one himself.

  But Commander Gamache had watched him closely and made sure Godbut knew it. The abuse had stopped.

  But when all that bile had to be contained, it created a volcano.

  Had Professor Godbut erupted last night and attacked Leduc?

  But motive was missing. It was not enough to simply say he blew. There had to be a reason. A push, however trivial it might appear from the outside.

  And the crime scene didn’t look like an explosion. It looked like an execution. Neat, orderly, bitterly cold.

  “Tell us about the contract to build this school,” said Gamache.

  Godbut slowly turned in his chair and stared at the Commander.

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “You taught fraud. You taught students how to spot it and yet you missed it when it was happening in your own house?”

  “Was it? That’s news to me. I’m just a professor. And as you’ve made clear since you arrived, Commander, I’m not a very good one.”

  “Did I ever say that? I think you are probably very good at what you do,” said Gamache. “The question is, what do you do? What was your real job here?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning Serge Leduc was on the take,” said Paul Gélinas. “This whole structure was built on bribes and contract fixing. Someone organized it for him. Someone who not only knew how to do it, but how not to get caught.”

  “I hope you have proof, Commissioner. That’s a serious charge.”

  “Not a charge, a theory.” Gélinas smiled. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Dinner last night. We discussed tactical exercises, as you know, Commander. And then Professor Leduc and I discussed the Montréal Canadiens.”

  It was a clear shot at Gamache. His opinions on the curriculum were no more important than a hockey game.

  “And after dinner?” asked Gamache, as though unaware of the barb.

  “I went back to my rooms and corrected papers and did coursework. Like any good professor.”

  “Did you see anyone? Any phone calls?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

  “No phone calls. No visitors. It was a quiet evening in. I awoke to that pathetic cadet screaming.”

  “You knew Professor Leduc as well as anyone,” said Lacoste. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think you’re partly right,” said Godbut. “I think his death did have something to do with this building. But not from the inside. I’d look outside, if I were you.”

  He gestured through the plate glass, past the quad, to the church spires beyond.

  “The town?” asked Lacoste.

  “Do you think Serge Leduc was killed by an ally? Or an enemy?” said Godbut. “That town is teeming with people who hated Serge Leduc.”

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir had slipped into the room. He and Godbut nodded to each other, the chill obvious.

  Professor Godbut got up and paused for a moment to look out the window. The sun was just beginning to set and the huge sky was changing color, from blue to a soft rose.

  And against it were the lights of Saint-Alphonse.

  “One man’s hatred stands above the rest,” he said, turning away from the window. “That’s where I’d start to look. But then, I’m not very good at my job, am I?”

  If he expected Commander Gamache to mollify him, he was disappointed. Gamache sat silent and eventually Professor Godbut nodded and left.

  “There’s a piece of work,” said Lacoste.

  “A piece of shit,” said Beauvoir, and beside him Gélinas gave a gruff laugh of agreement.

  “But he might be right,” said Lacoste. “It’s not the first time today that’s been mentioned. The hatred in the town toward the academy.”

  “But what’s the story?” asked Gélinas, sitting forward and turning to Gamache. “What happened? The dossier you gave me refers to it, but only in terms of the subsequent contracts, not what led up to it.”

  “The town wanted this site for a recreation complex,” Gamache explained. “Leduc promised to help them get it if they helped him find a site for the academy on the outskirts of town. They were thrilled to have the Sûreté Academy, knowing what it could mean to their economy. The mayor trusted him completely. Three months later, the site of the new academy was announced.”

  “The town’s site,” said Lacoste.

  “The mayor and the townspeople had been lobbying and fund-raising for years to build a skating rink, a pool, an athletic center and community hall. It was more than a piece of land, more than a building. The people of Saint-Alphonse saw it as vital for their town’s future. Especially the children. The mayor was apoplectic. Almost put him in the hospital.”

  There was silence in the room.

  People had been murdered for far less.

  “Could he have done this?” Lacoste asked.

  The Commander thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  Gélinas’s brows rose. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a senior officer say, I don’t know.

  “I think it’s possible,” mused Gamache. “But if the mayor was going to murder Leduc, I think it would’ve been a few years ago, when it first happened. I know him a little. I like him. He’s a decent man, doing his best.”

  Gamache considered, then added, “But he does hold on to things. Lets them fester. Now, to be fair, it was a huge betrayal of his trust. It took a long time and a lot of effort to get him to agree to see me when I took over. Finally I convinced him to allow the community to share our facilities.”

  “You were doing that?” asked Gélinas.

  “Seemed only fair, and didn’t go nearly far enough to make amends. But it was a start. We were developing a program where the cadets would mentor and coach some of the children. And then this happened.”

  “Could your approaching the mayor have reopened old wounds?” Paul Gélinas asked. “Unintentionally, of course.”

  “It might have. On the one hand, the mayor is extremely upright, to the point of rigidity. A moralist. Almost fanatical in his defense of his town and his views of right and wrong.”

  “He’d consider murder wrong, I’m assuming,” said Lacoste.

  “True. On the other hand, he might see it as justice. Most killers manage to justify their actions. They don’t see what they’ve done as wrong.”

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