A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  The second page was the receipt, which they all scanned.

  “I see that Madame Coldbrook-Clairton insists they didn’t make the silencer,” said Lacoste.

  “I believe her,” said Beauvoir. “She had no reason to lie, and it would be easy enough to disprove. We’re trying to trace it now. She’d assumed by my email that it was a suicide. She was upset to find out it was murder.”

  “You’d think she’d be used to it by now,” said Gélinas. “Why else have a handgun?”

  “Did she say why he might have ordered a revolver instead of, say, an automatic weapon?” Gamache asked.

  “She said collectors like them, but when I pointed out that Leduc wasn’t a collector, she had no answers.”

  Lacoste nodded, then looked up as Gamache cleared his throat.

  The Commander was still studying the first page, then he looked over his reading glasses to her. Taking them off he used them to point to a paragraph.

  “This is interesting.”

  They consulted their screens again.

  “How?” asked Chief Inspector Lacoste. “It’s a boilerplate sales pitch giving the history of this model.”

  “Yes. The McDermot .45 came into its own in the First World War,” said Gamache. “In the trenches.”

  “Oui,” said Lacoste. “Soooo?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” admitted Gamache. “But you know that a copy of the map that was in Leduc’s bedside table was found in the stained-glass window in Three Pines. The one of the soldiers from the Great War. The soldier had the map, but he also wore a revolver. I’m guessing a McDermot.”

  “Pardon?” said Gélinas. “I’m not following.”

  “Are you saying the two are connected?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Wait a minute,” said Gélinas, holding up his hand. “A map?”

  “Yes. A few months ago, an old map was found in a wall of the bistro in Three Pines,” said Gamache. “We were talking about it yesterday in the meeting.”

  “I remember, but you didn’t say a copy was found in Leduc’s bedside table.”

  “It’s in the report,” said Lacoste.

  Gélinas turned to her. “There’s a lot in the report. Not all of equal weight. That’s why context is important, don’t you think?”

  He spoke as though lecturing a failing cadet. Then he returned to Gamache.

  “You kept this from me.”

  “We’re telling you now,” said Gamache. “A couple of weeks ago, before any of this happened, I decided to use the map as a training tool. A few of the cadets were invited to investigate it. I gave them copies of the map.”

  “And one of them was found in the dead man’s bedroom?” Gélinas asked. “How did it get there?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” said Lacoste.

  “Whose fingerprints are on it?” Gélinas scanned the report.

  “There’re three sets,” said Beauvoir, not needing to consult his iPad. He’d read the report when it had arrived in his inbox that morning. And while not everything was memorable, a few things leapt out. Including this.

  “Leduc’s, Cadet Choquet’s, and Commander Gamache’s.”

  “Monsieur Gamache made the copies and handed them out,” said Lacoste. “So his prints would naturally be there. Cadet Choquet’s copy of the map is missing.”

  “Then it’s his,” said Gélinas. “Who is this Cadet Choquet? He seems very involved.”

  “She,” said Gamache. “Amelia Choquet. A freshman.”

  Gélinas went back a page in the report. “I see her name in the list of people whose prints were on the revolver case and might be on the revolver itself.”

  “Right next to Nelson Mandela’s,” Lacoste pointed out.

  “Still, we need to speak to her,” said Gélinas. “Can you have her brought here now?”

  “She’s not in the building,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste.

  “Where is she?”

  Lacoste looked at Gamache, who said, “Three Pines. I had her and three other cadets taken there the day of the murder.”

  Gélinas stared at Gamache, his mouth open. Unable to process what he’d heard.

  “You what?” he rasped. “Is that what was meant by the four cadets in the village? Not Saint-Alphonse, but your own village? Who are they?”

  “The students closest to Professor Leduc,” said Gamache. “Amelia Choquet and Nathaniel Smythe are freshmen—”

  “—Smythe? The one who found the body?” demanded Gélinas.

  “Oui. As well as two seniors. Cadets Laurin and Cloutier.”

  “And you knew?” Gélinas looked at the others.

  When even Professor Charpentier nodded, the Deputy Commissioner exploded.

  “Everyone knew, except me? Why? What are you playing at?” Now he was staring directly at Gamache. “Do you know how serious this is? You’re withholding evidence, you’re hiding witnesses. My God, man, what’re you doing?”

  “I took them there to protect them, not to hide them. And the chief investigating officer knows exactly where they are. But it’s vital that no one outside of this room knows.”

  “Well at least one person in this room didn’t know,” said Gélinas, his anger only mounting. “You had no right, no authority, to do that. You’re actively interfering with an investigation.”

  “I had every right, and all authority,” said Gamache. “I’m the Commander here. These students are my responsibility. Their training is entrusted to me, and so is their safety.”

  “Do you hear yourself?” Gélinas leaned close to him. “You’re as bad as Leduc. Treating the Sûreté Academy as your personal city-state. This isn’t the Vatican and you’re not the pope. You’re behaving as though you’re all-powerful. Infallible. Well, you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Charpentier. “Tactically it makes sense if—”

  “The fewer who know where the students are the better,” said Gamache, cutting off the tactician.

  “Better for who?” asked Gélinas. “Not me. Not the investigation. Better for you, perhaps.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Whose prints were on the murder weapon?” Gélinas demanded.

  “Partials,” said Beauvoir.

  “Whose prints were on the map? Who stayed with the body, refusing company, until others arrived?” said Gélinas. “How many minutes? Ten? Twenty? Plenty of time to set the scene, to manipulate it. And then almost the first thing you do, sir, is scoop up important suspects, including the one who actually found the body, and take them away. That’s why you left right after the murder, isn’t it? To take the cadets down to the village.”

  “To make sure they were safe, yes,” said Gamache.

  “Safe? What danger could they be in here, any more than any of the other cadets? Why them?”

  “As I said, they were closest to Leduc,” said Gamache, the throb underneath the words warning that he was straining to keep his temper. “Don’t the prints alone tell you that? They had extraordinary access to the man. And he to them. They’re the most likely to know something. They had to be protected.”

  “The only thing that will protect them is telling us everything they know,” said Gélinas. “And it’s possible, probable, that if they do know something it’s because one of them did it. One of them killed Leduc. Have you thought of that, your holiness?”

  “Don’t call me that, and of course I have,” said Gamache. “Even more reason to isolate them, don’t you think?”

  “Or to hide them,” said Gélinas. “So they can’t tell me and others who mentored them into murder.”

  Gélinas glared at Gamache.

  “Are you suggesting Commander Gamache did this?” asked Lacoste, trying to control her own anger. “That he convinced one or all of the cadets to murder a professor?”

  “The evidence is suggesting it,” said Gélinas. “His own actions are screaming it. It’s as though you’re just begging me to sus

pect you.”

  “I didn’t kill Serge Leduc,” said Gamache. “You know it.”

  “You asked for me specifically, monsieur, apparently to make sure it’s a fair and thorough investigation—”

  “You asked for him?” Lacoste looked at Gamache, confused, while Charpentier leaned back in his chair and watched. No longer perspiring.

  “Now I’m beginning to wonder if you chose me because you thought after years away, I’d be out of practice,” Gélinas continued. “I might be easily misdirected. Might even fall under your influence, like the cadets? Be flattered by the great man’s attentions? Was that it?”

  “I asked for you, Deputy Commissioner, because I admire you and knew you’d be rigorous and fair,” said Gamache. “And would not be taken in by attempts to confuse. You would defend the law.”

  “Oh, is that what this is?” Gélinas pointed to the tablet and the forensics report. “Not an indictment of your own actions, but an attempt to confuse? Are you saying someone is setting you up?”

  “Why are there prints on the revolver?” asked Gamache. “Don’t you think it’s strange in the extreme that the killer knew enough to drop the weapon, but not enough to wipe it or wear gloves? If I killed Leduc, don’t you think I’d at least do both?”

  “So you think all this is staged?”

  “I think we have to consider that.”

  “Who better to stage it than the former head of homicide for the Sûreté? The man most learnèd in murder? I want you to consider something.”

  Deputy Commissioner Gélinas turned away from Gamache and spoke to the others.

  “Is it possible he killed Serge Leduc,” he held up his hand to stop Beauvoir’s protest, “to protect the students? He came to suspect abuse. Not simply inappropriate punishments of cadets, but something systematic and targeted and shattering. The emotional, psychological, physical and perhaps sexual abuse of certain cadets. He had no proof. He invited those students he suspected were most at risk to join his informal gatherings, in the hopes they’d grow to trust him. He invited them to research the map, as a way of bonding with them. But they kept running back to Leduc. To their abuser. There was only one way to save them. And others.”

  Beauvoir and Lacoste sat silent. Imagining the scenario.

  “Could you see Monsieur Gamache murdering, to save young lives?”

  It was clear both Lacoste and Beauvoir wanted to deny it. To defend Gamache. But it was also clear that they could, in fact, see it. If Armand Gamache was ever to commit murder, if would be to save others.

  “He’s also the only person here who didn’t have to kill him,” said Charpentier, calmly, and all eyes swung to him.

  “Explain,” said Gélinas.

  “He’s the Commander. He alone could get rid of Leduc by just firing him.”

  Beauvoir nodded approval and turned to the RCMP officer. Waiting for his reply.

  “And pass the problem on to someone else?” asked Gélinas. “The Commander himself has admitted he would not do that.”

  “You know he didn’t do it,” said Beauvoir. “You’re just playing into the murderer’s hands. Chasing the whale.”

  “All that most maddens and torments,” said Gélinas, glaring at Gamache. “All truth with malice in it, all evil were visibly personified, and made practically assailable—”

  “—in Moby Dick,” said Charpentier, finishing the quote. “You got it mostly right. I have the students read it as an insight into obsession. Into what can drive a man mad. I see you know it too.”

  “—but not a whale,” said Gélinas, his eyes never leaving Gamache. “A man. For you, sir, it was personified by Serge Leduc. And like Ahab, you had to stop him.”

  Gamache sat immobile. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

  In the face of his silence, Gélinas continued. “The pick of the litter. You used that phrase just now. Your wife had the pick of the litter and she chose the runt. You did the same thing. You picked the runts and invited them to your soirées. Invited them into your home. Like she did with Gracie. You want to save them. Sometimes that means removing them from danger. And sometimes it means removing the danger.”

  Armand Gamache took a deep breath and looked at the photograph of a man he’d grown to despise. A man now dead. Then he looked up at Gélinas.

  “I’m not Ahab. And Leduc was not my whale. Yes, I know a lot about murder. Enough not to commit it.” He tapped his glasses a couple of times on his hand, considering Paul Gélinas. “I just finished telling the cadets that it’s in the murderer’s best interest to create chaos. To make us turn on each other. Suspect each other even.”

  “Maybe, but last night when you, Professor Charpentier, were asked where you’d start to look for the killer, do you remember what you said?”

  Charpentier hesitated, perspiration now pouring off him. He glanced at Gamache, who gave the slightest of nods.

  “I said Matthew 10:36.”

  “Oui.” Gélinas turned to Gamache. “You know the reference.”

  “I taught it to all the new Sûreté agents,” said Gamache. “I’ve asked Michel Brébeuf to use it as the core of his course.”

  “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” said Gélinas. “Powerful advice. You were right, professor. That’s where I’d start too, to look for the killer. In our own household.”

  “He didn’t do it,” said Lacoste. “You know that. Why are you even pursuing it?”

  “Because you won’t.”

  And for a moment he looked like a man with a whale in his sights.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Yup, that’s what it is,” said the young woman as she wiped her hand on her white apron. “An orienteering map. But it’s old, eh? Where’d you get it?”

  She looked from the slender, simply dressed Chinese Girl to the Goth Girl. An odd couple if there ever was one.

  “It was found in a wall when they were doing renovations,” said Amelia. “What can you tell us about it?”

  The girl looked surprised. “Nothing, except what I’ve already said. I’ve seen maps sorta like this, in history books on orienteering, but never actually seen one in person. It’s sorta cool, isn’t it?”

  Amelia wondered if she knew what “cool” meant.

  The girl kept looking over her shoulder at the long line of customers waiting for coffee and doughnuts. And at her frantic supervisor, who was shooting her vile looks.

  I’m on break, she mouthed to her boss, then turned her back on the pimply young man, her eyes drawn to the map again. There was something compelling about it. Perhaps the simplicity. Perhaps the unbridled joy. Perhaps the cow.

  “Any idea who would’ve made this?” Huifen asked.

  “Nope. None. This was made by hand. No surprise. There weren’t many people doing orienteering back then.”

  As opposed to here now, thought Amelia, and asked, “What is orienteering, anyway?”

  Like Huifen, she’d looked it up online, but this girl was the head of the local club, which consisted of her, her brother and two cousins, and might be able to tell them something not found on Wikipedia.

  “It’s like a scavenger hunt,” the girl said. “But instead of written clues and puzzles to solve, we have a compass and a map. Certain spots are marked and we have to get to them as fast as we can. We call them controls.”

  “So it’s a race?” asked Huifen.

  “Yes. What makes it fun is that the fastest way between the controls isn’t always the shortest. We have to figure out the best route. And then we run.”

  Amelia wondered if she knew what “fun” meant.

  “You must be in good shape,” said Huifen.

  “We are. We’re running flat out, and not always on roads or even paths. It’s cross-country. Through fields and forests and up and down hills and over rivers. It’s crazy. You get pumped.”

  She seemed to have a good grasp on “crazy,” thought Amelia.

  “What happens when you get to a, did you call it a control?��� asked Huifen.

  “There’s a little flag and a stamp to show we’ve been there. And then we run to the next one. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular.”

  Amelia had an idea. There was, though, a virtual game of orienteering that was apparently gaining popularity.

  “Do you know anything about the history of orienteering in the area?” Huifen asked. “Who started it? Who first did it?”

  “Not really,” she shook her head. “It started before the First World War, I know that, and had something to do with military training. The guys like hearing about that. They pretend they’re on a battlefield. But I don’t know anything about how it started locally. It sorta dies out, then comes back.”

  She looked down at the map, wistfully.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Whoever did this must’ve loved orienteering. But you know, it’s also sorta strange. I mean, there’re landmarks from different seasons. And what’s with the pyramid?”

  She pointed to the upper-right quadrant of the map.

  Amelia looked at it again herself. Of all the strange things about the map, that was the weirdest. The rest could be explained, but that could not.

  “Is it an orienteering symbol?” she asked.

  The girl shook her head. “Not that I know of. What’s there? Anything?”

  Huifen brought up a map of the area on her iPhone. They crowded around as she made it larger, then smaller.

  There was, not surprisingly, no pyramid. In fact, there was no nothing. Just forest.

  “Maybe it’s a tent,” said Amelia.

  “Or a hill. A mountain,” said the girl, getting into the spirit.

  But Huifen shook her head as she examined her iPhone. “Non. Ahh, well, maybe it’s an in-joke, like the snowman and the cow.”

  “Must be,” said Amelia.

  She took a sip from the thick white mug. A Tim Hortons double double. It tasted not at all like coffee, but it did taste of treats from childhood. Sweet and rich. She looked across the table and could almost see her dad sitting there. He’d brought her to Timmy’s, as he called it, after her figure skating class. He all gruff and she in her pink sequined costume. Sitting primly.

  He’d give her one sip of his double double. Don’t tell your mother, he’d say.

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