She shook her head and took a deep breath, exhaling before she spoke again.
“We have a problem, Armand.”
He nodded, looking at both of them. “We have a big problem.”
Superintendent Brunel sat and indicated chairs for the other two, who joined her. She paused, about to cross the Rubicon. “Who do you think did it?”
Gamache held her intelligent, bright eyes. “You know who I think.”
“I do, but I need you to say it.”
“Chief Superintendent Sylvain Francoeur.”
Outside they could hear the shrieks of children chasing each other, running and laughing.
“This’ll be fun,” Jérôme Brunel said, rubbing his hands together at the thought of a thorny puzzle.
“Jérôme!” said his wife. “Haven’t you been listening? The head of the Sûreté du Québec may very well have done something not only illegal, but deeply cruel. An attack on officers dead and alive. And their families. For his own ends.”
Thérèse turned back to Gamache. “If it was Francoeur, why would he do it?”
“I don’t know. But I know he’s been trying to get rid of me for years. He might have thought this would be the final shove.”
“But the video didn’t make you look bad, Armand,” said Jérôme. “Just the opposite. It made you look very good.”
“And what would cripple you, Jérôme?” Gamache looked with affection at the man across from him. “Being falsely accused or being falsely praised? Especially when there was so much pain and so little to praise.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Jérôme, looking his friend square in the face.
“Merci,” Gamache inclined his head, “but it wasn’t my finest hour either.”
Jérôme nodded. The spotlight could be a tricky thing. It could send a person rushing for someplace dim to hide. Away from the crippling glare of public approval.
Gamache hadn’t run, but both Jérôme and Thérèse knew he’d been sorely tempted. Had come within a breath of handing in his warrant and retiring. And no one would have blamed him. Just as no one blamed him for the deaths of those young agents. No one, except Gamache himself.
But instead of retiring, retreating, the Chief Inspector had stayed.
And Jérôme wondered if this was why. If there was one more thing Chief Inspector Gamache needed to do. His final duty, to both the living and the dead.
To find the truth.
* * *
Agent Isabelle Lacoste wiped her face with her hands and looked at her watch.
Seven thirty-five in the evening.
The Chief had called earlier with what seemed a strange request. A suggestion really. It had meant extra work, but she’d assigned another agent to the search. Now five of them were going over the files in the morgue of the Montréal daily La Presse.
It was going much more quickly, but not knowing when the review had been published, not the year, not even the decade, was difficult. And Chief Inspector Gamache had just made it more difficult still.
“Look at this,” one of the junior agents said, turning to Lacoste. “I think I’ve found it.”
“Oh, thank God,” moaned another.
The other three agents crowded around the microfiche.
“Can you magnify it?” Lacoste asked and the agent clicked a dial. The screen leapt closer, and clearer.
There, in bold type, were the words “A Deeply Moving Exhibit.” And what followed was not so much a review or critique but a comedy routine, a riff on the word “move,” as in “movement.” As in “bodily function.”
Even the drained agents chuckled as they read.
It was juvenile, immature. But still, quite funny. Like watching someone slip on a banana peel. And fall. Nothing subtle about it. But for some reason laughable.
Isabelle Lacoste did not laugh.
Unlike the others, she’d seen how this review concluded. Not with the period on the page, but with the body sprawled in the late spring garden.
It started with a joke, and it ended in murder.
Agent Lacoste had copies of the review printed out, making sure the date was clear. Then she thanked and dismissed the other agents and got into her car for the drive back to Three Pines. Convinced that in her car she carried a conviction.
TWENTY-THREE
Peter sat in Clara’s studio.
She’d gone off right after a fairly silent supper to speak with Myrna. He hadn’t been enough after all. He’d been tested, he knew. And found wanting.