A Great Reckoning (16 page)

“
Oui
.”

“Tell us what happened,” said Lacoste. Her voice matter-of-fact.

“I was taking Professor Leduc his morning coffee and toast. I knocked on the door, and when there was no answer I tried the handle. It was unlocked, so I opened it.”

This raised a number of questions, but Lacoste held off until he'd finished.

“I saw him right away, of course.”

He blushed again with the effort of holding it together. Keeping down the emotions, and the vomit.

“And what did you do?” she asked.

“I backed away and yelled for help.” He looked at the Commander. “I dropped the tray.”

“Naturally,” said the Commander. “I would have too.”

“Did you go into the room?” Chief Inspector Lacoste asked.

“No.”

“Even a little bit? A few steps?” she pressed, her voice suggesting it would be understandable if he had, but the cadet shook his head.

It was the last thing this young man had been tempted to do.

“Why were you taking coffee to Professor Leduc?” Beauvoir asked.

“We do it every morning. Amelia Choquet and I take shifts. A week at a time.”

There was a slight movement from Gamache, and an inhale.

He's surprised
, thought Lacoste.

“Do you know the practice of freshmen serving meals to professors was stopped when Commander Gamache took over?” Beauvoir asked.

“Professor Leduc told us that, but said it was tradition. That it helped establish respect and order and a chain of command. He said Sûreté Academy traditions were there for a reason and important to uphold.”

He said it apparently without understanding the insult to Commander Gamache. It was another small, but telling, detail. It spoke about this student. But mostly it spoke of Serge Leduc and his disdain for the new commander.

And Leduc's willingness to pass his opinions on to the cadets.

Beauvoir didn't look over at Gamache, but watched him in his peripheral vision. His face was again one of calm attentiveness. But his posture had changed. It was more tense.

“Not all traditions are good,” said Beauvoir. “That one belittles freshmen. You're agents in training, not servants. I hated it when I was a freshman. I'm interested to see that you don't seem to mind.”

“Professor Leduc explained that Amelia and I were specially chosen.”

“And did he explain what was special about you?” asked Lacoste.

“We were the most promising.”

“I see,” she said.

Lacoste turned to Gamache, but he shook his head to say he had no questions, though he was listening intently and watching the young man closely.

“The door to Professor Leduc's rooms was unlocked,” Lacoste said. At that moment her iPhone vibrated, but she ignored it. “Was that unusual?”

“No. He often unlocked it first thing in the morning, so we could get in.”

“And what did you do, once in his rooms?” asked Lacoste.

“Put down the tray and left.”

“And the times he was there?” asked Gamache, finally speaking.

“He'd thank me, and I'd leave.”

Chief Inspector Lacoste, after quickly checking a text, got up. “
Merci
, Cadet Smythe.” She turned to Gamache and Beauvoir. “Dr. Harris is here. Would you like to come?”

“I think now would be a good time to shower and change,” said Gamache. “I'll be along in a few minutes.”

He turned to Nathaniel.

“Wait here, please. Pour yourself a coffee, if you'd like.”

Gamache pointed to a coffee maker with a full carafe on the sideboard. “I'll be out soon.”

Lacoste and Beauvoir left Nathaniel pouring coffee, while Commander Gamache went into the bedroom, closing the door.

He emerged a short time later, shaved, showered, and in a fresh suit and tie. On seeing the Commander, Nathaniel got to his feet.

Gamache waved him to sit back down and, pouring himself a coffee, he joined the cadet.

The sun was up, illuminating a bleak March landscape. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, they could see patches of snow and patches of gray scrub. A month earlier it had been a wonderland of fresh, clean snow, cut across by trails left by cross-country skis and snowshoes. In another month, it would be alive with spring wildflowers and trees in fresh green bud.

But for now it was a sort of zombie landscape. A living dead.

“So, Cadet Smythe, what did you find out about the map?”

He'd asked the question in flawless English, with just a hint of a British accent, and gestured toward the framed painting on the wall.

Nathaniel hadn't been expecting that question, or the language, and he blushed again.

“Pardon?”
he asked, in French.

Gamache smiled. “It's okay to be English, you know. If you're not true to yourself, how can you ever recognize the truth in others? I was asking about the map. You and three other cadets were looking into it.”

“We stopped,” said Nathaniel, still in French. “We got sorta bogged down in coursework.”

They were in the odd position, as sometimes happened in Québec, where the Francophone was speaking English and the Anglo was speaking French.

“And what did you do with your copy of it?” he asked.

“The map? I don't know. It's around somewhere, I suppose.”

Commander Gamache leaned forward slightly. Enough to be just inside Cadet Smythe's personal space.

“I'm not asking to make conversation, young man. Everything I ask has a purpose, and never more so than now. This is a murder investigation, not a get-together for coffee.”

“Yessir.”

Nathaniel had switched to English, and his eyes had widened.

“Good. Now, let's try again. What did you do with your copy of the map?”

“I don't know.”

On seeing the Commander's face, he blushed again.

“Really, I don't remember. I don't think I threw it away. It's probably in my desk in the dorm.”

“Go and find it, please,” said Gamache, getting up. “But I do have one more question.”

“Yes?”

“Were you ever in Professor Leduc's bedroom?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, cadet. There's no fault to you. No law broken, moral or legal. At least on your side. But I need to know.”

“No, sir. I was never in his bedroom.”

Gamache studied the young man, who now looked as though his head was on fire.

“What was your relationship with Professor Leduc?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you're afraid. And you have reason to keep your private life private, especially here. This has not been, in the past, the most tolerant of institutions. I think you're very brave to come here.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Gamache smiled. And nodded. “Just remember, this is now a murder investigation. Your secrets will come out. I'm giving you a chance to tell me quietly.”

“There's nothing to tell.”

Gamache lowered his voice, even though they were alone in the room.

“I will understand,” he said. “Trust me. Please.”

Nathaniel Smythe looked into those eyes, and caught the slight scent of sandalwood and rosewater, though he could never have named the actual aromas. He knew he liked it. It was calming. As were the eyes.

But then he remembered Professor Leduc's warnings. About Commander Gamache.

And then he remembered Professor Leduc's body.

“Should I return to my dorm?” he asked, reverting to French. “I can look for the map, if you'd like.”

Gamache held his eyes for another moment, then nodded. “In a minute.”

He picked up the phone and placed a call.

Before long, there was a knock on the door, and a professor stood there.

“Please take Cadet Smythe back to his room, then on to the dining hall.”

“What should I tell the others?” Nathaniel asked at the door. “About Professor Leduc? Everyone will want to know.”

“Tell them the truth.”

When the door closed, Gamache looked at it for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the framed map on the wall.

The smears of brown that might be mud, or not. The wear and tear. The fine contours, like the lines on a weather-beaten face. The rivers and valleys. The cow and pyramid and three tiny pines. And the snowman, his arms raised in victory. Or surrender.

Gamache exhaled a long breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

The map had been hidden for a reason, Ruth had said. Walled up for a reason.

Gamache took his coffee to the window and stared out.

He thought and he thought, then he called the mayor and the chief of police.

And then he returned down the deserted hallways, to Serge Leduc's murdered body.

They'd have found it by now. What he'd seen in Serge Leduc's bedside table.

A copy of the map.

 

CHAPTER 13

Dr. Sharon Harris had seen worse in her time as coroner. Far worse. Horrible, horrific things. As far as disfigurement went, this was fairly tame. If she didn't turn him over and look at his full head. And if she didn't turn her own head, to see where the rest of his had gone.

Which, of course, she did.

Dr. Harris got to her feet and, peeling off the latex gloves, stepped away from the body of Serge Leduc and joined Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste.

“He was dead before he hit the ground. Probably just before midnight. Single shot to the temple and no other wounds. Looks like the bullet was a hollow-point. What used to be called a man stopper, for obvious reasons.”

They did not need to refer to the body to know the reason.

“Have they found the bullet yet?” Dr. Harris asked.

“No,” said Beauvoir. He waved toward the opposite wall. “They're looking.”

Just then there was a knock on the door and Armand Gamache entered. He and Dr. Harris greeted each other as old friends, having consulted on many cases in the past.

“I was just saying that the cause of death is not in doubt,” she said. “And his death was fast, almost merciful.”

“It seems Professor Leduc just stood there and let it happen,” said Isabelle Lacoste. “No sign of a struggle at all. Now why was that?”

“Because he didn't believe the murderer would actually pull the trigger?” asked the coroner.

“Maybe he didn't think the gun was loaded,” said Lacoste. “Maybe the murderer had no intention of killing Leduc and ran away, terrified at what he'd done.”

Beauvoir walked over to the Scene of Crime investigators, happy to get away from all the maybes and talk facts.

He knew that motive was important, but often they never really got to the heart of the matter. Never learned the real reasons someone took a life. Those were often too shrouded, too complex for even the killer to understand.

But good, solid evidence? That's where a murderer was found and trapped. In lies and DNA. In secrets revealed and in fingerprints found.

Still, years of working with Chief Inspector Gamache had rubbed off on him, and he grudgingly admitted that feelings played a role in creating a murderer. And could, perhaps, play a role in finding him. Just not as big a role as the facts.

Isabelle Lacoste now joined him in discussing progress with the Scene of Crime agent in charge, leaving the coroner and the Commander with the body.

Dr. Harris looked from Gamache to the homicide victim, then back to Gamache. And on her face there grew a look of surprise, even wonderment.

“You didn't like him, did you?” she said.

“Is it that obvious?”

She nodded. It was more what wasn't in his expression than what was. Compassion was missing.

“I kept him on,” said Gamache, almost under his breath. “I could have fired him.”

“Then you didn't dislike him?” asked Sharon Harris, having difficulty following. But she, more than most, knew that emotions were far from linear. They were circles and waves and dots and triangles. But they were rarely a straight line.

Every day she dissected the end result of some untamed emotion.

Gamache knelt beside the body, staring at the wound on Leduc's temple. And the much larger exit wound. Then he followed the remains of Serge Leduc, which were fanned across the room, to where agents were combing for the bullet.

“Found it.”

But the voice didn't come from one of the Sûreté agents Gamache was watching. And the find was not the bullet.

They turned and saw an agent standing at the door to the bedroom.

“In the bottom drawer, under some dress shirts,” she said as she led Chief Inspector Lacoste and the others into the bedroom.

There, under the neatly folded and laundered shirts, was a leather box. The agent had opened it, and inside was red velvet covering a precise mold. Of a revolver. There was another space for the silencer, and empty slots for six bullets.

“So it was his,” said Lacoste, and straightened up.

They looked from the empty case through the door into the living room, each trying to figure out how the revolver got from one place to the other. Had it been taken there by Leduc, or his killer?

“
Excusez-moi
,” said an agent, looking into the room. “You called the Saint-Alphonse police chief, I understand, sir.”

The agent was speaking to Gamache, who nodded. “And the mayor.”

“They're both here,” said the agent. “We've put them in your office.”

“
Merci
. I'll join them in a few minutes.”

“Fucking Leduc,” muttered Beauvoir. “Keeping a loaded gun in his rooms. Unlocked. In a school. Stupid, stupid man.”

“Either Leduc brought the gun out, or the murderer did,” said Lacoste. “In which case, the murderer must have known Leduc well enough to know there was a gun and where it was kept.”

“There's something I need to show you,” said Commander Gamache.