A Great Reckoning (18 page)

Commander Gamache stared into the gathering of cadets and slowly they grew silent. The room waited for his response, bracing for the explosion.

After a few very long moments, Commander Gamache did what none of them expected.

He smiled. Very, very slightly. And then the smile faded and he spoke. Softly, but the words penetrated each and every person in the room.

“Be careful. This is a time of menace. There's a murderer among us. Almost certainly in this room.” He paused, and then he looked at them with such caring that a few sighed, breathing out lifelong tension. “It's too easy to feed the anger. Too cowardly to stoke the hate. You must look inside yourself and decide who you are and who you want to be. Character is not created in times like these. It's revealed. This is a trying time. A testing time. Be careful.”

Then Armand Gamache walked off the stage.

“Coward,” the voice pursued him.

The word hit, then glided off Commander Gamache's back. He didn't pause, didn't hesitate, his stride unbroken.

Amelia sat forward, leaning toward the stage. Even after the Commander had disappeared. She stared at the empty space once occupied by him.

Commander Gamache had spoken those words to each and every cadet, including herself. But his eyes had lingered on one young man. And that was when his expression had changed. And that look of almost aching caring had settled there.

He knew exactly who had shouted those words, shot those words, at him. And Gamache had spoken directly to the young man. Be careful.

“Huh,” she murmured.

“What?” said the cadet beside her.

“Screw off,” she said, though her heart wasn't in it. She was thinking.

*   *   *

Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste, standing at the back of the room with Jean-Guy Beauvoir, inhaled sharply.

“Don't they know?” she whispered.

“Who he is?” asked Beauvoir. “They either don't know or don't care. Serge Leduc successfully poisoned the well before Gamache arrived, and added shit for the past couple of months.”

“And he couldn't fight it?” asked Lacoste.

Around them the room had erupted in speculation. About the murderer, and about the words hurled at the Commander.

“He chose not to,” said Beauvoir. “He said it was a deliberate distraction and there was too much to do to waste time waging war on the Duke.”

“They're fools.”

“Not all of them.”

While it looked, quite understandably to Lacoste, as if Gamache might have lost control of the academy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir saw something else in that room.

Like her, he'd heard the open insults to Gamache. But Beauvoir now saw pockets of quiet as some of the cadets contemplated what had just happened. And began to evolve their thinking.

*   *   *

“You're a fool,” hissed Huifen.

“What? Everyone was thinking it,” said Jacques.

“Not everyone. Not anymore anyway.”

Her keen eyes took in the activity around them. And in some cases, the inactivity. The quiet that had come over more than a few of her fellow cadets.

Then she studied him. So handsome. Fine, intelligent features. Muscular. From rock climbing and rowing and hockey. His body contained a strapping energy she found almost irresistible. She dreamed of running her hands over those taut muscles, even as she was doing it. She dreamed of wrapping her arms and legs around him, even as she was doing it.

But now, and not for the first time, she wondered what else was contained in that fine body. In that mind. And what would happen if those straps ever broke.

*   *   *

When Huifen got back to her room, she found a woman waiting for her and an agent searching her belongings.

“Cadet Cloutier?”

“
Oui
.”

“I'm Chief Inspector Lacoste, of homicide. Have a seat, please.”

Huifen sat on the edge of her bed and watched the agent go through the dresser drawers.

Lacoste took the desk chair and crossed her legs, comfortably.

“Where were you last night, between ten and two in the morning?”

“Here. In bed.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get up at all, to go to the bathroom? Get a drink?”

“No, I was asleep. Between classes and all the activities and sports, it's pretty exhausting.”

Lacoste smiled. “I remember. What was your relationship with Professor Leduc?”

“I was one of his students. And I suppose you could call him a mentor.”

“Did he choose you, or did you choose him?”

Huifen regarded the Chief Inspector. It was an insightful and uncomfortable question.

“He chose me. When I was a freshman, he invited me to bring him his morning coffee. Then, after a while, he began inviting me to his rooms in the evening.”

“What for?”

“Talks. We weren't alone,” Huifen hurried to reassure her, “if that's what you think. It wasn't like that. He just spoke to us, about policing, about the Sûreté. He took an interest in certain cadets.”

“His death must be a shock.”

And yet it was clear to Lacoste that this young woman wasn't at all shocked. And certainly not saddened. But she was nervous.

“It is,” said Huifen.

“You're just a few months away from graduating and becoming an agent in the Sûreté. You know how this works. Any idea who did this?”

“I think you should ask the Commander.”

“Really? Why?”

“They hated each other. It was obvious.”

“How so?”

“By what they said about each other.”

“What did Professor Leduc say about Commander Gamache?”

“That he was weak, and was weakening the academy and the Sûreté. That he was a coward.”

Lacoste pressed her lips together for a moment before she could speak again.

“And what did Commander Gamache say about Professor Leduc?”

Huifen opened her mouth, then slowly shut it again as she racked her brain. What had she heard him say about the Duke?

She looked at Chief Inspector Lacoste, who was nodding.

“Nothing, right?”

Huifen nodded.

“You won't make a very good agent if you take gossip as fact, Cadet Cloutier.”

The agent searching the small room leaned down and spoke into Lacoste's ear and handed her something. She looked at it and thanked him.

“Please pack up a few things,” she told Huifen, getting to her feet. “Overnight things. And please bring this with you.”

She handed the stunned young woman the map of Three Pines, and left.

*   *   *

Down the hall, Inspector Beauvoir was just leaving Jacques Laurin's room.

“I'm pretty sure he's the one who insulted Monsieur Gamache,” said Beauvoir, as the two investigators fell into step.

“Why?”

“Why do I think it, or why would he?”

“Both.”

“Because he's one of Serge Leduc's Mini-Mes. Was his servant, as a freshman.”

“So was Cadet Cloutier.” She waved toward Huifen's rooms. “Did you find the map?”

“Yes. He still has it.”

“So does Cadet Cloutier. That's two accounted for.”

“I told him to pack an overnight case and bring the map with him, but I didn't tell him where he was going. The little shit looked pretty scared.”

“But if Professor Leduc was their mentor, and they respected him, they almost certainly didn't kill him,” said Lacoste.

“Well, I wouldn't rule it out,” said Beauvoir. “Worship can turn to hatred pretty fast in young people. If Leduc found new favorites.”

“Like the other two cadets,” said Lacoste. “The freshmen.”

“Maybe.”

“You take the young woman,” said Lacoste. “I'll speak to Nathaniel Smythe again. See if he's found his map.”

*   *   *

Nathaniel produced the map.

“
Bon
.” She studied it, then handed it back. Three down. “When you met with Serge Leduc in the evenings, what did you do?”

“How do you know I met with him?”

The young man turned an outrageous color.

“I've spoken with other cadets, you know.”

“There were a bunch of us,” said Nathaniel. “We didn't meet often, just when the Duke invited us over.”

“And were there always others? Were you ever alone?”

“Never.”

“And last night?”

“I had dinner, then hockey practice, then came back here and did homework. We had to design a step-by-step investigation of a break-and-enter.”

“When did you go to bed?”

“About eleven, I guess.”

“From what you saw, did anyone particularly dislike Professor Leduc?”

“Well, he wasn't the most popular professor,” said Nathaniel. “But people respected him.”

“Respected or feared?”

Nathaniel remained silent.

“You? Which did you feel?”

“I respected him.”

“Why?”

“I— I—”

“You feared him, didn't you?” she asked quietly.

“Never. I was grateful he chose me.”

Lacoste nodded. That might actually be true. With the Duke as his mentor, the other cadets might leave him alone. But Leduc must have known this young man had been one of his rejects, and that Commander Gamache himself had reversed that decision.

Is that why Leduc had adopted him? Because Gamache had favored him? He wanted to sour anything and anyone special to the Commander?

“Please pack some things for a few nights away,” she said, getting to her feet. “And bring the map along.”

Nathaniel also rose. “What? Why?”

“Have you been taught to question orders?”

“No.”

“Then do it, please.”

She left, shaking her head. She could see what Monsieur Gamache was up against in his new post.

*   *   *

“It's here somewhere,” said Amelia.

First the Sûreté agent and now she herself searched the entire room while Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched.

It didn't take long. There was a single bed, a desk. A chest of drawers and a small closet, with a school uniform hanging there.

The chest of drawers was empty aside from one drawer of socks and underwear and bras.

But there were books. Stacked on the shelves above the desk, and sitting on the floor, lining the walls. Amelia had created a makeshift bookcase using bricks and old two-by-fours.

She opened each book, shaking it. But nothing fell out.

“Give it up,” said Beauvoir. “The map's not here.”

He indicated the bed, and she sat. He pulled the desk chair close, and after sitting down he leaned toward her and quietly asked, “Where is it?”

“I don't know.”

She seemed genuinely perplexed.

While Beauvoir didn't much like what he saw when he looked at Amelia Choquet, he had to admit since the beginning of the term Cadet Choquet had never pretended to be anything other than what she was.

It was refreshing and alarming at the same time.

But that did not mean, Beauvoir knew, that she wasn't capable of lying.

“Did you give it to Professor Leduc?”

“What?” she asked. “No, of course not. Why would I?”

“When did you last see it?” Beauvoir asked.

“I don't know.”

“Try, cadet.”

Up until then, this somewhat attractive professor had been just that to Amelia. A professor. He taught Scene of Crime management and techniques. He was also, she knew, Commander Gamache's second-in-command.

And his son-in-law. She'd learned that from the photo she'd seen in the Commander's home. But it was a secret she was hoarding, to be used at the
moment juste
.

But Amelia had not thought of him as a full-blown inspector within the homicide department, and one of the more senior officers in the Sûreté. Didn't even know he was that.

Until this moment.

Before her eyes, the professor became the senior inspector.

Amelia shook her head and lifted her hands in resignation.

“I don't know where it is.”

“Professor Leduc asked you to be one of his servants,” said Beauvoir.

“He didn't ask,” she said. “He told. And he didn't describe it as a servant. It was an honor, an opportunity.”

“Did you see it like that?”

“I didn't think I had much choice. I just did it.”

“You don't sound like you liked the man.”

“I don't like anyone,” she said.

“Did you dislike him?”

“I don't dislike anyone.”

“Really?” he said. “You're above all that nasty human stuff?”

“Look, I'm here to learn how to be a Sûreté agent. Not to make friends.”

“You do know that the people you meet here will be your colleagues for many, many years to come? Perhaps you'd better learn to like, or even to dislike, them.”

“Yessir.”

Beauvoir watched her, and in her eyes he saw intelligence. And if not fear, then worry.

She had reason, he knew, to be worried. She even had reason to be afraid.

Her map was missing. Either she gave it to the dead man, or someone took it and planted it there. Either way, attention was focusing on her. Cadet Choquet was in the crosshairs. He knew it. And clearly she knew it too.

“Pack up a few things, please. You'll be going away for a few nights. An agent will escort you out.”

“Why? Because of the map?” Amelia called after him, but got no response.

*   *   *

“May I come in?” Lacoste asked, knocking once and opening the door. “You've had your meeting with the mayor and the police chief?”

Gamache got up from behind his desk and greeted her, motioning to a chair by the sofa, while he took the other one.

“
Oui
. That poor man. I feel for him. I've tried for the last few months to regain the mayor's trust. He finally, against the wishes of his councilors, endorsed the volunteer program with the academy at the last town meeting, only to have this happen.”