A Great Reckoning (32 page)

Beauvoir glanced at Gamache in slight apology.

“Whose was on the gun case?” asked Gamache.

“Cadet Choquet's.”

Gamache drew his brows together.

“And the weapon?” asked Lacoste.

“The prints on the revolver were smudged, unfortunately, but there were partials of a number of people. The coroner's report came in too. Nothing unusual about Leduc. He was a healthy forty-six-year-old male. No evidence of recent sexual activity. He'd had a meal and some Scotch.”

“Intoxicated?” asked Gélinas.

“No. And no bruising or cuts to indicate a fight.”

“So he just stood there while someone put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger?” asked Lacoste.

She looked around the conference table, all of them also trying to imagine how that could happen. Especially to someone like Leduc who was, by all accounts, combative at the best of times.

The RCMP officer leaned forward and shook his head. “No. It makes no sense. We're obviously missing something. The partials on the gun. Could Leduc have handed it around? And eventually handed it to his killer?”

“Who shot him in front of a crowd?” asked Lacoste.

“So what're you thinking?” asked Gélinas.

“I'll tell you what I think,” said Beauvoir. “I think Leduc was proud of that revolver for some reason and wanted to show it off. So when people visited, he brought it out and handed it to them. Maybe made up some story about a long-lost relative's heroics in the war. That's where all the prints came from.”

“Did you read the footnote from the forensics team?” Gélinas asked.

Gamache had, as had, he could see, Beauvoir and Lacoste. Though they'd chosen not to say anything.

“It's the extrapolation on the partial prints on the gun,” continued the RCMP officer. “Not admissible, but suggestive. Who the various prints might belong to. I see that this Cadet Choquet's prints are there too.”

“As partials. Too smudged to clearly identify. We don't take that seriously,” said Lacoste. “It's more guess than science. This is complex enough. We need to stick to facts.”

“I agree,” said Gélinas, letting it drop. But not before he looked over at Gamache, who held his gaze.

The footnote gave percentage likelihood of the partials belonging to certain people. Not surprisingly, the largest percentage match was Leduc himself. More surprising was another name that showed up, besides Amelia Choquet. There was a forty percent chance that at least one of the prints belonged to Michel Brébeuf.

A number of other names showed up in the report. There was, according to the computer extrapolation, a very small chance Richard Nixon, the former American president, had handled the gun. Which was why the investigators tended not to take these results seriously. They also ignored the possibility, admittedly remote, that Julia Child was the murderer.

But there was one other name that stood out.

The analysis found a forty-five percent probability that at least one of the prints belonged to Armand Gamache.

Gélinas looked from the report to the Commander, while Lacoste and Beauvoir looked away. Only Charpentier spoke, in a sputter of sweat.

“Now, how did your prints get on the murder weapon?”

Armand Gamache gave him a tight, cold smile.

“Partials,” Beauvoir reminded Charpentier, and anyone else in the room who harbored doubt.

“Did you handle the weapon?” Lacoste asked Gamache.

“I did not.”

“Good. Then can we move on, please?”

“I spoke to the head of public affairs at the gun manufacturer,” said Beauvoir, changing the subject. “McDermot and Ryan. A woman named Elizabeth Coldbrook in,” he checked his notes, “Dartmouth, England.”

He forwarded copies of her email and the attachments.

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 suspect 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.”