A Better Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

How can they let that murderer back in the Sûreté? #losingallrespect

@dumbass: Do you mean self-respect?

They dropped Agent Cloutier at the local detachment and headed through the bright spring day, into the morgue.

Gamache had insisted on driving when he saw how exhausted Jean-Guy was.

Beside him, Jean-Guy’s lids were heavy, and he fought to keep his eyes open in the warm car as it moved smoothly along the autoroute.

“I couldn’t be happier for Annie and you,” said Armand. “Your family is growing.”

“As is yours.”

As an only child, growing up without parents, Armand had always yearned for a large family. For brothers and sisters. For aunts and uncles. It was an abstract, though potent, wish.

And now, in his late fifties, he had it. Children. Grandchildren. Sons and daughters. Of the flesh and of the heart. Those he’d held in his arms and those comrades-in-arms whose lives he held in his hands.

His family.

“When’s the baby due?”

“October.”

“Boy or girl? Do you know?”

“We do.” Jean-Guy smiled at his father-in-law. “But you’re not going to get it out of me. Annie and I want to keep that to ourselves.”

“Fair enough. Have you chosen a name?”

Jean-Guy laughed. “You’re not really very good at this interrogation thing, are you?”

“I’m hoping to learn from you, patron.”

Beauvoir smiled, and Gamache fell silent. Knowing if he did, Jean-Guy would lose the battle and let himself drift off to sleep.

He’d told Beauvoir about the search of the Tracey home. Then Beauvoir had reported on their preliminary findings at the bridge.

Now Gamache, in the silence as Jean-Guy slept, went back over that conversation.

“We lifted three sets of fresh prints off the interior of the car,” Beauvoir had said. “Probably Vivienne’s and Tracey’s. But the third?”

“Can we prove that she wasn’t alone? That someone was on the bridge with her?”

“No. That’s a problem. The heavy rain washed away all foot and tire prints.”

“Shame.” Gamache thought for a moment. “But we still think she either met someone there. Something happened, and she went off the bridge. Or—”

“Or Tracey followed her there and killed her.”

“But if he wanted her dead, why wait until she left?” mused Gamache, keeping his eyes on the highway. “He struck me as someone who doesn’t plan ahead. I can imagine him lashing out and killing her that night, in their home, either on purpose or in a fit of rage, but to follow her?”

“He told you he left her in the living room and went into his studio and drank, right?”

“Oui.”

“Maybe he worked himself into a rage. Getting angrier and angrier the more he thought about Vivienne and another man. He sees her leave and decides to follow her, thinking she’s meeting her lover.”

Gamache nodded. That, he could see.

“He’d confront them. Do you think there really was a lover?” Beauvoir asked, then yawned.

“Must have been,” said Gamache. “At least in your scenario. Otherwise why would she drive to the bridge?”

“Okay, she goes to meet a lover, but then wouldn’t Tracey kill him, too?”

“Maybe he did. But I doubt it,” Gamache said. “Like all abusers and bullies, Tracey’s a coward. He wouldn’t attack someone who could fight back.”

“So if he did follow Vivienne, he found her alone on the bridge. Waiting. And threw her in.”

“What did you find there?”

“I discovered I don’t like rotten bridges over rivers in flood.”

“Ahhh,” said Gamache. “Most helpful. Anything else?”

“Wouldn’t take much to break through the railing. It was broken from the inside out and looks recent. I think there’s little doubt that’s where Vivienne fell.”

“Any actual proof?”

“Not yet. We’re testing the wood for fibers and blood. We’ve removed the section where she broke through so technicians can take a closer look in the lab. Then there’s the duffel bag,” said Beauvoir. “Lacoste pointed out that most of the clothes are for summer.”

“Huh,” said Gamache. “That’s strange.”

“Not the only strange thing. You know those pills in the bag?”

“Yes.”

“They’re abortion pills.”

“They’re what?” Gamache glanced over quickly before returning his eyes to the road.

“Medication to end an early pregnancy. Looks like she got them on the black market.”

“I wonder how far along she was,” said Gamache.

It looked to both of them as though she was beyond what could be called an early pregnancy. But the coroner would tell them.

“Isabelle doesn’t think she packed the bag, and neither do I,” said Jean-Guy, yawning again. Between the heat of the car and the gentle hum of the engine, Jean-Guy could feel himself losing the fight to stay alert. To even stay awake.

“You think Tracey packed the bag,” said Gamache.

“Yes. I think it was a simple mess of a murder. You found blood in the living room. And we found blood in the car. Tracey admits beating her. I think either he killed her in the home, beat her to death, drove her to the bridge, and threw her over, wanting to make it look like suicide or an accident, or he took her there while she was still alive and threw her off.”

“I don’t think he beat her to death in the house. There wasn’t enough blood. And if she was still alive, why would she get into the car with him?”

“Yes, that’s a problem. She wouldn’t. Not voluntarily, anyway.”

“So the most likely explanation is that he knocked her unconscious, drove her there, and threw her off the bridge,” said Gamache. “Hoping, like you said, it would look like an accident or suicide. He packed the duffel bag, grabbing things at random, and threw it in after her. But people don’t pack for suicide. If that’s what he wanted us to believe, he made a mistake.”

“There’s another problem,” said Beauvoir. “The blood smears are on the driver’s side. It looks like she was hurt, but conscious enough to drive.”

“So she took herself there,” said Gamache, considering. “And there’s no physical evidence of anyone else on that bridge with her.”

“Not yet. You think he didn’t do it?”

“Tracey? Oh, he did it. It’s just a matter of understanding the evidence. And getting enough to convict.”

He glanced over at his companion. Jean-Guy’s eyes were just about closed.

Within a minute of Gamache’s falling silent, Jean-Guy had fallen asleep.

By the time they pulled in to the morgue, Gamache had been over that conversation a few times but was no closer to a solution.

When Agent Cloutier returned to the local detachment, she found a very different Homer Godin than the man she’d left.

“How come I’m in here and he’s free?” he demanded. “Let me out.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You’re a goddamned cop.”

Lysette paled. Not used to being spoken to that way. And certainly not by Homer. She stared into those angry eyes and knew in her rational mind that it wasn’t Homer speaking. It was grief.

But though her brain told her that, her heart still recoiled.

She saw Homer now in a different light. Not as a man but as a father. Not having children herself, she hadn’t quite appreciated the depth of his feeling for his daughter. Now she knew what her friend Kathy had been talking about. That bond between father and daughter. It was almost cliché and, in some cases, mythic.

Kathy had long complained, but Lysette, as much as she loved her friend, could understand why Vivienne would be drawn to her father and not her mother.

Kathy was not demonstrative. She was efficient. Kept a clean and tidy and orderly home. But Homer brought the joy into it. As Vivienne brought joy into his life.

It was a perfect little ecosystem. But it left Kathy on the outside looking in.

As soon as Vivienne had been born, her father had become simply skin stretched over his love for his daughter.

But now she was gone. And there was nothing holding him together.

Except hatred.

Chief Inspector Gamache had seen that before anyone else. He knew, perhaps because of his love for his own daughter, what a person in that position could do. Would do.

Unless they were locked up.

Though Agent Lysette Cloutier did just wonder if it would really be such a bad thing, if she opened the cell door.

Homer would murder Carl Tracey, of course. But he’d almost certainly be given as light a sentence as the justice system allowed.

He would not be held criminally responsible. And he would clearly not be a menace to society. Just to one man.

She would also be arrested and tried, for letting him out. But at least Homer would know what she was willing to do for him.

The other agents in the room, including Agent Cameron, looked at her as she returned to her desk and brought up the Instagram account.

Do they suspect what I’m considering doing?

Did it matter?

Lysette Cloutier looked down at her computer and saw, again, the curt No on the screen. Now a few hours old. She typed in her own reply.

@NouveauGalerie: Sorry. Busy with buyers. No worries. Lots of other promising ceramicists. I’m sure you have other options. Good luck to you.

Within two minutes there was a reply. Again, terse. But enough. It contained an invitation to join Carl Tracey’s private Instagram account.