Glass Houses

CHAPTER 14

Isabelle Lacoste, the head of homicide for the Sûreté, arrived just as Gamache and Beauvoir reached the church. Her car, followed by the Scene of Crime van, pulled in behind the vehicle driven by the local agents.

Investigators unloaded equipment while Gamache, Beauvoir and Lacoste quickly consulted.

“Can you swab and fingerprint this?” Gamache handed an agent the key in the tissue.

“Tell me what you know,” said Lacoste, turning to Gamache.

Beauvoir suppressed a smile and wondered if either of them realized it was exactly what Gamache used to say when he was head of homicide.

“We haven’t been in yet,” said the Chief Superintendent. “Madame Gamache found the body in the basement, then locked the church. It appears to be the cobrador.”

“The what?” asked Lacoste.

Gamache, so familiar now with the thing, had forgotten that Isabelle Lacoste knew nothing about it.

“You’ll see,” he said.

“Done.” The forensics agent handed the large latchkey back to Gamache, who gave it to Lacoste.

At the top of the stairs, Gamache stepped aside while she unlocked the door and went in, followed by her Scene of Crime and forensics teams. As they streamed past him, Gamache turned and looked at the village and the villagers.

They were standing outside the bistro in a line, a semicircle. It looked, from where he stood, like a frown.

Sleet, part snow and part icy rain, was beginning to fall. And still they stood there, staring. A cluster of dark figures in the distance. Unmoving. Staring at him.

And then he went inside the church. A place that had offered peace and calm and sanctuary, even to an old woman praying for the Son of the Morning.

He went down the stairs, into near darkness.

The basement was really just one large room, with worn, scuffed linoleum floors, acoustic tile ceiling stained by water damage here and there, and fake wood siding on the walls. Chairs were stacked against the walls, and long tables, their legs folded up, leaned against one another.

Isabelle Lacoste looked around, her sharp eyes taking in the fact there was no other entrance, and while there were windows, they were covered in layers of grime. It would be easier for light, or an intruder, to enter through the walls.

But, windows aside, it was clean. Uncluttered. Didn’t even smell of mildew.

There was a kitchen at one end, with avocado appliances. And a door, open, off to the side of that.

She turned as she heard the familiar tread on the stairs, and saw Gamache walk into the room.

He gestured toward the open door.

“A root cellar,” he said, as they walked across the basement. “Madame Gamache came down looking for a vase. That’s when she found him.”

“What time?”

“About one forty-five. She locked the church and called me as soon as she got home, and Inspector Beauvoir called you.”

They both, instinctively, looked at their watches. It was three fifteen. An hour and a half.

Armand was familiar with the church basement. It was where funeral receptions were held. Where wedding feasts were often prepared. Where bridge clubs and exercise classes and bake sales took place.

It was a cheerful room that time, and taste, had left behind.

He had never been into the root cellar and didn’t even know it was there.

Chief Superintendent Gamache stood at the threshold, but didn’t go in. There was barely room for the investigators.

A light, fluorescent, artificial, had been left on by Reine-Marie. It was the only light in the small room. There were no windows here. The floor was dirt.

The space was lined with rough wooden shelves with a few vases, and rusty old tin cans, and milky preserves in mason jars.

He took all that in, but what he focused on, what everyone focused on, was the black lump in the corner. It looked as though something had erupted from the earth, been forced out of the ground.

A big black boulder.

Isabelle Lacoste turned to him, puzzled. “The cobrador?”

“Oui.”

Beauvoir was standing at the doorway with Gamache, throbbing. Wanting to go in, to join in. But when Gamache stepped back, so did he.

The coroner arrived, and after greeting Gamache, she looked at Beauvoir.

“Nice glasses.”

Then Dr. Sharon Harris walked past them and entered the root cellar.

“What did she mean by that?” asked Jean-Guy, adjusting his glasses.

“She likes them,” said Gamache automatically. “We all like them.”

Beauvoir stepped away. Unable to just stand idle and watch, he began pacing the periphery of the large room, like a predator in a cage. Smelling blood.

Once the videos and photos and samples were taken, Dr. Harris knelt beside the body.

“He’s wearing a mask,” she said, looking up into the faces.

Lacoste knelt down to get a better look, the videoing agent right beside her.

“I warn you,” said the Crown. “This next part is pretty bad. You might want to look away.”

Everyone in the courtroom leaned forward.

The video, not particularly steady but clear, showed Isabelle Lacoste, her second-in-command, and Dr. Harris bending over the dark mound.

Chief Superintendent Gamache stepped forward and knelt beside Lacoste. The shadow of another figure, Inspector Beauvoir, could be seen.

And then the camera zoomed in for a close-up of the black mass.

It was difficult to distinguish a shape, until the camera moved in even closer, on the mask.

It was cracked.

Some of the spectators in the courtroom lowered their eyes.

“I’m going to remove the mask,” Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste narrated.

More people dropped their gazes to their hands.

There was some difficulty getting it off, and the spectators saw glimpses of flesh.

More people lowered their eyes. Some closed them altogether.

Finally, by the time the mask was removed, no one in the courtroom was watching. Except the court officers.

Judge Corriveau forced herself to look, glancing over quickly to the jury and feeling sorry for the poor buggers. Who’d started the trial excited at being involved in a murder case. And would end it traumatized. Or, worse, numb to such horror.

The Crown, who’d seen this video often, stood at his desk, his lips pressed together and his hands made into fists at his sides.

Chief Superintendent Gamache narrowed his eyes. It was slightly easier to watch on video than in person, but not much.

Beauvoir, sitting in the courtroom, had his own mask on. Of professional detachment.

One of the defense lawyers shot a quick glance at the defendant, then looked away, hoping no one in the jury had seen the revulsion in his face as he’d stared at the person he was meant to defend.

The person he privately suspected had done this.

The camera zoomed in even more, in a merciless close-up.

At that stage, even Gamache looked away, then forced himself back, to stare at the giant face on the large screen.

Isabelle Lacoste handed the mask to her head of forensics, and turned to Gamache.

“You’re surprised.”

He nodded.

There was a lot of damage, but the face was recognizable.

Not a man, but a woman.

“You know her?” asked Lacoste.

“Oui. That’s Katie Evans. She’s staying at the B&B.”

Lacoste got up, and so did Gamache.

Isabelle Lacoste cast an experienced eye over the root cellar, then motioned toward the door.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said to the coroner and her second-in-command. At the door she paused. “I take it the cause of death is obvious.”

They all looked at the bloody bat, propped casually against one of the shelves, next to a stained mason jar of peaches.

“I’ll let you know if we find anything else,” said Dr. Harris. “But what’s with…”

She gestured at the costume.

“I think I’m about to find out,” said Lacoste, and followed Gamache and Beauvoir into the larger room.

On the huge screen in the courtroom, the camera followed the senior officers as they left the root cellar. Just before the camera swung back to the body, it captured Chief Superintendent Gamache as he turned and looked into the room.

An expression of extreme bewilderment on his face.