A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 29

“I’m sorry, but there’s no Mrs. Clairton here,” said the pleasant young woman on the phone.

“I said, ‘Clairton,’” repeated Isabelle Lacoste.

“Yes. No. Exactly. Clairton.”

Lacoste stared at the phone. She hadn’t been looking forward to this call, knowing it would probably end up like this. The woman with the thick British accent trying to understand the woman with the Québécois accent.

Both speaking apparently unintelligible English.

It was doubly annoying that Beauvoir, whose rough English had been picked up on the streets of east-end Montréal, had absolutely no trouble making himself understood. And understanding. While she, who’d actually studied English, was constantly misunderstood.

Lacoste looked down at the email from the woman at the gun manufacturer, McDermot and Ryan, in the UK.

She’d clearly signed it Elizabeth Coldbrook-Clairton.

“This is McDermot and Ryan?” asked Lacoste.

“No, you’ve reached McDermot and Ryan.”

Lacoste sighed at the completely predicable response.

“Well, good-bye then,” said the cheerful young woman.

“Wait,” said Lacoste. “How about Coldbrook? Do you have an Elizabeth Coldbrook?”

There was a long pause, during which Lacoste wondered if the receptionist had hung up. But finally the voice came down the line.

“No, but we do have an Elizabeth Coldbrook.”

“Yes, yes,” said Lacoste, hearing the desperation in her own voice.

“One moment, please.”

A few seconds later another voice, this one more efficient but less cheerful, said, “Hello, how may I help you?”

“Elizabeth Coldbrook-Clairton?”

There was a very slight hesitation. “Elizabeth Coldbrook, yes. Who’s this?”

“My name is Isabelle Lacoste. I’m investigating the murder of a professor here in Québec. Canada.”

“Oh yes, I spoke to your supervisor this morning.”

“Actually, I’m the supervisor. Chief Inspector Lacoste, of the Sûreté du Québec. You were speaking with Inspector Beauvoir.”

There was laughter down the line. “Oh, I am sorry. You’d think I’d know better than to assume, especially after all these years in public affairs and being the head of a department myself. Désolé.”

“You speak French?” asked Lacoste, still in English.

“I do. Your English is better than my French, but we can switch if you like.”

Oddly, Lacoste could understand this woman’s English perfectly. Perhaps her clipped tones made it closer to the mid-Atlantic accent she was used to in Canada.

“English is fine,” said Lacoste. “I’d like to send you a photograph. It’s a revolver.”

She hit send.

“I’ve already seen it. Your colleague emailed it to me this morning,” said Elizabeth Coldbrook. “Oh, wait a minute. This isn’t the same picture. What is it?”

“It’s a detail of a stained-glass window.”

Lacoste hit send on another picture and she heard the click as Madame Coldbrook opened it as well.

“I see. A memorial window. Striking image.”

“Oui. The sidearm the soldier is carrying, can you tell the make?”

“I can. It’s definitely one of ours. The styling is distinctive. A McDermot .45. They were issued to most of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War.”

“This was a Canadian soldier.”

“I believe many of them were also issued that revolver. At least, the officers were. He looks so young.”

Both women, both mothers, looked at the boy, with the rifle and the revolver and the frightened, determined, forgiving expression.

“This is the same make but not the same gun used in your crime,” said Madame Coldbrook. “That revolver was new. Sold to the man just a few years ago.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“You think there’s a connection between a man who died and a soldier of the Great War?”

“We’re really just tying up details.”

“I see. Well, if there’s nothing more I can do…”

“Merci. Oh, there is one other little thing. Just curious, but do you go by the name Elizabeth Coldbrook, or Clairton, or Coldbrook-Clairton? For our report.”

“Elizabeth Coldbrook is fine.”

“But you signed your email Coldbrook-Clairton. And I notice the Clairton is in a slightly different font. Is there a reason for that?”

“It’s a mistake.”

Chief Inspector Lacoste let that statement sit there. How, she wondered, did someone mistake their own name? Misspell, perhaps. Her best friend had, out of nerves, signed her first driver’s license Lousie instead of Louise. That had haunted her well beyond the expiry date, as her friends resurrected the error every time they had a few drinks.

But perhaps Madame Coldbrook had been married and was recently divorced. And reverted to her maiden name. That would explain the disappearing hyphen and the mistake, on all sorts of levels. And her guarded tone when asked about it.

“Thank you for your time,” said Lacoste.

“I hope you find out what happened,” said Madame Coldbrook, before hanging up.

Isabelle put the receiver down but remained unsettled by the conversation. Madame Coldbrook has been polite and helpful, readily volunteering information. But something didn’t fit.

It wasn’t until she and Beauvoir were driving down to Three Pines later in the afternoon that it struck her.

If Madame Coldbrook had once used her husband’s name, hyphenated, then surely the receptionist would have recognized it.

“Unless the receptionist was new,” said Jean-Guy, when she brought up the issue. “The one I spoke to sounded young.”

“True.”

It was just past six in the evening, but the sun was already touching the horizon. After turning off the autoroute onto the secondary road, Beauvoir spoke again.

“You’re still not sure?”

“If her separation or divorce was so new that she still mistakenly signed her name that way, then the receptionist must have only just started. She sounded young, but experienced.”

“How do you know? Did you understand a word she said?”

“I understood the tone,” said Lacoste in a mock-defensive voice.

“I don’t see how it matters,” said Beauvoir. “What name she uses, or even the gun and the map and the stained-glass window.”

“I’m not sure either,” admitted Lacoste. “And it wouldn’t, except for one thing.”

“Serge Leduc had a copy of the map in his drawer.”

“And the soldier boy had the map in his knapsack.”

“And both died violent deaths,” said Beauvoir. “But not because of the map.”

“At least not the boy,” agreed Lacoste. “But why in the world would Leduc have the map and keep it so close to him? Not in his desk, not in his office, but in his bedside table. What do you keep there?”

“Now that’s a little personal.”

“Let me guess.” Lacoste thought for a moment. “A package of mints. Some very old condoms, because you can’t be bothered to throw them out. No, wait. You keep them because they remind you of your wild yout.”

“What’s a yout?” he asked, and she laughed at their running joke, quoting the famous line from My Cousin Vinny.

“Okay, so what else would be in your bedside table? Some AA reading and a photograph of you and Annie. Noooo. The sonogram showing the baby. So that when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, you can look at it.”

Jean-Guy stared straight ahead. It seemed Isabelle had made it well past his drawers and right into his private parts.

“My turn,” he said. “You haaavvvve…”

He thought for a kilometer. The road was getting rougher and rougher as it changed from asphalt to dirt, and the heaves and holes of the spring thaw grew more obvious and devious.

“Used Kleenexes from wiping your kids’ noses when they came to you crying in the night. You have scraps of paper with scribbles on them you can’t make out but are afraid to throw away in case they turn out to be important. Probably a mix of thoughts on a case and random fears about the kids. Oh, and you have the note Robert left you the first time he signed, ‘Love, Robert.’ Oh, and a cigar.”

“A cigar?”

“That was a guess. You seem the sort.”

“Asshole.”

“But I see what you mean,” said Jean-Guy as he turned onto the almost invisible side road. “There’s some junk, but mostly we keep things that are precious in our bedside tables.”

“Or at least intimate things,” said Isabelle. “The map wasn’t like your condoms, shoved there and forgotten. The Duke didn’t just keep it, he kept it close. But not visible. Why?”

Beauvoir tried to imagine Serge Leduc, sleepless, turning on the lamp and opening the bedside drawer and pulling out the old map. As he did the sonogram. Jean-Guy had to admit he was still trying to make out the limbs, the head, the light heart of their baby.

Did Leduc stare at the map, trying to figure it out? Did it give him comfort on long winter nights?

Beauvoir could not imagine Leduc needing comfort, never mind finding it in the odd little map.

“Maybe it wasn’t important to him in a personal way,” he suggested. “People also keep things there they don’t want others to see.”

“But the map wasn’t secret or something to be ashamed of,” said Lacoste. “Monsieur Gamache has the original framed on his wall at the academy. He gave copies to the cadets.”

“Yes, but Serge Leduc didn’t want anyone to know he’d gotten his hands on a copy.”

“But again”—she raised her hands and let them drop into her lap in exasperation—“why did he have a copy?”

She could see his face harden.

“What’s wrong? What’ve you just thought?”

“Leduc probably got the map from Amelia Choquet.”

“Right.”

“Okay, let’s say she gave it to him. And he put it in his bedside drawer. What’s the natural conclusion? What did you really think, Isabelle, when you heard that?”

“I wondered if Professor Leduc hadn’t just gotten his hands on the map, he’d also gotten his hands on the cadet. Had it been found in his office, I probably wouldn’t have thought that, but a bedside table’s different.”

“Yes,” said Beauvoir. “I thought the same thing. I think that’s what everyone would suspect. That Leduc and Cadet Choquet had a relationship. An intimate, sexual one. And the map was a kind of prize, a talisman. Proof of his conquest.”

“A notch in the bedpost,” said Lacoste with distaste.

“And it might be true,” said Beauvoir. “Or it might not.”

“Cadet Choquet is the unusual one, right?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Spiky black hair. Unnaturally pale skin. Nose, eyebrows, ears, lips and tongue pierced.”

“Tattoos,” nodded Lacoste. “I’ve seen her. This isn’t your parents’ academy. What do you think of her? Could she have done it?”

It was the most serious of questions, and needed reflection.

“Absolutely,” he said immediately. “She’s smart and angry.”

“But is she clever?”

Now Jean-Guy reflected. That really was the ingredient necessary to get away with murder. To commit murder, all you needed was rage and a weapon. Any fool could kill. It took cleverness to baffle the best minds in homicide in the nation.

Was she clever? It went beyond smart. Beyond cunning. Clever was a combination of all those things, with an added twist of guile.

“I don’t know if she’s clever. There’s a sort of innocence about her.”

He surprised himself with that, but he knew it was true.

“Probably explains the anger,” said Lacoste. “The innocent are often upset when the world doesn’t live up to their expectations. Doesn’t mean she’s innocent of the crime.”

Jean-Guy nodded. “I spoke to her professors this afternoon. She shows up to class, sits at the back, rarely contributes, but when called upon is almost always unconventional but insightful. She frankly intimidates most of her profs, who don’t much like her.”

“She intimidates with her looks, her demeanor, or because she’s so obviously smarter than they are?”

“Probably all three. She certainly doesn’t conform.”

“And her uniform?”

It was a good question. Many of the freshmen, unused to uniforms, adjusted them to make them more personal and stylish. In the past, Leduc had meted out punishments for that, but Commander Gamache had chosen a different route. Much to the surprise of the seasoned professors, the new commander allowed the adjustments.

“But it’s disrespectful,” Professor Godbut had protested at a staff meeting.

“How so?” asked Gamache.

That had flummoxed the professor, until Leduc had said, in a drawl, “Because it’s not just a uniform. It’s a symbol of the institution. Would you have allowed your Sûreté agents to dye their uniforms, or wear smiley-face buttons, or do up their slacks with their ties?”

“Never,” admitted Gamache. “But if the agents wanted to do that, they were clearly in the wrong job. You’re right, the uniform is a symbol of the institution. And if they have so little respect for the institution, then they need to leave. Here, at the academy, is where we earn their respect. We don’t teach it. We don’t impose it. We model it, we work for it. We’re asking these young men and women to be willing to die in that uniform. The least we can do is earn that sacrifice. Let them wear the uniform inside out if they want to, now. If at the end of the year they still are, then we know we haven’t done our jobs.”

“Bet that shut them up,” said Lacoste, when Beauvoir related the story.

“It did, though I don’t think it convinced them of anything other than that Commander Gamache was soft.”

“And Cadet Choquet’s uniform?”

“Spotless. Absolutely perfect.”

“Where’s she from? Her background?”

“Montréal. She lived in a rooming house in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve before coming here. According to notes Monsieur Gamache attached to her application, it seemed there was some question of prostitution and drug use. He doesn’t say it outright, but if you know him, you know the shorthand.”

“A drugged-up whore?” said Lacoste. “Excellent.”

And yet, it wasn’t a complete surprise. She suspected if they looked in Gamache’s bedside table, they’d find all sorts of lost souls he put there for safekeeping. And maybe a baguette.

“Her high school marks were mixed. She barely scraped by, though she did well, but erratically, in history, languages and literature.”

“She only did what interested her,” said Lacoste. “Lazy?”

“Looks like it. Or at least, not motivated.”

“Now, why would someone like that apply to the Sûreté Academy?” asked Lacoste.

“A dare, maybe? A joke. And then when she was accepted, she decided to try it out.”

“Does she strike you as the joking kind?”

“No.” He drove in silence, thinking of the dark girl with the pale face. The contradictory girl.

“She sounds like she can take care of herself,” said Lacoste. “Doesn’t sound like the sort Leduc could take advantage of.”

Beauvoir opened his mouth to say something, taking in a breath, but then changed his mind.

“Go on. Say it,” said Isabelle.

Their headlights picked up the snowbanks on either side of the road, and the leafless, lifeless, trees.

“Imagine being nineteen or twenty and on the streets,” he said. “Prostituting yourself. Numbing yourself with drugs. And ahead all you see is more of the same. And you know, at nineteen, that life is not going to get better. What would you do?”

The two agents stared at the distorted, grotesque shadows of the bare trees, thrown onto the snow by the harsh headlights.

“Put a bullet in your brain?” he asked quietly. “OD? Or would you make one last mighty leap for the lifeboat?”

“You think the academy is her lifeboat?” asked Lacoste.

“I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But I do think Monsieur Gamache thought so, and he rowed out to get her. She’d been turned down, you know, by Leduc.”

“I’d have thought Leduc would want someone so broken.”

“No. I think he preferred to do the breaking.”

“Goddamned Leduc,” said Lacoste. “He’d know her background, and he’d know she’d have no choice but to submit and be quiet about it. You think she killed him? You think she couldn’t take it anymore and shot him with his own gun?”

“It’s possible,” said Beauvoir.

“But?”

“I think Leduc had more on his mind than sexual gratification. I think he was even more devious.”

“Go on,” said Lacoste.

“Who was the biggest threat to Serge Leduc?”

“That’s easy. Monsieur Gamache.”

“Exactly. He knew Monsieur Gamache was coming after him. He must’ve felt him getting closer and closer. And he wasn’t facing just losing his job. If that’s all it was, Gamache would’ve fired him months ago. No, once Gamache had the proof of his criminal activities, Leduc would be arrested. And this time there’d be no one there to save him. He must’ve grown more and more desperate.”

“Yes,” said Lacoste, getting a better idea of where this might be heading and not liking it at all.

“There’re two ways Leduc could stop Monsieur Gamache,” said Beauvoir. “Kill him, or completely undermine his credibility.”

Lacoste’s mind raced ahead, seeing the scenario unfold.

“The map,” she said. “Leduc didn’t take it for himself. He took it to plant in Gamache’s bedside table as proof the Commander was having an affair with one of the students. Amelia Choquet.”

“Or if not proof, then enough to raise suspicions, gossip. And we know how potent that is.”

“No one would believe her when she denied it,” said Lacoste. “Her history of prostitution would come out. A history Monsieur Gamache was aware of.”

“A student originally turned down, that Gamache accepted,” said Beauvoir. “A young woman no one thought should be in the academy. It would look suspicious.”

“It already does,” said Lacoste. “But anyone who knows Monsieur Gamache would never believe it.”

“True, but who knows him at the academy? The cadets? Their parents? The other professors? He was already distrusted because of all the changes he’d made. Rumors are hard to prove, but they’re even harder to disprove. We both know that character assassination is easy. All it takes is a suggestion. A well-placed word in someone’s ear.”

“Like a bullet to the brain,” said Lacoste quietly, imagining the whispering campaign. Murdering a man’s reputation.

“And once it got out to the media and the public…” said Jean-Guy.

“But Monsieur Gamache wouldn’t care,” said Lacoste. “He’s had worse leveled at him. He and his friends and family would know the truth.”

“That’s not the issue. All Leduc needed was to undermine his credibility,” said Beauvoir. “Accusing Leduc of criminal activity would then seem like the desperate act of a cornered man.”

“There is one other way Leduc could stop Monsieur Gamache’s investigation,” said Lacoste slowly. “Something more sure to work than blackmail or character assassination. After all, if Monsieur Gamache had proof of Leduc’s crimes, charges would still be laid. It wouldn’t matter what people thought of Gamache. The evidence against Leduc would speak for itself. No, Leduc would have to stop his investigation completely. And what could possibly get Monsieur Gamache to stop?”

Beauvoir was quiet. He too had thought of it, but had chosen not to say anything. He should have known Isabelle Lacoste would see it too. Though maybe she didn’t have the same thing in mind.

“Earlier this month, Monsieur Gamache said he thought a car followed him home to Three Pines,” said Lacoste, and Beauvoir wilted a little.

“Suppose it was Leduc?” she said. “Suppose he followed Gamache, and the map?”

“And it led him to the village,” said Beauvoir.

“It led him to the solution to his problem.”

They sat in strained silence, both following dark thoughts.

“You don’t think…” began Lacoste.

“That Gélinas is right?” asked Beauvoir. “That Monsieur Gamache killed Serge Leduc? Non.” Jean-Guy gave one firm shake of his head. “He would never kill an unarmed man, and he sure as hell would never do it in the school. Non. It’s ridiculous.”

“But suppose Leduc found out where Gamache lived, and had the map to retrace his route,” insisted Lacoste. “So he could find his way back to Three Pines.”

Beauvoir stared straight ahead, blinkered.

But Isabelle Lacoste pushed forward, into territory Beauvoir was refusing to enter. Deeper into the darkness.

“Suppose he knew that Gamache was about to expose him. Suppose the two men met later in Leduc’s rooms, and Leduc threatened Madame Gamache. Or…”

“Annie.”

The very suggestion of anyone even thinking of harming his pregnant wife made Jean-Guy white with rage.

And he knew then that the scenario Lacoste was putting forward was possible. Not probable. But possible. Just.

Because he could see himself doing the same thing.

“I don’t think Monsieur Gamache killed Leduc,” said Beauvoir. “But if he did, in a moment of madness, to protect his family, he’d admit it.”

Isabelle Lacoste nodded. She tended to agree. But then, who knew what people would really do in that situation? Gélinas was right about one thing. If anyone could stage a murder scene to misdirect, it would be Armand Gamache.

“Something else is strange, Jean-Guy.”

When she used his first name, he knew it was serious. And off the record.

“Oui?”

“Deputy Commissioner Gélinas said in the meeting this morning that Monsieur Gamache had asked for him specifically.”

Beauvoir had forgotten about that, in the press of other issues raised in the meeting.

“But I thought you put in the request,” he said.

“Yes, I thought so too. But Monsieur Gamache admitted it. He even said he’d asked for Gélinas because he admired him.”

“So Monsieur Gamache went behind your back?” asked Beauvoir. “And arranged for the RCMP Deputy Commissioner to come down and be the independent observer?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

So much of what his father-in-law was doing seemed out of character. Could murder possibly be one of those things?

“I have a bad feeling about this, Jean-Guy.”

Beauvoir remained mute. Unwilling to agree, but unable to disagree.

The world ahead of them disappeared. The distorted shadows, the snowbanks, even the road. There were just stars and the night sky. And for one giddy moment it felt as though they’d floated off the end of the world.

And then the nose of the car dipped down, and out of nothing there appeared the cheerful little village of Three Pines.