All the Devils Are Here

CHAPTER 10

The coroner knelt beside the body.

“You’re here, good,” she said, her voice heavy with impatience and annoyance. “We can finally start.”

Reaching out gloved hands, she expertly turned the stiff body.

It was their first good look at the dead man.

Even in death, he had an air of success about him. Healthy. Wealthy. But was he wise? One thing was certain: Gamache had never seen him before.

The coroner described her observations.

“Male, Caucasian. Approximately seventy-five years of age. Shot in back and head. No apparent wounds to the front of the body. There’s rigor. Death was more than twelve hours ago, less than twenty-four. Nothing in his hands. Nails look clean. There doesn’t appear to have been a struggle. Slight bruising to the face, probably caused in the fall.” She looked up at the Prefect. “I’d say he was dead before he hit the ground.”

“Excuse me,” they heard. “Excusez-moi.” Everyone turned to see a younger man in jacket, jeans, and scarf tied around his neck trying to get through the wall of cops.

“Who are you?” demanded one of the gendarmes.

Instead of answering, he turned to Gamache. “Reine-Marie called me. I came right over.”

“This’s Jean-Guy Beauvoir, my son-in-law,” explained Gamache.

“Well, he shouldn’t be here,” said Fontaine. “Please wait outside. This’s a crime scene.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jean-Guy. He had sympathy for this officer, who was obviously the agent in charge. But instead of leaving, he took a step forward and stood beside Gamache.

“Jean-Guy was my second-in-command,” Gamache explained to Dussault and Fontaine. “He ran homicide for more than a year before moving to Paris. He also knows Stephen. Do you mind?”

“If he stays?” Fontaine looked at Beauvoir as though he was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe.

Then she appealed to the Prefect, who shrugged.

“Fine,” she said. “As long as I don’t have to deal with him.”

“Is there a wallet?” Dussault asked. “Any ID at all?”

“None,” she said, kneeling beside the coroner now. “All his pockets are turned out.”

“May I?” asked Gamache.

“Oh, what the fuck,” muttered Fontaine. Then gestured toward the body, inviting Gamache forward and watching as he pulled aside the dead man’s jacket and felt inside. He lifted a flap to reveal a hidden zipper and pocket.

But he didn’t undo it, preferring to let Fontaine do that.

A moment later she pulled out a thin wallet.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“It’s something seasoned travelers often do. Have hidden pockets in their clothes.”

He chose not to explain that Stephen also had one. Nor did he tell them that he and Reine-Marie had found Stephen’s agenda and passport there.

Fontaine handed the wallet to the Prefect, who walked away from the activity around the body. Gamache and Beauvoir joined him by the window.

“His name’s Alexander Francis Plessner,” said Dussault. “Mean anything to you?”

Armand thought. “Non. Stephen never mentioned him. You?”

Jean-Guy shook his head.

“Driver’s license is from Ontario,” said Dussault.

Irena Fontaine joined them and gave Dussault a passport. “We found it under that dresser. But no phone yet, and no keys.”

“If they found his passport,” said Gamache, “they must’ve realized they hadn’t killed Stephen Horowitz.”

“They killed the wrong man,” said Dussault.

“Or not,” said Gamache, and the Prefect nodded. Or not.

“Canadian,” said Jean-Guy, looking at the passport. “Issued a year ago.”

Claude Dussault flipped through it and sighed. “With kiosks at most customs now, passports aren’t stamped anymore. We’ll have to be in touch with Interpol.”

“I’ll scan the bar code over later today,” said Irena Fontaine.

“Best to do it as soon as possible,” said Gamache. “In my dealings with Interpol, it can take a little while for them to get the information. Even days.”

“This’s the brigade criminelle, monsieur,” she said. “In Paris. Not the Sûreté du Québec. Interpol responds quickly to us. They know if we ask, it must be serious.”

Beauvoir opened his mouth, but at a small glance from Gamache remained quiet.

This Fontaine obviously didn’t know that Gamache had been approached in just the last six months to move to Lyon and take over Interpol. He’d refused, preferring to hunt murderers in Québec.

If Gamache wasn’t going to tell her, he sure wouldn’t. Though he was longing to.

“Thank you for explaining that, Commander,” said Gamache. “Does the passport have any stamps at all?”

“Only one,” said Dussault. “A trip to Peru a year ago.”

“Peru?” asked Beauvoir.

“Big tourist spot,” said Dussault. “Machu Picchu. The Nazca Lines.”

“The what?” asked Fontaine, and Beauvoir was glad she was the one who showed ignorance. Normally that was his job.

He’d actually thought the Prefect had said “Nascar,” and was about to ask about that.

“Look them up,” said Dussault. “One of the great mysteries of the world.”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars Canadian,” Fontaine reported as she went through the wallet. “Seventy euros. Two Visa cards and”—she held up a white business card—“this.”

She handed it to Dussault.

He read the name on the card. “Stephen Horowitz. That confirms it. The dead man knew Horowitz. But how? Friend? Business associate? Must be more than an acquaintance to be in his apartment.”

“May I?” asked Armand, and held out his hand for the card. “Monsieur Plessner was much more than an acquaintance, to have this.”

He handed it back to Fontaine.

“Why?” she asked. “It’s just a simple business card.”

“But without an address?” said Beauvoir. “Not even a phone number or email? What business card has just a name?”

“Not just that,” Dussault pointed out. “Someone’s written JSPS after his name. What does that mean, Armand? ‘Justice of the Peace’? Is it an honorific?”

Gamache was smiling. “Not exactly.”

Bringing out his own wallet, he removed a dog-eared, slightly scruffy business card. The paper was thin and worn, but the printing was exactly the same.

Stephen Horowitz. And after the name exactly the same four letters. Written longhand.

JSPS.

“It’s something my grandmother Zora always called him,” Armand explained.

“But what does it mean?” asked Dussault.

“‘JSPS’ stands for ‘Just Some Poor Schmuck.’”

Dussault laughed. “Really? But ‘schmuck,’ that’s an insult, isn’t it? Why did your grandmother call him that? Was it a private joke, a term of endearment?”

“Just the opposite,” said Armand. “She loathed him. Did from the moment they met in the late 1940s. He was an easy man to dislike.”

Jean-Guy smiled. It was true. Stephen Horowitz could be a real piece of merde. And it wasn’t an act. It was genuinely who he was. But Beauvoir knew that was just one side of a complex man.

“How did she know him?” asked Fontaine. “Come to think of it, how did you?”

“My father hired him to do odd jobs. Stephen had nothing when he came to Québec after the war, but my father quickly saw his potential. They were roughly the same age, and only fate decided that one would lose his home and family, and the other would have both. My father had huge admiration for Stephen, but Zora hated him from the get-go. She called him—”

“Just some poor schmuck?” said Dussault.

“C’est ça. And that was when she was being polite.” Armand smiled, remembering her muttering “Alte kaker” whenever Stephen showed up.

“Why did she hate him so much?” asked Fontaine. “What did he do to her?”

“Nothing, except to be born German. I think it was asking a bit too much of her, at that time, to like or trust anyone who was German.”

“But you told me he fought for the Resistance,” said Dussault.

“I don’t think my grandmother ever believed it.”

Armand glanced out the window, at the Hôtel Lutetia. That was another reason Zora distrusted Stephen.

Because he chose to live right next door to the Lutetia.

It had taken Armand many years to understand her hatred of the beautiful hotel.

He knew he’d have to explain the complex relationships in his family, eventually. Now seemed as good a time as any.

“My father met Zora in Poland, in the final days of the war. She and her family had been deported from Paris and sent to Auschwitz. There were more than a thousand people in that transport. Three survived the war. Zora was one of them.”

He looked at Claude Dussault, who dropped his eyes.

Paris might have a lot of light, but there were also strong shadows.

“She never called it the Holocaust. It was, for her, ‘the Great Murders.’”

He’d been raised to consider Zora his grandmother, which he did to this day. She’d impressed on him that murderers had to be stopped. No matter the cost. That was, Armand knew, the reason he’d joined the Sûreté.

To stop them. No matter the cost.

“My father was with the Canadian Red Cross and was helping with the ‘displaced persons,’ as they were called. Those liberated from the death camps but with nowhere to go. No home left. He sponsored Zora to come to Montréal. She lived with us and raised me after they were killed.”

“They?” asked Fontaine. “Killed?”

“My parents. Car accident. I was nine years old. Stephen was my godfather and helped raise me. He brought me to Paris once a year. I practically grew up in this apartment.”

He looked around, trying to recapture that sense of security.

But it eluded him amid the wreckage. And the murder.

“So, wait a minute,” said Commander Fontaine, nodding toward the card. “Go back. If it was an insult, why would Horowitz write JSPS on his business card?”

“It was an inside joke. He actually liked Zora, and I think as he got more successful, it was a way for him to keep his considerable ego in check. It was also a code.”

“For what?” asked Fontaine.

“For his senior management, his bankers, his security. Most importantly, it was code to his secretary, Mrs. McGillicuddy. Whoever had that card was to be given all access. All help. No matter what was asked.”

“But what would stop anyone from writing JSPS on a card and getting that access?” asked Fontaine.

“Stephen made it known that anyone who tried would be dealt with severely. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Fontaine looked over at the body of Alexander Plessner.

“Not that severely,” said Gamache.

“Do you know how many of these he gave out?” Fontaine asked.

“I actually thought I had the only one,” said Gamache, returning his thin card to his wallet. For safekeeping.

Stephen had given it to him after the funeral of his parents. He’d taken Armand aside and, under the watchful, wrathful eye of Zora, had brought out a business card and written, JSPS.

“Do you know what that stands for?”

Armand had shaken his head. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.

Stephen told him, and for the first time since the knock on the door, Armand smiled. He could hear Zora saying it, in her thick accent.

“You keep this card with you always, Armand. And anytime you need help, you come to me. If someone won’t let you in, you show them that. They’ll give you everything you want.”

“Ice cream?”

“Yes, any flavor. Money. A safe place to stay. And they’ll find me, no matter where I am, and I’ll come to you. You understand?”

It was a good question. Stephen’s German accent was still thick at the time. And while Armand couldn’t understand each and every word, he understood the meaning.

He put the card in his pocket. Then went outside with his best friend, Michel.

Every now and then, as the day moved to evening, moved to night, he’d put his hand in his pocket. Touch the card. And look at the house.

Zora would be watching over him. And now he knew Stephen would be, too.

He was not alone.

Half a century later, it was Armand’s turn. To watch over Stephen. To protect him.

To find out what had happened. What was happening.

But what was happening?

He looked over at the dead man.

Was Alexander Plessner the intended target, or was he, as they suspected, killed by mistake? Mistaken for Stephen.

Just some poor schmuck.

“Armand,” Dussault said, taking Gamache aside while Beauvoir examined the body. “I don’t mind you being involved with the investigation. In fact, I welcome it. You know Monsieur Horowitz better than anyone. But this fellow? He’ll only get in the way. He’s already annoying Fontaine.”

“Beauvoir is an experienced homicide cop,” Gamache explained. Again. “And ended his career as head of homicide—”

“In Québec.”

“Oui. But murder is murder, and people are people. Even in Québec. No one is better at tracking down killers than Jean-Guy Beauvoir.”

“You forget,” said the Prefect, looking from Gamache to the men and women collecting evidence. “This is the brigade criminelle. In Paris. We choose the very best France has to offer. And these are the best. Not just in Paris. Not just in France. But in the world.”

They stared at each other.

“You’re right, of course,” Armand conceded. “But Jean-Guy stands with the best of them.”

“Does he really? I looked you up this morning, to get caught up on your career. A lot has happened, my friend.”

“True.”

“In my reading, I saw his record, too. He’s an alcoholic and drug addict—”

“In recovery,” snapped Armand. “He’s been clean for years. Don’t tell me you don’t have fine officers who’ve battled addiction. The incidence in our line of work is—”

“Yes. Yes,” admitted Dussault. “Too much damage done.”

“And often to the best,” said Gamache. “Those who care. Those who stand in the front line. Jean-Guy Beauvoir cares. There’s no better officer anywhere. And that includes here.” He paused for a moment. Challenging Dussault to challenge that. “I know no one braver.”

“Or smarter?” suggested Dussault. “I read that he jumped ship to go into private industry. He probably gets paid ten times what we make. And doesn’t get shot at. As you know, my own second-in-command also left. We’re the foolish ones, Armand.”

“Thank God we’re so good-looking,” said Armand, smiling.

Dussault clapped him on the arm. “Have you ever been tempted, mon vieux? To take a job with a private security firm, for instance? They’d pay a fortune for someone like you.”

“No. You?”

Dussault laughed. “Don’t tell anyone, but there’s only one thing I do well, and this’s it.”

He looked at his team, with fondness.

“That’s not true,” said Armand. “I seem to remember you took a sabbatical a couple of years ago to play saxophone in that polka band.”

Claude lowered his voice. “Shhhh. Everyone thinks I was studying international money laundering.”

“I think they might be onto you. Your mistake was telling them you’d joined the Interpol Anti-Terrorist Glee Club.”

“Yeah, they did find that hard to believe. Comforting, really, that I’m not surrounded by idiots. I seem to be the only one.”

Armand laughed.

The truth, and Armand was one of the few who knew it, was that Claude had suffered PTSD after a spectacularly brutal year of terrorist attacks. Culminating in the hit-and-run death of his mentor, the former Prefect.

Music, particularly his beloved saxophone, had helped heal the man.

“All right,” said Dussault. “Beauvoir stays, but in the background. And I deal with you, not him.”

“Agreed,” said Gamache.

“Will you excuse me? I see the Procureur wandering around.”

Jean-Guy was walking through the rest of the apartment, examining each room.

Irena Fontaine had gone back to supervising the team from the brigade criminelle.

Claude Dussault was standing by the window, conferring with the Procureur de la République, who was needed to officially launch any murder investigation.

The conference did not take long. Two bullets in the back was a pretty convincing argument.

No stranger to homicide investigations, Armand stood in the middle of the familiar room. Lost.

This space, this place, had always been safe for him. Almost sacred.

But no longer.

His eyes moved to the picture hooks on the walls and the paintings strewn on the floor.

The Gauguins and Monets, the Rothkos and the huge Cy Twombly ripped down from over the fireplace. The sublime Kenojuak Ashevak lying faceup.

And among them, easily overlooked, a little frame, like a single mullion in an old window. The watercolor was unspectacular in every way, except for the comfort it had offered a grieving child. The tiny window into the possible.

Smoke still rose from the cottages. Perpetual. Predictable. A river still wound through the village in the valley. There were thick forests filled, young Armand had been sure, with marvelous creatures. And in the very center of the painting of the village, there was a cluster of trees.

Armand looked across the crime scene, at the small frame on the floor, and had a nearly overwhelming desire to turn around and go home. Back to Québec.

To sit in the bistro with Reine-Marie. Henri, Gracie, and Fred curled together in front of the log fire.

Gabri would bring them café au lait, or something stronger. Olivier would grill maple-smoked salmon for their meal, while Clara and Myrna joined them to talk about books and art, food and what the Asshole Saint’s horse had done now.

Mad Ruth and her possessed duck Rosa would toss out insults, and sublime poetry.

He could, even now, from what felt like an impossible distance, see through the mullioned windows of the bistro to the thick forests, and the leaves that would already be changing.

As everything eventually did.

Except in the picture tossed so casually on the floor.

Home. Home. He wanted to go home. And sit by the fire. And listen to their friends talking and laughing. To hold Reine-Marie’s hand and watch their grandchildren play.

But not quite yet.

Gamache went over to the tiny painting and replaced it safely on the screw in the wall. Where it belonged.

But before he did, he noticed, written on the back, For Armand.