Glass Houses

CHAPTER 26

Isabelle Lacoste leaned closer to the laptop.

The fluorescent lights of the church basement were not kind to a computer screen. Or to the face reflected in it.

How did I get so old? she wondered. And so worried. And so green?

The photograph Beauvoir had been waiting to download had finally appeared, and he’d brought his laptop over to her desk. And now he sat beside her.

Not looking at his screen. He knew perfectly well what was there.

He was looking at Isabelle Lacoste.

She brought a manicured hand up to her face, resting her elbow on the desk and placing her fingers splayed over her mouth.

Staring at the screen. At the woman.

“That isn’t Madame Evans,” she finally said.

“No. This is a picture taken eighteen months ago, in Pittsburgh. I’ve been researching Katie Evans. So far she appears to be what everyone says. An up-and-coming architect. She did her thesis on glass houses. Adapting them to harsh climates, like ours. She completed her studies at the Université de Montréal, as we know.”

“Where they all met.”

“Oui. But she spent the summer between high school and university taking a course at Carnegie Mellon—”

“In Pittsburgh,” said Lacoste, going back to staring at the screen.

The photograph was both banal and awful. Perhaps because of the extreme normalcy of ninety percent of the image. And the horror at the very edge.

“Monsieur Gamache asked me to do some research on the cobrador a couple days ago, when it first showed up here. Among the things I found was that.”

Lacoste was right. It was not Katie Evans, though the woman on the screen was the same generation. In her early thirties. Well dressed. An executive, heading to work. Or home.

Hurrying, like everyone else.

It was an ordinary moment on any crowded street.

But something had caught the woman’s eye. She was just beginning to register it.

Isabelle felt the blood run cold in her veins.

The woman’s expression was like all the rest who rushed around her. But her eyes had begun to change. They had that look horses got when frightened and about to buck or bolt.

There, on the very edge of the photograph. At the far reaches of her peripheral vision. Just entering her orbit. Stood a cobrador.

Busy commuters, heads down looking at their devices, flowed around it, while this apparition from a time long forgotten stood like a black rock in a river.

And stared.

Though the woman couldn’t know what it was, she seemed to know that it was there for her.

“Who is she?”

“Colleen Simpson. She owned a chain of day care centers. There were allegations of abuse and she was tried. And acquitted.”

Lacoste nodded. Of course she’d been acquitted. If she’d been found guilty there’d be no need of the cobrador.

“Someone didn’t believe it,” said Lacoste.

“She was acquitted on a technicality,” said Beauvoir. “One of the cops fucked up.”

It was the dread most investigators carried. To make a mistake, and set a predator free among the prey.

Lacoste turned back to the screen. The monster had changed. It was no longer the cobrador. It was the nicely dressed woman, so much like everyone else on that street.

Lacoste’s gaze shifted to the now empty root cellar.

“You’re wondering if Katie Evans knew this woman,” said Lacoste. “That maybe they met at Carnegie Mellon.”

“It’s a long shot, but…” He lifted his hands in a “might as well try” gesture. “If Madame Evans knew this woman, it’s possible the cobrador came for them both. First one, then the other.”

“See what you can find out.”

“Oui, patron.”

Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste returned to her laptop and the transcripts of that day’s interviews. She clicked on the next interview and groaned slightly.

Ruth Zardo.

Lacoste closed that screen. Interviewing the demented old poet once was bad enough. Having to read over that mess again was too much, even for the head of homicide. Besides, there was nothing there. She went on to the next transcript, reaching for her coffee and settling in.

“Oh, merde,” she sighed and, closing that, she brought up Ruth Zardo, smiling slightly at the thought.

Ruth certainly resembled something brought up.

Clara and Reine-Marie were deep in conversation when Armand and Myrna returned with the wine and more sliced baguette for the cheese.

“Ahhh, merci,” said Reine-Marie, reaching for the bread first.

“What were you talking about?” asked Myrna. “Nazis?”

“Pinocchio,” said Clara.

“Of course.” Myrna turned to Armand. “I see we’ve returned just in time to elevate this conversation above nursery school.”

“By talking about Nazis?” asked Clara. “That elevator is descending.”

“No, by telling you about the experiment,” said Myrna. “Eichmann’s defense was that he was just following orders, right?”

The women nodded. They’d all heard that. It was the classic defense for the indefensible.

“The prosecution, and the court of public opinion, said that was absurd. That any decent person would’ve refused to participate in the Holocaust. It became a talking point of the day, around water coolers and at cocktail parties. Wouldn’t a person of good conscience refuse? That’s what the experiment was set up to test.”

“But how can you possibly test such a thing?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Well, I know I’m forgetting all sorts of details, but the gist of it was that the subject was put in a room with two other people. One was introduced as the head of the experiment. A scientist. Someone, they’re told, who’s very senior and very well respected. Now, the point of the experiment, they’re told, is to teach the third person in the room how to better learn. It is, the subject is assured, not only a valuable experiment for that learner, but one that will help all of society.”

Armand leaned back, crossed his legs, and stared into the fire. Listening to Myrna’s deep, comforting voice. Like listening to a bedtime story, but one that, he knew, was more Grimms than Milne.

“Now, the learner is strapped into a chair,” said Myrna.

“Strapped in?” said Reine-Marie.

“Yes. The subject is told that some learners want to leave when things get difficult, so they’re strapped in. Like seat belts. Just a gentle restraint. They’re paid for the experiment and so have to see it through, the scientist explains.”

Myrna looked at them, to see if they were following. Both Reine-Marie and Clara were nodding. So far, while a little odd perhaps, it did not sound unreasonable.

They’d probably have gone along with it. So far.

“The subject is then told that for each wrong answer the learner gives, the subject is to give him a small electric shock.”

“Like invisible fencing for dogs,” said Clara. “They get a small shock and learn where the boundary is.”

“Right. We do it all the time. Aversion therapy,” said Myrna. “Now, what the subject doesn’t know is that both the scientist and the learner are in on it.”

“There is no electric shock?” asked Reine-Marie.

“No. He’s an actor. He just pretends to get the jolt. The first time he gets a wrong answer the shock is mild and the subject easily continues on. But the shocks get stronger and stronger with each wrong answer. As the experiment goes on, and he gets more things wrong, the learner acts more and more upset. The shocks are obviously causing him real pain now. He asks that the experiment be stopped, but the scientist says it can’t and orders the subject to continue on.”

“Is he upset?” Clara asked. “The subject, I mean.”

“Now there’s an interesting question,” said Myrna. “From what I remember, he’s confused and uncertain, but is reassured by the scientist that everyone else had seen this through, and he needs to as well.”

“So he continues?” asked Clara.

“Yes. Finally, the learner is crying and begging and screaming and struggling to get away. The scientist orders the subject to administer another shock. One that would, the subject knows, be excruciating. Perhaps even fatal. The scientist tells him he’s doing nothing wrong. And reminds him that everyone else has done it.”

There was silence now, except for the crackling of the fire.

“And he does,” she said quietly.

Reine-Marie and Clara stared at her. Their wine and cheese forgotten. The fireplace gone. The cheerful loft in the pretty village replaced by that antiseptic room, with the scientist, the learner, the subject, and an ugly truth.

“But it was a one-off, right?” said Clara.

“No,” said Myrna. “They conducted the experiment with hundreds of subjects. Not all of them did it, but the majority did. Far more than you’d expect.”

“Or hope,” said Reine-Marie.

“They were just following orders,” said Clara. She turned to Reine-Marie. “Would you have given that last shock?”

“If you’d asked me five minutes ago, I’d have said absolutely not. But now?” She sighed. “I’m not so sure.”

Armand nodded. It was a terrible admission. But it was also a brave one. The first step to not actually doing it.

Facing the monster. And recognizing it. Knowing that it was not a vile few. It wasn’t “them.” It was us.

That was one of the many horrors of the Nuremberg trials. Of the Eichmann trial. Something all but forgotten today.

The banality of evil.

It wasn’t the frothing madman. It was the conscientious us.

“Always let your conscience be your guide,” Clara sang in a thin voice, the words drifting into the fire. “Not so easy after all.”

“Why were you talking about Pinocchio?” Armand asked.

He was beginning to think it was more than Reine-Marie describing the nightly ritual of reading to Honoré.

“Oh, it’s silly,” she said. “Especially now, after what we just talked about. Never mind.”

“No, really,” he said.

Reine-Marie looked at Clara, who raised her brows.

“Go on,” Clara urged, and got a “thanks a lot” look from Reine-Marie.

“Do you remember why Pinocchio wasn’t a real boy?” Reine-Marie asked Myrna and Armand.

“Because he was made out of wood?” asked Myrna.

“Well, that didn’t help,” she admitted. “But what really stopped him from being human was that he had no conscience. In the film, Jiminy Cricket played that role. Teaching him right from wrong.”

“Cricket as cobrador,” said Clara. “A singing and dancing one, but one nonetheless.”

“There’s a difference between having a weak conscience or a misdirected one,” said Armand, “and none at all.”

“You know what psychologists call it when someone has no conscience?” Myrna asked.

“Antisocial personality disorder?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Smart-ass,” said Myrna. “Okay, yes, officially. But unofficially we call that person a psychopath.”

“You’re not suggesting Pinocchio is a psychopath?” said Reine-Marie. She turned to Armand. “We might have to amend Ray-Ray’s nighttime reading.”

“Well, those scenes sure didn’t make it into the movie,” said Clara. “The part where Pinocchio slaughters the villagers. I wonder what Jiminy sang then.”

“You see, that’s the problem,” said Myrna. “We’re used to the film versions of psychopaths. The clearly crazies. But most psychopaths are clever. They have to be. They know how to mimic human behavior. How to pretend to care, while not actually feeling anything except perhaps rage and an overwhelming and near-perpetual sense of entitlement. That they’ve been wronged. They get what they want mostly through manipulation. Most don’t have to resort to violence.”

“We all use manipulation,” said Armand. “We might not see it that way, but we do.”

He pointed to the wine, the lure Myrna had used to get them there. Myrna lifted her glass in acknowledgment. But without remorse.

“Unlike most of us, who tend to be transparent, people rarely see through a psychopath,” she continued. “He’s masterful. People trust and believe him. Even like him. It’s his great skill. Convincing people that his point of view is legitimate and right, often when all the evidence points in the other direction. Like Iago. It’s a kind of magic.”

“Okay, so I’m confused,” said Clara. “Is the cobrador the psychopath, or was Katie Evans?”

They looked at Armand, who raised his hands. “I wish I could tell you.”

What he was beginning to think was that this crime didn’t have such a tight circle. The cobrador and Katie Evans. It was possible there was a third person, who had manipulated both of them.

And was now manipulating the investigators.

Which meant that there was someone in the village who might look it, but who was in fact not quite human.