Glass Houses

CHAPTER 31

Gamache and Beauvoir were more than halfway to their destination, and still no word from Lacoste.

But they had received a text from Superintendent Toussaint.

The equipment was assembled, the van was loaded. The assault team was ready.

“If we don’t hear otherwise,” Toussaint wrote, “we’ll leave Montréal in ten minutes and get into position before nightfall.”

“Merde,” wrote Gamache. The Québécois equivalent of “good luck,” and an internal Sûreté signal that all was proceeding well.

“Merde,” she replied. And went silent.

They wouldn’t see each other again until the action was under way.

Gamache looked at the dashboard clock. Six thirty. It would be dark by eight thirty. Superintendent Toussaint had timed it perfectly.

“What’s keeping her?” Jean-Guy asked, as he drove.

The “her” he meant was obvious.

“I don’t know.”

Picking up his iPhone, Gamache called home. And let it ring. And ring. Until he heard Reine-Marie’s recorded voice.

He left a cheerful message, saying he was on his way and that Jean-Guy was with him.

“No answer?” said Jean-Guy. “She’s probably at Clara’s or Myrna’s.”

“Probably.”

Once in the bathroom, Lacoste locked the door and hit the green talk button. Hoping, hoping the old handset signal reached that far.

She heard a dial tone and quickly punched in numbers.

“Chief?” she whispered when he picked up after half a ring.

“Isabelle, where’ve you been?”

“I couldn’t get away until now. I’m in the bistro. He’s here.”

“Who is?”

“The head of the cartel. Here in Three Pines.”

“We know that,” came Beauvoir’s voice over the speaker. “That’s why you’re there, right? To monitor.”

“No. I mean the American cartel.”

Gamache and Beauvoir looked at each other.

“Are you sure?” asked Gamache.

From anyone else, in any other circumstances, Lacoste would have been annoyed. But she understood his need to be absolutely clear.

“Yes. The American cartel.” The insistence in her voice made it sound like a hiss.

“Shit,” said Beauvoir. “Did he recognize you?”

“I don’t know. The other man with him, his bodyguard or counselor, kept staring. I think Anton told him who I am.”

“Fucking great,” said Beauvoir.

“But I made sure to order a drink and even waved at him.”

“Waved? You waved at the head of the drug cartel?” demanded Beauvoir.

“Well, I didn’t wave my gun,” she said. “I wanted him to know I’d seen him, and clearly had absolutely no idea who he was. It was a friendly little gesture. Maybe you’ve heard of them.”

Gamache nodded slowly. Few people had the presence of mind, the poise of Lacoste. It was exactly the right thing to do. And if the U.S. cartel had any doubts about the incompetence of the Sûreté, that would surely put them to rest. A senior officer not recognizing one of the top criminals in North America.

“What should we do?” she whispered.

The handle of the door rattled. Someone wanted in.

“Just a moment,” she sang out, and the handle went silent.

“How many are there?” Gamache asked.

“The Americans? None outside that I noticed. Only the two of them in the bistro.” Lacoste had dropped her voice even further. “The head of the cartel and an older guy. He’s the one watching closely.”

Yes, thought Gamache. Like in Canada. With the new opioids, the new dark economy, and new technology, there’d been a new leadership. Sometimes bloody, as in the States, sometimes generational, a passing of the torch, as in Canada.

It was a young person’s game now. And few people were more vicious, in Gamache’s experience, than young men. Or women. They hadn’t yet grown weary, grown disgusted with all the bloodshed. In fact, they seemed to revel in it. In their ability to order a kill, and have it carried out. To kidnap and torture and deliver adversaries back in pieces.

It was their own grotesque addiction.

No one was immune. Cops, judges, prosecutors. Children, mothers, fathers. All targets for the butchers.

Unfettered by conscience, they were all-powerful. Immortal. Not godfathers, but gods.

If the Sûreté action that night didn’t work, there’d be bedlam. And the payment would be in flesh and blood. Theirs. Their families’.

Gamache was under no illusion about what was at stake.

“Once you arrive we can take them,” said Lacoste. “I’m sure of it. How far away are you?”

“Twenty minutes,” said Beauvoir, and sped up. “Fifteen.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Gamache’s mind flew over the different possibilities.

He’d expected to confront them in the woods that night, not in the bistro.

But in some ways, this was even better. It meant Toussaint was right and the cartels had fallen for it completely. They were so convinced that the Sûreté was no threat that they’d come this far into the open.

It was rare, almost unheard of, for the actual head of a syndicate to be at the site of any criminal act. They sent their lieutenants. That’s what they were for.

To have not one but both exposed was exceptional.

Yes, this was far better than they dared hope.

And even worse.

Their plan was based on a meeting in the forest, surrounded by trees, not in the bistro, surrounded by friends. By family.

“We can’t arrest them yet,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “We have no proof against either of them. That’s been the problem. Their soldiers, yes, but they make sure to be clean themselves. We have to catch them doing something illegal. Sitting in the bistro is not.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” said Beauvoir under his breath. Once again, the mantra did not calm him down.

The chief was right.

Their entire operation depended on catching them with their hands dirty. And that meant on site when the krokodil crossed the border. Until that happened, they had no definitive proof against the heads of the cartels.

They were together, yes, but in the wrong place.

If the exchange happened in the woods, while the cartel heads were having a pleasant chat in the bistro, then they’d have failed. They’d lose them. They’d lose.

Beauvoir was staring at Gamache, his eyes wide and questioning.

Lacoste was waiting on the other end of the line. They could hear her breathing. And then the rattle of the door again.

“Hello?” came a man’s voice, in English.

“Tabernac,” she said. “I think that’s the bodyguard.”

“Almost done,” she sang out cheerfully.

Gamache knew once he hung up he couldn’t reach her again. His orders had to be clear, definitive. And fast.

One shot.

“There’s one other thing,” came Lacoste’s voice, so low they could barely hear it. “Madame Gamache is here too. With Annie and Honoré.”

The blood drained from Gamache’s face and he looked at Beauvoir, whose hands tightened on the steering wheel, and the car’s engine roared as he sped up even more.

“They have to get out of there,” said Jean-Guy.

“No, wait,” said Gamache. “Wait.”

They waited a beat.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes—”

“Ten,” said Beauvoir.

“Keep them there, and invite Ruth to join you.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Beauvoir.

Lacoste flushed the toilet in case the bodyguard could hear Beauvoir’s raised voice down the line.

“Honoré,” said Jean-Guy forcefully, as though Gamache hadn’t taken that in. Then, more quietly, “Honoré.”

It was as though Jean-Guy’s entire world had come down to one word.

“Annie,” he whispered.

Two words.

Reine-Marie, thought Gamache.

“They have to stay. It’s safe. They’re there to talk, not shoot up the place.”

“How do we know?” asked Beauvoir, his voice unnaturally high. “Wouldn’t be the first time a parlez turned into a bloodbath.”

“Non. If one or both had that in mind, they’d be meeting in the woods, with their soldiers. Not in the bistro. They’re brutal, but not stupid.”

He sounded more confident than he actually was. But Chief Superintendent Gamache understood that a leader could not afford to reveal his own emotions. He couldn’t demand courage in others while quaking in fear himself.

“If we didn’t see this coming,” said Beauvoir, “we probably won’t see what’s coming next. They could do the exchange right there, in the bistro. In front of everyone. We’re the ones who convinced them it’d be safe. We did this.”

“He’s right,” said Lacoste, running the water now. “What do I do then? I’d have to arrest them, or try. In a roomful of people.”

Honoré, thought Gamache. Annie. Reine-Marie.

Not just people.

Beauvoir’s foot pressed harder on the gas. The car was going 140 kilometers an hour, and gaining speed. They’d turned off the highway and were on secondary roads. Roads not designed for speed. The car bounded off ruts, flying then bumping to the asphalt.

But Gamache didn’t tell him to slow down. If anything, it was all he could do not to shout at him to hurry up. Speed up.

“Get Ruth to the bistro,” Gamache repeated, his voice low. “And go and join Reine-Marie and Annie. The head of the American cartel probably won’t know who they are, but the Canadian does. They’d never believe we’d put them in harm’s way.”

There was silence.

None of them could believe it either. Especially Gamache.

But there was no choice. To have Isabelle remove Reine-Marie and Annie and Honoré would almost certainly alert the cartel, and they must already be on the lookout for anything unusual.

They might be confident that they were in no danger, but they’d still be vigilant. It was animal instinct. And these people were animals.

“Are you sure?” Lacoste whispered.

From anyone else, in any other circumstances, Gamache might have been annoyed at this questioning of his orders. But he understood her need to be absolutely clear.

“Oui.”

“Okay,” she said. Just before she hung up, he heard one last word. “Merde.”

Merde, he agreed.

But this time it wasn’t the signal that all was going well. It was just merde.

Lacoste hid the handset in her pocket and unlocked the door.

“Désolé,” she said to the older man, who was examining her. “Sorry. That time of the month.”

She put a hand over her uterus and he immediately backed up before she could tell him more. But just to be on the safe side, she mumbled, “Cramps.”

As soon as Lacoste had hung up, Gamache called Toussaint and gave her the update. There was a long silence.

“Bon,” she said, her voice crisp. No sign of panic. “What do we do? You want us in the village?”

“No, go to the border, stick to the plan. Whatever happens, the chlorocodide has to cross into the States, and the only thing we know for sure is where it’ll happen. Your informant is watching the church?”

“Yes. We’ll at least know when the drug is being moved. And if they don’t use the established route?” Toussaint asked.

“Then you’ll be in the forest for nothing, and Beauvoir, Lacoste and I will take care of it.”

He said it so calmly, as though he was talking about mending a fence.

There was silence again.

“All actions contain an element of luck,” he reminded her. “Besides, we’re all in. There’s a great advantage in that.”

“Our backs to the sea. Yes, patron. This’ll work, because it has to.” She laughed softly and wished that was actually the equation. “Good luck,” she said, either forgetting to say merde or not wanting that to possibly be the last thing they ever said to each other.

“Oui. Good luck to you, Madeleine.”

Matheo and Lea were sitting at a table in the far corner by the time Lacoste returned. Away from the others. But close to the two Americans.

She carefully replaced the phone, making sure no one saw, and went into the kitchen to say hello to Anton. And to warn him.

“Bonjour,” he said, greeting her. “I’d have thought you’d be in the city.”

“I was, but wanted to get away just for a few hours. Too hot. I’m not the only one.”

“I bet,” he said, going back to work, then looking up when she didn’t speak.

“Matheo and Lea are here,” she said. “And maybe Patrick, though I haven’t seen him.”

Anton put down his knife and looked at her. “Why?”

“I don’t know, but I thought you should be warned.”

That wasn’t completely true. Isabelle Lacoste had a pretty good idea why Matheo and Lea were in the bistro and she didn’t want Anton to get involved.

“Merci.” He looked grim and took a deep breath. “I have to testify in a few days. I’ve been dreading it. I hear they’ve been rough on Monsieur Gamache.”

“Well, they always are.”

“Even the Crown attorney and the judge? Aren’t they on the same side?”

“Trials are funny things,” she said. Trying to make what had happened in the courtroom sound normal. “It’s my turn tomorrow.”

“Where’re they sitting?” asked Anton. “So I can avoid them.”

“In the corner.”

“By the two Americans?”

“You know them?”

“Never seen them before, but one considers himself a chef. After trying the soup”—Anton nodded toward a bowl—“he asked if I’d give them the recipe.”

Lacoste looked down at the notebook and the page headed Watermelon Gazpacho with Mint and Mango.

She wanted to eat the paper.

“I notice that Ruth isn’t out there. Do you mind if I call her?”

“Be my guest. Might be the first time her phone’s ever rung. I wonder if she’ll know what it is.”

Isabelle smiled, knowing that the young chef and the old poet had established a sort of friendship. Based on him giving her free food, and her giving him grief. And both knowing what happened when the straight road splayed.

Lacoste went to the phone attached to the wall and dialed. After about ten rings, during which Isabelle imagined her searching the small home for whatever was ringing, Ruth picked up.

“Hello,” she shouted into the receiver.

“Ruth, it’s Isabelle Lacoste. I’m at the bistro. We’re having drin—”

“Be right over,” Ruth yelled, then hung up.

Lacoste turned and saw Anton smiling. He’d obviously heard. She suspected everyone in Québec had heard.

She returned to the bistro. Clara and Myrna had joined Reine-Marie and Annie, and after greeting them, Isabelle took a seat.

Her back was to the two men at the table, and to Matheo and Lea, though she could just see their distorted reflections in the leaded-glass window.

“Not sitting with you?” Isabelle asked, tipping her head toward Matheo and Lea.

“Oh, it’s not us they’re avoiding.”

“It’s me,” said Lacoste.

She knew why, of course. The trial. Like her, Matheo and Lea were witnesses for the prosecution. But, unlike her, they were unwilling witnesses.

Lacoste knew the first question the prosecution would ask them, and she suspected they did as well. It was pretty much the first question Chief Superintendent Gamache had asked that November night when they’d made their way through the sleet to the B&B.

“What time is it?” asked a groggy Gabri, as the knocking on the door continued. “Did someone forget their key?”

“Everyone’s in,” said Olivier, hauling himself awake. “And what key?”

“It’s one thirty?” Gabri was fully awake now, swinging his legs out of bed and reaching for his dressing gown. “Something’s happened. Something’s wrong. Here, take this.”

He handed Olivier a two-by-four.

“Why?” asked Olivier.

“That’s our burglar alarm.”

“Burglars don’t knock.”

“Wanna risk it?”

They walked softly so as not to disturb their guests, though they were far from sure any of them would be able to sleep. Especially Patrick, who’d looked both exhausted and wide awake even as he was being led to bed by his friends.

Olivier and Gabri turned on the porch light and peered through the window. Then they quickly opened the front door.

Patrick heard the knocking.

Little good ever came from being aroused at that hour. Though Patrick had not been asleep.

When they’d gone to bed, Gabri had offered to put him in another room, but Patrick had wanted to go back to the one he’d shared with Katie. That had all of Katie’s clothes, and her jewelry, and her toiletries.

All catalogued and photographed by the homicide team, and returned to exactly where Katie had left them, when she’d left.

Her purse on the chair. Her reading glasses on the book on the bedside table.

He’d lain in bed, listening to the creaking of the old inn. Listening as the others had settled and all human sounds died down. And he could be alone with Katie. He could close his eyes and pretend she was there, beside him, breathing so softly he couldn’t even hear her.

Patrick inhaled the scent of her. And he knew she was there. How could she not be? How could she be gone?

But she wasn’t gone, he told himself quickly, before he fell off the ledge. She was there. Beside him. Breathing so softly he couldn’t hear.

And then, into the night, came the knock on the door. Then the tap on their bedroom door.

“Patrick?”

“Oui?”

“Can you come downstairs, please?” asked Gabri.

Patrick, Lea and Matheo entered the living room. And stopped.

Facing them were Chief Superintendent Gamache, Chief Inspector Lacoste and Inspector Beauvoir.

And Jacqueline. The baker.

Gabri stirred the embers in the hearth and threw on a couple of birch logs. The wood caught, and crackled, and temporarily drowned out the sound of the sleet against the windows.

“What’s happening out there?” Olivier whispered when Gabri joined him in the kitchen.

“They’re staring at each other.” Gabri got out the brioche and turned on the oven while Olivier brewed coffee. “What’s Jacqueline doing here?”

“She must know something,” said Olivier. “Maybe she saw something.”

“But why do they want to speak to Patrick and the others?” asked Gabri. “And in the middle of the night. What won’t wait?”

Only one thing wouldn’t wait until morning, and they both knew what it was.

“Shall we sit?” Gamache asked, gesturing toward the armchairs and sofa.

Beauvoir remained standing, positioning himself by the fireplace. Not coincidentally, he also blocked any way out to the door. It would be futile for any of them to try to run away, but cornered people did desperate things.

So far only Lea had spoken. She’d whispered, “Finally,” when she’d seen the officers. Though it was Jacqueline she’d been staring at when she’d spoken.

Lacoste began.

“Jacqueline came to us tonight with an extraordinary story.” She glanced at the baker, who was sitting bolt upright and staring defiantly at the others. “Extraordinary to us, at least, but not, I think, to you.”

And yet, Gamache thought, it shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. Once said, it seemed obvious and he’d wondered how he could not have seen it sooner.

And much like Anton’s confession earlier in the day to Jean-Guy, Gamache knew Jacqueline’s visit to them had been preemptive. Even as she’d told her story, he knew that she wasn’t telling them anything they wouldn’t have discovered within hours anyway. And she knew it too.

“She told you everything?” Matheo asked, his eyes moving from Jacqueline to Lacoste and back again.

“She confessed, yes,” said Lacoste.

“To the murder?” asked Patrick, staring in shock at the baker. “You killed Katie?”

“She told us about the cobrador,” said Lacoste. “And now it’s your turn. Tell us what you know.”

They looked at each other, and then, naturally, it was Lea who spoke.

“Jacqueline came to us with the idea.” Lea turned to her husband, who nodded agreement. “She’d heard about the cobrador while working for that Spanish guy. At first we thought she was kidding. It sounded ridiculous. A guy stares at someone and it magically does the trick?”

“No one took Jacqueline’s suggestion seriously,” said Matheo. “Désolé, but you know that’s true.”

Jacqueline gave one crisp nod.

“But it gave me an idea for a story,” Matheo continued. “So I wrote that piece about the cobrador del frac, the debt collector in the top hat and tails, and thanked Jacqueline for the idea. That’s when she said it wasn’t that cobrador she was thinking of. It was the original.”

“She sent us links from Spain,” said Lea. “That cobrador was very different. Terrifying.”

“And yet,” said Lacoste, “when you spoke to Monsieur Gamache about it that first time, you said the only thing you knew about the original came from that old photograph. You said sightings were rare.”

“Well, they are rare,” said Matheo. “But—”

“But we didn’t want to spoon-feed you,” Lea said, speaking frankly to Gamache. “We knew you’d pursue it and find out what you needed. And you’d be more invested, if you came to it yourself.”

At the fireplace, Jean-Guy bristled. No one liked being manipulated, and Lea Roux had done it perfectly. She was clearly very, very seasoned at controlling, maneuvering. And he wondered how much of it was happening at that moment.

Though Gamache didn’t seem upset or angry. He simply nodded agreement. But kept a thoughtful eye on her.

“That’s when we began to consider what Jacqueline was suggesting,” said Matheo. “We’d tried everything else. There seemed nothing to lose.”

“It took longer than we thought to get everything organized,” said Lea. “For one thing, we had to find a costume. Finally, we decided to make one. Didn’t Jacqueline tell you all this?”

She looked at the baker, sitting pale and contained on the sofa between Gamache and Lacoste.

“She did. But we need to hear it from you,” said Lacoste. “Who made the costume?”

“Jacqueline,” said Lea. “Even when it was finished, we weren’t all in. It just seemed stupid. Katie was the one who convinced us. She’d been the closest to Edouard. She wanted him to pay.”

“Even after all these years?” asked Lacoste. “Edouard died almost fifteen years ago.”

“When you see your best friend jump off the roof, it never goes away,” said Matheo. “Especially when the person who did it hasn’t paid any price. Hasn’t even apologized.”

“Is that what you wanted?” asked Gamache. “An apology?”

They looked at each other. It seemed possible they hadn’t really discussed what they wanted. What would be enough.

“I think so,” said Lea. “We’d fuck with him, scare him a bit, and then go back to our lives. What more could we do?”

“You said ‘him,’” said Lacoste. “Who’s he?”

“Didn’t she tell you?” asked Matheo.

“Again, I need to hear it from you.”

“Anton,” said Lea. “We’d begged him to stop selling to Edouard, and he agreed, but the shit was lying to us. He kept doing it. More drugs. Stronger.”

“We didn’t know,” said Matheo. “Until—”

Matheo was staring at Lacoste, but seeing the leap.

It was no accident. No stumble. Edouard had stood on the ledge while around him everyone partied. And below him, in some dorm room, his great love, Katie, and his friend Patrick had sex.

All around him there was youth and freedom, sex and love.

But Edouard had been left on the island, with the Lord of the Flies. And the insatiable beast gnawing inside him.

Edouard had slowly spread his arms, like something magnificent. And as Matheo and Lea watched, too stunned, too far away to do anything, he’d jumped.

Beauvoir closed his eyes, and while he didn’t know Edouard, he knew that despair. And the blessed release of drugs. And how easy it was to mistake falling for flying.

Edouard left the ledge, and the island. And his friends. And family. But they never left him.

Lea looked at Jacqueline, who’d sat silent through this.

“Anton killed him,” Lea said to the baker. “He might as well have been the hand on Edouard’s back. We all knew that.”

Jacqueline held Lea’s eyes, and nodded a small acknowledgment.

“The cops told us Edouard’s death had been ruled an accident,” Matheo continued. “Even if they found Anton, he’d never be charged with anything other than trafficking, and even then the charges might be dropped or the sentence suspended. First offense, young university student—”

“The family hired a private investigator to find him,” said Lea. “Took a long time. He’d bummed around, gone into rehab and later got a job with the Spanish family. Worked for cash. But the investigator finally tracked him down.”

Jean-Guy, standing by the fireplace, nodded.

Anton had told him all this. He went by Lebrun but his real name was Boucher.

Butcher.

A good name for a murderer, Beauvoir had thought. Though he also knew it was ridiculous to suspect someone because of their last name. But still …

“That’s when Jacqueline got back in touch with us,” said Lea, looking again at the woman sitting stiffly on the sofa. “She told us they’d found Anton, and that the family was looking for a nanny and tutor, to teach the Spanish children French.”

“She wanted to use us as references,” said Matheo. “We agreed and when Madame Ruiz called we vouched for her.”

Beauvoir wondered, in passing, who’d vouched for Anton.

It had been a sticking point. The one thing that hadn’t rung true in Anton’s conversation with Jean-Guy that afternoon. He’d admitted to all this. Confessed his sins. Showed remorse.

But there was that one tiny little thing. Why the Ruiz family, especially Antonio Ruiz, hadn’t checked out Anton before hiring him. As they apparently had with Jacqueline.

Instead, Ruiz, a suspicious, perhaps even paranoid man, had hired some stranger to come live with his family.

Why was that? Beauvoir wondered. Why hadn’t he placed a single call?

“What happened next?” Lacoste asked.

“After working there for a few months, Jacqueline heard about the cobrador and got back in touch with us,” said Lea. “Once we were convinced, we just needed to work out the details. When and where to spring the cobrador on him.”

“We couldn’t have it stand outside the home,” said Matheo. “Ruiz would probably shoot it. He’d certainly think it was there for him, and so would Anton. We needed someplace else.”

“Then the family was transferred back to Spain and it looked like our plan might fall apart,” said Lea. “But then Anton got a job here as a dishwasher. We’d been to Three Pines a few times, for reunions. It seemed perfect. It even had you.”

“Me?” asked Gamache.

“We needed to make sure the cobrador was safe,” said Matheo. “That no one would attack him.”

“We knew you wouldn’t let that happen,” said Lea.

“You played me?” asked Gamache.

“We trusted you,” said Lea. “To uphold the law, no matter how personally upsetting the situation might be.”

Gamache took a long, deep breath. More manipulation. But, far from annoying, it was enlightening. It certainly threw a light onto Lea Roux, and her ability to strategize.

She’d come a long way from the young elected official and Edouard’s Law.

“Jacqueline got a job at the bakery, and then our plan fell into place.”

“And what was your plan?” asked Lacoste.

“It was simple,” said Lea. “The cobrador would show up and scare the crap out of Anton.”

“And then?” asked Lacoste. “Was that it? To scare him?”

Matheo was about to answer, then he shut his mouth and looked at Lea, then Patrick, and finally Jacqueline.

They seemed confused by the question, and Isabelle thought she knew why.

What had begun as one thing, the quest for an apology, had become something else.

How often something starts off as noble, and then warps, corrupts, takes on a life of its own. Becomes a creature in a black cloak.

A body in a root cellar.

How it came to that was the question. And she intended to have the answer that night.

“This was in the spring,” said Lea. “We were going to have the annual reunion here in the summer and it would work perfectly. Except—”

“Daylight,” said Matheo.

On hearing that, Gamache gave one small grunt.

Daylight.

That answered so many questions.

Why the reunion had been changed to late October. And how the cobrador managed to stand there all day.

And the answer was, he could do it because night was closing in.

In the summer, the sun was up for hours and hours. And the heat was relentless and merciless. No one could stand there for long.

But in late October, early November, the days were shorter, and cooler.

The cobrador could slip away when darkness fell.

Daylight. It was so simple.

But then, most crimes were. And they were now closing in on the crime.

“Myrna says she told you about the church and Prohibition,” Beauvoir said to Lea, who nodded.

“She did. That was on my first visit. Before the reunions. She even showed me the little room, the root cellar. I remembered it when we were trying to figure out some of the logistics.”

“That’s where the cobrador stayed,” said Lacoste. “Who is he? Someone you hired? What’s happened to him?”

Her question was again met with confusion on their part.

Lea turned to Jacqueline. “Didn’t you tell them?”

“I told them I was responsible for the cobrador. It’s all my doing.”

“And you didn’t think they’d figure it out?” asked Matheo.

“Figure what out?” asked Lacoste. “Where’s the cobrador?”

“You’re looking at him.”

The Sûreté officers stared at Matheo. Who pointed to Patrick. Then to Lea. Then to himself.

“We were the cobrador,” he said.

Gamache closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.

Just as on the island of the diseased and damned and dispossessed, the cobrador of Three Pines was not a single person. It was an idea. A community of conscience.

They were all the cobrador.

“And Katie?” he asked.

“She was it yesterday,” said Lea. “We decided to call it quits, after the near attack last night. It was getting dangerous. So once Katie was done, we’d go home, whether Anton had broken or not. But, of course…”

These friends, Gamache thought, had been naïve. They thought they could threaten without consequence. In bringing the cobrador here, they’d woken up more than a conscience.

And they hadn’t perhaps done quite enough research on the original cobradors.

While they’d publicly accused their tormentors of moral crimes, it hadn’t been the princes of the day who’d finally paid. It was the cobradors who’d been rounded up, and killed.

As Katie had been.

He looked at Lacoste and Beauvoir. They looked at him. All thinking the same thing.

The bat. It had three dominant sets of DNA. Katie Evans’s. A very small, almost certainly incidental, sample of Jacqueline’s. And Anton Boucher’s.

His DNA was all over it.

The bat told essentially the same story as these friends.

Anton Boucher had snapped. He’d followed the cobrador last night, through the sleet and darkness, back to the church, to the root cellar, and beaten her to death. Never removing the mask. Never knowing who he’d just killed.

Though that in itself was curious. Would Anton not want to know who it was who’d so relentlessly tracked him down?

“How did you get in and out of the root cellar?” Gamache asked.

“By the door, of course,” said Matheo.

Gamache nodded. He had to be very careful here. “Were you not afraid of being seen?”

“Who’s looking in that direction after dark?” asked Matheo. “And no one goes into a church anymore. We figured it was the safest place. Far better than having the cobrador book a room at the B&B.”

“We’d undress,” said Lea, “and leave the costume for the next person. And if someone saw us, then we’d just admit everything. Either way, Anton was screwed. And we’d have done nothing illegal.”

“Or even immoral,” said Matheo.

“Until last night,” said Gamache.

“But we didn’t kill Katie,” said Lea. “Surely that’s obvious.”

“But we did,” said Jacqueline. “If we hadn’t done the cobrador thing, she’d be alive. If I hadn’t wanted Anton to pay, she’d be alive. I knew Anton better than anyone. I knew his temper. If he didn’t get his way, he became vicious. But I didn’t think he’d be violent. Not like that.”

She looked at Patrick.

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve known he’d strike out. He killed Katie and it was my fault.”

“Why would he kill her?” asked Gamache.

“Well, he didn’t know he was killing Katie,” said Matheo. “He was killing the cobrador, who obviously knew his secret.”

“The secret being?” asked Gamache.

“Edouard, of course,” said Lea.

Gamache nodded. Then began shaking his head.

“It doesn’t make sense. He recognized you all, you know. He knew you were Edouard’s friends. Even if he suspected you were behind the cobrador costume, he must’ve known that killing one still left three others.”

“Besides,” said Beauvoir, “he told me everything.”

“Everything?” asked Lea.

“Oui. About selling drugs, and Edouard’s death. If Anton was willing to admit it, why kill to keep it quiet?”

Gamache turned to Jacqueline.

“The only person he didn’t recognize was you. But then, he’d never met you. Not at university anyway. Your brother would never take you with him to buy drugs. He knew how you felt.”

Jacqueline, Edouard’s sister, nodded.

“I’m going to have to arrest you,” he said to her, and she nodded.

“For the cobrador thing,” she said.

“For the murder of Katie Evans.”

“But that’s insane,” said Lea. “Anton killed her. You know that. If he told you all that this afternoon, it was just to cover his ass. He probably only recognized us after the murder. This afternoon, when we were all waiting in the bistro. And he only admitted the Edouard thing because he knew you’d find out anyway.”

“Manipulation?” asked Gamache, his sharp eyes on her.

“He’s smart,” said Matheo. “For God’s sake, don’t be fooled. You have no idea what he’s like. He’s not what he appears.”

“And you are?” said Gamache.

Lea Roux stared at Gamache, holding his eyes. She didn’t like what she saw there.

“I’m sorry,” he said, getting to his feet. “I think you meant well. This started off fairly innocently. No one would be hurt, not even Anton. You just wanted justice for Edouard. You wanted the drug dealer to know that you knew. But you didn’t realize you were being used. Didn’t see what was really happening.”

“And you do?” demanded Lea.

“What’s happening?” asked Patrick, as the Sûreté officers led Jacqueline away. “What does it mean? Did she kill Katie? I don’t understand.”

Once outside, Chief Superintendent Gamache turned to Jacqueline.

“You need to put up a strong defense.”

“What’re you saying? You’re not really going to arrest me.”

“I am. For the murder of Katie Evans.”

Even Lacoste and Beauvoir looked surprised, but not nearly as shocked as Jacqueline.

“But you know Anton did it. You know I didn’t kill Katie, but you’re arresting me anyway?” she said. “Why?”

And then her panic seemed to clear.

“I know why. Because you don’t have enough to convict him. You want Anton to think he got away with it. It’s my turn to be the cobrador. To stand up for what I believe in, no matter the risk. Is that what you’re asking of me?”

“Is your conscience clear?” he asked.

“It is.”

And he believed her. But he wasn’t so sure about his own.

Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste sat in the bistro, her back to Matheo Bissonette and Lea Roux. Avoiding their stares. Partly because of the accusation their glare contained. That an innocent woman was being tried for a murder she hadn’t committed. And that Lacoste knew it.

Yes, there was no mistaking the ire in their eyes.

But also because she needed to concentrate on the American and his lieutenant. Sitting there so confidently, in full view.

Was he there for a friendly parlez? Dividing territory with his Québec counterpart, now that the Sûreté was out of the equation? Celebrating the launch of their new commodity, krokodil?

Or was he staking his claim? Why share, when he could have it all?

Was this a meeting of confrères, or the start of a brutal, short-lived, bloody turf war?

And they were sitting in the middle of the turf, the middle of the war.

Isabelle looked at Madame Gamache, and Annie, and Honoré. And she knew something that Chief Superintendent Gamache must’ve realized as soon as she’d told him the head of the American cartel was in Three Pines.

If the battle was fought in this little border village, whoever won would make an example of the villagers. And mostly of Monsieur Gamache and his family.

They would lay waste to Three Pines, so that the population of other border villages would be in no doubt what would happen to them if they didn’t play along. The cartels would never rule by loyalty and affection. It would always be terror.

She could feel the long, slow progress of perspiration down her spine.