by Louise Penny
“All important.”
“Agreed. But not at the expense of ignoring actual crime. It’s like telling doctors to hand out vitamin pills and forget about treating cancer. You and I know what we’re actually doing. You and I know why we’re doing it. But they don’t. As far as the rank and file can tell, we’re sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. And that’s what our supporters are saying. If Gamache knew half of what the agents and inspectors think—”
Beauvoir gave a gruff laugh. “You think he doesn’t know? Of course he does. He knows perfectly well what they’re saying, and why.” Jean-Guy leaned toward her and lowered his voice, forcing her to meet him halfway. “He was very clear. He warned us. And we all jumped on board, all excited, all pumped up at the thought of breaking the major drug ring in Québec with one shattering blow. Winning not just a skirmish here and there, or even a battle, but the war. But he warned us. There’d be hell to pay. And now that hell’s here, and the bill’s due, you’re complaining?”
Toussaint squirmed a little in her chair. “They won’t follow him forever, you know. We’re running out of time.”
“They won’t or you won’t?”
“There are limits.”
“Do you want out?”
The two glared at each other. Madeleine Toussaint outranked Jean-Guy Beauvoir. But that was more a consequence of his choice rather than his competence.
In private they treated each other as what they were. Equals.
“How do we just sit by, Jean-Guy?” she asked, softening her voice. “It goes against all my instincts, all my training. How do we just let people die, when we can save them?”
“I know,” he said. “I feel it too. But if we’re successful…”
“Yes, yes, I know all that. That’s what got us to support this plan. But…?”
“What happens if we fail?” said Beauvoir. She nodded. “Then we fail. But at least we tried.”
“You’re not rallying the troops now, Jean-Guy. It’s me you’re talking to. I’ve been in the trenches too long to be mollified.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what’ll happen. In Chief Superintendent Gamache’s desk there’s a notebook. And in it he’s written, longhand, exactly what he sees happening, if this fails. Do you want to go look?”
“He’s told us,” she said. “He outlined it that first day, at that first meeting. The risks and rewards.”
“True, and what he said was accurate, at the time. But it was a forecast. A best guess. But things have become clearer, as the weeks and months have gone on.”
“It’s worse than we thought?” She clearly didn’t want to ask, but did anyway.
“As we’ve appeared weaker, organized crime, gangs, traffickers have grown stronger. Bolder.”
“Which is what we’re counting on.”
“Oui. So they’ll also grow reckless. That’s the crack we’ve been looking for.”
“So to speak,” she said, and actually smiled.
He did not. Instead, his handsome, haggard face grew even more serious.
“It’ll be even worse than anyone thought, Madeleine. If we fail. This will be the second catastrophe to hit the Sûreté, and by association the government of Québec, in rapid succession. First the corruption scandal, and now what would appear to be complete incompetence—”
“Bordering on criminal behavior,” Superintendent Toussaint supplied, and only Beauvoir knew that it no longer bordered on criminal behavior. Chief Superintendent Gamache’s testimony in the courtroom that day had crossed that boundary.
“You likened this to the fight against cancer,” said Beauvoir. “That’s fair. That’s accurate. These opiates are like a cancer. You know how doctors treat a tumor?”
“Of course I do. With chemo.”
“Yes. They poison the patient, often taking them to the edge of death, before they can be saved. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Do you want to know what Monsieur Gamache suspects will be the consequence of failure here?”
Superintendent Toussaint’s jaw muscles tensed as they clamped down.
“I do not,” she managed to say.
Beauvoir nodded. “I don’t blame you. But I’ll tell you something. If we fuck this up, we’ll only be hurrying along something that was inevitable. The war on drugs was lost years ago. New designer opiates are hitting the streets every day. This really is, and always has been, our only hope. Our last great stand. But—”
“Yes?”
“The Chief Superintendent also wrote, in that notebook, what happens if we succeed.”
He smiled. “We’re almost there, Madeleine.”
Toussaint looked down at her tablet, and tapped it a few times. Then she paused.
She seemed to be weighing her options.
He’d noticed that Superintendent Toussaint hadn’t asked if Gamache had lied on the witness stand, though they all knew it would come up, almost certainly that day. And Beauvoir knew why Toussaint hadn’t asked.
One day soon there was sure to be an investigation, and questions would be asked of Superintendent Toussaint.
Did she know the Chief Superintendent intended to lie? And when she found out he had perjured himself, did she report it?
If she didn’t ask, she could truthfully answer non to both questions.
Better ignorant than guilty.
She was distancing herself from the Chief Superintendent. But then, so had he.
At least hers was figurative. Beauvoir had done it literally. Fleeing from the courtroom. Retreating. Running away. Putting actual distance between himself and Gamache. And the lie.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d done it. They’d stood side by side through firefights. They’d tracked down and faced down the worst killers Québec could produce. Together.
And now he’d run away?
And now it is now, he thought. And the dark thing is here.
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. He knew what was standing there in the corner of the bright sunny office. Watching and staring. And when he got up, it would follow him. Forever if necessary.
The dark thing is here. Like the demon on the island in Lord of the Flies, the one the boys had conjured out of thin air and terror.
The demon, the dark thing, was himself.
Madeleine Toussaint wrote a word on a piece of paper, transcribing it from her tablet.
“It’s bad news, I’m afraid. Another shipment.”
Beauvoir sighed. What else could he have expected?
“The inspector who brought me this information—”
“François Gaugin? I saw him say something to you when I arrived. He’s a good man.”
“A loyal man. Loyal to the Sûreté,” said Toussaint.
“But not necessarily the leadership?”
“He asked me not to show it to anyone else. He begged me to let him handle this. To make an arrest. I gave him my word.”
Beauvoir met her eyes and nodded. It was that kind of day. When words and promises and oaths were broken.
It had better be worth it, he thought.
“It’s a small shipment, tiny by comparison to what we just tracked.”
She pushed the scrap of paper across the table. It had a significance beyond whatever was written there. It was the canary in the coal mine. A warning that if someone like Inspector Gaugin mistrusted them, then there was real trouble.
It was possible now that Chief Superintendent Gamache would destroy the drug cartel and the Sûreté with it.
Beauvoir adjusted his glasses and read.
“Chlorocodide. Never heard of it. A new drug?”
“New to us.”
Shit, he thought. Another drug, another plague. Another bomb on poor Coventry.
“It’s a codeine derivative,” Toussaint was saying. “Popular in Russia. This shipment comes from Vladivostok. It arrived at Mirabel in a container of nesting dolls. It’s just sitting in a warehouse.” She leaned toward him, her voice urgent. “We can confiscate it. To push back,
“It’s just sitting there, you say?” asked Beauvoir.
“Oui. Can I call Gaugin and give the word?”
“Non,” he said, adamant. “Do nothing.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. It can’t matter, just let my people make some arrests. Throw them this, I’m begging you.”
“Madeleine, why do you think it’s just sitting there? Big or small, wouldn’t they normally try to get it on its way? What’re they waiting for?”
Now she paused. Considering. “Are you asking because you know the answer?”
“No, but I’m beginning to have an idea.”
“What?”
Beauvoir had grown very still, but his eyes darted and his mouth opened slightly.
“Tell me more about this chlorocodide.”
“Well, as far as I know, this is the first shipment into Québec, probably the first into Canada. Not sure about the States, but if it’s there it’s not yet in large quantities. Its street name is Russian Magic. Also known as krokodil.”
“So this would be like an amuse-bouche?”
She almost smiled. “You could say that. Something to get people started. To whet their appetite. They’re sophisticated, these traffickers.”
“They’re also brilliant marketers,” said Beauvoir. “Calling something krokodil. Appeals to kids. Sounds urban. Edgy.”
“It’s also called that because it makes their skin all scaly. Like a crocodile.”
“Oh, Christ,” he sighed.
He, better than Toussaint, better than most, knew the desperation of the junkie. And how detached from normal human behavior they became. They already felt and acted subhuman. Why not look it too?
They didn’t care.
But he did.
“This’s how it starts,” he said, taking off his glasses and tapping the paper, in an unconscious imitation of something Gamache often did. “They bring in a small amount, to prime the pump. Build up demand. The drug is all the more desirable because it’s hard to get.”
He knew the routine.
Dealers dealt in drugs, but also in human nature.
“So why leave it in a warehouse at Mirabel?” he asked. “What’re they waiting for?”
“For the big shipment of fentanyl to make it through?” Toussaint suggested.
“Yes, almost certainly. But it’s crossed the border. What’s stopping them now?”
They stared at each other, hoping the other might come up with an answer.
Then Beauvoir smiled. It was tiny, frail. But it was there.
“They’re waiting to see what happens at the trial,” he said.
And Madeleine Toussaint’s face opened in astonishment, then relaxed into a smile. “My God, I think you’re right.”
Beauvoir stood up and tilted the slip of paper toward her. “May I?”
She stood up too, and after hesitating for just a moment, she nodded.
Beauvoir folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
“What’re you going to do?” she asked as she followed him to the door.
“I’m going to show this to Chief Superintendent Gamache as soon as he gets out of court.”
“And what’ll he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Push him, Jean-Guy. Make him act,” she said. “He has to give the word.”
“Look, no one has more at stake than he does,” said Beauvoir.
“That’s not true. He won’t lose a son or daughter to addiction. He almost certainly isn’t going to suffer a home invasion by some drug-addled crazy, or be shot on the street for drug money. You have a young son.”
“Honoré, oui.”
“I have a son in high school and two daughters heading there soon. We have more at stake. We have everything to lose. This cannot fail, Jean-Guy.”
“I know.”
And he did know.
“Wait.” She reached out and drew Beauvoir back into the office, and closed the door. “Did he do it?”
“What?”
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Did Chief Superintendent Gamache commit perjury today? Did he lie about the bat and the hidden door in the church basement?”
“He did.”
She grew very still, then glanced at the pocket where the slip of paper now sat.
“Then we might have a chance. But what do I tell my agents?”
“You’ll think of something. This started with you, Madeleine. You can’t distance yourself, even if you want to.”
“You can’t possibly blame me for this,” she said, her defenses slamming back into place.
“I’m not blaming. One day you might even be given the award you deserve. You helped the Chief Superintendent come up with this plan. He kept the napkin, you know. From your lunch. It’s in his desk, below the notebook.”
Toussaint nodded. Beauvoir was right. This all began that afternoon months ago, over lunch, when she’d used a cliché. And Chief Superintendent Gamache had written it down on the only thing available.
The cliché was so common that she’d failed to consider what it really meant. And she sure hadn’t foreseen what it would mean to Gamache. And how he’d use it.
“Burn our ships,” she said, remembering that moment in the brasserie when Chief Superintendent Gamache had looked at her with a gleam. The ember of an idea.
“Burn our ships,” Beauvoir repeated. “Do you know where it comes from?”
She nodded. She’d looked it up, as the days and months had passed and things got worse and worse instead of better and better, and Madeleine Toussaint had begun to wonder what she’d done.
What she found out was no comfort.
“It was Cortés,” she said. “Five hundred years ago. When the Spanish landed in what’s now Mexico.”
Beauvoir nodded. “They stood on the beach and Cortés ordered his men to burn their ships.”
“So there was no going back.”
The two senior Sûreté officers stood at the door and imagined that moment. What would those men have done? Would they have argued? Begged? Plotted mutiny?
Or would they have meekly done it, so conditioned were they to follow orders?
The conquistadors had traveled to the New World to conquer it. They would in a few short years destroy a great Aztec civilization. And in return they’d be given wealth beyond imagining. Except. Except.
Most would never leave those shores.
How had they felt, as they’d stood on that beach? The strange continent in front of them. Home and family and safety behind them. And in between, a smoldering ship.
Neither Beauvoir nor Toussaint had to work very hard at imagining how those conquistadors had felt.
There was no going back for them either.
They could smell the burning timbers.
“I’ll let you know how it goes,” said Beauvoir, patting his pocket where the piece of paper sat. As he left, he felt the dark thing follow him out into the glaring sunshine.
Madeleine Toussaint closed the door and walked to her desk. She sat heavily in the chair, then hit the intercom and asked her assistant to call Inspector Gaugin. She stared out the window, and wondered how she’d explain to him what she’d just done.
A dark thing, like some charred remain, stood quietly in the corner, and watched.
* * *
“The defendant actually came to you, is that right, Chief Superintendent?”
“It is. I was at home in Three Pines with my wife—”
“Reine-Marie Gamache,” Zalmanowitz reminded the jury. “She’s the one who found the body of Katie Evans earlier that day.”
“Exactly. Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste, the head of homicide, was staying with us, as was Inspector Beauvoir, my second-in-command.”
“Are they in the courtroom now?”
“Non.”
The Crown Prosecutor turned around, looked at the gallery, then turned back to Gamache. Surprised. A glance passed between them.
Judge Corriveau caught it, and tucked it away.
More than noting the understanding in that glance from Crown to Chief Superintendent, the judge recognized something else. Something completely unexpected.
Sympathy.
Maureen Corriveau’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. She considered calling an early end to the day’s testimony and dragging both men into her chambers. And forcing the truth from them.
But she was a patient woman and she knew if she gave them space and time, they’d eventually drop enough pieces for her to see what was actually happening.
“It was during dinner that the defendant arrived?”
“Actually, it was after dinner. Quite late.”
“Were you surprised by what the defendant told you?”
“I was shocked. We would have gotten there eventually, of course. The crime lab backs up the confession. By then, we were pretty sure that Madame Evans’s murder was premeditated.”
“Why?”
“The cobrador costume. It speaks of a knowledge only someone close to the victim could have had. Some secret she thought she’d buried.”
“But the cobrador costume, the cobrador presence, speaks of something else,” said Zalmanowitz. “Not just a secret, but a guilt so profound it needed to be avenged.”
Gamache shook his head. “That’s what was so strange. The original cobradors weren’t intent on revenge. They didn’t physically attack their targets. Their mission was to accuse and expose. To act as a conscience.”
“And leave the punishment to a higher court?” said Zalmanowitz.
“A higher court?” asked Judge Corriveau. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that phrase in this testimony. What’s it supposed to mean?”
Barry Zalmanowitz looked like a man whose clothing had just fallen off.
“Monsieur Zalmanowitz?” she asked.
She knew she had him, and almost certainly by the tender bits. Bits that she was not at all interested in possessing, but that had now fallen into her lap.
“It’s a quote,” came the deep, calm voice of Chief Superintendent Gamache.
Judge Corriveau waited. She knew the quote, of course. Gamache himself had used it earlier. And Joan had looked it up. But for the Crown to now use it meant that it hadn’t been just a passing thought. It had been something the two of them had discussed.
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