Glass Houses

by Louise Penny

  Spain. The birthplace of the cobrador. Where they were most plentiful. The top-hatted modern version. But lately, there had been more and more sightings of the original. The Conscience.

  “Did either of them admit to knowing about the cobrador? Did Ruiz ever mention it?”

  “I asked about the cobrador, but both denied knowing anything about it,” said Lacoste.

  “This Antonio Ruiz, what does he do?” asked Beauvoir.

  “They wouldn’t tell me.”

  Now Beauvoir became angry. “Come on. They wouldn’t even tell you that?”

  “Easy enough to find out,” said Lacoste. “He must be in business of some sort.”

  “Probably,” said Beauvoir. “Businesspeople must be the main targets of the top-hatted cobradors in Spain. He’d be aware of them, if not because he was targeted, but he probably knows people who were. Or at least saw some in the streets.”

  “Or read news reports,” agreed Lacoste. “He probably reads the pink paper. You think he talked about it and Anton and Jacqueline overheard?”

  “I think it’s possible. Still,” Beauvoir admitted, “it’s a long way from that to murdering Madame Evans.”

  Lacoste nodded. Murder often struck her as similar to Hannibal crossing the Alps. How does a human get from here to there? From being upset, hurt, angry. Even vengeful. To taking a life.

  How do they get from a family sitting down to Sunday roast and talking about a strange phenomenon back home in Spain, to a crumpled, beaten figure in a root cellar in Québec?

  And yet it happens. The Alps are crossed.

  But as Gamache drilled into each of his agents when they joined homicide, a murder is always tragic and almost always simple. They were often the ones who complicated things.

  And a murderer liked that. Liked to get lost in the fog.

  So what was the simple answer to this?

  “Let me put in a call to the Guardia Civil in Spain,” said Beauvoir. “See if they have anything on Antonio Ruiz.”

  “Good.” She turned back to her laptop, but when Beauvoir didn’t leave, she swiveled back to him. “Something else?”

  “I think so.”

  Beauvoir walked over to his desk, and returned with his laptop.

  “This.”

  * * *

  “We’re up here,” Myrna’s voice sang down the stairs and into the bookstore.

  She’d heard the bell over the door jingle and now there were footsteps on the stairs up to her loft.

  Clara was already pouring a red wine for Reine-Marie and a scotch for Armand.

  “Oh my God, it’s cold,” said Reine-Marie, shaking the ice pellets off her coat and laying it over the bannister. “Merci.”

  She took the glass from Clara and followed them to the living room area. Myrna waved at the armchairs closest to the woodstove, while she and Clara sat facing it on the sofa.

  “Okay,” said Clara, putting her feet up on the hassock. “You’ve got your drink. Now pay for it. Information, please.”

  Armand took a sip of the scotch and exhaled.

  “Isabelle’s still interviewing people,” he said. “You were interviewed, right?”

  The two women nodded.

  “We weren’t much help, I’m afraid,” said Clara. “At least I wasn’t. I saw nothing. I didn’t see Katie go up there, and I didn’t see the cobrador follow her.”

  “How did Katie seem to you, this visit?” he asked.

  “The same as usual, I think,” said Myrna. “Maybe a little distracted, but that could be my imagination, given what’s happened.”

  “Come on, Armand,” said Clara. “Give us something. This isn’t just curiosity, you know. There’s a murderer out there, and honestly, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, I understand,” said Armand. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m here. I really can’t tell you much, partly because we don’t know much. But I can tell you that Katie Evans’s murder doesn’t seem to have been random.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Myrna. “She was the target all along? Did the cobrador do it? He must’ve.”

  “It looks like it,” said Armand, and wondered if they noticed the evasion.

  “But why toy with her?” asked Clara. “That’s just cruel.”

  “From what you told us, the original cobradors weren’t cruel,” said Myrna. “They were almost passive. Like an act of civil disobedience.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first example of something good and decent twisted to suit another agenda,” said Reine-Marie.

  “But still, if you look at what the cobrador actually did,” said Clara. “He just stood there. For two days. Not hurting anyone.”

  “Until he killed Katie,” Myrna pointed out. But she shook her head. “It still doesn’t add up. If you’re going to try to terrify someone, why do it with some obscure Spanish creature no one knows about? And one that has a history of nonviolence.”

  Armand was nodding. They were back to that. If the original cobradors were known for anything, it was extraordinary acts of bravery.

  “He did nothing wrong,” said Clara, “and we hated him.”

  “You defended him,” Armand pointed out. “When he was threatened.”

  “We didn’t want him killed,” said Myrna. “But Clara’s right. We wanted him gone. You too, I think.”

  Armand slowly nodded. It was true. The cobrador was different, unexpected, uninvited. Not playing by the normal rules of civilized behavior.

  He’d unearthed some uncomfortable, some unpleasant questions. Maybe even some truths.

  “You’re right,” Armand admitted. “But for all that, it’s important not to romanticize. There’s a very good chance he murdered Madame Evans.”

  “Maybe—” Clara began, but stopped.

  “Go on,” said Myrna. “Say it.”

  “Maybe she deserved it. I’m sorry. That’s an awful thing to say. No one deserves it.”

  “No,” said Reine-Marie. “But we know what you mean. Maybe Katie Evans did something to bring this on.”

  “She must have,” said Myrna. “If what you say is true. That the cobrador was a conscience.”

  “But a conscience doesn’t kill,” said Clara. “Does it?”

  “Of course it does,” said Myrna. “To stop a greater evil. Yes.”

  “So murder is sometimes justified?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “If not justified, it’s explainable, at least,” said Myrna, filling the void. “Even atrocities. We might not like the explanation, but we can’t deny it. Look at Nuremberg. Why did the Holocaust happen?”

  “Because deluded, power-crazy leaders needed a common enemy,” said Clara.

  “No,” said Myrna. “It happened because no one stopped them. Not enough people stood up soon enough. And why was that?”

  “Fear?” asked Clara.

  “Yes, partly. And partly programming. All around them, respectable Germans saw others behaving brutally toward people they considered outsiders. The Jews, gypsies, gays. It became normal and acceptable. No one told them what was happening was wrong. In fact, just the opposite.”

  “No one should have had to,” snapped Reine-Marie.

  “Myrna’s right,” said Armand, breaking his silence. “We see what she describes all the time. I saw it in the Sûreté Academy. I saw it in the brutality of the Sûreté itself. We see it when bullies are in charge. It becomes part of the culture of an institution, a family, an ethnic group, a country. It becomes not just acceptable, but expected. Applauded even.”

  “But what you’re describing is a sort of counterfeit conscience,” said Reine-Marie. “Something that might look ‘right’ but is actually wrong. No one with an actual conscience would stand for it.”

  “I wonder if that’s true,” said Myrna. “There was a famous psychological study, a test really. It was designed as a response to the Nazi trials, and their defense that their consciences were clear. It was war and they were just doing as they were told. It was Eichmann’s defense when he was caug

ht, years later. The public was enraged, saying that no normal person would do what the Nazis did, and no civilized society would stand by and let it happen. So the social scientists, during the Eichmann trial, put it to the test.”

  “Wait,” said Clara. “Before you tell us, I need another drink. Anyone else?”

  Armand got up. “Let me.”

  He and Myrna took the glasses to the kitchen, and poured more wine.

  “Nothing for you?” she asked, pointing to the Glenfiddich.

  “Non, merci. I think there’s quite a bit of work ahead tonight. That study you’re referring to, is it the Milgram experiment at Yale?”

  “Yes.” She looked at Reine-Marie and Clara, chatting by the woodstove. “Would they have done it, do you think?”

  “Isn’t the question more, would you have done it? Would I?”

  “And the answer?”

  “Maybe we’re doing it now, and don’t realize it,” he said, and thought of the notebook locked away in his quiet home. And what it contained. And what he was considering doing.

  But, unlike the Nazis, he wouldn’t just be following orders. He’d be issuing them.

  And hundreds, perhaps thousands, would almost certainly die.

  Could he justify it?

  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.”

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