A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  “Jean-Guy?” she asked, not even trying to disguise her doubt.

  “Michel Brébeuf.”

  Isabelle Lacoste sat very still. As though something horrible had entered the room and she didn’t want to attract its notice.

  Finally she spoke.

  “A known traitor?”

  “An example,” said Gamache. “A powerful example of what corruption will do. It robbed Michel Brébeuf of everything he cared about. His colleagues, his friends, his self-respect. His career. His family. He lost everything. Serge Leduc was promising the cadets power and rewards. Michel Brébeuf is the reality check. What really happens to corrupt Sûreté officers.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “He knows he’s been given this chance to redeem himself. To close the gate.”

  Isabelle Lacoste cocked her head slightly, missing the allusion.

  “And suppose he doesn’t try to redeem himself?” she asked. “Suppose he sees this as his chance to get back in? Suppose he’s gone back to his old ways and has found his own fertile ground. Aren’t you worried that putting Michel Brébeuf, Serge Leduc, and a school full of impressionable cadets together will be a disaster?”

  “Of course I am,” he snapped, then quickly reined himself in. He looked at her, his eyes sharp and the anger just below the surface. “You can’t possibly think I don’t worry about that every moment of every day. But how do you put out a wildfire? With another fire.”

  “A controlled burn,” said Isabelle Lacoste, then lowered her voice. “Controlled.”

  “You think I’ve lost control?”

  “There’s a body being taken to a morgue, and you were heckled by the cadets.” She sighed. “I do think you’ve lost control. And please know, I say that with the greatest respect. If anyone could have solved this problem, it would’ve been you.”

  “But you think I’ve made it worse?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it.

  “I’m not going to sit here and tell you the murder of Serge Leduc was part of my plan,” said Gamache. “Or anything I thought remotely possible. But I won’t back down. You’ve never run away, Isabelle. Even when you could have. Even when you should have, to save yourself.”

  He smiled at her now, with those same deep brown eyes that had looked up at her as he lay dying on a factory floor and she was desperate to stanch the blood. As automatic weapons fire hissed overhead and the walls around them exploded with bullets and the air was thick with dust and shouting and the screams of mortally wounded men and women.

  She’d stayed with him. Held his hand. Listened to what they both knew would be his last words. Reine-Marie.

  He’d placed those words into Isabelle Lacoste. And with them all his heart and soul. All his happiness, and an apology. Reine-Marie.

  Gamache had survived, of course. And Isabelle had not had to deliver that final message.

  “And I won’t run away now,” he said. “We stay the course.”

  “Oui,” she said.

  “We’ve seen worse, haven’t we, Isabelle?” he said.

  She smiled. “We have. At least the cadets aren’t armed and shooting at us. Yet.”

  Gamache gave a single gruff laugh. “I’ve asked the chief of police to quietly take all the ammunition from the armory. The weapons will stay, but there’ll be nothing to fire.”

  Her smile disappeared. “I was joking. But you’re seriously expecting trouble on that scale?”

  “I was not expecting a murder,” he said. His face as serious as she’d ever seen. “The cadets must be safe. The only thing more dangerous than a killer is a killer trapped. He is now trapped inside the academy. Best not to have an armory at his disposal.”

  “Or an army,” said Lacoste, remembering the reaction in the auditorium. “Serge Leduc had a lot of supporters.”

  “Yes, but did you see any grief?”

  That set Lacoste back, and after thinking for a moment she shook her head. “No.”

  “No,” said Gamache. “The problem with the breath of kings.”

  “The breath of kings?”

  “Who float upon the tide of state,” said Gamache. “I only wish Jean-Guy was here to appreciate this.”

  “Another poem?” she asked, knowing full well it must be.

  “Hmmm, Jonathan Swift.”

  He handed her the dossier he’d retrieved off his desk.

  “What’s this?”

  “The gun I held to Serge Leduc’s head,” said Gamache. “Read it and tell me what you think.”

  She took it and got up. “Merci. I will. Is there an office I can use?”

  “There’s a boardroom across the hall.”

  “Perfect.”

  Though she was on her feet, Gamache himself had not risen. And so, taking the cue, Lacoste sat back down.

  “There’s more?”

  “Of a political nature, nothing that will help solve the murder, I’m afraid,” said Gamache. “There are some considerations in running a department. Especially one with as high a profile as homicide.”

  “Yes?”

  “Justice must be seen to be done.”

  “I agree.”

  It was an old adage, a cliché even, and Gamache was not given to spouting clichés. So when he did, it must be particularly apropos.

  “‘Not only must justice be done,’” she quoted, “‘it must also be seen to be done.’ What are you saying? That I need to hold a news conference?”

  “Well, that might not be a bad idea, but my thoughts run to something more nuanced. This is the Sûreté Academy. The professors are all former officers or those on leave, like Inspector Beauvoir, or people who do contract work with the Sûreté. I’m the former head of homicide. Your former boss.”

  Chief Inspector Lacoste got it then.

  “In effect, it’s the Sûreté investigating the Sûreté.”

  “In a murder case,” said Gamache.

  She nodded, considering. “You think I should call Chief Superintendent Brunel and ask that an outside agency take over?”

  “Non,” he shook his head. “Not take over. You must fight against that. Simply ask that an outside investigator be sent. Someone who can vouch for the fairness of your investigation.”

  She sat thinking. Her thoughts were not happy ones. “Have you ever had to do that?”

  “Twice. It was not pleasant. But it had to be done. And better to have it come from you than be imposed. I suspect Chief Superintendent Brunel is contemplating it even now.”

  Lacoste pulled out her iPhone and punched in the number for the head of the Sûreté. “Is there someone I should ask for specifically?”

  “No,” he said, getting to his feet. “That would taint it. You have to take what comes. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Gamache stepped into his outer office just as Jean-Guy arrived.

  “They’re heading down to Three Pines, patron.”

  “Good. Merci.”

  Now, close up, Beauvoir could see how stressed Gamache really was.

  “There is something,” said Jean-Guy. “One of their maps is missing.”

  “Whose?”

  “The Goth Girl’s.”

  “Amelia?”

  Beauvoir raised his brows at the familiarity.

  “Cadet Choquet, yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She seemed surprised. She denied there was any special relationship with Professor Leduc, aside from taking him coffee in the morning and gathering for the odd meeting with others in his rooms.”

  “So it’s true,” said Gamache. “She was one of them.”

  Gamache took a deep, deep breath, then on the exhale he looked out the door and down the empty hallway that had once teemed with cadets and was now completely devoid of life.

  He muttered so quietly as to be almost inaudible, “What have I done?”

  CHAPTER 15

  “You’ve kidnapped us.”

  “That’s a little harsh, wouldn’t you say?” said Armand Gama

che later that day as he stood in the bistro and looked at the four cadets. “Hardly a prison.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Jacques.

  “Oh yes, Cadet Laurin. I heard you.”

  Amelia wondered if Jacques had picked up on what the Commander was really saying. But he seemed too intent on his own message to hear anyone else’s.

  “Why’re we here?” Huifen Cloutier asked, her tone more polite, though the edge was still noticeable.

  It was midafternoon and the bistro was filling up, but their table was private. At Gamache’s request, Olivier had given them a place in the corner, tucked between the wall and the window. When Commander Gamache walked in, they’d stood up, but now he waved them to their seats and grabbed a chair for himself from another table.

  Amelia found herself at home in the faintly familiar surroundings. It didn’t smell of urine and cigarettes, like the rooming house. It didn’t sound hollow, like the academy. Instead, it smelt of wood smoke and coffee, and she could hear the fire crackle in the grate and the murmur of muffled conversation nearby, spiced by laughter. Not the loud, often jarring, bursts of laughter that reverberated down the halls of the academy. This was a low rumble. An undertone of good humor.

  After being marched out of the academy, she’d been taken to an unmarked Sûreté vehicle, already running, with Nathaniel waiting in the backseat and two plainclothes agents in the front seat. As they’d been driven deeper and deeper into the wilderness, away from the academy and way away from Sûreté headquarters, her disquiet had grown.

  The car had turned off the main road and taken progressively smaller back roads. Then, finally, a dirt road.

  “Where’re you taking us?” she demanded, just as the car slowed and crested a hill. “Where are we?”

  “Well, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” said one of the plainclothes agents, turning around.

  It was Gabri. And Amelia immediately recognized the village.

  “Three Pines,” she said. “But why?”

  “Honestly,” said Olivier, as they pulled up to the bistro, “I have no idea why Monsieur Gamache wants you back. But he does.”

  The cadets were shown to the table reserved for them, and Olivier explained that Commander Gamache had asked that they wait there for him.

  They’d been joined shortly after that by Huifen and Jacques. The two women who’d driven them down, the bookstore owner and the artist, left them at the table. The artist woman went home, but the bookstore owner found a table across the room, ordered a beer and a sandwich, and watched them.

  The cadets had had lunch, and then endless cups of coffee, waiting. And then the Commander had arrived.

  “Why’re we back here?” Jacques repeated Huifen’s question when Commander Gamache sat down.

  Armand asked Olivier for a double espresso, then turned his attention to the cadets. “I had my friends bring you here because secrecy is vital. Chief Inspector Lacoste and Inspector Beauvoir know you’re here. But no one else. I didn’t even want agents to drive you down. No one must know where you are.”

  They moved forward then, drawn toward the Commander.

  Huifen and Nathaniel immediately asked, “Why not?”

  But Amelia and Jacques did not. And Gamache wondered if they knew. They were suspected. Of being the killer. Or being the next victim.

  As he looked at their young, troubled faces, he saw the village beyond and the hill they’d driven down. And he remembered the headlights up there, that first night the cadets had visited.

  The lights, like eyes, had stared down at them, then had slowly, slowly withdrawn.

  Gamache had no idea who was in the car, and he’d assumed whoever it was had been following him. But now he wondered. And now his worry increased.

  Suppose he wasn’t the target? Suppose whoever was in the car had been following the cadets?

  All of them.

  Or just one of them.

  “Why are we here?” Huifen asked, almost demanded.

  “I brought you here because I have a job for you.”

  “Let me guess,” said Jacques. “You want us to shovel your walk and cook your meals.”

  He’d spoken loudly, and the tables immediately around them shot glances their way before returning to their own business.

  “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else,” said Gamache, his voice reasonable. Not taking offense. A bird of prey unbothered by a moth. “No. In fact what I’m going to ask you to do is quite difficult and very important. And needs to be kept quiet. I hope it will help in the investigation of Professor Leduc’s murder.”

  He could not have put together a string of words more potent for the young men and women. Even Jacques grew quiet and attentive, and Amelia sat forward.

  So very young, he thought. So young they don’t know it.

  “A copy of this map was found in Professor Leduc’s night table,” said Gamache as he placed the map on the table.

  Only Nathaniel noticed the blood seep from Amelia’s face. Already pale to begin with, she now looked translucent.

  “No one outside of the homicide investigators knows that,” the Commander was saying. “We don’t yet know how he got it, or why he had it.”

  “Whose is it?” asked Huifen.

  “Others are looking into that question,” said Gamache.

  Amelia was staring at him, though she said nothing.

  “Is that why they told us to find our copies?” asked Jacques.

  “It is. I hope you brought them, because I need you to find some things out.”

  His eyes, as always, came to rest on Amelia.

  He’d been watching her progress since the first day.

  She was top of her class. Top of the entire freshman intake, in fact. By a long shot. But she hadn’t chosen a volunteer assignment, belonged to no clubs or sports teams, and sat alone at meals.

  This afternoon, just before leaving to come down here, he’d looked at the report on the contents of her dorm space. No drugs. No alcohol. Some chocolate chip cookies, hoarded from the kitchens.

  There were no photos. No letters or cards. Nothing from her father. Or her mother.

  It was as though she’d been birthed in the academy. A twenty-year-old newborn. Though Armand Gamache knew different. He knew exactly where she’d sprung from. He knew her bloodline.

  In his peripheral vision, he could see the duffle bag beside Amelia’s chair. It was bulging, the canvas sticking out at awkward angles.

  He could guess what was in it. Some clothing and toiletries. But mostly it was crammed full of the only things Amelia Choquet valued.

  Books.

  He wondered if the small volume of poetry by Ruth Zardo was in there. The one she’d taken from his home. He hesitated to call it “stolen,” still hoping she’d return it one day.

  The cadets had lifted their eyes from the map and were looking at him.

  Out the window Gamache could see a car arriving, one he recognized.

  Lowering his voice, he spoke quickly, urgently.

  “I need you to continue what you started,” he said. “To find out everything you can about this map. Who drew it. Why. Was there a purpose? Is there some message in it that made it valuable to Professor Leduc?”

  Gamache saw the car draw up to his home.

  He rose to his feet, but continued to talk. They also got up.

  “Why, after someone put such time and effort into drawing it, was it then walled up?” he asked. “I have to leave, but I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay here.”

  He got up, put his copy of the map in his pocket, and left.

  Amelia watched him go, walking just a little more quickly than a relaxed man might. Once outside, he took long strides around the village green to his home, where a man and a woman had stopped partway up the path to his front door and were waiting for him.

  Amelia didn’t recognize the man. Middle-aged, he had graying hair and slightly soft features. But the most striking thing about him was that he was in uniform. Not a Sûreté uniform. This one was a deep blue with gold buttons and insignia. He wore a cap with a broad gold ribbon and he stood straight, almost at attention, as Gamache approached. He didn’t quite salute, but close.

  And once again, Amelia wondered about the Commander. He must have been someone, once. To command such respect from such a senior officer. And she wondered what terrible thing Gamache had done to have been shuffled off, away from active duty. To the flat plains of Saint-Alphonse and the Sûreté Academy.

  As the two men shook hands, Amelia looked more closely at the woman. She was in plain clothes. Blond. Petite without giving the impression of being small. Just the opposite. There was something formidable about her, even at a distance.

  And then Amelia’s eyes opened wide.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?” asked Huifen, following her glance out the window. “Who’re they?”

  “How should I know?” said Amelia.

  It was the homicide chief. The one she’d seen interviewed on the news, while the drunken slop of a landlady spread her legs on the La-Z-Boy in front of the TV.

  Amelia got up and headed for the door.

  “Stop.”

  Everyone in the bistro stopped. Including Amelia.

  “Come here.”

  Amelia turned around. When they realized the target was the young woman, everyone else averted their eyes from the inevitable carnage.

  Ruth was pointing a crooked finger at the empty armchair at her table. After a moment’s hesitation, Amelia went over and sat.

  “Didn’t he tell you to stay put?” Ruth demanded.

  “You’re Ruth Zardo, the poet,” she said.

  “I hear there was a murder at the academy. Did you do it?”

  The demented old poet glared at her with eyes so sharp Amelia felt she must be bleeding.

  Beside Ruth, the demon duck was nodding and muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Amelia’s mind went blank. Except for one line from that book the Commander had offered her. She’d refused his gift, but had subsequently found a copy in the used bookstore next door and bought it. Marcus Aurelius.

  The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

  Amelia knew she was deep in the ranks of the insane.

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