A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  “The person getting what they deserve,” said Gélinas.

  “Often, yes.”

  “And in this case, Commander? Do you think the killer was after justice?”

  Gamache looked at the photographs in front of them.

  “Maybe.”

  “But?” said Lacoste.

  “You’ve interviewed the professors and the students,” said Gamache, and she nodded. “Each of the professors was a highly experienced Sûreté officer. All the students are being taught investigative skills.”

  “You’re saying this is a school for murder,” said Gélinas. “You might be teaching them how to catch a criminal, but in a roundabout way you’re also teaching them how to be one, and not get caught.”

  Gamache was nodding. “The professors in particular. They’d know what we’d be looking for.”

  “And be able to stage a crime scene,” said Lacoste. “Make it look like something it’s not.”

  “A single shot to the temple,” said Gamache. “Most murderers would at least try to make it look like suicide. Not a stretch. The narrative would be obvious. Serge Leduc knew I was closing in on him, and so he took his own life rather than go to prison.”

  “And all the killer had to do was drop the gun on the correct side of the body,” said Lacoste.

  “But he didn’t,” said Gélinas, looking at the photos. “Instead he does the opposite. Why?”

  “He wants us to know it wasn’t suicide,” said Lacoste.

  “But why?” asked Gélinas. “Why make sure we knew it was murder? So that we’d know that justice was done?”

  They stared at the pictures. In certain ones, Serge Leduc looked like he was asleep. In others he was unrecognizable.

  Perspective.

  “You’re being awfully quiet.” Gamache turned to Beauvoir and saw a familiar expression on his face. “What do you know?”

  “The alarm system was off last night.”

  As one, Chief Inspector Lacoste, Deputy Commissioner Gélinas, and Commander Gamache leaned toward him.

  “But how’s that possible?” asked Gamache. “It’s integrated, computerized. The guards would have noticed. The board would have lit up.”

  “Well, guess where Leduc cut corners?” said Beauvoir. “Apparently, the guards knew the system was crap and had complained to the former commander, and gotten shit from Leduc for it. When you came, they said nothing.”

  “What do you mean by crap?” asked Lacoste.

  “It’s a cheap job—”

  Gamache winced and shook his head. “They paid hundreds of thousands for the security system.”

  “Well, according to the guards, you could buy a better one at Canadian Tire.”

  Now Gamache groaned and massaged his head, trying to rid himself of a creeping headache. “There’s an armory of weapons here. And almost no protection. This isn’t just contract fixing, this is stupidity on a monumental scale.”

  “I’ve set up a meeting with the head guard for tomorrow morning,” said Beauvoir, “to review security.”

  “Good,” said Gamache.

  “But whoever turned off the system would still have to know how,” said Lacoste.

  “True, but this system allows for more than one code,” said Beauvoir, then turned to Gamache. “You have one—”

  “I thought it was the only one.”

  “—and I suspect Leduc had his own code.”

  “And there may be others floating around?” said Gamache.

  Beauvoir nodded, barely able to make eye contact with the Commander.

  “You’re thinking Leduc himself turned it off?” asked Gélinas. “But why?”

  Beauvoir shrugged. “Beats me, and that’s just one possibility. Someone could have easily hacked in and closed it down.”

  “And the guards wouldn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “And even if they saw some warning light, they tell me they’re always going off. False alarms ten times a day.”

  “Could it be done remotely?” Gamache asked. “By someone outside the academy?”

  “It would be more difficult,” said Beauvoir, “but yes, it could be done. What’re you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking of a conversation I had with the mayor a few months back at his office. Being mayor of Saint-Alphonse isn’t exactly a full-time job. He moonlights as a consultant in software design.”

  “I’ll make an appointment with the mayor,” said Lacoste. “Let’s move on. We found the bullet from the gun. It was lodged in the wall across the room. We’re having it analyzed, of course, but it looks like it came from the murder weapon.”

  “I’ve sent an email to the manufacturer,” Beauvoir reported. “Some place in England. But Leduc could’ve picked the gun up secondhand on the black market.”

  “I haven’t seen the weapon,” said Gélinas. “Where is it?”

  “Sent to the lab for tests, but we have pictures,” said Lacoste.

  As Gélinas studied them, his expression grew more and more perplexed.

  “At what height was the bullet?” Gamache asked.

  “Five feet eight inches.”

  “He was standing when killed. I wondered if he might’ve been kneeling.”

  “Begging for his life?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Or killed execution-style,” said Gamache.

  “No,” said Lacoste. “He seemed to be just standing there.”

  “Huh,” was all Gamache said. “Huh.” But it was what the others were thinking.

  Huh. Why would someone just wait to be murdered, and not at least try to fight back? Especially someone like Serge Leduc.

  Gélinas lowered the photographs and was staring at Isabelle Lacoste.

  “It’s a revolver. With a silencer?”

  “Oui,” said Beauvoir. “Custom. That’s why no one heard the shot.”

  “Was he a gun collector?”

  “Non,” said Gamache.

  “Then why would he have an old-fashioned revolver?” asked Gélinas, and got only blank stares in reply. He replaced the pictures and shook his head.

  “Something very strange is going on in your school, monsieur.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “Hello,” Nathaniel Smythe called. “Bonjour?”

  The front door was ajar. He took a deep breath and opened it enough to get his head in.

  “Madame Zardo?”

  He stepped inside, hitching his satchel up on his sloping shoulders.

  It was past six. He was tired and hungry. Enough to finally seek out his billet.

  The door opened straight into the living room, which was in darkness except for a single lamp.

  He stood still.

  There were no sounds. Not a creak. Or a quack. In the demi-darkness, all he saw were books. The walls were made of them. The tables were stacked with books. The one chair, illuminated, was covered in them, splayed open. Upholstered in stories.

  He’d been holding his breath, pretty sure the place would stink. Of decay. Of dander and old lady. But now, no longer able to hold it, he breathed in. Deeply.

  There was a familiar smell. Not a scent. Not an aroma. Nothing that exotic. It was more earthy. It certainly wasn’t cooking.

  It was books. Musky words filled the air.

  * * *

  “I’m in here.”

  Amelia dropped her bag in the kitchen and followed the voice.

  At the door into the back room, she stopped.

  Clara Morrow was sitting on a wooden stool with a wind-up seat, her back to the door. A paintbrush in her mouth. Staring at a canvas.

  Amelia couldn’t see that much of the painting. It was hidden behind a mass of Clara’s hair.

  “So what should I do?” asked Amelia. “Aren’t you supposed to cook or something?”

  Clara snorted, then turned. At her feet, a very tiny lion stirred.

  She looked at her guest.

  Jet-black hair. Luminous white skin, almost transparent. Piercings through her nose, her brows, her cheek.

But the studs weren’t black or blood-red. They were tiny faux diamonds. Gleaming where they caught the light. Like stars.

  Her ears were encased in rings. Her fingers looked like they’d been dipped in metal.

  It was as though this girl was encasing herself in armor.

  And where skin was exposed, there were tattoos.

  But the one thing this girl could not mark or pierce or hide were her eyes. The only original bit left. They were bright, like diamonds.

  * * *

  “What?” said Huifen when Gabri handed her an apron and pointed to the dishes in the bistro kitchen. “I’m—”

  “Yes, I know. You’re this close”—he brought his thumb and forefinger up—“to being a Sûreté officer. You’ve said. And I’m this close”—he brought the fingers even closer—“to kicking you out.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Of course I can. This is a favor we’re doing for Monsieur Gamache, not for you. I’m happy to put you up, but you have to work for your room and board. An hour a day here in the bistro or the B and B. Wherever we need you.”

  “That’s slave labor.”

  “That’s life in the real world. You sat here most of the afternoon ordering food. Then you went to the B and B and ate all the cake. Well, here’s the bill.”

  He tossed her a tea towel.

  * * *

  “We didn’t get off to a good start,” said Myrna, putting a Coke down in front of Jacques. He was slumped on the sofa in her loft above the bookstore, hitting the screen of his iPhone with increasing force.

  “Fucking thing doesn’t work here.”

  “Language,” said Myrna, sitting in a large chair in which her outline was permanently stamped.

  “I heard that old woman say worse.”

  “And when you’re an old woman, we’ll tolerate it from you too. For now, you’re a guest in my home, in this village, and you’ll watch your language. And you’re right. There’s no wireless here, no satellite coverage.”

  Jacques shoved his iPhone into his pocket.

  “Should we start again?” Myrna asked.

  She’d calmed down since their confrontation in the bistro. Seeing Ruth as the reasonable one had been deeply humbling to her. She’d returned to her bookstore for the afternoon, then headed upstairs, made a bed for her guest, and began dinner.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened at the academy?” she asked. “You were close to the professor?”

  Jacques stood up. “You make me sick. A man’s dead, murdered. And all you want is gossip.”

  Myrna also stood and stared at him. Her look steady, unwavering.

  “I know what you’re going through.”

  “Oh, really,” he laughed. “You know about murder? In books, maybe. You have no idea what it’s like out there.” He waved out the window. “In the real world.”

  “Oh, I have some idea,” she said quietly. “This isn’t the peaceful village it appears.”

  “What? Has your car been scratched? Did someone steal your recycling bin?”

  “Before I had a bookstore, I was a psychologist in Montréal. Among my clients were inmates at the SHU. You know it?”

  Myrna could see some of the anger turn to surprise, then interest. But he was too invested in his opinion to change now.

  “The Special Handling Unit,” he said.

  “The worst cases.”

  “And did you cure anyone?”

  “Now, you know that’s unlikely, perhaps even impossible.”

  “So you failed. And you came here. Like Gamache. A village filled with failures.”

  Myrna wasn’t going to be goaded again by this kid. Though she felt anger crooking its finger at her. Instead, she nodded toward the laptop, plugged into a phone line. “You’re welcome to use it. Look up some things. Change the facts and you’ll change the feelings.”

  “Wow, thanks for that insight.”

  He grabbed his jacket and took the stairs two at a time, down to Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore, then out the door.

  Myrna stood at the large window in her loft and saw him on the road below, visible in the light thrown by the bistro.

  He turned and looked up at her. Then he took long strides away from the bookstore and the bistro. Past Clara’s home. Myrna watched him until he disappeared into the night.

  And then the darkness was broken, by a small light.

  * * *

  After checking the house, including under the beds in case the demented old woman had died and rolled under one, Nathaniel went to the bistro.

  She wasn’t there. But the big guy, one of the owners, had suggested the house along the road. Clara Morrow’s.

  He headed there but met Amelia on her way out.

  “Ruth Zardo? No, she’s not there. I wish. Just that old painter woman. She keeps staring at me. Gives me the creeps. I had to leave.”

  “Why do you do that to yourself”—he indicated her piercings and tattoos—“if you don’t want people to stare?”

  “Why do you dress like that?” She waved her hand at him.

  “What?” He looked down at his coat and jeans. “Everybody dresses like this.”

  “Exactly. Why do you want to be everyone?”

  “Why do you want to be no one?”

  The truth was, Amelia hadn’t left because of Clara.

  When her host had gotten off her stool, Amelia had seen the painting. A full-on portrait. A self-portrait. It had blasted off the canvas, getting right up to Amelia. Getting in her face. They’d locked eyes, the painting and the person.

  The painted woman glared at her. Like she knew Amelia. And knew what she’d done.

  And Amelia had fled.

  * * *

  The light was on and the door was open.

  Amelia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a church. Probably her christening, though now that she thought of it, Amelia didn’t know if she had been christened.

  It was a tiny church, the smallest she’d ever seen. It was actually too dark to see the building itself. All they could see was the light through a stained-glass window.

  The image, though, wasn’t of a crucifix, or a saint, or a martyr. What glowed in the night were boys. Barely men. Slogging through a glass battlefield.

  “Come on,” said Nathaniel, already up the stairs and at the door. “Gabri said if Madame Zardo wasn’t at home or in the bistro or with the painter, she’d be here. Sleeping it off, probably.”

  “Why’re you so anxious to find her?” asked Amelia, stomping up the steps after him.

  “Because she’s my home,” he said. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

  * * *

  Ruth Zardo was indeed lying down, the duck nesting on her stomach. Her head propped on hymnals.

  “Is she dead?” Nathaniel whispered.

  “No, she’s not fucking dead,” said a voice.

  Ruth sat up, but didn’t look at them. She looked at the person who’d just spoken.

  Cadet Jacques Laurin was sitting off to the side, his boots on the pew in front. Drinking a beer he’d taken from that black woman’s fridge and shoved into the pocket of his jacket.

  He’d given a near-perfect imitation of Ruth’s voice. Right down to the cadence and tone. Both angry and wounded. Somehow catching the slight vulnerability.

  Nathaniel laughed and was horrified when both Jacques and Ruth turned to look at him.

  God help me, he thought.

  “What’re you doing here?” they all asked each other at once, just as Huifen arrived.

  “I saw you guys come up here. Oh, wonderful.” She sat down next to Jacques and, grabbing the bottle from him, she took a swig of beer. “Why’re we here?”

  “I’m here for some peace and quiet,” said Ruth, glaring at them.

  Jacques tilted his beer toward her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. He got up and handed Ruth the bottle, sitting down beside her.

  “I was watching you,” he said. “Why’re you staring at that?”

  He lifted his chin toward the stained-glass window and the brittle boys.

  “Where else am I supposed to look?” Ruth demanded, handing back the bottle.

  The cadets scanned the chapel. There was a central aisle with wooden pews on either side that looked handmade, each slightly different. There were just a few rows of seats and then the altar, also handmade. Well made. Indeed, beautifully carved, with leaves and a huge spreading oak tree.

  “I come here to write sometimes,” Ruth admitted, and they saw the notebook wedged between her and the back of the pew. “It’s quiet. No one comes into churches anymore. God has left the building, and is wandering. Or wondering.”

  “In the wilderness,” said Amelia.

  Ruth glared at her, but Amelia had the impression it was more habit than conviction. But she also had the impression it was more than peace and quiet the old poet was after.

  Amelia sat across the aisle, on the hard pew, and looked past Ruth to the stained glass. From the outside it looked like the soldiers were arriving. In here, it looked like they were leaving. Going. Gone.

  Below the window was writing, which she couldn’t make out.

  There were other windows in the chapel, including a nice rose window over the door. But this was the only one with a picture.

  Though it wasn’t simply an image. There was a feeling about it. Whoever had made this had done it with great care. Had cared.

  It was detailed. Intricate. Their unraveling and mud-encrusted socks. The skinned knuckles and filthy hands that held the rifles. The revolver in the holster of one of the boys. The brass buttons.

  Yes, great care had been taken. Down to the last detail.

  And then Amelia saw it. She stood up and walked between the pews. Closer, closer.

  “Shouldn’t you be bursting into flames?” said Ruth as she passed.

  Amelia walked right up to the stained glass and stared at the one boy. The one with the revolver. In his leather satchel, peeking out of one end where the buckle had broken, there was a piece of paper.

  As she leaned closer, closer, she saw three pine trees. And a snowman.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Holy shit,” said Myrna, taking a step back from the window.

  “Language,” said Jacques.

  “She said, ‘holy,’” said Ruth. “Weren’t you listening?”

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