A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  “Never,” admitted Gamache. “But if the agents wanted to do that, they were clearly in the wrong job. You’re right, the uniform is a symbol of the institution. And if they have so little respect for the institution, then they need to leave. Here, at the academy, is where we earn their respect. We don’t teach it. We don’t impose it. We model it, we work for it. We’re asking these young men and women to be willing to die in that uniform. The least we can do is earn that sacrifice. Let them wear the uniform inside out if they want to, now. If at the end of the year they still are, then we know we haven’t done our jobs.”

  “Bet that shut them up,” said Lacoste, when Beauvoir related the story.

  “It did, though I don’t think it convinced them of anything other than that Commander Gamache was soft.”

  “And Cadet Choquet’s uniform?”

  “Spotless. Absolutely perfect.”

  “Where’s she from? Her background?”

  “Montréal. She lived in a rooming house in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve before coming here. According to notes Monsieur Gamache attached to her application, it seemed there was some question of prostitution and drug use. He doesn’t say it outright, but if you know him, you know the shorthand.”

  “A drugged-up whore?” said Lacoste. “Excellent.”

  And yet, it wasn’t a complete surprise. She suspected if they looked in Gamache’s bedside table, they’d find all sorts of lost souls he put there for safekeeping. And maybe a baguette.

  “Her high school marks were mixed. She barely scraped by, though she did well, but erratically, in history, languages and literature.”

  “She only did what interested her,” said Lacoste. “Lazy?”

  “Looks like it. Or at least, not motivated.”

  “Now, why would someone like that apply to the Sûreté Academy?” asked Lacoste.

  “A dare, maybe? A joke. And then when she was accepted, she decided to try it out.”

  “Does she strike you as the joking kind?”

  “No.” He drove in silence, thinking of the dark girl with the pale face. The contradictory girl.

  “She sounds like she can take care of herself,” said Lacoste. “Doesn’t sound like the sort Leduc could take advantage of.”

  Beauvoir opened his mouth to say something, taking in a breath, but then changed his mind.

  “Go on. Say it,” said Isabelle.

  Their headlights picked up the snowbanks on either side of the road, and the leafless, lifeless, trees.

  “Imagine being nineteen or twenty and on the streets,” he said. “Prostituting yourself. Numbing yourself with drugs. And ahead all you see is more of the same. And you know, at nineteen, that life is not going to get better. What would you do?”

  The two agents stared at the distorted, grotesque shadows of the bare trees, thrown onto the snow by the harsh headlights.

  “Put a bullet in your brain?” he asked quietly. “OD? Or would you make one last mighty leap for the lifeboat?”

  “You think the academy is her lifeboat?” asked Lacoste.

  “I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But I do think Monsieur Gamache thought so, and he rowed out to get her. She’d been turned down, you know, by Leduc.”

  “I’d have thought Leduc would want someone so broken.”

  “No. I think he preferred to do the breaking.”

  “Goddamned Leduc,” said Lacoste. “He’d know her background, and he’d know she’d have no choice but to submit and be quiet about it. You think she killed him? You think she couldn’t take it anymore and shot him with his own gun?”

  “It’s possible,” said Beauvoir.

  “But?”

  “I think Leduc had more on his mind than sexual gratification. I think he was even more devious.”

  “Go on,” said Lacoste.

  “Who was the biggest threat to Serge Leduc?”

  “That’s easy. Monsieur Gamache.”

  “Exactly. He knew Monsieur Gamache was coming after him. He must’ve felt him getting closer and closer. And he wasn’t facing just losing his job. If that’s all it was, Gamache would’ve fired him months ago. No, once Gamache had the proof of his criminal activities, Leduc would be arrested. And this time there’d be no one there to save him. He must’ve grown more and more desperate.”

  “Yes,” said Lacoste, getting a better idea of where this might be heading and not liking it at all.

  “There’re two ways Leduc could stop Monsieur Gamache,” said Beauvoir. “Kill him, or completely undermine his credibility.”

  Lacoste’s mind raced ahead, seeing the scenario unfold.

  “The map,” she said. “Leduc didn’t take it for himself. He took it to plant in Gamache’s bedside table as proof the Commander was having an affair with one of the students. Amelia Choquet.”

  “Or if not proof, then enough to raise suspicions, gossip. And we know how potent that is.”

  “No one would believe her when she denied it,” said Lacoste. “Her history of prostitution would come out. A history Monsieur Gamache was aware of.”

  “A student originally turned down, that Gamache accepted,” said Beauvoir. “A young woman no one thought should be in the academy. It would look suspicious.”

  “It already does,” said Lacoste. “But anyone who knows Monsieur Gamache would never believe it.”

  “True, but who knows him at the academy? The cadets? Their parents? The other professors? He was already distrusted because of all the changes he’d made. Rumors are hard to prove, but they’re even harder to disprove. We both know that character assassination is easy. All it takes is a suggestion. A well-placed word in someone’s ear.”

  “Like a bullet to the brain,” said Lacoste quietly, imagining the whispering campaign. Murdering a man’s reputation.

  “And once it got out to the media and the public…” said Jean-Guy.

  “But Monsieur Gamache wouldn’t care,” said Lacoste. “He’s had worse leveled at him. He and his friends and family would know the truth.”

  “That’s not the issue. All Leduc needed was to undermine his credibility,” said Beauvoir. “Accusing Leduc of criminal activity would then seem like the desperate act of a cornered man.”

  “There is one other way Leduc could stop Monsieur Gamache’s investigation,” said Lacoste slowly. “Something more sure to work than blackmail or character assassination. After all, if Monsieur Gamache had proof of Leduc’s crimes, charges would still be laid. It wouldn’t matter what people thought of Gamache. The evidence against Leduc would speak for itself. No, Leduc would have to stop his investigation completely. And what could possibly get Monsieur Gamache to stop?”

  Beauvoir was quiet. He too had thought of it, but had chosen not to say anything. He should have known Isabelle Lacoste would see it too. Though maybe she didn’t have the same thing in mind.

  “Earlier this month, Monsieur Gamache said he thought a car followed him home to Three Pines,” said Lacoste, and Beauvoir wilted a little.

  “Suppose it was Leduc?” she said. “Suppose he followed Gamache, and the map?”

  “And it led him to the village,” said Beauvoir.

  “It led him to the solution to his problem.”

  They sat in strained silence, both following dark thoughts.

  “You don’t think…” began Lacoste.

  “That Gélinas is right?” asked Beauvoir. “That Monsieur Gamache killed Serge Leduc? Non.” Jean-Guy gave one firm shake of his head. “He would never kill an unarmed man, and he sure as hell would never do it in the school. Non. It’s ridiculous.”

  “But suppose Leduc found out where Gamache lived, and had the map to retrace his route,” insisted Lacoste. “So he could find his way back to Three Pines.”

  Beauvoir stared straight ahead, blinkered.

  But Isabelle Lacoste pushed forward, into territory Beauvoir was refusing to enter. Deeper into the darkness.

  “Suppose he knew that Gamache was about to expose him. Suppose the two men met
later in Leduc’s rooms, and Leduc threatened Madame Gamache. Or…”

  “Annie.”

  The very suggestion of anyone even thinking of harming his pregnant wife made Jean-Guy white with rage.

  And he knew then that the scenario Lacoste was putting forward was possible. Not probable. But possible. Just.

  Because he could see himself doing the same thing.

  “I don’t think Monsieur Gamache killed Leduc,” said Beauvoir. “But if he did, in a moment of madness, to protect his family, he’d admit it.”

  Isabelle Lacoste nodded. She tended to agree. But then, who knew what people would really do in that situation? Gélinas was right about one thing. If anyone could stage a murder scene to misdirect, it would be Armand Gamache.

  “Something else is strange, Jean-Guy.”

  When she used his first name, he knew it was serious. And off the record.

  “Oui?”

  “Deputy Commissioner Gélinas said in the meeting this morning that Monsieur Gamache had asked for him specifically.”

  Beauvoir had forgotten about that, in the press of other issues raised in the meeting.

  “But I thought you put in the request,” he said.

  “Yes, I thought so too. But Monsieur Gamache admitted it. He even said he’d asked for Gélinas because he admired him.”

  “So Monsieur Gamache went behind your back?” asked Beauvoir. “And arranged for the RCMP Deputy Commissioner to come down and be the independent observer?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  So much of what his father-in-law was doing seemed out of character. Could murder possibly be one of those things?

  “I have a bad feeling about this, Jean-Guy.”

  Beauvoir remained mute. Unwilling to agree, but unable to disagree.

  The world ahead of them disappeared. The distorted shadows, the snowbanks, even the road. There were just stars and the night sky. And for one giddy moment it felt as though they’d floated off the end of the world.

  And then the nose of the car dipped down, and out of nothing there appeared the cheerful little village of Three Pines.

  CHAPTER 30

  “What would you call a group of Sûreté cadets?” asked Myrna, nodding across the crowded bistro to the four students drinking Cokes and hungrily grabbing fries from the mounded platter in the center of their table.

  “What do you mean?” asked Ruth, speaking into her glass so that the words came out muffled in a Scotch mist.

  “Well, there’s a cackle of hyenas,” said Myrna, watching the cadets feed.

  “A litter of puppies,” said Olivier, delivering two more bulbous glasses of red wine to their table by the fireplace. “These are for Clara and Reine-Marie. Don’t touch them.” He gave Ruth the stink eye, and got one in return. “They just finished walking the dogs. I expect them any moment.”

  “Dogs?” said Gabri. “Aren’t you the optimistic one, mon beau.”

  The Gamaches had had Gracie for a couple of days and she was not looking any more like a puppy. Nor, truth be told, was she looking like anything else. Except Gracie.

  Gabri reached for a piece of baguette with aged Stilton and a dab of red pepper jelly on top, narrowly avoiding Rosa, who’d decided to peck him every time he went for food or drink.

  “A flight of butterflies,” said Myrna.

  “A confit de canard.” Gabri glared at Rosa.

  “I see,” said Ruth, putting down her glass and picking up a red wine. “You’ve finally said something that interests me.”

  “I can die happy now,” said Myrna.

  Ruth looked at her expectantly and seemed disappointed when Myrna didn’t keel over.

  “So what would you call a gathering of students?” asked Myrna.

  “A disappointment?” asked Ruth. “No, wait. That’s children. Now, students? What would you call a group of them?”

  “Hello,” said Reine-Marie, as she and Clara joined them. “A group of what?”

  Myrna explained, then excused herself, returning a few minutes later with a thick reference book from her shop. She sat down heavily on her side of the sofa, almost catapulting Ruth into the air.

  “I always suspected Ruth would end up a stain on the wall,” Gabri said to Clara. “But I never thought the ceiling.” He turned to Myrna. “I’ll give you five dollars to do that again. Maybe we can make this a game at the next fair. You win a stuffed duck.”

  “Fag,” muttered Ruth, wiping red wine off Rosa. Not, they suspected, for the first time.

  “Hag,” said Gabri.

  “Do you know these people?” Clara asked Reine-Marie.

  “Never met them before in my life,” she said, settling into the armchair and handing Clara the remaining glass of red wine.

  “And to think,” said Clara, “we could’ve been having a quiet drink in my studio.”

  That had in fact been the plan. Henri and Gracie and Leo would play together, while Reine-Marie went through a box of archival material from the historical society and Clara painted.

  Until Reine-Marie had arrived and seen what Clara had done to her portrait.

  It was, apparently, a self-portrait. But something had happened. It had shifted, evolved. And not in a Darwinian direction. This was not, Reine-Marie had to admit to herself, an improvement on the species.

  For the first time since knowing Clara and seeing her astonishing portraits, Reine-Marie had the sinking feeling that Clara had lost her touch.

  For a few minutes they sat in silence in the studio. Clara painted while Henri crawled onto the sofa, exhausted by the puppies, and laid his head on Reine-Marie’s lap. She kneaded his extravagant ears as they watched Gracie and Leo play.

  Clara’s self-portrait looked not at all like Clara anymore. What had been brilliant was now distorted. The nose was off, the mouth was set in a strange expression, and there was something wrong with the eyes.

  There was cruelty in them. A desire to hurt. They looked out at Reine-Marie as though searching for a victim. She looked at the mirror leaning against the armchair and wondered what Clara had seen there, to produce that.

  “What do you think?” Clara asked, before putting the brush between her teeth like a bit and staring at her work.

  Clara had said her portraits began as a lump in the throat, but it was Reine-Marie who felt like gagging.

  “Brilliant,” she said. “Is it for a show, or for yourself?”

  “For myself,” said Clara, getting off the stool.

  Thank God for that, thought Reine-Marie, and had to remind herself that art is a process. Art is a process.

  Art is a process.

  “Let’s go over to the bistro,” she said, lugging herself off the sofa, unable to watch what Clara was doing anymore. “Armand’s on his way back and he’ll probably be looking for me there.”

  “Does he even know he has a home here?” asked Clara, putting her brush down and wiping her hands.

  Reine-Marie laughed and picked up the small box of old photographs she’d planned to go through. “He thinks our place is just another wing of the bistro.”

  “He’s not far off,” said Clara.

  While Clara washed up, Reine-Marie took Henri and Gracie back home, then met her friend just outside the bistro.

  Through the window, they could see the four students gobbling fries and gesturing, arguing, the map on the table between them. They looked like generals arguing over a battle plan.

  Very young generals, and a very strange plan.

  “Has Armand told you why he has the cadets chasing down that map?” asked Clara.

  “No. I think it started as a kind of lark. An exercise. But after the murder, it became something else.”

  “But what?” asked Clara. “I don’t see what the map could possibly have to do with the killing of that professor.”

  “Neither do I,” admitted Reine-Marie. “And I’m not sure Armand knows. Maybe nothing.”

  “It’s funny how often nothing becomes som
ething when Armand is around. But it’s at least kept the students busy. They were off all day.”

  The two women had continued to watch the cadets through the windows. But Reine-Marie realized that Clara wasn’t watching the cadets. She was looking at just one. Closely.

  “Is it much of an imposition, Clara? Putting her up?”

  “Amelia?” Clara was quiet for a moment. Studying the girl. “I wonder how old she is.”

  “Armand would know. Nineteen, twenty, I’d guess.”

  “In certain light she looks very young. Maybe it’s her skin. But then she’ll turn and her expression will change. She’s like a prism.”

  Feeling chilled standing in the damp March evening, the two women had gone inside to join the others around the fireplace.

  “A clowder of cats?” said Gabri, reading the huge reference book open on Myrna’s lap.

  “A misery,” said Ruth.

  “Pardon?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “The students,” said Ruth, cocking her wineglass in the direction of the cadets, who were talking animatedly among themselves. “A misery of cadets.”

  “I think that’s a misery of poets,” said Gabri.

  “Oh, right.”

  * * *

  “What’re we going to tell him?” asked Huifen, reaching for another fry, even though she was now feeling overstuffed and a little nauseous. One fry over the line, sweet Jesus. “It’s almost seven. He’s going to be here any minute. Oh, shit.”

  Headlights flashed through the window.

  “He’s here.”

  The light caught their faces, and Reine-Marie, a few tables over, saw what Clara meant. There was anxiety in Huifen’s face. Nathaniel was clearly afraid. Jacques looked defensive, marshaling his excuses.

  And Amelia looked resigned. Like she knew what was about to happen. Had been waiting a long time, a lifetime, for it. Perhaps even longer.

  She looked old. And very, very young.

  She looked a bit like the boy in the stained-glass window.

  And she looked a bit like the portrait Clara was painting. Reine-Marie turned to her friend in astonishment.