A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(55)

They’d found Vivienne’s purse in the tangle of the dam. Its contents were spread out on the sanitized plastic sheet on the floor, alongside the things from the duffel bag.

An agent described each item for the recording as it was removed. Tagged. Cataloged. Photographed. Swabbed. Examined.

Private items transformed, like black magic, into public property.

Finally the entire contents were spread out.

From the purse they’d taken a wallet, with a hundred and ten dollars and change. Driver’s license. A bank card but no credit card. Some paper, too wet to read, the water having turned it into pulp. Some mints. A Bic lighter but no cigarettes. What looked like house keys and car keys.

“Nothing unusual,” said Lacoste. But something had caught her eye. Taken from the duffel bag.

Wearing gloves, she picked up the pill bottle and sounded out the label. “Mifegymiso. I don’t know it.”

“I do,” said one of the agents, looking over. “It’s an abortion pill.”

“You mean the morning-after pill?” asked Beauvoir.

“No, that’s different. That’s for the day after sex, to stop insemination from going further. This’s for pregnancies in the first few months. To terminate them.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing,” said Beauvoir. “Legal?”

“Yessir.”

“What do you think?” he asked Lacoste as they stared down at the collection of items.

“I think it’s strange that Vivienne Godin was beyond three months pregnant and she takes abortion pills with her. I’m assuming they won’t work this far into a pregnancy. If she had the pills, why not use them earlier?”

“Maybe she thought they would work,” said Beauvoir. “Maybe she was waiting to see how the father would react, and if it went badly, she’d take them.”

“This isn’t prescription,” said Lacoste. “There’s no doctor or pharmacy on the label. Not even her name.”

“Black market,” said Beauvoir.

“Seems so. If they’re legal, why go onto the black market?”

“And why would she tell her husband that the baby wasn’t his, even if it was true? She must’ve known how he’d react. Why not just get out while she could?” said Beauvoir.

Tracey, goddamn him, had said the same thing. That Vivienne knew what he’d do. That he’d hit her. Beat her. Though surely she never thought he’d kill her.

“Maybe she didn’t tell him,” said Lacoste. “We only have Tracey’s word for that.”

Beauvoir was considering. “Then why would he say it? He gave us a motive. He’s clever enough to know that.”

“He told the Chief that they were drunk,” said Lacoste. “Maybe she didn’t mean to tell him but it just came out. Maybe it wasn’t even true.”

Beauvoir nodded. He, more than most, understood the corrosive effect of booze. How it stole judgment and inhibitions until things were said and done that could never be unsaid. Undone. Alcohol stole dignity and friends and family and livelihoods before finally taking the life.

Alcohol was a thief. And often a murderer.

“She wanted to hurt him before she left,” said Lacoste.

“She couldn’t match him physically, but she could hurt him with words.”

The aimed word … like a soft bullet, thought Beauvoir, glancing up at the photo of Ruth scrutinizing them.

“Sober Vivienne probably knew better, but drunk…?” said Beauvoir. “The toxicology report will tell us more.”

“There’s something else,” said Lacoste. “The clothes she packed don’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Where’re the sweaters? The heavy shirts? The socks?”

“There’re shirts and jeans.”

“Summer weight. It’s freezing out. Why take those?”

“Maybe she planned to go south. Florida.”

“Maybe,” said Lacoste.

“Or…?”

“Or maybe she packed in a hurry. Just grabbing things. Or—”

“Maybe she didn’t pack the bag,” said Beauvoir. “Maybe he did.”

Lacoste nodded. “To make it look like she’d gone away. No woman in her right mind would take those clothes in early April.”

“The problem we’re going to have,” he said, “is proving that Tracey packed the bag. Even if we find his DNA and fingerprints on the items, his defense would argue they were there because they lived together.”

“Oui,” said Lacoste. “But if his prints are on that”—she pointed to the pill bottle—“we might have something. I think he tossed it in not knowing what it was.”

“Not exactly a smoking gun,” said Beauvoir, but he could feel hope rising, if not faith and charity. This might be the first nail.



* * *



Lysette Cloutier sat in the S?reté detachment. She’d chosen a desk with direct line of sight into the cells. Where she could watch Homer.

The sandwiches and coffee she’d taken in were untouched.

Lysette had stayed with him for a while, but he seemed lost in his own world. Oblivious to her presence. Even, she felt, a little annoyed by it.