A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(99)

He told them about his exchange in the kitchen when Tracey admitted that Vivienne’s leaving and taking half the farm with her was a pretty good motive.

“So there’s your answer,” said Beauvoir. “Tracey’s violent. Drunk. He planned to kill her, and he did. The fact she was going to leave anyway only drove him more crazy.”

“And the bag?” asked Zalmanowitz. “How did it get into the river? Who packed it?”

“We think Tracey did,” said Beauvoir. “Based on strange things in the bag and the private message to Vachon.”

“Stuff’s in the bag,” Lacoste read from her notes. “Everything’s ready. Will be done tonight. I promise.”

Zalmanowitz sighed. “Damning. And completely inadmissible. But what I don’t get is if she did plan to leave, like she told her father, why didn’t she pack the bag? Oh, never mind.” He flung himself back in the chair again and threw up his hands. “It’s all academic. The duffel bag is out of bounds. It’s as though the bag never existed.”

“Non,” said Beauvoir. “It’s as though we didn’t find it. But it happened. And now we need to find another way to get him.”

They looked at him. Beauvoir had climbed out of his outrage, more determined than ever. Far from defeated.

They’d get Carl Tracey. Somehow.

The prosecutor leaned forward again, drew his notepad toward him, and picked up a pen.

“Right. What we can use is Carl Tracey’s first statement to you,” the prosecutor said to Gamache. “That was before the bag or the body was found.”

“And we have the first interview with Homer Godin, when Vivienne was still missing,” said Beauvoir. “And we have the phone records that led us to Gerald Bertrand.”

They went back over and over those conversations.

Tracey saying Vivienne was drunk and abusive.

Tracey claiming she was having affairs.

That she told him the baby wasn’t his and that she was leaving him. That she’d gone off with some lover.

Tracey admitting to hitting her that Saturday night. And then going into his studio with a bottle, getting wasted, and passing out. When he woke up, she was gone.

“Okay,” said Zalmanowitz. “That’s his version of what happened. We know it’s all bullshit. How did he seem to you, Armand, when you first spoke to him?”

Gamache thought back. It seemed months ago now, not mere days. “Belligerent. Violent.”

He described the pitchfork and the shouts to get off the property.

“Not very cooperative,” said Zalmanowitz. “The one good moment from a shitty day was the judge asking Tracey why he didn’t want you to open the duffel bag, if he was so worried about his wife. It’s a good question. A telling question. It must eat her up to have to release him. But you know, something’s bothering me. After meeting Tracey and hearing more about him, I can understand him killing someone. What I don’t understand is the method.”

“How so?” asked Gamache.

“Wouldn’t you expect this fellow to do something stupid and brutal?”

“Throwing his pregnant wife off a bridge to be battered and drowned in a freezing river isn’t brutal enough for you?” asked Lacoste.

Zalmanowitz regarded her. “No. It’s not. Given his history, I’d have expected something simpler. More hands-on. Beating her to death. Shooting her. Hitting her with a shovel and burying her. Why throw her off a bridge half a kilometer away?”

“Maybe it was Pauline Vachon’s idea,” said Lacoste. “She seems smart.”

“No messages to support that it was her idea?”

“Where she suggests throwing Vivienne off the bridge?” asked Lacoste. “Yes, but we decided not to show you.”

For one brief moment, Zalmanowitz believed her, then lowered his brows.

“Of course there weren’t,” said Lacoste. “They must’ve come up with the plan when they were together. We’ve canvassed the neighbors. A few saw him entering her place last week. She says that was for business.”

“Right,” said the prosecutor. “And even if there were explicit posts, describing it in detail, we couldn’t use them, thanks to NouveauGalerie and that agent.”

“It wasn’t her fault,” Lacoste repeated. “Like I said, she ran it by me and I approved. Encouraged her, even. So lay off her.”

“Okay, sorry, you’re right,” said Zalmanowitz. “Back to the bridge. How did Tracey even get Vivienne there?”

“The coroner thinks the most likely explanation is that he beat her senseless at home, put her in the car, and drove her to the bridge,” said Beauvoir. “Her blood on the car handle and steering wheel might’ve come from her blood on his hands.”

“But that doesn’t explain his boot prints,” said the prosecutor. “How would they get under the car if he drove her there?”

“Made when he was scouting the place, maybe,” said Beauvoir. “We don’t really know the details. And probably never will. Another pos sibility is that part of what Tracey said is true. Vivienne arranged to meet her lover on the bridge. Tracey overheard and got there first.”

“Okay,” said Lacoste. “But then, what happened to the lover? And when did she call him? There were only five calls out of the house that day. Four to what we think is a wrong number and one to her father.”