A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(118)
“You have no idea who I am, and what I’ve done,” Jacques hissed back.
“What have you done?” Gamache demanded, holding the young man’s eyes. “Tell me now.”
Huifen reached out. The warning touch. Again. Subtle, but Gamache saw it.
And the moment passed when Jacques might have said something.
Gamache glared at Huifen, then turned to Nathaniel and Amelia. “You’ve done well.”
“What should we do now?” Nathaniel asked.
“Now you join us for dinner,” said Gamache, getting up. “You must be hungry.”
“Us too?” asked Huifen, also rising along with Jacques.
The Commander looked at them and gave a brusque nod before going to the long wooden bar and paying for the cadets’ food and drinks for that day, and inviting Olivier to join them.
*
“You okay?” asked Annie.
Jean-Guy was rubbing her swollen feet and both were on the sofa, watching the news. Though Jean-Guy was clearly distracted.
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He hesitated, not wanting to upset Annie with ideas that seemed at one moment crazy and the next perfectly plausible.
“Do you think your father could have ever…”
“Oui?”
She took a huge bite of the éclair she’d been having as an hors d’oeuvre.
Now, looking into his wife’s unsuspecting gaze, it seemed crazy to Jean-Guy. Armand Gamache would never— “Nothing.”
“What is it?” She lowered the éclair to a plate. “Tell me. Is Dad in trouble? Is something wrong?”
There, he’d upset her after all, and he knew she wouldn’t let it go until he told her.
“There’s a senior officer from the RCMP who’s joined us as an independent observer and he seems to think your father might’ve—”
“Had something to do with the murder?” asked Annie.
“Well, no, not really, it’s just, well—”
She swung her legs off his lap and sat up. Annie the lawyer was in the building.
“Is there any evidence?” she asked.
Jean-Guy sighed. “Circumstantial, at best.”
“And what’s the worst?”
“Fingerprints.”
Annie’s brows shot up. She hadn’t expected that.
“Where?”
“On the murder weapon.”
“Jesus. Which was a revolver, right?”
“Your father said he never touched it, never even knew Leduc had it.”
“He wouldn’t allow it,” said Annie, her eyes narrowing in thought.
“That’s what he said. The prints are partials. His and one of the cadets and Michel Brébeuf’s.”
“Partials?” The tension left her face. “Then they’re not admissible. And they’re obviously not his.”
“He told me this afternoon that they were.”
“Wait a minute.” She leaned toward her husband. “He says he never touched it, but also says the prints are his. That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. He said he thinks the solution to the murder lies in those prints.”
“The other ones, then. Uncle Michel and the cadet,” said Annie. “That’s what he must mean. Who is he?”
“The cadet? She. Amelia Choquet.”
He watched his wife, but there was no reaction to the name. Jean-Guy struggled with what to say next and Annie homed in on that.
“There’s more. What is it?”
“There seems a kind of connection between them.”
“Between Dad and Michel Brébeuf, yes, of course. You know that.”
“No, between Amelia Choquet and your father.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice guarded.
“I don’t know. I just wondered if the name meant anything.”
“Should it? Come on, Jean-Guy, tell me what you’re thinking.”
He heaved a sigh and wondered how much damage he was about to do.
“Do you think your father could’ve had an affair?”
The question landed on Annie like an anvil on a cartoon cat. She looked dazed and he could almost see stars and little birds flying around her head.
Annie stared at him, incapable of speech. Finally blurting out, “Of course not.”
“Many men do,” said Jean-Guy gently. “Away from home. Tempted. A moment of weakness.”
“My father is as human as the next man, and he has his weaknesses,” said Annie. “But not that. Never that. He would never, ever betray my mother. He loves her.”
“I agree. But I had to ask.” He took her hand and absently turned her wedding ring around and around. “Have I hurt you?”
“You’ve made me angry that you’d even ask. And if you have to ask, then what must others think? Like that RCMP person. He doesn’t know Dad, does he?”
“No, but he’s staying with your folks in Three Pines.”
“You have to go down there, Jean-Guy. You have to be with Dad. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Like kill someone or have an affair?”
“Well, seems you’ve already messed that up,” she said with a wan smile.