A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(35)

Serge Leduc’s death was deliberate.

That’s what struck the former head of homicide as strange. Very strange. Not the body. Not even the fact Serge Leduc had been killed. But the behavior of his killer.

Gamache stood staring. But not at the body. Now his attention had turned to the bedroom. Knowing he shouldn’t, but doing it anyway, Gamache walked swiftly into the bedroom and opened the bedside drawer.

As he looked down, his face grew as grim as when he’d gazed at the body.

*

There was an electronic whirring, then a clunk, and the door to the academy opened. Chief Inspector Lacoste stepped inside quickly. Not because there was so much urgency to the case, but because it was so damned cold.

A damp wind was sweeping across the flatlands, carrying moisture from melting snow and ice, for hundreds of miles, and depositing it in their bones.

The initial message from Inspector Beauvoir had been brief. Simply that there’d been a death at the academy. Not who. Not how. Not even if it was murder, though the fact the call had been made to her, the head of homicide, was in itself a fairly significant clue.

She also knew the victim had not been Commander Gamache. Beauvoir would have told her, in words, but also in his tone.

Once in the car, an agent at the wheel and the Scene of Crime van behind, Isabelle Lacoste received another call from Beauvoir.

“Tell me what you know,” she’d said.

On the other end, Jean-Guy gave a brief smile. He wondered if Isabelle realized that was exactly how Chief Inspector Gamache had begun each and every homicide investigation.

Tell me what you know.

He told her what he knew, and as she listened she took notes on her tablet. But then she stopped and just listened.

“The killer?” she asked, when he finished his report.

“No sign of him,” said Beauvoir. “The cadets and staff are in the dining hall. The academy is on lockdown and they’re doing a head count.”

“And the body?”

“Commander Gamache is with him, waiting for the doctor. He’ll lock up and wait for you once death is confirmed.”

“I’ve called the coroner. She’ll be arriving soon too.”

“Bon. On first inspection, no one is missing and no one appears obviously guilty. No blood-stained hands.”

It was not a joke. There would be blood on someone’s hands, and then some. To place a gun at Leduc’s temple like that, and fire.

Beauvoir had questioned the night guards and staff, but not too closely. Just enough to find out if they’d seen anything that needed immediate action.

They had not.

Which led to an obvious conclusion.

The killer hadn’t left, and hadn’t arrived. Because he was already there, hidden within these walls.

*

Isabelle Lacoste walked beside Jean-Guy Beauvoir down the deserted halls. The Scene of Crime team was behind them, their feet clacking on the marble floor.

It was her first time in the new academy and she was curious. She’d heard rumors of extravagance. Of the project being wildly over budget.

And then quieter whispers, of kickbacks and bribes and contract fixing. But nothing had ever been proven. Most likely because the S?reté and the Québec government had bigger and more immediate messes to clean up.

But those piles of merde were now under control. Those caught up in the corruption scandal within the S?reté and the government were dead, in prison, or had been fired. And slowly, she suspected, the spotlight was turning toward the academy.

Did that explain Armand Gamache taking over as commander?

Did that explain the murder?

She realized she’d linked the two, and now she stopped herself. Far too early for speculation.

They turned the corner and saw a man standing outside a door. At his feet was a tray and shattered glass and china.

As she drew closer, Isabelle Lacoste recognized him.

Not Armand Gamache. It was Superintendent Brébeuf. And she checked herself yet again. Just plain old Brébeuf now. No longer a superintendent. Though she was so used to seeing him as that, it was her automatic reaction. Old habits, she thought. Very dangerous. As was he.

Brébeuf was alone in the middle of the wide corridor, looking like a man lost, or abandoned.

Isabelle felt her disgust growing with each step. She didn’t think it showed on her face, but it must have. He backed up slightly and nodded to her but didn’t offer his hand. Not wanting, she suspected, to risk her rejecting the offer in front of so many witnesses.

“Chief Inspector Lacoste,” he said. “This is a terrible business.”

“Yes.”

He’d aged in the few years since she’d last seen him. Lacoste knew that the former superintendent of the S?reté was the same age as Gamache, but he looked ten, fifteen years older. And while never a robust man, there’d been a sort of wiry vitality about him that many had admired. Including herself.

But now he seemed desiccated. Withered.

“Commander Gamache is inside with the body.”

“So I understand,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste. “And why are you here?”

He bristled slightly, but only slightly. The instinctive reaction of a once great man, reduced.

“Monsieur Gamache asked me to get the academy doctor from the infirmary. I did. He confirmed that Professor Leduc is dead.”