A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(37)

“Well, not since you arrived, anyway,” said Beauvoir.

Isabelle Lacoste took that in with interest.

“It wasn’t suicide,” she said. “He was shot in the right temple, but the gun’s on the left side of the body. Now why would that be? Is that his weapon?”

“I don’t know,” said Gamache. “I ordered that there be no firearms within the academy, except those locked in the armory.”

“Does he have a key?”

“He did, when he was second-in-command. But I took it from him and changed the locks. I have a key and the weapons instructor has one. It takes both to open the armory.”

“Any ideas who could have done this?”

“He was a divisive figure,” said Gamache, after considering for a moment. “Admired by some. Most of the professors who admired him are gone. A lot of the senior class looked up to him. But that, I think, was more fear than respect. This room might look like it belonged to a Victorian gentleman, but the Duke was really from the Dark Ages. He believed in swift and brutal punishment and that you could shape young people by battering away at them, as though they were horseshoes.”

Isabelle Lacoste turned her full attention to Gamache. A man who was the antithesis of what he’d just described.

“You didn’t like him?”

“No, I did not. You’re not thinking…” He waved toward the body.

“I’m just asking. The thinking will come later.”

He smiled at that. “I neither liked nor trusted him.”

“Then why—”

“Did I keep him on? You’re far from the first to ask.”

“And the answer?”

“To keep an eye on him. You’re aware of the rumors of bribery and price fixing and even money laundering associated with the awarding of the contracts for this building?”

“Yes, but not in detail.”

“That’s because there are no details. Just a whole lot of suspicions. Circumstantial, but no hard evidence.”

“You were trying to gather it?” she asked. “Did he know?”

“Yes, I made sure he knew. When I met with him before term started, I showed him what I had.”

“Why?” both Lacoste and Beauvoir asked, astonished.

“To shock him.”

“Well, it just shocked me,” said Beauvoir to Lacoste.

“While looking for corruption in the S?reté, I kept coming across references to strange dealings at the academy,” said Gamache, his voice low so that no one else could hear. “But even more disconcerting than suggestions of corruption in the academy was the behavior of the recent graduates. You must have noticed.”

Both Lacoste and Beauvoir nodded.

“There’s a brutality about them,” she said. “I won’t have any in my department.”

“Reconsider that, please, Isabelle,” said Gamache. “They need decent role models.”

“Indecent,” she said. “That’s the word for them. And I’ll consider it. That’s why you came here?”

He nodded. “As goes the academy, so goes the S?reté. I wanted to find out why it was graduating so many cadets steeped in cruelty. And to stop it.”

“And have you?”

He sighed. “Non. Not yet. But I knew Serge Leduc was at the center of whatever was happening.”

“You called him the Duke,” said Lacoste. “Why?”

“A nickname the cadets gave him,” said Beauvoir. “From his name, obviously. He seemed to like it.”

“Not surprised,” said Lacoste. “So you showed the Duke what you had on him?”

“Yes. I needed to shake him up. Show him how close I was. Make him do something stupid.”

“And did he?”

“I think he did,” said Gamache, glancing down at the body. “And so did someone else.”

Isabelle Lacoste’s eyes shifted over to the gun. “A strange choice of weapon. I can see now that it wouldn’t be from the armory. You wouldn’t have a handgun like this there, would you?”

Gamache shook his head. “Not even for history class. We only have weapons the cadets need to train on. Ones they’ll use in their jobs. No S?reté agent would have used a gun like that in decades.”

Lacoste bent down and took a closer look. “I’ve never seen one close up. A revolver. Used to be called a six-shooter, didn’t it?”

“Oui,” said Beauvoir, joining her.

She bent closer. “Still five bullets in the chambers.”

Lacoste looked across the room, where some of her team were following the spray of blood. Trying to find the sixth.

“On the way down, I was trying to work out why no one heard the shot. Now I know.” She used a pencil to point. “It has a silencer.”

Lacoste stood back up, but Beauvoir remained on his haunches.

“I didn’t think revolvers could have silencers,” he said.

“Silencers can be fitted onto anything but they’re not usually effective on revolvers,” said Gamache.

“The cadet who found the body,” said Lacoste. “Where is he?”

“In my rooms,” said Gamache. “With one of the professors. He’s a freshman. Nathaniel Smythe. Would you like to speak to him?”