A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(59)

They saluted as the body was wheeled past.

“Let pride be taught by this rebuke,” said Gamache quietly. “How very mean a thing’s a Duke.”

“We need to talk,” said Lacoste.

“Oui.”

Professor Leduc’s body left the building, a dark spot in the bright sunshine that streamed in.

“But I have one more duty,” said Gamache.

Down the long hallway he walked, toward the open door through which Leduc’s body had exited and a fresh breeze entered. The students saluted the Commander. He knew better than to read any respect into the action. After all, they’d just saluted a dead man.

But he noticed that some looked at him with newfound deference. And Gamache knew why. He’d heard the rumors. They thought he was responsible for the body. There was a new tyrant in town.

Once outside, Gamache stood behind the morgue vehicle, watching them load the body.

“Making sure he really goes, Armand?”

Gamache turned to see Michel Brébeuf.

“I know it’s a shock, but it must also be a bit of a relief,” said Brébeuf.

“If you had anything to do with this, Michel, I’ll find out. You know I will.”

Brébeuf smiled. “And what will you do? Let me go again? Whoever did this cleaned up a mess, and you know it. Besides, if I had something to do with it, you were my accomplice. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. This time you were the one who opened the gate. You knew who I was, and you let me in.”

“Is that a confession?”

Brébeuf laughed and the morgue attendants looked over. It wasn’t often that hilarity accompanied a corpse.

“A reminder, that’s all. He was on his way out anyway, wasn’t he?” Brébeuf turned and contemplated the body bag. “He held no real power anymore, though he didn’t realize it. Strutting around like he was still in charge. I’ve known officers like that. Petty, officious, vicious. And not very bright. He was already gone. He just hadn’t left. No, that’s a waste of a good bullet.”

Gamache turned and walked back to the large open doors of the academy.

“Be careful, Armand.”

Gamache stopped and turned. Something in the voice had drawn his attention. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t hatred. It was the gentleness with which those words were uttered that stopped him. So much more arresting than rage.

Michel Brébeuf stood there, the vast prairie behind him.

“You did me a good turn a few years ago—”

“Did I?”

“You let me resign. Didn’t have me sent to prison, though on your evidence alone I would have been.”

“Are you telling me you haven’t been in prison all this time?” asked Armand, and saw Brébeuf blink. “If I did you a favor, Michel, it wasn’t years ago, it was months ago. Don’t stand here now and tell me I made a terrible mistake. Or if I did, at least admit it.”

“I did not kill Serge Leduc.”

The two men squared off, while the body was driven away.

Then Gamache turned and walked back through the doorway. Followed, a few paces behind, by his former best friend.

*

The cadets had moved from the bistro, which was getting too crowded to talk, over to the B and B. It was past four in the afternoon of a day that never seemed to end.

The sun was getting low on the horizon and a fire had been laid in the grate. Amelia lit it while Huifen made tea and Nathaniel found biscuits and cake in Gabri’s kitchen. Something, he was pretty sure, that would be in short supply in the home of the crazy old woman who was putting him up.

The thought of what might be in that home made his skin crawl.

The cadets sat around the fireplace sipping tea, eating cake, and discussing the brutal murder of a man they all knew. Better than they cared to admit.

It seemed so far removed from this peaceful place that Nathaniel had to remind himself that what he’d discovered at the academy that morning wasn’t a dream. This—he looked around at the comfortable faded furniture, the cheerful fire in the grate, the chocolate cake and biscuits—was the dream.

That other thing was real life.

The village had lulled him, however briefly, into forgetting that terrible things happened. He wondered if it was a gift, to forget however briefly, or a curse.

“Gamache brought us here to investigate the map,” said Huifen, laying hers on the table. Nathaniel and Jacques did the same with theirs.

Then they looked at Amelia.

“I don’t have mine,” she said.

“Where is it? We were told to bring them,” said Huifen.

“It’s missing.”

They stared at her.

“Missing?” asked Jacques. “Or found in the Duke’s drawer?”

“Look, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about the map since we were here before. I put it away and now it’s gone.”

She looked at them defiantly.

“I believe you,” said Nathaniel.

“You believe her?” demanded Jacques. “Why?”

“Why not?” he said. “We have no evidence either way. Might as well believe her.”

“Some investigator you’re going to make,” said Jacques.

“He’s a freshman,” Huifen reminded him. “He’ll learn.”