A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(75)

Once the eight a.m. classes had started, Inspector Beauvoir picked up the phone. He’d been hoping for a reply to his email, but there was none.

He punched in a long line of numbers and listened to the unusual ring tone. The two throbs instead of the one long one he was used to.

“McDermot and Ryan,” came the cheerful voice, as though she were selling teddy bears or flowers, and not guns.

“Yes,” said Jean-Guy, struggling to keep his Québécois accent under control. “I’m calling from Canada. I’m with the S?reté du Québec and we’re investigating a homicide.”

“One moment, please.”

Hold? he thought. She put me on hold? Could there possibly be a lineup of calls from police around the world, investigating murders?

Maybe they had a department dedicated to it.

Jean-Guy sighed and listened to the classical music, but it didn’t take long for a less cheerful voice to pick up the phone.

“Inspector Beauvoir?” she said.

“Oui.”

“My name is Elizabeth Coldbrook. I’m the vice president in charge of public affairs here at McDermot. I received your email and was just writing a response. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but I wanted to be sure of my facts.”

Her voice was brusque, and somehow Beauvoir had the feeling he’d done something wrong. He often had that feeling when speaking with people in Paris or London.

“Can you send me the email anyway,” he asked, “so I have a written record? But I’d like to speak to you now, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened. Your email said a death. An accident?”

“Non. Deliberate. A single shot to the temple.”

“Ahhh,” she said, with some sadness but without surprise.

When you make handguns, thought Beauvoir, what exactly do you think will happen?

Instead he asked, “Have you found anything?”

“Yes. We have an order here for a .45 McDermot MR VI. It was picked up by Serge Leduc on September 21, 2011.”

“Picked up? In England?”

“No, at our distributer in Vermont. I can send you the order number and information.”

She was sounding less brusque. Or he was getting used to it.

She was certainly being helpful, but then, he suspected, she had a lot of experience speaking with the police about handguns.

“S’il vous pla?t. Is this a popular gun?”

“Not much anymore. A few police forces still use it, though they’re turning more and more to automatic pistols, of course.”

“You make those too?”

“We do. The one you’re interested in, the McDermot .45, is a very old design. A six-shooter.”

“Like the Wild West?”

She laughed in a semiautomatic manner. “I guess so. Colt based their design on ours. At least, we like to think that. The height of the McDermot’s popularity was during the Great War. We also supplied quite a few in the Second World War, but then demand fell off.”

“So why would someone order one today?”

“Collectors like them. Was your man a collector?”

“Non. He was a professor at an academy that trains police officers here in Québec.”

“Then he was interested in weapons.”

“Yes, but modern ones. Not antiques.”

“It might be antique, but it does the job.”

“The job being to kill?”

There was a pause. “Not necessarily.”

Beauvoir let that sit there, the pause elongating.

“Well, yes. Sometimes. Or to prevent bloodshed. We don’t sell handguns into Canada. They’re banned, of course. Which is why Mr. Leduc ordered from the United States. I’m not sure how he got it across the border.”

“It’s not that hard.”

The border was more porous than anyone cared to admit.

“If he wasn’t a collector, can you think why else he’d want this particular make?” asked Beauvoir.

“Well, it’s sturdy, and there’s not as much kickback as with other revolvers. And it’s very accurate.”

“Accuracy was not an issue,” said Beauvoir. “And it’s not like he was heading for the trenches. Why would anyone want a six-shooter when they could have an automatic weapon?”

He could almost hear her shrug. Not out of disinterest, but because she didn’t have the answer any more than he did.

Beauvoir decided to take another tack.

“Why would he order from you, all the way from England, and not get a Colt, if they were so similar?”

“History. And quality. Gun people know our make.”

“But a Colt or a Smith and Wesson are still good and would be cheaper, non? They’re made right in the States.”

“Yes, they would be less expensive.”

“But maybe they don’t make silencers,” said Beauvoir.

“We don’t either.”

“You must. The revolver had one. I mentioned that in the email.”

“I thought that was a typo, or a mistake on your part.”

“You thought I didn’t know what a silencer was?” he asked.

“Well, it didn’t make sense to me,” she said. “Revolvers don’t have silencers. They don’t work.”