A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(80)

It was also a relief to now be dealing with facts rather than speculation.

“The bullet we dug out of the wall was the one that killed him. And it came from the gun we found. The McDermot .45. No surprise there.”

“There is one surprise,” said Gélinas. “I’m not a homicide investigator, but I’d have thought most murderers take the weapon with them. To dispose of it. Less for the investigators to work with, if there’s no weapon.”

“Amateurs,” said Charpentier. He’d been bone-dry and silent so far, but as he spoke, sweat began pouring from his pores.

“Professionals know that as soon as murder is committed, the weapon stops being a gun or a knife or a club and becomes a noose,” he said. “It attaches itself to the killer. He might think he’s being clever, taking the weapon, but murder weapons are harder to get rid of than people think. The longer he holds on to it, the tighter the rope gets, the bigger the drop.”

Charpentier mimicked a length of rope, and then jerked it with such sudden violence, and such relish, it gave those watching pause. A kind of ecstasy had come over the quiet man as he glistened in the morning sun and talked of execution.

Gamache leaned forward slightly, toward Charpentier, his thoughtful eyes sharpening. And he knew then what his former pupil reminded him of. His thin, tense body was that rope, and his outsized head the noose.

If Gamache was an explorer and Beauvoir a hunter, Charpentier seemed a born executioner.

And Gélinas? Gamache shifted his gaze to the senior RCMP officer. What was he?

“Amateurs panic and take it with them,” confirmed Beauvoir. “Leduc was killed by someone who knew what he was doing, or at the very least had thought it through.”

“But why a revolver?” asked Gélinas. “Why did Leduc have one, and why did the murderer use it instead of an automatic?”

“Well, the revolver had the advantage of already being there,” said Gamache. “And couldn’t be traced back to the murderer. And it has another advantage.”

“What’s that?” asked Lacoste.

But now Beauvoir smiled and leaned forward. “That we’re talking about it. And spending time wondering about it and investigating it. The revolver’s an oddity. And oddities eat up time and energy in an investigation.”

“You’re thinking the revolver is both the murder weapon and a red herring,” said Lacoste.

“Not a red herring, a red whale,” said Beauvoir. “Something so obviously strange we have no option but to focus on it, and maybe miss something else.”

“It bears considering,” said Gamache.

“Too much speculation,” said Lacoste. “Let’s move on. I see there’s a preliminary report on the DNA at the crime scene.”

“A lot of different DNA was found,” said Beauvoir, returning to his screen. “It’ll take a while to process.”

“Quite a few fingerprints too.” Gélinas scanned ahead. “And not just in the living room.”

“True,” said Beauvoir, and tapped the tablet again.

A schematic of Leduc’s rooms came up on everyone’s screen. It was a floor plan showing the layout of furniture and the body. Then another tap, and the image was overlaid with dots. So many they obliterated almost everything else.

“The red dots are Leduc’s own prints,” said Beauvoir, and hit a key. They disappeared, leaving black dots. There were far fewer of those.

“As you can see, the other prints are mostly in the living room, but some were found in the bathroom and a few in the bedroom.”

“Have you identified them?” asked Lacoste.

“Not all, but most. The majority belong to one person. Michel Brébeuf.”

“Huh,” said Gamache, and leaned closer to his screen, bringing his hand up to his face. “Can you show us just his prints?”

Beauvoir tapped again, and again the screen changed. The dots were in the living room, in the bathroom. In the bedroom.

Gamache studied them.

Gélinas hit an icon on his own screen and the forensics report replaced the floor plan. He found computer imaging of limited use. It helped to visualize, but it could also confuse. It was both too much information and too narrow.

Instead, he preferred to read the report.

“There’re other professors’ fingerprints, I see, besides Brébeuf’s,” he said. “Professor Godbut, for example. It looks like the three of them, Leduc, Godbut, and Brébeuf, spent some time together.”

“It does,” said Beauvoir. “But of course we can’t tell if the prints were made at the same time or separately.”

“How often were the rooms cleaned?” the RCMP officer asked.

“Once a week,” said Beauvoir. “Leduc’s was cleaned three days before the murder.”

“But it wouldn’t be thorough enough to wipe out all the prints,” said Gamache. “Some of these might be quite old.”

“I can see Leduc and Godbut getting together,” said Gélinas. “But how does Michel Brébeuf fit in? I honestly can’t imagine him having a few beers with Leduc and watching the game.”

Gamache smiled at that image. The refined Brébeuf and the pug that was Leduc, kicking back. Then he remembered that evening in his rooms early in the semester. Reine-Marie, the students. The fire lit and drinks handed around. The snowstorm pounding the windows, just feet from where they sat.