A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(82)

Paul Gélinas had never been completely comfortable with that. He knew that law wasn’t always the same as justice. But it had the advantage of being fairly clear. Whereas justice could be fluid, situational. A matter of interpretation. And perception.

He looked down at Serge Leduc.

His murder broke the law, but did it uphold justice? Maybe.

“When you took over, Commander, Leduc went from being the teacher to being the lesson,” said Charpentier. “The students learned a tyrant always falls, eventually.”

“But some still chose Leduc as their mentor,” Gélinas pointed out. “That doesn’t show much of a learning curve.”

“These things take time,” said Gamache. “Their world had been turned upside down. Some might not have believed it was permanent. They might’ve thought that I’d last a semester and Leduc would rise again. I was honestly surprised that more students didn’t go with him.”

“Most went with you?”

Gamache smiled. “The new sheriff in town? Non. Hardly any. I think I might’ve been a step too far, a clear sign of disloyalty. But more and more cadets were coming to the gatherings in my rooms. Mostly freshmen. And some I especially invited.”

“And who were those?” asked Gélinas. “The most promising?”

Gamache smiled. “The pick of the litter?”

Gélinas tilted his head slightly at that phrase.

“Can we get back to the forensics report?” asked Lacoste, looking at her watch.

“Of course,” said Gélinas. “Désolé.”

They dropped their eyes to their screens once again as Beauvoir walked them through it.

“As you see, the fingerprints of a number of students were in Leduc’s bathroom,” said Beauvoir. “Including the cadets in the village. No surprise there, I think. We knew they were among his protégées. But one was also on the chest of drawers and the gun case.”

He hit a key and only a single dot remained.

“The cadets in the village?” asked Gélinas, looking from Beauvoir to Lacoste. “Saint-Alphonse? Are some of the cadets local?”

Beauvoir glanced at Gamache in slight apology.

“Whose was on the gun case?” asked Gamache.

“Cadet Choquet’s.”

Gamache drew his brows together.

“And the weapon?” asked Lacoste.

“The prints on the revolver were smudged, unfortunately, but there were partials of a number of people. The coroner’s report came in too. Nothing unusual about Leduc. He was a healthy forty-six-year-old male. No evidence of recent sexual activity. He’d had a meal and some Scotch.”

“Intoxicated?” asked Gélinas.

“No. And no bruising or cuts to indicate a fight.”

“So he just stood there while someone put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger?” asked Lacoste.

She looked around the conference table, all of them also trying to imagine how that could happen. Especially to someone like Leduc who was, by all accounts, combative at the best of times.

The RCMP officer leaned forward and shook his head. “No. It makes no sense. We’re obviously missing something. The partials on the gun. Could Leduc have handed it around? And eventually handed it to his killer?”

“Who shot him in front of a crowd?” asked Lacoste.

“So what’re you thinking?” asked Gélinas.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Beauvoir. “I think Leduc was proud of that revolver for some reason and wanted to show it off. So when people visited, he brought it out and handed it to them. Maybe made up some story about a long-lost relative’s heroics in the war. That’s where all the prints came from.”

“Did you read the footnote from the forensics team?” Gélinas asked.

Gamache had, as had, he could see, Beauvoir and Lacoste. Though they’d chosen not to say anything.

“It’s the extrapolation on the partial prints on the gun,” continued the RCMP officer. “Not admissible, but suggestive. Who the various prints might belong to. I see that this Cadet Choquet’s prints are there too.”

“As partials. Too smudged to clearly identify. We don’t take that seriously,” said Lacoste. “It’s more guess than science. This is complex enough. We need to stick to facts.”

“I agree,” said Gélinas, letting it drop. But not before he looked over at Gamache, who held his gaze.

The footnote gave percentage likelihood of the partials belonging to certain people. Not surprisingly, the largest percentage match was Leduc himself. More surprising was another name that showed up, besides Amelia Choquet. There was a forty percent chance that at least one of the prints belonged to Michel Brébeuf.

A number of other names showed up in the report. There was, according to the computer extrapolation, a very small chance Richard Nixon, the former American president, had handled the gun. Which was why the investigators tended not to take these results seriously. They also ignored the possibility, admittedly remote, that Julia Child was the murderer.

But there was one other name that stood out.

The analysis found a forty-five percent probability that at least one of the prints belonged to Armand Gamache.

Gélinas looked from the report to the Commander, while Lacoste and Beauvoir looked away. Only Charpentier spoke, in a sputter of sweat.