A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(84)

“—Smythe? The one who found the body?” demanded Gélinas.

“Oui. As well as two seniors. Cadets Laurin and Cloutier.”

“And you knew?” Gélinas looked at the others.

When even Professor Charpentier nodded, the Deputy Commissioner exploded.

“Everyone knew, except me? Why? What are you playing at?” Now he was staring directly at Gamache. “Do you know how serious this is? You’re withholding evidence, you’re hiding witnesses. My God, man, what’re you doing?”

“I took them there to protect them, not to hide them. And the chief investigating officer knows exactly where they are. But it’s vital that no one outside of this room knows.”

“Well at least one person in this room didn’t know,” said Gélinas, his anger only mounting. “You had no right, no authority, to do that. You’re actively interfering with an investigation.”

“I had every right, and all authority,” said Gamache. “I’m the Commander here. These students are my responsibility. Their training is entrusted to me, and so is their safety.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Gélinas leaned close to him. “You’re as bad as Leduc. Treating the S?reté Academy as your personal city-state. This isn’t the Vatican and you’re not the pope. You’re behaving as though you’re all-powerful. Infallible. Well, you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Not necessarily,” said Charpentier. “Tactically it makes sense if—”

“The fewer who know where the students are the better,” said Gamache, cutting off the tactician.

“Better for who?” asked Gélinas. “Not me. Not the investigation. Better for you, perhaps.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Beauvoir.

“Whose prints were on the murder weapon?” Gélinas demanded.

“Partials,” said Beauvoir.

“Whose prints were on the map? Who stayed with the body, refusing company, until others arrived?” said Gélinas. “How many minutes? Ten? Twenty? Plenty of time to set the scene, to manipulate it. And then almost the first thing you do, sir, is scoop up important suspects, including the one who actually found the body, and take them away. That’s why you left right after the murder, isn’t it? To take the cadets down to the village.”

“To make sure they were safe, yes,” said Gamache.

“Safe? What danger could they be in here, any more than any of the other cadets? Why them?”

“As I said, they were closest to Leduc,” said Gamache, the throb underneath the words warning that he was straining to keep his temper. “Don’t the prints alone tell you that? They had extraordinary access to the man. And he to them. They’re the most likely to know something. They had to be protected.”

“The only thing that will protect them is telling us everything they know,” said Gélinas. “And it’s possible, probable, that if they do know something it’s because one of them did it. One of them killed Leduc. Have you thought of that, your holiness?”

“Don’t call me that, and of course I have,” said Gamache. “Even more reason to isolate them, don’t you think?”

“Or to hide them,” said Gélinas. “So they can’t tell me and others who mentored them into murder.”

Gélinas glared at Gamache.

“Are you suggesting Commander Gamache did this?” asked Lacoste, trying to control her own anger. “That he convinced one or all of the cadets to murder a professor?”

“The evidence is suggesting it,” said Gélinas. “His own actions are screaming it. It’s as though you’re just begging me to suspect you.”

“I didn’t kill Serge Leduc,” said Gamache. “You know it.”

“You asked for me specifically, monsieur, apparently to make sure it’s a fair and thorough investigation—”

“You asked for him?” Lacoste looked at Gamache, confused, while Charpentier leaned back in his chair and watched. No longer perspiring.

“Now I’m beginning to wonder if you chose me because you thought after years away, I’d be out of practice,” Gélinas continued. “I might be easily misdirected. Might even fall under your influence, like the cadets? Be flattered by the great man’s attentions? Was that it?”

“I asked for you, Deputy Commissioner, because I admire you and knew you’d be rigorous and fair,” said Gamache. “And would not be taken in by attempts to confuse. You would defend the law.”

“Oh, is that what this is?” Gélinas pointed to the tablet and the forensics report. “Not an indictment of your own actions, but an attempt to confuse? Are you saying someone is setting you up?”

“Why are there prints on the revolver?” asked Gamache. “Don’t you think it’s strange in the extreme that the killer knew enough to drop the weapon, but not enough to wipe it or wear gloves? If I killed Leduc, don’t you think I’d at least do both?”

“So you think all this is staged?”

“I think we have to consider that.”

“Who better to stage it than the former head of homicide for the S?reté? The man most learnèd in murder? I want you to consider something.”