A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(92)

There was a slight movement off to his left, from Gamache.

He doesn’t approve of my telling Brébeuf about Leduc’s criminal activities, thought Gélinas. But it was too late, and the RCMP officer had done it deliberately, to see Brébeuf’s reaction.

“He alluded to some less than legal activity on his part,” said Brébeuf. “I think in an attempt to flatten the playing field. He was aware, of course, of my history.”

“He wanted to let you know that he didn’t judge you?” asked Gélinas, and saw Brébeuf bristle.

“Believe me, Deputy Commissioner, Serge Leduc’s judgment was of no importance to me.”

“And yet, it appears you had a great deal in common. You were both senior S?reté officers. Both misused your positions and were eventually caught and expelled from the S?reté for criminal activity. Both of you were saved from prosecution by friends in high places. In your case, Monsieur Gamache. In his case, the Chief Superintendent. And you both found yourselves here, at the academy.”

“Have you come here to insult me, or ask for my help?”

“I’m pointing out the commonalities in your CVs,” said Gélinas. “That’s all.”

“There might be commonalities, as you put it, but I had nothing in common with him,” said Brébeuf. “He was just that. Common. A lump of coal that thought it was a diamond. He was a moron with a big office.”

“Then what were you doing in his living room? His bathroom? His bedroom?” asked Gélinas, his voice no longer quite so cordial. He shoved a hard copy of the forensics report across the desk. “What were you doing handling the murder weapon?”

Beside him, Gamache stirred again, and then subsided.

Brébeuf picked up the paper and scanned it with the practiced eye of a seasoned investigator. Going straight to the pertinent information.

His face, at first grim, relaxed a fraction. Gélinas realized, in that moment, why Gamache had reacted, albeit subtly, when the report was given to Brébeuf.

Yes, it showed that Michel Brébeuf might have held the murder weapon. But it also showed it was even more likely that Gamache had.

“You know as well as I do,” said Brébeuf, sliding the page back to Gélinas, “that this is supposition. Inadmissible.”

“Then you deny it?”

“Of course I do. I had no idea he had a gun, though I should’ve guessed. Only a fool would keep one in his rooms at a school. Though I’d never have expected this type of gun. A revolver? Does this make sense to you?”

He’d asked the question of Gamache.

“I would’ve expected a missile launcher,” said Gamache, and Brébeuf laughed.

And in a flash, in that easy laugh, Gélinas saw something else.

How these two could have once been friends. They’d have made a formidable team, too, had one not stepped back and the other stepped up.

The mood in the room seemed to have changed, with that moment between the two men.

Michel Brébeuf grew quiet, contemplative.

“Do you want to know why we sometimes had dinner and drinks together?” Brébeuf asked. His voice deepening, softening.

Paul Gélinas nodded and glanced over at Gamache, who hadn’t moved. He was still watching Brébeuf with keen, attentive eyes.

“I went there because I was lonely,” said Brébeuf. “I was surrounded by people here, but no one wanted anything to do with me. I don’t blame them. I did this to myself, and I came here to try to make amends. I knew it would be difficult to talk to the senior cadets, every day, about corruption and my own temptation. About all the things that can go wrong, when you’re given authority and a gun and no boundary but your own. It’s one thing to be told that power corrupts,” he turned to Gamache, “but you were right. It’s far more effective to see an example. I told them about what I’d done, how it started small, insignificant even. And grew. I told them about the dangers of falling in with the wrong people. I taught an entire class on the theme of one bad apple. And admitted that had been me. And on the very first day of class, I wrote Matthew 10:36 across the top of the blackboard, and left it there. It was humiliating, but necessary.”

He’d spoken quietly, and directly to Armand.

“I thought the worst would be the classroom, but it wasn’t. The worst was the evenings, when I could hear laughter and music. When I knew you were just down the corridor, talking to your cadets. And I sat there, alone, waiting for someone to perhaps show up.”

Paul Gélinas felt he had vanished, been overwhelmed, buried. A climber caught up in the avalanche that was the relationship between these two men.

“I visited Serge Leduc every now and then because he was the only one who smiled when he saw me.”

“Did you kill him, Michel?” asked Armand quietly.

“Would you put a bullet in your life raft?” asked Brébeuf. “No, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t like or respect him. But then, I don’t like or respect myself. But I didn’t shoot the man.”

“Do you have any idea who did?” asked Gélinas, clawing his way back into the interview.

“I wish I could tell you I think it was a professor and not a student, but I can’t,” said Brébeuf. “The cadets these days aren’t like we were. They’re rough, coarse. Look at that freshman, the one with all the tattoos and piercings. And the language I’ve heard out of her. To professors. Shocking. What’s she doing here? One of Leduc’s recruits, no doubt.”