Dead Cold (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)(81)

An eagle.

A shrieking eagle.

And Gamache knew then why CC had stopped the tape just there. He had to get to the Incident Room before Lacoste left. The clock on the mantel said just after six. It might already be too late. Gesturing to Lemieux he whispered in the young man’s ear. Lemieux left the room quickly and quietly. A moment later Gamache saw him hurrying along the front path and out the gate.

Gamache cursed himself for forgetting to give the video to Lemieux to put back in the evidence box. He had a sneaking suspicion he’d leave without it himself. Peter arrived with the tea and Clara roused herself.

‘I need to ask you this again, Clara. Are you sure you’d never seen Elle before?’

‘Elle? Was that her name?’

‘That’s what the police report called her. We don’t know her real name.’

‘I’ve thought about it a great deal since that night. Myrna also asked. I didn’t know her. Believe me.’

Gamache did.

‘How did she die?’ asked Clara. ‘Was it the cold?’

‘She was murdered, shortly after she spoke to you.’





TWENTY-NINE




Armand Gamache actually remembered to take The Lion in Winter back to the Incident Room. He placed it on his desk and went over to Lacoste’s computer where the others were huddled. He noticed Agent Nichol sitting at her own desk and waved her over.

‘Lemieux told me what you wanted,’ said Lacoste, glancing at him quickly. ‘Look at this.’ Her computer screen was split in two, with near identical images on either side. The head of an eagle, stylized and screaming.

‘This one,’ Lacoste pointed to the one on the left, ‘is the emblem of Eleanor of Aquitaine.’

‘And that one?’ Gamache pointed to the other half of the screen.

‘That’s CC’s corporate logo. It’s on the cover of her book, kind of. It’s all smudged, a not very good reproduction, but that’s what it is.’

‘You were right,’ said Beauvoir. ‘CC stopped the video at minute seventeen to get a good look at the front of the boat. She must have recognized it as Eleanor’s emblem, and wanted to copy it.’

‘Everything makes sense,’ murmured Lemieux.

‘How’d you make the connection?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘I had an unfair advantage,’ admitted Gamache. ‘Lyon showed me CC’s book and pointed out the logo. It’s unforgettable.’ So this explained the ridiculous choice of a belligerent eagle as a logo, he thought. It was Eleanor’s emblem.

‘There’s something I need to show you.’ Gamache walked over to his satchel and removed the photographs taken by Saul Petrov. The team pulled their chairs up to the conference table while Gamache spread them out.

‘I figured out why CC grabbed the chair in front of her,’ he said, nodding to the series of pictures. ‘It’s all there.’

They stared and after a minute Gamache took pity on them. They were all tired and hungry and Agent Lacoste had a long drive back to Montreal.

‘See here?’ He pointed to one of the early shots of CC watching the curling. ‘The chair looks fine, right?’

They nodded.

‘Now look here.’ He pointed to one of the last pictures of CC.

‘My God, it’s so obvious. How could I have missed it?’ Beauvoir looked from the pictures to Gamache in astonishment. ‘It’s crooked.’

‘So?’ said Lacoste.

‘Over and over again the people who knew her, or even met her casually, said the same thing. CC obsessively rearranged everything around her. A chair like this,’ Gamache pointed to the tilted chair, one corner sunk into the snow, ‘was guaranteed to get a reaction. The only surprise is that it took her so long.’

‘Except, as you pointed out,’ said Nichol, ‘the chair was just fine to begin with. Someone must have shoved it off kilter.’

Gamache nodded. Was that what was on the roll of film Petrov burned? Did it show a villager casually wandering by and leaning on the chair? Did the villager then go to the generator and wait for CC to get up? And when she did all he had to do was attach the booster cables, and bang. Murder.

It was brilliant and almost elegant.

But who did it? Richard Lyon was the perfect suspect. He knew his wife would reach for the chair that had gone askew.

‘That photographer was hiding something,’ said Beauvoir.

‘I agree,’ said Gamache. ‘He burned a roll of film in his fireplace just before we arrived. I think it was of the murder.’

‘Why would he destroy it, though?’ asked Lemieux. ‘As he said, if he had a picture of the murderer it would prove his own innocence.’

‘What about if he planned to use it for blackmail?’ Nichol asked.

‘But why destroy it? You’d keep that film safe, wouldn’t you?’ said Lacoste and received a disconcertingly friendly smile.

Bitch, thought Nichol. She looked around and noticed Gamache watching her. Does he know? she wondered. He was standing there so smug and comfortable, surrounded by his team. And her on the outside, always on the outside. Well, that would change.

‘Why destroy pictures of CC being murdered?’ Gamache asked himself, sitting down and staring at the photographs. ‘Unless he’s trying to protect the murderer.’