All the Devils Are Here(43)

“Did he ever talk about Luxembourg?”

“Luxembourg? The country? Or is it a city-state? Why would he talk about that?”

Armand sighed. “I don’t know.”

There was a pause before she spoke again, softly, almost gently. “You think this was no accident, don’t you, Armand?”

He hesitated. Considering.

Stephen Horowitz had trusted Agnes McGillicuddy with his business and personal life for decades. If anyone knew his secrets, it would be her.

If Stephen trusted her, so could he.

“I’m certain of it. Stephen knew something. We need to find out what it was. He never gave you anything, any documents, for safekeeping?”

“No.”

No, thought Armand. Even as he asked the question, he had known that Stephen would never drag her into this. Just as he hadn’t mentioned it to him, or Jean-Guy, or anyone else.

Except Monsieur Plessner, and he was dead. Confirming Stephen’s worst fears, and his need for extreme caution.

“And you have no reason to suspect he’d found something out, something extremely damaging, about a corporation?”

“No, and he’d normally crow to me if he had. He loved having a secret, and loved nothing better than knowing the shit was about to hit the fan.” She hesitated before going on. “If he didn’t tell me, that means it must be really bad. And they tried to kill him to stop him?”

“I think so. You have his business agenda?”

“I do. What do you want to know?”

“What he was doing between September eleventh and the twenty-first.”

“I don’t see anything here. But he must’ve been spending time with you.”

“Reine-Marie and I only arrived in Paris yesterday.”

There was a pause and then she said, “Oh.”

“So you have no idea what he was doing in those ten days?”

“No.” Now she was clearly confused. Something new for Mrs. McGillicuddy. “I didn’t book anything for him. No dinner reservations. No theater or opera tickets. And I don’t have the meeting next week. He might’ve made that plan since arriving in Paris.”

“Did you make a reservation for him at the George V?”

“No. I just told you. No dinner reservations.”

“Not at the restaurant. For a suite.”

“A suite? At the George V? Have you lost your mind?”

Well, that answered that, thought Gamache. He began to pace back and forth along the riverfront as they talked.

The great medieval buildings of ?le de la Cité rose behind him, while across the Seine he saw the Rive Gauche. The historic home of artists and writers.

Over the centuries, people looking out of those windows had seen far more shocking things than a man walking back and forth along the riverfront.

They’d have witnessed the Terror, for instance.

This was more like watching the Agitation.

Though if they could see his thoughts, his feelings, they’d have drawn the curtains and locked their doors.

“Do you know a man named Alexander Francis Plessner?”

“Alex Plessner? Yes.”

Armand stopped pacing. Finally, a sentence that didn’t start with “no.”

“Mr. Horowitz has lunch with him at the club whenever Mr. Plessner’s in Montréal. He lives in Toronto, I think.”

“They were friends?”

“Were? Mr. Horowitz’s still alive.” The reprimand was immediate and whip sharp. “Don’t bury him yet.”

The past tense was because of the death of Plessner, but Armand wasn’t ready to give up that piece of information.

Instead, he apologized and asked, “They know each other well?”

“They’re more like acquaintances than friends. Not especially close.”

“Can you find out if Alex Plessner ever sat on the GHS board?”

“I think so.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about Mr. Plessner? Anything Stephen might’ve said?”

There was a pause as she thought. “I believe Mr. Plessner has a great deal of money. Mr. Horowitz said he made most of it all at once, through some speculation. I think it might’ve been venture capital.”

“Like seed money for Apple or Microsoft?”

“Something like that. Mr. Horowitz always kids Mr. Plessner about falling into a bucket of luck.”

That bucket, it seemed, had run dry yesterday, thought Gamache.

“Mrs. McGillicuddy, there’s something else I need to tell you. Alex Plessner was found murdered this morning, in Stephen’s apartment.”

There was a soft moan at the other end. The sound of a person who’d seen a lot in her long life. And had now seen too much.

Armand gave her time to absorb that news.

“What’s happening?” she whispered down the line from Montréal.

“I’m trying to find out. The apartment was ransacked. They were looking for something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. We think it might be evidence of some sort that Stephen and Plessner found. Alex Plessner had Stephen’s business card on him—”

“Well, that’s no sur—” She’d interrupted him. And now Mrs. McGillicuddy interrupted herself. “Are you saying … That’s not possible.”