Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(105)

“Well,” she said, after being shown the hidden door. “Well, well. You’ve taken samples?”

Beauvoir pointed to the evidence kit and nodded.

She walked back into the Incident Room in silence, Gamache and Beauvoir following, and when she turned around she said, “Made by the bootleggers Myrna told us about.”

“Exactly,” said Gamache.

“And used by the murderer.”

“And the cobrador,” said Gamache.

“They’re probably the same person,” said Lacoste. “But how did he know about the hidden door? You didn’t even know. No one did, except Ruth and Myrna.”

“They didn’t know about the door,” Gamache pointed out. “Only about the Prohibition story. To them it was an interesting bit of history, but nothing more.”

“Myrna or Ruth must’ve told someone else,” said Lacoste. “And that person put it together and found the door. But why would anyone go looking for a hidden door in a church basement?”

Gamache was wondering the same thing.

Sometimes people stumbled onto things by accident. Like those who found Three Pines.

But most of the time something was found because they were looking, and they were looking because there was a need. Necessity drove discoveries.

It was slowly dawning on Gamache what that need might be.

When Prohibition had been repealed, those secret rooms had been abandoned. Forgotten. Those who’d created them were long dead, though the fortunes remained, as did the rooms.

On the border. Waiting. For some new need to arise.

The border was porous. Always had been. And what poured across it now was a lot more powerful, and more lucrative, than booze.

Beauvoir went to his desk to download emails.

“Antonio Ruiz is back in Spain,” Beauvoir reported. “The Guardia Civil just confirmed it.”

He got up and took a seat at the conference table with them, bringing with him the photo he’d taken from the Evans’s home.

Gamache examined it. The smiling faces. Familiar, of course. Younger, of course. Happier.

His gaze lingered on Edouard, the ghost, the bright shadow that followed the friends.

Jean-Guy told him about his conversation with Katie’s sister.

“Still nothing that would justify a cobrador,” said Gamache. His eyes went back to the photo. This time shifting from Edouard’s face, to his arm, around Katie. “I wonder why she kept this one? They look still together.”

“And I wonder why Patrick was apparently happy to keep it,” said Jean-Guy. “There must’ve been other pictures of them all together. Ones less…”

“Intimate?” Gamache nodded. Why this one, he wondered.

“I had a talk with Anton, the dishwasher, just now,” said Beauvoir. “When he brought the dinner over. He admitted that he knew about the cobrador.”

“How?” asked Lacoste.

“Antonio Ruiz had been followed by one in Spain.”

Beauvoir told them about the video and what Anton had said.

“Money laundering?” said Gamache.

That almost certainly meant organized crime. Racketeering. Gambling. Drugs.

“And Jacqueline also knew?” asked Lacoste.

“Oui. She made Anton promise not to say anything because then people would ask questions, want to know how they knew, and then they’d have to say something about Ruiz,” said Beauvoir. “They seem afraid of him, and not just because of the confidentiality agreement.”

“If he’s involved in organized crime, they have reason to be afraid,” said Gamache.

“Anton told me something else,” said Beauvoir. “He thought the cobrador was here for him.”

“That’s not exactly news. Everyone in the village thought the Conscience was here for them,” said Gamache. “Including me.”

“But Anton had good reason.” Beauvoir leaned across the table, closer to them. “He knew Katie Evans.”

“How?” asked Lacoste.

“From years ago,” said Beauvoir. “He knew all of them. He wasn’t sure at first. He only saw them at a distance since he works in the kitchens, and it’d been so long, but when he heard them talk about the Université de Montréal, he knew for sure. He was a student when they were there. Then when the cobrador showed up, he thought he was in big trouble. He thought the four of them had sent it. To collect his debt.”

“What debt?” asked Lacoste, then quickly raised her hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me.”

She thought about it for a moment, then she put her elbows on the table, her eyes bright.

“He’s the one who sold Edouard the drugs,” she said, and Beauvoir nodded.

“When Edouard died and questions were asked, he took off,” said Jean-Guy. “Ended up in treatment.”

“Did Madame Evans and the others recognize him?” Gamache asked.

“If they did, they didn’t say anything to him,” said Beauvoir.

“Or to us,” said Lacoste. “Now why would they keep that a secret?”

“Maybe they didn’t realize who he was,” said Beauvoir.

“Just seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?” said Gamache. “Here we are in a tiny village few even know exists, and who arrives but the only four people on earth who can tie Anton to that death.”