Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(114)

And the answer was, he could do it because night was closing in.

In the summer, the sun was up for hours and hours. And the heat was relentless and merciless. No one could stand there for long.

But in late October, early November, the days were shorter, and cooler.

The cobrador could slip away when darkness fell.

Daylight. It was so simple.

But then, most crimes were. And they were now closing in on the crime.

“Myrna says she told you about the church and Prohibition,” Beauvoir said to Lea, who nodded.

“She did. That was on my first visit. Before the reunions. She even showed me the little room, the root cellar. I remembered it when we were trying to figure out some of the logistics.”

“That’s where the cobrador stayed,” said Lacoste. “Who is he? Someone you hired? What’s happened to him?”

Her question was again met with confusion on their part.

Lea turned to Jacqueline. “Didn’t you tell them?”

“I told them I was responsible for the cobrador. It’s all my doing.”

“And you didn’t think they’d figure it out?” asked Matheo.

“Figure what out?” asked Lacoste. “Where’s the cobrador?”

“You’re looking at him.”

The S?reté officers stared at Matheo. Who pointed to Patrick. Then to Lea. Then to himself.

“We were the cobrador,” he said.

Gamache closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.

Just as on the island of the diseased and damned and dispossessed, the cobrador of Three Pines was not a single person. It was an idea. A community of conscience.

They were all the cobrador.

“And Katie?” he asked.

“She was it yesterday,” said Lea. “We decided to call it quits, after the near attack last night. It was getting dangerous. So once Katie was done, we’d go home, whether Anton had broken or not. But, of course…”

These friends, Gamache thought, had been na?ve. They thought they could threaten without consequence. In bringing the cobrador here, they’d woken up more than a conscience.

And they hadn’t perhaps done quite enough research on the original cobradors.

While they’d publicly accused their tormentors of moral crimes, it hadn’t been the princes of the day who’d finally paid. It was the cobradors who’d been rounded up, and killed.

As Katie had been.

He looked at Lacoste and Beauvoir. They looked at him. All thinking the same thing.

The bat. It had three dominant sets of DNA. Katie Evans’s. A very small, almost certainly incidental, sample of Jacqueline’s. And Anton Boucher’s.

His DNA was all over it.

The bat told essentially the same story as these friends.

Anton Boucher had snapped. He’d followed the cobrador last night, through the sleet and darkness, back to the church, to the root cellar, and beaten her to death. Never removing the mask. Never knowing who he’d just killed.

Though that in itself was curious. Would Anton not want to know who it was who’d so relentlessly tracked him down?

“How did you get in and out of the root cellar?” Gamache asked.

“By the door, of course,” said Matheo.

Gamache nodded. He had to be very careful here. “Were you not afraid of being seen?”

“Who’s looking in that direction after dark?” asked Matheo. “And no one goes into a church anymore. We figured it was the safest place. Far better than having the cobrador book a room at the B&B.”

“We’d undress,” said Lea, “and leave the costume for the next person. And if someone saw us, then we’d just admit everything. Either way, Anton was screwed. And we’d have done nothing illegal.”

“Or even immoral,” said Matheo.

“Until last night,” said Gamache.

“But we didn’t kill Katie,” said Lea. “Surely that’s obvious.”

“But we did,” said Jacqueline. “If we hadn’t done the cobrador thing, she’d be alive. If I hadn’t wanted Anton to pay, she’d be alive. I knew Anton better than anyone. I knew his temper. If he didn’t get his way, he became vicious. But I didn’t think he’d be violent. Not like that.”

She looked at Patrick.

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve known he’d strike out. He killed Katie and it was my fault.”

“Why would he kill her?” asked Gamache.

“Well, he didn’t know he was killing Katie,” said Matheo. “He was killing the cobrador, who obviously knew his secret.”

“The secret being?” asked Gamache.

“Edouard, of course,” said Lea.

Gamache nodded. Then began shaking his head.

“It doesn’t make sense. He recognized you all, you know. He knew you were Edouard’s friends. Even if he suspected you were behind the cobrador costume, he must’ve known that killing one still left three others.”

“Besides,” said Beauvoir, “he told me everything.”

“Everything?” asked Lea.

“Oui. About selling drugs, and Edouard’s death. If Anton was willing to admit it, why kill to keep it quiet?”

Gamache turned to Jacqueline.