Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(125)

“Tell me,” said the judge, “about the murder of Katie Evans.”

“It began,” began Gamache, “as most murders do. Long ago. Though not far away.”

He looked to his left.

“Just a few blocks from here. At the Université de Montréal. When one of the students killed himself. Doped up, out of his mind, on drugs supplied to him by a third-year political science student. Anton Boucher.”

Judge Corriveau was very familiar with the name.

In the pretrial reports, Anton Boucher had been the dishwasher at the bistro.

In the reports she’d just read, Anton Boucher was the head of the Québec syndicate.

“His uncle is Maurice Boucher,” said Corriveau, wanting to show she’d done some homework. “He was the head of the Hell’s Angels here. In prison now for murder and trafficking.”

Beauvoir nodded. “Right. When he was sent up, his nephew took over. He did what Mom Boucher couldn’t.”

Beauvoir had used the nickname the elder Boucher went by. Apparently because he “mothered” the members of his gang. Though that didn’t stop him from slaughtering other people’s children.

“Anton moved quickly,” said Jean-Guy. “He was named after his uncle’s best friend, Antonio Ruiz, who guided him in consolidating the three cartels. Anton could see where organized crime was heading.”

“And where was that?” asked Corriveau.

“It was on the verge of becoming far bigger, far wealthier, more powerful than anything anyone had known in the past,” said Gamache. “And the catalyst was the opioids.”

“Like fentanyl,” said Zalmanowitz. “I know all about them. My daughter was addicted. We got her treatment, but…”

He lifted his hands, then dropped them.

“This isn’t parents overreacting to a recreational drug,” he continued. “This’s something else. It’s brutal. It changes them. It changed her. And she’s one of the lucky ones. She’s still alive.”

“Fentanyl was the first to really explode onto the streets,” said Gamache. “But there were others. And now they’re coming in, being created faster than we can stop them. Faster than we can even get the opioids onto the banned list. A tweak of the formula, and it reads differently. It’s no longer illegal. Until we catch up with it.”

“A hole in the law,” said the judge. “The chemical compounds need to be clearly described. Even a slight change means there’s nothing we can do. We have to release the traffickers.”

“It’s a modern-day Black Death,” said Zalmanowitz. “And the syndicates are the plague rats.”

“Anton Boucher saw it coming,” said Gamache. “And he moved quickly, viciously, to take control.”

“A new generation of criminal,” said Corriveau. “For a new generation of drug.”

“Oui,” said Gamache.

“Was Katie Evans part of the cartel?” asked Corriveau.

“Non. Her crime was that she was at school with the young man who killed himself. She was his lover for a few months, before breaking it off. His name was Edouard Valcourt. He was Jacqueline’s brother.”

“I remember his name from the pretrial reports.”

“Madame Evans, her husband, Patrick, along with Matheo Bissonette and Lea Roux, were all friends with Edouard. Classmates,” said Beauvoir. “Lea and Matheo were at the rooftop party when he jumped.”

Maureen Corriveau didn’t react, but Barry Zalmanowitz looked down at his hands.

It was his nightmare. Maybe they hadn’t saved his daughter in time. Maybe they hadn’t saved her at all. Maybe this chemical was in deeper than even a father could reach.

“Anton was their dealer, but he made a mistake,” said Beauvoir. “And it was a big one. He decided to try the drugs himself. He got hooked, and then, like most addicts, he got sloppy. When Edouard killed himself and questions started to be asked, he took off. Eventually went into treatment. There he got clean, but he also met a group of other men. Some who genuinely wanted to start fresh, but some who did not. They became Anton’s lieutenants. They, like him, had the advantage now of being clean. And of knowing what the drugs were capable of.”

“That was a few years ago,” said Gamache. “As the drugs got stronger, crueler, so did the cartels.”

“So how does Madame Evans come into it?” asked Judge Corriveau. “She knew this Edouard back at university, and presumably knew Anton Boucher.”

“She did,” said Gamache. “They all did. He was a couple of years ahead of them. They all bought drugs off him. Mostly grass, some cocaine. Not the pharmaceuticals. Only Edouard did that.”

“Are you saying that Madame Evans was killed because of something that happened that long ago?”

“Yes,” said Gamache. “Most murders are simple. The motive clear, though what makes them difficult to see is that they’re often very old. Katie Evans was killed because of what happened at university. Because of a debt owed. And that’s where the cobrador came in. Jacqueline, Edouard’s sister, had the idea, but it was his friends who actually did it.”

“They took turns being the Conscience,” said Beauvoir. “Standing on the village green. Accusing Anton. But that’s as far as it was supposed to go. They’d stand there for a few days, scare the shit out of the dishwasher, then go home.”