Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(49)

“I’m not sure he meant that,” said Joan, trying to calm her partner. “It seems a sort of blanket statement, not a personal credo.”

“You don’t think that’ll be the headline in the news? ‘Head of S?reté Follows His Conscience, Not the Law’?”

“As long as it isn’t ‘Judge Goes Berserk in Courtroom.’”

Maureen laughed and got up. “I have to get back. Thanks for lunch.”

But after taking a step away from the table, she came back.

“Do you believe it?”

“That personal conscience overrules our collective laws?” asked Joan. “Aren’t our laws based on a good conscience? The Commandments?”

“Like the law forbidding homosexuality?”

“That was years ago,” said Joan.

“Still in force in many places. That law is unconscionable.”

“Then you agree with Monsieur Gamache?” asked Joan.

“If I agreed with anyone, it would be Gandhi, not Gamache. But can a judge really believe in the court of conscience? That it supersedes all others? It sounds like anarchy.”

“It sounds like progress,” said Joan.

“It sounds like the end of a promising career on the bench,” said Maureen with a smile. She kissed Joan, then leaned down and kissed her again, whispering, “That one’s for Gandhi.”





CHAPTER 17

The two men squared off again.

While always attentive, the spectators now leaned even further forward, drawn into the square at the front of the room, like a boxing ring, where the case was being fought.

There was now an electricity in Judge Corriveau’s courtroom. One she did not welcome. It was already hot enough. And as far as she was concerned, electricity and justice did not go together.

She could at least track down its source. These two men crackled with antagonism.

Bull elephants, Joan had called them.

More like rogue elephants, thought Judge Corriveau. Shitting all over her first murder trial.

But even that was wrong.

The Crown Prosecutor, Monsieur Zalmanowitz, was lithe, walking with the sinewy movement of a panther. He paced his territory, occasionally making forays past the defense table, but always keeping his eyes on the man in the witness box.

A predator sizing up his prey.

And Gamache? Sitting so calmly, as though this were his home. As though he owned the chair he sat in, the box that surrounded it, the entire room. Polite, attentive, thoughtful.

His extreme quietude was a stark contrast to the ever-pacing Crown.

Here was a patient man. Who had the good sense to wait until his attacker showed a weakness.

This was no elephant. This was no panther.

This was an apex predator, she realized. The top of the food chain.

Judge Corriveau watched as Monsieur Zalmanowitz circled closer to Gamache, and she almost gestured to the Crown, waving him away.

Warning him that the sort of composure and control Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache exhibited only came from those with no natural enemies. It would be a potentially fatal error to mistake his calm for lethargy.

An apex predator who quoted Gandhi, she marveled. And she wondered if that made Monsieur Gamache more, or less, dangerous.

And she wondered if his only real enemy was himself.

Maureen Corriveau then remembered that passing fancy, as she’d walked down the cobblestone street to meet Joan for lunch. That these two adversaries were actually allies, and only pretending to be at each other’s throats.

But what could make them do such a thing?

She knew the answer, of course. There was only one reason they were acting as they were.

To trap an even bigger predator.

Judge Corriveau looked over at the defendant.

Was it possible someone who looked so very weak, so beaten, was something else entirely?

“Before we broke for lunch, you were telling us, Chief Superintendent, about bringing the news of Katie Evans’s murder to her husband,” said the Crown. “We left you in the restaurant.”

“The bistro, oui,” said Gamache, and saw, with satisfaction, Zalmanowitz bristle at the small correction.

For his part, Barry Zalmanowitz watched the head of the S?reté, sitting so comfortably in the witness box, and was grateful it wasn’t difficult to attack the man.

Despite their cordial lunch, he didn’t have to pretend to loathe Gamache. He actually did. And had for many years. How many times had they argued about a prosecution? Sometimes the Crown refused to lay charges against a person Gamache believed was a killer. But Zalmanowitz argued there wasn’t enough, or strong enough, evidence.

Your fault, Gamache, Zalmanowitz had said.

And Chief Inspector Gamache, then the head of homicide for the S?reté, had all but called him a coward, who wouldn’t risk a prosecution unless there was absolutely no chance of losing.

Yes, it was ironic that this whole plan rested on everyone believing they detested each other. The beauty of the plan was that they actually did.

As he paced the courtroom and watched the still man in the witness box, he couldn’t detect any outright rancor on Gamache’s part. Though there was wariness.

So great was the threat that Armand Gamache had been forced to approach a man uniquely situated to help. But one he didn’t like and didn’t trust.