Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(50)

It had been the most extraordinary meeting of Zalmanowitz’s career.

Gamache had flown to Moncton and driven to Halifax, while Zalmanowitz had flown directly there.

They’d sat in a diner at the waterfront. A dive even by the questionable standards of the dockworkers and fishermen who surrounded them.

And there, in the shadow of ships bound for ports around the world, the Chief Superintendent of the S?reté had outlined his plan to the Chief Crown Prosecutor.

And when he’d finished, and was completely and utterly exposed, Armand Gamache had waited. A very slight tremble in his right hand the only hint of stress.

The head of the Crown Prosecutor’s office had sat there, stunned. At the hubris of the man. At the scope of the plan. At his stupidity, bordering on brilliance, to come to the last person on earth likely to help him. And ask not just for help.

“You’re asking me to end my career.”

“Almost certainly. And I’ll end mine.”

“Yours has barely begun,” Zalmanowitz reminded him. “You’ve just come out of retirement. You’ve been the Chief Superintendent for a nanosecond. I doubt you even know where the toilet is on your floor. I have thirty years in the Crown’s office. I’m the head of the whole fucking thing. And you want me to not only throw it all away, but risk imprisonment? At the very least, humiliation? You want me to bring shame on my whole career and family?”

“Yes, please.”

Gamache had looked so sincere when he’d said that, before breaking into a smile. But for just a moment Zalmanowitz had wondered if this was some sort of elaborate scheme to get rid of him. Have him self-destruct. Lure him into doing something if not outright illegal then surely unethical.

And have him not simply fired, but ruined.

But looking into those eyes, searching that face, Zalmanowitz realized that Gamache was many things, but he was not cruel. And that would have been cruel.

Armand Gamache was serious.

“I need to go for a walk,” said the Crown, and when Gamache started to get up, Zalmanowitz forcefully put out his hand. “Alone.”

He’d walked and walked and walked, up and down the pier. Past the huge container ships. He smelled the seaweed, the rust, the fish.

Up and down, Zalmanowitz paced.

If he did this, he couldn’t tell anyone. Not even his wife. Not until it was over.

And who knew? Maybe people would understand. Would see that the why overrode the how.

But walk as he might, he couldn’t escape the reality. If he did this thing, if he threw in with Gamache, it would be the end. He’d be pilloried. And rightly so.

It went against everything he believed in. Everything he stood for. Everything Gamache believed in too, to be fair.

So great was the threat that both men had to be willing to compromise their deepest beliefs.

Would he regret joining Gamache? Would he regret not?

What were the chances of success? Pretty low, he knew. But the chances were zero if he didn’t try.

And Gamache had no other options. He was it, Zalmanowitz knew. Because of his position. Because of the respect he commanded in his profession. He would use it all up, empty the well of goodwill. In this one act.

Zalmanowitz stopped and watched the boats in Halifax Harbour, and felt the bracing sea air on his face.

Charlotte had loved going down to the old port of Montréal, to stare at the ships. Wide-eyed. She’d ask her dad where each was going and where each was from. Barry, of course, didn’t know, so he made it up. Choosing the most exotic-sounding places.

Zanzibar.

Madagascar.

The North Pole.

Atlantis.

St.-Crème-Glacée-de-Poutine.

“You made that up,” said Charlotte, laughing so hard she’d started to cry.

Well, he thought, if he could make up a story for his little girl, he could make up one for everyone else in Québec.

“Come along,” he whispered. “We’re going on a journey.”

He’d walked back to the diner, where Gamache was waiting. A tall, quivering slice of lemon meringue pie in front of each of them.

Zalmanowitz sat down.

While Armand Gamache hadn’t mentioned Charlotte, Zalmanowitz suspected he knew. And he both hated the man across from him for asking this thing. And almost loved him, for asking this thing.

“I’ll do it.”

Gamache had nodded, holding his eyes. “We have to move quickly.”

And they had.

That had been months ago, in November.

Charges were laid, preliminary hearings were held.

And now it was July and they were into the second day of the murder trial.

It was almost impossible to tell if things were going their way. It seemed like such a long shot, and yet they’d made it this far. Still, the plan could fail. The ground could fall out from underneath them.

If it did, they’d go down together. But the consolation for Zalmanowitz was that at least his hands would be around Gamache’s throat when they hit bottom.

“How did Patrick Evans take the news of his wife’s death?” he asked the Chief Superintendent.





CHAPTER 18

“Tell me here,” said Patrick Evans, as his friends closed ranks beside him.

Not unlike, Gamache thought, what they had done the evening before, when protecting the cobrador.