Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(67)

The guard stood up and opened the doors.

“We’re waiting for your answer, Chief Superintendent. It’s a simple question. The murder weapon, the bat, was just leaning against the wall. For all to see.”

As the heavy doors closed behind Beauvoir, something slipped out of the courtroom with him. And pursued him down the marble hallway.

The chief’s voice.

Had the bat been there, the Crown had asked, in full view for all to see?

“Oui.”

And there it was.

Chief Superintendent Gamache had perjured himself.

Until it happened, Jean-Guy hadn’t really believed the chief would do it. Lie under oath. Commit professional suicide. And worse, betray all his convictions. For a conviction.

But then, Beauvoir would never have believed he’d leave the chief and commit this act of personal treason.

Jean-Guy leaned against the wall, feeling the cool marble against his flushed face. He closed his eyes and gathered himself.

He wanted to go back in. But it was too late.

Jean-Guy took a deep breath, straightened up, and walked swiftly down the corridor, through the heavy air, batting away at the fly that had followed him.

He looked behind him, instinctively. In case something, or someone, was following. Dogging his steps. But there was no one there. The corridors were oddly empty. Not a soul in sight. All the courts were in session.

Making his way out the front door of the Palais de Justice, Beauvoir stood on the sweeping steps in the glaring sunshine and wiped his face, resting it, burying it for a moment, in the handkerchief.

Then he gave a quick scrub and, raising his head, he took a deep breath.

He felt a tickling on his arm and slapped at it, watching as the fly fell to the ground, its wings like delicate panes of stained glass in the sun. With just a bit of dirt sticking to them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

He’d acted instinctively, and now something was done that could never be undone.

But there was something he could do, now that he was out here, and Gamache was in there. And that was to make sure the lie was worth it. That it achieved what they all hoped.

The S?reté, under Chief Superintendent Gamache, would hit hard and fast and decisively. The target would never see the blow coming, shrouded as it was in lies and apparent incompetence. And all tied to a macabre murder in a tiny border village.

And a root cellar with a secret.

But as he headed along the cobbled streets of Old Montréal toward S?reté headquarters, Jean-Guy couldn’t shake the thought that they’d risked everything on this one maneuver. This coup de grace. That might not work.

There was no fallback plan. No alternate route. No plan B.

Not for Gamache. Not for Beauvoir. Not for any of them.

Chief Superintendent Gamache had just set their ship aflame. There was no going back now.





CHAPTER 22

Chief Superintendent Gamache looked at the closed doors of the courtroom, then he wiped his eyes again, and shifted his attention back to the Crown Prosecutor.

He watched Zalmanowitz, and saw what he thought was the tiniest of acknowledgments.

Both men knew what Gamache had just done. And what Zalmanowitz had helped orchestrate.

It was, potentially, a huge step toward their goal. And it was almost certainly the end to both of their careers. And yet, the waving of papers in the courtroom continued. The hum of the little fan continued. The jury continued to listen, semi-attentively, unaware of what they’d just witnessed. Of what had just happened.

All quiet on the western front, thought Gamache.

“So the defendant was responsible for Katie Evans being in the costume?”

“Yes.”

“It was an act of revenge?”

“Yes.”

“As was her murder.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why any of it. Why the costume? Why the root cellar? Why the baiting and tormenting? And why kill her? I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of motive. Did you not look for one?”

“Tone, please,” said Judge Corriveau.

Had she really just seen that look of understanding pass between these men? And then just heard the unmistakable goading on the part of the Crown? Her senses were in conflict.

“My apologies.” Though Zalmanowitz did not sound contrite.

“We did,” said Gamache. “All that you describe is accurate, and yet it’s also misleading. It’s all too easy in a homicide investigation to be drawn off course. To follow great screaming leads and miss the subtler, smaller clues. What seemed the stalking and eventual murder of Madame Evans only appeared macabre because we didn’t understand. But once it was clear, then all that fell away. These were trappings of a murder, but the murder itself was simple. Most are. It was committed by a human being. For human reasons.”

“And what were those? And please don’t recite the Seven Deadly Sins.”

Gamache smiled and rivulets of perspiration coursed into the crevices in his face.

“Oh, it was one of them.”

“All right,” said Zalmanowitz, apparently too drained to spar anymore. “Which one? Greed? Lust? Wrath?”

Gamache raised his hand and pointed a finger.

Got it.

Wrath. That had become a wraith. That had consumed its human host, and gone out into the world. To kill.