Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(79)

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose it was here to torment someone else? Its whole purpose was as a conscience, right? Not a killer. But someone took this as a chance to murder Katie Evans—”

“And blame it on the cobrador,” said Beauvoir. “But that would mean whoever was in the costume is also dead.”

“Dead, or frightened away,” said Lacoste. “Knowing he’d be blamed.”

“Or next. When do you expect the analysis of the costume?”

“I’ve put a priority on it, but it only arrived at the lab a couple hours ago.”

Beauvoir nodded. They’d asked for DNA swabs from everyone they interviewed, and no one had refused. The samples could tell them a lot. Or could tell them nothing. What he really wanted to know was who had been in the costume before it was placed on Madame Evans. Though that person might be long gone, from the village, and perhaps from this earth.

“I’ve been going back over the interviews the team conducted this afternoon,” said Lacoste. “I can’t see anything helpful. Most of the villagers didn’t know her, and those who did, like Lea Roux and Matheo Bissonette, couldn’t come up with anything she might have wanted hidden.”

“They could be lying,” said Beauvoir.

“You think?” said Lacoste, with mock shock. “Her sister told you about an abortion, but I can’t see someone killing her over that. Can you?”

“There’re a lot of crazies,” said Beauvoir. “But no. So far we haven’t found anything she’d done in the past that might’ve attracted the cobrador.”

“So maybe he wasn’t here for her,” Lacoste repeated. “It’s possible he came for someone else. There’re two people new to the village. Anton Lebrun. He’s a dishwasher at the bistro. And Jacqueline Marcoux.”

“The baker,” said Beauvoir.

It did not surprise Isabelle that the man with the growing “intuition” would know the woman who supplied the éclairs.

“As we know, they worked together before coming here. For a private family.”

“So how did they go from that to a dishwasher and an assistant in a bakery? Were they fired?”

“The family moved,” said Lacoste, reviewing the notes. “What’s interesting is that both Anton and Jacqueline refused to answer questions about their former employer. Said they’d signed a confidentiality agreement and couldn’t. They seemed quite intimidated by their former boss. Afraid of lawsuits. I had to impress on them that a murder investigation takes priority over a confidentiality agreement. And that I wasn’t asking what the family ate, or who they slept with. I just needed their name, to confirm everything.”

“They were that reluctant?” asked Beauvoir. “Seems to go beyond worry to actual fear. Intimidation. Who was the family?”

Lacoste scrolled down the page. “Ruiz. His name is Antonio and she’s Maria Celeste.”

Beauvoir had grown very still. Like a hunter who’d heard the snap of a twig.

Antonio and Maria Celeste Ruiz.

“You say they moved,” said Beauvoir. “Where to?”

“They were transferred home. To Spain.”

He opened his mouth, slowly, and out came a “Huh.”

“Barcelona,” she said, watching his reaction.

“It could be a coincidence,” he said. “It must be. I can’t see how the two connect.”

But he continued to be still, and quiet. Letting the skittish thing come to him.

Spain. The birthplace of the cobrador. Where they were most plentiful. The top-hatted modern version. But lately, there had been more and more sightings of the original. The Conscience.

“Did either of them admit to knowing about the cobrador? Did Ruiz ever mention it?”

“I asked about the cobrador, but both denied knowing anything about it,” said Lacoste.

“This Antonio Ruiz, what does he do?” asked Beauvoir.

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

Now Beauvoir became angry. “Come on. They wouldn’t even tell you that?”

“Easy enough to find out,” said Lacoste. “He must be in business of some sort.”

“Probably,” said Beauvoir. “Businesspeople must be the main targets of the top-hatted cobradors in Spain. He’d be aware of them, if not because he was targeted, but he probably knows people who were. Or at least saw some in the streets.”

“Or read news reports,” agreed Lacoste. “He probably reads the pink paper. You think he talked about it and Anton and Jacqueline overheard?”

“I think it’s possible. Still,” Beauvoir admitted, “it’s a long way from that to murdering Madame Evans.”

Lacoste nodded. Murder often struck her as similar to Hannibal crossing the Alps. How does a human get from here to there? From being upset, hurt, angry. Even vengeful. To taking a life.

How do they get from a family sitting down to Sunday roast and talking about a strange phenomenon back home in Spain, to a crumpled, beaten figure in a root cellar in Québec?

And yet it happens. The Alps are crossed.

But as Gamache drilled into each of his agents when they joined homicide, a murder is always tragic and almost always simple. They were often the ones who complicated things.