A Great Reckoning (17 page)

*   *   *

Amelia Choquet sat at the long table, empty chairs between herself and the cadets on either side.

They'd been moved into the dining hall so that a search of their rooms could be conducted. Around her conversation buzzed, and far from dying down after the first flush of news, it had grown as speculation spread.

Rumor was loose in the air,

hunting for some neck to land on.

The cadets were shocked. And excited. Some were frightened and trying to hide it inside bravado.

Every now and then, there was a glance in her direction. She could tell what they were thinking. If there had to be a killer, let it be the weird one.

The easiest target. The one no one would defend.

Amelia shoved the sleeves of her uniform up to her elbows. Showing them the images and words etched into her skin, like a birthmark.

Their pink and perfect faces frowned in disapproval.

She was sticking her neck out, she knew.

Professor Leduc was dead. Murdered.

And she wondered how long it would be before they came for her.

“Can I sit down?”

She looked up, and there was Nathaniel, a soft white hand on the back of the chair next to her.

A
fuck off
caught in her throat, but instead she nodded.

“No one wants to sit with me,” he said. “Once I told them everything I knew. I think they think I did it and sitting close to me would make them look guilty too.”

“They're afraid,” said Amelia.

“I'm afraid,” said Nathaniel. “Aren't you? Look at what happened. How it happened—”

“Be quiet,” she warned, and deeply regretted letting him join her.

“Commander Gamache was asking about the map,” he whispered, leaning close to her. “He wanted me to find mine.”

He brought out a piece of paper and smoothed it on the table, but she swept it off.

“Get away from me.”

But it was too late.

With him joining her, the hunt for a neck to land on was over. She could tell. Not by the way the other students looked at her, but the way they looked away.

*   *   *

Gamache reached out and, using a pen, he pulled open the drawer of the bedside table.

“This was almost certainly already seen by your agents,” he said, replacing the pen in his breast pocket and putting his hands behind his back. “But the Scene of Crime team couldn't know its significance.”

“And what is its significance?” asked Lacoste.

“I've seen it before,” said Beauvoir, bending closer. “It's a map.”

Like Gamache, he held his hands behind his back.

For years, he'd assumed it was a mannerism of the older man, but as the investigations piled up, Inspector Beauvoir came to appreciate it for what it really was.

In holding his hands behind his back, Chief Inspector Gamache was less likely to instinctively reach out and touch something that should not be touched. From there, it became a mannerism. But the root of it was practical.

There was, Beauvoir was beginning in his late thirties to understand, a purpose for every action. From the blaring act of murder to the subtle grasp of one hand in the other.

Now Beauvoir turned to Gamache.

His mentor, his boss, his father-in-law. But still, in so many ways, a mystery.

“You saw it when we first found the body,” he said. No use hiding that fact, even if he'd wanted to. “When I opened the drawer. You suggested we leave, and so I closed it without even looking. But you saw. That's why you hustled me out. Why didn't you say something then?”

“I needed to think,” said Gamache.

“About what?” asked Lacoste. She too was surprised that Armand Gamache should conceal evidence. That might be overstating it, she knew. He didn't so much hide the map as fail to point it out as soon as he himself had seen it.

“This is a copy.” Gamache waved toward the paper. “I have the original, here in my rooms.”

“You do?” asked Lacoste. “Then why … how?”

“Yes,” said Gamache. “Why. How. Jean-Guy is right. I saw the map when he opened the drawer, but it was fleeting and from a distance. I needed to make sure.”

“You didn't touch it?” asked Lacoste.

“
Non
.”

“But why didn't you tell us right away?”

“I used the map as an assignment for four of the cadets,” he explained. “I gave them each a copy. Nathaniel Smythe was one of the cadets.”

“And you thought—?” she asked.

“I wondered if he'd given his to Leduc,” said Gamache. “But he claims to still have it. He went back to his dorm to look for it.”

“So four copies were made?” asked Lacoste.

“Five. I made one for myself.”

“Do you have yours?”

“It's in Three Pines.”

“Three Pines,” said Lacoste, staring down at the map in the drawer. “That's what the map is of.” She looked closer. “Huh. I've never seen a map of the village.”

“That was the assignment. To find out why this one was made. But also to try to find out why Three Pines disappeared from every other map of the area.”

“And?”

“Nathaniel says they put the assignment on hold,” said Gamache. “It wasn't for credit, just to hone their investigative skills. They were overwhelmed with actual coursework.”

“And do you believe him?” asked Lacoste.

Armand Gamache looked at her, then at the map, and sighed. “I don't know.”

“You want to, though.”

“Nathaniel Smythe was one of the applicants who'd been rejected by Leduc. I accepted him. I thought he showed promise. It is, I have to admit, disappointing to know he'd grown close to Serge Leduc.”

“The question,” said Lacoste, “is how close.”

“
Oui
.”

She called a technician over and asked that the map be sent to the lab and given special attention.

They watched as the agent placed it in an evidence bag.

“The question isn't just who gave Leduc the map,” said Beauvoir, following it out of the bedroom. “But why Serge Leduc wanted it, and chose to keep it.”

“And keep it so close,” said Lacoste. “There's something intimate about a bedside table.”

Beauvoir was fidgeting. Another nettle had dug into his skin. Perhaps not the largest of thorns, but an irritant nonetheless.

“You've had time to think,” said Lacoste to Gamache. “Any conclusions?”

“No, but something strange did happen. Shortly after I gave the cadets the maps and the assignment, someone followed me home.”

“To Three Pines? Why didn't you say something?” asked Beauvoir, immediately alarmed.

“Because I didn't want to alarm anyone,” said Gamache with a smile. “And I don't know who it was, or why. Nothing came of it.”

“You think it was Leduc?” asked Lacoste. “And that the map has something to do with all this?”

“I don't see how,” Gamache admitted. “The murderer couldn't have been looking for it, since Leduc didn't exactly hide it and the place doesn't seem to have been searched. I don't think the map has anything to do with his death.”

“But it worries you?” said Jean-Guy.

Armand Gamache nodded, very slowly.

“It worries me because one of my students must've given him the map, and it worries me because Serge Leduc kept it. Which leads me to believe he valued it for some reason.”

Gamache turned to Isabelle Lacoste.

“Please believe me. If I thought for a moment that map had anything to do with the murder, I'd have said something immediately.”

“I do believe you,
patron
,” she said. “But we still have to make sure. Can you give me the names of the other cadets who had copies?”

“Besides Nathaniel Smythe, there were two seniors, Huifen Cloutier and Jacques Laurin. He's the head cadet. And another freshman, Amelia Choquet.”

“The other cadet who served him coffee in the morning?” Lacoste glanced down at the dead man.

“Yes. When you analyze the paper, can you tell me what you find?” asked Gamache.

“Of course,” said Lacoste.

“With your permission, I'd like to invite those four down to Three Pines.”

“Now?”

“Yes, immediately,” said Gamache.

“Why? If the map's of no real importance?”

“What it does tell us is that one of those four had a close relationship with Professor Leduc. Close enough for them to give him the map, and close enough for him to keep it. For whatever reason. Whoever that was might know more than they realize about his death.”

“Or might know more about his death, period,” said Lacoste.

“Yes.”

“Are you taking them away to protect them, or to protect the rest of the academy?”

“I'm taking them away because I can't answer that question,” said Gamache. “There's a killer here. Someone who put a gun to the head of an unarmed man, and shot. Do you think that person would hesitate to do the same thing to a student, if that young man or woman became a threat? The sooner they get out of here, the better.”

Isabelle Lacoste nodded but was far from certain if, in removing the cadets to Three Pines, Gamache wasn't also removing the murderer. To Three Pines.

“I'll tell them the map might figure in Professor Leduc's death and ask them to restart their investigation,” said Gamache. “That'll explain it.”

“I have no objection. Inspector?”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir also shook his head.

“I've spoken with Cadet Smythe,” said Lacoste. “We'll need to interview the other three before they can leave. The students' rooms are being searched now.”

“I'll get the agents to be extra thorough with those four,” said Beauvoir, and stepped away to speak to one of the investigators, who left the room.

“I'm going to address the school,” said Gamache, looking at his watch. It was only ten in the morning, though it felt like midafternoon. “Can you assemble the students and staff in the auditorium?”

One of the agents nodded and left.

“
Bon
. While he does that, I'll go to my office to see the mayor and the police chief.” Gamache turned to Chief Inspector Lacoste. “There's something else we need to discuss. Can you come by my office in an hour?”

“Of course.”

“Let me walk you out,” said Beauvoir to Gamache. Once in the corridor he asked, “Do you really think that map has nothing to do with Leduc's murder?”

“I don't see how it could.”

But he looked uncertain, and as Beauvoir watched Gamache walk purposefully down the corridor, he squirmed slightly, rolling his shoulders to relieve the tension and the prickling sensation between his blades.

 

CHAPTER 14

Silence fell over the student body as Commander Gamache walked onto the stage.

He stood at the very center and waited. Only when he had their complete attention did he start to talk.

He told them what had happened. He spoke simply, clearly. Neither minimizing the horror of having a professor murdered on campus, nor turning it into a melodrama.

He gave them just enough information to stop much of the more lurid speculation, but not so much as to compromise the investigation.

He did not mention the revolver. He just said that Professor Leduc had been killed by a single shot to the head.

He said nothing about the map.

“Are there any questions?” he asked when he'd finished.

A hundred hands went up.

“That are not ‘Do we know who killed Professor Leduc?'” he clarified, and most of the hands went down. “Or ‘Do we know why he was killed?'”

Most of the rest of the hands went down.

“Yes, Cadet Thibodeau.” Gamache pointed to a third-year student, who stood up.

“When will we be allowed back in our rooms?”

Gamache considered him for a moment. “Are you asking if what we find in your rooms during the search will be held against you? Dope, for instance. Or booze. Or stolen exam papers.”

There was shifting in the seats.

“We will have a quiet word about what we find, but it will be kept internal unless there's a particularly grievous breach or it's evidence in this crime.”

Cadet Thibodeau nodded and sat down, clearly concerned but relieved.

There were a few other questions, about procedure, and classes, and what they could say to family and friends.

“Tell them the truth,” said Gamache. “Some of you will be questioned by Chief Inspector Lacoste and her homicide team. Mostly those of you who were students of Professor Leduc or who met with—”

“Liar.”

Gamache raised his hand to his forehead, to better see who had spoken. But the person remained hidden in the crowd.

“If you have something to say, stand and face me,” said Gamache, his voice deep and calm, carrying to the very back of the room.

The cadets turned in their seats and looked around the auditorium.

At the front of the room, Gamache waited. When no one stood up, he continued as though there'd been no interruption.

“You'll be allowed back in your rooms within the hour. If you know anything that could be helpful, however trivial you think it is, keep it to yourself until you can speak to one of the investigators. Unfortunately, you now have a chance to see a homicide investigation from the inside. It is not attractive. It is not exciting. A lot will be revealed that people had hoped to keep hidden. And not simply the contents of your rooms.”

Nervous laughter met that comment. And when it died down, the Commander continued.

“Make no mistake, it will all come to light. Far easier if you volunteer than that it be dragged out into the open.”

“Hypocrite,” the same voice yelled.

Now there was an audible murmur in the room as students reacted. Some with shock. Some with nervous amusement.