But then he remembered Professor Leduc’s warnings. About Commander Gamache.
And then he remembered Professor Leduc’s body.
“Should I return to my dorm?” he asked, reverting to French. “I can look for the map, if you’d like.”
Gamache held his eyes for another moment, then nodded. “In a minute.”
He picked up the phone and placed a call.
Before long, there was a knock on the door, and a professor stood there.
“Please take Cadet Smythe back to his room, then on to the dining hall.”
“What should I tell the others?” Nathaniel asked at the door. “About Professor Leduc? Everyone will want to know.”
“Tell them the truth.”
When the door closed, Gamache looked at it for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the framed map on the wall.
The smears of brown that might be mud, or not. The wear and tear. The fine contours, like the lines on a weather-beaten face. The rivers and valleys. The cow and pyramid and three tiny pines. And the snowman, his arms raised in victory. Or surrender.
Gamache exhaled a long breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
The map had been hidden for a reason, Ruth had said. Walled up for a reason.
Gamache took his coffee to the window and stared out.
He thought and he thought, then he called the mayor and the chief of police.
And then he returned down the deserted hallways, to Serge Leduc’s murdered body.
They’d have found it by now. What he’d seen in Serge Leduc’s bedside table.
A copy of the map.
CHAPTER 13
Dr. Sharon Harris had seen worse in her time as coroner. Far worse. Horrible, horrific things. As far as disfigurement went, this was fairly tame. If she didn’t turn him over and look at his full head. And if she didn’t turn her own head, to see where the rest of his had gone.
Which, of course, she did.
Dr. Harris got to her feet and, peeling off the latex gloves, stepped away from the body of Serge Leduc and joined Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste.
“He was dead before he hit the ground. Probably just before midnight. Single shot to the temple and no other wounds. Looks like the bullet was a hollow-point. What used to be called a man stopper, for obvious reasons.”
They did not need to refer to the body to know the reason.
“Have they found the bullet yet?” Dr. Harris asked.
“No,” said Beauvoir. He waved toward the opposite wall. “They’re looking.”
Just then there was a knock on the door and Armand Gamache entered. He and Dr. Harris greeted each other as old friends, having consulted on many cases in the past.
“I was just saying that the cause of death is not in doubt,” she said. “And his death was fast, almost merciful.”
“It seems Professor Leduc just stood there and let it happen,” said Isabelle Lacoste. “No sign of a struggle at all. Now why was that?”
“Because he didn’t believe the murderer would actually pull the trigger?” asked the coroner.
“Maybe he didn’t think the gun was loaded,” said Lacoste. “Maybe the murderer had no intention of killing Leduc and ran away, terrified at what he’d done.”
Beauvoir walked over to the Scene of Crime investigators, happy to get away from all the maybes and talk facts.
He knew that motive was important, but often they never really got to the heart of the matter. Never learned the real reasons someone took a life. Those were often too shrouded, too complex for even the killer to understand.
But good, solid evidence? That’s where a murderer was found and trapped. In lies and DNA. In secrets revealed and in fingerprints found.
Still, years of working with Chief Inspector Gamache had rubbed off on him, and he grudgingly admitted that feelings played a role in creating a murderer. And could, perhaps, play a role in finding him. Just not as big a role as the facts.
Isabelle Lacoste now joined him in discussing progress with the Scene of Crime agent in charge, leaving the coroner and the Commander with the body.
Dr. Harris looked from Gamache to the homicide victim, then back to Gamache. And on her face there grew a look of surprise, even wonderment.
“You didn’t like him, did you?” she said.
“Is it that obvious?”
She nodded. It was more what wasn’t in his expression than what was. Compassion was missing.
“I kept him on,” said Gamache, almost under his breath. “I could have fired him.”
“Then you didn’t dislike him?” asked Sharon Harris, having difficulty following. But she, more than most, knew that emotions were far from linear. They were circles and waves and dots and triangles. But they were rarely a straight line.
Every day she dissected the end result of some untamed emotion.
Gamache knelt beside the body, staring at the wound on Leduc’s temple. And the much larger exit wound. Then he followed the remains of Serge Leduc, which were fanned across the room, to where agents were combing for the bullet.
“Found it.”
But the voice didn’t come from one of the S?reté agents Gamache was watching. And the find was not the bullet.
They turned and saw an agent standing at the door to the bedroom.
“In the bottom drawer, under some dress shirts,” she said as she led Chief Inspector Lacoste and the others into the bedroom.
There, under the neatly folded and laundered shirts, was a leather box. The agent had opened it, and inside was red velvet covering a precise mold. Of a revolver. There was another space for the silencer, and empty slots for six bullets.
“So it was his,” said Lacoste, and straightened up.
They looked from the empty case through the door into the living room, each trying to figure out how the revolver got from one place to the other. Had it been taken there by Leduc, or his killer?
“Excusez-moi,” said an agent, looking into the room. “You called the Saint-Alphonse police chief, I understand, sir.”
The agent was speaking to Gamache, who nodded. “And the mayor.”
“They’re both here,” said the agent. “We’ve put them in your office.”
“Merci. I’ll join them in a few minutes.”
“Fucking Leduc,” muttered Beauvoir. “Keeping a loaded gun in his rooms. Unlocked. In a school. Stupid, stupid man.”
“Either Leduc brought the gun out, or the murderer did,” said Lacoste. “In which case, the murderer must have known Leduc well enough to know there was a gun and where it was kept.”
“There’s something I need to show you,” said Commander Gamache.
*
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.