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.
Commander Gamache stared into the gathering of cadets and slowly they grew silent. The room waited for his response, bracing for the explosion.
After a few very long moments, Commander Gamache did what none of them expected.
He smiled. Very, very slightly. And then the smile faded and he spoke. Softly, but the words penetrated each and every person in the room.
“Be careful. This is a time of menace. There’s a murderer among us. Almost certainly in this room.” He paused, and then he looked at them with such caring that a few sighed, breathing out lifelong tension. “It’s too easy to feed the anger. Too cowardly to stoke the hate. You must look inside yourself and decide who you are and who you want to be. Character is not created in times like these. It’s revealed. This is a trying time. A testing time. Be careful.”
Then Armand Gamache walked off the stage.
“Coward,” the voice pursued him.
The word hit, then glided off Commander Gamache’s back. He didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, his stride unbroken.
Amelia sat forward, leaning toward the stage. Even after the Commander had disappeared. She stared at the empty space once occupied by him.
Commander Gamache had spoken those words to each and every cadet, including herself. But his eyes had lingered on one young man. And that was when his expression had changed. And that look of almost aching caring had settled there.
He knew exactly who had shouted those words, shot those words, at him. And Gamache had spoken directly to the young man. Be careful.
“Huh,” she murmured.
“What?” said the cadet beside her.
“Screw off,” she said, though her heart wasn’t in it. She was thinking.
*
Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste, standing at the back of the room with Jean-Guy Beauvoir, inhaled sharply.
“Don’t they know?” she whispered.
“Who he is?” asked Beauvoir. “They either don’t know or don’t care. Serge Leduc successfully poisoned the well before Gamache arrived, and added shit for the past couple of months.”
“And he couldn’t fight it?” asked Lacoste.
Around them the room had erupted in speculation. About the murderer, and about the words hurled at the Commander.
“He chose not to,” said Beauvoir. “He said it was a deliberate distraction and there was too much to do to waste time waging war on the Duke.”
“They’re fools.”
“Not all of them.”
While it looked, quite understandably to Lacoste, as if Gamache might have lost control of the academy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir saw something else in that room.
Like her, he’d heard the open insults to Gamache. But Beauvoir now saw pockets of quiet as some of the cadets contemplated what had just happened. And began to evolve their thinking.
*
“You’re a fool,” hissed Huifen.
“What? Everyone was thinking it,” said Jacques.
“Not everyone. Not anymore anyway.”
Her keen eyes took in the activity around them. And in some cases, the inactivity. The quiet that had come over more than a few of her fellow cadets.
Then she studied him. So handsome. Fine, intelligent features. Muscular. From rock climbing and rowing and hockey. His body contained a strapping energy she found almost irresistible. She dreamed of running her hands over those taut muscles, even as she was doing it. She dreamed of wrapping her arms and legs around him, even as she was doing it.
But now, and not for the first time, she wondered what else was contained in that fine body. In that mind. And what would happen if those straps ever broke.
*
When Huifen got back to her room, she found a woman waiting for her and an agent searching her belongings.
“Cadet Cloutier?”
“Oui.”
“I’m Chief Inspector Lacoste, of homicide. Have a seat, please.”
Huifen sat on the edge of her bed and watched the agent go through the dresser drawers.
Lacoste took the desk chair and crossed her legs, comfortably.
“Where were you last night, between ten and two in the morning?”
“Here. In bed.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get up at all, to go to the bathroom? Get a drink?”
“No, I was asleep. Between classes and all the activities and sports, it’s pretty exhausting.”
Lacoste smiled. “I remember. What was your relationship with Professor Leduc?”
“I was one of his students. And I suppose you could call him a mentor.”