A Place of Hiding

He wouldn’t’ve wanted to hand it to us. He would’ve wanted us to work a little to reach the conclusion.”


St. James considered all this. It was reasonable enough—despite his wife’s loyalties to the River siblings—but there was something else that Le Gallez wasn’t talking about in his haste to close the case without pinning the crime on a fellow islander. He said, “You do see, I expect, that what applies to Cherokee River applies to others as well. And there are others who at least have motives for wanting Brouard dead.” He didn’t wait for Le Gallez to argue, hastening on to say, “Henry Moullin has a fairy wheel hanging among his keys and a dream to be a glass artist—at Brouard’s urging—that apparently came to nothing. Bertrand Debiere’s apparently in debt because he assumed he’d get the commission for Brouard’s museum. And as to the museum itself—”

Le Gallez cut in with a flick of his hand. “Moullin and Brouard were fast friends. Had been for years. Worked together to change the old Thibeault Manor to Le Reposoir. No doubt Henry gave him the stone at one time or another as a token of friendship. Way of saying, ‘You’re one of us now, my man.’ As for Debiere, I can’t see Nobby killing the very man whose mind he hoped to change, can you?”

“Nobby?”

“Bertrand.” Le Gallez had the grace to look embarrassed. “Nickname. We were at school together.”

Which likely made Debiere even less a potential candidate for murderer in the eye of the DCI than he would have been merely as a Guernseyman. St. James sought a way to prise open the inspector’s mind, if only a crack. “But why? What motive could Cherokee River have?

What motive could his sister have had when she was your principal suspect?”

“Brouard’s trip to California. Those months ago. River laid his plan then.”

“Why?”

Le Gallez lost patience. “Look, man, I don’t know,” he said hotly. “I don’t need to know. I just need to find Brouard’s killer and I’ve done it. Right, I fingered the sister first, but I fingered her on the evidence he planted. Just like I’m fingering him on the evidence now.”

“Yet someone else could have planted all of it.”

“Who? Why?” Le Gallez hopped off his desk and advanced on St. James rather more aggressively than the moment warranted, and St. James knew he was inches away from being tossed unceremoniously from the station.

He said quietly, “There’s money missing from Brouard’s account, Inspector. A great deal of money. Did you know that?”

Le Gallez’s expression altered. St. James seized the advantage.

“Ruth Brouard told me about it. It was evidently paid out over time.”

Le Gallez considered this. He said with less conviction than before,

“River could have—”

St. James interrupted. “If you want to think River was involved in that—in a blackmail scheme of some sort, let’s say—why would he kill the goose when the golden eggs are still coming? But if that’s the case, if River was indeed blackmailing Brouard, why would Brouard accept him—of all people—as a courier selected by his lawyer in America? He would have had to be told the name by Kiefer prior to River’s coming, else how would he have known who to fetch from the airport? When he was told and if the name was River, he would have put a stop to that at once.”

“He didn’t know in time,” Le Gallez countered, but he was beginning to sound far less sure of himself.

St. James pressed forward. “Inspector, Ruth Brouard didn’t know her brother was running through his fortune. My guess is that no one else knew, either. At least not at first. So doesn’t it make sense that someone may have killed him to stop him from depleting his funds? If it doesn’t suggest that, doesn’t it suggest he was involved in something illegal? And doesn’t that suggest a motive for murder far more ironclad than anything either of the Rivers have?”

Le Gallez was silent. St. James could see by his expression that the DCI was abashed by being presented with a piece of information about his murder victim that he himself should have had. He looked to the china board where the pictures of the bottle that had contained the opiate declared that his killer had been found. He looked back to St. James and seemed to ponder the challenge with which the other man had presented him. He finally said, “Right. Come with me, then. We’ve got phone calls to make.”

“To?” St. James asked.

“The only people who can make a banker talk.”