*
Reaching out quickly, instinctively, as though for the woman herself, Armand touched the speaker button, while across the room, Jean-Guy turned toward him.
“Are you all right?” Armand asked.
“I found the cobrador.”
There was a moment’s pause, just a moment, while the world shifted. Her words, and the men, felt suspended in midair.
“Tell me,” he said, getting to his feet and staring at Jean-Guy.
“He’s in the church basement. I went down to the root cellar to get vases for fresh flowers, and he was there.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Non. He’s dead. There was blood, Armand.”
“Where are you?”
“At home. I locked the church door and came here to call.”
“Good. Stay where you are.”
“I haven’t called 911 yet—”
“I’ll do that now.” He looked over at Beauvoir, who was already on his phone.
“Do you have blood on you?”
“I do. My hands. I leaned over and touched his neck. He still has his mask on, but he was cold. I probably shouldn’t have touched him—”
“You had to find out. I’m sorry—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Non, I mean I’m sorry about what I’m about to do. I’m going to have to ask you not to wash.”
There was silence as Reine-Marie took that in. She thought to ask why. She thought to argue. To beg even. For a moment, a brief spike, she was angry at him. For treating her like any other witness.
But that passed. And she knew, she was any other witness. And he was a cop.
“I understand,” she said. And she did. “But hurry.”
He was already out the door, Beauvoir right behind him.
“I’m leaving now. Cancel my appointments,” he said as he hurried through the outer office, past Madame Clarke.
She didn’t question, didn’t hesitate. “Yessir.”
Gamache and Beauvoir walked swiftly down the long corridor to the elevators.
“Jean-Guy has called 911, there should be agents there within minutes. Get Clara or Myrna to come over and be with you. I’ll get there as quick as I can. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”
“No, I need to call Clara and Myrna. Hurry, Armand.”
“I am.” He hung up and said to Beauvoir. “Call Lacoste.”
“Already done. She’s sending a team.”
Beauvoir rushed to keep pace with Gamache.
He’d stood beside the older man through countless investigations. During arrests and interrogations and shootouts. During horrific events, and celebrations.
At funerals, at weddings.
Jean-Guy had seen him joyous, and devastated. Angry and worried.
But he’d never seen Armand Gamache desperate.
Until now.
And there was rage there.
That Reine-Marie should have blood on her hands.
They raced down to Three Pines with the siren on, communicating with the local S?reté detachment. Instructing them not to enter the church, but to secure it.
“And I want an agent in front of my home,” said Gamache, describing which home it was.
Beauvoir cut the siren as they turned off the secondary road onto the small dirt road. He drove more slowly because of the potholes, and the deer that were prone to jump straight into the path of oncoming cars.
“Faster,” said Gamache.
“But patron—”
“Faster.”
“Madame Gamache is fine,” he said. “She’s safe. No harm will come to her.”
“And would you say that, Jean-Guy, if it was Annie who’d found a body, and had blood on her hands? Blood you told her not to wash off?”
Jean-Guy sped up. Feeling his fillings loosen and his glasses bounce as they jolted along.
*
“So your own wife found the body?” asked the Crown Prosecutor.
“Oui.”
“And she touched it.”
“Oui.”
“Your wife is obviously different from mine, monsieur. I can’t imagine her touching a dead body, never mind one with blood all over it. It was clear, wasn’t it, that this was murder?”
The already steaming courtroom grew even hotter as Gamache felt a flush rise out of his collar and up his neck, but he kept his voice and his gaze steady.
“It was. And you’re right, Madame Gamache is extraordinary. She had to see if she could help. She left only when it was clear there was nothing she could do. I suspect your wife would be equally courageous and compassionate.”
The Crown continued to stare at Gamache. The judge stared. The courtroom stared. The reporters scribbled.
“You told her not to wash the blood off, is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Why is that?”
“Most people who find a murder victim inadvertently disturb the scene—”
“By doing things like touching the body?”
“Or moving something. Or trying to clean up. People aren’t themselves when faced with a shock like that. Normally by the time we arrive, the damage is done.”
“Like in this case.”
“Non. Madame Gamache touched the body, but she had the presence of mind to do nothing else and to lock up. Then she called me.”
“Without removing the mask to see who it was?”
“That’s right.”
“Wasn’t she curious?”
“I don’t think curiosity was her main emotion.”
“And you told her not to wash the blood from her hands, or shoes.”
“So that we could take samples and be clear about what were her traces and what belonged to someone else.”
“How magnificent,” said the Crown. “To have your wife in such a horrible position, and still you chose your job over her comfort. Not only is she extraordinary, but you appear to be as well.”
Gamache did not respond, though his complexion did, the flush rising into his cheeks.
The two men glared at each other. The loathing no longer a matter of conjecture.
“I will, of course, be calling Madame Gamache as a witness later in the trial, but are you quite sure she didn’t touch anything else? And remember, you’re under oath.”
“I do remember that,” snapped Gamache, before hauling himself back. “Merci. And yes, I’m sure.”
At the defense desk, the lawyers stared at each other in disbelief. It seemed Monsieur Zalmanowitz was doing their job for them. Destroying if not the credibility, then the likability of his main witness.
“In the meantime,” said the Crown, “perhaps you can tell us what you found when you finally arrived.”
*
They passed the S?reté car, parked by the church. And saw an agent standing at the foot of the stairs up to the door.
As Jean-Guy drove by the bistro, he noticed patrons standing at the window, staring.
Beauvoir had barely stopped the car when Gamache was out and walking swiftly, breaking into a run, down the path, past the agent, to his front door.
What had started as a misty though promising day had turned gloomy again. The clouds shutting out the tentative sun. The damp rolling down the hill and pooling in the village.
Reine-Marie was in the kitchen with Clara and Myrna. The woodstove pumping out heat. Mugs of tea in front of them.
“I’m sorry, mon coeur,” said Armand, as she stood and went to him and he took a step back, holding his hands up as though to ward her off. “I can’t—”