“Can you back off a little?” asked Lea. “Can’t you see he’s in shock?”
She poured him a scotch and he swallowed it in one go.
Lacoste studied Patrick for a moment. There was certainly something wrong with him. He seemed wrapped in cotton batting. Muffled. It could have been shock, compounded by a natural lassitude.
But judging by his pupils, it was more than that.
“What can you tell me about the cobrador?” she asked.
Patrick stared at her. “Conscience. Right?”
He looked at Matheo, but his eyes weren’t focusing and he was beginning to sway.
Beauvoir knelt down and looked in Patrick’s eyes. Patrick stared back, his mouth slightly open. His soft lips glistening with spittle.
“Have you taken something?” Beauvoir asked, speaking directly, slowly, clearly to Patrick, who just continued to stare.
“He did this,” slurred Patrick. “We all know who did this.”
“Who?” asked Beauvoir.
“He means the cobrador, of course,” said Matheo, bending over Patrick. “Right? Who else?”
“Monsieur Evans, look at me,” said Lacoste, speaking loudly, clearly. “Why was your wife in the church?”
“No one goes to church,” he said, his words barely intelligible.
Beauvoir turned to the S?reté agent taking notes. “Get Dr. Harris, the coroner. Quickly.”
As he said it, Patrick slumped sideways, and Beauvoir caught him, cradled him, and lowered him, with Lacoste’s help, off the chair and to the floor.
“What’s he on?” Beauvoir asked, not looking up as he spoke, but quickly checking Patrick’s vitals.
Gamache took off his coat, rolled it, and placed it under Patrick’s head.
“I gave him an Ativan,” said Lea, her eyes wide. “Is he okay?”
“When?” asked Beauvoir.
“Just before you arrived. He was hyperventilating and beginning to panic. I wanted to calm him down.”
“Just one?” asked Beauvoir, looking from the unconscious man to his friends.
“One.” Lea rummaged through the large bag she’d dropped on the floor and found the pill bottle.
“But you also gave him a scotch,” said Lacoste.
“Shit,” said Lea. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn’t think.”
When Sharon Harris arrived, she took Beauvoir’s place beside the man.
Everyone backed off while she checked him.
“Who is he?” she asked as she worked.
“Katie Evans’s husband, Patrick,” said Lacoste, and got a swift glance from Dr. Harris. “We think it’s Ativan and scotch.”
The qualifier was not lost on the doctor, or the officers.
“Do you have the bottle?”
Lea handed her the pill bottle. She examined it, opening the top and pouring out a few pills. Replacing them, she handed it back to Lea. Without comment.
“He’s just passed out. Probably not used to tranquilizers. And the scotch didn’t help. We should get him to bed. Monsieur Evans?” Dr. Harris bent down and spoke into his ear. “Patrick. Wake up. We’re going to get you back to your bed.”
She pinched his earlobe and his eyes fluttered open, though they remained unfocused.
“Can we get him to his feet?”
Beauvoir and Matheo hauled him up and supported the man, who looked like a drunk. His head lolling, his eyes blinking. It was clear he was at least trying to come to the surface, though not quite making it.
Dr. Harris led them back out through the crowd in the bistro.
Lea made to follow, but Gamache called her back.
“Is he on something?” he asked, examining her closely.
“No.”
“Now’s the time to tell us.”
“I am telling you. Patrick’s the straightest of all of us. Barely even drinks.” She shook her head. “This’s my fault. It was stupid to give him that Ativan.”
And scotch, thought Gamache, studying the woman. She looked genuinely concerned.
“Everything okay?” asked Olivier, poking his head in and looking worried.
“Oui. Monsieur Evans is overcome,” said Gamache. “He needs to rest.”
“Anything I can do, just ask.”
“Merci, patron,” said Gamache, and when Olivier had left, he indicated a seat for Lea.
She sat, and Gamache and Lacoste joined her.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to harm Katie?” asked Gamache.
“I honestly can’t,” she said.
Lacoste, not the cynical sort, always felt a slight alarm go off when anyone answered “honestly” to an interrogation question. Though Lea Roux did seem sincere, and sincerely shocked.
Though she was, Lacoste reminded herself, a politician. And politics was theater.
Now it was Lea’s turn to examine them. Her sharp eyes took in the senior S?reté officers.
“You think the cobrador killed Katie, don’t you?” She looked from one to the other.
“As does Monsieur Evans and your husband. But you don’t?”
“I don’t see why he would,” said Lea. “That would imply that the cobrador came here for Katie. That she was its target all along.”
“Maybe,” said Lacoste. “What we do know is that the man in the costume disappeared and Madame Evans was murdered. It seems a bit too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Lea Roux thought about it. “But that doesn’t mean she was his target. Maybe he just lashed out, and she was there. On her nightly walk.”
“But she wasn’t on her walk, was she?” said Lacoste. “She was in the church. Why was that?”
Lea sat back. Considering. “When we traveled, Katie often went into churches. As an architect, they fascinated her. Flying buttresses.” She smiled. “That’s all I can remember, and only because it became a running joke. Great big buttresses.”
She brought herself out of her reminiscence. “But that was Notre-Dame in Paris. Chartres. Mont St.-Michel. Not exactly your village chapel.”
Gamache crossed his legs and nodded. There certainly were no flying buttresses in St. Thomas’s, though it was a nicer place to sit than Notre-Dame. It all depended, of course, on what you were looking for.
“Then why do you think she was there?” he asked, repeating Lacoste’s question.
Lea shook her head. “Maybe she just needed some quiet time. Maybe it was cold and she went in to warm up. I honestly don’t know.”
Gamache noticed that Isabelle had not said that Katie was found in the basement, nor had she told them that Katie was in the cobrador costume.
A costume that was highly symbolic. It spoke of sin, of debt. Of the unconscionable and the uncollected. It spoke of revenge and shame. It was an accusation.
And it had been placed on the dead woman.
Not in error, but on purpose. With a purpose.
Yes, thought Gamache, there was a connection between Madame Evans and the cobrador.
The question was, did her friends know what it was?