“One of you will have to tell me,” she said.
“It’s something Mahatma Gandhi said.” Gamache turned in the witness box and she could see the gleam of perspiration on his face.
“Go on,” she said.
“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”
She could hear the now manic clicking as the press wrote that down.
“Are you quoting,” she asked. “Or advocating?”
Because it sounded like those were his words. His thoughts. His belief.
And Maureen Corriveau knew then that this wasn’t a puzzle piece. It was the key to decoding the whole damn thing. She’d been presiding over one court, while these men had been in a whole other one. A higher court.
She was both enraged and overwhelmed. And more than a little frightened. Of what she’d just unearthed. And what she still didn’t know. Like what could possibly make these senior officials, both sworn to defend the law, consider breaking it.
And might have already.
“Quoting,” said Gamache. His eyes held a plea but also a warning. Let it pass.
Then he turned back to the Crown Prosecutor, while Judge Corriveau considered what she’d just heard. And seen. What had, in effect, just been admitted. And what she should do next.
“So you already suspected Katie Evans had been killed by someone who knew her?” said Zalmanowitz, gathering himself and forging ahead. There was, after all, no going back.
“Oui. This was a crime that was a long time in the planning, so the killer must have known her for a long time.”
“And knew her well enough to want her dead. That must’ve narrowed it down.”
“It did.”
CHAPTER 23
“I have some questions,” Jean-Guy Beauvoir said, his voice quiet. But also businesslike.
He’d driven through the sleet, into Montréal, to break the news first to Katie’s sister, Beth. He needed her now to focus, not to sink deeper into sorrow. That could wait. Right now he needed answers.
“Did Katie ever mention a cobrador?”
Beth looked at her husband, beside her on the sofa. From the basement they could hear the children, arguing over a laptop.
“A what? No.”
“Did she sew?”
Now they looked at him like he must be crazy. Beauvoir couldn’t blame them. These questions sounded nonsensical even to him.
“Sew? Ho—wha—” Beth struggled to get a word out.
“She was wearing a sort of cloak and we wondered if she made it.”
“No, she isn’t handy in that way. She cooks,” said Beth, her voice hopeful, as though that might help.
Beauvoir smiled. “Merci.” And making a note that he would never need, he saw Beth look at her husband and give him a strained smile.
“You’re close to your sister?”
“Yes. We’re only a year and a half apart. She’s younger. I always protected her, though she didn’t really need it. It became a kind of joke. She lives just a couple streets over, and Mom and Dad are a couple blocks away. Oh, God.”
Again, Beth turned to her husband, who put his arm around her shoulder.
“Mom and Dad.”
“I’ll tell them,” said Beauvoir. “But it would help if you were there.”
“Yes, yes of course. Oh, Christ.”
“You and Katie told each other everything?” he asked.
“I think so. I told her everything.”
Beth’s husband lifted his brows just a bit. Very little, but it was enough to show surprise. And some discomfort.
“I’m sorry, but you need to tell me anything she shared with you that could be compromising.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she ever break the law? Did she ever do anything that she was ashamed of, that she never admitted to anyone? That someone could hold against her?”
“No, of course not.”
“Please, think.”
And she did.
He watched her pale, blotchy face. The rigid body, trying to contain the pain. Trying to hold it together.
“Katie used to take money from our mother’s purse. So did I. I think Mom knew. It wasn’t much, just a quarter or fifty cents. She once cheated on an exam. Cribbed from the girl next to her. Geography. She was never good with that.”
“Anything else?”
Beth thought, then shook her head. “No.”
“Her marriage was good.”
“It seemed good. They work together too, Katie and Patrick.”
Again, her husband, Yvon, shifted. And Beauvoir looked at him.
Recognizing the scrutiny, Yvon said, “We, I, never liked him. I thought he was taking advantage of her.”
“How so?”
“She was clearly the brains, the one who got things done. But she always, oh, what’s the word…?”
“Kowtowed?” said Beth. “Not so much gave in to him, but whatever Patrick wanted, Patrick got.”
“He’s manipulative,” said Yvon. “Doesn’t work on us.”
“Doesn’t work on most people,” said Beth. “Only Katie. It was the only sore spot. We love her, and don’t really like him. But she’s happy with him and so we put up with it.”
Beauvoir nodded. It wasn’t unusual to find couples where one was dominant, though it was often not the one it would appear to be. From the outside, it probably looked like Katie, the architect, the successful one, had the upper hand, when in fact it was Patrick.
“The tyranny of the weak,” said Yvon. “I read that somewhere. It described Patrick.”
“Tyranny,” wrote Beauvoir. It was a powerful word.
“Anything else?”
They thought.
It was clear Beth was just trying to hold herself together, after the initial shock and the tears. She was trying very hard to help.
Beauvoir liked her. Liked them. And he suspected he would have liked Katie too. Except, perhaps, for whatever she’d been keeping secret.
They all had them. Secrets. But some stank more than others.
“I have a court order to get into Katie’s home. Would you come with me?”
Yvon stayed behind to look after the kids, and they drove the short distance to Katie and Patrick’s home.
Alone now with her, Beauvoir said, “Is there really nothing else?”
Beth was silent, as they sat in the car, in the dark, in the cold rain outside the home. It was larger, less modest than Beth’s, but hardly a trophy home. There were no lights on.
“Please, don’t tell anyone.”
“I can’t promise that,” said Beauvoir. “But you need to tell me.”
“Katie had an abortion. She got pregnant in high school and had it done. I went with her.”
“Did she regret it?” Beauvoir asked. “Was she ashamed of it?”
“No, of course not. It was the right decision for her at the time. She regretted it was necessary, but not her decision. It’s just that our parents wouldn’t have understood. She didn’t want to hurt them.”
“You’d be surprised what parents understand,” said Beauvoir. He looked at her. “And?”
He could sense there was one more.
“And my husband wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“It was his. They went out for a few weeks in high school before breaking up. I don’t think he knows that I knew they dated. And he sure doesn’t know Katie was pregnant and had an abortion. He and I didn’t start seeing each other until long after high school. By then Katie and Patrick were married.”