“I didn’t, but I can tell you. It was under the Old Homestead.”
The room grew very quiet. Everyone stared at Gamache.
“You found the other book, didn’t you,” said émile into the silence.
“I did.”
Gamache reached into the satchel, now on his lap. The satchel he’d spent the last few hours protecting.
“Last year the Literary and Historical Society sold a number of boxes of books, boxes they hadn’t bothered to examine. Augustin Renaud bought some of them. When he went to see what he had he found they were from the collection of Father Charles Chiniquy. Not very promising, for a Champlain scholar—”
The use of the word “scholar” brought some harrumphs.
“—so he didn’t hurry to read them. But eventually, scanning them, he came across something extraordinary. He made mention of it in his own diary, but in true Renaud fashion he was”—Gamache searched for the word—“guarded.”
“Don’t you mean demented?” asked Jean Hamel. “Nothing he said or wrote can be trusted.”
“No, I mean guarded. And he was quite right. What he’d found was staggering.”
Gamache withdrew another black leather book. This one was larger, thicker than the first. Frayed and brittle, but in good condition. It had not seen the sun for hundreds of years then, dug up, it had sat anonymously on the bookshelves of Father Chiniquy’s home for thirty years until his death.
“This,” Gamache held up the book, “was Father Chiniquy’s secret, and in the end the secret had died with him so that when his housekeeper packaged up his books and sent them to the Lit and His more than a century ago, no one knew what treasures they contained.
“In reading Chiniquy’s journals Augustin Renaud found the report of the fateful encounter one July evening in 1869. And among the many religious books, the hymnals, the sermons, the family bibles in the box of used books he found this.”
Gamache laid his large hand on the plain leather cover, barely recognizable for what it was.
Once again his phone buzzed. It was his private line. Few knew the number, but it hadn’t stopped ringing for the past ten minutes.
“May I?” émile reached out.
“Oui.” Gamache stood and handed the book to his mentor and watched as émile did exactly what he himself had done an hour earlier. Exactly what he imagined Augustin Renaud had done a month ago. What Father Chiniquy had done a century ago.
émile opened the simply tooled leather book to the inscription page.
There was a sharp intake of breath then émile sighed and with the sigh two words escaped. “Bon Dieu.”
“Yes,” said the Chief. “Good God.”
“What is it?” Jean Hamel asked, stepping out from the convenient shadow of his friend René. It was clear now who was the real leader of the Société Champlain.
“They’d found Champlain,” said émile, staring at Gamache. It wasn’t a question, it was beyond question. “It was Champlain’s coffin the Irish workers found beneath the Old Homestead.”
“Ridiculous,” said the ornery member. “What would Champlain be doing buried under the Old Homestead? We all know he was either buried in the chapel, which burned, or in the cemetery, not hundreds of yards away in a field.”
“Champlain was a Huguenot,” said émile, his voice barely audible. “A Protestant.” He held out the book. A bible.
“But that’s impossible,” snapped Jean. There was a hubbub of agreement. Hands snatched at the bible and the uproar subsided as it made the rounds and the men saw the evidence.
Samuel de Champlain, inscribed in ink. The date, 1578.
It was an original Huguenot bible, a rare find. Most had been destroyed in the various Inquisitions, burned along with their owners. It was a dangerous book, to the church and to whoever possessed it.
Champlain must have been a devout man indeed to have kept such a thing, and to have been buried with it.
The room was quiet, just the mumbling and crackling of the fire. Gamache took the bible back and replacing it in his satchel along with Chiniquy’s journal he said, “Excusez-moi,” to the group lost in their own thoughts, and left the room.
Outside he took the call and noticed there’d been twenty-seven calls from a variety of people. Reine-Marie, his son Daniel and daughter Annie. From Superintendents Brunel and Francoeur and Agent Isabelle Lacoste. From various friends and colleagues, and from Jean-Guy Beauvoir whose call was now coming in.
“Bonjour, Jean-Guy. What’s happened?”
“Chief, where’ve you been?”
“In a meeting, what’s going on?”
“There’s a video, gone viral on the Internet. I just heard about it from Peter Morrow, then Lacoste called and a few friends. More calls are coming in. I haven’t seen it yet.”
“What is it?” But even as he asked he could guess, and felt a sickening feeling in his stomach.
“It’s from the tapes, the ones recorded at the raid.”
Everyone had worn tiny cameras integrated into their headsets, to record what happened. Investigators had long realized a verbal debrief wasn’t enough. Even well-intentioned cops would forget details, especially in the heat of the moment, and if things went badly, as they often did, cops could stop being “well intentioned” and start lying.
This made lying harder, though not impossible.
Each camera showed what each officer saw, and what each officer did, and what each officer said. And, like any film, it could be edited.
“Chief?” Beauvoir asked.
“I see.” He felt like Beauvoir sounded. Upset, suddenly exhausted, bewildered that anyone would do this and that anyone would want to see such a thing. It was a violation, especially for the families. His officers’ families.
“I’ll call,” he said.
“I can, if you’d like.”
“No, merci. I’ll do it.”
“Who would do this?” Beauvoir asked. “Who even has access to the tapes?”
Gamache lowered his head. Was it possible?
He’d been told there were three gunmen. But there’d been more, many more. Gamache had assumed it was a mistake. Dreadful, but unintentional.
He’d doubled the number of suspects, and assumed instead of three there were six.