Two bull elephants, two alpha males. They must’ve butted heads before. Lots of times.”
Maureen was nodding, but in a distracted manner. “I’d heard rumors that they don’t get along. Cops and prosecutors often don’t. But it’s more than that. I can’t explain it. They’re crossing a line. One they both know is there. I just—” She ran her hand up and down the moist glass of ice water.
“What is it?”
“It’s ridiculous, but the thought crossed my mind as I walked over here that they might be doing it on purpose.”
“To screw up the case?” asked Joan. “Not only is the jig up, but they’re in cahoots?”
Maureen gave one short grunt of laughter. “You’re quite a dame.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mock. It just seems unlikely, don’t you think? Why would they do that? If you’re right, they’re actually trying to throw a murder trial. Gamache made the arrest. The Crown laid the charges. And now two men who don’t even like each other are intentionally messing it up?”
Maureen shook her head, then nodded. “I agree. It’s ridiculous. Just a passing fancy.”
She fell into thought, while Joan watched the people strolling by on rue St.-Paul.
They’d all started the day, she was sure, fresh and well turned out. But now most were wilted in the heat. Judge Corriveau could feel perspiration on her neck, and her underarms were clammy.
She was not looking forward to getting back into her robes, and sitting in the oven of a courtroom all afternoon. But at least she wasn’t being grilled.
“Monsieur Gamache quoted Gandhi this morning,” she said. “Something about a higher court.”
Joan tapped on her iPhone. “Got it. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”
Maureen Corriveau gave a short, sharp inhale. “I just got the chills.”
“Why?”
“The head of the Sûreté proclaiming his conscience overrides our laws? Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“I’m not sure he meant that,” said Joan, trying to calm her partner. “It seems a sort of blanket statement, not a personal credo.”
“You don’t think that’ll be the headline in the news? ‘Head of Sûreté Follows His Conscience, Not the Law’?”
“As long as it isn’t ‘Judge Goes Berserk in Courtroom.’”
Maureen laughed and got up. “I have to get back. Thanks for lunch.”
But after taking a step away from the table, she came back.
“Do you believe it?”
“That personal conscience overrules our collective laws?” asked Joan. “Aren’t our laws based on a good conscience? The Commandments?”
“Like the law forbidding homosexuality?”
“That was years ago,” said Joan.
“Still in force in many places. That law is unconscionable.”
“Then you agree with Monsieur Gamache?” asked Joan.
“If I agreed with anyone, it would be Gandhi, not Gamache. But can a judge really believe in the court of conscience? That it supersedes all others? It sounds like anarchy.”
“It sounds like progress,” said Joan.
“It sounds like the end of a promising career on the bench,” said Maureen with a smile. She kissed Joan, then leaned down and kissed her again, whispering, “That one’s for Gandhi.”
CHAPTER 17
The two men squared off again.
While always attentive, the spectators now leaned even further forward, drawn into the square at the front of the room, like a boxing ring, where the case was being fought.
There was now an electricity in Judge Corriveau’s courtroom. One she did not welcome. It was already hot enough. And as far as she was concerned, electricity and justice did not go together.
She could at least track down its source. These two men crackled with antagonism.
Bull elephants, Joan had called them.
More like rogue elephants, thought Judge Corriveau. Shitting all over her first murder trial.
But even that was wrong.
The Crown Prosecutor, Monsieur Zalmanowitz, was lithe, walking with the sinewy movement of a panther. He paced his territory, occasionally making forays past the defense table, but always keeping his eyes on the man in the witness box.
A predator sizing up his prey.
And Gamache? Sitting so calmly, as though this were his home. As though he owned the chair he sat in, the box that surrounded it, the entire room. Polite, attentive, thoughtful.
His extreme quietude was a stark contrast to the ever-pacing Crown.
Here was a patient man. Who had the good sense to wait until his attacker showed a weakness.
This was no elephant. This was no panther.
This was an apex predator, she realized. The top of the food chain.
Judge Corriveau watched as Monsieur Zalmanowitz circled closer to Gamache, and she almost gestured to the Crown, waving him away.