A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,114
that now.
She shook her head, and when she spoke her voice was clear, certain.
“I did not.”
“Your fingerprints were also on the case where the murder weapon was kept,” said Lacoste. “And on the gun itself.”
Amelia just stared at her. “If I killed him, I’d have wiped the gun. I’m smart enough to do that.”
“Probably true,” said Lacoste. “But I don’t think we’re looking for an exceptionally stupid person, do you?”
Amelia was quiet now.
“You don’t seem surprised that your prints were on the gun. Are you?”
She just shook her head, but was silent.
“What was your relationship with Commander Gamache?”
So she had noticed, thought Jean-Guy. That look on Monsieur Gamache’s face as they’d led Amelia away.
“I have no relationship with him.”
“Then why is he so protective of you?” asked Lacoste.
Down the table, Paul Gélinas shifted in his chair, preparing to interrupt, and once again Lacoste flicked a warning glance at him.
“He isn’t,” said Amelia. “Not more than any of the others.”
“But he is,” said Gélinas, finally ignoring Chief Inspector Lacoste. “He’s the one who got you into the academy. You’d been turned down, you know. He changed that.”
“He did?” asked Amelia, turning to look at the RCMP officer. Breaking the carefully woven connection with Lacoste. “The Duke told me Commander Gamache had rejected my application, but that he’d reversed it. And he could reverse it again.”
“Well, he was lying,” said Gélinas. “It was Monsieur Gamache. Why would the Commander do it? Especially when, forgive me, you’re so clearly unsuited to the place.”
Isabelle Lacoste stared at Gélinas. Amazed by his casual brutality.
Gélinas had ignored her wishes and destroyed an atmosphere between the two women that was clearly working. Was that his intention? Was he afraid Amelia was about to say something, reveal something?
But for all that, Lacoste had to admit the RCMP officer wasn’t wrong. It was a good question. Why had Commander Gamache reversed his predecessor’s decision and admitted the Goth Girl to the Sûreté Academy?
Isabelle Lacoste was growing more and more concerned about the answer.
CHAPTER 33
“What’re you thinking?” asked Reine-Marie.
They’d left the bistro and gone to St. Thomas’s Church, drawn by the quiet there, and the peace.
She sat next to Armand in the pew. He was staring straight ahead, and though his eyes were open, she had the impression he’d been praying.
Her question, she knew, wasn’t accurate. What she really wanted to know was what he was feeling.
Armand took a deep breath and exhaled, forcefully. As though he’d been holding it in for a long time.
“I was remembering waiting for my mother and father. Kneeling on the sofa with my arms on the back of it. Looking out the window. Batman was on the television. I can still hear the theme song.”
As he softly hummed it—dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah—Reine-Marie imagined the little boy. Who always waited when his mother and father left, for their return.
Who roused from sleep when they tiptoed into his bedroom and kissed him good night.
Who always found a treat in the fridge in some elaborate tinfoil sculpture. He’d thought his mother had made them for him. And even when, later, all evidence pointed to some stranger at the restaurant making the swans and baskets and boats that contained the treats, Armand still clung to the certainty that his mother had created them. For him.
As far as Reine-Marie knew, he still believed it.
“Batman,” Armand sang beneath his breath. “I saw the headlights from the car, but I knew it wasn’t them. It was too early. And there was something different about the lights. And then I saw the two men walking up the path. But I wasn’t afraid. I thought they were just visitors.”
Reine-Marie took his hand. She’d heard this before. Once. And only once. Early in their courtship, when he knew he loved her, and he knew she loved him. And he’d wanted her to know.
He talked about his parents quite often, relating anecdotes of vacations and celebrations. But this was only the second time in their lives together that he’d talked to her about their deaths.
Lines appeared at his eyes and mouth.
“I was excited to meet these strangers. The doorbell rang and my grandmother came out of the kitchen and opened the door.”
Now the lines disappeared. And for an instant Reine-Marie saw the smooth face of a nine-year-old boy. In pajamas. Standing by the sofa.
“She turned to me and when I saw her face, I knew. They were gone.”
They sat in silence for a moment, not even the ticking of a clock to mark the passage