A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,85

at the cadet with such intensity, Jacques started to tremble. Even the others at the table, including Charpentier, leaned away.

“The town hall in Saint-Rémy will have records of sales and purchases,” said Gamache quietly, coldly. “Going back a hundred years or more. They’ll know who owned the bistro, when it was a private home. That’s the place to start.”

Nathaniel wrote that down, but Jacques continued to stare into the crosshairs.

Commander Gamache got up, as did they, rising quickly to their feet. Jacques got up too, but slowly.

“I’ll be back by seven tonight. I want your reports then.”

“Yes, sir,” said three cadets.

Gamache turned to Jacques, who said, “Yes, sir.”

“Bon,” said the Commander, and walked over to Myrna. “May I have a word?”

Myrna, feeling called to the principal’s office, followed him into the living room.

“Yes, he found the video,” she admitted before Armand could say anything. But still he was quiet, and she nodded. “I might have suggested he google you.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because he so clearly believed what that Leduc man was saying about you. He needed to know the truth if he was ever going to learn. There’s a murderer. The boy has to start paying attention.”

“No one needs to see that video.”

“Look, Armand, I know you hate that it’s out there, but the fact is, it is. It might as well have a purpose. If it teaches that young man the reality of the situation, then maybe some little good will come of it.”

“Does he look like he’s changed his mind?” asked Armand, and Myrna glanced in the direction of the dining room. And shook her head.

“I think there’s something else at work here,” she said. “I saw his face as he watched the video of that raid. He was shocked. But not in the usual way. He seemed to have walked right into the screen. To experience it, as it was happening. It’s a rare ability, to empathize that intensely. It’s almost as though he was there.”

On seeing Gamache’s face, she repeated, “Almost.”

Gamache looked toward the dining room, then back at Myrna.

“He saw all of them,” said Armand. “Réal and Etienne and Sarah.”

He recited the names of the dead, as Ruth had done the day before.

Myrna nodded. “And Jean-Guy. And you. I think for the first time he realized what being a Sûreté agent would mean. The Duke, that’s what they called him?”

Gamache nodded.

“The Duke probably filled them with stories of power and glory, and any violence was heroic and cartoonish, like the old war movies or westerns. Death was clean, and mostly us doing it to them. And they loved him for it. But the video shows how horrific it really is. I think it’s terrified him. And he hates you for it.”

Gamache realized he’d been wrong. He’d been afraid Cadet Laurin wasn’t taking this seriously enough, when in fact he was near paralyzed with fear.

Jacques was asking himself the question they all did, eventually. When faced with it, would he move forward or would he run away?

“It’s time he learned what might be expected of him,” said Gamache. “It’s time they all learned.”

Then he smiled. Quickly, briefly. Sincerely.

“That’s a nice thought, Myrna. That good might come out of what happened. Their deaths might save lives. Might save his life, especially if it convinces him to quit.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I think perhaps he should.”

“But will he die at the appointed hour anyway?” she asked. “In his bed, in his car, or in a gun battle?”

“Fate? Don’t start on that again,” said Gamache. It was a conversation they often had, but not that day.

The two men left, as did Myrna and Clara, but the cadets stayed behind.

Huifen, after all, had dishes to do. Amelia grudgingly got up to help her. Then Nathaniel joined in. And finally Jacques came into the kitchen. Grabbing the dish towel from Nathaniel, he snapped it at him before picking up a wet dish.

Nathaniel laughed, knowing it was done in jest. And yet, there had been something vicious about that snap, and the sting it left behind.

CHAPTER 26

“He could have done it,” said Isabelle Lacoste.

They’d gathered in the conference room at the Sûreté Academy. Gamache, Professor Charpentier, Beauvoir, and Gélinas listened as Lacoste reported on their early morning meeting with the mayor.

Light poured in through the picture window, and outside the snow was melting in the brilliant sunshine.

“He had the motive and the opportunity. Even, perhaps, the expertise to override the security system here.”

“Though we don’t know if it was done intentionally, or the system