scene, to manipulate it. And then almost the first thing you do, sir, is scoop up important suspects, including the one who actually found the body, and take them away. That’s why you left right after the murder, isn’t it? To take the cadets down to the village.”
“To make sure they were safe, yes,” said Gamache.
“Safe? What danger could they be in here, any more than any of the other cadets? Why them?”
“As I said, they were closest to Leduc,” said Gamache, the throb underneath the words warning that he was straining to keep his temper. “Don’t the prints alone tell you that? They had extraordinary access to the man. And he to them. They’re the most likely to know something. They had to be protected.”
“The only thing that will protect them is telling us everything they know,” said Gélinas. “And it’s possible, probable, that if they do know something it’s because one of them did it. One of them killed Leduc. Have you thought of that, your holiness?”
“Don’t call me that, and of course I have,” said Gamache. “Even more reason to isolate them, don’t you think?”
“Or to hide them,” said Gélinas. “So they can’t tell me and others who mentored them into murder.”
Gélinas glared at Gamache.
“Are you suggesting Commander Gamache did this?” asked Lacoste, trying to control her own anger. “That he convinced one or all of the cadets to murder a professor?”
“The evidence is suggesting it,” said Gélinas. “His own actions are screaming it. It’s as though you’re just begging me to suspect you.”
“I didn’t kill Serge Leduc,” said Gamache. “You know it.”
“You asked for me specifically, monsieur, apparently to make sure it’s a fair and thorough investigation—”
“You asked for him?” Lacoste looked at Gamache, confused, while Charpentier leaned back in his chair and watched. No longer perspiring.
“Now I’m beginning to wonder if you chose me because you thought after years away, I’d be out of practice,” Gélinas continued. “I might be easily misdirected. Might even fall under your influence, like the cadets? Be flattered by the great man’s attentions? Was that it?”
“I asked for you, Deputy Commissioner, because I admire you and knew you’d be rigorous and fair,” said Gamache. “And would not be taken in by attempts to confuse. You would defend the law.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” Gélinas pointed to the tablet and the forensics report. “Not an indictment of your own actions, but an attempt to confuse? Are you saying someone is setting you up?”
“Why are there prints on the revolver?” asked Gamache. “Don’t you think it’s strange in the extreme that the killer knew enough to drop the weapon, but not enough to wipe it or wear gloves? If I killed Leduc, don’t you think I’d at least do both?”
“So you think all this is staged?”
“I think we have to consider that.”
“Who better to stage it than the former head of homicide for the Sûreté? The man most learnèd in murder? I want you to consider something.”
Deputy Commissioner Gélinas turned away from Gamache and spoke to the others.
“Is it possible he killed Serge Leduc,” he held up his hand to stop Beauvoir’s protest, “to protect the students? He came to suspect abuse. Not simply inappropriate punishments of cadets, but something systematic and targeted and shattering. The emotional, psychological, physical and perhaps sexual abuse of certain cadets. He had no proof. He invited those students he suspected were most at risk to join his informal gatherings, in the hopes they’d grow to trust him. He invited them to research the map, as a way of bonding with them. But they kept running back to Leduc. To their abuser. There was only one way to save them. And others.”
Beauvoir and Lacoste sat silent. Imagining the scenario.
“Could you see Monsieur Gamache murdering, to save young lives?”
It was clear both Lacoste and Beauvoir wanted to deny it. To defend Gamache. But it was also clear that they could, in fact, see it. If Armand Gamache was ever to commit murder, it would be to save others.
“He’s also the only person here who didn’t have to kill him,” said Charpentier, calmly, and all eyes swung to him.
“Explain,” said Gélinas.
“He’s the Commander. He alone could get rid of Leduc by just firing him.”
Beauvoir nodded approval and turned to the RCMP officer. Waiting for his reply.
“And pass the problem on to someone else?” asked Gélinas. “The Commander himself has admitted he would not do that.”
“You know he didn’t do it,” said Beauvoir. “You’re just playing into the murderer’s