Once there, Jean-Guy closed the door.
“There’s more, patron. Something I can’t tell the others yet,” he said. “The medical examiner doesn’t think Anthony Baumgartner died in the collapse of the house.”
“Then how?”
“His skull was crushed. There was concrete and plaster dust on the wound, but none actually embedded there.”
“Internal bleeding?”
“None.”
“Lungs?”
“Clear.”
Gamache gave a curt nod and waved Beauvoir to a chair, sitting down himself.
“He was dead before the place collapsed,” said Gamache, grasping the implication immediately. “Could it have been a heart attack or a stroke?”
“Dr. Harris considered both and doesn’t think so,” said Beauvoir. “She’s ready to say the cause of death was the wound on the head, before the house came down.”
“That’s the phone call you made.”
“Oui. I’ve classified it as a homicide and assigned Inspector Dufresne to the case. I’ll be leading the investigation.”
“Good,” said Gamache.
“What can you tell me about your meeting with Baumgartner yesterday?”
Gamache thought. He’d already told Jean-Guy about it, and the will, but not in any detail. It had just been an odd event. He’d not seen it as a precursor to murder.
But now he reconsidered.
He described the gathering, the home, the others present. Their reactions to the will.
“So he questioned why you were a liquidator?” said Beauvoir.
“Yes. He’d thought he and his brother and sister were. They’d been led to believe that by their mother.”
“Something must’ve happened, then, something must’ve changed, for her to take them off.”
“But she still left everything to them,” said Gamache. “If there’d been a falling-out, you’d think she wouldn’t just take them off as liquidators but remove them completely.”
Beauvoir was nodding. Thinking.
“Anything else strike you as strange, patron?”
Had it? Not at the time, but now? In retrospect?
He could appreciate how easy it was, how tempting, for people to overinterpret things.
Glances. Tones. Flare-ups. At the time they’d been guests and didn’t realize that they were also witnesses.
He tried now to be accurate. Had something been said or done that had led, just hours later, to the death of Anthony Baumgartner?
It was the question he’d always asked himself when kneeling beside a body.
Why is this person dead?
And he asked himself that now. Why was Anthony Baumgartner dead? What had happened?
“It does seem too much of a coincidence,” he admitted. “That the will is read and a few hours later one of them is murdered. But for the life of me, I can’t remember anything happening at that meeting that could’ve sparked it. When we left, though, Hugo and the notary were still there with Anthony. Something might’ve happened after I left.”
“What do you make of the will, patron?”
“I think from our perspective it was unexpected and even unhinged, but I have to say, her children, including Anthony, didn’t seem at all surprised by it. They’d have been more surprised if she hadn’t left all that money and property.”
“Right,” said Beauvoir, getting up. “It begins. We’ll find out all we can about the Baumgartners.”
“Including the Baroness,” said Gamache. “I can’t help but think if she were still alive, her son would be too.”
He rose and went to the door but returned to his desk when the phone rang.
“Oui, allô.”
Gamache waved Beauvoir to a chair but remained standing himself.
Jean-Guy saw Gamache’s expression change.
“No, you did the right thing. She’s still in there?” He listened, sitting slowly back down. “Tell me again what happened.… I see. And you’re sure that’s what she said?”
There was a pause during which Beauvoir could see Gamache’s lips thin and whiten.
“Keep on it.… No, no. Do nothing.… Of course I know it’s illegal,” he snapped, then reined himself in. Taking a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was even. “Use your judgment, but understand that you’re there simply as observers. Do not interfere.”
When he hung up, Jean-Guy asked, “That was about Cadet Choquet?”
Gamache had told him what had happened the day before at the academy, and he knew the Chief was having Choquet followed.
“Former cadet,” said Gamache, but he nodded. “Oui.”
“She’s on the streets?”
“Oui.”
The Chief Superintendent seemed reluctant to speak. Not because he didn’t want Beauvoir to know what was happening but because he himself seemed unsure.
“Her friend found her passed out in an alley and took her back to his place.”
“Merde,” said Beauvoir, shaking his head. “Stupid, stupid girl.” Then he looked more closely at Gamache. “But really, you can’t be surprised, patron.”
He stopped just short of saying, I told you so.
Beauvoir had been warning Gamache about the young cadet since she’d been admitted to the academy by Gamache himself.
This was the one great divide between them. This was the Chief’s weak spot. His soft spot.
Gamache believed people could change. For the worse, yes. But also for the better.
But Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew better. People did not, in his experience, fundamentally change. All that changed was their ability to better hide their worst thoughts. To put on the civilized face. But behind the smiles and polite conversation, unseen in the gloom, the rot grew and grew, and when the time was right, when the conditions were right, those terrible thoughts turned into horrific actions.
“What’re you going to do?” asked Beauvoir. When Gamache didn’t answer, Jean-Guy studied his boss and mentor. And got it.
“You’re following her. Not to protect her but to see if she finds the opioids.”
“Oui.”
Not so soft after all, Beauvoir thought, and tried not to let his shock show.
“The Montréal police have assigned two undercover agents to monitor her and report to me,” said Gamache.
“You’d sacrifice her?”
“I’d sacrifice myself if I could,” said Gamache. “But I’m not the one, the only one, who can lead us to the shipment.”
Jean-Guy tried to keep his civilized face in place, but still, he suspected his feelings showed through.
Chief Superintendent Gamache had asked great sacrifices of his people before. Had placed himself in danger, many times.
But it had always been with knowledge and consent. They knew what they were in for.
This was different. Very different. The man in front of Beauvoir was using a troubled young cadet, without her consent. Placing her in danger. Without her consent.
It showed Beauvoir two things.
Just how desperate the Chief was to stop those drugs from hitting the streets.
And just how far he was willing to go to do it. But Jean-Guy could see something else.
The toll it was taking on this decent man.
Beauvoir wondered if he himself would be able to do something so horrific.
“David?” said the junkie. “No, no David.”
Amelia pressed on. She didn’t even know if this David was French or English. Was she looking for Day-vid. Or Dah-veed?
It seemed a small point, but in the underbelly of this world small points mattered. Like the tiny tear of the skin a needle made. Yes, this was a universe of small points. And big pricks.
She was pretty sure this David had tagged her because she was asking questions about the new shit. It was a warning. That he could get that close.
But Amelia wasn’t going to be scared off.
In fact, just the opposite. She knew he’d made a mistake. Shown himself. And she now had a focus for the search.
Find David. Find the drug. And then her worries would be over. Then she’d show Gamache exactly what she was capable of.