“It’s unlocked,” she said. “Comes to the same thing. Help yourself.”
Armand spent the next few minutes browsing the shelves of Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore before he found what he wanted. Leaving money next to the till, he put the book into his coat pocket.
When he returned to the bistro, he saw Billy Williams heading to his truck.
“He shouldn’t be driving,” said Myrna, going to the door. “With his bad ankle.”
She called to him, and, as Gamache watched, Billy turned, saw Myrna, and smiled.
“He’s a nice man,” said Armand. “A good man.”
“A handy person to have around,” she said. “That’s for sure.”
They watched as Billy approached the bistro. And while Armand couldn’t understand a word Billy Williams said, he did understand the look on his face.
And he wondered if Myrna saw what he did.
CHAPTER 20
Jean-Guy Beauvoir stared down at the body of Anthony Baumgartner as the coroner went over the autopsy results.
Unlike Gamache, Beauvoir had not seen him in life, but still he could tell that Baumgartner had been a handsome, distinguished-looking man. There was about him, even now, an air of authority. Which was unusual in a corpse.
“An otherwise healthy fifty-two-year-old man,” said Dr. Harris. “You can see the wound to the skull.”
Both Gamache and Beauvoir leaned in, though it was perfectly obvious even from a distance.
“Any idea what did it?” asked Gamache, stepping back.
“I’d say, by the shape of it, a piece of wood. Something similar to a two-by-four, with a sharp edge, but bigger, heavier. It would’ve been swung like a bat.” She mimicked a swing. “Hitting him on the side of the head, with enough force to do that sort of damage. Not as easy as you might think, to cave in a skull. What is it?”
Gamache was frowning.
“Are you sure it was done before the building collapsed?”
It was, of course, a vital question. One was accident. One was murder.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
His eyes, still bloodshot and watery, watched her closely.
Dr. Harris sighed, and, stripping off her surgical gloves, she tossed them into the garbage can.
She knew Chief Superintendent Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir well. Well enough to call them Armand and Jean-Guy. Over drinks.
But over a body they were Chief Superintendent, Chief Inspector, and Doctor.
She didn’t take offense at being pushed on this point. The Chief was a careful man, and nowhere was that care more necessary than in tracking down a killer.
And while she knew that Gamache was still on suspension, she’d continued to consider him head of the Sûreté, until someone forced her not to.
“Anthony Baumgartner had been dead at least half an hour before the place came down. I can tell by the condition of his organs and the lack of internal bleeding. Besides, he was hit on the side of the head. A building doesn’t normally collapse sideways.”
“I’m going to make a call,” said Chief Inspector Beauvoir, pulling out his cell phone and stepping away.
“There were two collapses, is that right?” Dr. Harris asked Gamache.
“Yes. A partial one sometime in the night and then the final one yesterday afternoon.”
“The one you were caught in,” she said. “That revealed the body.”
“Oui.”
He explained, briefly.
“Sit down,” said Dr. Harris, indicating a stool.
“Why?”
“So I can flush your eyes out.”
“I’m fine, they’re getting better.”
“Do you want to go blind?”
“Good God, no. Is that a possibility?”
She could see he was genuinely shocked.
“Remote, but who knows what material was in that building? The sooner you can get all the grit out, the better. It’s possible it’s scratching the cornea. Or worse, getting behind the eyeball.”
He sat, and she leaned into his face, first taking a close look at his eyes, and then she brought the water up and squirted. He winced away as the water hit.
“Sorry, should have warned you it would sting.”
When she’d finished, he grimaced, widening, then blinking his eyes.
“Don’t rub,” she warned, and took a good look in both eyes, finally clicking off the light on the instrument. “Better. Much better.”
They didn’t feel better. Now he could barely see, and his eyes were both irritated and painful. He sat on his hands.
“What did you say to him?” asked Beauvoir, returning from a call. “You’ve made him cry.”
Dr. Harris laughed. “I told him the bistro had run out of croissants.”
“Are you trying to kill the man?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Enough. I can still hear, you know,” said Gamache. His sight was coming back and the irritation subsiding. “What did Inspector Dufresne say?”
“They’re going over the wreckage, looking for the weapon,” said Beauvoir. “And trying to work out where he was when he was killed.”
“What do they think?” asked Gamache.
“Dufresne thinks probably in a second-floor bedroom. When the roof finally collapsed, it brought his body with it. That’s what it looks like now.”
Dr. Harris walked to the sink while Armand returned to the metal autopsy table. Clasping his hands behind his back, he stared down at Anthony Baumgartner.
So unlike his mother, who looked like an elderly British character actress playing a monarch in a comedy.
This man appeared to be the real thing. Even in death there was something almost noble about Anthony Baumgartner. Gamache wondered, in passing, who the title went to now. Caroline or Hugo?
Did primogeniture apply to fictional titles?
He picked up the white sheet and replaced it over Anthony Baumgartner’s face.
And still the Chief Superintendent considered the sheet, and what was under it, for a long moment before he spoke.
“Do you think this was meant to look like an accident?”
“That seems pretty obvious,” said Beauvoir. “Yes. We’re supposed to think he was killed when the house fell down. And we might have, if Benedict hadn’t been there and said there was no one else in there. No one living, anyway.”
“True. But for it to look like an accident, the farmhouse had to fall down.”
“Well, yes,” said Dr. Harris, glancing over her shoulder from the sink.
But Beauvoir returned to the table, looking first at the Chief, then down at the white sheet.
“That’s true,” he said. Understanding what it was that Gamache meant.
It wasn’t just a simple statement of fact. It was a vital element of the investigation.
Then Dr. Harris, drying her hands, turned around, and Jean-Guy could see that she also understood what Gamache was saying.
“How did the killer know the house would collapse?” asked the coroner.
“There’s only one way,” said Beauvoir.
“He had to make it fall,” said Gamache.
“And there’s only one person in the picture right now who might be able to do that,” said Beauvoir.
Gamache stepped away from the body and put in a call.
After listening to Chief Superintendent Gamache, Isabelle Lacoste considered for a moment.
She’d agreed immediately to his request but now had to figure out just how this could be done.
Then she’d called a taxi. It had dropped her off, into a pile of snow and slush.
Lacoste walked carefully across the icy sidewalk. Her cane in hand. And stood at the entrance to the apartment building.
It was a low-rise, with windows that were so frosted up it would be, from the inside, impossible to see outside.
She tried the front door. It was unlocked.
Limping into the entrance, she had to make her way around a large pile of circulars on the floor. Clearly if there was a caretaker, he or she was taking the day off. Or the year.
Isabelle Lacoste checked again the information Chief Superintendent Gamache had texted her.