“I wanted to bring you this personally, rather than email it.”
Gamache looked at what Jean-Guy held in his hand.
“Merci.”
Jean-Guy placed the manila file on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“According to the local Sûreté, it was an accident. Laurent was riding his bike home, down the hill, and he hit a rut. You know what that road’s like. They figure he was going at a good clip and the impact must’ve thrown him over his handlebars and into the ditch. I’m not sure if you saw the rocks nearby.”
Gamache nodded and rubbed his large hand over his face, trying to wipe away the weariness. He and Reine-Marie had caught a few hours’ sleep then gotten up to the sound of rain pelting against the windowpanes.
It was now late afternoon and Jean-Guy had driven down from Montréal with the preliminary report on Laurent’s death.
“I did see them. This’s fast work,” said Gamache, putting on his reading glasses and opening the file.
“Preliminary,” Jean-Guy said, joining him on the sofa.
It was pouring outside now. A chilly rain that got into the bones. A fire was lit in the hearth and embers popped and burst from the logs. But the men, heads together, were oblivious to the cheerfulness nearby.
“If you look here.” Beauvoir leaned in and pointed to a line in the police report. “The coroner says he was gone as soon as he hit the ground. He didn’t…”
He didn’t lie there, in pain. As it got darker. And colder.
Laurent, all of nine years of age, didn’t die frightened, wondering where they were.
Jean-Guy saw Gamache give one curt nod, his lips tightening. There wasn’t much comfort to be found in what had happened. He’d take what he could get. As would Evie and Al, eventually. The only thing worse than losing a child was thinking that child had suffered.
“His injuries are consistent with what the police found,” said Jean-Guy. He sat back on the sofa and looked at his father-in-law. “Why do you think it might be more than that?”
Gamache continued to read, then he looked up and over his half-moon glasses.
“Why do you think I do?”
Jean-Guy gave a thin smile and nodded toward the report. “Your face as you read the report. You’re scanning for evidence. I spent twenty years across from you, patron. I know that look. Why do you think I wanted to be here when you read it?” He tapped the report. “I cared for him too, you know. Funny little guy.”
He saw Gamache smile, and nod.
“You’re right,” Gamache admitted. “I thought something was wrong from the moment we found him. All sorts of small things. And one big thing. Kids fall off bikes all the time. I can’t tell you how often Annie landed headfirst. Only repeated blows to the head could explain her attraction to you.”
“Merci.”
“But surprisingly few die. Laurent also wore a helmet most of the time. Why not yesterday? He had it with him. It was tied to the handlebars of his bike.”
“Laurent probably wore the helmet when he left home and when he arrived where he was going. But he took it off in between, when no one was looking. Like most kids. I used to take off my tuque in the middle of winter, as soon as my mother couldn’t see me. I’d rather freeze my head than look stupid. Don’t say it,” Jean-Guy warned, seeing the obvious comment coming.
Gamache shook his head. “It just wasn’t right, Jean-Guy. There was something off. The trajectory, the distance he traveled. The distance his bike traveled—”
“—is all explained here.”
“In a report slapped together quickly. And then there was the position of the bike, and Laurent’s body.”
Jean-Guy picked up the photographs from the police report and studied them, then handed them to Armand, who placed the pictures back in the file.
He saw that face, that body, all day long. It was burned into his memory. No need to look at it again.
“They look like they were thrown there,” said Gamache.
“Oui. When he hit that rut,” said Jean-Guy, trying to be patient.
“I’ve investigated enough accidents, Jean-Guy, to know that this does not look like one.”
“But it does, patron, to everyone but you.”
It was said gently, but firmly. Gamache took off his glasses and looked at Beauvoir.
“Do you think I want it to be more than an accident?” he asked.
“No. But I think sometimes our imaginations can run away with us. A combination of grief and exhaustion and guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“Okay, maybe not guilt, but I think you felt a responsibility toward the boy. You liked him and he looked up to you. And then this happens.”
Beauvoir gestured toward the photographs. “I understand, patron. You want to do something and can’t.”
“So I make it murder?”
“So you question,” said Jean-Guy, trying now to diffuse an unexpectedly tense situation. “That’s all. But the findings are pretty clear.”
“This is too preliminary.” Gamache closed the file and pushed it away. “They’ve jumped to an obvious conclusion because it’s easy. They need to investigate further.”
“Why?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Because I need to be sure. They need to be sure.”
“No, I mean, let’s assume for a moment this wasn’t an accident. He was a kid. He wasn’t violated. He wasn’t tortured. Thank God. Why would someone kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
Gamache did not look at the pile of dirty pages on the table by the back door where they’d sat since he’d dug them up. But he felt them there. Felt John Fleming squatting there, listening, watching.
“Sometimes there’s a clear motive, sometimes it’s just bad luck,” he said. “The murderer has a plan of his own and the victim is chosen at random.”
“You think a serial killer murdered Laurent?” asked Jean-Guy, incredulous now. “A regular murderer isn’t enough?”
“Enough?” Gamache glared at the younger man. “What do you mean by that?”
His voice, explosive at first, had dropped to a dangerous whisper, and then he recovered himself.
“I’m sorry, Jean-Guy. I know you’re trying to help. I’m not making this up. I have no idea why anyone would murder Laurent. All I’m saying is that I’m not sure it was simply an accident. It might have been a hit-and-run. But there’s something off.”
Gamache reopened the dossier. At the list of items found in Laurent’s pocket. A small stone with a line of pyrite through it. Fool’s gold. A chocolate bar. Broken. There were pine cone shards and dirt and a dog biscuit.
Then Gamache looked at the report on the boy’s hands. They were scratched, dirty. The coroner found pine resin and bits of plant matter under his nails. No flesh. No blood.
No fight. If Laurent was murdered, he didn’t have a chance to defend himself. Gamache was relieved by this at least. It spoke of a boy doing boy things in the last hours, minutes, of his life. Not fighting for that life, but apparently enjoying it. Right up until the end.
Gamache raised his brown eyes to Jean-Guy.
“Would you look into it?”
“Of course, patron. I’ll come back down for the funeral and try to have some definite answers by then.”
Beauvoir thought about where to start. But there wasn’t much to think about. When a child dies, where do you look first?
“You said his father wouldn’t look at the boy, at his body. Is it possible…?”
Gamache considered for a moment. Remembering the weathered, beaten face of Al Lepage. His back turned to his dead son and wailing wife. “It’s possible.”