“You need new eyes,” said Lacoste. “Do you want me to read it?”
“No, I want the village to read it,” said Gamache. “A play’s meant to be performed.”
“We’re going to put on the play?” asked Beauvoir. “Wait a minute. It can be done. Mom can do the costumes and we can use Uncle Ned’s barn.”
“Calm down, Andy Hardy,” said Gamache. “I meant a read-through. We need people to read it while we listen.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” said Lacoste. “But it’ll take time. An hour and a half at least by the time you even start. By then it’ll be almost six o’clock. If you’re wrong—”
“If we’re wrong we have Agent Cohen in place,” said Gamache.
“Well, it might all work,” said Lacoste. “Don’t these things usually turn out well?”
Gamache gave a single gruff laugh. “Always.”
He started walking rapidly toward the village. “I think we should do it in our home. More private. I’ll round up some people we know we can trust. What is it?”
He’d noticed her hesitation and stopped.
“And who can we trust?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Let me ask you this,” she said. “If someone arrived in Three Pines two weeks ago and met you walking Henri or sitting on your porch with Madame Gamache, would they know who you were and what you’d done?”
He smiled slightly. She had a point.
Who could know that Myrna hadn’t always run a used bookstore, but was once a prominent psychologist in Montréal? Who knew the woman with wild food-infested hair was a great artist?
How many of the people in Three Pines were on their second or third acts? People had hidden depths, but they also had hidden pasts and hidden agendas.
Who could really be trusted?
Jean-Guy had asked about Monsieur Béliveau. It seemed unlikely he had anything to hide, but was it any more unlikely than that the quiet man walking the shepherd with the extravagant ears had once hunted murderers for a living? Or that the burly organic gardener was a war criminal?
“Someone here killed Laurent,” Lacoste reminded him. “And Antoinette. Someone is not who they appear to be.”
“Once again, though,” said Gamache, “we have no choice. We need help. We need their help,” he said, gesturing toward the village.
He waited, poised to act, until Chief Inspector Lacoste gave a curt nod, then he hurried across the bridge.
“I’ll get the scripts,” said Beauvoir. “You coming?”
Isabelle Lacoste was standing still. She met his eyes and shook her head.
“No, I think you and the Chief are enough.” She looked at her computer where, like Beauvoir’s, the screen saver was rotating photographs of Laurent and Antoinette. “I have work to do here. You look for the plans, I’ll look for the murderer. We’ve gotten sidetracked by the gun. More misdirection, and I fell for it.”
“Not complete misdirection,” said Beauvoir. “Laurent wasn’t killed because he was Laurent, he was killed because he found the weapon, and Antoinette was killed because her uncle designed it. The gun is at the center of everything that’s happened.”
“True, but the focus has become finding the plans, and we’ve taken our eyes off the murderer. He’s in here somewhere.” She tapped the dossier on her desk. “Mary Fraser said we don’t understand her world, and she’s right. This is the world we understand. This is what I should’ve been doing all along. I need to go back over the basics. The interviews, the forensics. Who knows, we might end up at the same place.”
“B’ezrat hashem,” he said, and left while Lacoste opened the dossier and began reading.
There was more than one path to the truth.
Armand went to the bookstore first. There he found Ruth, Myrna and Clara and invited them over to his place. He was vague and they were curious. It was a perfect fit.
Next he went to the bistro, where he found Brian having a beer with Gabri. It was now just past four. Gamache hesitated a moment, then invited them both. Brian might be a suspect, but he was also their greatest asset. He knew the play inside out and backward.
“Bring Olivier,” said Armand over his shoulder, as he hurried to the bistro door.
He was about to leave when he noticed Professor Rosenblatt in a corner, gesturing to him.
“What’s happening?” he asked when Gamache arrived at his table. Lowering his voice, he said, “Is it something to do with the CBC story?”
Gamache could have kicked himself. He’d been so intent on who to invite he hadn’t properly scanned the room for who not to. Rosenblatt was certainly a retired professor. Their background check bore that out. But Gamache was far from convinced he wasn’t more than that. Just as Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme were almost certainly file clerks. And much more.
“Can I help?” asked the elderly professor.
“Non, merci. I think we have it covered.”
Rosenblatt examined him, then looked around the bistro at the people chatting over drinks.
“They have no idea what’s coming their way once word of the gun gets out.”
“None of us can tell the future,” said Gamache. It was an intentionally banal response. He just wanted to get away and wasn’t interested in wasting precious time on some esoteric conversation.
“Oh, I think some can, don’t you?”
Something in his tone made Gamache refocus and give the scientist his attention. “What do you mean?”
“I mean some can predict the future because they create it,” said Rosenblatt. “Oh, not the good things. We can’t make someone love us, or even like us. But we can make someone hate us. We can’t guarantee we’ll be hired for a job, but we can make sure we’re fired.” He put down his apple cider and stared at Gamache. “We can’t be sure we’ll win a war, but we can lose one.”
Gamache was very still, examining the scientist. Then he sat down.
“So many people make the mistake of thinking wars are fought with weapons,” said Rosenblatt, almost to himself. “But they’re really fought with ideas. The side with the most ideas, the best ideas, wins.”
“Then why kill the person with those ideas?” asked Gamache. “I take it we’re talking about Gerald Bull. Someone thought he was the genius and had him shot in the head.”
“You know the answer to that. To stop anyone else from getting him. Having him on our side might not guarantee we’d win a war, but giving him to an enemy just about guarantees we’d lose it.”
“And when it became apparent you got it wrong?” asked Gamache.
“Me?”
“A manner of speech, monsieur. I meant nothing by it.”
“Of course.”
“When it was clear the wrong person was killed?” asked Gamache. “That Gerald Bull wasn’t the ideas man at all, but just a fake front?”
“Ah, then there’s a problem. A big one. A very big one. That would need to be taken care of.”
“Are you saying what I think you are?” said Gamache. It was the closest Michael Rosenblatt had come to admitting involvement in the death of Gerald Bull. And more.
“I’m saying nothing. I’m an old man, who can’t even dress himself.” He looked down at his disheveled clothing.
“You are not your clothes, monsieur,” said Gamache. “They’re a costume. Perhaps even a disguise.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Rosenblatt looked amused, but then his face turned serious. “You think I had something to do with it? I’ve been sitting here thinking about what would happen if those plans are found. All those lives lost. I think only very old men appreciate what a terrible thing it is to die before your time.” He leaned across the table toward Gamache. “It is not something I could ever be part of.”
“Unless it was to save even more lives,” suggested Gamache.