Now was not the time to underestimate. He needed to assume the very worst.
Matthew 10:36.
“There are members of our team we can trust, have trusted with our lives,” said Beauvoir. “I’ll call Isabelle. She’s vacationing at Mont-Tremblant. That’s close to Manitou. I’m as anxious as you to protect the family. Annie. My own children. But I also know that the best way to do that, the only way to do that, is to catch Fleming. And he’s here.”
He stood rigid, his arms taut at his side, fists in balls, staring, glaring at Gamache.
“All right,” Gamache conceded. “Call Isabelle. Then you lead the search for Godin. I’m going back to pick up the caretaker.”
As Gamache drove, he whispered, “I’m coming for you.”
Then, from inside his own head, he heard the sneered reply.
Time’s up.
Gamache went directly to the church, but there was no sign of the caretaker. Just the scraper still lying on the landing. He placed it in a tissue and put it in his pocket. Then he carefully entered the chapel, standing with his back to the door, allowing his eyes to adjust.
He could see Robert Mongeau sitting where he’d left him, his head bowed in prayer.
Taking a quick look around to see if he could spot the caretaker, Gamache walked quietly up to the minister.
“Robert?” But he didn’t move. “Robert?”
When he got close, Gamache noticed a dark patch on the side of Mongeau’s head. He slipped into the pew, just as the minister slumped. Gamache caught him and laid him down, feeling for a pulse.
He was alive, but there was a lot of blood. Mongeau’s eyes opened but seemed unfocused.
“It’s all right, Robert. It’s Armand. It’s going to be all right.” His hands moved swiftly over the minister’s body, looking for other wounds. “Everything will be fine. Stay with me.”
But Robert’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head, and his lids had closed.
Armand tore off his jacket and pressed it to the minister’s head wound, then he quickly considered. He could call an ambulance, but that would take too long.
Lifting Mongeau, he carried him out of the church, down the stairs, and to his car. Seeing this, Gabri and Olivier came running out of the bistro, and Ruth limped quickly across the green.
“Help me,” said Gamache as he struggled to gently lay the minister across the back seat.
Mongeau groaned as Gabri crawled in the other side, took his shoulders, and pulled him across.
“I’m coming with you,” said Ruth. “I know first aid.”
Gamache did not protest. As much as Gabri liked to refer to the elderly poet as the Labrador on the leg of life, she was indeed trained.
Besides, she was already in the car, cradling Robert’s head.
They watched in surprise as Gamache ran back to the church. Once inside, he quickly searched between the pews. Then behind the curtains at the altar. Then downstairs he raced.
But Claude Boisfranc was gone.
Returning to the car, he waved off their questions, then drove as fast as he could to the hospital. When they arrived at Emergency, Mongeau was wheeled in semiconscious, protesting feebly that he was all right, before throwing up and asking for Sylvie.
“You okay?” Armand asked Ruth.
Ruth was looking unwell too.
“Yes, I suppose.” She looked at the swinging doors through which the emergency staff had wheeled the minister. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I found him like that.”
“That’s why you went back to the church, to see if you could find whoever attacked him.”
“Yes.”
“But why would anyone want to hurt the minister?” She turned her rheumy blue eyes on him. “And so soon after Sylvie died. A coincidence?”
It was clear she did not believe that for a moment.
“I don’t see how.” But he had a pretty good idea who. “Can you stay here and wait to see how Robert is?”
“Where will you be?”
“I’m going downstairs to the morgue.”
“Is that your happy place?” Ruth called after him, but he was already through the door, showing his ID to the orderly who’d stepped forward to stop him.
The coroner looked up. “You didn’t have to come here, Armand. I could’ve called you. But no results yet.” Sharon Harris looked at him more closely. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You have blood on you.”
He looked down and realized his shirt and slacks were stained from when he’d carried Mongeau to the car.
“Someone else’s. I brought a friend to Emergency.”
“Jesus, looks bad. Hope he’s okay.”
“Head wound. They bleed.”
Dr. Harris glanced at the deep scar by the Chief Inspector’s temple and imagined the blood from that.
“Can you tell me anything at all about Sylvie Mongeau?” Gamache stepped to the other side of the autopsy table where the woman’s body lay.
“Well”—Dr. Harris glanced down—“given the mottling and the dilation in her eyes, I’d say it looks suspicious, but we need to wait for the blood and tissue tests. After that, I would have to do a full autopsy.”
“If I got you DNA samples, can you compare them?”
“Yes, of course. It won’t be official, you’ll need forensics for that, but it will be accurate. For this woman?”
“No. One’s for a Fiona Arsenault. I’ll have those sent over from her files. Another is also on file now. A man named Godin. I’ll have that sent to you too. The other one is here.”
He brought the scraper out of his pocket.
She put on gloves and took the scraper over to her workbench. “You think they might be related, or the same person?”
“Definitely different people, but yes, they might be related.”
“This’s to do with this woman’s death?”
“I think so.” He paused, but the clock was ticking and now was not the time for discretion. Besides, he’d need the coroner’s help. “I’m looking for John Fleming.”
Dr. Harris turned to look at him. “Fleming? The serial killer?”
“Oui.”
“You do know he’s in the SHU, right?” When the Chief Inspector didn’t answer she repeated, her voice strained, “Right?”
“He’s out.”
“Out? Out? Someone let him out? Out?” Her mind was snagged on that word.
“Sharon, were you involved in the case?”
“He’s out?” Her voice was now barely making it through her constricted throat. “How the hell could that happen?”
“Were you on the case?” he repeated.
She took a couple of breaths. “I was in training, so I wasn’t the lead coroner. Never testified. But I saw…”
“Yes.”
“… what…”
“Yes.”
“… he did.”
“Oui.”
She looked at him. “You did too.”
“Oui.”
It was a small club. With a horrific entrance requirement. Armand quickly patted his pockets. The photos from the file. He’d put them in his jacket. The one he’d used to staunch Robert’s wound. It was still upstairs.
He’d have to go back up and get them before anyone else joined the club.
Gamache sent the DNA results from Fiona’s and Godin’s files to Dr. Harris, then he called Jean-Guy and told him about Mongeau.
“I can’t find the caretaker,” said Gamache.
“And I can’t find Godin. Fleming can’t be both of them. He’s fucking with us. What do you want to bet he’s killed one of them, and just wants us to waste time and effort looking for both. Who do you think is Fleming, Godin or Boisfranc?”