How would he feel if he found Annie...?

Chief Inspector Gamache had told them to crawl into the skins of the victim and the suspects, but he'd warned his investigators that it was difficult to do, and it was dangerous. Jean-Guy had never really understood the need, or the danger.

But now he did.

He'd gotten into Brian's skin but had overshot the mark and ended up in his broken heart.

As they left, Jean-Guy picked up the copy of the play from the table. Brian explained it was Antoinette's. He'd taken it with him to Montreal, having left his own copy in the theater.

Beauvoir was not a superst.i.tious man, or claimed not to be. But even to this rational man, the play seemed heavier than just paper.

They interviewed all the neighbors, none of whom saw or heard anything, and left Madame Proulx, next door, 'til last. She was middle-aged and plump and worried, her large, red hands intertwined and fidgety.

"What did Brian Fitzpatrick say to you exactly?" Isabelle Lacoste asked as they took seats in the comfortable living room. "When he arrived this morning."

"That something had happened and he needed to call for help, but he was trembling too hard, so I called."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Only that Antoinette had been hurt. I asked if we should go over to help and he looked so frightened, I knew."

Her eyes moved from one to the other. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"I'm afraid so."

And then she did something rarely seen anymore in Quebec. She crossed herself.

"Did you see anyone arrive at their place last night?" Isabelle Lacoste asked.

"No, I had the curtains drawn and was watching television. Les Filles de Caleb."

Lacoste nodded. It was what all the other neighbors had said. Everyone had drawn the curtains and settled in front of the television to watch the rerun of the wildly popular show.

A werewolf could tear apart the living room and this woman wouldn't budge while that show was on. Lacoste was beginning to wonder if the killer had chosen the time for that very reason.

"Do you know who did it?" asked Madame Proulx.

"Non, not yet, but we will," said Lacoste.

She tried to rea.s.sure Madame Proulx, but without a suspect arrested the rea.s.surance was hollow.

At least Laurent Lepage's murder hadn't appeared random. It seemed clear from the beginning that he was killed not because he was Laurent, or a child, but because of what he found in the woods. There was a reason.

But the murder of Antoinette Lemaitre seemed senseless. There was no obvious motive. And into that void there streamed all sorts of suspicions. And understandable terror.

Lacoste could see exactly what Madame Proulx was thinking. It could've been me. Followed closely by, Thank G.o.d it was the woman next door.

"What did you think of Antoinette?" Lacoste asked.

"She was okay. She's friendly without being overly familiar, if you know what I mean."

"Did you like her?" Lacoste asked.

There was a hesitation and Madame Proulx shifted in her La-Z-Boy. "I warmed to her. I liked her uncle, Guillaume. We'd chat over the fence in the summer while he gardened."

"Sounds like you didn't really like her, though," Lacoste gently pushed, though it didn't take much.

"She was difficult," Madame Proulx admitted. "As soon as she moved in she started complaining. About the kids playing street hockey and the noise from family barbeques. She behaved like it was her seigneurie and we were all habitants, if you know what I mean."

Lacoste did. Les Filles de Caleb was having its effect, down to the old-fashioned description of lord and peasant. But while the words were from a TV script, the emotions seemed genuine. Madame Proulx did not take kindly to the city woman bossing them around. It was what they'd heard, in various versions, from the other neighbors, once they'd gotten past being polite about the recently, and violently, deceased.

"Can you think of anyone who might've done this?" Lacoste asked, and saw Madame Proulx's eyes widen.

"No. Can't you? Isn't that your job? You have no ideas?"

"We have some," said Lacoste, bringing out the rea.s.surance yet again, and yet again it had a marginal effect. "But I need to ask. No especially violent feuds with neighbors?"

"None. It was annoying, nothing more. And she looked odd. Those clothes. She was like a spoiled child."

She turned shrewd eyes on the investigators.

"You don't think it was just a robbery?"

"We're looking at all possibilities."

Madame Proulx took in, apparently for the first time, the script in Beauvoir's hand, and she rose to her feet. Not swiftly, not even struggling out of the comfortable chair. There was a grace and ease about all her movements. And there was also certainty.

"I would like you to leave, and take that with you."

There was no need to ask what "that" was.

"You're aware of the play?" Beauvoir asked, holding it up. He thought for a moment Madame Proulx was going to cross herself again. But she didn't. Instead she straightened up completely and stood, tall and formidable, facing both him and John Fleming's creation.

"We all were. It's a travesty. How she couldn't see that is beyond me. I'm not a prude, if that's what you're thinking. But it's not right."

No philosophical debate, no discussion of the evils of censorship. Just a clear statement of fact. Producing the Fleming play wasn't right. But exactly how wrong it was wasn't yet clear.

At the door Beauvoir asked about Brian.

"We liked him," said Madame Proulx, apparently speaking for the whole neighborhood. "Now if he killed her we could understand. But he seemed to really care for her." She shook her head. "Happens a lot, doesn't it? You look at a couple and wonder what they see in each other. You never know, if you know what I mean."

Beauvoir did know. You never knew.

They got in the car and headed back to Three Pines.

"Why did you take the play with you?" Lacoste asked Beauvoir as he drove.

"It's been nothing but trouble," he explained. "And whoever killed Antoinette was looking for something. Maybe it was the play."

"But there're lots of copies out there."

"True, but that's the original. I thought it was worth a read."

Isabelle Lacoste nodded. He was right. She wished she'd thought of that.

There were times when she felt completely up to the job of Chief Inspector. And times when she knew it should have gone to this man.

"Is there anything else I missed?" she asked him.

"You don't miss much, Isabelle," said Beauvoir. "And what you do, I pick up. And vice versa. It's what makes us a strong team."

"Do you miss Monsieur Gamache?" she asked.

"It's no reflection on you, but I'll always miss Chief Inspector Gamache."

"So will I," she said. They drove a few more miles before she got up the courage to ask a question that had been bothering her since her appointment.

"Should you have been made Chief Inspector?"

She immediately regretted asking. Suppose he said yes?

"I would've liked it," he said at last. "But I wasn't expecting it. Not after all that happened."

"You mean the drinking?" she asked. "And the drugs? Or when you shot Chief Inspector Gamache?"

"When you say it like that it sounds pretty bad," said Beauvoir, but he smiled as he said it. They both knew pulling the trigger was the one thing he did right. He'd saved Gamache's life, by almost taking it.

Few, if any, would have had the courage to shoot. Lacoste wasn't sure she would have.

"You could've stopped me, you know," he said. "You had me in your sights, just as I had him. You had no idea why I was about to gun down the Chief. Why didn't you stop me?"

"By shooting you?" she asked.

"Yes. Others would have. Anyone else would have."

"I almost did. But you pleaded with me to trust you."

"That's it?"

"It wasn't your words, it was your voice. You weren't angry or deranged. You were desperate."

"You trusted your instincts?"

She nodded, gripping her hands together to stop the trembling that always overcame her when she thought of that horrific day. Having Beauvoir in her sights, her finger on the trigger. And hesitating. And watching him not hesitate. Watching him gun down Chief Inspector Gamache.

It had felt as though she herself had been shot.

Then seeing Chief Inspector Gamache's body leave the ground. Then hit the ground.

"You trust your instincts," Jean-Guy said. "That's why you'll make one of the great leaders in the Srete, Isabelle. And why I will be your loyal right hand for as long as you need me."

"And would you shoot me?"

"In an instant, patron."

She laughed. Then realized it was the first time he'd called her patron.

The Fleming play sat in the backseat like a pa.s.senger. Listening to them. Absorbing the talk of murder.

CHAPTER 24.

"Bonjour," said Armand Gamache.

He'd found Mary Fraser alone in the small library at the back of the B and B. She was in a comfortable chair, her back to the corner bookshelves and her feet on a ha.s.sock, stretched out toward the mumbling fire in the grate.

Her sweater was pilled and her big toe stuck out of one stocking. She did not bother to conceal it, nor did she seem at all embarra.s.sed by this sartorial underachievement.

What she clearly did not want him to see, though, was the file she was reading. She closed it as soon as Gamache entered and splayed her hand over it. It was done without haste, almost languidly. But still the result was a closed and secret doc.u.ment.

"Old school?" he asked, indicating the dossier. "Before everything was put on computer? Or maybe some things are best left as hard copies. More easily managed. And destroyed."

He sat down in the other comfortable chair in the library.

Mary Fraser took her feet off the ha.s.sock and replaced them in her shoes. She crossed her legs and looked at him.

"What a funny thing to say, Monsieur Gamache," she said, a cordial smile on her face. "Most of our files are still paper. To be honest, I prefer it that way."

"Fahrenheit 451?" he asked.

She looked baffled, and then she caught the reference and looked at him as his third-grade teacher, Madame a.r.s.enault, had when he'd finally said something clever.

"I wasn't planning to burn it," she said.

"Though you could."

"Of course. Can I help you?"

"I'm just wondering why you're not more interested in the Supergun."

His voice was pleasant, matter-of-fact, but his sharp eyes studied her.