“State your name, please.”
“Armand Gamache.”
“And you are the head of the Sûreté du Québec?”
“The Chief Superintendent, oui.”
Gamache sat upright on the wooden chair. It was hot. Sweltering, really, on this July morning. He could taste perspiration from his upper lip and it was only just ten o’clock. It was only just starting.
The witness box was not his favourite place in the world. And far from his favourite thing to do. To testify against another human being. There were only a few times in his career when he’d gotten satisfaction, even pleasure, from that and this wasn’t one of them.
Sitting uncomfortably on the hard chair, under oath, Armand Gamache admitted to himself that while he believed in the law, had spent his career working within the justice system, what he really had to answer to was his conscience.
And that was proving to be a pretty harsh judge.
“I believe you were also the arresting officer.”
“I was.”
“Is that unusual, for the Chief Superintendent to actually be making
arrests?”
“I’ve only been in the position a little while, as you know. Everything
is unusual to me. But this particular case was hard to miss.”
The Chief Crown Prosecutor smiled. His back to the rest of the
court and the jury, no one else saw. Except perhaps the judge, who missed little.
And what Judge Corriveau saw was a not particularly pleasant smile.
More a sneer, really. Which surprised her, given the Chief Crown and
the Chief Superintendent were apparently on the same side.
Though that didn’t mean, she knew, that they had to like or respect
each other. She had some colleagues she didn’t respect, though she doubted she’d ever looked at them with exactly that expression.
While she was assessing them, Gamache had been assessing her.
Trying to get a read.
Which judge was drawn for any trial was vital. It could affect the
outcome. And it had never been more critical than in this case. It wasn’t
simply about the interpretation of the law, but the atmosphere in a
courtroom. How strict would they be? How much leeway would be
allowed?
Was the judge alert? Semi-retired? Biding her time until the cocktail
hour? Or, occasionally, not so much biding as imbibing.
But not this one.
Maureen Corriveau was new to the bench. Her first homicide case, Gamache knew. He felt sympathy for her. She could have absolutely no idea that she’d drawn the short straw. That a whole lot of unpleasantness was about to come her way.
She was middle-aged, with hair she was allowing to go gray. As a
sign, perhaps, of authority, or maturity. Or because she didn’t have to
impress anymore. She’d been a powerful litigator, a partner in her Montréal law firm. She’d been blond. Before she’d ascended. Taken silk, as they said in Britain.
Interestingly, it was not unlike how parachutists described jumping
out of a plane.
Judge Corriveau looked back at him. Her eyes were sharp. Intelligent. But Gamache wondered how much she was actually seeing. And how much she was actually missing.
Judge Corriveau looked at ease. But that meant nothing. He probably
looked at ease too.
He glanced out at the crowded courtroom in the Palais de Justice in Old Montréal. Most of the people who might have been there had decided to stay home. Some, like Myrna and Clara and Reine-Marie, would be called as witnesses and didn’t want to come in until they absolutely had to.
Other villagers— Olivier, Gabri, Ruth—simply didn’t want to leave Three Pines to come all the way into the stifling city to relive this tragedy.
But Gamache’s second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, was there,
as was Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste. The head of homicide.
It would be their turn to testify, soon enough. Or perhaps, he
thought, it would never come to that.
He shifted his eyes back to the Crown, Barry Zalmanowitz. But on its way there, his gaze had brushed by Judge Corriveau. To his chagrin,
she tilted her head, very slightly. And her eyes narrowed, very slightly.
What had she seen, in his eyes? Had the rookie judge caught the very
Thing he was trying to conceal? Was desperate to conceal?
But if she did see it, he knew she would misinterpret it. She’d
Assume he was troubled about the defendant’s guilt.
But Armand Gamache had no doubt about that. He knew perfectly
well who the murderer was. He was just a little afraid that something
would go wrong. And a particularly cunning killer would go free.
He watched the Crown Prosecutor walk deliberately to his desk, put
on his glasses and carefully, one might even say dramatically, read a
piece of paper.
It was probably blank, Gamache thought. Or a shopping list. Almost
certainly a prop. A wisp of smoke. A shard of mirror.
Trials, like Masses, were theatrics. He could almost smell the incense
and hear a tinny, tiny bell.
The jury, not yet wilted from the heat, followed the skilled Crown’s every move. As they were meant to. But he was not the lead in this drama. That role was taken by someone offstage, who would almost
certainly never utter a word.
The Chief Crown took off his glasses and Gamache heard the slight
rustle of the judge’s silk robes as she reacted with impatience barely
concealed. The jury might be taken in, but this judge was not. And the
jury wouldn’t be taken in for long. They were too smart for that.
“I understand the defendant actually confessed, is that right?” the
prosecutor asked, looking over his glasses in a professorial manner
wasted on the head of the Sûreté.
“There was a confession, yes.”
“Under questioning, Chief Superintendent?”
Gamache noticed that he repeated his rank, as though someone so
lofty could not possibly make a mistake.
“No. The defendant came to my home and confessed. Willingly.”
“Objection.” The defense attorney leapt to his feet, a little
late, Gamache thought. “Irrelevant. The defendant never confessed to the murder.”
“True. The confession I’m talking about wasn’t to the murder,” said
the Crown. “But it led directly to the charge, is that right, Chief
Superintendent?”
Gamache looked at Judge Corriveau. Waiting for her to rule on the
objection.
She hesitated.
“Denied,” she said. “You may answer.”
“The defendant came willingly,” said Gamache. “And yes, the confession was the key to laying the charges at that moment.”
“Did it surprise you that the defendant came to your home?”
“Your Honor,” said the defense, getting to his feet again.
“Objection.
Subjective and irrelevant. How could it possibly matter if Monsieur
Gamache was surprised?”
“Sustained.” Judge Corriveau turned to Gamache. “Don’t answer that.”
Gamache had no intention of answering the question. The judge was
right to sustain. It was subjective. But he didn’t think it was altogether
irrelevant.
Had he been surprised?
Certainly when he’d seen who was standing on the porch of his home
in the small Québec village, he’d been surprised. It had been hard to tell
at first exactly who was in the heavy coat, with the hood up over the
head. Man, woman? Young, old? Gamache could still hear the ice pellets striking his home, as the bitter November rain had changed over to sleet.
Just thinking about it now, in the July heat, he felt a chill.
Yes. It had been a surprise. He hadn’t expected the visit.
As for what happened next, surprise didn’t begin to cover it.
“I don’t want my first homicide case to end up in the appeals court,”
Judge Corriveau said quietly, so that only Gamache could hear.
“I think it’s too late for that, Your Honor. This case began in a higher
court, and it’s going to end there.”
Judge Corriveau shifted in her chair. Trying to get comfortable
again. But something had changed. In that odd and private exchange.
She was used to words, cryptic or otherwise. It was the look in his
eyes that threw her. And she wondered if he knew it was there.
Though Judge Corriveau couldn’t really say what it was, she did know the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté should not look like that. While sitting in the witness box. At a murder trial.
Maureen Corriveau did not know Armand Gamache well at all. Only
by reputation. They’d passed each other in the halls of the Palais de
Justice many times over the years.
She’d been prepared to dislike the man. A hunter of other humans.
A man who owed his living to death. Not actually meting it out, but
profiting from it.
No murder, no Gamache.
She remembered one chance meeting, when he was still head of homicide for the Sûreté, and she was still a defense attorney. They’d passed in the hall, and again she’d caught his eyes. Sharp, alert, thoughtful. But again, she’d caught something else there.
And then he was gone, bending his head slightly to listen to his companion. A younger man she knew was his second-in-command. A man in the courtroom now.
A very slight scent of sandalwood and rose had lingered. Barely there.
Maureen Corriveau had gone home and told her wife about it.
“I followed him and sat in on the trial for a few minutes this afternoon, to listen to his testimony.”
“Why?”
“I was curious. I’ve never been up against him, but I thought if I was
I should do some homework. And I had some time to kill.”
“So? What was he like? Wait, let me guess.” Joan shoved the tip of
her nose to one side and said, “Yeah, da punk offed da guy. Why’re we
wastin’ time wid a trial, ya yella-bellied, flea-infested cowards. Hang
him!”
“That’s uncanny,” said Maureen. “Were you there? Yes, he turned
into Edward G. Robinson.”
Joan laughed. “Still, Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck never got to
be head of homicide.”
“Good point. He paraphrased Sister Prejean.”
Joan put down her book. “In a trial?”
“In his testimony.”
Gamache had sat in the witness box, composed, relaxed but not
casual. He was distinguished looking, though not perhaps, at first glance, handsome. A large man in a well-tailored suit. He sat upright, alert. Respectful.
His hair, mostly gray, was trimmed. His face clean-shaven. Even
from the gallery, Maureen Corriveau could see the deep scar by his
temple.
And then he’d said it.
“No man is as bad as the worst thing he’s done.”
“Why would he quote a death-row nun?” asked Joan. “And those
words especially?”
“I think it was a subtle plea for leniency.”
“Huh,” said Joan, and thought for a moment. “Of course the opposite
is also true. No one is as good as the best thing.”
And now Judge Corriveau sat on the bench, in her robes, in judgment.
And tried to figure out what Chief Superintendent Gamache was
up to.
This was closer than she’d ever been to him, and for a more sustained
length of time. The deep scar at his temple was still there, and always
would be, of course. As though his job had branded him. Close up, she could see the lines radiating from his mouth. And eyes. Life lines.
Laugh lines, she knew. She had them too.
A man at the height of his career. At ease. At peace with what he’d
done and must now do.
But in those eyes?
The look she’d caught a long time ago, in the halls, had been so unexpected that Maureen Corriveau had followed him, and listened to
his testimony.
It was kindness.
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