The Madness of Crowds

“A handgun,” said Beauvoir, almost running to keep up with the striding Gamache. “Registered to him. He belongs to the local gun club and keeps it locked up there, of course. The manager says he’s a very good shot. Tardif visited the place yesterday, fired a few rounds, then left. I’m getting the security video.”

“Right. We need to interview his family and friends. Employers. Anyone who might’ve shared his view about Professor Robinson. And we need to track down those fireworks.”

Tardif’s wife and family were shocked. Could not believe he’d do that. The only one they couldn’t contact was his brother, who was on a snowmobile trip six hundred kilometers north, in the Abitibi.

He’d left that afternoon.

“Find him,” said Gamache. “Those fireworks and the gun got into the gym somehow. Presumably not with Tardif through the front door.”

He’d glared at Beauvoir, who colored and stammered, “No. I mean yes. No, I mean no.”

The media had descended on the University by then.

Chief Inspector Gamache had stood outside the gym, in the cold and the glare of camera lights, and issued a statement, reassuring the population that the gunman had been arrested.

Then he answered reporters’ questions.

“What’s his name?”

“We won’t be releasing that just yet.”

“Is he local?”

“I can’t tell you yet. The investigation is ongoing.”

“What investigation? If you have him? Was there anyone else involved?”

“We’re looking into that. We have to cover all possibilities.”

“How did he get a weapon into the event?”

“That we don’t know. We had officers at the door, making sure no one entered with a weapon. We confiscated some bottles, some placards. But no knives or guns. I don’t think anyone could have gotten through with a handgun.”

“And yet they did.”

“Yes. They did. And we’ll find out how.” He looked into the cameras and asked that anyone who might have information come forward. And that anyone who’d been at the event and recorded it send the video to the Sûreté.

The email address and phone number would appear on screen when the news was broadcast.

He answered a few more questions, made a couple more statements, before turning away to rejoin the investigation.

“Why was Professor Robinson even allowed to speak?” one of the reporters called out. “Given what she’s advocating, shouldn’t you have stopped it?”

Gamache stopped and turned back. Pausing for a moment, he looked into the glaring lights.

“I’ll be honest with you, it was something we struggled with. There are, in any free society, competing and sometimes contradictory needs. The need for freedom of expression, even those, especially those views we might not agree with. And the need for safety. A judgment was made that Professor Robinson’s thesis, though controversial, did not break any laws and therefore should proceed.”

“She’s advocating mass murder,” yelled someone who might, or might not, have been a member of the press. “Are you saying you agree?”

Gamache heaved a sigh, stronger than he’d expected, before saying, “I’m saying that my job is to defend the law. And the law, in this case, was clear. Therefore, the role of the Sûreté was to protect the people inside the auditorium. I need to get back to work. When there’s more to report, I promise to let you know. For now, everyone needs to know this was a targeted, isolated event, and they are safe.”

“You thought that about the lecture,” a voice called after him, as he stepped away from the microphone and the harsh lights. “And look what happened.”

Gamache returned to the gym, setting up a temporary office backstage, to oversee the million details that went into an investigation of this sort. The witnesses to interview, the evidence to collect. The reports to write. The phone calls to make and take. There were a hundred things his investigators needed to do, and a hundred things only the Chief Inspector could do.

Édouard Tardif had no record. There was no history of violence. It seemed he’d woken up that morning, picked up a gun, and decided to murder someone. In a crowded auditorium.

Of course, one of the big questions remained, how did the gun get inside? Did they miss it at the door, or was there indeed an accomplice? Someone who hid it beforehand?

Gamache knew, as did the other senior officers, that they had to assume there had been someone else. And they suspected that someone had fled to the Abitibi, knowing his brother would be caught immediately.

Finally, Armand had arrived home. Jean-Guy had stayed behind, supposedly to coordinate with the Sûreté in the Abitibi and organize the other units who would work through the night.

But they both knew the real reason.

He did not want to drive back with his Chief. Even less, with his father-in-law. He did not want to be alone with the man who could barely look him in the eyes.

By the time Armand returned to Three Pines, the older children were fed, bathed, and already in bed.

Reine-Marie met him at the door and, embracing him, she whispered, “We heard.”

After decades as the spouse of a senior cop, she knew not to ask if he was all right. Clearly he was not. Instead she just held him tight.