The Madness of Crowds
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #17
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781250145284
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Madness of Crowds». Краткое содержание книги:
You're a coward.
Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache.
It starts innocently enough.
While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.
He's asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting professor of statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.
While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is, until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.
They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson's views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion, are so confused it's near impossible to tell them apart.
Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold.
Abigail Robinson promises that if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone.
When a murder is committed, it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion.
And the madness of crowds.
Now, when she walked into the bistro, it felt like a resurrection.
“Of course, mon beau,” she said, and whispered, “Getting to see you is the only reason I stay in the Sûreté.”
He laughed, took her coat, and nodded to the corner. “You know where they are. What would you like?”
“A tisane and—”
He held up a hand. “I know. They’re just out of the oven. You can probably smell them. You’re like a bakery hound.”
The bistro was quiet. It was between meals, and only a few tables were taken by parents and children having hot chocolate, something the parents would soon regret. The Sûreté officers had the place virtually to themselves.
Isabelle pulled up an armchair and waited until Olivier had brought her chamomile tea, with honey, and put a plate of fresh baked brownies on the table. Once he’d withdrawn, she placed copies of the photograph in front of each of them.
“This was found in the search of Debbie’s home. Locked in her desk drawer.”
There were Debbie and Abigail, young teenagers. Side by side. As though attached at the hip. On the other side of Abigail was her father. But the center of the photograph, the center of attention, was the little girl in her wheelchair.
This was the first time they’d seen Maria.
She was eight, maybe nine years old. Thin. Her arms bent and rigid, her hands and fingers twisted, as was her mouth. But there was no denying the pleasure, the gaiety, in her expression. In her bright brown eyes. Nor was there any mistaking the intelligence.
Whatever had caused her physical disabilities had clearly not affected her mind.
Here was a happy, inquisitive girl.
Armand moved his gaze over to Paul Robinson, whose expression was calm, his smile relaxed. A father enjoying a day out with the family.
One hand was resting on Maria’s chair, and the other was on Abigail’s shoulder.
Abigail’s left hand was on Maria’s shoulder in a sisterly, protective gesture.
Debbie was looking at Abigail, her hands holding Abigail’s arm. Both girls were laughing. One of them had just said or done something funny.
It looked like any one of a hundred pictures each of them had of their own families. It was both heartwarming and disturbing, given what would soon happen.
“Is it dated?” Beauvoir asked.
“I don’t know,” said Isabelle. “I’ve asked the Nanaimo detective to see if anything’s written on the back.”
“You say this was locked in Debbie’s desk?” said Gamache.
“Oui.”
The victim, Armand realized, had gone from “Madame Schneider,” to “Debbie Schneider,” and now “Debbie.” It was a sort of watershed, as they got to know her better and better. A relationship had developed with the dead woman that was far more intimate than they’d ever have had with a live Debbie Schneider.
“What else was in the drawer?”
Isabelle brought out her phone and read from the inventory. “Staples. Two ink cartridges for a printer. An agenda. A ruler. Some birthday cards and a box of paper clips.”
“Birthday cards?” asked Beauvoir. “Why keep those locked away?”
“Why lock away any of it?” asked Isabelle.
“Were there other pictures of Maria in the house?” Gamache asked.
“No. Ones of Abigail, and of Debbie’s family, but none of Maria.”
Just then her phone beeped with a text. “It’s from Nanaimo.” After reading it, she said, “The birthday cards are from Debbie to Abigail.”
“Unsent,” said Gamache. “And the picture?”
“No date, but someone wrote, The last one. It doesn’t seem to be in Debbie’s handwriting, judging by the writing on the cards. He sent a photograph of one of the cards.”
She showed it to them.
Dear Abby. Happy seventeenth. Love, Debbie.
A heart had been drawn over the i in “Debbie.”
“Doesn’t say much,” said Jean-Guy.
“The handwriting doesn’t match,” agreed Gamache, comparing the card with the back of the photograph. “We must have examples of Abigail’s writing somewhere.”
Beauvoir found a sample and they compared. It didn’t match her writing either.
“So who wrote, The last one?” asked Jean-Guy. “The father?”
“Must be.” Isabelle clicked her phone off. “But why would he give that picture to Debbie? And why did she lock it away?”
All three looked down at the photograph of the happy family. The last one.
“I have a picture to show you,” said Jean-Guy. He produced the one of Paul Robinson at the conference.
Isabelle studied it. “The conference ends the day Maria died.” She looked up at her colleagues. “He doesn’t look like he’s about to—”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Gamache. “Now here’s a question, Isabelle. If Paul Robinson didn’t kill Maria—”
“Then who did?”
“Any theories?” Gamache asked.
“Hello, numbnuts.”
Beauvoir almost jumped out of his skin. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t seen Ruth coming, and had not crossed his legs.
She grinned at him before turning to Armand. “I was just at your home.”
Ruth went to sit down, but a look from Armand stopped her.
“You’ll have to show me how you do that,” Jean-Guy muttered.
“I wanted to see Reine-Marie, but apparently she’s returning the last box to the Horton family. Took the crazy lady with her.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Jean-Guy.
“If you see her, can you let her know I was asking for her? I wanted to talk to her before she spoke to Enid’s kids.”
“Why?” asked Armand. “Is there something she needs to know?”
“No. It’s more a matter of not needing to know.”
She turned and left. Through the window, Armand could see the elderly poet trudge slowly up the snowy road, her head down, bent forward. Rosa tucked protectively inside her coat.
She walked past her home and up to the white clapboard church on the side of the hill. St. Thomas’s. Named after Doubting Thomas. The skeptic who needed proof before he’d believe in the miracle of the resurrection.
Armand returned his gaze to Jean-Guy and Isabelle. He was no skeptic. But then he had help. He saw proof of resurrection every day.
“Any thoughts?” he repeated to Isabelle.
“Okay. If Paul Robinson didn’t kill Maria, that leaves two others. Abigail or Debbie. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Not thinking, exactly,” said Beauvoir. “More like feeling.”
He leaned forward. Isabelle assumed it was to take one of the still-warm brownies, but instead he picked up the picture she’d brought, and stared at it. Then at her.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Honestly? I think it’s taking us off base and away from the crime right in front of us. The murder of Debbie Schneider.”
“You don’t think the two are connected?” Beauvoir asked.
“I don’t see how. They’re decades apart. We don’t even know for sure that Maria was murdered. There’s one word in an autopsy report done by a coroner who’s now dead.”
Gamache was nodding, his lower lip thrust out in thought. “Fair enough. And you’re probably right. But I think it’s worth a few minutes of our time to try to work out how this child died. Don’t you?”
He looked at her. The reproach mild, but clear.
“Oui,” she said. Chastened, but unconvinced.
“If not the father, then my money’s on Abigail,” said Beauvoir. “Especially given that she’s traveling the country arguing that anyone with severe disabilities is an unnecessary burden. She’s trying to justify what she did. Making it legal, even moral, in retrospect.”