The Madness of Crowds

“Jean-Paul and I have been patient with you, Armand, as you turn our home upside down,” said Colette. “But don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”

“Perhaps we should talk in private.” Armand looked at Jean-Paul, who was organizing the tissues in neat rows on the coffee table.

Colette hesitated, then said to her husband, “You know, it would be really helpful if you could finish the puzzle. That way we’ll be able to see the whole picture.”

She walked with him back to the table, got him settled, whispered a few things in his ear, then straightened up.

“Let’s go into the next room. He’ll be fine for a while.”

When they arrived in the living room, Gamache indicated a seat, but she refused, preferring to stand facing him. Staring at him. Waiting.

“All sorts of people have a motive for killing Abigail,” he said. “And one theory we have, the leading theory, is that Debbie Schneider was mistaken for her.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So if Abigail was the target, who had motive and opportunity?”

As he looked at her, she began to smile. “Me?”

“You invited her to Québec, set up the talk, had her stay at your place, and then took her to the party. Without you, none of this would have happened.”

“Setting aside the question of why I’d want Abigail dead, aren’t you forgetting something? I’m the only one who knew for sure it wasn’t Abigail in the woods. What’re you hoping to find with all this?” Her arm swept the room, taking in the Sûreté agents continuing the search.

“Evidence.”

“Of what? That in a fit of madness I mistook Debbie for Abby and killed her? Search away. I had no reason to want either of them dead, and certainly not Debbie Schneider. I barely knew the woman. Certainly not enough to hate her.”

“No, I don’t think hate was the motive. I think love might’ve been.”

“Now you have lost me.”

Armand gestured toward the book. “Paul Robinson asked you to watch over his daughter. He gave you his eternal gratitude. You couldn’t kill her, but you had to stop Abigail’s campaign of mandatory euthanasia. It was bad enough when you saw how much support she was getting, but then you realized at the party that she had something to hold over Vincent Gilbert.”

“His work with Ewen Cameron,” said Beauvoir. “You knew about it, but no one else did. Except now Professor Robinson had found out.”

“So I murdered Debbie to protect Vincent Gilbert? How does that make sense?”

“You’re a problem solver, a rational thinker,” said Gamache. “You probably worked out that if Abigail was going to accuse him of that, as she essentially did at the party, she’d have some proof. And that proof would have been carried by Debbie, like she carried all the papers.”

“Ahh, I see it now. I knocked her on the head, stole the papers, and burned them. Is that what you’re thinking?”

Gamache opened his hands, in agreement.

“You’ve made a few leaps of logic. If you were one of my students, you’d get a fail. The biggest leap is that my love of Vincent Gilbert is so great that I’d actually kill to protect his ego.”

“No. Not protect his ego, protect him from his ego. You were afraid that Gilbert would bend to the blackmail. Would lend his support to what Abigail was advocating.”

“Politicians are already climbing on board,” said Beauvoir. “More and more people are voicing support.”

“A prominent scientist, a renowned humanitarian publicly supporting Professor Robinson’s proposal could be the hundredth monkey,” said Gamache.

“The what?”

“The tipping point. You couldn’t take that chance. You’d do anything to protect the one you love.”

“Vincent Gilbert?” She laughed.

“Non. Not Gilbert. You knew that if Abigail was successful, Jean-Paul would be in line, one day, for a mercy killing.”

Colette stood up straighter. Raised her chin. But said nothing.

“The real motive, the final push, was to protect him,” said Armand. “It was for love.”