A Better Man
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #15
- Год: 2019
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781466873711
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «A Better Man». Краткое содержание книги:
It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.
As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.
Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.
As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.
In the next novel in this constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.
What would you do if your child's killer walked free?
“Found at the bend in the river,” said Isabelle.
Where the Bella Bella left Three Pines.
“Where Vivienne was found?”
Armand nodded.
He’d stood on the banks of the river and waited for the divers to bring Homer ashore.
The coroner, Dr. Harris, also waiting, noticed Armand’s hand wrapped in a scarf. She’d taken the splinters out and put on disinfectant and a bandage.
Lysette Cloutier had asked if she could be there when Homer’s body was brought in. They’d agreed, and while Lacoste directed the recovery efforts, Lysette had stood next to Gamache, squinting into water that now gleamed and danced with reflected sunlight.
Finally, when Homer was back, Gamache turned to her and asked, “Why did you do it?”
“Is she arrested?” Reine-Marie asked.
“Not yet,” said Isabelle. “She’s outside with Cameron, waiting for the coroner’s car to take the body away. I wanted to speak with you.” She turned to Jean-Guy. “I think you should be the one to lay the charges and take her in, if you’re up to it. Your last arrest. It was manslaughter, of course.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Armand. “She was lying.”
“It was premeditated?” asked Jean-Guy. “She planned it?”
“We’ll let her explain,” said Armand. “She wants to talk. I’ve asked Cameron to bring her here, once she’s seen Homer off.”
They’d get the truth this time, with or without malice. But first, Armand wanted to tell them what Homer had said to him on the bridge.
After the coroner’s car drove away, Lysette Cloutier and Bob Cameron joined them around the woodstove.
Reine-Marie, having heard what happened, gave Bob Cameron a bear hug. As he accepted the embrace, he breathed in the subtle scent of rose. And below that, barely there, a hint of sandalwood.
“Merci,” she’d whispered into his ear. “Merci.”
Lysette was trembling so badly with cold and shock that Armand did up a hot-water bottle while Reine-Marie wrapped her in a heavy Hudson’s Bay blanket.
“Better?” she asked, and got a small nod. Warmer, if not better.
When they’d settled in again, hands around mugs of hot sweet tea, all eyes turned to Lysette Cloutier, who sat staring into the fire.
“I have a few questions, Agent Cloutier,” Beauvoir said, pulling the blanket tighter as another wave of shivers passed through him. “To get things straight.”
She nodded. No more fight left. Nothing to fight for anymore.
“If you killed Vivienne, why did you get us involved? Why tell us she was missing in the first place?”
“I had to. How could I explain to Homer if I didn’t? Besides, this way I could see what was happening.”
“Not just see but influence?”
“If necessary, oui.”
“That Saturday night she was killed, you said you met Vivienne on the bridge. How did you arrange that?”
“Like I said, I called and we set it up.”
“But there’re no records of your calling their home in the days before her death.”
“I called from another line.”
“Non. Every number is accounted for. Every call. There weren’t many, so it didn’t take long. There were no calls from an unidentified number.” Beauvoir put his tea down and leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “So how did you do it?”
“I called,” she repeated.
“Why’re you lying?” asked Beauvoir. “You know you didn’t do it.”
“What?” said Cameron, looking from Beauvoir to Cloutier. Then back to Beauvoir. “Didn’t do what?”
“Agent Cloutier didn’t kill Vivienne,” said Chief Inspector Beauvoir.
“So it was Tracey,” said Cameron. “We were right all along.” He turned to Gamache. “You told Homer that Tracey didn’t do it, but that was a lie. You just wanted him to drop Tracey.”
“Non,” said Gamache, holding the gaze of the man who’d saved his life. “I wasn’t lying. We were wrong all along. I was wrong. I’d warned you not to assume Tracey was guilty, and then I fell into the same trap. The evidence against Tracey was strong but circumstantial. He was vile, but he was also telling the truth. Those posts between himself and Pauline Vachon were about the clay. That night, after their fight, he left Vivienne bruised but alive. Carl Tracey did not murder his wife. She’d arranged to meet someone else on that bridge.”
His gaze was so prolonged, so considered, that Cameron shifted in his seat. His large body tensing. His damaged face alert. It felt like that moment just before the quarterback called out the last number. That moment, suspended in time, just before they passed the point of no return.
Gamache turned back to the others.
“Before you arrived, I tossed things out to Homer, trying to break his concentration. Anything that came into my head. And what did were the two nagging questions. Why didn’t Vivienne take Fred with her when she left home?”
Once again, on hearing his name, Fred raised his head. Not looking at the one who’d spoken. He was looking for someone who still hadn’t returned.
“The other was, why didn’t she leave earlier that day?” said Gamache. “When Tracey was at the art shop.”
“There’s only one answer,” said Beauvoir. “She didn’t leave in the morning and she didn’t take Fred with her to the bridge that night because she didn’t intend to go. Not yet, anyway. Her plan was always to leave with her lover.”
He stared at Cameron, who sat up straighter. The scars on his face turning white against his flushed face.
“But the call to her father,” Cameron said, his voice raised. “She told him she was leaving that night. Coming to him. Not to me. Him.”
“No,” said Beauvoir. “Vivienne never planned to go to her father.”
“She lied to him?” asked Cameron.
“No,” said Beauvoir.
“So what does that mean?” said Cameron. Then his face cleared. His eyes opened wider.
“Her father lied?” He looked from one to the other of the senior officers. “I don’t understand. Why would he lie?”
“Did you know?” Isabelle Lacoste asked Cloutier.
Lysette Cloutier was very still for what felt like a long time. Balancing on the knife edge.
“I suspected. Not right away, but there were things I knew.”
“Like what?”
“On her deathbed Kathy didn’t just ask, she begged me to protect Vivienne. Not guide her, not watch over her, but to protect her. This was before Vivienne had even met Carl Tracey. So who was I supposed to protect her from? It didn’t occur to me at the time to wonder. I was so upset I didn’t think more about it, about the wording. But later—”
“Last summer. When Homer said Vivienne told him to break it off with you,” said Gamache.
“I began to wonder.”
“What?” asked Cameron, trying to catch up.
“Why she’d do that. Again, at the time I was so hurt I just accepted it. Accepted that Vivienne was jealous and controlling and demanding of all her father’s attention. But then I got to wondering if it was more than that.”
“What?” demanded Cameron. “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you?” asked Gamache. “The money from Homer to his daughter. His decision to break off a relationship not with just anyone, but Vivienne’s godmother. Who is also a Sûreté officer.”
“The payments into Vivienne’s account started last July,” said Lysette. “Exactly when he ended the relationship. When I saw that, I wanted to believe it was a coincidence. But things started adding up.”
“What was the money?” asked Cameron. “What’re you saying?”
“Why did Vivienne marry Carl Tracey?” Beauvoir asked. “Several people asked that question. We asked it. Why would a supposedly smart young woman marry a man so clearly violent, abusive? Madame Fleury gave us the answer.”