“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally got out. Not sure if that was the most pressing question, but it was the first out of the gate.
“Because I only completely trusted a small group of my own officers,” said Gamache. “Though I’d never have approached you if I’d had serious doubts.”
“But you did have doubts,” said Zalmanowitz.
“Yes. I had no proof that you were corrupt. But neither did I have proof that you weren’t.”
“So what made you approach me?”
“Beyond desperation? Your daughter.”
“What about her?” he asked, his voice, and his expression, filled with warning.
“Our son, Daniel, has had experience with hard drugs,” said Gamache, and Zalmanowitz’s eyes narrowed. This was news to him.
“So have I,” said Beauvoir. “Almost killed me. Almost destroyed the people I care most about.”
“We know what it does to a family,” said Gamache quietly. “And I thought if anyone would do anything to stop the trafficking, it would be you. So I took the chance, and approached you. But I knew that even if you were clean, that didn’t mean your department was.”
“You arrogant shithead.”
Gamache held his glare.
“If it helps, I didn’t trust my own service either. That’s why only a handful of officers knew what I was doing. The entire Sûreté was involved, but each department, each detachment had a very small role. So small, none could see clearly what was happening. To the extent, as you know, that there was eventually open revolt. They also felt I was incompetent and didn’t flinch from saying it. But only a few saw the whole picture.”
Like Clara’s paintings, thought Beauvoir. Tiny dabs that in themselves were nothing. But when combined added up to something completely unexpected.
“You think that excuses it?” said Zalmanowitz. “Do you know what you’ve done? You made me betray all my training, all my beliefs. You made me lie and suppress evidence. You made me believe I was trying the wrong person for a capital crime. You know what that does to a person? To me?”
His clenched fist hit his breastbone so hard they heard the thump across the room.
“Do you regret what you did?” Gamache asked.
“That’s not the issue.”
“It’s the only issue, today,” said Gamache. “Yes, I led you to believe all those things, and yes, you did it. And because you did, we have the cartels across the nation on the run. Not just here, but across the country. The head of the largest syndicate in North America is dead, the other is in prison.”
“You played me for a fool.”
“No. I realized I’d been wrong about you, and that you’re not a coward. Far from it. You were and are a very brave man.”
“You think I care what you think of me?” demanded Zalmanowitz.
“No. Nor do I care, really, what you think of me. What I care about today are the results. I don’t regret what I did. I wish with all my heart it hadn’t been necessary. I wish there’d been another way. But if there was one, I couldn’t think of it. Do you regret it?” Chief Superintendent Gamache asked again. “Burning our ships?”
Chief Crown Prosecutor Zalmanowitz took a deep breath, and regained control of himself.
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“That doesn’t excuse you,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I forgive you. You could have told me.”
“You’re right. I know that now. I made mistakes. You were brave and selfless and I treated you like an outsider. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“Shithead,” Zalmanowitz muttered, but his heart didn’t seem in it. “What were you keeping from me? What was so important?”
“The bat.”
“The murder weapon?” asked the judge.
“Yes. Do you remember in the testimony, in Reine-Marie’s statement, she said she hadn’t seen the bat when she found the body?”
“Yes. But it was there when Chief Inspector Lacoste arrived,” said Zalmanowitz. “You testified that Madame Gamache must’ve made a mistake.”
“I lied.”
He looked at Reine-Marie, who nodded.
Maureen Corriveau wished she’d chosen that moment to use the bathroom, but it was too late. She’d heard.
And, to be fair, while the specific lie was news, she already knew this trial was rife with half-truths and outright perjury.
“Well then, what did happen?” asked the Crown, slipping naturally into prosecutor mode. Cross-examining a possibly hostile witness.
“I knew Reine-Marie was describing exactly what was there when she found the body. And what was not. So how did the bat return, without anyone seeing?”
“I’d locked the church door. The only way in,” she said.
“So.” Zalmanowitz lifted his hands. “How do you explain it?”
“I couldn’t. Until a casual conversation later that day with friends. One mentioned that the root cellar already had a criminal past. It’d been used by bootleggers during Prohibition.”
Both the Crown and the judge were nodding now. It was quite a famous chapter in Québec history, one many prominent families wished would go away.
“That’s when it began to come together,” said Gamache. “The smugglers would never have hauled the contraband liquor out the front door of the church. There must be, I realized, another door. A hidden door, in the root cellar.”
“That’s how the murder weapon reappeared,” said the judge. “The murderer used the hidden door. But how did she even know about it?”
“Jacqueline followed Anton to the Ruiz home,” said Beauvoir. “And got a job there to be close to him, to watch him. Then, when Ruiz went back to Spain, she followed Anton to Three Pines. She was watching him closely, and one night she saw him use the door.”
“But then, how did he know about it?”
“Anton grew up in a household where old war stories meant turf wars, speakeasies, bootlegging,” said Gamache. “Stories of getting booze across the border. How they did it. Where they did it. His father, his uncle, his uncle’s best friend, all saw these as part of the lore, their history, almost mythology, but not pertinent today. What separated Anton from the rest of his family, from the rest of the leadership of the cartels, is that he dismissed nothing. If something was history, it didn’t make it less useful. He took everything in. Some he discarded, some he kept in his mind for later use. And some he repurposed. To others, the Prohibition stories were a way to pass cold winter nights. For Anton, they were a revelation.”
“He did his homework,” said Beauvoir. “And discovered where all the crossing points, all the hidden rooms and passages used by the bootleggers were. He used them all, but as his main crossing point he chose a hidden room in a hidden village.”
“It was perfect,” said Gamache.
“So you discovered how the bat, the murder weapon, got in and out, or out and in,” said Judge Corriveau. “But how did you know it was being used for drug smuggling?”
“The hinges,” said Beauvoir. “They’d been oiled. And not recently. The room, and the door, had been used far longer than the cobrador had been in residence.”
“And when asked, none of the friends admitted using the door. They had no idea it was there,” said Gamache. “So the hinges must’ve been oiled for another purpose. I didn’t know right away, of course. But I began to think maybe the smugglers were back. It had perplexed us for a while, how so many drugs were getting across the border. The traditional routes we knew about, but far more was crossing than we could account for.”
“But wait a minute,” said the Crown. “Everything you’re saying still points to Anton being the murderer. How did you figure out it was Jacqueline?”
“If Anton Boucher wanted someone killed, do you think he’d do it himself?” asked Beauvoir. “And even if he did, would he panic, and take, then replace the murder weapon? Why not just burn it? That’s when Jacqueline came to us and confessed about the cobrador.”