A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

‘But this is bullshit,’ he said after a minute skimming the information. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Who was the technician?’ He checked the signature at the bottom and grunted. ‘Still, must have been an off day.’

‘I thought so too,’ said Lacoste, enjoying the looks on their faces. After all, she’d had the hour and a half drive down from Montreal to think about the results. ‘I had him do them twice. That’s why I’m late.’

The papers made their way round the room, arriving at Agent Nichol last.

Gamache took them back and placed them neatly in front of him. The room was silent while they all thought. The fire crackled in the woodstove and the coffee bubbled and perked, sending little puffs of aroma into the room. Lacoste got up and poured herself a cup.

‘What do you think it means?’ Gamache asked her.

‘It means Crie is no longer in danger.’

‘Go on.’ Gamache leaned forward, his elbows on the table.

‘It means we’ve found out who killed L, and that person’s no threat to Crie,’ said Lacoste, watching their faces as she spoke. Gamache, she could tell, was with her, though one step behind. Beauvoir was listening, struggling to keep up, and the other two were simply baffled.

‘What’re you talking about?’ demanded Beauvoir impatiently. ‘The genetic tests say clearly L was CC’s mother. We got that from the blood samples taken at the autopsy.’ He tapped the report in front of Gamache.

‘That’s not the interesting part,’ said Gamache, separating one of the sheets and handing it to Beauvoir. ‘This is.’

Beauvoir took the sheet and read it again. It was the tests done on the necklace. The blood on the screaming eagle pendant belonged to L, but they already knew that. He looked at the next paragraph. The one describing the blood on the leather strap.

Same blood type, of course. Blah, blah, blah. Then he stopped. Same blood type, but not the same blood. It wasn’t L’s blood on the leather. It was CC de Poitiers’s. But what was CC’s blood doing on the necklace?

He looked over at Gamache who was at his own desk now, grabbing a file and bringing it back to the conference table. He opened it and skimmed a few pages, then slowed down and read more carefully.

‘There. Is that what you mean?’ He handed CC’s autopsy report over to Agent Lacoste, who read the part he indicated and nodded, smiling.

‘Got it.’

Gamache leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply.

‘Crie isn’t in any danger from the person who killed L because that person’s already dead.’

‘The photographer,’ said Lemieux.

‘No,’ said Lacoste. ‘CC de Poitiers. She killed her own mother. It’s the only thing that makes sense. CC grabbed the necklace from her mother’s neck and broke it. That bruised the back of L’s neck, but it also cut into CC’s hand. Her palm. See here in the autopsy report for CC? Her palms were scorched but the coroner mentions another wound, partly healed, underneath. CC killed her mother then took the necklace from her dead hand and threw it in the garbage here.’

‘So who threw out the video and the Li Bien ball?’ asked Beauvoir.

‘CC as well. Three sets of fingerprints were on the Li Bien ball: Peter and Clara Morrow and CC’s.’

‘But they would be,’ persisted Beauvoir. ‘It belonged to her. No one else ever got to see it, never mind touch it.’

‘But if someone else had stolen it then thrown it away,’ reasoned Gamache, ‘there’d be a fourth set of prints.’

‘Why would CC throw out the Li Bien ball?’ asked Lemieux.

‘I’m only guessing,’ said Lacoste, ‘but I think it was guilt. Two things in her house reminded her of her mother. The Lion in Winter video and the Li Bien ball. I think they had nothing to do with evidence. I think she threw them out because she couldn’t stand to see them.’

‘But why put the video in the garbage and take the Li Bien ball all the way to the dump?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Lacoste. ‘It’s possible they were done on different days. Maybe she tossed the video at the same time she threw away the necklace, but it took her a while to get round to the Li Bien ball.’

‘It would have been more precious,’ agreed Gamache. ‘She’d have hesitated to destroy it. It’d become a symbol of her family, her philosophy, her fantasies. That’s probably why she couldn’t bring herself to just throw it away, but placed it gently in the dumpster.’