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“Honestly? I suspect she thinks it’s more…” Beauvoir raised his finger to his own temple and twirled it in a circle. “Thank God I told her I’m Chief Inspector Gamache.”

Now Armand did laugh. “I am going to miss you, old son.”

“And I’m going to miss you, too, sir. But I won’t miss this.”

He gazed at the fresh young agent standing straight and tall, twenty feet away from the cruddy bar.

Staring.

At a man Chief Inspector Beauvoir, as lead investigator, had let get away with murder.

Jean-Guy did not need anyone staring at him to know that it would be a long time, if ever, before his own conscience was clear.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

They spent the balance of the day in the incident room going back over all the evidence. Over and over.

Starting with what little was still admissible, then moving on to what they knew to be true but couldn’t use.

Homer Godin returned to Three Pines, and according to Reine-Marie, after quietly walking Fred around the village green and being offered and declining food, he went into his room and closed the door.

Agent Cloutier stayed in the house, checking on him every now and then, to make sure.…

As Armand talked to Reine-Marie on the phone, he looked through what had once been the ticket window. He could see the bridge over the Rivière Bella Bella, the sandbags still in place. And beyond that, his home on the far side of the village green.

Between him and his home was a stranger, sitting on the bench.

“Who’s that?” he asked Reine-Marie.

“Dominica Oddly.”

Reine-Marie explained who she was and why she was there.

Gamache grimaced. Seemed Clara was having a day to rival his own. Both thanks, in no small part, to Ruth.

He turned and looked up at the photo of the old poet, glaring down at him.

When he hung up, Armand rubbed his eyes. Then, putting his reading glasses back on, he returned to the statements. Trying to find something.

Anything.

Isabelle Lacoste arrived. She barely had her coat off when Jean-Guy handed her a bunch of files.

“Here. You take these.”

They divvied up the evidence, the interviews. Going over one another’s work. Fresh eyes on old evidence. Looking for something overlooked.

“I’d like to speak to Monsieur Bertrand,” said Gamache, getting up.

It still struck Gamache as unlikely that Vivienne would call this man again and again on the day she died, and its being a wrong number.

Surely she knew him. Surely he’s lying.

“So do I,” said Beauvoir, putting on his coat.

Gerald Bertrand was cordial. Young. Attractive. Holding his baby niece in his arms. He was apparently eager to help, but with nothing helpful to add.

Gamache tried. This way. That. He prodded, looking for holes. For chinks. For hairline fractures in Bertrand’s story. In his demeanor. But found nothing.