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“Right. Same boots that made the print under Vivienne’s car. Same size. Ten. Even Chief Inspector Gamache has a pair.”

“Are you suggesting he’s a suspect?”

“Yes, yes I am,” she said with a patient smile. “You know what I’m saying.”

Jean-Guy did know. He picked up the boots again and examined them.

She was right, of course.

They were exactly like the ones that had made the boot prints under Vivienne’s car. Like the ones they’d found in Tracey’s home and used for evidence. Evidence now deemed poisonous fruit.

And, apparently, like the footwear everyone in rural Québec owned.

“I put them on,” Lacoste said, “and walked around in the snow and mud. Took pictures of the prints I made. The strange thing is, while those’re size-ten men’s, my feet are size seven.”

“Women’s.”

“Thank you. Yes. But because the rubber sole is so thick and the treads so deeply stamped, my boot prints look exactly like the ones under the car.”

“Exactly?” He turned the boots over. The treads were made from tough rubber, designed to insulate and grip. And not to wear down. So that the tread of a five-year-old boot would not be much different, if at all, from that of a brand-new one.

“I sent the pictures to the lab, and they’ll analyze them, but I couldn’t see a difference.”

“So—”

“So anyone could’ve made those boot prints under her car. A man, a woman—a child, even, I suppose.”

“This isn’t getting us closer to Tracey,” he said. “In fact, you’re making the defense’s case, if a case was still needed.”

“I know,” she said.

It didn’t have to have been a large man on that bridge. It could have been a smaller woman. And now that Beauvoir thought about it, the coroner had said that those handprints on Vivienne’s chest, bruises made in a shove, probably were made by a large man.

But—

The coroner also pointed out that bruises bleed. Spread internally. Dr. Harris had left the possibility open that they, too, could have been made by a smaller woman.

“Pauline Vachon?” he asked.

Lacoste nodded.

Lysette Cloutier got to her feet when Chief Inspector Gamache entered the kitchen.

Homer and Reine-Marie sat in front of the woodstove, a pot of tea and some shortbread cookies on a tray on the hassock between them.

Fred lay on the rug at Homer’s feet, barely raising his head to look at the man who’d just come in.

Henri and Gracie had run to the door to greet him and now chased each other into the kitchen, getting between Armand’s legs, almost tripping him up. But he was used to it.

Homer stared down at his large hands, which gripped each other tightly.

Then he got up slowly and turned to Armand. There was a bandage on the left side of his head, above his temple, where he’d hit the floor of the courtroom, knocking himself out. He had a black eye and bruising into his hairline.

His face, as he faced Armand, was impassive. A mask.

He just stood. And stared. And stared.

And then, silently, he moved. Brushing past Armand.