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“You heard, Mr. Tracey. In a few minutes, that phone will ring again. It’ll be about a warrant to search your property. Best to answer it. Let’s go into your house, and while we wait for the call confirming the search warrant, you can answer some questions.”

Tracey’s face hardened. He looked like an obstinate child.

“Or not,” said Gamache pleasantly. “But we’re cold and wet and would appreciate your cooperation.”

He could almost hear Cameron and Cloutier gagging at his courteous tone.

Tracey, it seemed, had gotten the point. He gestured for them to follow.

The mud had hardened onto their coats and pant legs and boots. They looked and felt like Québec’s version of the Terra-Cotta Warriors. The Sûreté officers took off their coats and boots, leaving them on the porch. But they couldn’t very well remove their wet and filthy slacks.

Tracey had no such hesitation about trailing muck through his house and had kept his rubber boots on.

It was hot in the home, almost stifling. An elderly mutt lay by the woodstove in the kitchen.

“Beer walk soon,” said Tracey, gesturing toward the dog.

Gamache knew what that meant, though the others did not. He looked past the gray muzzle into the tired old eyes and thought of the walk into the woods, with the rifle.

And wondered if the same fate had befallen the dog’s mistress.

Dishes, pots, and pans were piled into and out of the sink. The place stank of grease and rotting food. Booze and old dog and cigarettes. The smell was almost overpowering.

Gamache took a deep breath through his nose. Wondering if, in the sweltering heat, he could pick up another scent.

Something familiar. Something unmistakable. Something far worse.

But he could not. It was, perhaps, masked by the other rotting odors. But he doubted it. There was really no masking that one putrid stench.

The three Sûreté officers had joined Tracey at the Formica kitchen table. Tracey lit a cigarette while Cloutier and Cameron waited for Gamache to do something.

But he was doing something. Armand Gamache was listening.

For a sound, however remote, telling him that there was someone else in the home. A tapping. A muffled call.

Anything.

But there was only silence.

Finally he said, “Monsieur Tracey, you say your wife isn’t here. Do you know where she is?”

Cloutier had brought out her iPhone and was recording everything.

“I already told you cops. All I know is when I woke up yesterday morning, she was gone. No note, no nothin’.”

“Any ideas?”

Tracey laughed. “She could be anywhere. On a bender. Shacked up with some guy. I’ll tell you, when she comes back—”

He remembered, too late, who he was talking to.

“Yes?” said Gamache. “Go on.”

“Nothin’.”

Armand Gamache had looked across lots of tables, at lots of murderers. He didn’t kid himself that he had, even after all these years, some sort of special talent. To spot a killer.

He didn’t really know if he was looking at one now. But he found himself increasingly repulsed by Carl Tracey.