Page 49

“But you told me he fought for the Resistance,” said Dussault.

“I don’t think my grandmother ever believed it.”

Armand glanced out the window, at the Hôtel Lutetia. That was another reason Zora distrusted Stephen.

Because he chose to live right next door to the Lutetia.

It had taken Armand many years to understand her hatred of the beautiful hotel.

He knew he’d have to explain the complex relationships in his family, eventually. Now seemed as good a time as any.

“My father met Zora in Poland, in the final days of the war. She and her family had been deported from Paris and sent to Auschwitz. There were more than a thousand people in that transport. Three survived the war. Zora was one of them.”

He looked at Claude Dussault, who dropped his eyes.

Paris might have a lot of light, but there were also strong shadows.

“She never called it the Holocaust. It was, for her, ‘the Great Murders.’”

He’d been raised to consider Zora his grandmother, which he did to this day. She’d impressed on him that murderers had to be stopped. No matter the cost. That was, Armand knew, the reason he’d joined the Sûreté.

To stop them. No matter the cost.

“My father was with the Canadian Red Cross and was helping with the ‘displaced persons,’ as they were called. Those liberated from the death camps but with nowhere to go. No home left. He sponsored Zora to come to Montréal. She lived with us and raised me after they were killed.”

“They?” asked Fontaine. “Killed?”

“My parents. Car accident. I was nine years old. Stephen was my godfather and helped raise me. He brought me to Paris once a year. I practically grew up in this apartment.”

He looked around, trying to recapture that sense of security.

But it eluded him amid the wreckage. And the murder.

“So, wait a minute,” said Commander Fontaine, nodding toward the card. “Go back. If it was an insult, why would Horowitz write JSPS on his business card?”

“It was an inside joke. He actually liked Zora, and I think as he got more successful, it was a way for him to keep his considerable ego in check. It was also a code.”

“For what?” asked Fontaine.

“For his senior management, his bankers, his security. Most importantly, it was code to his secretary, Mrs. McGillicuddy. Whoever had that card was to be given all access. All help. No matter what was asked.”

“But what would stop anyone from writing JSPS on a card and getting that access?” asked Fontaine.

“Stephen made it known that anyone who tried would be dealt with severely. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

Fontaine looked over at the body of Alexander Plessner.

“Not that severely,” said Gamache.

“Do you know how many of these he gave out?” Fontaine asked.

“I actually thought I had the only one,” said Gamache, returning his thin card to his wallet. For safekeeping.

Stephen had given it to him after the funeral of his parents. He’d taken Armand aside and, under the watchful, wrathful eye of Zora, had brought out a business card and written, JSPS.

“Do you know what that stands for?”

Armand had shaken his head. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.