Chapter 19 #2
Beauvoir was struggling to believe that people could be that stupid, that gullible. And that was one of the saner posts. Though clearly “sanity” had a whole other definition in this echo chamber.
Picking up on the previous thread, a few claimed Prime Minister Woodford had set the megafires as a first volley from Canada. An intentional attack. The worst since 9/11.
The prelude to an invasion.
Some were outright calling for his assassination. Jean-Guy forwarded that to Gamache.
“Why would we want to invade the States?” asked Nichol. “You’d think it’d be the other way around. We should put penicillin in their water. Would that be considered poison?”
“By this lot, yes. Apparently so is fluoride, which, according to one site, brainwashed people into voting for Obama.”
“And made people support those damned equal rights. Reproductive rights. Immigration. Environmental protection. Ruining our lives,” said Nichol. “Fucking fluoride.”
Jean-Guy slid her a look, hoping to God she was kidding. But it was hard to tell. Yvette Nichol also had layers within layers.
“Before we begin, I have some news,” said Gamache.
They’d taken armchairs in the comfortable seating area.
“I can see by your face it’s not that you’ve won the lottery,” said Woodford. “Or, better still, that I have.”
“Non.” Gamache turned to Lacoste.
“We’ve found the body of Frederick Castonguay,” she said.
“Who?”
“Jeanne Caron’s executive assistant.”
“That young man at the desk outside her office?”
“Oui,” said Gamache.
“An accident? No, of course not. You wouldn’t be here if it was. He was murdered.”
“Shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave,” said Lacoste.
Prime Minister Woodford’s face had hardened. “An execution?”
“Oui.”
“Why?”
“We think Castonguay was looking for something,” said Lacoste. “Something Charles Langlois hid.”
“Langlois was the biologist who first alerted you to the poison plot.”
“Oui,” said Gamache.
Woodford considered. “Did Castonguay find it?”
“Non. He was murdered before he could,” said Lacoste.
“Do you know what it was?”
They’d reached the moment de vérité. On the way up, while Isabelle had struggled with the elements and babbled about politicians, Armand had contemplated how much to tell the Prime Minister.
“We do,” he said. “It was Charles Langlois’s laptop. We’ve been looking for it ourselves since all this began.”
Now Woodford cocked his head, his intelligent eyes locking onto Armand’s. “You know because you found it, didn’t you?”
“Oui.”
“And?”
“If you’ll allow me, I’ll get to that in a moment. We believe Moretti was behind the murder.”
“You ‘believe,’ but if it’s an execution, isn’t it obvious, Chief Inspector?”
“Well, sir, we still need evidence. Unfortunately, anyone can put a gun to someone’s head and pull the trigger.”
“Anyone?” Now Woodford smiled ruefully. “You run in strange circles, Chief Inspector.”
“You know what I mean. It looks like a mob hit, but it could be a copycat, or done to implicate Moretti.”
Prime Minister Woodford opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Lacoste spoke.
“Excusez-moi.”
Her phone had vibrated with a message, as had Gamache’s. He glanced at his, then nodded to Lacoste to take it. She stepped into a quiet corner. Woodford watched her, then turned back to Gamache.
“Where was Castonguay killed? If the S?reté’s involved, I’m assuming it’s in Québec somewhere and outside of Montréal.”
“True.”
The PM waited for more, but Gamache was silent. So, he asked another question: “How did this Castonguay even know to look for the laptop?”
“Turns out he and Charles Langlois knew each other from school and met up again recently.”
“Does Jeanne Caron know about the murder of her assistant?”
“I haven’t told her.”
Which was different, they both knew, than her not knowing. Woodford nodded his understanding.
“Why are you here, Chief Inspector? Not just to tell me about the tragic death of one of my people.”
“I have reason to believe the attempt to poison Montréal’s water was just the first step. A prelude,” said Gamache.
Now Woodford sat back and stared. “If that’s the prelude, what in the world is the main event?”
“It’s not clear, but it seems to have something to do with water.”
“Again? More poisoning?”
“Possibly, but I don’t think so.”
“Can you explain?”
“No, not really, not yet.”
“Come on, Gamache. You can’t walk in here and tell me, the Prime Minister, that there might be a catastrophic attack on the population without giving me more. What am I supposed to do with that?”
Gamache noticed movement in his peripheral vision and turned.
Isabelle Lacoste was holding out her phone. “Désolée, patron.”
He took it, read the message; then, his face neutral, he handed the phone back to her. “Merci.”
“Something’s happened,” said the Prime Minister, searching their faces.
“We discovered three sets of prints on the laptop. Two were easy to identify: Charles Langlois’s and Jeanne Caron’s. We just identified the last set. I think what I’m about to say won’t come as a surprise. They’re yours. Perhaps, sir, you can explain.”
The warmth had drained from Gamache’s voice.
Now James Woodford cocked his head and smiled. “You aren’t thinking I’m the Black Wolf, are you?”
“How do you know that term?”
Woodford looked at Lacoste, then back to Gamache. “Can we speak in private?”
“Absolutely not. How do you know about the Black Wolf?”
“Jeanne Caron told me. She said it was your code for whoever’s behind the poisoning plot. I’m assuming you mean Marcus Lauzon.”
“You’ve been in touch with Madame Caron recently, then?”
“Yes.” Like Gamache, his eyes, his expression, his entire posture had hardened.
The temperature inside the office had plunged.
Sleet was possible … “You don’t really expect me to be content in my ignorance?
I learned after Lauzon was exposed that ignorance is not, in fact, bliss.
I wanted to hear directly from her all she knew. ”
“And what has she told you?”
“Frankly? Nothing useful. Nothing I hadn’t already read in reports, including yours. Certainly nothing about another attack. If you know more, you need to tell me. Now.”
But Gamache remained focused on his own line of questioning. “How did your prints get on Charles Langlois’s laptop? A computer he hid just before he was murdered.”
“Are you interrogating me, Chief Inspector?”
“We’re having a conversation, a useful and mutual exchange of information, as a defense against ignorance.”
Woodford stared at him, making up his mind.
“Jeanne Caron and Charles Langlois came to see me shortly before he was murdered. They had suspicions. To be honest, I never trusted, never liked Madame Caron. She’s a walking bag of dirty tricks.
Still is, as far as I know. But the biologist seemed to trust her. ”
“You feigned ignorance when I first mentioned Frederick Castonguay. As Caron’s assistant, you must have known him.”
Gamache knew that one skill any ambitious politician developed was a memory for faces and names. The PM could not fail to know a bureaucrat that close to his own office. Never mind one mentioned more than once in subsequent investigations.
“I’m sorry about that. It’s a habit I learned in the army. To gather and hold information close. To not always be completely transparent.” He again studied Gamache. “I suspect we have that in common.”
“It would be helpful, sir, if you could bring yourself to be less opaque. Can you tell me about that meeting?”
“Langlois had found some sort of evidence of a possible attack. He first took it to Caron, and after doing some investigating herself, they came to me. Most of it seemed gibberish. Dark web crap. It amounted to some marginal site hinting at a terrorist attack to do with our water. By the way, the same site also claimed Canada was salting the clouds so that acid rain would melt American cities.”
“In fact, what he’d found were references to the poisoning of Montréal’s drinking water.”
“In retrospect, yes.”
“And you did nothing?”
Prime Minister Woodford shifted in his chair, recrossing his legs.
“What was I supposed to do, Chief Inspector? Like you, I need evidence before I act, and there was none. Just some vague references to threats. I get them by the truckload every day. We can’t react to every one of them.
What’s that expression? ‘Saving our powder.’ I told them to come back when they had proof.
And now you say something else is planned. But like them, you have no proof.”
It was Gamache’s turn to shift in his seat. “True. But we do have enough circumstantial evidence to warrant investigation. Including the murder of Frederick Castonguay.”
Isabelle, listening and watching, noticed that the Chief Inspector hadn’t told the PM about Charles’s map. Or his suspicions about the second notebook.
Woodford was shaking his head. “So, in other words, you have nothing. Just, what? A feeling? An inkling?”
“A lifetime of experience. Hard-won. It’s not over. Not by a long shot. You saved your powder once, and by that you mean power, and tens of thousands almost died. When exactly do you plan to use it?”
Gamache had crossed a line, and all three knew it. Prime Minister Woodford colored but managed to keep his temper.
“What is it you expect me to do, Chief Inspector?”
“I’m not asking for any action. You’re right, until we know what’s planned, there’s nothing to do.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To warn you. To ask you to be vigilant. To see if you’ve heard any rumblings, any whispers.” Gamache took a deep breath and exhaled. “Anything at all. Something’s stirring. Something that seems to involve you.”
“How so?”
“Some of the posts we found on the dark web are saying you set the forest fires on purpose. They’re calling for your assassination.”