Chapter 18

C HAPTER 18

Isabelle Lacoste knew, of course, why she hadn't been assigned to go along with the Chief and Beauvoir. A woman would not be allowed into any cloistered monastery, and certainly not Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

There was a good chance Gamache and Beauvoir would not be allowed in either. No one crossed that threshold. The only reason the Chief and Beauvoir had been admitted last time was because of the body. Murder, it seemed, was a skeleton key.

Besides, there was a lot to do back in Montréal.

The first thing Lacoste did was call the number Dom Philippe had given Olivier when making the reservations at the B&B. It was answered by a man who said he'd never heard of Dom Philippe or Monsieur Gilbert.

He was home sick from work, with a cold. A summer cold.

The man was clearly about to go into detail, but Lacoste thanked him and hung up.

It seemed to Lacoste fairly telling that the Abbot had given a false number. Which, in Lacoste's experience, spoke of guilt. Or at the very least, something to hide.

She also wondered if this Dom Philippe, whom she'd never met and so had no preconceptions, was really the decent man the Chief seemed to think. Decent people did not, generally, have so many secrets. And so much to hide.

The next thing she did was go to the morgue.

"No ID?" she asked, standing with Dr. Harris over the remains of the man who'd murdered Charles Langlois, then been murdered himself.

"No. Shot in the head, once. His clothes are with forensics, but there was nothing in his pockets. We might be able to ID him through dental records. You have his prints and DNA."

"Nothing there," said Lacoste. "Not in the Québec system, or nationally. I'm going to send them to the Americans and Interpol. What else can you tell me about him?"

"Pretty much what you see. Male, Caucasian," said Dr. Harris. "Between twenty-five and thirty years old. His last meal was a burger and fries, two hours before he was killed. Oh, he also has alcohol in his system. Not enough to get drunk, but enough to take the edge off."

Lacoste stared down at the slender body. "Getting up courage, maybe."

She looked over at the other body, covered in a sheet. Charles Langlois. Murdered and murderer, side by side.

They moved over to Charles's body. The autopsy had already been done on him.

"We know his name and age," said Dr. Harris. "And what killed him. I can tell you that he has all the signs of a very serious addiction that's damaged part of his brain and some internal organs. But nothing recent. I'd say he was clean, and had been for at least a year, maybe two."

"Brain damage? How severe? Could it cause delusions? Paranoia?"

"For sure, but only if he was using. He wasn't so far gone that he'd hallucinate while straight. No—" She looked down at Charles. "Here's a now healthy young man."

"Can you tell where he'd been recently?"

"I've taken swabs of his hands, face, and feet, in case there's residue, but there's nothing obvious. Maybe on his clothing."

" Merci. "

Beauvoir, before leaving, had sent out the report from forensics. Langlois's clothes were newly washed. There was nothing on or in them to say where he'd last been.

After that, Isabelle Lacoste collected a team and headed out to execute the search warrants for Action Québec Bleu and the home of its Executive Director, Margaux Chalifoux.

Chief Inspector Gamache had called from the airport just before they'd taken off, telling her to lead the search herself of Madame Chalifoux's place, figuring if there was anything to hide, it would most likely be there. Besides, the Exec would be occupied with the S?reté search at the office. Lacoste and her team could work without being disturbed or distracted.

The small home in East End Montréal was, on first entering, a shambles.

"Great," said the head of the forensics team. "Another hoarder."

But a few minutes in and it became apparent Madame Chalifoux was anything but. Hoarders tended to collect items at random. Their homes were filthy and neglected and piled high with junk and mummified cats.

Here there was actually order. What appeared a jumble was in fact a collection of boxes from different investigations. All orderly. All apparently in the fight to protect fresh water in Québec.

"We have plenty of water," said one of the S?reté agents, going through the boxes. "Why does it need protecting? Just a bunch of left-wing alarmists."

"It's a crazy world, with crazy people," said another agent. "Nothing is safe."

Lacoste had also gained access to Madame Chalifoux's bank records. She had $49 there. And $1,456 in credit card debt. Her last purchase was T-shirts, made from bamboo. To promote AQB.

"She used her own money," said Lacoste, to the senior agent.

"A fanatic," he replied.

The two of them were standing in the basement on the only square feet of carpet that were clear of clutter. They were looking at a map stapled to the wall.

It was of Québec, with little flags of different colors stuck into various lakes and rivers.

"I started with the S?reté in the Abitibi," said the agent, taking a step closer and pointing at the map. "Some of those flags are in the smelters and the pulp mills up there."

"Get photos. I want to know what those flags mean."

"All of them? There must be hundreds."

"All of them. And I want a list of any pollutants."

"Well, I can tell you that the copper smelters emit arsenic."

"Christ," muttered Lacoste as she took a photo of the entire map and emailed it to Gamache and Beauvoir.

Two hours later the searches of the offices and home were complete, and Lacoste was sitting with Margaux Chalifoux in her kitchen, having had the Executive Director of Action Québec Bleu brought home.

The search of their offices had revealed nothing.

Her home was another matter.

"Tell me about arsenic."

Chalifoux knew she was in trouble. Not from the tone of the woman sitting across the table from her. The senior homicide investigator's voice actually sounded calm, even kind.

No, it was the familiar file folder in front of Inspector Lacoste.

"I wasn't going to do anything."

"The documents we found say different." Lacoste laid her hand on the manila file.

Chalifoux took a deep breath, as though to speak, then thought better of it. After a few moments of silence, Lacoste got up.

"I saw a bottle of rye somewhere. I think you could use a drink."

She pulled out the Canadian Club rye whiskey, then found a glass and some ice and, mixing the rye with Canada Dry ginger ale, she handed the stiff drink to Chalifoux.

"Why're you being nice?"

"Why not?" Though Lacoste wondered the same thing, and realized that she had some sympathy, even respect, for this woman. Not, perhaps, her methods, but her goals.

"It's not what you think."

"It never is. Besides, you don't know what I think."

"You think I sent those letters." Chalifoux nodded toward the file.

"Didn't you?"

"No. I was never going to. They're ravings, that's all. I was angry and frustrated and scared and broke. And drunk. And it seemed like a good idea at two in the morning. At seven in the morning it seemed insane."

"And yet you kept the letters."

Chalifoux colored. "You have to understand, Action Québec Bleu was, is, about to close. The fucking government cut our funding. This"—she looked around—"has become a community kitchen. We all pitch in, bring what food we can. Most from food banks. Some come and live with me when they've been evicted. It's a shambles. We do good work, important work. But no one's listening."

She put her head in her hands, her fingers gripping her scalp. Speaking to the vinyl floor, she said, "I was desperate." She lifted her head and jerked her chin toward the file. "So I wrote those."

Lacoste read from the top printout.

" Dear Shit-Faces. Unless you give Action Québec Bleu ten million dollars, we will poison the drinking water with arsenic. The arsenic you produce, you asshole fucks. "

"Acch," said Chalifoux, rolling her eyes. "I can't believe I wrote that. It's the childish ravings of a desperate person. If I was really going to threaten them, it wouldn't be with a letter like that. No one's going to take that"—again the chin jut—"seriously. I was venting, nothing more. I never sent it. You can ask the companies."

"That doesn't mean you weren't planning to do it."

"Put arsenic in the drinking water?" Chalifoux's face had opened up in a look of incredulity.

"Did Charles find out about this?" Lacoste tapped the file. "Did he come to you demanding answers?"

"And then what?" demanded Chalifoux, regaining some equilibrium. "I had him killed? Are you insane?"

Are you? Lacoste almost asked, but decided not to.

She knew that people who were monomaniacal often became maniacs, losing all sense of proportion, all sense of right and wrong, in pursuit of what they convinced themselves was a righteous cause.

What would an unbalanced person not do if they felt that all life on earth was in the balance?

Industry had untold resources in money and lobbyists and power. So environmentalists were often driven to guerilla tactics. The more radical among them to radical acts of ecoterrorism.

Yes, Isabelle Lacoste, the mother of two young children, could sympathize. But not support, not condone, mass murder in the name of the greater good.

She left the kitchen and spoke to her team leader.

"Did you find any arsenic?"

" Non, chef. "

"Anything that could be considered a poison?"

"No. We found a lot of references to poisons, but those were in their investigations into polluters. Did you know that the pulp and paper industry—"

"Yes," she said wearily. "I know. Wrap it up. Bring any suspicious files with you. And I want that map from her basement. With the pins still in it."

" D'accord, chef. " He went away, trying to figure out how to remove the map without the flags falling out.