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Ten minutes later, after private consultation, Simon Tardif confessed that he’d been involved in the plot at the auditorium.
The boy insisted that the plan was to just scare the professor, not hurt her.
No, he hadn’t thought about the hundreds of other people who’d be in the auditorium.
No, he hadn’t been there himself. His father had insisted he be with friends at the time.
Yes, he was surprised his uncle had confessed. As far as Simon knew, he wasn’t involved.
Yes, the plan was that while his father distracted the caretaker, he hid the gun and firecrackers.
Yes, there were bullets with the gun, but they were blanks. Weren’t they?
When Chief Inspector Gamache showed him the video, Simon Tardif broke down.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Dad couldn’t have . . .”
His lawyer laid a hand on his arm to stop him.
“And last night?” Gamache asked, once Simon had recovered.
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even know that professor woman was here. I have no idea what she looks like.”
“You have no idea what the person your father was targeting looks like?” asked Isabelle, clearly incredulous. “You didn’t want to know why? We can check your search history.”
“No, don’t do that.” The boy blushed, and both investigators and the lawyer could guess why. It wasn’t just a university professor he was googling. “Yes, okay, I did look at her videos. And I could see why Dad would do it. But I spent most of the time at the party last night in the kitchen preparing the trays. I didn’t know she was there.”
“You came up for the countdown to the New Year, didn’t you?” Gamache guessed.
“Yes.”
“And what did you see?” Isabelle asked.
“Almost everyone went outside to the bonfire.”
“Did you see anyone go into the woods?”
“No. I wasn’t watching. I just wanted the night to be over and get home. All I could think of was my father. Of what was going to happen to him. And me.”
Chief Inspector Gamache stood up and said to Lacoste, “Charge him.”
“With what? Accessory to attempted murder?”
Gamache stared at the frightened young man. Thrown out of the nest by an obsessed father. To land, splat, in the arms of the Sûreté du Québec.
“Mischief.”
It was a misdemeanor. If convicted it would not ruin the boy’s life. But it still kept the options open to charge Simon Tardif with a more serious crime. Like murder.
They interviewed Alphonse Tardif again. He admitted he knew his nephew had been involved and confessed in order to protect the young man.
After weighing a charge of obstruction of justice, Gamache ordered that Alphonse Tardif just be released.
Chapter 31
Ewen Cameron was a psychiatrist,” said Myrna. Her voice was calm and steady. Warm, as always. Almost musical. “He studied human behavior, but his specialty was memory. He went to Nuremberg and assessed the Nazi Rudolf Hess. Cameron’s diagnosis of amnesia got Hess out of a death sentence.”
“Didn’t Hess later admit he’d faked the amnesia?” asked Reine-Marie.
