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She dropped her head and muttered what sounded like “bastard.” “All right,” she said, when she looked up again. “I’ll tell you, but this isn’t official. It can’t be. And I doubt at this point it can ever be proven.”

The three investigators waited. Sharon Harris shuffled the papers in front of her. Bringing one to the top.

“I think the child Maria Robinson’s death wasn’t an accident.”

“Meaning?” Isabelle leaned forward.

“Meaning I think she was murdered. I think her father killed her, then later took his own life.”

“But the deaths are years apart,” said Isabelle.

“True. But there can be a delayed reaction.”

“Of years?” she asked, clearly not buying it.

“When you investigate a murder,” said Dr. Harris, “don’t you go back into the past? To find some wound that festered? That erupted years later in murder? I’ve heard you talk about that. Why not self-murder? Suicide. Paul Robinson must’ve been deeply scarred by what happened to his wife. And then the pressure of caring for a severely disabled child alone. The mind can warp and twist and land in a very dark place. Chalk another one up to Ewen Cameron.”

“Wait a minute,” said Beauvoir, holding up his hand. “You think Robinson killed his own daughter? A defenseless little girl? Wh . . . wh . . .”

“Why do I say that?” asked Dr. Harris. “Because of this.”

She placed her finger on a word. One single word buried, intentionally or not, among so many.

Beauvoir bent over, studying it as though examining a tiny body.

Petechiae.

He looked up at Lacoste, who’d also bent to see the word. Then they both looked at Gamache. Who had no need to read it. He’d seen the word the night before.

That was why he’d sent Dr. Harris the reports, without comment. To see what she’d think. If she’d see what he saw.

Petechiae.

Tiny red dots on the girl’s face. Like freckles, only not. They were, the homicide investigators knew, signs of strangulation or smothering.

“She choked on a peanut butter sandwich,” said Jean-Guy. “That’s how she died. It says it right there. The hemorrhages were caused by that. Not . . .”

He could feel his hands and feet grow cold, as though he’d been on thin ice all along. And it had given way.

He fought for control. Fought to give the impression all was fine.

Ça va bien aller.

But he was overcome with the thought that if it could happen to Paul Robinson, a loving father, it could happen to . . . anyone.

“The child’s condition had deteriorated,” said Dr. Harris, watching him closely. “She’d be on puréed food by then. No parent would give her a peanut butter sandwich.”

“But maybe a carer did,” Beauvoir said, his voice rising, even as his heart sank. “Someone unfamiliar with her.”

“The report says she was alone with her father,” said Dr. Harris.

Armand shifted his eyes from Dr. Harris to Beauvoir. He knew what fear looked like. Had seen it often enough in young agents. In experienced investigators. As they’d prepared for an especially dangerous action.

He saw it now in his son-in-law. And he could guess why.

“It looks to me like Maria’s father smothered her, probably with a pillow, then shoved the sandwich down her throat postmortem,” the coroner was saying.

“Non. Non,” said Jean-Guy, shaking his head. “No father would do that.”