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“Could be, but he could’ve included a separate letter to Abigail in the same envelope, just saying he loves her and is sorry. What’s it going to do to a young woman, knowing she was the reason her father killed her sister, then took his own life? Did that really need to be said?”
“The whole thing seems strange,” admitted Jean-Guy. “I mean, why confess at all, so many years later?”
“That’s the other thing, though,” said Isabelle. “He doesn’t really confess.”
“But he does.” Gamache pointed to the letter. “It’s right there.”
“No, it isn’t.”
As one, the three of them bent their heads over the letter.
Isabelle could feel Jean-Guy’s shoulder touching hers, and she could smell the Chief’s faint scent of sandalwood with a hint of rose. The bit of his wife he carried with him always. Like breath.
“I’ll be damned.” Gamache stood up and, bringing his hand to his mouth, he stared at the page.
“You’re right,” said Jean-Guy. “Nowhere in this does he come right out and say, I killed Maria. What he does say”—he reached for the letter—“is that he’s responsible. That it’s his fault, that he can’t live with what he did.” Looking up again, he stared at the other two. “Knowing it was a suicide note, we filled in the blanks.”
“And he still might have done it,” said Isabelle. “But it just struck me that he never actually says it.”
“He also says,” Gamache read out loud, “It wasn’t deliberate. I know that.” Gamache looked at Isabelle and Jean-Guy. “Isn’t that strange wording?”
They nodded. Slowly.
“Wouldn’t he leave it at, It wasn’t deliberate?” asked Jean-Guy.
They all, in unison, went back to staring at the letter.
Gamache, his eyes narrow in concentration, was trying to think it through.
Why didn’t you clearly confess? he asked a man long dead but still very much present. Why did you send the letter to Colette Roberge? Why did you say you knew Maria’s death wasn’t deliberate?
Why did you really kill yourself?
In the gloom of the basement, an idea was forming.
“We need to have that”—he nodded toward the letter—“fingerprinted and checked for DNA.” He handed it to Isabelle. “And have the handwriting analyzed.”
“Oui, patron.”
He watched as she made a copy. Then, putting it into a secure envelope, she gave it to an agent to take to the lab in Montréal.
As the letter left the confines of the basement, Armand’s thoughts chased after it.
Did you really kill Maria?
Did you really kill yourself?
He walked over to the large board, placed in the Incident Room by the technicians. Photographs had been pinned up there. Of the murder scene. Of the body. There were schematics of the crime scene, the trail, the Auberge. The bonfire. Movements and relationships between various people.
Down the side of the board were other photographs.
From the shooting in the old gym.
The mug shots of a stunned Édouard, Alphonse, and young Simon Tardif.
The portrait of Ewen Cameron.
And now, two more had been added. Paul Robinson in front of the silly pseudo-scientific poster of spurious correlations, and the last one, of Maria, Paul, Abigail, and Debbie.
