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“You have a big house . . .”
She laughed. “I’ll do my best. Bonne année, Armand. Let’s hope the new year starts better than the old year has ended.”
“Inshallah. Bonne année, Colette.”
As Lacoste turned the car out of the driveway, she asked, “What do you make of the Chancellor? Do you think she’s involved?”
“Oh, she’s involved. I just don’t know how.”
Jean-Guy stood on the threshold and rang the bell. This was where the sound tech lived.
He’d already interviewed the lighting tech, who’d said he spent the event dozing off in a booth at the back of the auditorium.
He spoke no English and had been out drinking with buddies the night before. The English lecture on statistics held absolutely no interest for him.
The young man was a theater major at the University and did the lighting part-time, to make money.
Since the old cop had told them to keep the lights up the whole time, there wasn’t much to do, he told Beauvoir. So he slept. Only waking up when the firecrackers went off.
No, he didn’t see who did it. By the time he was fully awake, they’d stopped and the crowd was beginning to panic. Then there were the shots.
“Scared the shit outta me. Ostie.”
“Did you record any of it?”
“I do lighting, not audio.”
“I realize that,” Beauvoir said, his voice and patience strained. “But you can see everything from that booth. It’s right at the back of the auditorium and up high. If someone wanted to record an event, that would be the perfect spot. Right?”
“I guess. But why would I want a recording?”
“You wouldn’t, but someone else might.” He gave the kid a shrewd look. “Did someone ask you to record it? Maybe even pay you?”
“To record an event? Without signed permission of the principals? That’s against the law.”
“Merci,” said Beauvoir. “Now, I’ll ask you again, because I like you and I don’t want you to get into even bigger trouble by obstructing justice in an attempted murder inquiry. Are you sure you didn’t record the event?”
“Look, the job’s easy and pay’s decent, so I’m not gonna fuck it up by illegally recording something. I’m asked all the time, especially by kids who want to bootleg a concert. Like you said, I have a great view of the stage. But I don’t do it. Anyone watching the video would know where it was shot from and I’d be in shit.”
“Have you been to the building in the last week?”
“No, why would I?”
“Did anyone give you anything to bring in?”
“Like firecrackers?” When the Inspector didn’t say anything, the boy’s eyes widened. “You mean the gun? I wish.”
The Chief’s wrong, thought Beauvoir, as he got back into his car. That kid’s not a ferret. He’s a wolverine.
Next was the sound tech. He parked in the driveway of her home, where a huge Père Noël on the roof waved at him. From the car, Jean-Guy considered the herd of reindeer on the front lawn, all with blinking red noses. It was ridiculous.
He kinda liked it.
A text came in from Isabelle saying they were on their way to the local detachment to interview the gunman, Édouard Tardif.
Join you soon, he replied, then walked up the front steps and rang the bell.
“What’ve you found out?” Gamache asked, half an hour later.
