Page 64

He looked at Lacoste, who began.

She asked deceptively simple, easy questions to begin with, to get him relaxed. Where he lived, his age, his workplace.

“The forest,” said Monsieur Tardif, in answer to that question.

It was the simple truth, said without sarcasm. Édouard Tardif cut and hauled trees for firewood out of the forest. He did it with his horse, because the woods were too thick for a tractor.

He felled the trees, then together they dragged them out, one by one.

“Ones,” he explained, “that were about to die anyway.”

“You do this alone?” asked Gamache.

“Sometimes with my brother but mostly alone.”

“Dangerous work to do by yourself,” said Lacoste. “Deep in the woods.”

“Well, young people today don’t want to work hard. And I like it by myself. No one to bother me.”

“Or save you.”

Now Tardif looked at Jean-Guy, who’d just spoken. “There’re worse places to die than in the forest. Worse ways.”

“Like being shot or crushed in a crowded auditorium?” asked Beauvoir.

Tardif’s lower teeth gripped his upper lip, drawing it in.

“Monsieur Tardif did not mean to hurt Professor Robinson,” said his lawyer. “It was meant to scare, that’s all.”

“We’re not interviewing you, Maître Lacombe,” said Gamache. “Please let your client answer.” He turned back to Tardif. “I suspect you can speak for yourself. I also think what happened yesterday wasn’t some sudden flight of fancy. What did you intend?”

“I advise you not to answer that,” said Maître Lacombe.

Tardif looked at her, then at the three Sûreté officers. “I learned my trade from an old woodsman named Tony. I was a kid, and only knew maples. And chestnuts. And pines, of course. He taught me that there’re different types of maples, of pines, of oaks and cherry. The weed trees, the hardwoods. The evergreens. The ones that were dying and the ones that could be saved. I learned to listen to people who know more than I do. Why would I have a lawyer and not listen to her? I’ll pass on that question.”

His answer, so well reasoned, so succinctly put into context, surprised even Maître Lacombe.

“What you do in the woods,” said Jean-Guy, “choosing which trees will die soon anyway and cutting them down, that’s gotta be good for the health of the whole forest. The other trees benefit.”

“Sure.”

“So why do you have such trouble with what Professor Robinson is saying? Isn’t it the same thing? The ill, the terminal, sacrificed for the greater good?”

“I guess I have trouble with it because there’s a difference between a tree and a person.”

Maître Lacombe laughed. “Touché.”

“You’re a member of the gun club, an expert shot,” said Isabelle. “You know what guns, what bullets can do. And yet you chose to fire one off, twice, in a crowded hall. You almost caused a riot. Hundreds could’ve been killed, including children.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Bullshit,” said Beauvoir. “You’re clever. You want us to know you’re clever. And now you’re saying you didn’t think of the obvious? You just didn’t care. You didn’t care about those kids. Those elderly men and women. Who’d be killed in the riot? Probably not the young, healthy ones. It would be the vulnerable, the sick, the slower, the weaker. You’re no better than Robinson.”

Beauvoir was all but shouting at the man.

Gamache let it happen, curious to see what Tardif would do.

“I care,” exploded Tardif. “Why do you think I did it.”