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But Gamache was looking at Madame Brodeur. “What were you doing this evening?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
They looked at each other for a moment before Madame Brodeur smiled slightly and relented. “I was watching over them.”
“Maman! You were spying on me?”
She turned to her son. “No one loves you more, but no one knows better what a numbskull you can be. Honestly. You once went skinny-dipping in Lac Brume, then forgot where you left your clothes—”
“Mom!”
“It’s okay, you come from numbskull stock.” She looked beyond Jacques, to his father, who was grimacing agreement. “I knew you and your friends would probably be drinking, so I just kept an eye on you. It’s dangerous, isn’t it? Drinking outside in the winter.”
Gamache nodded. “What did you see tonight, Madame?”
“Unfortunately, nothing that Jacques hasn’t already described.”
“Is that true?” Gamache pressed.
“Yes. The idea wasn’t to spy on him, just to make sure he and his friends were safe. So I looked for him, but didn’t follow him.”
“And once they came inside?”
“He was safe. I was off duty and could enjoy myself. Sort of. It sure felt strange. Not the best party atmosphere. Between Madame Daoud being so unpleasant and then that professor who’s going around saying sick people should be put down, well . . .”
Well. Well, thought Gamache. How succinctly she’d just put it. He turned to the young man. “What did you do with the stick?”
“The one I touched her with?”
“Yes.”
“I threw it into the fire. Was that wrong?”
“Non, I don’t think it would’ve helped.” Then he thought of something. “The fire was still burning when you threw it in?”
“Yes.”
“Now listen closely.” Gamache leaned toward the boy. “Was it just embers, or were there flames?”
Taken aback by the cop’s intensity, Jacques thought before he answered. “Definitely flames.”
Gamache leaned back and nodded. “Merci.”
So the last time one of them went for beer or to pee, before Jacques found the body, was about ten minutes to midnight. And there was no body.
And at quarter past midnight, the alarm had been raised.
That meant the window for the murder had become a single pane. There were roughly twenty-five minutes between no body and the body.
After a few more interviews, they looked up to see Haniya Daoud standing at the door.
“I’m next.”
Gamache and Beauvoir suspected that might not be true, but chose the better part of valor. Jean-Guy indicated the sofa, and when she sat down, Gamache asked, “Are you all right?”
“Sorry?”
