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Armand nodded, understanding. “If he is, it means he knew enough to be dangerous to someone still out there.”

“Funny how people around you get killed,” said Beauvoir.

“I could say the same about you.” She threw him an angry glance before her eyes drifted slowly, meaningfully, back to Gamache, as though she could see the ghosts that surrounded him.

Ignoring that gibe, Armand walked over to the wall. “This map belonged to Charles Langlois, the biologist who alerted me—”

“Yes, I know who he was.” She’d joined him. “I was the one who recruited him. Remember?”

“What I remember, Jeanne, is that you hired Charles Langlois to quietly investigate what was happening at the water-treatment plants. What you didn’t assign him to do, what you didn’t even know he was doing, was visiting remote lakes.”

As he spoke, Armand’s tone was growing harder, harsher. “He hid this map.” His glare was now icy. Glare ice. “From you.”

The air crackled between them. By instinct, Jean-Guy stepped closer to Armand.

Jeanne Caron shifted her attention from Gamache to the map. Her ire forgotten.

“Why did Charles Langlois go to these lakes?” Then a thought struck her. “He was working part-time for that environmental agency. What’s it called? Agence Québec Bleu.”

“Action Québec Bleu,” Beauvoir corrected, while Gamache continued to watch Caron.

“Right. Maybe it has something to do with his work there. Maybe it’s meaningless.”

“Then why hide it?” asked Beauvoir.

She turned to look squarely at them. “You really think there’s more going on? Something else?” She watched their faces. “Something worse?”

“Oui,” said Beauvoir. “We think the poisoning of the water was the first step.”

“But if we stopped that, then maybe there is no second step.”

“Why did Marcus Lauzon, the Deputy Prime Minister, approve the sales of primary industries to Americans?” Jean-Guy asked, in what appeared to be another ninety-degree turn. “He knew it was illegal. He must’ve known if it came out, his political career would be in ruins.”

“Why do you think? He got huge kickbacks, that’s why. And thought he could cover it up.”

“With your help,” said Beauvoir.

“Oui.” There was no use denying it. She’d been given immunity in exchange for her testimony against her former boss and in light of her actions in stopping the poison attack.

“But these lakes that Langlois visited,” she said, looking again at the map, “aren’t the ones with industry. They have nothing to do with those agreements or the poisoning plot.”

They waited for her to say more, which she finally did. “Charles Langlois wrote on some of them. I recognize approval numbers, but what are the others?”

“Dates when he visited. This”—Beauvoir tapped the paper—“is the last lake he went to before he was killed.”

“But there are other numbers and symbols on it. What’s that about?”

“No idea,” admitted Armand, speaking at last.

Caron dropped her eyes to the bottom of the map. “What does this mean? This line.”

She was pointing to the dotted line that bled into Vermont.

“We don’t know,” said Beauvoir.

“Where does it go?” asked Caron.

“Jericho.”