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Most people, Lauzon knew, hid their cruel thoughts below the surface. But if you had the wherewithal to look, and he did, then deep down, you could see. There lived, there lurked, the worst of them. Lauzon had used what he saw against friends, colleagues, competitors. It was how he got ahead, by not being afraid to step in the piles of merde other people made and tried to hide. By understanding their true nature.

But today, on this sunny autumn afternoon, in this cheerful home, what Lauzon saw deep in Armand Gamache’s eyes wasn’t shit. It was worse than that.

It was decency.

Even, God help Gamache, kindness.

In a word, weakness. And perhaps a slight gullibility, a desire to believe the best.

Lauzon saw within that deep brown stare an Achilles’ heel in the form of a desire to believe that people really could be saved, salvaged from the wreckage of their lives.

Perhaps even a belief that Lauzon himself could be saved. That this come-to-Jesus meeting over roast chicken would work.

Had that belief always been there, or had it appeared to the head of homicide as he’d knelt on that cold concrete floor, the gun to the back of his skull? As he’d prayed. For what? Salvation.

And it had come. He’d been saved. And now did he feel his contract with God was to try to save others? It wasn’t just an Achilles’ heel. This was a superhighway of folly that led in only one direction.

“What could be worse, Armand, than a person not getting what they most want?”

The float plane had landed, and the forensics team had paddled ashore lugging their equipment, including a body bag.

While they got to work on the corpse and surrounding area, Isabelle and Vivienne packed up their campsite, remembering at the last minute to take the food and garbage out of the tree where it had been hung the night before.

“Do we still need to explore the rest of this lake?” asked Vivienne, telegraphing what she hoped and prayed would be the answer. She was wet and cold and would sell her firstborn for a coffee.

“Non. We’ll fly back to Montréal with the body.”

The first thing Isabelle needed to do was tell Frederick Castonguay’s family. She knew from their initial research into the young man that while he’d worked in Ottawa as assistant to Jeanne Caron, he was originally from Montréal.

The plane took off and circled the site where the team was searching the undergrowth for evidence. Perhaps the gun, though they all knew it would be at the bottom of the lake. Still, they needed to look.

The plane rose higher, and the three of them, and Frederick Castonguay, headed for home.

Marcus Lauzon had asked to use the washroom, and while Jean-Guy accompanied him, Evelyn Tardiff saw her chance for a quiet word.

But Gamache got there first.

Taking her quickly aside, he said, “We’ve found the body of Frederick Castonguay.”

He was looking at her with an intensity she found disconcerting. If she didn’t know it was because he needed to read her lips, she’d have thought there was another reason for that scrutiny.

“Jeanne Caron’s assistant? You’re kidding. What’s he doing dead?”

It was such a strange way of putting it that Armand almost smiled, though the situation was far from humorous.

“I take it it was not an accident,” she continued.

“Non. Bullet to the back of the head. Hands tied.”

“Moretti.” She looked puzzled. “Now why would the mafia want Caron’s assistant dead? Where was he found?”

“That’s also strange.” Gamache glanced at the kitchen door to make sure Lauzon wasn’t returning. “Castonguay’s body was found at the last lake that Charles Langlois investigated before his own murder. Up north.”

“What was he doing there?” When Gamache gave her a look, she shook her head. “Sorry. I know you don’t yet know. So, Jeanne Caron’s assistant is dead. I’ve told you all along, Armand, that the Caron woman can’t be trusted. Yes, she saved your life, but probably because she knew the plot had failed and they’d been exposed. She needed to do something dramatic to make herself look heroic. To place herself on the right side of the law. Saving you was that grand gesture.”

That had also occurred to him. But unlike everyone else involved, Jeanne Caron hadn’t tried to hide her complicity, at least in some of Marcus Lauzon’s illegal activities. But there was no evidence that she was involved in the poisoning plot. Just the opposite. It all pointed to her working with her uncle the Abbot to stop it. Even approaching Gamache himself for help.

“Why didn’t you know about this, Evelyn?”