Page 185

The same with people. He knew perfectly pleasant people who turned out to be killers. And despicable people who were capable of great kindness and courage.

And so it was that the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec found himself sitting in Maître Lebel’s office once again. Hands folded on his lap. Staring out the window. Tempted to get up and sift through the papers on Lebel’s desk while he waited.

Waited. Twenty-five minutes past their appointment time. Though that did give him more time to order his thoughts. How to present the case to the Crown Prosecutor.

After arresting Aimée Lagacé, Armand had first gone to speak with Charles Fillmore, to give him the news.

The man’s home was his castle, almost literally. Armand had sat in the soulless living room and told Charles what had happened. Who had killed his brother and why. And that an arrest had been made.

Fillmore had taken a shuddering breath, then exhaled. There was no relief. Just sadness. The man was profoundly lonely. As empty as this place.

Armand almost suggested he consider selling it and move into Brian’s modest brick bungalow in the old neighborhood. With its jumble of mismatched furniture and overstuffed bookcases and a garden filled with butterflies.

Of course Armand didn’t make that suggestion. It was none of his business, and people had to be true to themselves. He and Charles shook hands at the door. Then the Chief Inspector had called Janice Bouchard before driving over to her home.

Jeanette’s mother had shrunk in on herself, from the grief devouring her as much as the cancer. But when he arrived, he found she’d managed to make them a pot of tea and had brought a plate of cookies into the living room.

Peduncle sat curled on the arm of the sofa beside where Madame Bouchard always sat. Or perhaps that had been Jeanette’s place. There was the permanent indent in the cushions, like a ghost. He watched as Madame Bouchard sat at the other end of the sofa. Leaving the cushions undisturbed.

Here was another modest and comfortable home that reminded him a little of where he grew up. As did the contours of an absent body.

As a child, young Armand had ferociously guarded the ones in his sofa, never letting anyone sit where his mother always had. And still would. Still would …

While he didn’t really want tea, he accepted the offer of a mug and cookie.

Armand sat with her that evening and walked her through what had happened. What would happen. What could happen.

“Was Jeanette there when it happened?”

“No, there’s no evidence she knew what Aimée Lagacé had planned. Or that she’d been there when Brian Fillmore was murdered. It was only after the fact she found out.”

Madame Bouchard hadn’t touched her cookie but had managed to get the mug to her lips. Once. Now it sat in her thin hands, with cartoon cats dancing around it.

“And when she found out that that woman had killed Monsieur Fillmore, Jeanette didn’t go to the police?”

“No.”

Madame Bouchard held his eyes, as though trying to find the answer in them. How she could have raised a child who would not report a murder. Who would, in fact, help cover it up.

“Why?”

Armand knew the answer to that, or at least thought he did. Jeanette had been hired by Dr. Lagacé to collect information on Brian Fillmore. And to research the enigmatic Daisy Wolcott. To try to find out what it was that the long-dead Victorian had discovered. And why the eccentric millionaire thought it was so valuable.

Lagacé needed information. And Jeanette needed money. Lots of it. To cover her mother’s private care. To keep her in her home, to the end.

That’s why Jeanette didn’t say anything when faced with the corpse. It was too late to help the dead man, but she could help her mother.

Janice Bouchard had raised a child who could make the difficult calculations and come to an even more difficult decision. Not necessarily what the law, or society, said was right or moral. But it was one she could live with.

Though she hadn’t long to live. Not when Aimée Lagacé realized that once Jeanette’s mother died, she would almost certainly go to the police.

But then Daisy Wolcott’s house had done her work for her. It had killed Jeanette before Dr. Lagacé had to. That must have felt like a godsend to the botanist.

What Armand still didn’t know was why Jeanette had gone to Daisy Wolcott’s old home in England at all. What possible purpose did it serve?

Time enough to find out, and he would. But for now, he sat in the over-warm living room with the thin woman wrapped in a mohair shawl. As he had at their first meeting, he took her frigid hands in his warm ones and held them loosely.

“I don’t know for sure why Jeanette did what she did. I do know that your daughter was a good woman and she loved you. Deeply.”