Thierry bristled at that and the two powerful men stared at each other.
“We owe each other our lives,” said Brian.
Gamache leaned forward, fixing sharp eyes on the young man. “And one of you is dead.”
Still staring at Brian he pointed to the wall behind him. Filled with photographs of Lillian, sprawled in the Morrows’ garden. Gamache had deliberately placed all three facing the wall. And facing the pictures. So that none could forget why they were there.
“You don’t understand,” said Suzanne, her voice rising, an edge of desperation in it now. “When Lillian did that to me,” she pointed to the review, “we were different. Two drunks. I was nearing the end of my drinking and she was just starting. And yes, I hated her for it. I was already fragile and it pushed me right over the edge. After that I spent all day getting pissed and high. Whoring for my next drink. It was disgusting. I was disgusting. And finally I hit bottom and came into AA. And started to put my life together again.”
“And when Lillian walked through the doors of AA twenty years later?” Gamache asked.
“I was surprised how much I still hated her—”
“Suzanne,” the Chief Justice cautioned again.
“Look, Thierry, I’m either going to tell it all, or why bother. Right?”
He looked unhappy, but agreed.
“But then she asked me to be her sponsor,” said Suzanne, turning back to the investigators, “and something weird happened.”
“What?” asked Beauvoir.
“I forgave her.”
This was met with silence, broken eventually by Beauvoir.
“Just like that?”
“Not quite just like that, Inspector. I first had to agree. There’s something freeing, when you help your enemy.”
“Did she ever apologize for that review?” the Chief asked.
“She did. About a month ago.”
“Was she sincere, do you think?” Agent Lacoste asked.
Suzanne paused to think, then nodded. “I wouldn’t have accepted it if I thought it wasn’t. I really believe she was sorry she’d done that to me.”
“And to others?” asked Lacoste.
“And to others,” agreed Suzanne.
“So, if she apologized to you for that review,” Chief Inspector Gamache nodded to the page on the table, “presumably she was also going around apologizing to other people she reviewed.”
“I think that’s probably true. She didn’t tell me about it if she was. I thought her apology to me was just because we were sponsor-sponsee and she needed to clear it up. But now that I think about it I think you’re right. I’m not the only one she apologized to.”
“And not the only artist whose career she destroyed?” asked Gamache.
“Probably not. Not every review was as spectacularly cruel as mine. I take some pride in that. But they’d have been no less effective.”
Suzanne smiled but the officers facing her had caught the sharp edge that sliced toward them on the words “spectacularly cruel.”
* * *
When Suzanne and the others had left, the three officers sat around the conference table.
“Do we have enough to make an arrest?” asked Lacoste. “She admits to harboring a long-standing hatred of the victim and to being here. She had motive and opportunity.”
“But there’s no proof,” said Gamache, leaning back in his chair. It was frustrating. They were so close to making a case against Suzanne Coates, but they couldn’t quite nail it. “It’s all suggestive. Very suggestive.” He picked up the review and stared at it, then lowered it and looked at Lacoste.
“You need to go back to
Isabelle Lacoste’s face fell. “Anything but that,
“I’m sorry,” he smiled a little wearily. “I think that morgue has more bodies in it.”
“How so?” asked Beauvoir.
“The other artists whose careers Lillian killed.”
“The other people she was apologizing to,” said Lacoste, resigned, getting to her feet. “Maybe she came down to Clara’s party not to say sorry to Clara, but to apologize to someone else.”
“You don’t think Suzanne Coates killed Lillian?” asked Beauvoir.
“I don’t know,” admitted the Chief. “But I suspect if Suzanne wanted to kill her she’d have done it sooner. And
