you may or may not have changed. But you weren’t the only one of your group to lie.”
Gamache shifted his gaze to the man sitting beside Suzanne on the sofa. “You also lied, sir.”
Chief Justice Pineault looked amazed. “I lied? How?”
“It was, to be sure, more a sin of omission, but it was still a lie. You know Andre Castonguay, don’t you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Well, let me save you the trouble. Monsieur Castonguay had to stop drinking if he had any hope of keeping the Kelley Foods contract. As he himself said, they’re a notoriously sober company. And he was becoming notoriously inebriated. So he tried AA.”
“If you say,” said Thierry.
“When you arrived in Three Pines yesterday you spent an hour in Myrna’s bookstore. It’s a lovely store, but an hour seemed excessive. And then, when we sat outside you insisted on a table by the wall and sat with your back to the village.”
“It was a courtesy, Chief Inspector, to take the worst seat for myself.”
“It was also a convenience. You were hiding from someone. But then, at the end of our talk you got up and happily walked over to the B and B with Suzanne.”
Thierry Pineault and Suzanne exchanged looks.
“You were no longer hiding. I looked around and tried to figure out what had changed. And only one thing had. Andre Castonguay had left. He was making his drunken way back to the inn and spa.”
Chief Justice Pineault was giving nothing away. He stared, stone-faced, at Gamache.
“I made a small mistake tonight,” admitted Gamache. “When we arrived you and Castonguay were talking in the corner. You appeared to be arguing and I assumed it was about Clara’s art.”
He looked, and they followed his gaze, into the corner where the study of the hands was hanging.
“People argue about my art all the time. No harm done.”
But Gamache didn’t believe that. Harm had been done. A great deal of it.
“I was wrong, though,” the Chief continued. “You weren’t arguing about whether Clara’s art was any good, you were arguing about AA.”
“We weren’t arguing,” said Pineault. He took a deep breath. “We were discussing. It’s no use arguing with a drunk. And no use trying to sell someone on AA.”
“Besides,” said Gamache, “he’d already tried it.”
The two men stared at each other and finally Pineault nodded.
“He came in about a year ago, desperate to get sober,” Pineault admitted. “It didn’t work.”
“You knew him there,” said Gamache. “And I suspect you more than knew him.”
Again Pineault nodded. “He was my sponsee. I tried to help, but he couldn’t stop drinking.”
“When did he stop going to AA?” Gamache asked.
Pineault thought. “About three months ago. I tried calling him but he never returned my calls. Eventually I stopped, figuring he’d come back when he’d bottomed.”
“When you saw him here yesterday, drunk, you immediately appreciated the problem,” said Gamache.
“What problem?” asked Suzanne.
“When Andre joined our group he met a lot of people,” said Pineault. “Including Lillian. And she, of course, met him. And knew who he was right away. She told him about her art, and even showed him her portfolio. He told me about it, and I advised him not to pursue it. That men needed to stick with men, and besides, this wasn’t a networking opportunity.”
“Was talking about her art against the rules?” asked Gamache.
“There aren’t any rules,” said Thierry. “It’s just not a great idea. It’s hard enough getting sober without mixing in business.”
“But Lillian did,” said Gamache.
“I didn’t know about this,” said Suzanne. “If she’d told me I’d have told her to stop. Probably why she never told me.”
“Then Andre quit AA,” said Gamache, and Pineault nodded. “But there was a problem.”
“As you said, Andre had one big client,” said Thierry. “Kelley Foods. He lived in terror someone was going to tell them about his drinking.”
“But he couldn’t keep it secret for long,” said Myrna. “If his time here is anything to go by, he was drunk more than he was sober.”
“True,” said Thierry. “It was just a matter of time before Andre lost everything.”
“As soon as you saw him here you realized what might have happened,” said Gamache. “You listen to trials all the time, often murder trials. You put things together.”
Pineault seemed to be considering what to say next. Everyone naturally leaned forward, toward the Chief Justice. Drawn to the silence, and the promise of a story.
