Page 111 of The Grey Wolf
“Excellent. While you’re there, there’s someone else I need you to meet. I’ll set it up. It’s someone who knows about missing biotoxins.”
“Missing from where?”
Armand had arrived. He pulled into the parking lot of the diocese and filled Beauvoir in.
There was a pause while Beauvoir absorbed the information. “I’ll get on the next flight and get back as quick as I can. I just hope by thetime I get home Annie’s managed to scrape all the marshmallow off the ceiling.”
Armand raised his brows. This was new. But surely Jean-Guy was joking…
“Patron, doesn’t it seem more likely that Charles Langlois was murdered because he found out that the Deputy PM approved not just the pollution, but the sales of Canadian primary industries to Americans? Probably for kickbacks. It would ruin him if it came out.”
“It’s possible, yes. We have to follow both trails.”
“But…?”
“But I’m thinking of a stalking horse.”
“Of course you are. What in the world does that mean?”
Both he and Lacoste were used to the Chief throwing out odd phrases. And at least this one didn’t rhyme.Stalking horse / but of course.
“It’s something hunters hide behind to conceal the real purpose.”
“A smoke screen or diversion?” Beauvoir considered. “It’s possible.”
Gamache had had time to think about it, and he knew that if domestic terrorists wanted to poison drinking water, they’d make damned sure attention was as far away as possible. Like on the illegal sale of primary industries.
“Okay, but if that’s the case,” said Beauvoir, “and they wanted those deals to become public to divert attention, wouldn’t that fuck with Lauzon? He’d be screwed. And why kill the biologist? Wasn’t he set up to be the whistleblower?”
These were valid points. Either way, Marcus Lauzon, That Politician, was vulnerable. Was it possible Caron was setting her boss up? The Deputy Prime Minister of Canada shown to be involved in illegal sales of companies for kickbacks would be one plump stalking horse.
“Let me know what you find.”
He was already late for the meeting with the Archbishop, but Armand took time to send off a secure text to his Washington contact, asking him to meet with Inspector Beauvoir. Then, before going in, he placed a call to David Lavigne, the assistant commissioner of the RCMP.
“David, it’s—”
“Yes, I know. I was about to call you. Just waiting for one more confirmation. Listen, Armand, that meeting I was called to with Caron? The Deputy PM has taken me off GAC. I no longer have access to the committee’s information on domestic and international terrorism. I can get them through back channels, but it takes more time.”
“Do you think they realize we’re asking questions?”
“How could they? I think Lauzon is stacking the committee with his people. I’ve found something else. It looks like he made a covert trip to Ste. Émiline.”
Gamache paused. This was news. “Are you saying the Deputy Prime Minister is involved with the mob?”
Ste. Émiline was in the lower Laurentians, north of Montréal, and was a known mafia town.
“Isn’t that a bit on the nose?” Armand asked. “If he really is connected to organized crime, would he drop by the country home of one of the bosses?”
“These politicians are arrogant. I think he believes he can do whatever he wants.”
Gamache wasn’t so sure. A person, however arrogant, didn’t reach the Deputy PM without also having smarts and a keen survival instinct. This would be stupid beyond measure.
Though so was approving huge excesses in industrial pollution, and the illegal sale of companies to Americans. With his own name attached to both.
Maybe Lauzon was both stupid and arrogant. The two so often went together.
“Is it possible Jeanne Caron is setting him up?” he asked. “She makes his schedule. Maybe she sent her boss there knowing he’d be clocked.”
