Page 64 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

“Have you had a chance to examine their relationship?” Gamache asked.

Once again, the accountant smiled. That was always the beating heart of what she did. The numbers were simply the breadcrumbs that led them to the relationships.

A murder, the thrust of a knife, the pull of the trigger, the acid in the wine and words, wasn’t about facts. It all started with feelings.

“We’ve found out a little, mostly so far by just combing through social media and news reports. There’s more to find out, of course, this is just the first dive. It seems they were, are, on good terms.”

It was difficult not to use the past tense. Everyone in that room knew who the body in the vintage clothing almost certainly was. Still, until he was identified, it was best not to bury Brian Fillmore.

“Neither claimed dependents on their tax returns. No wives, no children,” she continued. “Réunion was Brian’s brainchild. He created the company and brought Charles on board to manage it. They have different skill sets.”

“Brian is the visionary, and Charles implements the vision,” said Gamache. “The Jobs and Wozniak.”

“Exactly. Along the way, Brian has made his brother a very wealthy man.”

“The funny thing about money,” said the Chief Inspector, shifting in his chair, “is that for some, there’s never enough. It’s no longer about how much you have, but how much the other one has. It becomes about power and recognition. A younger brother can grow to resent the more successful older brother. Despite, and sometimes because of, how wealthy he made him.”

Samantha Eidinger knew that was true. It was the basis of her work. How money corrupted, twisted, and eventually became a motive. It could be ten dollars, it could be a hundred million. It wasn’t the amount that mattered. It was the need it filled, financial or emotional. Money was also a cudgel, a hammer. A bond and a bind. It took hostages.

It was the invisible finger on that scale.

Both Gamache and Beauvoir had also looked up Réunion. They knew that it employed a large team of investigators who used DNA, search engines, archival material in their pursuits. The investigators flew all over the world searching vast public records and tiny country churches for registers of births, marriages, and deaths. They pored over census reports. The Réunion investigators knocked on doors and put ads in papers and on social media.

Some of the search was online. Most still required patiently sifting through microfiche, through card indexes. Through plane and train and ship manifests. This relentless search for lost relatives was both fascinating and, at times, tedious.

Not unlike what the Sûreté officers did, only their search was for people who did not want to be found.

It was just possible, thought Gamache, that the founder of Réunion also stumbled upon someone who did not want to be found. Who, quite the opposite, preferred to remain lost.

“Merci,” he said, getting up.

“There’s more, patron,” said Inspector Eidinger, also rising to her feet. “The accounts for Réunion seem in order, from what we can tell. We’ll look more closely to be sure. What is disturbing is an ongoing and growing conspiracy theory that the founder, Brian Fillmore, does not exist.”

That stopped Gamache. “I’m sorry? Do you mean that he’s disappeared?”

“No, I mean that he never existed. At least that’s what some of the social media posts are saying, and have been for a while, even before the IPO. They’re pointing out that the photo of the man on the company website, purporting to be Brian Fillmore, is actually the now dead grandson of a survivor of—”

“The Empress of Ireland,” said Jean-Guy.

The accountant touched her nose. “Just before coming up here, I found this.”

She opened her laptop. There was the photograph of a stern man who looked to be in his sixties. The same man who, on the Réunion website, was identified as its founder, Brian Fillmore.

But the conspiracy theorists had tracked him down. This was actually the photograph of one James Clybourne. A landscape architect and director of the Royal Canadian Horticultural Society.

“He died in 1999,” Beauvoir read. “Why use his picture on the Réunion site? Why hide what Brian Fillmore looks like? Why not use his real photograph?”

“The conspiracy theorists say Fillmore is a construct, a figment. A fiction,” said Eidinger. “Created to obscure who’s really behind Réunion.”

“Do they have a theory about who that is?” asked Beauvoir.

“They have a thousand theories. Most pretty outlandish.” She turned to Gamache. “A few, patron, even say you’re the founder and that you’re using your Sûreté investigators to hunt down rich relatives.”

“Let me guess,” said Beauvoir, in the face of Gamache’s surprise. “And kill them? A sort of murder-for-hire operation?”

Now Eidinger blushed. Clearly wishing she hadn’t opened this can of worms. “Well, one says that. But there’s no proof.”

“That’s a relief.” Beauvoir turned to his boss and father-in-law. “You’ve hid it well.”