“No, I want the village to read it,” said Gamache. “A play’s meant to be performed.”

“We’re going to put on the play?” asked Beauvoir. “Wait a minute. It can be done. Mom can do the costumes and we can use Uncle Ned’s barn.”

“Calm down, Andy Hardy,” said Gamache. “I meant a read-through. We need people to read it while we listen.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” said Lacoste. “But it’ll take time. An hour and a half at least by the time you even start. By then it’ll be almost six o’clock. If you’re wrong—”

“If we’re wrong we have Agent Cohen in place,” said Gamache.

“Well, it might all work,” said Lacoste. “Don’t these things usually turn out well?”

Gamache gave a single gruff laugh. “Always.”

He started walking rapidly toward the village. “I think we should do it in our home. More private. I’ll round up some people we know we can trust. What is it?”

He’d noticed her hesitation and stopped.

“And who can we trust?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Let me ask you this,” she said. “If someone arrived in Three Pines two weeks ago and met you walking Henri or sitting on your porch with Madame Gamache, would they know who you were and what you’d done?”

He smiled slightly. She had a point.

Who could know that Myrna hadn’t always run a used bookstore, but was once a prominent psychologist in Montréal? Who knew the woman with wild food-infested hair was a great artist?

How many of the people in Three Pines were on their second or third acts? People had hidden depths, but they also had hidden pasts and hidden agendas.

Who could really be trusted?

Jean-Guy had asked about Monsieur Béliveau. It seemed unlikely he had anything to hide, but was it any more unlikely than that the quiet man walking the shepherd with the extravagant ears had once hunted murderers for a living? Or that the burly organic gardener was a war criminal?

“Someone here killed Laurent,” Lacoste reminded him. “And Antoinette. Someone is not who they appear to be.”

“Once again, though,” said Gamache, “we have no choice. We need help. We need their help,” he said, gesturing toward the village.

He waited, poised to act, until Chief Inspector Lacoste gave a curt nod, then he hurried across the bridge.

“I’ll get the scripts,” said Beauvoir. “You coming?”

Isabelle Lacoste was standing still. She met his eyes and shook her head.

“No, I think you and the Chief are enough.” She looked at her computer where, like Beauvoir’s, the screen saver was rotating photographs of Laurent and Antoinette. “I have work to do here. You look for the plans, I’ll look for the murderer. We’ve gotten sidetracked by the gun. More misdirection, and I fell for it.”