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She was about to argue with him, but stopped If anyone believed in second chances, it was the man who sat before her She’d been his friend and his unofficial therapist She’d heard his deepest secrets, and she’d heard his reatest fears But now she wondered if she’d really heard the deep inside this man, who specialized in murder

"What do you know, Armand, that we don’t?"

"I can’t say"

"I also followed the court case--" She stopped, and regarded hi by not saying anything

"We didn’t hear everything, did we, Ar"

A trial within a trial

Myrna knew, from her association with the law, that the systes, but she’d never ever heard of one actually being held

There would be the public trial for public consumption, but behind closed and locked and bolted doors, there would be another Where evidence, deemed too horrific for the community, would be revealed

How bad, Myrna wondered, would soainst the fundamental beliefs of their society? How horrific would that truth have to be, to hide it froe, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, a guard, a court reporter would be present And one other

One person, not associated with the case, would be chosen to represent all Canadians They would absorb the horror They would hear and see things that could never be forgotten And then, when the trial was over, they would carry it to their grave, so that the rest of the population didn’t have to One person sacrificed for the greater good

"You more than read his file, didn’t you?" said Myrna "There was a closed-door trial, wasn’t there?"

Arhtly

Gamache and Henri left the bookstore and walked around the village green, feeling the fresh, cool autu in the scent of overripe apples and fresh-cut grass, their feet shuffling through newly fallen leaves

He didn’t tell Myrna, of course He couldn’t It was confidential And even if he was allowed to tell Myrna what he knew about the cri, he wouldn’t do it

He wished he himself didn’t know