The Madness of Crowds

Lacoste points out that Jean-Guy and Gamache might be overeager to see Abigail as a suspect in Debbie’s death. Because of how strongly they disagree with Abigail’s theories of eugenics, they might be biased toward suspecting her as the killer. Gamache continues to scrutinize an old photo of Paul Robinson, taken shortly before Maria died. He notices from material in the background that Colette might have been with him around this time and wonders if she could have killed Maria. He also deduces that Colette and Paul Robinson once worked together on a whimsical research project called Spurious Correlations, intended to reveal that data and statistics can be used in misleading ways. He orders Colette’s home to be searched.

While the search takes place, Gamache and Jean-Guy question Colette about the photo of Paul Robinson. She admits that she took it at a conference they both attended a few days before Maria’s tragic death. They also find a book Paul gifted to Colette, with an inscription dated the day before his death. Inside the book, they find a letter from Paul. Paul explains that he killed Maria and then made her death look like an accident.