Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #14)

by Louise Penny

For just a moment, he allowed himself the aroma of pancakes and bacon on a Saturday morning.

  Then he locked it away again. In the private room he was saving. He’d crawl into it, and curl into a tiny ball, and close his eyes. And sit at his mother’s table. Eating pancakes, and bacon, and maple syrup. Forever.

  He stared down at the junkies and trannies and whores gathered out there. Waiting for Amelia. To do what?

  They only wanted one thing. He only wanted one thing. For the pain to stop.

  “This David doesn’t want to be found,” said Amelia.

  And for good reason, she knew. If they were looking for the carfentanil, others would be too. And he wouldn’t have it in his pocket. He’d have to have a whole operation.

  “Like a factory,” she said out loud, though she knew she was still just talking to herself. “Right? ’Cause he’d have to cut it. Package it. Prepare it for the streets. Thousands and thousands of hits. He’d need space. And time. He’d know that once it hit the streets, all hell was going to break loose. Between the cops, the mob, the bikers. Every piece of shit within thousands of miles will come to Montréal, looking for it. Looking for him. Right?”

  Marc’s sandwich hit the floor with a soft thud. But he remained standing. Swaying slightly. Like a cow asleep on its feet. Not aware it was in the abattoir.

  “So he’d have to sell as much as he could, as fast as he could, then get the hell gone,” said Amelia. “That’s why it’s not out yet. David doesn’t want to sell it until he can sell it all. It must be in some basement. Some drug factory.”

  This David had marked her. To warn her off. Thinking she was just some newcomer junkie, making inquiries.

  She might not know who David was, but he clearly had no idea who she was. And what she was capable of.

  CHAPTER 30

  Chief Superintendent Gamache was already there when Jean-Guy arrived at Isabelle Lacoste’s home.

  He joined them at the kitchen table.

  They looked at each other, and then, in unison, all three said, “Tell me what you know.”

  “You first, Jean-Guy,” said Gamache, smiling at his son-in-law and naturally taking charge.

  Beauvoir told them quickly, succinctly, about his meeting with Bernice Ogilvy. And his thoughts as he drove over to meet them.

  “Do you think it’s . . . possible Baumgartner knew nothing about it?” asked Lacoste. “That someone else was stealing the client’s . . . money and using his name?”

  “And Baumgartner was killed because he found out?” said Beauvoir. “Follow the money. One of the first rules of homicide.”

  He looked at the Chief Superintendent. They’d spent much of their apprenticeship as agents watching Gamache break not the law but the so-called rules of homicide investigation. Which was why, as Beauvoir and Lacoste knew, his department had a near-perfect record of finding killers.

  “Murderers haven’t read the rule book,” he’d told them. “And while money’s important, there are other forms of currency. And poverty. A moral and emotional bankruptcy. Just as a rape isn’t about sex, a murder is rarely about money, even when money’s involved. It’s about power. And fear. It’s about revenge. And rage. It’s about feelings, not a bank balance. Follow the money, certainly. But I can guarantee when you find it, it’ll stink of some emotion gone putrid.”

  “Go on,” Gamache now said to Beauvoir.

  “It would sure be a good reason to kill Baumgartner,” said Beauvoir. “Whoever was stealing from the clients was facing not just ruin but prison if Baumgartner exposed him.”

  “In killing Baumgartner he kept his wealth and freedom,” said Lacoste. “Pretty good motive, I agree.”

  “And now,” said Gamache, “pick it apart. What’s wrong with that theory?”

  Far from being annoyed at this challenge, Beauvoir found it one of his favorite things to do. He was very good at finding fault, even with his own theories. And this was far from a theory he owned or, as Madame Ogilvy would say, was invested in. It simply interested him.

  “Okay,” said Beauvoir. “If he wasn’t stealing from his clients, then what were the statements doing in Baumgartner’s study?”

  “He’d just discovered what was happening,” said Lacoste, taking on the devil’s-advocate role, to Beauvoir’s delight. “He was shocked and angry and needed to study them to make absolutely sure before accusing anyone.”

  “But how would he know, just from those papers, who was doing it? They only have his name on them.”

  “He’s a smart man,” said Lacoste. “He knows Taylor and Ogilvy and who was likely to be able to do it.”

  It was a weak argument, they recognized. One the devil would probably lose in court. But possible.

  “And who would that be?” Gamache asked. It was unusual for him to interrupt this part of the process. He preferred to listen and absorb.

  This showed he thought they just might be onto something.

  “The broker doing the trades for him,” suggested Beauvoir. “I’m having him brought in for questioning.”

  “And?”

  “The obvious,” said Jean-Guy. “Bernice Ogilvy.”

  “What did you make of her?” Gamache asked.

  “She’s young, bright. Got there because of her family, of course, but she has the skills and temperament to keep the job. She’s smart. Ambitious. Adaptable.”

  “Greedy?” asked Gamache.

  Beauvoir thought about that. “Entitled, maybe. I think she’d do just about anything to protect what’s hers.”

  “Would she steal from clients and blame her former mentor?” asked Gamache.

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir found himself coloring slightly at the mention of betraying a former mentor. And he wondered, fleetingly, whether Gamache could possibly know about the meeting that morning. And the paper he’d signed.

  “She understood very quickly how it could be done,” said Beauvoir. “Maybe too quickly. And she strikes me as the sort who thinks she’s smarter than those around her.”

  “Probably . . . because she is,” said Lacoste. “Besides, who really believes they’re going to get caught? Madame Ogilvy knows the . . . business and knows how to get around any scrutiny.”

  “Just set up fake accounts,” said Gamache. “It’s so simple. No one at Taylor and Ogilvy would see them. And the clients would have no idea. They’d continue to get what looked like real statements, with real transactions. They’d have dividends and profits deposited in their account. All would look perfectly normal.”

  “Except she’d be putting the capital, their initial investment, into her own account,” said Beauvoir. “And paying out generous so-called dividends to keep clients from asking any questions.”

  “Could they have been in it together?” Lacoste asked. “Ogilvy and Baumgartner?”

  “Agent Cloutier suspects there’d have been two of them,” said Beauvoir. “And don’t forget, Baumgartner himself wasn’t exactly splashing money around. He lived in the same house. Drove a decent but sensible car. Why would he steal and not spend the money?”

  “Retirement,” said Lacoste. “Squirreling it away in some offshore account. Then one day he disappears.”

  As Gamache listened, a series of photos in Baumgartner’s home came to mind. Of Baumgartner and his children. Happy. Radiant, in fact. Was this the face of a man willing to turn his back and never see them again? Disappear to some Caribbean refuge? For what? A power boat and marble bathrooms?

  “Désolé,” said Gamache. “I’ve taken you off course. Back to the arguments. You were making the case for Anthony Baumgartner’s finding out about the embezzlement and confronting whoever was doing it.”

  “Right,” said Beauvoir, refocusing. “So he stumbles on what’s happening. Maybe one of the so-called clients calls him or he runs into them at a party, and they ask about their account. An account he knows nothing about. Baumgartner does some digging, finds the fake statements, and brings the evidence home. He pores over them, then arranges to meet the person
he suspects was—”

  “Why?” Lacoste interrupted.

  “Why what?”

  “Why not just go to his manager?”

  “Maybe the manager’s the one who’s doing it?” said Beauvoir.

  “Then why not go to the industry regulator?” asked Lacoste.

  “Because he’s not sure,” said Beauvoir, feeling his way along more slowly now. “Or he is sure and doesn’t want to believe it. He wants to give this person a chance to explain or clear themselves. Or maybe he doesn’t realize he’s talking to the guilty party.”

  Gamache shifted in his chair and tilted his head.

  This was interesting.

  “Maybe he asked to meet someone he thinks will be an ally,” said Beauvoir, gaining more confidence in this unexpected theory. “To show them the evidence and ask what they think.”

  “And the person kills him?” asked Lacoste. “Bit of an . . . overreaction. Can’t the person just muddy the waters or send B . . . Baumgartner off in the wrong direction? They must know that if they kill Baumgartner then the cops, aka us, will definitely be involved, and asking questions.”

  “Why?” asked Beauvoir, turning the tables on her.

  “Why ask questions? It’s kinda how we . . . solve murders, isn’t it?” asked Lacoste.

  Armand Gamache was watching this. Two smart young investigators, hashing out the most vile of crimes. His investigators. His protégés. Now more than capable of running whole departments on their own.

  He missed this. Not simply sitting around kitchen tables trying to solve a murder. But doing it with these two. With Jean-Guy and Isabelle. Going at it like siblings.

  “I know you prefer to just arrest the first person you meet in an . . . investigation,” said Isabelle. “But the rest of us actually investigate.”

  “Merci,” said Beauvoir, smiling thinly and recognizing the patronizing tone as a ruse, an attempt by Isabelle to get under his skin. It worked more often than he was willing to show.

  “But I meant why would we ask about an embezzlement?”

  “Because”—now she sounded patient in the extreme—“the investigation would uncover it.”

  “But would it? I hope so, but it’s far from a given, especially if Baumgartner had nothing to do with it,” said Beauvoir. “Look, suppose Baumgartner was inadvertently meeting with the person who was actually responsible for the embezzlement—wouldn’t he take along his evidence? Even if he was meeting with someone he suspected, he’d take it along. As proof.”

  “Right,” said Lacoste, her voice guarded. Trying to see where this was going. “So?”

  But Gamache could see and was smiling slightly.

  “So that person would know two things,” said Jean-Guy. “That there was nothing linking Baumgartner to the thefts. On his computer or files or anywhere. So any investigation into his death would reveal exactly nothing. And the killer would reasonably expect that whatever papers Baumgartner had with him were probably his only copies. Might even have asked, to make sure they were.”

  “So he’d kill Baumgartner and destroy the evidence,” said Lacoste, forgetting to argue.

  “Exactly.”

  Gamache waited to see if either of them would spot the flaw in that argument. He waited.

  And waited.

  “If those were his only proof,” said Jean-Guy, “why were the statements found in his study?”

  And there it was, thought Gamache. The problem.

  If Baumgartner was meeting someone to either confide suspicions or confront them about the embezzlement, he’d take proof. And the person, after killing Baumgartner, would take that proof and burn it.

  So why were there copies of the incriminating statements next to his computer?

  And there was another problem with this theory.

  “Why the farmhouse?” asked Lacoste.

  Yes, thought Gamache. Why meet at the farmhouse?

  “Familiar ground,” suggested Beauvoir. “Maybe he was going to be there anyway, a final look around before it was torn down. Maybe the reading of the will brought up childhood memories and he wanted to visit. Convenience, coupled with the need to be in what he, even unconsciously, considered a safe place.”

  “At night? Without electricity or heat?” asked Lacoste.

  Beauvoir nodded. Hugo had said they’d had dinner together. He’d left early, but still, it would have been dark.

  “And why was he upstairs?” asked Lacoste.

  “Looking around,” said Beauvoir. “In his childhood bedroom.”

  It was credible, though hanging on to believability by a thread.

  “Don’t forget,” said Beauvoir, “Baumgartner didn’t expect to be killed. Either he thought he was meeting a friend, someone who’d help him, or he thought he’d be confronting someone. That it would be a shitty conversation. But he clearly didn’t see this person as any physical threat. Or he’d never have agreed to meet him—”

  “Or her,” said Lacoste.

  “—there.”

  “There’s another problem,” said Lacoste. “The convenience of the building falling down.”

  “But was it convenient?” asked Beauvoir. “It meant Baumgartner’s body was found, maybe sooner than the killer expected. If it hadn’t fallen, it’s possible his body wouldn’t have been found for a long time.”

  “I guess it’s also possible Baumgartner didn’t arrange to meet this person at the farmhouse,” said Lacoste. “Maybe he was followed there and killed.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Suppose Baumgartner got in touch with the person he suspected and arranged to . . . meet them the next day, at the office. The person, knowing they were in trouble, drives over to Anthony Baumgartner’s . . . home, maybe to kill him there, but then sees him leaving. He follows him to the abandoned the house and kills him there.”

  “Bit convenient for the killer, non?” asked Beauvoir.

  “But it fits, and it explains the timing, with the will,” said Lacoste, warming to her just-discovered theory. She turned to Gamache. “You and Myrna and Benedict read them their mother’s will. While . . . ridiculous, it was very much the Baroness. It stirs feelings of childhood, and Anthony decides to drive out and see the old. . . . place before it’s torn down or sold.”

  Beauvoir snorted, but Gamache tilted his head. He drove, every now and then, past the house he grew up in. And after Reine-Marie’s mother died and before they sold the family home, she’d wanted one last walk around.

  What Lacoste was describing was emotionally valid. Though Beauvoir was also right. It did seem a bit too convenient for the murderer. That Baumgartner would just happen to be in a remote farmhouse, designed for quiet murder.

  “Bon,” he said. “Let’s move on to the more likely theory. That Anthony Baumgartner not only knew about the money being stolen but was responsible. Who killed him then?”

  “One of his targets,” said Beauvoir. “Someone who found out.”

  “But why kill him? Why not just tell someone at his company or, better still, go to the police?” asked Lacoste.

  “Because the company had been told once and nothing happened to him,” said Beauvoir. “A slap on the wrist. Why trust Taylor and Ogilvy to do something this time, when they did nothing last time?”

  “Okay, but my question stands,” said Lacoste. “Why not go to the police or a lawyer? Why not sue his . . . ass? Why confront Baumgartner?”

  “Because they weren’t sure,” said Beauvoir. “Most people can’t believe someone they trust is stealing. They’d ask first, and if they didn’t like the answer, then they’d take the next step.”

  “Right,” said Lacoste. “A lawyer or the police. Plan B surely isn’t to kill the guy. But you’re saying that’s what . . . happened. What would that achieve?”

  “It was a bang on the head,” said Beauvoir. “Has the makings of a sudden rage, not something planned out. As much as Baumgartner didn’t expect to be killed, I’m betting whoever did this didn�
�t expect to kill.”

  Gamache was listening. But there remained one big problem with that theory. A familiar one.

  “Why the farmhouse?” Lacoste asked. “Would Baumgartner really agree to meet a client, someone he was stealing from, there? Even if he didn’t know . . . what it was about, that’s a long way to go. Out in the middle of nowhere. And a pretty personal space. I just don’t buy it.”

  Gamache was listening to this and thinking that it wasn’t so easy to find a place to kill someone. Even in rural Québec. A forest would make sense, but how do you lure a client, who’s already suspicious, into the woods?

  “Come on,” said Lacoste, following the same line of thought. “Would the client really agree to meet in an isolated, abandoned home? I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” Beauvoir turned to Gamache. “You did. When you got the letter from the notary.”

  Gamache gave a short laugh. “True, but I wasn’t going there to confront someone. And I didn’t realize it was abandoned until I got there.”

  “And there you have it,” said Beauvoir. “The client who’s being screwed wouldn’t know either. He’d gone that far, and I’m sure Baumgartner explained it was his mother’s house. It sounded okay. Safe.”

  It was possible, thought Gamache. But far from probable. Though it did explain why those statements were still in Baumgartner’s study. He was doing the stealing. And the killing. And he expected to be home.

  “So,” said Lacoste. “We have two theories. That Anthony Baumgartner was doing the stealing and that he wasn’t.”

  “Doesn’t feel like progress to me,” admitted Beauvoir.

  “Let’s move from theories to facts,” said Gamache.

  “D’accord,” said Beauvoir, putting a slip of paper on the kitchen table. “I have information on the assistant who was fired. His name’s Bernard Shaeffer. Taylor and Ogilvy had his address from when he worked for them, but nothing since.”

  “Bernard Shaeffer,” repeated Lacoste. She took the paper and entered his name in her laptop. “His address is the same,” she said, reading from the government files. “Looks like he’s now working for the . . . Caisse Populaire du Québec.”