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

by Louise Penny

  Jean-Guy raised his brows but chose not to say what everyone else in the room was also thinking.

  “So it was agreed that my boyfriend, Benedict, would be a liquidator in my place,” said Katie. “I could vouch for him. That he’s honest and kind and will do what’s right.”

  Do what she tells him, thought Jean-Guy.

  “But you broke up,” said Reine-Marie. “Benedict told us.”

  “That was planned,” she said. “There couldn’t be any connection. Not even the notary knew.”

  “So you didn’t actually break up.” Jean-Guy said to Benedict. “You appeared to but didn’t. That was another lie.”

  Layer upon layer. Lie upon lie. Covering up some rotting truth. That they still hadn’t reached.

  “Didn’t you think we’d find out?” asked Armand.

  “I didn’t think anyone would really ask,” said Katie.

  “We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong,” said Benedict.

  Armand turned to him. “As a good rule of thumb, if you have to lie, you might be doing something wrong.”

  “You told me you liked my hat, sir,” said Benedict, staring at Gamache. “Was that a lie?”

  The question, and unmistakable challenge, sat there while Gamache stared back. Assessing and reassessing the young man.

  “That was opinion,” said Gamache. “Not fact. If you’re lying about the facts, there’s something wrong. And the two of you have been doing a lot of lying. Can you really be so surprised when we doubt you?”

  “That was a great deal of effort to help an elderly woman,” said Myrna.

  Gamache, still watching Benedict, agreed. Though the word that came to his mind wasn’t “effort” but “premeditation.”

  “I wasn’t just helping her,” said Katie. “I’d seen what this whole feud had done to my mother, my aunt, my grandparents. Myself. Spending our whole lives believing our lives could be, should be, better? Thinking we’d been screwed by the Baumgartners. Waiting for some judgment a continent away? To make us happy. It was awful.” She placed a hand over her stomach, as though feeling ill. Benedict put his hand on her knee. “I agreed with the Baron and Baroness,” she said. “It had to end.”

  “And, conveniently, make sure that whatever the judgment in Vienna was, you’d inherit?” asked Armand.

  There was, Reine-Marie noticed, considerably less civility in that question. But this was not, after all, a party. The idea was not to be friendly but to get to the heart of a murder.

  “We both know, monsieur, that there’s nothing to inherit,” said Katie. “Not after all this time. The cost of the lawsuits alone would be ruinous, never mind what the Nazis did to any Jewish property. All I’d inherit would be outrage. I don’t want that. For me or my family.”

  Armand looked at this young woman and wondered if she really was that immune to the family plague. The creeping disease of hatred. The bindweed in the garden.

  Benedict caressed Katie’s hand in a way that was supportive and intimate.

  “But still,” said Armand, “it doesn’t explain everything. As liquidators we’re charged with honoring the provisions of the will. Not doing what we think is fair.”

  “That’s why she wrote the letter,” said Katie.

  “What letter?” asked Armand.

  “The Baroness wrote a letter, to be given to her eldest son, after the reading of the will. In it she explains everything.”

  “Why give it to him and not us?” asked Myrna.

  “She didn’t want her children to hear it from strangers,” said Katie. “And she thought he’d understand.”

  “Understand about sharing the fortune?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “About ending the fight.”

  “Why would she think Anthony would understand, more than the others?” asked Myrna.

  “Something to do with a painting,” said Katie. “Of a crazy old woman who wasn’t really crazy, or something like that. Apparently the others hated it, but he wanted it. I didn’t really understand what she was saying. She was rambling by then. I think she was getting confused between the painting and herself. But for some reason the painting was important to her. And to him, I guess. Anyway, she decided her eldest son was the one to get the letter.”

  “Did he?” Myrna asked.

  Armand and Jean-Guy exchanged glances.

  “We didn’t find anything like that among his papers,” said Jean-Guy.

  Armand got up. “Will you come with me, please?” he asked Jean-Guy and Myrna.

  They went to his study, and, closing the door, he made a call.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Do you know what time it is?” came Lucien’s voice.

  Gamache looked at his watch.

  “Ten past eight,” he said.

  “At night.”

  “Oui. I’m sorry for calling after hours. Myrna Landers is with me, as well as Chief Inspector Beauvoir. We have you on speaker. We have some questions.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “If it could, do you think we’d be calling?” asked Jean-Guy.

  “Did Madame Baumgartner leave a letter to be given to her son Anthony?” Gamache asked.

  The television in the background was put on mute.

  “Yes, she did. I found it in my father’s file attached to the will.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about it?” asked Myrna.

  “Why should I? Your job is to liquidate the will. This wasn’t part of that.”

  “But still,” said Myrna, “you could’ve mentioned it.”

  “And after Baumgartner was killed?” asked Beauvoir. “When it was clear it was murder? Didn’t you think to mention it then?”

  “A house fell on him,” said Lucien. “The letter didn’t kill him.”

  “How do you know?” asked Gamache. “Did you read it?”

  “No.”

  “The truth, Maître Mercier,” said Gamache.

  “I did not. Why would I care what was in the letter?”

  That at least had the ring of truth to it.

  Unless the letter was about himself, which clearly it was not, Lucien Mercier would not be interested.

  “When did you give it to him?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Right after the reading of the will. After the rest of you left.”

  “It was just the two of you?”

  “No, I think Caroline and Hugo Baumgartner were still there.”

  “Actually, Caroline left with us,” said Myrna.

  “Did he read the letter while you were there?” asked Armand.

  “No. I just handed it to him and left. I have no idea when, or even if, he read it. Why does it matter?”

  “It matters,” said Beauvoir, “because her son has been murdered. And you gave him a letter just hours before it happened. A letter than might’ve led him to contact someone. Meet someone. That might explain why he went to the farmhouse and who he met there. Do you have any idea why he might’ve gone there that night?”

  “No, none.”

  “Do you know what was in the letter, Maître Mercier?” Gamache asked. Again.

  “No.”

  The three in the study exchanged glances. Not at all sure whether to believe him.

  Though they could not think why he would lie.

  * * *

  “Lucien Mercier, the notary, confirmed that when the reading of the will was over and we’d left, he gave Anthony Baumgartner a letter from his mother,” said Armand when they’d returned to the living room.

  “Does he know what was in it?” Reine-Marie asked.

  “He says he doesn’t,” said Jean-Guy, sitting back down.

  “So no one knows what was in the letter?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “I think one of us does.”

  Armand turned to Katie.

  She looked at Benedict, who nodded.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I was there when she wrote it. In the letter she explained about meeting the Baron. About hearing his side of it. About seei
ng he wasn’t a greedy monster at all, just an old man carrying on an even older fight. She said something about a horizon. I don’t know what that was about. But she did say in the letter that if Anthony loved her, as she knew he did, he’d do one last thing for her. If they won the court case, he’d share the inheritance with the Kinderoths.”

  “A beautiful letter,” said Reine-Marie.

  “And very clear,” said Armand, who continued to watch Katie.

  “I wonder if he read it,” said Myrna. “And how he felt about it.”

  “And if he told his siblings,” said Jean-Guy. “Pretty good motive. Without Anthony and the letter, the money was theirs. With him they’d have to share. People are killed for twenty bucks. We’re talking millions.”

  “That don’t exist,” Myrna pointed out.

  “But how do we know?” asked Jean-Guy. “How do they know? We don’t and they don’t. Not until the court case is decided. And it doesn’t really matter if it exists, just that they believe it does, or hope it does.”

  Myrna nodded. People were capable of believing almost anything. And hope was even more sweeping and powerful.

  Reine-Marie was listening to this but watching Armand as he got up and threw another log on the fire, poking it and sending embers up the chimney. Then he turned around, the poker still in his hand.

  “Who wrote the letter?” he asked.

  “The Baroness,” said Katie. “I told you.”

  But the meatballs on her sweater were trembling.

  Her heart, Gamache knew. Beating so ferociously it was setting them off. Still, she was looking at him apparently calmly. Apparently coolly.

  She has courage, Gamache thought. But he also thought it was a shame she needed it. So much courage demanded to look him in the eye and tell him such a lie.

  “An elderly woman, declining mentally and physically, picked up a pen and wrote a letter?” he asked. “Setting it all out so clearly?”

  Instead of being harsh, accusing, his voice was reasonable. Soft. Inviting her, once again, to come out of the woods.

  “Yes. I watched.”

  Benedict took her hand and held it. “Katie,” he said, and nothing else. Just the one word.

  Katie.

  She dropped her eyes to the rug. To the dog staring at her and drooling.

  “She dictated it, but I wrote it for her.”

  “Merci,” said Armand, replacing the poker and sitting back down. “You know what that means, of course.”

  “It means even if you find the letter, it’s in my handwriting. There’s no proof they were her words.”

  “Oui,” said Armand.

  What he didn’t say, but that was clear to him and, he suspected, to Beauvoir, was that there was no proof of any of this. This could all be lies.

  The reconciliation. The desire to marry. Wanting to share the inheritance.

  It could all be a lie.

  Anyone who could confirm the story was dead. The Baron. The Baroness. And now Anthony Baumgartner.

  The other thing that was clear was that Benedict wasn’t the passive boy toy he appeared to be. Dressed, styled, molded, and manipulated by Katie Burke.

  He had, with one word, gotten her to speak the truth. Not, Gamache suspected, because Benedict believed in telling the truth. But because he could see that lying was no longer working.

  “There was one more thing in the letter,” said Katie.

  “Let me tell them,” said Benedict.

  He looked at Gamache. “The Baroness wanted the farmhouse torn down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she wanted them to make a clean break. Start their own lives, fresh. She knew they’d never move on as long as that house was standing. It was where she’d brought them up. Where she’d told them all those stories about the inheritance. She wanted it gone.”

  “Is that why you went there?” asked Armand.

  “Yes,” said Benedict. “I wanted to go at night, when I knew the Baumgartners wouldn’t be there. I needed to see how hard it would be to take it down. I know you said you’d have it condemned, sir, but suppose that took a while, or what if it wasn’t? I felt it was up to me to make sure it was done.”

  “I asked him to do it,” said Katie.

  “I found the support beam in the kitchen and gave it a couple of good whacks with a sledgehammer. Just to test it.”

  “It failed the test?” asked Myrna.

  “Well, yes. The place fell down. That wasn’t planned.”

  Katie held his hand tightly as he looked across at Myrna, Jean-Guy, Armand.

  “You came and found me,” said Benedict. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” said Katie.

  Reine-Marie saw a young man.

  Jean-Guy saw the cloud of concrete and plaster and snow. And heard the roar.

  And the shouting. Screaming. His own. As he fought to free himself from those who held him back.

  Myrna saw the huge beams and slabs coming down all around. She felt the rubble crushing in around her and the overwhelming terror, and disbelief, as she realized she was about to die. And she felt Billy Williams holding her hand.

  Armand looked at Benedict in front of the cheerful fire and felt the young body on top of his, trying to shield him, as the house of Baumgartner fell and the world came to an end.

  And then he saw Benedict’s dust-covered face, with the blood. And beyond it the hand, thrust up through the rubble.

  Anthony Baumgartner.

  Amelia was beginning to shiver almost uncontrollably.

  They’d been at it for hours now. Amelia recognized what this was. They were being deliberately worn down. Led by the nose through the freezing streets until they had no will, no fight left.

  Her feet were soaked through, and beside her, Marc was weeping. Begging. She didn’t know what for. He was just begging.

  Probably for this to stop. For them to stop.

  But Amelia couldn’t afford to. Even as she recognized the manipulation, she had to see it through.

  Up ahead the boy turned and gestured.

  “I found him.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Murder was essentially simple, Beauvoir was thinking as he walked with his father-in-law into the kitchen.

  The motives, even the method, might look complicated, until you figured it out. And they were figuring this one out.

  Armand closed the door into the kitchen.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s all bullshit. I think there was no friendship between the Baron and the Baroness, never mind love. Katie Burke’s story’s almost laughable. It sounds like a fairy tale.”

  “Most fairy tales are pretty dark,” said Armand, taking the tarte Tatin out of the fridge and handing it to Jean-Guy. “Have you read any to Honoré? Rumpelstiltskin? It starts with a lie and ends with a death.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for an elf,” said Jean-Guy.

  “An imp,” said Armand. He plugged the kettle in and turned to watch Jean-Guy cutting the caramelized apple tart.

  They were there, ostensibly, to get dessert, but when Reine-Marie got up to help them, she saw the look on her husband’s face and sat back down.

  “I think she’s pregnant,” said Armand. “Katie, I mean.”

  “What makes you say that? Did the elf tell you?”

  “Imp, and no. It was the way she put her hand over her abdomen when she talked about ending the family legacy of hate. And then he touched her in a way that was very tender. The way I saw you reach out for Annie when she was pregnant with Honoré. He loves her.”

  “They love each other,” said Jean-Guy, licking his fingers and thinking. “If she is pregnant, it could be even more of a motive.”

  “But for what?” asked Armand. “To end the feud or to keep it going? One keeps them happy but in poverty, the other comes with a fortune but at a price. What do they want for their child? Money or peace?”

  “Money,” said Jean-Guy. “Always money. Peace is for people
with a bank account. Look at them. He’s a so-called carpenter but really a janitor, and she’s a . . . what? Wannabe designer? She’s never gonna make money, unless it’s designing clown suits. And neither is he. And now they’re looking at a baby coming? No, their only hope, their last hope, is the judgment in Vienna.”

  “She said she didn’t believe there was any money.”

  “What’s she gonna say? Sure, maybe her more sane self tells her there isn’t a fortune left. But she’s been raised on a pretty dark fairy tale. Of huge wealth coming their way. Who doesn’t dream of that? No, you can’t tell me that Katie Burke doesn’t believe, deep down, that there’s a fortune. And it belongs to them.”

  Delusion and madness, thought Jean-Guy. Like most fairy tales.

  “Trust me,” he said. “Those two are in it up to their necks.”

  Armand told him about what had happened in the truck.

  “Do you think he was trying to crash?” asked Jean-Guy, shocked by what he heard.

  “No, I think he felt cornered and was overcome with anger when I questioned him about Katie.”

  Though they both knew that at the root of anger was fear. And fear was what propelled most murders.

  “You think they killed Anthony Baumgartner?” Armand asked.

  “I do. I think there was something in that letter that sent Baumgartner to the farmhouse. Benedict met him there and killed him.”

  “Why kill him?” asked Armand. “If the letter is telling Baumgartner to share the fortune, why would they need to kill him?”

  “Because the letter didn’t say that. Katie was lying. We have no idea what was in the letter. The Baroness might’ve dictated one thing, like Anthony should share, but Katie wrote down something else. Like Anthony should go to the old farmhouse alone the night the will was read. Which he did. Thinking it was his mother’s wishes.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “No, that’s my point. We have no idea what was in that letter. Katie might even be telling the truth.”

  Though Beauvoir clearly did not believe that.

  “All we know is that Baumgartner read it, then went to the farmhouse.”