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

by Louise Penny

  “Sounds like a lot to me,” said Caroline.

  But Hugo understood. He was watching Beauvoir, his ugly face expressive. “According to the statements you showed me, he’d taken hundreds of millions. So where’s the rest?”

  “Exactly.”

  Beauvoir nodded to Agent Cloutier, who put Anthony Baumgartner’s laptop on the table and set it up.

  “It took us a while, but we finally got into your brother’s computer.” Beauvoir looked at them. “I hope this won’t upset you.”

  They looked at each other, and Caroline gave a curt nod. “Best we know. I expect it’ll all be made public soon enough.”

  “The interesting thing about your brother,” said Beauvoir as Cloutier brought up the files, “is that almost without exception he was described as decent, brilliant. A great mentor and a man of integrity, who when he discovered wrongdoing, turned the person in, knowing he’d get some of the blame.”

  “That was the Tony we knew,” said Hugo.

  “But his actions told a different story. A man who was brilliant, yes, but deceitful. Embezzling not just tens of millions but hundreds of millions. Who betrayed a young co-conspirator and turned him in when it looked like they’d be caught. It’s a familiar story for those of us in homicide. People lead double lives. They appear to be one thing while actually being not just something else but something totally opposite to what people think.”

  “How else do they get away with it?” said Hugo.

  Beauvoir was nodding. “Except most don’t. Let me show you what we found on his laptop.”

  * * *

  The Premier stood at his desk, and Gamache rose also.

  He’d been in the Premier’s Montréal office less than ten minutes.

  These things didn’t take long.

  “I’m sorry, Armand,” said the Premier, looking down at the unopened envelope on his desk. “If there was any other course possible, I’d have taken it.”

  “I appreciate your telling me yourself, and in person. I knew what would probably happen when I made those decisions. It could’ve been worse. You could be arresting me.”

  “You’ve made some enemies, Armand, but you have a lot more friends. I hope you know I’m one of them.”

  “I do.”

  “And you got the drugs back, that’s what matters. I’ve been reading the preliminary report on what happened. You do know that if you hadn’t already been suspended, you’d have been suspended for what you just did.” He looked at Gamache closely. “And no one else knew you’d had a cadet thrown out of the academy and that she was working with you?”

  “No one.”

  “Not even Beauvoir?”

  “Not even him. Just Cadet Choquet and me.”

  The Premier nodded slowly. But decided not to question it further. The less he knew . . . He walked forward, to show Gamache the door.

  “How is she?”

  “Recovering. She’ll be running the Sûreté one day.”

  “Yeah, well, the job’s open. Apparently you have to be half crazed to accept it, so that bodes well for her. I just hope I’m long retired by the time there’s a Chief Superintendent Choquet.”

  Gamache smiled, then paused at the threshold. “There is something you can help me with.”

  “Name it.”

  “There’s a little girl. . . .”

  * * *

  Gamache called Reine-Marie and told her what happened, then drove across town to the low-rise apartment building and pressed the button for the caretaker’s apartment.

  Benedict let him in, and a few minutes later Gamache was sitting on a worn sofa in the tiny basement apartment. Katie and Benedict were across from him, sitting on boxes.

  “Have you figured out who killed Monsieur Baumgartner?” Benedict asked. “You know, I thought for a minute yesterday, at your place, that you suspected us.”

  “More than a minute,” said Katie.

  “No, I haven’t come about that. Chief Inspector Beauvoir will be by later this morning to talk with you.”

  They exchanged glances, then Katie asked, “Why have you come?”

  “There’s a decision in the court case in Vienna. It came down this morning.”

  Benedict took Katie’s hand, and they waited.

  “They ruled in favor of the Baumgartners.”

  The couple sat still for a moment, then Benedict put his arm around Katie and she nodded.

  “It’s what we expected,” said Katie. “And without that letter the Baron and Baroness’s wishes won’t be followed. They’ll keep it for themselves.”

  “It’s theirs to keep,” Benedict said. “You did your best. We’ll be fine.”

  He hugged her closer.

  “The sins I was told were mine from Birth / And the Guilt of an old Inheritance,” thought Gamache as he left them and headed over the Champlain Bridge toward Reine-Marie and home.

  Maybe it stops now, with their child.

  * * *

  Hugo Baumgartner was staring at the laptop, his lower lip thrust out in concentration.

  “Are you following?” asked Agent Cloutier.

  “Yes, thank you,” he said with a patient smile. And returned to the screen. After a few minutes, he sighed. “So Tony and Shaeffer were working together after all. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I really didn’t think Tony had it in him.”

  “I’m afraid that’s what it looks like,” said Beauvoir. He scrolled down as he spoke.

  Hugo was studying the screen, nodding. “They’ve taken the usual routes to hide money.”

  “You know a lot about it?” asked Beauvoir.

  “More than some,” he admitted. “But less than most. Mr. Horowitz asked me to head a committee investigating offshore accounts.”

  “To set them up?” asked Beauvoir.

  Hugo gave him an amused looked. “To make sure we weren’t inadvertently helping clients hide money. Partly moral, but also practical. Mr. Horowitz is wealthy enough, he doesn’t need that money, and he sure doesn’t need the trouble if the regulators and the media find out.”

  “Did you find any?” asked Beauvoir.

  “More than we expected, Chief Inspector. The wealthy have a way of justifying things. They live in distorted reality. If everyone at the club’s doing it, it must be okay.”

  “‘They’?” asked Beauvoir. “You don’t consider yourself one of them?”

  “Wealthy? No,” he laughed. “I’m very well off, rich by most standards, but these people have hundreds of millions. I’m not in that club, nor do I wish to be. I’m happy where I am.”

  Hugo returned to the screen. “One thing I do know is that we’ll need to find the number of the account in Singapore. Has Shaeffer given it to you?”

  “He says he doesn’t have it. In fact, he seemed surprised about this second account.”

  “He must be lying,” said Hugo. “Unfortunately, the bank in Singapore won’t tell you, and they can’t be compelled to give out the information. But Tony must’ve written it down somewhere.”

  “Well,” said Beauvoir. “You’re right about that. It was written down.”

  “You found it?” asked Hugo.

  “Behind the painting,” said Agent Cloutier.

  “Which painting?” asked Caroline.

  “The one in his study,” said Beauvoir. “Above the fireplace.”

  “Of the crazy old lady?” said Caroline. “That’s where Anthony hid it?” She thought for a moment, then said, “Smart, actually. It’d be pretty safe there. I can tell you that no one goes near it. God knows what the Baroness saw in that thing. Miserable piece of so-called art. You thought the same thing, didn’t you?”

  Hugo nodded.

  “Poor Anthony ended up with it,” she said. “Told her he liked it. Something about a white dot in the distance. He was just being polite, and look where it got him. She gave it to him, and he had to hang it up. No matter what you say he did, there was a lot of kindness in him.”

  “I haven’t said he did anything
,” said Beauvoir. “At least not anything illegal.”

  “What do you mean?” She pointed to the laptop. “Isn’t that the proof?”

  Beauvoir nodded to Cloutier, who started putting the numbers in.

  “After all our high-tech hunting, it was writing on the back of a painting that finally gave us the proof we needed.”

  Cloutier hit enter, and up came the account.

  Caroline’s eyes widened.

  “Three hundred and seventy-seven thousand,” she whispered.

  Then her expression changed, to confusion.

  “But I don’t understand. That says Hugo Baumgartner.” She turned to her brother. “Was Anthony trying to make it look like it was you?” And then she understood.

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir stood, and Agent Cloutier experienced another first.

  Her first arrest for murder.

  CHAPTER 38

  “So.” Ruth’s voice, querulous, stalked in from the living room to the kitchen, where Armand and Reine-Marie were preparing warm hors d’oeuvres. “The idea is to run around the village green at minus twenty, in our bathing suits, wearing snowshoes?

  “Yes,” said Gabri. “It was Myrna’s idea.”

  “Was not.”

  “Was too.”

  “I think it’s brilliant,” said Ruth. “Count me in.”

  “We’re doing this at night, right?” Clara whispered to Gabri.

  “Now we are.”

  “Have you heard from Justin Trudeau yet?” Myrna asked. “Is he coming?”

  “Oddly, the Baroness Bertha Baumgartner here has not yet heard back from the Prime Minister’s office,” said Olivier.

  “You used her name?” asked Ruth.

  “It was Myrna’s idea,” said Gabri.

  “Was not.”

  “Was too.”

  “That’s . . . that’s . . .” Ruth struggled to find the right word. “Brilliant too. She’d have liked that. But I can’t believe Justin Trudeau isn’t keen to strip down and race around a tiny village. He’s taken his shirt off for less. He once did it for a bag of Cheetos. I think.”

  “We still have time,” said Gabri. “He’ll reply. The Winter Carnival isn’t until the weekend.”

  “If there was a ribbon for faint hope, he’d win,” said Olivier with pride.

  “Okay, here’s a question,” said Ruth. “One that philosophers have been asking for centuries. Which would you rather have? A numb skull or a numb nut?”

  “Dear God,” whispered Reine-Marie, peering around the corner of the kitchen at their assembled guests. “What’ve we done?”

  “Ahh, the age-old question,” said Stephen Horowitz, sitting beside Ruth on the sofa. “I believe Socrates asked his students the same thing.”

  “It was Plato,” said Ruth.

  “Was not.”

  “Was too.”

  “I think,” Armand said to Reine-Marie, “we should keep an eye out for two more Horsemen.”

  “Well, he’s your godfather,” she said. “And it was your idea to invite him down to meet Ruth.”

  “I kind of thought they might cancel each other out.”

  “More like Godzilla meets Mothra,” said Gabri, walking into the kitchen and taking a grilled parmesan on baguette off the tray they were preparing. “Tokyo is not safe. We, by the way, are Tokyo.”

  “There you are, Armand,” said Stephen when they returned to the living room. “I have some questions for you.”

  “Numb skull,” said Armand.

  “No, not that. Though that is the right answer.” The elderly man looked at the hors d’oeuvre platter and asked, “Caviar?”

  “They’re provincial,” said Ruth. “Come over to my place later. I have a little jar and a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon.”

  “Taken from us on New Year’s Eve,” muttered Olivier, still fuming.

  “The jar of caviar was open,” said Clara. “By now it’ll probably kill her.”

  “That’s the one you took,” said Myrna. “We ate it the next day, with chopped egg on toast.”

  “Oh right. Never mind.”

  Stephen held out his glass, and Armand refreshed it. “You know what I’m going to ask.”

  “I’ll let Jean-Guy explain,” said Armand, correctly guessing what was on Stephen Horowitz’s mind. “He’s the head of homicide. He figured it out.”

  Jean-Guy looked uncomfortable, and not just because Rosa was sitting on his lap. Beside him, in the crook of his arm, Honoréwas staring at Rosa, transfixed by the duck, who was muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Then Jean-Guy heard another voice repeating the same word.

  His eyes widened, and he looked at Annie, who was staring at their son.

  His first word.

  Not “Mama.” Not “Papa.”

  “Shhh,” said Jean-Guy, but by now others had noticed the odd echo coming from the armchair.

  “I think,” said Annie, going over and scooping up their son, “it’s time for a bath.”

  And that’s when Honorélet loose. One great, long “Fuuuuck!”

  Even Rosa looked startled, but then ducks often did.

  “Ahh,” said Reine-Marie and looked at the fire, while Armand raised his eyes to the ceiling, suddenly finding the plaster fascinating.

  Ruth hooted with delight, and Stephen said, “Attaboy, Ray-Ray. You tell ’em.”

  Armand dropped his eyes and looked at his godfather. “Nice. Merci.”

  “Only you, my dear boy, could have a grandson whose greatest influence is a mallard.”

  “Is she a mallard?” Clara asked Ruth, who shrugged and took a long swig of Stephen’s drink.

  “Okay, off we go,” said Annie while Honoré, in her arms and noticing the reaction his first word got, wailed it all the way down the hall.

  “Good God,” sighed Reine-Marie.

  “Good lungs,” said Stephen.

  Beauvoir tried not to notice the tightly pressed lips of Clara, Myrna, Gabri, and Olivier. Even Armand and Reine-Marie looked amused.

  “You have some questions, sir?” Jean-Guy asked Stephen.

  It had been a day since the arrests of Bernard Shaeffer and Hugo Baumgartner. One for embezzlement, one for murder.

  “Hugo. What happened? I can follow the scheme,” said Stephen. “But I don’t know the details. He wasn’t just my employee. A senior vice president. I trusted him. I must be getting old.”

  “You’re already there,” said Ruth.

  “I can tell you most of what happened,” said Jean-Guy.

  Everyone leaned forward.

  Even Myrna, who already knew. Armand had told her. And she, in confidence, had told Clara. Who had told Gabri in confidence, who immediately told Olivier, swearing him to secrecy. Who then spilled it to Ruth in exchange for the crystal water jug she’d also lifted on New Year’s Eve.

  “Yes,” said Clara. “Please, tell us.”

  “The idea started when Anthony turned Shaeffer in. Shaeffer was fired, and Anthony Baumgartner had his license to trade taken away,” said Jean-Guy.

  “The original embezzlement,” said Stephen.

  “Yes. Hugo knew Anthony wasn’t to blame, but he also knew his reputation had been damaged. The street, as you call it, believed Anthony Baumgartner was also in it and that only his senior position in the firm had saved him. They believed he was as dirty as Shaeffer. Hugo saw his opportunity. He approached Bernard Shaeffer, who was clearly a crook, and offered to get him a job in the Caisse Populaire, in exchange for certain favors.”

  “Hugo was the one who wrote the letter of recommendation to the Caisse,” said Myrna. “Not his brother.”

  “And what were the favors?” asked Olivier. They knew the broad outlines of the crime, but not the details.

  “Shaeffer would use the facilities and connections of the bank to set up an account in Anthony’s name.”

  “Don’t you mean Hugo’s name?” asked Clara.

  “No, that was the brilliance of what Hugo did. He was setting Anthony up. If an
yone clued into what was happening, they’d only find Anthony’s name, on a numbered account in Lebanon.”

  “They put seven million into it,” said Stephen. He was listening closely. So far this wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.

  “Merde,” said Olivier. “Wish he’d incriminated me.”

  “That was nothing,” said Beauvoir. “The real money was going into a numbered account in Singapore. Not even Shaeffer knew about that. He had no idea of the scope of the embezzlement.”

  He looked at Gamache, inviting him to join in. Armand leaned forward, his glass of scotch between his hands.

  “It worked well for a few years,” said Armand. “As with most things, it started small. A little money from one or two. But when Hugo realized they weren’t questioning, as long as they got their dividend checks, he increased the amounts and the number of clients.”

  “He got greedy,” said Clara.

  “Greed, yes. But I’ve seen this sort of thing before,” said Stephen. “It becomes a game. A thrill. A sort of addiction. They have to keep increasing the hit. No one needs three hundred million. He could’ve stopped at fifty and been safe and comfortable for the rest of his life. No, there was something else at work. And I didn’t see it.”

  He looked not just upset but drained.

  Despite her kidding, Reine-Marie knew perfectly well why Armand had invited godfather out for a few days. And introduced him to Ruth.

  It was so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts. With his wounds.

  Things were pretty dire when Ruth was the healing agent.

  “So what went wrong?” asked Gabri.

  “Anthony ran into one of the so-called clients on the street last summer,” said Beauvoir. “The man thanked Anthony for the great job he was doing. Baumgartner didn’t think much of it until he started going through his client list and realized this fellow wasn’t on it. He contacted the man and asked for the financial statement.”

  “So he knew someone was stealing, and using his name,” said Stephen, “I got that. But how did he figure out it was his brother?”

  Ruth, sitting between Gabri and Stephen, had fallen asleep and was snoring softly. Her head lolling on Stephen’s shoulder. A bit of spittle landing on his cashmere sweater.

  But he didn’t push her away.