Kingdom of the Blind

by Louise Penny

  “Bertha Baumgartner’s booze?” asked Ruth, rejoining the conversation.

  “No, she isn’t, you old drunk,” said Myrna. “But we wanted your attention, as wavering as it is.”

  “You’re a cruel woman,” said Ruth.

  “We’re liquidators of her estate,” said Armand. “But we’ve never met her. She lived locally.”

  “An old farmhouse down Mansonville way,” said Myrna.

  “Bertha Baumgartner? Means nothing to me,” said Ruth. “You the notary?”

  “Me?” asked Benedict, his mouth full of bread. Again.

  “No, not you.” Ruth eyed him. And his hair. “I see Gabri has competition for village idiot. I meant him.”

  “Me?” asked Lucien.

  “Yes, you. I knew a Laurence Mercier. He came to discuss my will. Your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see the resemblance,” she said. It did not sound like a compliment.

  “You’ve made a will?” asked Reine-Marie, carrying her plate back to her seat by the fireplace.

  “No,” said Ruth. “Decided not to. Nothing to leave. But I have written instructions for my funeral. Flowers. Music. The parade. Tributes from dignitaries. The design of the postage stamp. The usual.”

  “Date?” asked Myrna.

  “Just for that, I might not die,” said Ruth.

  “Unless we can find a wooden stake or a silver bullet.”

  “Those are just rumors.” Ruth turned to Armand. “So this Bertha person made you her liquidators and you never even knew her. She sounds batty. Wish I’d met her.”

  “Though she wouldn’t be the first person to leave something strange in a will,” said Reine-Marie. “Wasn’t there something in Shakespeare’s?”

  “Oui,” said Lucien, finally on familiar ground. “It was fairly standard until the end, where he wrote, ‘I give unto my wife my second best bed.’”

  This brought laughter, then silence, as they tried to figure out, as scholars had for centuries, what that meant.

  “How about Howard Hughes?” said Myrna. “Didn’t he die without a will?”

  “Yeah, well, he really was crazy,” said Ruth.

  “My favorite Hughes quote was when he said, ‘I’m not a paranoid deranged millionaire. Goddamn it, I’m a billionaire,’” said Reine-Marie.

  “Now, that sounds familiar,” said Ruth.

  “His will was finally settled,” said Lucien.

  “Yeah,” said Ruth. “After about thirty years.”

  “Holy shit,” said Benedict, turning to Armand. “Hope it doesn’t take us that long.”

  “Well, it probably won’t take me that long,” said Armand, doing the math.

  As the room grew colder, they leaned closer to the fire and listened as Lucien Mercier told them about the man who’d left a penny to every child who attended his funeral and about the husbands who punished wives and children from beyond the grave.

  “‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do,’” Ruth quoted.

  “I know that poem,” said Benedict, and all eyes swung to him. “But that’s not the way it goes.”

  “Oh really?” said Ruth. “And you’re a poetry expert?”

  “No, not really. But I know that one,” he said. If not oblivious to sarcasm, at least impervious to it. A useful trait, thought Armand.

  “How do you think it goes?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “‘They tuck you up, your mum and dad,’” said the young man, reeling it off easily. “‘They read you Peter Rabbit, too.’”

  All around the hearth, eyebrows rose.

  “‘They fill you with the faults they had,’” said Ruth, squaring herself to Benedict, like a duelist. “‘And add some extra, just for you.’”

  “‘They give you all the treats they had,’” he replied. “‘And add some extra, just for you.’”

  Ruth glared at him. While the others stared in open amazement.

  “Go on,” said Reine-Marie.

  And Ruth did.

  “Man hands on misery to man.

  It deepens like a coastal shelf.

  Get out as early as you can,

  And don’t have any kids yourself.”

  Their eyes swung back to Benedict.

  “Man hands on happiness to man.

  It deepens like a coastal shelf.

  So love your parents all you can,

  And have some cheerful kids yourself.”

  “Is he for real?” Ruth demanded, going back to her scotch.

  The fire muttered in the hearth, and the wind howled outside, and the blizzard settled in, trapping everyone in their homes.

  And Armand thought that was a pretty good question.

  Was Benedict for real?

  It had been decided that Lucien, Myrna, and Benedict would stay the night, as would Ruth. She and Rosa were put on the mattress closest to the woodstove in the kitchen.

  In the early-morning hours, after stoking the fire, Armand bent down and tucked the duvet closer around Reine-Marie.

  Man hands on happiness to man.

  It deepens like a coastal shelf.

  Oddly enough, Benedict’s version of the famous poem now pushed the original to the back of his mind.

  Then he heard a stirring in the other bed. And a voice came to him out of the darkness.

  “I think I know who Bertha Baumgartner was,” said Ruth.

  CHAPTER 9

  Reine-Marie, eyes half open, half asleep and half awake, slid her hand along the bedding toward Armand, feeling the curved ridges of the blow-up mattress.

  But that side of the bed was cold. Not simply cooling. Cold.

  She opened her eyes and saw soft early-morning light through the windows.

  Flames were roiling in the woodstove. It had been stoked recently.

  She got up onto one elbow. The kitchen was empty. Not even Ruth and Rosa. Or Henri and Gracie.

  Putting on her dressing gown and slippers, she tried the light switch. The power was still out. Then she noticed a note on the pine kitchen table.

  Ma Chère,

  Ruth, Rosa, Henri and Gracie and I have gone to the bistro to talk to Olivier and Gabri. Join us if you can.

  Love, Armand

  (6:50 a.m.)

  Reine-Marie looked at her watch. It was now 7:12.

  She went over to the window. Snow had climbed halfway up, blocking most of the light and almost all the view. But Reine-Marie could see that the blizzard had blown itself out and left in its wake, as the worst storms often did, a luminous day.

  Though it was, as any good Quebecker knew, an illusion. The sun was gleaming off its fangs.

  * * *

  “My God,” Reine-Marie gasped as the warmth of the bistro enveloped her. “Why do we live here?”

  Her cheeks were bright red and her eyes, tearing up, took time to adjust to the dim light. The short walk over to the bistro through the brilliant sunshine had rendered her almost snow-blind. It wasn’t enough that the bitter winter wanted to kill them, first it had to blind.

  “Minus thirty-five,” said Olivier proudly, as though he were responsible.

  “But it’s a dry cold,” said Gabri. “And no wind.”

  It was their refrain when trying to comfort themselves as they looked out on a day so inviting and so brutal.

  “I smell something,” said Reine-Marie after taking off her coat and hat and mitts.

  “It’s not me,” said Ruth. But Rosa was looking a little sheepish. Though ducks often did.

  “I was wondering why you two braved the cold to come here,” said Reine-Marie, following her nose, and the aroma, to the table and the empty plates smeared with maple syrup.

  Armand shrugged in an exaggerated Gallic manner. “Some things are worth risking life and limb.”

  Olivier came out of the kitchen with a plate of warm blueberry crêpes, sausages, and maple syrup, and a café au lait.

  “We left some for you,” said Gabri.

  “Arma

nd made us,” said Ruth.

  “Oh heaven,” she said, sitting down and putting her hands around the mug. “Merci.” Then a thought struck her. “Do you have power?”

  “Non. A generator.”

  “Hooked up to the espresso machine?”

  “And the oven and fridge,” said Gabri.

  “But not the lights?”

  “Priorities,” said Olivier. “Are you complaining?”

  “Mon Dieu, no,” she said.

  Her eyes settled on Armand. For all the kidding, she knew her husband would not bring an elderly woman into the bitter cold without a good reason.

  “You came here with Ruth for more than crêpes.”

  “Oui,” he said. “Ruth knows who Bertha Baumgartner was.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us last night?”

  “Because it only came to me this morning. But I wasn’t really sure.”

  Reine-Marie raised her brows. It was unlike Ruth to be anything other than absolutely sure of herself. It was others she doubted.

  “I needed to speak to Gabri and Olivier, to see what they thought,” said Ruth.

  “And?”

  “Did you ever hear of the Baroness?” asked Gabri, taking a seat beside Reine-Marie.

  It did sound vaguely familiar. Like a memory of a memory. But it was so removed that Reine-Marie knew she would never get it.

  She shook her head.

  “We were introduced to her when we first moved here,” said Olivier. “Years ago. By Timmer Hadley.”

  “The woman who used to own the old Hadley house,” said Reine-Marie.

  She gestured in the direction of the fine house on the hill, overlooking the little village. The house where the “rich” family had once lived and had, a century ago, lorded it over the great unwashed below.

  “I met the Baroness at Timmer’s home,” said Ruth.

  “And she came to us too,” said Gabri. “When we opened the B&B.”

  “A regular? A friend?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “A cleaning woman.”

  * * *

  “Hurry up,” called Myrna, tugging at Benedict’s arm.

  Lucien was a few paces ahead, but Benedict had stopped and Myrna had had to backtrack to get to him.

  It felt akin to running back into a flaming building.

  The skin on her face was so cold it burned. It had even penetrated her thick mittens and was biting at her fingers. She squinted through the searing sunlight.

  But Benedict, instead of hurrying to the bistro like any sensible Québécois, had stopped. His back to the shops, his immense red-and-white tuque dragging on the ground, he was staring at the three huge pine trees, laden with snow, and the cottages that ringed the village green.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  His words came out in a puff, like a dialogue cloud in a cartoon.

  “Yes, yes, beautiful, beautiful,” said Myrna, pulling at his arm. “Now, hurry up before I kick you where it hurts.”

  They’d arrived in the blizzard, so this was Benedict’s first look at Three Pines. The ring of homes. The smoke drifting out of the chimneys. The hills and forests.

  He stood and looked at a view that hadn’t changed in centuries.

  And then he was tugged away.

  A few minutes later, another table had been dragged over to the open fire, and they too were enjoying breakfast and coffee in the bistro.

  Clara, having seen everyone running over, had joined them.

  “If it’s this cold for carnaval, I’m not taking my clothes off,” she said, rubbing her arms.

  “Excuse me?” said Armand.

  “Nothing,” said Gabri. “Never mind.”

  “What were you talking about when I came in?” asked Clara, accepting the mug of hot coffee. “You were all looking pretty shocked.”

  “Ruth figured out who Bertha Baumgartner was,” said Armand.

  “Who?”

  “Do you remember the Baroness?” asked Gabri.

  “Oh, yeah. Who could forget her?”

  Clara lowered her fork and locked eyes with Ruth.

  Then her gaze traveled across the bistro, to the windows. But she didn’t see the sun hitting the frost-etched panes. She didn’t see the village under the deep snow and the impossibly clear blue sky.

  She saw a plump older woman, with small eyes, a big smile, and a mop she held like a North Pole explorer about to plant a flag.

  “Her name was Bertha Baumgartner?” asked Clara.

  “Well, you didn’t think it was the ‘Baroness,’ did you?” asked Ruth.

  Clara frowned. She’d actually given it no thought.

  “Do you know why she was called the Baroness?” asked Armand.

  They looked at Ruth.

  “How the hell should I know? She never worked for me.” She looked at Myrna. “You’re the only cleaning woman I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m not—” Myrna began, then said, “Why bother?”

  “Then why do you think this Bertha and the Baroness are the same person?” asked Armand.

  “You said her home was down Mansonville way?” said Ruth, and he nodded. “An old farmhouse by the Glen?”

  “Oui.”

  “I dropped the Baroness off once, when her car broke down, years ago,” said Ruth. “It sounds like the same place.”

  “What was it like? Can you remember?”

  But, of course, Ruth remembered everything.

  Every meal, every drink, every sight, every slight, real and imagined and manufactured. Every compliment. Every word spoken and unspoken.

  She retained it all and rendered those memories into feelings and the feelings into poetry.

  I prayed to be good and strong and wise,

  for my daily bread and deliverance

  from the sins I was told were mine from birth,

  and the Guilt of an old inheritance.

  Armand didn’t have to think hard to know why that particular poem of Ruth’s, a fairly obscure one, came to mind.

  “Her house was small, sort of rambling. But inviting,” said Ruth. “Window boxes planted with pansies and barrels of flowers on either side of the steps up to the porch. I could see a cat lying in the sun. There were all sorts of trucks and farm equipment in the yard, but there always are in these old farmhouses.”

  Once Armand stripped away the snow and straightened the crooked house, he could just about see it. As the home had been, once. On a warm summer day. With a younger Ruth and the Baroness.

  “You haven’t seen her lately?” he asked.

  “Not for years,” said Gabri. “She stopped working, and we lost contact. I didn’t know she’d died. Did you?”

  Clara shook her head and dropped her eyes.

  “My mother was a cleaning lady,” said Reine-Marie, rightly interpreting how Clara was feeling. “She grew close to the families she worked for, while she worked for them. But then she lost track of them. I’m sure many died and she had no idea.”

  Clara nodded, grateful to her for pointing out that it went both ways.

  “Do you think if the Baroness Baumgartner wrote to Justin—” Gabri began.

  “Non.”

  “What was she like?” Armand asked.

  “A strong personality,” said Olivier. “Liked her own voice. Used to talk about her kids.”

  “Two boys and a girl,” said Gabri. “The most wonderful children on earth. Handsome, beautiful. Smart and kind. Like their mother, she used to say, then laugh.”

  “And we were always expected to say, ‘Don’t laugh, it’s true,’” said Olivier.

  “And did you?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “If we wanted our house cleaned, we did,” said Gabri.

  As they described the Baroness’s personality, Clara could see her. Almost always with a smile. Sometimes warm and kind. Often with a touch of cunning. But never malicious.

  A woman who was less like a baroness would be hard to find.

  And yet Clara also remembered the Baroness really leaning into the mop or brush. Working hard.

  There was a nobility in that.

  Clara wondered why it had never occurred to her to paint the Baroness. Her small, bright eyes, at once kind and needy. Cunning, but also thoughtful. Her worn hands and face.

  It was a remarkable face, filled with generosity and bile. Kindness and judgment.

  “Why’re you asking?” asked Gabri. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really,” said Armand. “It’s just that the provisions of her will are a little odd.”

  “Oooh, odd,” said Gabri. “I like that.”

  “You like queer,” said Ruth. “You hate odd.”

  “That is true,” he admitted. “So what was odd about the will?”

  “The money,” said Benedict.

  “Money?” asked Olivier, leaning forward.

  Lucien told them about the bequests.

  Olivier’s expressive face went from dumbfounded to amused and back to dumbfounded.

  “Fifteen million? Dollars?” He looked at Gabri, who was also gaping. “We should’ve kept in touch.”

  “Oui,” said Lucien, pleased with the reaction. “And a home in Switzerland.”

  “And one in Vienna,” said Myrna.

  “She was always a little loopy,” said Gabri, “but she must’ve gone right around the bend.”

  “No. My father would never have allowed her to sign the will if he thought she wasn’t clearheaded.”

  “Oh come on,” said Ruth. “Even I can see it’s madness. And not just the money, but choosing three people she didn’t even know to be her liquidators? Why not one of us?”

  Armand looked at Gabri, Olivier, Ruth, and Clara.

  They’d known her. And hadn’t known her.

  They knew the Baroness. Not Bertha Baumgartner.

  Is that why?

  He and Myrna had no preconceptions. They saw her as a woman, not a cleaning woman, and certainly not a baroness.

  But why would that matter?

  Maybe it was their skill set. He was a cop, an investigator. Myrna was a psychologist. She could read people. They both could. But again, why would that matter to Madame Baumgartner in the execution of her will?

  And how did she even know about them, when they didn’t know her?

  And what about…? Armand turned to Benedict. How do you begin to explain him as liquidator?

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