Kingdom of the Blind

CHAPTER 19

The sun was streaming through the mullioned windows of the bistro, hitting the wide-plank floors, the comfortable chairs, the pine tables. The patrons.

But it didn’t quite reach into the far corner, beside the large open fireplace, where Myrna, Benedict, and Armand sat with Lucien.

Armand had called the notary and asked him to meet them there and to bring some documents with him.

The notary listened, his face getting more and more slack as Myrna and Benedict related what had happened the day before.

“The house I was just in?” he asked when they’d finished. “Fell down?”

“Yes, we’re feeling much better,” said Myrna, responding to a question unasked. “Some bruising, but the bath last night helped. Thank you.”

Lucien looked at her, puzzled.

They sat in wing chairs, their breakfasts and cafés au lait in front of them. Beside them the fire roared, fed by large maple logs.

“A body was found when the farmhouse fell,” said Armand. “It was Anthony Baumgartner.”

The notary’s eyes widened. “Monsieur Baumgartner? He’s dead?”

“Oui.”

“But we were just with him.”

“He must’ve gone to the house after we left,” said Myrna.

“But why?” asked Lucien.

“We don’t know.”

Gamache had decided not to tell them, yet, that Beauvoir was investigating it as a homicide. The longer that could be kept quiet, the fewer people who knew, the less guarded that people would be.

It would come out soon enough.

“Did Monsieur Baumgartner say anything to you after we left, about going to the house?” asked Gamache.

Lucien shook his head. “No, nothing. We just made small talk while I organized the papers. I didn’t stay long, but it all seemed normal.”

Both Myrna and Armand knew that Lucien might not be the best judge of what was normal human interaction. But even he would’ve noticed a fight breaking out.

“Do you know why they were replaced as liquidators in their mother’s will?” Gamache asked.

“Not a clue,” said Lucien. “And we don’t really know that they were ever liquidators. They thought they were, but who knows?”

“Your father would’ve known,” said Myrna. “And there must be an old will around.”

“If there is, I don’t know about it.”

“Did you bring his papers with you?” Armand asked.

When he’d called the notary, Gamache had asked him to go through his father’s files and bring anything relating to the Baumgartners. Now Lucien placed a neat pile of papers on the table.

“Your father wasn’t the notary for Anthony Baumgartner, was he?” asked Gamache, putting on his reading glasses.

“No. Just for the mother.”

“Have you read what’s in there?” Gamache asked, pointing to the stack.

He blinked a few times and squinted a little, trying to get his still-blurry eyes to clear.

When he woke up that morning, he found that while his body was stiff and sore from the events in the collapsing house, his eyes were less irritated. But still the words in front of him refused to come into sharp focus, and he struggled to read.

“No,” said Lucien. “I didn’t have to. I’ve found what we’re looking for.”

“An old will?” asked Myrna.

“A very old will,” said Lucien. “But not one belonging to Madame Baumgartner. This’s one I found when I did my own search. I believe I know why Bertha Baumgartner called herself ‘Baroness.’”

Myrna turned in her chair to fully face him. Armand removed his reading glasses. And Benedict, after taking a huge bite of toasted buttered brioche, leaned forward.

Lucien paused, enjoying the moment.

“Oh for God’s sake, just tell us,” snapped Myrna.

The moment, it seemed, had passed.

“Fine. After our meeting with the family yesterday, and the extraordinary provisions of the will, I decided to try something. I did a will search under ‘Kinderoth.’ It took me a while, but I finally came on this.”

He picked up a sheet of paper from the top of the pile and handed it to Myrna.

It was a printout of an old document, written in longhand with official-looking stamps all over it.

“This’s in German,” she said.

“Yes. I read a little,” said Lucien. “It seems to be a case contesting the will of one Shlomo Kinderoth. The Baron Kinderoth.”

Myrna’s eyes widened, and she gave Armand a meaningful look, then handed him the paper.

He put his reading glasses back on and studied it, trying to focus, then handed it to Benedict. “Does the date at the top of that say 1885?”

“It does. This”—Lucien grabbed it from Benedict and held it up—“is a printout of the original filing in a court in Vienna in 1885. Seems Shlomo Kinderoth left everything to his two sons.”

“Yes,” said Myrna.

“Equally.”

“Oui,” said Armand.

“I’m not putting this well,” said Lucien, and no one contradicted him. “He left everything to his twin sons. Both men inherited the title as well as his wealth, which was, according to the filing, vast. Estates in Switzerland. Homes in Vienna and Paris—”

“Wait,” said Myrna, holding up her hand. “Are you saying he left the same thing to both?”

“Exactly.”

“But how can he?”

“He can’t. That’s the thing,” said Lucien, enjoying himself now. “That’s how all this started. I guess they didn’t get along. They sued each other.”

“And?” asked Benedict.

“And nothing. It was never resolved.”

“What does that mean?” asked Benedict.

“You’re not saying the will is still being contested,” said Myrna. “That’s a hundred and twenty years ago.”

“One hundred and thirty-two,” said Lucien. “And no, of course I’m not saying that. The Austrians are almost as efficient as the Germans. No, this would’ve been decided long ago. I just haven’t found the judgment yet.”

“But we can assume it wasn’t in favor of Madame Baumgartner’s side of the family,” said Armand.

“Then why would she believe she was entitled to it?” asked Myrna.

But even as she asked that, and saw Armand’s grim face, she knew the idiocy of her question.

Bertha Baumgartner clung to that belief because she wanted to. It served her purposes.

The Baroness lived in a fantasy world, where the fork in the road favored her. A world where she was both victim and heiress. A baroness cleaning woman. A walking Victorian melodrama.

How many clients had Myrna sat across from as they complained about having been “done wrong”? Whose grip on grievances was so tight it strangled reason. They’d give up sanity before giving up these injustices.

In some cases, in some people, it went on for years and years. The thorn planted firmly in their side. And while Dr. Landers had listened, guided, made suggestions on how to try to let their pain go, still they’d let it fester, until she’d finally realized some clients didn’t want freedom from their resentments, they wanted validation.

Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish.

And the tragedy was almost always compounded, Myrna knew. These people invariably passed it on from generation to generation. Magnified each time.

The sore point became their family legend, their myth, their legacy. What they lost became their most prized possession. Their inheritance.

Of course, if they lost, then someone else had won. And they had a focus for their wrath. It became a blood feud for the bloodline.

Myrna looked at Armand, who had taken back the document from Lucien and written something on it.

“So she thought her side of the family got screwed,” said Benedict.

Myrna compressed her lips. All her psychology classes, her Ph.D., her years of study and work, and this young man put it more succinctly than she could.

Bertha thought her family had been screwed. For generations.

“What do you think, Armand?” Myrna asked.

“The sins I was told were mine from birth,” he remembered Ruth’s obscure poem, “and the Guilt of an old inheritance.”

“There’s a reason Anthony Baumgartner went into that farmhouse,” he said.

“Maybe he just missed his mother,” said Benedict.

Maybe, thought Gamache.

There was, after all, something precious in the house. The one thing that couldn’t be stripped away.

The place was filled with memories.

He saw again the growth chart. And the photograph in Anthony’s home, of the three children in the garden of flowers, beautiful and treacherous.

Armand Gamache knew that memories weren’t just precious, they were powerful. Charged with emotions both beautiful and treacherous.

Who knew what lived on in that rotten old home?

Gamache studied the printout again. It was written in German, so he couldn’t understand much. And he could barely read the writing anyway.

Is this what started it all? A crazy will written one hundred and thirty years ago. And another, equally crazy one, read two days ago?

“Where was Madame Baumgartner when she died?”

“In a seniors’ home. The Maison Saint-Rémy,” said the notary. “Why?”

“Cause of death?” Armand asked.

“Heart failure,” said Lucien. “It’s on her death certificate in your dossier. Why?” he asked again.

“But there was no autopsy?”

“Of course not. She was an elderly woman who died of natural causes.”

“Armand?” asked Myrna, but he just gave her a quick smile.

“Do you mind if I take this?” He picked up the printout.

“I do,” said Lucien. “I need it for my files.”

“Désolé, but I shouldn’t have put it in the form of a question,” said Gamache, folding it up and putting it into his breast pocket. “I’m sure you can print out another copy.”

He got up and turned to Myrna. “Is your bookstore open?”

“It’s unlocked,” she said. “Comes to the same thing. Help yourself.”

Armand spent the next few minutes browsing the shelves of Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore before he found what he wanted. Leaving money next to the till, he put the book into his coat pocket.

When he returned to the bistro, he saw Billy Williams heading to his truck.

“He shouldn’t be driving,” said Myrna, going to the door. “With his bad ankle.”

She called to him, and, as Gamache watched, Billy turned, saw Myrna, and smiled.

“He’s a nice man,” said Armand. “A good man.”

“A handy person to have around,” she said. “That’s for sure.”

They watched as Billy approached the bistro. And while Armand couldn’t understand a word Billy Williams said, he did understand the look on his face.

And he wondered if Myrna saw what he did.