Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #14) - Louise Penny Page 0,18

end of the living room, with storm lanterns and candles placed on it.

“Does the name Bertha Baumgartner mean anything to you?” Armand asked Ruth as he handed her a plate he’d made for her and joined her on the sofa.

“No,” said Ruth.

Myrna stepped from the buffet table long enough to whisper into Armand’s ear. “Unless it’s Johnnie Walker or Glenfiddich, she’s not interested. Watch and learn.”

Going back to the table, Myrna placed a chicken leg, some camembert, and a slice of baguette on her plate and said, “Bertha Baumgartner? Olivier just got a case in. Twenty-five years old. Slow-aged in oak. Very smooth.”

“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