Then he opened it, revisiting the familiar passages. An old friend.
As he flipped through the dog-eared pages, he found lines she’d underlined.
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
And he thought of the click, click, clicking he’d heard as Amelia had passed him in the hallway. Her tell.
Save Our Souls.
CHAPTER 13
“Armand, you need to hear this.”
Gamache had barely arrived at the home of Bertha Baumgartner’s eldest son when Myrna dragged him into the living room, where they’d all assembled.
He’d taken off his coat, tuque, mitts, and boots and now stood in stocking feet quickly taking in the room. Bookshelves were built along the far wall, with books and framed photos and the mementos people accumulate. There was art on the other walls. None of it avant-garde, but some decent watercolors, a few oil paintings, some numbered prints. Windows looked onto the backyard, with mature trees and lawn covered in deep, bright snow. A fire was in the grate.
The room was done in muted, slightly masculine shades of beiges and blues. It was a room, a home, that whispered comfort and success.
“Armand Gamache,” he said, extending his hand to the three Baumgartner siblings. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
There was a slight hesitation as they stared at him. That now-familiar look of surprise as someone they saw in their living rooms on TV appeared unexpectedly in their living room in person. In three dimensions.
Walking and talking.
They shook hands.
Anthony, Caroline, and Hugo.
Tall, fine boned. The healthy complexions of people who ate well and looked after themselves.
Except Hugo.
He seemed to take after his mother. He was short, round, ruddy. A duckling among swans. Though, really, he more resembled a toad.
At fifty-two, Anthony Baumgartner was the oldest, followed by Caroline, and finally Hugo. Although Hugo seemed much older than the others, with features that looked like they’d been worn down by the elements. A sandstone statue left out too long. His hair was iron-gray. Not the distinguished gray-at-the-temples of Anthony or the soft dyed-blond of Caroline.
Anthony held himself with ease and even a certain grace. But it was Caroline who’d moved forward first, her hand extended.
“Welcome, Chief Superintendent,” she said, using his rank though he himself had not. Her voice was warm, almost musical. “We didn’t realize my mother knew you. She never mentioned it.”
“Which was strange, for her,” said Hugo. His voice was unexpectedly deep, rich. If a trench in the earth could speak, it might sound like this man.
“We never actually met,” said Armand. “None of us knew your mother.”
“Really?” said Anthony, looking from one to the other. “Then why are you liquidators?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” said Myrna.
The siblings consulted one another, perplexed.
“To be honest,” said Anthony, “we thought we were the liquidators. Came as a surprise when Maître Mercier here called.”
“Well, the Baroness must’ve had her reasons,” said Caroline. “She always did. There must be a connection.”
“Madame Landers and I live in a village called Three Pines,” said Gamache. “I believe your mother worked there.”
“That’s right,” said Hugo. “She said it was a funny little village in a sort of divot in the ground.”
He cupped his hand as he spoke.
While the word “divot” didn’t make it sound attractive, the actual gesture did. His strong hand cupped was suggestive not of emptiness but of holding something precious. Water in a drought. Wine at a celebration. Or some creature, near extinction, that needed protection.
And it struck Armand how very expressive this rough man was. With a small, common gesture, he’d conjured a world of meaning.
Like Armand, Myrna was watching these people closely. Not with any suspicion, more a professional interest in dynamics. Of groups. Of families. And what happened when strangers came into their midst.
These three seemed comfortable with one another. Though there was a hierarchy, with Anthony clearly at the top.
“Would you like something to drink?” Caroline asked their guests. “Coffee, tea? Something stronger perhaps.”
“I think we should get started,” said Lucien.
“I’ll take a beer,” said Hugo, and went into the kitchen.
“A tea would be nice,” said Myrna, and Armand agreed.
“I’ll take a beer too, if you’re offering,” said Benedict.
Caroline and Anthony followed Hugo into the kitchen while Armand joined Myrna at the bookcase.
“You said there was something I need to hear. What is it?”
“It’s about the Baroness. Why she’s called that.”
“Yes?”
Myrna gave him such a pained expression he wondered if she wasn’t in some sudden acute agony. Which, it turned out, she was, though not the physical kind.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not? You just said I had to hear it.”
“You do, but you have to hear it from them.” She tilted her head toward the kitchen. “It’s kinda amazing. I wonder if it’s true.”
“Oh come on,” said Armand. “Now you’re just being annoying.”
“Sorry, but actually, they didn’t get to the full story before you arrived.” She looked toward the kitchen again. “What do you make of them?”
“The Baumgartners?” He glanced over there too. “I have no real opinion yet. They seem nice enough. You?”
“I’m always looking for psychoses,” Myrna admitted. “Too many years digging around people’s brains. If you search long enough and deep enough, you’re sure to find something. Even in the most well balanced of people.”
She gave him a meaningful look and he grinned.
“I’m glad it’s their turn now. And? Have you unearthed any psychoses in these nice people?”
“None. Which I find quite unsettling.”
He laughed. “Not to worry. If anything can expose craziness, it’s a will.”
“We already have plenty of that,” she agreed. “Do you think they’re upset that we’re the liquidators?”
“I’m not sure. They were certainly surprised. I wonder why their mother didn’t tell them they’d been replaced.”
“I wonder why she did it,” said Myrna, glancing through the open door into the kitchen. “Do you think one of them’s a little off?” She lifted her hand to her temple and rotated it. “But she felt she couldn’t just drop him, so she replaced them all?”
“Him? Do you have someone in mind? Hugo, maybe?”
“Because he looks the part? Poor fellow, imagine being raised with two gorgeous siblings. It could warp a person. But my money’s on Anthony.”
Armand watched the three Baumgartners prepare the refreshments. Caroline and Anthony together making the tea and putting out cookies. Hugo alone, farther down the counter, pouring two beers.
On the surface, friendly. And yet they barely said a word to one another.
“Why Anthony?” he asked.
“Because he doesn’t look the part. I’m always suspicious of people who seem too well balanced.”
“Sometimes a cigar…” said Armand, to Myrna’s laugh.
He noticed something behind her, on the bookcase, and reached to pick it up.
It was a small photo. The silver frame was tarnished, and the black-and-white snapshot had faded, but he knew who they were and where it was taken.
The three Baumgartner children, two skinny, one plump, arms lazily slung over one another’s shoulders, stood in front of the farmhouse. It was summer, and they wore sagging bathing suits and huge, toothy grins.
Behind them, in the garden, he saw tall spires of foxglove and the easily identified monkshood.
“What’s that?” He pointed to another clump.
“Huh,” said Myrna. “The Baroness must’ve been quite a gardener. I didn’t think that would grow here, but I guess the house protects it. Or maybe she planted it as an annual. That’s deadly nightshade. Also known as belladonna.”