“The Baroness,” they said.
“But it’s not just the title, is it,” said Benedict. “It’s the money too. Millions. I wonder if there’s harm in believing in a fortune that doesn’t exist.”
“‘You have a lot to learn,’ young man,” said Ruth, quoting the movie. “‘And I hope you never learn it.’”
CHAPTER 14
“So what’re you going to do?” asked Annie as their car crept carefully down the hill into Three Pines. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Which part?” asked Jean-Guy. “The investigation or—”
He could feel the rear of the vehicle begin to slide sideways on the snow and ice, and he stopped talking to concentrate. His eyes sharp on the road, his focus complete. His hands gentle on the steering wheel.
He glanced swiftly into the rearview mirror and saw Honoré buckled into his car seat, looking out the window.
“I think it’s up to us to decide first, don’t you?” he finally said as the car made it safely down the hill, and they drove around the village green.
Walls of snow mounted on either side so that nothing beyond was visible except the glow of hidden homes.
Jean-Guy had never seen anything like it. It was both beautiful and alarming. Comforting and ominous. As though nature were trying to decide whether to protect or consume the little village.
He pulled the car up to the opening chiseled into the banks, a snow tunnel leading to the Gamache home. But instead of getting out, Annie sat there, her face lit by the headlights bouncing back from the snow.
“It’ll be all right,” she said, and, leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek.
It was an act of such simplicity it would have been easy for Jean-Guy to overlook the glory of it.
To be kissed. For no reason.
For a man of reason, it was staggering.
“How did the meeting go yesterday?” asked Gamache as he and Jean-Guy settled into the study.
They’d had their dinner. Shepherd’s pie and chocolate cake. Honoré was asleep in his room.
The Gamaches’ unexpected guest, the young man with the weird hair, Benedict, had gone off to the bistro for a few drinks. He’d spent much of the time, after being introduced to Annie and Jean-Guy, playing with Honoré. Once Honoré was put to bed for the night and they’d had dinner, Benedict asked if they’d mind if he went out for a beer.
“Nice kid,” said Jean-Guy.
“Yes,” said Armand.
“What do you know about him?” Jean-Guy’s voice was casual, but Armand knew him too well to be fooled.
“You mean, is he likely to kill us in our sleep?”
“Just wondering,” said Jean-Guy.
It wasn’t as though this Benedict had been found hitchhiking, wearing a ski mask and carrying a machete. But really, what did Armand know about him?
“I did a quick check,” said his father-in-law. “He is who he says he is. A builder. Lives in Montréal, apparently with a girlfriend.”
“Apparently?”
“Well, that is a little odd,” admitted Armand as they took their seats. “When the power and phones were out, Benedict didn’t seem at all stressed about not being able to contact his girlfriend to tell her where he was and that he was safe. Or in making sure she was okay. If it was me, cut off from Reine-Marie in a storm, I’d move heaven and earth to make sure she was safe.”
Jean-Guy nodded. The same for him and Annie. It wasn’t even a choice, it was instinctive.
“Maybe they’re not in love,” he said. “You think it’s something else?”
“I think she might be a convenient fabrication,” said Armand with a smile. “I think he’s a handsome kid who needs a way to get out of uncomfortable situations.”
“So he created a fictional girlfriend?” He looked at his father-in-law closely. “Don’t tell me you once had one?”
Armand laughed. “When I was young, I had quite a few. Getting a real one was the problem.”
“I can see why you’d have trouble, but why would this kid make up a girlfriend? I doubt he has any problem getting girls.”
“And that might be why. This way he can fend off unwanted advances.”
“The fictional lover. Clever.”
He wished he’d thought of that, back in the day. Invitations to social events he didn’t want to attend, declined. Blamed on the girlfriend.
Damn. If it was true, that Benedict was smarter than he looked. Though that would not be difficult.
“Well, if she doesn’t exist, how do you explain that haircut?” Jean-Guy asked. “She did it, didn’t she?”
“It is hard to explain. You didn’t see the sweater he was wearing yesterday. She’d made it out of steel wool.”
“Then she must exist. What a young man will do for sex. I remember—” Just in time he realized who he was speaking to. And stopped.
“Do you want me to check him out, patron?”
“No, don’t bother. It’s none of our business.”
“Of course, the other question is why he was chosen to be a liquidator of the woman’s will,” said Jean-Guy. “Why any of you were. Do you think she really was a baroness?”
“No,” said Armand. “I don’t. I think her daughter was right. She made it up to comfort herself. We all have fantasies, especially when we’re children. But most grow out of it. I think Madame Baumgartner never did.”
“And she passed it along to her own children.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I think the daughter might’ve let it go, and the eldest son, Anthony, seemed amused by it, but the youngest son? Hugo? I don’t know.”
“Maybe that’s why she chose you and Myrna. In a moment of sanity, she got that she’d really messed them up with her fantasies. Can you imagine the fighting if her kids were in charge of the will?”
“But that doesn’t explain why us specifically,” said Armand. “And it sure doesn’t explain Benedict.”
“No.” Jean-Guy thought for a moment. “Honoré likes him.”
It seemed a non sequitur, but Armand knew it wasn’t. He’d noticed that too. It would be folly to trust the instincts of a baby. But it would also be a mistake to completely dismiss them.
Armand shifted in his chair and then asked the question. “How did the meeting go yesterday?”
“The one with the investigators?”
There was a pause, and Jean-Guy immediately understood his mistake. In asking that question, he’d let drop that there’d been another meeting.
Beauvoir waited for his father-in-law to ask.
Had there been another meeting?
But Gamache did not ask. Instead he crossed his legs and waited.
“It went okay.”
“Now, don’t forget who you’re speaking to.”
It was said calmly, conversationally. But the warning was clear.
Do not lie.
Through the closed door, they could hear voices in the next room. Annie and Reine-Marie.
There were few things more soothing, Jean-Guy thought, than hearing people you love talking softly in another room.
Instead of a white-noise machine, or recordings of rain or the ocean, if he ever needed help falling asleep, he wanted the sound of these two women. He’d drift off, the unintelligible murmurs on a loop. Reminding him he was no longer alone.
And the truth was, he hadn’t slept well the night before. He had a decision to make and was worried.
Beauvoir cast his mind back to his meeting with the Sûreté investigators the day before. Wanting to be accurate. “They were friendly,” he said, his voice slow, careful. “But they seemed to be offering me an out. A lifeboat.”
“And you didn’t realize the ship was sinking?”
Beauvoir nodded. “I thought it was over. I really did. I expected to walk into the meeting and be told it was all cleared up. You’d be reinstated.”
“Do you really expect that?”
“Don’t you?”
Gamache considered. Maybe, at first, he’d thought that was a possibility.
Then, as more and more questions were asked, as he’d explained what happened and why, over and over again, he could see their minds working. And he could hear it, from their point of view.