“Just what the Baron and Baroness had feared from their families,” said Reine-Marie.
“Yes,” said Katie. “It confirmed her fears. If the notary thought she was nuts, her family sure would. But he did allow her to change one thing.”
“The liquidators?” asked Myrna. “Is that when she put us on the will?”
“Yes.”
“But why?” asked Armand.
“So that you could execute not just the will but her real desires. She knew that her children never would. There was too much history there. But with new liquidators there’d be none of that. The notary was right, of course. She was confused. But one thing was clear to her. The plan she had with the Baron to share the fortune had to be followed through. It became an idée fixe. A kind of obsession. It wasn’t about the money, it was about letting go of all the bitterness. They could see the damage they’d done in passing it along to their children. Freeing them of it would be their real inheritance.”
“But if it was that important to her,” asked Reine-Marie, “why not just write her own will and sign it? Isn’t that legal?”
“A holographic will,” said Armand. “As long as it’s written in longhand and signed by witnesses, yes, it’s legal in Québec. But the notary had already seen her and decided she wasn’t of sound mind.”
“Exactly,” said Katie. When she nodded, as now, her entire meatball sweater bobbed up and down.
It was amusing, disconcerting, and slightly nauseating. A cross between performance art and dinner.
Henri sat up and started drooling.
Armand motioned with his hand for the shepherd to lie back down, which he did, reluctantly.
“So,” said Myrna, “the only thing the Baroness could do was change the liquidators.”
“Yes. She took her three children off and put you on.”
“But again,” said Myrna. “Why us? We didn’t even know her.”
“Exactly. That’s why. We needed someone who had no idea of the history.”
“We?” asked Armand.
“I meant she.”
“Of course,” said Armand. “So that’s why she changed liquidators, but why us specifically? Madame Landers and me?”
“The Baroness had heard that the head of the Sûreté had moved into the nearby village. She was enough of a snob to like the idea that someone so prominent would be executing her will. She also figured you’d keep her family in line. To be honest, her next choices were the queen, followed by the pope. But when she heard about you”—Katie turned to Myrna—“she immediately agreed you’d be perfect.”
“A senior police officer and a respected psychologist,” said Myrna, nodding. “Makes sense.”
“You’re a psychologist?” said Katie. “No, apparently Madame Zardo told the Baroness you were a cleaning woman. That’s why she wanted you. Someone who’d understand.”
Myrna’s eyes narrowed in a glare, daring anyone to laugh.
The only one not smiling was Armand.
“How did the Baroness know to ask about changing the liquidators?” he asked.
“Like I said, the notary wouldn’t let her change the actual will—”
“Yes, I heard. But does anyone else here know that it might be possible to change the liquidators?”
He looked around, and they all, to a person, shook their heads. Including Benedict. Who, after a sharp squeeze of his hand, stopped.
“So let me ask again,” said Armand. “How did an elderly and admittedly confused person know to even ask about the liquidators?”
There was a pause before Katie answered. “It was my idea. I looked it up and suggested it to her. The Baroness agreed it was worth a try.”
“And the choice of liquidators?” asked Armand.
“Was hers.”
That sat there, taking in the odor of a lie. Armand let the pause stretch on. And the stench sink in. Before he finally spoke again.
“Including Benedict?”
Reine-Marie was watching this closely. Not Katie but Armand. Watching him take away, with a civility that was almost frightening, the props for her story. Until it collapsed.
“That was my idea,” Katie admitted. “The Baroness actually wanted me as the third, but I said that wouldn’t work. If they found out my mother’s maiden name was Kinderoth, her family would accuse me of influencing her.”
Jean-Guy raised his brows but chose not to say what everyone else in the room was also thinking.
“So it was agreed that my boyfriend, Benedict, would be a liquidator in my place,” said Katie. “I could vouch for him. That he’s honest and kind and will do what’s right.”
Do what she tells him, thought Jean-Guy.
“But you broke up,” said Reine-Marie. “Benedict told us.”
“That was planned,” she said. “There couldn’t be any connection. Not even the notary knew.”
“So you didn’t actually break up,” Jean-Guy said to Benedict. “You appeared to but didn’t. That was another lie.”
Layer upon layer. Lie upon lie. Covering up some rotting truth. That they still hadn’t reached.
“Didn’t you think we’d find out?” asked Armand.
“I didn’t think anyone would really ask,” said Katie.
“We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong,” said Benedict.
Armand turned to him. “As a good rule of thumb, if you have to lie, you might be doing something wrong.”
“You told me you liked my hat, sir,” said Benedict, staring at Gamache. “Was that a lie?”
The question, and unmistakable challenge, sat there while Gamache stared back. Assessing and reassessing the young man.
“That was opinion,” said Gamache. “Not fact. If you’re lying about the facts, there’s something wrong. And the two of you have been doing a lot of lying. Can you really be so surprised when we doubt you?”
“That was a great deal of effort to help an elderly woman,” said Myrna.
Gamache, still watching Benedict, agreed. Though the word that came to his mind wasn’t “effort” but “premeditation.”
“I wasn’t just helping her,” said Katie. “I’d seen what this whole feud had done to my mother, my aunt, my grandparents. Myself. Spending our whole lives believing our lives could be, should be, better? Thinking we’d been screwed by the Baumgartners. Waiting for some judgment a continent away? To make us happy. It was awful.” She placed a hand over her stomach, as though feeling ill. Benedict put his hand on her knee. “I agreed with the Baron and Baroness,” she said. “It had to end.”
“And, conveniently, make sure that whatever the judgment in Vienna was, you’d inherit?” asked Armand.
There was, Reine-Marie noticed, considerably less civility in that question. But this was not, after all, a party. The idea was not to be friendly but to get to the heart of a murder.
“We both know, monsieur, that there’s nothing to inherit,” said Katie. “Not after all this time. The cost of the lawsuits alone would be ruinous, never mind what the Nazis did to any Jewish property. All I’d inherit would be outrage. I don’t want that. For me or my family.”
Armand looked at this young woman and wondered if she really was that immune to the family plague. The creeping disease of hatred. The bindweed in the garden.
Benedict caressed Katie’s hand in a way that was supportive and intimate.
“But still,” said Armand, “it doesn’t explain everything. As liquidators we’re charged with honoring the provisions of the will. Not doing what we think is fair.”
“That’s why she wrote the letter,” said Katie.
“What letter?” asked Armand.
“The Baroness wrote a letter, to be given to her eldest son, after the reading of the will. In it she explains everything.”
“Why give it to him and not us?” asked Myrna.
“She didn’t want her children to hear it from strangers,” said Katie. “And she thought he’d understand.”
“Understand about sharing the fortune?” asked Jean-Guy.