by Louise Penny
“It says it right there,” said Mercier. He pointed to the illegible signature. “Lucien Mercier. Laurence was my father.”
“And are you a notary?”
“I am. I’ve taken over my father’s practice.”
In Québec, Gamache knew, notaries were more like solicitors than clerks. Doing everything from land transactions to marriage contracts.
“Why’re you using his stationery?” asked Myrna. “It’s misleading.”
“It’s economical and environmental. I hate waste. I use my father’s letterhead when I’m doing business that was his. Less confusing for the clients.”
“Can’t say that’s true,” muttered Myrna.
Lucien brought four file folders from his briefcase and handed them around. “You’re here because you’re named in the last will of Bertha Baumgartner.”
There was silence as they absorbed that, then Benedict said, “Really?” at the same time both Armand and Myrna said, “Who?”
“Bertha Baumgartner,” the notary repeated. And then said the name a third time when the two older invités continued to stare at him.
“But I’ve never heard of her,” said Myrna. “Have you?”
Armand thought for a moment. He met a lot of people and felt fairly certain he’d remember that name. But he was drawing a blank. It meant absolutely nothing.
Armand and Myrna turned to Benedict, whose handsome face was curious, but not more.
“You?” Myrna prompted, and he shook his head.
“Did she leave us money?” Benedict asked.
It wasn’t said with greed, Gamache thought. More amazement. And yes, perhaps some hope.
“No,” Mercier was happy to report, and then unhappy to see that the young man didn’t seem at all disappointed.
“So why’re we here?” asked Myrna.
“You’re the liquidators of her estate.”
“What?” said Myrna. “You’re kidding.”
“Liquidator? What’s that?” asked Benedict.
“It’s called ‘executor’ in most places,” Mercier explained.
When Benedict continued to look confused, Armand explained. “It means Bertha Baumgartner wants us to oversee her will. Make sure her wishes are carried out.”
“So she’s dead?” asked Benedict.
Armand was about to say yes. That much seemed obvious. But “dead” had already proved less than obvious that day, so perhaps Madame Baumgartner . . .
He turned to the notary for confirmation.
“Oui. She died just over a month ago.”
“And she was living here until then?” asked Myrna, looking up at the sagging ceiling and calculating how long it would take to get out the door if the sag became a collapse. Or maybe she could just fling herself through the window.
Between the new snow and the fact she was made almost entirely of gummy bears, it would probably be a soft landing.
“No, she was in a seniors’ home,” said Mercier.
“So is it like jury duty?” asked Benedict.
“Pardon?” asked the notary.
“You know, people whose names just come up. Our civic duty, that sort of thing. To be . . . what did you call it?”
“A liquidator,” said Mercier. “No. It’s not at all like jury duty. She chose you specifically.”
“But why us?” asked Armand. “We didn’t even know her.”
“I have no idea, and, sadly, we can’t ask her,” said Mercier, who did not look at all sad.
“Your father didn’t say anything?” asked Myrna.
“He never spoke about his clients.”
Gamache looked down at the brick of papers in front of him and noticed the red stamp in the upper left corner. He was familiar with wills. You didn’t generally get into your late fifties without having read a few. And Gamache had read a few, including his own.
This was indeed a legitimate, registered will.
Scanning the top page quickly, he noted that it had been written two years earlier.
“Turn to page two, please,” said the notary. “You’ll see your names in section four.”
“But wait a minute,” said Myrna. “Who was Bertha Baumgartner? You have to know something.”
“All I know is that she’s dead and my father looked after the estate. And now I have it. And now it’s yours. Page two, please.”
And sure enough, there they were. Myrna Landers of Three Pines, Québec. Armand Gamache of Three Pines, Québec. Benedict Pouliot of 267 rue Taillon, Montréal, Québec.
“This is you?” Mercier watched as each of them nodded. He cleared his throat and prepared to read.
“Wait a minute,” said Myrna. “This’s crazy. Some stranger picks us at random and makes us liquidators? Can she do that?”
“Oh yes,” said the notary. “You can name the pope if you want.”
“Really? That’s pretty cool,” said Benedict, his mind whirring at the possibilities.
Gamache didn’t completely agree with Myrna. He doubted it was random. He looked down at the names in Bertha Baumgartner’s will. Their names. Very clear. There for a reason, he suspected. Though that reason was anything but clear.
A cop, a bookstore owner, a builder. Two men, one woman. Different ages. Two lived in the country, one in the city.
There was no pattern. They had nothing in common except their names on this document. And the fact none of them knew Bertha Baumgartner.
“And whoever is named has to do it?” asked Myrna. “We have to do it?”
“Of course not,” said Mercier. “Can you imagine the Holy Father liquidating this estate?”
They tried. Only Benedict seemed, by the smile on his face, to be succeeding.
“So we can refuse?” asked Myrna.
“Oui. Would you like to refuse?”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t had a chance to think about it. I had no idea why you wanted me here.”
“What did you think?” asked Mercier.
Myrna sat back in her chair, trying to remember.
She’d been in her bookstore the morning before when the mail arrived.
She’d poured a mug of strong tea and sat in the comfortable armchair with the indentation that fit her body like a mold.
The woodstove was on, and beyond her window was a brilliant winter day. The sky was a deep perfect blue, and the sun bounced off the snow-covered lawns, the road, the ice rink, and the snowmen on the village green. The whole village gleamed.
It was the sort of day that drew you outside. Even though you knew better. And once you were outside, the cold gripped you, burning your lungs, soldering your nostrils together with every breath. It brought tears to your eyes. Freezing the lashes so that you had to pry your lids apart.
And yet, gasping for breath, you still stood there. Just a little longer. To be part of such a day. Before retreating back inside to the hearth and hot chocolate, or tea, or strong, rich café au lait.
And the mail.
She’d read and reread the letter, then called the number to ask why this notary wanted to meet her.
Getting no answer, she took the letter with her to meet her friends and neighbors, Clara Morrow and Gabri Dubeau, for lunch in the bistro.
As Clara and Gabri discussed the snow-sculpture themes, the ball-hockey tournament, the tuque judging, and the refreshments for the upcoming winter carnival, Myrna found her attention wandering.
“Hello,” said Gabri. “Anybody home?”
“Huh?”
“We need your help,” said Clara. “The snowshoe race around the village green. Should it be one circuit or two?”
“One for the under-eights,” said Myrna. “One and a half for the under-twelves, and two for everyone else.”
“Well, that was decisive,” said Gabri. “Now, teams for the snowball fight . . .”
Myrna’s mind drifted again. She vaguely noted Gabri getting up and tossing more logs onto the fires in the open hearths at either end of the bistro. He paused to chat
with customers as more villagers came in from the cold, stamping their feet and rubbing their freezing hands.
They were met with warmth and the scent of maplewood smoke, tourtières just out of the oven, and the permanent aroma of coffee embedded into the beams and wide-plank floors.
“I have something I need to show you,” Myrna whispered to Clara while Gabri was occupied.
“Why’re you whispering?” Clara also lowered her voice. “Is it dirty?”
“Of course not.”
“Of course?” said Clara, raising her brows. “I know you too well for the ‘of course.’”
Myrna laughed. Clara did know her. But then she also knew Clara.
Her friend’s brown hair stuck out from her head, as though she’d had a mild shock. She looked a little like a middle-aged Sputnik. Which would also explain her art.
Clara Morrow’s paintings were otherworldly. And yet they were also achingly, profoundly human.
She painted what appeared to be portraits, but that was only on the surface. The beautifully rendered flesh stretched, and sometimes sagged, over wounds, over celebrations. Over chasms of loss and rushes of joy. She painted peace and despair. All in one portrait.
With brush and canvas and oils, Clara both captured and freed her subject.
She also managed to get paint all over herself. On her cheeks, in her hair, under her nails. She was herself a work in progress.
“I’ll show you later,” said Myrna as Gabri arrived back at their table.
“Better be dirty, after that buildup,” said Clara.
“Dirty?” said Gabri. “Spill.”
“Myrna thinks the adults should do their snowshoe race naked.”
“Naked?” asked Gabri, looking at Myrna. “Not that I’m a prude, but the children . . .”
“Oh for God’s sake,” said Myrna. “I didn’t say that at all. Clara’s making it up.”
“Of course, if we held it at night, after the kids were asleep,” said Gabri. “Put torches around the village green, it could work. We’d certainly set some speed records.”
Myrna glared at Clara. Gabri, the president of the Carnaval d’Hiver, was taking it seriously.
“Or maybe, instead of naked, because—” Gabri looked around at the bistro crowd, imagining them without clothing. “Maybe they have to wear bathing suits.”
Clara frowned, not in disapproval but in surprise. It actually wasn’t a bad idea. Especially given that most of the conversation in the bistro through the long, long, dark, dark Québec winter was about escaping to the sun. Lying on some beach, roasting.
“We can call it Running Away to the Caribbean,” she said.
Myrna let out a sigh.
Across the bistro an elderly woman saw this and thought the dismissive look had been directed at her.
Ruth Zardo glared back.
Myrna caught this and thought of the unfairness of nature, that the old poet should be wizened without being wise.
Though there was wisdom there, if you could get beyond the haze of scotch.
Ruth returned to her lunch of booze and potato chips. Her notebook, on the table, contained neither rhymes nor reason but held, between the worn pages, the lump in the throat.
She looked out the window, then wrote:
Sharp as thin ice
the clear cries of children pierce the sky . . .
* * *
Rosa, on the sofa beside Ruth, muttered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Or it might have been, “Duck, duck, duck.” Though it seemed silly that a duck would actually say “duck.” And those who knew Rosa felt that “fuck” was much more likely.
Rosa leaned her long neck over and delicately took a potato chip out of the bowl while Ruth watched the children tobogganing down from the chapel to the village green. She scribbled:
Or in the snow-lapped country church, ,
kneeling at last to pray
for what we could not have.
* * *
Lunch arrived. Clara and Myrna had both ordered the halibut, with mustard seeds, curry leaves, and grilled tomato. And for Gabri, his partner, Olivier, had made grouse with roasted figs and cauliflower puree.
“I’m going to invite the Prime Minister,” said Gabri. “He could open the carnaval.”
He invited Justin Trudeau every year. And never heard back.
“And maybe he could take part in the race?” asked Clara.
Gabri’s eyes widened.
Justin Trudeau. Racing around the village green. In a Speedo.
From there the conversation went south.
Myrna’s heart wasn’t in it, and neither was her mind, though she had paused for a moment on the Trudeau image before her thoughts went back to the letter folded in her pocket.
What would happen if she didn’t show up?
The sun was turning the snow outside pink and blue. Shrieks of children could be heard, giddy with that intoxicating mix of fun and fear as their toboggans plunged down the hill.
It looked so idyllic.
But.
But if, by chance or fate, you got caught too far from home as clouds rolled in, as a flurry blew into a blizzard, then all bets were off.
A Québec winter, so cheerful and peaceful, could turn on you. Could kill. And each winter did. Men, women, children alive in the autumn did not see the blizzard coming and never saw the spring.
In the countryside, winter was a gorgeous, glorious, luminous killer.
Québécois with gray in their hair and lines in their faces got there by being wise enough and sensible enough and prudent enough to get back home. And watch the blizzard from beside a cheery hearth, with a hot chocolate, or a glass of wine, and a good book.
While there were few things more terrifying than being outside in a blizzard, there were few things more comforting than being inside.
As with so much in life, it was, Myrna knew, a matter of inches between safe and sorry.
While Gabri and Clara debated the merits of all-inclusives versus other resorts versus cruises, Myrna thought about the letter and decided to leave it up to fate.
If it was snowing, she’d stay home. If it was clear, she’d go.
And now, as she sat in the off-kilter kitchen, with the off-kilter table, and the off-kilter notary, and the wacky young builder, Myrna looked out at the worsening snow and thought—
Fucking fate. Tricked again.
“Myrna’s right,” said Armand, laying a large hand on the will. “We need to decide if we even want to do it.” He turned to the other two. “What do you think?”
“Can we read the thing first?” said Benedict, patting the will. “Then decide?
“No,” said the notary.
Myrna got up. “I think we should talk about it. In private.”
Armand walked around the table and bent down beside Benedict, who was still sitting there, and whispered, “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh great, yes. Good idea.”
CHAPTER 5
As Gamache passed from the kitchen into the dining room, he paused to look at the doorframe and the marks.
Bending closer, he noted faint names beside the lines.
Anthony, aged three, four, five, and so on up the doorjamb.
Caroline, at three, four, five . . .
And then there was Hugo, three, four, five, and so on. But his lines were denser. Like the rings of some old oak that wasn’t growing very fast. Or very tall.
Hugo lagged far behind where his brother and sister were at the same age. But, uniquely, beside his name, at each faint line, there was a sticker. A horse. A dog. A teddy bear. So that while little Hugo might not stand tall, he did stand out.
Armand looked back into the kitchen, stripped bare. Then into the empty dining room, its wallpaper stained with moisture.
What happened here? he wondered.
What happened in Madame Baumgartner’s life that she had to choose strangers to enact her will? Where were Anthony and Caroline and Hugo?
“Roof leaking,�
� said Benedict, splaying his large hand on a stain on the dining-room wall. “It’s getting between the walls. Rotting. A shame. Look at these floors.”
They did. Old pine. Warping.
Benedict walked around, inspecting the room, staring up at the ceiling.
He’d unzipped his winter coat to reveal a sweater that was alternately fuzzy and tight-knit, and one section looked like it was made of steel wool.
Myrna could not believe it was comfortable, but she could believe it was made by his girlfriend.
He must love her, she thought. A lot. And she him. Everything she created was for him. The fact it was awful didn’t take away from the thought. Unless, of course, she did it on purpose. To not only make him look foolish but to cause him actual pain, as the steel-wool sweater scratched and rubbed the young flesh beneath.
She either loved Benedict a lot or despised him. A lot.
And he either didn’t see it or was drawn to pain, to abuse, as some people were.
“So,” said Myrna. “Do you want to be a liquidator?”
“What’s involved?” asked Benedict. “What do we have to do?”
“If the will’s simple, not much,” said Armand. “Just make sure the taxes and bills are paid and any bequests get to the right people. Then wrap up the estate. The notary helps with that. Liquidators are generally family members and friends. People who’re trusted.”
They looked at each other. They were none of those things to Bertha Baumgartner. And yet here they were.
Armand glanced around for a photograph left behind on the damp walls or fallen to the floor. Something that might tell them who this Bertha Baumgartner was. But there was nothing. Just the smudged lines on the door. And the horsey, doggy, teddy bear.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Benedict.
“That’s if it’s simple,” said Armand. “If it isn’t, it could take a lot of time. A long time.”
“Like days?” asked Benedict. When there was no answer, he added, “Weeks? Months?”
“Years,” said Armand. “Some wills take years, especially if there’re any arguments between the heirs.”
“And there often are,” said Myrna. She turned full circle. “Greed does that. But it looks like they’ve already stripped the place. And I can’t imagine there’s much left to divide.”