Kingdom of the Blind

by Louise Penny

  “Amelia,” said Marc. “Stop. You’ll kill him.”

  “Nothing to lose,” she snarled. And squeezed until she felt his larynx begin to collapse. “I want the new stuff. I came all the way back for it. And if I can’t get it, I’ll take something else. Just.” She squeezed. “For.” Tighter. “Fun.” Still.

  And saw terror in his eyes.

  Everyone stepped away, including Marc, while the dealer made a gurgling noise.

  “I beg your pardon. What did you say?” she asked. And went through his pockets with her free hand as his eyes began rolling to the back of his head.

  She found packets of pills. Packets of powder.

  None of it was what she was looking for. She put the packets in her pocket.

  Then released him.

  He coughed and sputtered, then lunged at her. Amelia stepped aside, pushing him face-first into the wall and pinning him there.

  “I’m not a little girl, shithead. I’m a fucking bitch,” she hissed into his filthy ear. “But you know what else I am, you pathetic piece of merde?”

  She twisted his head so that he could see her.

  “I’m the one-eyed man. Tell that to your supplier. Tell him to watch out.”

  She gave him one last shove, turned around, and left. Marc scurrying behind her.

  “What was that supposed to mean?” he asked. “What did you just do? They’ll kill you.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t actually care.” She handed him most of the packets. “One for you. Sell the rest.”

  “What about you?” He slipped through the snowy street, trying to catch up with her. His arms wrapped around his chest, his coat too thin to keep him warm on this bitter night.

  “I have better things to find,” she said.

  * * *

  The next morning she woke up in Marc’s room, in Marc’s bed. With Marc staring at her.

  “Jesus, girl, what did you get up to last night? When I left you, you were looking for the new shit. Did you find it?”

  She shook her head. “How’d I get here?”

  “I carried you. Found you in an alley. I thought for sure you were dead. But you were just passed out. What did you take?”

  She rubbed her hand over her face, feeling the grit of dried sleep, or tears, down her cheeks.

  “I don’t know.”

  Amelia had been stoned before. Lots of times. But never like this. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and she struggled for breath.

  She tried to remember what had happened the night before. But all she saw were flashes that twisted and tilted in her memory. Turning her stomach until she thought she’d puke.

  There was one that kept repeating.

  A little girl. She was six or seven years old. Bright red Canadiens tuque on her head. She was wearing moose mittens and holding out a baggie of dope.

  The child was swaying on her feet. Staring ahead of her.

  But Amelia knew it wasn’t so much a memory as a hallucination. Brought on by the shitface dealer calling her a little girl.

  “You made quite an impression,” Marc said, getting into bed beside her and pulling up the covers. “Everyone wants to know who you are.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  Putting his arm around her, Marc hugged her to his bony chest. Speaking into her dirty hair, his voice muffled, he said, “I told them, Sweet Pea, that you’re the one-eyed man.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Armand strained to reach the hand. And the body attached to it.

  “What is it?” shouted Myrna.

  Pinned behind him, she couldn’t see what he was doing, or why. But she could feel his almost frantic movements.

  She tried to open her eyes, but the filth in the air kept forcing them closed. Billy, facing her, also had his eyes screwed shut. And his hands tightly clasped hers.

  But Armand kept his eyes open, focused on the hand. Hoping, hoping to see movement as he stretched his arm out toward it.

  He leaned as far forward as he could. But couldn’t. Quite. Reach.

  “What?” asked Benedict. “What’s happening?”

  “There’s someone buried with us. I see a hand.”

  Benedict started to cough, and Armand eased up. Realizing he was pressing himself too hard against Benedict. Hurting the living to get to someone who was almost certainly dead.

  They heard shouting and digging above them.

  Still Armand reached out. In an unconscious imitation of The Creation of Adam. Two fingers, almost touching. But where Michelangelo had depicted the beginning of life, Armand knew this was the end. For someone.

  * * *

  “Who is it?” Armand asked.

  Jean-Guy closed the door behind him and sat on the bench of the ambulance.

  Armand was the last, by his choice, to be looked at by the medics. Benedict had been taken to the hospital for scans, given the injury to his head. After being checked out, Myrna and Billy were told it would be best to also go to the BMP Hospital, but both refused.

  “All I want is to go home,” said Myrna. “Have a bath. See my friends.”

  Jean-Guy sat across from Armand, who, despite having his eyes rinsed out several times by the paramedics, blinked against the irritation of the tiny bits of grit still in them.

  His face was smeared with grime and sweat and water from the rinsing. But no blood.

  Jean-Guy barely dared believe it. Not only was Gamache alive. They all were. Saved by a sturdy doorway.

  “And Benedict,” said Armand, coughing a little and using a Kleenex to wipe the filthy saliva from his mouth. “He pulled us into that doorway. And then protected me.”

  He could still feel the rubble hitting his arms, his legs. Crushing into him, into them, from all sides. His chest constricting, his breathing difficult.

  What he could also feel, though not see, was Benedict. Using his own body to protect Armand.

  And he could hear sobbing that died to whimpering.

  The boy was terrified. Knowing he was about to die. And yet he’d chosen, as what might have been his last act, to try to save a near stranger, almost certainly at the cost of his own life.

  Jean-Guy was nodding, agreeing.

  He’d been just about the first one to them. Breaking free of the hands holding him back, he’d scrambled up the pile, slipping and stumbling on the snow and loose debris.

  And then he heard them. Calling, crying out for help. Billy, Myrna, Benedict. But the one voice he was frantic to hear was silent. Panic had set in, and he began to dig with his hands. Throwing aside rubble he normally would never be able to shift.

  Until the leather of his gloves was ripped away. Until he’d found them.

  First Billy, then Myrna, then Benedict. And finally another face turned to him, squinting in the sunlight.

  And the voice, rasping. “Jean-Guy, there’s someone else.”

  While a rescue team, with dogs, dug out the body, Jean-Guy had helped free the others.

  Myrna had some bruising on her legs, and Billy had a sprained ankle. Benedict had the blow to his head, and possibly other injuries from the original collapse and his night in the cold.

  And Armand came away virtually unscathed.

  Their heavy boots and heavy coats, thick tuques and mitts had, for the most part, protected them. Along with the doorway. And Benedict.

  Armand blinked again, trying to bring Jean-Guy, sitting a couple feet from him in the ambulance, into focus. It felt like someone had smeared pebble-infused Vaseline into his eyes. Everything was opaque. The grit near blinding.

  Like the others, he refused the offer of the hospital and, like the others, only wanted to go home.

  But while Billy and Myrna had been driven back to Three Pines, Armand stayed. Needing to hear about the other one.

  “They’ve just uncovered the body,” said Jean-Guy.

  He held out a wallet.

  Armand opened it and saw the driver’s license but couldn’t read it. He shut his eyes tight to clear h

is sight, but still the words, the face, were blurred.

  He handed it back to Jean-Guy. “Can you read it for me?”

  * * *

  Myrna slipped deeper into the tub, until the hot water was at her chin and the suds were piled so high she couldn’t see over them.

  “Oh God,” she whispered as the chill and terror subsided.

  What the warm bath couldn’t do, the scent of lavender, the dark chocolate brownie, and the huge glass of red wine did.

  Outside her bathroom door, she heard Bach. Concerto for Two Violins. And below that, unintelligible but recognizable, the murmured voice of Clara and very, very softly another sound.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  She closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Billy Williams rarely had baths and had never, ever had a bubble bath.

  It wasn’t that he considered them unmanly, he just never considered them.

  But Madame Gamache had invited him in, to get clean and warm. And to stay for a meal. He was cold and hungry and about to decline when he smelled the scent of roses and followed her down the hall, limping, to the bedroom and the large bathroom attached. The tub was full, and high with foam from bubbles that smelled like his grandmother’s rose garden.

  It was too inviting to decline.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “I’m going over to see how Myrna is doing.”

  “Say—” began Billy, then stopped. Considering. “Say hi from me.”

  “I will. There’re clean clothes on the bed and stew warming in the oven.”

  When Madame Gamache had gone, he stepped into the bath, then sat. Sliding deep into the hot water. Feeling his taut muscles loosen as the water, and suds, rose over his aching body.

  On a table beside the bath, he found a beer, his favorite kind. And a huge slice of pie. His favorite kind.

  Lemon meringue.

  Billy closed his eyes and sighed.

  * * *

  Amelia Choquet stood in the shower. Weak still. Bleary.

  She’d wanted to take a bath. Long and hot. But Marc’s bathroom was so disgusting, with a ring of dirt around the tub, stains in the toilet. Hair, both long and stringy and short and curly, clogging the drains. She wanted to spend as little time in there as possible.

  She closed her eyes and felt the warm water cascade over her throbbing head. With the cracked, cheap soap, she washed her body and her hair. And for a moment felt almost human. She imagined that when she opened her eyes, she’d be in the clean, bright shower rooms of the academy.

  Amelia held on to the fantasy as long as she could. Then opened her eyes and started scrubbing. And scrubbing.

  It was then she noticed something written on her left forearm. A new tattoo, among all the others.

  She took a closer look. No. It wasn’t a tattoo. It was done in Magic Marker.

  David.

  That’s all it said. Just, David. And a number: 14.

  It wasn’t her writing. Someone else had put it there.

  She scrubbed harder. Until her arm was almost raw.

  But the name wouldn’t go away.

  David. 14.

  CHAPTER 18

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir hung up the phone in the kitchen, then asked his father-in-law if he could use the one in the study.

  “Of course.”

  Armand watched him go, then turned back to the others in the room.

  Reine-Marie. Billy. Annie.

  Benedict.

  Armand and Jean-Guy had gone straight to the hospital and found him in triage. Bruised. Ravenous. With a bandage on his head, at his hairline.

  “He’s one lucky fellow,” said the doctor. “No fractures or internal bleeding, not even a concussion. Your son?” the doctor asked. Jean-Guy. Who gave the young doctor a filthy look.

  “No, he’s not my son,” he snapped, and saw Armand smile. “He’s his grandson.”

  “That’s not completely true,” said Armand, but he did not completely deny it either.

  The doctor looked at the two men, disheveled, dirty. Then at Benedict. Dirty. Disheveled. And didn’t see the need to argue. “Well, he’s all yours.”

  They’d taken Benedict home then. To the Gamache home.

  Now, all showered and in warm clothes, they’d joined the others in a meal of beef stew and warm apple crisp with thick cream. Comfort foods that rarely failed in their one great task.

  It was now midafternoon, and they sat warming themselves by the woodstove in the kitchen.

  They’d asked, of course, about the body. The dead man. Wanting to know who he was. But Jean-Guy had explained that he couldn’t tell them until the family had been notified.

  That had been the call.

  When Jean-Guy returned a few minutes later, he took a chair beside Annie, and after a brief glance at Armand he said, “The dead man is Anthony Baumgartner.”

  “What?” said Benedict. “But we just saw him yesterday.”

  “Baumgartner?” said Reine-Marie. “A relative of the Baroness?”

  “Her son,” said Armand.

  “Poor man,” said Annie. “Did he have a family?”

  “Oui,” said Jean-Guy. “His ex-wife’s been told, and she’s going to tell their children. They’re in their late teens.”

  “What was he doing there?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “That’s the question,” said Jean-Guy. Though there were other questions arising from the call he’d just received. And made.

  “You’re sure you didn’t see or hear him when you arrived last night?” Jean-Guy asked Benedict, who shook his head. “And you saw no one else?”

  Again Benedict shook his head while Armand looked at his son-in-law with interest.

  “I saw the car,” said Benedict. “But only when Billy and I got my truck started. It was in the headlights. I knew it’d take a while for the truck to warm up, so I went into the house, to get out of the cold.”

  “And I left you there,” said Billy. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Not your fault. I was just stupid. Should never have gone in.”

  “The house was unlocked?” asked Armand.

  “Yes.”

  Armand wiped tears from his cheeks as his irritated eyes again overflowed, and then he tossed the sodden tissue into the woodstove.

  The medic had told him not to rub his eyes. That the grit could scratch the corneas and cause permanent damage.

  But his eyes were crying out to be rubbed, and it was near impossible not to do just that.

  Seeing this, Reine-Marie reached out and held his one hand while he sat on the other.

  “Mind if we join you?” came a voice from the living room, and in walked Myrna and Clara. “I’d heard you were sprung from the hospital.” Myrna hugged Benedict. “You okay?”

  Billy had jumped up and offered Myrna his seat, blocking Clara from taking it. Reine-Marie’s eyes lit up, and she grinned at Armand.

  “Just a bump,” said Benedict.

  “A bimp,” said Clara. “You minkey.”

  Benedict stared at her, in much the same way Armand stared at Billy when he spoke.

  “I don’t think you’ve met,” said Myrna. “This’s Clara Morrow, a neighbor.”

  “Hello,” said Benedict, enunciating clearly and speaking loudly.

  “You’ve never seen A Shot in the Dark?” asked Clara. She turned to Myrna. “Another movie we need to see again.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Clouseau?” Clara asked Benedict, who continued to stare, tilting his head slightly as though that might help decode this unkempt person.

  “‘My hands are lethal weapons.’” Clara lifted her hands in a karate chop, trying another movie quote, but now Benedict just looked alarmed, and, taking a step back, he bimped into Armand.

  “It’s all right,” said Armand with a smile. “She only uses them to paint.”

  “Finger painting?” asked Benedict. “I had an aunt who did that. Therapy. Not quite right in the head.”

  ���Speaking of which, your head’s okay?” asked Myrna, returning to the original question.

  “They did a scan, and apparently I have a thick skull.”

  He said it with such earnestness that they couldn’t help but laugh.

  Benedict, not quite getting it at first, looked confused. Then smirked.

  “But a big heart,” said Reine-Marie, patting the blanket at his knee. “You saved their lives.”

  “They saved mine.”

  “It must’ve been cold in that house,” said Armand. “No heat.”

  “It was.”

  “Good thing you were able to light that fire to keep warm,” he said.

  “But it scared the crap out of us,” said Myrna. “We could smell it and thought the place was on fire. Like just collapsing wasn’t bad enough.”

  “Can you tell us now?” asked Clara, accepting Armand’s chair as he pulled another over from the kitchen table. “Do we know the name of the person who was buried?”

  “I just told them,” said Jean-Guy. “The dead man is Anthony Baumgartner.”

  Myrna’s face opened in shock. “The Baroness’s son? We just saw him yesterday afternoon. At his house.”

  Benedict had said the same thing. Most people did, Armand knew. It was as though seeing someone recently should be protection against sudden death.

  He turned to Benedict. “You were telling us that when you went into the home, it was unlocked. But you didn’t see any evidence of Monsieur Baumgartner?”

  “No, none. I called hello, thinking someone must be there, with the car and all, but there was no answer. I started looking around, using the flashlight on my iPhone. Just wandering, really, waiting for my truck to heat up. But then I got to thinking about maybe trying to save the place, so I went in further, to take a closer look. That’s when it happened.”

  The young man went quiet.

  Armand and Jean-Guy, both with personal experience of trauma, recognized the signs.

  “What happened?” asked Armand softly.

  His therapists had taught him something he tried to pass along to all agents in the Sûreté. The need to talk about what had happened. The physical, but also the emotional wounds.

  And now he coaxed it out of young Benedict. He of the thick skull and big heart.

  Henri, lying between Armand and Benedict, rolled onto his back. His huge ears flopping flat on the floor like two small area rugs.

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