Defending Angels (32 page)

“Wait a minute.” Bree grabbed the sleeve of his coat. “Did you hear something?”

“Something like what?”

There it was again, a cry like a cat’s. A thin thread of sound barely audible in the rising wind. “Don’t you hear it? She’s yelling ‘Wait! Wait!’” Bree cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Over here!”

“Wait for me!”

Chastity McFarland stumbled out of the dark and fell into Bree’s open arms.

“It was the weirdest thing!” Chastity, again in a T-shirt and low-rise jeans, was soaked to the skin, which probably, Bree reflected, spurred the rescue workers to eager efforts to dry her off. She sat in the back of the truck, shuddering with fear and excitement. “It was the weirdest thing,” she repeated. “I was all set to wait this ol’ storm out and you know what?” She stared up at Bree, her eyes huge. She accepted a cup of hot tea from one of the techs with a grateful smile and gulped it down.

Bree had a notion about “what,” but she said, “Something made you decide to leave?”

She leaned over and whispered in Bree’s ear, “Bennie showed up!” She sat back and brushed her sodden hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t have a drop to drink, either. I was like to die, I was so shocked.”

“But not scared?”

“Nope.” She grinned. “The old coot didn’t scare me when he was alive, and certainly not when he was dead.” She glanced from side to side. Sam was outside, rapping out orders on his cell phone. The wind and rain picked up, and the techs prepared to leave. She lowered her voice. “Do you think I’m stark raving crazy, or what?”

“I think he loved you enough to cross the divide between us and the dark,” Bree said. “And you can’t ask more of a man than that.”

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured
Thou shalt have justice...

—
The Merchant of Venice
, Shakespeare

“You know that Montifiore’s skipped town.” Bree dropped the
Savannah Daily
onto her desk. The headline read: “Construction Magnate Disappears: Police Search Five State Area.” “It’s maddening.”

“That it is,” Ron agreed. “But we can wrap up the Skinner case very soon now.”

“I’m wrapping it up even as we speak.” Bree stacked the paper reports on Benjamin Skinner’s death into a neat pile and slipped them into the file folder. She handed the file to Ron, who looked at it with some bewilderment.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Maybe file it?” Bree asked sweetly. She leaned back in her swivel chair and stuck her feet on her desk. “Sam Hunter seems to think they’ll catch up with Montifiore eventually. I wish I had that much faith in the system. He could be halfway to Aruba by now.”

Ron flourished the file at her. “We’ve got a court appearance coming up. Or have you forgotten?”

Bree put her feet on the floor and sat up straight. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to ask you what you’re talking about. As a matter of fact, I know I don’t.”

“You remember that Mr. Skinner is our original client,” Ron said. “He’s got this little problem? He’s been accused of Second Degree Misdemeanor Greed? He’s hired us to defend him? We can’t let him twist in the wind here, Bree. He’s looking at doing some hard time in purgatory.”

“Well, yes,” Bree floundered, “but ...” She waved one hand in the air. “I thought we took care of all that. I mean, we’ve found his murderer. We’ve exonerated him from any culpability in the Island Dream debacle. It’s very clear he was trying to stop the project once he discovered Montifiore was using adulterated concrete.”

“That’s not going to cut any ice with You-Know-Who.” Ron looked at his watch. “We’ve got a court date in thirty minutes. Time enough for you to go over the pleadings.” He opened the file, sorted through the papers, and handed Bree a Response to a Summons and Complaint. The Summons and Complaint itself was beneath it. And sure enough, the heading read:

“Petru’s listed all of the relevant citations. There’s quite a few, fortunately; I think our most compelling argument is
C.S. v. Rockefeller
, 1915. The man gave a significant portion of his net worth to pretty good causes. Despite some compelling evidence for the prosecution, the judge found for the plaintiff.”

“Who’s sitting today?” Bree asked faintly.

Ron flipped through the file. “Azreal. Hm. Don’t know him.”

“Maybe he’s a she,” Bree said flippantly.

“Angels are nongender specific,” Ron said. “Are you ready?”

“Where?” Bree cleared her throat. “Where are we going?”

“The County Courthouse,” Ron said. “Where else?”

“Where else?” Bree echoed. She stuffed the files in her briefcase, smoothed her hair, and dusted some lint off her skirt. “I’m glad I didn’t dress down today. I almost wore my jeans.”

“You wear robes in court,” Ron said reprovingly. “Lavinia finished them last night. They’re in my briefcase.” He rocked back and forth on his toes. “Do you want to walk or drive?”

Bree looked out her tiny window. The tropical storm had swept through the city and left Savannah sparkling. “Let’s walk.”

The courthouse was a huge, six-story concrete block building at the corner of Montgomery and Martin Luther King Boulevard. It was yellow, and had that indescribable air of earnestness that seemed to characterize municipal buildings. Bree and Ron went through the metal detectors and stopped in front of the elevators. Bree examined the white boards that listed the court activities for the day: Probate. Magistrate. Juvenile. State. No Ninth Sphere. Azreal’s name didn’t appear on the list of sitting judges, either.

The cars were crowded. Bree got shoved to the back. Ron positioned himself near the callboard and the car lurched up. The car emptied out at six.

And continued up.

“Seven!” Ron said cheerily.

The hallway looked just like the hallways on the six floors below, with one notable exception: The medallion on the wall was not that of the state of Georgia. It read “Court of Celestial Sphere” and the logo was a pair of golden scales cupped by two feathery wings. Except for the two of them, the hallway was empty.

“Slow day,” Ron observed. “Here. Since no one’s around, you won’t have to duck into the ladies’ room.” He put his briefcase on the floor, opened it up, and shook out a long, crimson robe. It was velvet, with panels on the front worked in gold embroidery. “Lavinia does such nice work,” Ron said. He held it out and Bree stepped into it. It was exactly like her graduation robes, except for the needlework. Bree smoothed the fabric with one hand. Lavinia had worked nine Spheres rising to a single point on each panel.

Ron tapped briskly down the hallway and stopped at an elaborately carved wooden door. A wood board to the right of the door read:

“I’m nervous,” Bree said.

“P’shaw!” Ron said. “You’ll do just fine.” He opened the door. “After you.”

Bree adjusted her robes, smoothed her hair, and stepped inside.

“It wasn’t quite as intimidating as I thought it might be.” Bree felt lighthearted. The two of them swung along Montgomery at a brisk pace. The air was clear, after the storm, and the sky a brilliant blue. “Do you think I presented the case”—she paused, searching for the right words—“decisively enough?”

“No question,” Ronald said promptly.

“I thought it might be a little grander,” Bree offered after a moment. “I thought a Celestial Court would be, I don’t know, more harps, maybe.”

“There were no harps,” Ron said, slightly shocked. “This is a lower court, Bree. The lesser felonies, misdemeanors. It’s more like a justice court.”

“A justice court!” Bree stopped on the pavement, dismayed. “You mean, I just pled the equivalent of a traffic ticket?”

“No, no, no, of course not,” Ron murmured reassuringly. “Much more important than that, of course. But don’t forget. Pride goeth ...”

“Right,” Bree muttered. Then, rather crossly, she said to herself, “Justice court.”

“There will be time for more significant cases, later.”

“What about the disposition of the case? When will we know if Ben Skinner went to—wherever it is he wanted to go to rather than where he was?”

“We’ll check the
Ultima
when we get back to the office. The judgments are filed there.”

They halted in front of the little house at 66 Angelus. “I do wish we hadn’t let Montifiore get away,” Bree said. “I’d like to know the disposition of that case, for sure. I’m not happy at the thought he’s wandering around here somewhere free as a bird. The man was a murderer twice over. And I don’t know that if the cops do find him, there’ll be enough evidence to convict.”

Ron leaned over the wrought-iron fence and nodded toward the live oak tree.

“It’s a new grave,” Bree said, in a troubled voice. “And it’s empty.”

“Not for long, I hope. You see the headstone? No date, of course. But he’ll end up there eventually.”

R. I. P.
CARLTON MONTIFIORE
THE MILLS OF GOD GRIND SLOWLY
YET THEY GRIND EXCEEDINGLY SMALL

“How was your day?” Antonia lay flat on the couch, raised both legs over her head, and lowered them.

“Fine.” Bree set her briefcase by the fireplace, bent to pet Sasha, and threw herself into the leather chair. “Interesting.”

“Yeah?” Antonia continued her exercises. She swore they kept her stomach flat. “The parents got off okay after you left for the office.” She swung her feet to the floor and sat up, her face flushed with effort. “They came this close to pitching a fit over my staying on with you.” She held her thumb and forefinger a scant eighth of an inch apart.

“I’m glad there wasn’t too big a hoo-rah,” Bree said.

“So what did you do today?”

Bree smiled at her. “Won my case. Very satisfying. My client’s in seventh heaven.”

“Is that a fact? Congratulations. You want to go down to the Shrimp Factory and celebrate?”

Bree unpinned her braids and let them swing free. “Let’s do that.”

The cosmology created for Beaufort & Company is based on eleventh-and twelfth-century medieval theology. This was a time in the history of Christianity when influences from three of the world’s great religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—began to show up in documents in Europe’s monasteries. The monks were especially fond of angels, and there are hundreds of them listed in these old manuscripts.

Many angels were assigned responsibilities for temporal phenomena, such as earthquakes, rain, moonlight, and sunshine.

The angels in Beaufort & Company benefit from contributions from several of the great Chinese religions; Mahayana Buddhism is one.