Defending Angels (7 page)

That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to man.

—
Paradise Lost
, John Milton

 

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.

—“Terence, this is stupid stuff,” A. E. Housman

Professor Cianquino’s apartment sat on the ground floor of Melrose, an eighteenth-century plantation house that faced the Savannah River. The original Melroses were slave owners, cotton growers, and among the first to join the Confederate Army during the War Between the States. After Appomattox, Francis Melrose sold the house and acreage to a banker from Chicago and flounced off to Jamaica with his wife, sister, and two daughters. There he went into the sugarcane business and died a heartless old man at ninety-six.

The banker from Chicago, finding Savannah society icily unwelcoming to an unreconstructed Yankee, sold the house to a suffragette Baptist who opened a Bible school for gentlewomen. Melrose changed hands many times after the school closed. In the sixties, an architect from New Jersey meticulously restored the handsome old house and went bankrupt from the cost. A retired judge picked the house up at an auction for taxes and then divided it into six expensive apartments. He rented them to people like Professor Cianquino—tenants who valued the view of the river, the seclusion, and the quiet.

With a sackful of picnic food on the seat beside her, Bree drove up the long drive to the mansion and came to a rolling stop. It looked just like its photograph on the tourist postcards, with the air of a place that had come to a relieved and contented old age after a stormy past.

Of course, the house was haunted, although she refused absolutely to believe that her unease with the place had to do with ghosts.

Without having the slightest belief in the hereafter or in any of the departed who were supposed to live there, Bree loved Savannah’s reputation as the most haunted city in the United States. Most of the ghosts drifted around the old houses and cemeteries of the Historic District, although a fair number occupied old plantations like Melrose on the outskirts of town. She couldn’t remember the exact number of ghosts who were supposed to haunt Melrose, but there were at least two. There was Marie-Claire, the noisy one. She was the cast-off mistress of a river pirate and had drowned herself from grief when the pirate turned respectable and married a judge’s daughter. Then there was the truly creepy son of the original Melroses, who’d ended his days in an insane asylum after a murderous rampage among the slaves. Of the two, she would prefer to meet Marie-Claire. The two of them could commiserate over their lousy taste in men.

Bree sat in the car, and fought a perfectly irrational desire to turn around and drive home to Raleigh. The drive up to the house was lined with live oaks swagged with Spanish moss. The gardens surrounding the house rioted with late roses flowered into bursts of deep yellow, pink, red, and creamy white. Saint-John’s-wort bloomed in huge spheres on either side of the brick walk leading up to the green-painted front door.

The place was beautiful. If there was grief and misery there, it was from her own heart and mind, and not from wood and stones.

Bree got out of the car, went up the brick walkway, juggled the paper bags from the Park Avenue Market from her right arm to her left, and pushed the front door open. The house smelled like lemon Pledge and old books. The entryway was floored in wide pine planks, polished to a honey gold. Huge Oriental vases filled with dried hydrangea sat on either side of a beautiful old mahogany breakfront against the back wall. The sweeping staircase at the back of the foyer led up to the apartments on the second and third floors.

Professor Cianquino occupied apartment #2, the former ballroom, on her right. She pushed the doorbell, wondering if she should try the door or wait for the poor professor to limp across the wide expanse of his living room to open it for her. She had her hand on the doorknob. Before she could know, it swung open to reveal Professor Cianquino, not with a crutch but in a wheelchair.

She bit back a gasp of alarm. He looked very ill. Bree had attended his lecture on Medieval Church Law not six months ago with a couple of friends. She was shocked at the change in him. He’d lost weight. His hair was completely white. And he’d grown a thin, elegant beard that gave him the look of a Confucian ascetic.

Bree concealed her shock with a smile and a flurry of greetings. She walked with him as he rolled the wheelchair back across the living room to his kitchen. “I stopped at the Park Avenue Market and decided I’d like nothing better than their chicken-curry salad and some of that fruit sorbet that’s so refreshin’.”

He looked up at her and said dryly, “You’re getting quite Southern on me, Bree. That only happens when you’re off balance. You need to keep your composure, my dear. Particularly now that you’re on your own. You’re going to be presenting cases in court.”

“Yes. Well.” Bree set the bags on the kitchen table. “You’re right, of course. I’m just a little concerned about you, is all. You do look a little poor ... that is, as though you’ve spent some time recuperating.”

He frowned in a reflective way and asked with interest, “Have I changed so much since you saw me last?”

“You’re quite a bit thinner,” Bree said bluntly. “And your hair’s gone all white. And then there’s the beard.” She bit her lip hard. Antonia had a T-shirt that read “Help me! Help me! I’m talking and I can’t shut up!” She should have put it on this morning to remind herself not to babble.

“Things have become a bit ... difficult. But we’ll get to that in a moment.” He eyed the grocery bags on the table. “There’s a delicious smell coming from those bags. And it’s a chicken-curry salad, you say? I have a Caber-net Franc that ought to go with it nicely. And perhaps a Pinot Gris with the sorbet?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Bree said, because it did. “Shall I set the food out in the garden?”

He smiled up at her. “I’m sorry to say that we won’t be able to linger over the meal. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind setting up in my office. We’ve quite a bit to discuss, and not a great deal of time. I’ve some information in files I’d like you to see. I have a client I want you to meet.”

Bree was surprised. “I didn’t know you actually practiced law.”

He smiled faintly. “I’ve kept my hand in, over the years.” He wheeled his chair around with an expert twist of his wrist. “You know the way?”

“I don’t believe you invited us into your office when we were last here.”

“At the far end of the living room. To the right of the fireplace. The carved wooden doors. I’ll return with the wine in a moment.” His gaze met hers for a brief instant. There was kindness there, and a fierce intelligence, and something she had never seen from him before. Regret, maybe? She wasn’t sure. And what would he have to be regretful about?

Bree gathered up plates and cutlery, and a pair of wineglasses. With some difficulty, she managed to carry all of it plus the food across the living room. If the professor had furnished his place anything like her Aunt Cissy, who was fond of whatnots, piecrust tables, and tufted hassocks, she wouldn’t have made it without dropping the lot. But Professor Cianquino had simple tastes. A cream leather sectional in front of the fireplace. A reading chair with a good lamp. Uncarpeted pine floors. At the farthest end of the living room was a set of carved double doors that led to his study.

The journey across the floor was long. Time felt elastic, almost flexible. It was a disturbing feeling, an intensification of the unease she’d felt when she had visited the place. She reached the double doors with a sense of having come a long way.

She didn’t want to go into the study.

She stopped herself from looking over her shoulder; she thought of Professor Cianquino’s face, with its strange combination of sorrow and determination. She focused instead on the doors. They were made of rose-wood, and carved with an elaborate design of spheres so artfully shaped they seemed to spin the quiet light.

She had seen those spheres before. On the fence surrounding 66 Angelus Street.

Intensely curious, now, she opened the doors and went in.

The simplicity of the living room made the chaos of his office all the more surprising. Taken aback, she stood for a second and just looked at it, whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. She had a curious sense of home-coming. She had a stronger sense of the need to run.

Not sure where to put the load of food and dishes, and even less sure of what she felt, Bree forced herself over the threshold.

The room was completely lined with bookshelves that ran from the twelve-foot ceiling to the floor. And the shelves were stuffed to overflowing. Books were everywhere. Leather-bound, paperback, hardcover, skinny, enormously thick—it was overwhelming. Bree recognized a complete edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary.
Underneath it were rows and rows of books bound in tan leather with a red band across the spine. That weird sense of being pulled in two directions went away, to be replaced by a feeling of total contentment. This was a library, and Bree had always loved libraries. A leather chair stood in front of the bookshelves. She dumped the arm-load of dishes and food onto the seat, and ran her hands over the books. The thick gold lettering on the red band was familiar. It seemed to be a complete set of the
Corpus Juris Secundum
. Bree smiled with pleasure. Nobody but huge, white-shoe firms carried actual bound copies of the
Corpus Juris Secundum
anymore. It was much easier, and more profitable, to access case law online through Lexis, or any of the other online research services.

Bree chuckled to herself. It was time to introduce Professor Cianquino to the ease of online research. It’d be pretty amazing to browse case law with an actual book—but it took forever. The global search function alone saved hours.

She looked around for a place to set up lunch. An oak table that had to be fifteen feet long—maybe more—ran right down the center of the room. It was piled high with curiosities: clay pots, a pair of scales, a heap of clothes made out of what looked like fusty sacking. There was even a bulky scabbard with a banged-up sword.

And in the middle of the table was a large cage with a bird in it.

Bree blinked at it. The bird blinked back, then said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” Bree said.

“Hello.”

She heard the soft whisper of the wheelchair behind her and turned to greet Professor Cianquino with a smile. “I suppose he’ll go on all day like that?”

“I suppose not,” the bird said.

“Is it an African gray parrot?” Bree asked with interest. “I read somewhere they can have a vocabulary of over two hundred words.”

“Parrots!” the bird said, and spat. “I suppose not!”

“Quiet, Archie.” Professor Cianquino held two bottles of wine in his lap. He gestured toward the corner where a card table was shoved against the wall. “I think we can settle in over there.”

Bree cleared the card table of a ream of paper, a couple of file folders, and the day’s edition of the
Savannah Daily
. She wedged them into the nearest bookshelf on top of a series of books titled The Annotated Koran.

“Not the blue file, and not the newspaper. I want you to read both while we’re eating.”

Bree looked at him in surprise.

He smiled. “You’ve rented the office space and hung out your shingle?”

“Well, yes. Or very nearly. I bought some furniture today. And I’ve arranged for the office space, but the landlady doesn’t want a lease.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps you don’t need one. When you’re ready, I have a case for you, if you’ll take it. But we won’t discuss the details until after we eat.”

Bree served the chicken-curry salad on split brioches, and accepted a glass of wine. She sat down on a truly uncomfortable carved wooden chair, plate in her lap, wineglass in hand, and decided it was now or never. “I appreciate the thought behind the gift of the stationery, Professor Cianquino. And the cell phone! It’s just wonderful ! Although I do have one already, and I’m not sure I can break the contract with Verizon to switch over to it. I thank you kindly all the same.”

His smile broadened. “I do like Southern manners. They are quite Chinese sometimes, a people whose courtesy is exquisite. I, of course, hear the ‘but’ behind your civility.”

“That takes the wind out of my sails,” Bree said ruefully. “It’s just that ...”

“You can, of course, turn the gifts down. But I would like you to consider all the consequences your decision has before you do so. Particularly the cell phone. It is a means of communication you may not wish to abandon.”

“I’m not sure I understand you,” Bree said.

He rested his elbows on the wheelchair arms and steepled his fingers. “To be frank, it’s difficult to decide where to start.” He thought for a moment, and then said, “Did you take the call from Bennie Skinner?”

Bree paused, her filled brioche halfway to her mouth, and said, “Excuse me?”

Professor Cianquino waited, his head tilted a little, as if listening for something.

Bree set her sandwich on her plate. She hadn’t been all that hungry to begin with. “Well, no. I didn’t.” She looked at him narrowly. “You know he up and died yesterday afternoon.”

Professor Cianquino gestured at the copy of the
Savannah Daily
. The headline read: “Famed Billionaire Dead.”

Bree took the sandwich up again, and peered at it rather doubtfully. “Now, UPS didn’t deliver the package until eight thirty. I opened the cell phone up around nine. The call came in about ten minutes later. What I think is, the call from him must have been delayed somehow.” She waved the brioche in the air, scattering bits of chicken into her lap. “Some technical glitch, I expect, because of course, the poor man couldn’t call after he was dead.”