Angel's Advocate

by Stanton, Mary

  “I didn’t think of that!” George said. He scowled. “What do we do now? Call the police?”

  “More police,” Katherine wailed. “I can’t stand it!”

  “If she’s gone out of the permissible range of the signal, the police will be tracking her,” Bree said. “She’s not a high-priority risk. If she were, the police would have contacted you by now. But yes, it’d be a good idea to call. You want her brought back here, I take it?”

  “Would they keep her downtown?” Katherine asked. The three Chandlers looked meaningfully at each other. Katherine spoke first. “Just kidding. Of course she’s got to come back here. This is her home.”

  Bree nodded. She took out her cell and dialed the station number from memory. “They’ve got her on radar, so to speak,” Bree said, after she concluded the call. “It shouldn’t be long.”

  “This is Miss Winston-Beaufort,” Carrie-Alice said belatedly. “She’s here because the DA’s office is willing to bargain, or negotiate, or something. We may not have to go to trial after all.”

  “So we got that Eastburn woman to see some sense,” George said. “Good.”

  Bree took a closer look at him. There was a lot she needed to know from Mr. George Tyburn Chandler. “Did you have something to do with this, Mr. Chandler? This sudden”—she searched for a politic word—“accommodation on the part of the State?”

  “Me?” His glance slid sideways. “There’ve been some discussions on how to handle this at the home office, sure. I wasn’t about to see my little sister spend time in the joint.”

  The slang sat awkwardly on him, like an ill-fitting suit.

  “The discussions seem to have borne fruit,” Bree said dryly. “I think if we petition the DA’s office to dismiss the charges based on time served, we’ll be successful.”

  “What about this upset tonight?” Katherine asked. She joined her brother at the plate of cookies. “She’s breaking parole, or something.”

  “We’ll see,” Bree said. “But I don’t think the DA’s any more anxious to pursue this than you are.”

  “She’s here on another matter, too,” Carrie-Alice said. “It’s about your father.”

  “Dad?” George brushed crumbs from his chin. “Something about Dad?”

  Bree got up and strolled toward him, so she could see his face clearly. She was going to hold her questions about the warehouse robberies in reserve, until Ron came back with more information and until she’d talked to Sam Hunter. “Yes, there’s some pretty compelling evidence that the car crash that killed him was no accident. That it was murder.”

  The word hung in the air like dirty laundry.

  “What!” Katherine clapped her hands over her mouth. Then she said, “You’ve got to be kidding. This is some kind of horrible joke.”

  George shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a joke. And I think Miss Beaufort’s right.” He nodded at her. “I’ve had a lot of questions about Dad’s death. It’s about time someone else had questions, too.”

  “She wants to look into it more,” Carrie-Alice said. “More reporters hanging around the house. More news stories. I can’t stand it.”

  “We’ve got to do what’s right.” George sat down on the couch next to his mother and took out his checkbook. “So we’ll hire her to get right on with it.”

  “So that kind of squashes any hope I had of patricide,” Bree said.

  Antonia choked on her yogurt. “Will you listen to yourself?”

  Bree grinned. “I’m a tough cookie, aren’t I?”

  Antonia waved her spoon in the air. “The toughest! I’m so proud. That’s my sister, folks.” She sang (and paraphrased) Professor Higgins’s song about being an ordinary man: “ ‘She has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein. A simple girl she is, down to her fingertips, the sort who never could, never would, let a rude opinion pass her lips.’ I did tell you we’re doing My Fair Lady after the Holmes run is over, didn’t I? What do you want to bet on me doing Eliza?”

  “I won’t bet on a certainty.”

  Antonia looked enormously pleased.

  The two of them lay relaxed in the living room. Antonia was on her third cup of yogurt. Bree was too tired to eat anything. She’d driven home from the Chandlers’ with a check for five thousand dollars in her briefcase and a hollow taste of victory in her mouth. “I totally get it about your cynicism, though.”

  Bree was startled. “Was that cynical? Am I getting cynical?”

  “And why not? You’ve told me over and over again that justice works just as well for the rich as it does for the poor . . .”

  “Most times,” Bree said. “I said most times.”

  “And here’s a prime example of a little brat princess getting off of a particularly heinous crime . . .”

  “I wouldn’t call snatching a shoebox of money from a Girl Scout heinous,” Bree said doubtfully. “Crummy. Impulsive. Ill judged. But not heinous. Heinous is whacking poor old Probert Chandler over the head with a giant flashlight and leaving him for dead in the rain.”

  “True,” Antonia said soberly, “very true.”

  “But I am glad that I can proceed with the investigation into Chandler’s death with some legitimacy now.” She chuckled. “Although George may not like the commotion over the warehouse robberies, if robberies they were, and if we’re able to get the police department on to them. This is all connected somehow, Tonia. I’m sure of it.”

  “It is?”

  “Absolutely. The Girl Scout incident, the warehouse robberies, Chandler’s murder—all three.”

  “If you say so,” Antonia said dubiously. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, don’t you think? Isn’t Daddy always telling us not to jump to conclusions? Feels to me like you’re doing the broad jump.”

  Daddy didn’t have a ghostly client telling him the case rested on those connections, either. But Bree didn’t say that aloud. Lindsey. Marlowe’s. Blood. Blood. Blood.

  “Don’t you think it’s truly weird that the corporation’s making this big effort to keep the warehouse robberies out of the news? And isn’t it even weirder that they’re managing to do it? Can you imagine covering up that scale of crime?”

  Antonia shrugged.

  “So the question is Why? I know why,” she answered herself. “Bad publicity is a big part of it. Like a clutch of Caesar’s wives, they are. Needing to be above suspicion or reproach. But there’s something else. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

  Antonia yawned. “So you’ve got another fat-cat paying client, Bree. Good on you. But what convinced you that this Chandler was murdered? I mean, you figured that out way before all this stuff about the autopsy and the eyewitness statement from poor old Mrs. Nussbaum came out.” A looked of pleased awe came over her face. “Hey! Maybe you’re psychic! Are you, Bree? Would that be totally cool, or what?”

  Bree shook her head and glanced nervously at her twin sentinels. Belli and Miles sat on either side of the fireplace, staring at them both with yellow eyes. Antonia had anticipated the need for a hundred-pound bag of dog food and picked up a huge bag of Iams on her way back from her afternoon duties at the theater. She’d fed the two huge dogs herself, and Miles, at least, had unbent enough to lick her face. That was enough for Tonia, who loved animals as much as Bree did, as long as, she said, they didn’t remind her of a Godzilla movie.

  “Which, you know, they still do. Remind me of a Godzilla movie, that is. But it’s a nice kindly Godzilla, not the pissed-off one.”

  “Hm?” Bree had been gazing up at the mirror over the fireplace. The frame was made of some old bronzy metal. She remembered the day Great-Uncle Franklin had dragged it into the town house. She’d been about ten, she thought, and the family was taking a long weekend in Savannah, as they occasionally did. Her mother had pitched a fit. A Francesca-style fit wasn’t all that dramatic, unless you were a family member and used to her generally sunny disposition. “Remember Mamma demanding that Uncle Franklin take that mirror to the dump?�
��

  “No. Should I?”

  “You were about four at the time. So never mind.”

  They were both sprawled on the couch in front of the fireplace. Antonia poked Bree with her toe. “How come you didn’t call me back earlier today? The theater’s dark on Mondays. I thought maybe we’d go down to Huey’s for a big shrimp salad. But it’s too late now.”

  “Phone calls,” Bree said. “Darn. I meant to call Sam Hunter back. But you’re right. It’s too late now.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Antonia wriggled her eyebrows. “Maybe he wanted to take you out to Huey’s.”

  “It’s more likely he called to tell me to butt out of the Chandler case. Ron was over at the PD today, scarfing up autopsy and forensic reports. That’s bound to set him off.”

  “But he’s going to change his mind now, right?” Antonia yawned suddenly. “Gosh. It’s only ten thirty, and I’m beat. I think I’m going to go to bed early for a change.”

  Bree grabbed her sister’s ankle and shook it affectionately. “Good idea. I’m going to take a long hot bath, and go to bed myself.”

  “Well, I’m taking a long hot bath first.”

  “Make it a shower and use the little bathroom, will you? I don’t want to hang around waiting for you to finish piddling around.”

  Antonia flounced off the couch and made a rude noise. But a few minutes later, Bree heard her banging around in the small bathroom, so she got up and unpinned her hair. Sasha, who’d been dozing in the middle of the living room floor, woke suddenly and stared intently at the phone on the stand by the front door.

  The phone rang. Bree froze. The sound was insistent and invasive, and she was very sure she didn’t want to answer it. Sasha looked at her.

  Bad news.

  “How bad, Sasha? It’s not Mamma, is it? Or my father?”

  Sasha squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, and the worst fear ebbed from Bree’s heart. But she still didn’t want to answer the phone.

  The bathroom door banged open. “Are you going to get that?!” Antonia shrieked excitedly from the hall. “It might be L.A. calling! It’s only seven thirty there!”

  Belli and Miles growled like a pair of ore trams rattling through the depths of a mine.

  “Bree!” Antonia danced angrily into the room, wearing a large towel, sarong-style, and a furious expression. “For God’s sake!”

  “Why would L.A. be calling?”

  “Because I’ve signed up with an agent there, that’s why. You knew that.” She grabbed the handset and said, with an abrupt change of tone, “Hel-lo. Antonia Winston-Beaufort here. Oh. It’s you. Yes. She’s here.” Sam Hunter, she mouthed at Bree. “And she was going to call you back today, Lieutenant, but as you know she’s busy busy bus—”

  Bree snatched the phone out of her hand. “Hello, Lieutenant. Why am I sure I don’t want to hear what you have to tell me? It’s not Lindsey, is it?”

  “Lindsey Chandler? No. Patrol picked her up about forty-five minutes ago and took her home. I called because of something else.”

  “What is it? Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Seaton Stud. The owner here, Missy Trask, asked me to call you.”

  “Missy couldn’t call me herself?” Bree said stupidly. “Is she all right? What’s wrong?” An urgent, utter panic hit her. “Abel? Is Abel okay?”

  “She’s in a bit of a state.” Hunter was tired, and when he was tired, he got brusque. “Might be a good idea if you can get on over here.”

  “Lieutenant!” Bree’s voice was tight. “What’s going on? Why are you there?”

  “Why?” he asked grimly. “Because I’m at a crime scene, Miz Beaufort, looking at the body of Shirley Chavez, lately of this parish.”

  Fifteen

  What? All my pretty little chickens?

  —Macbeth, Shakespeare

  “This is all your fault!” Missy Trask’s face was blotched with tears and cold with rage. “Stirring things up! You come out here with those damn black dogs like some damn vulture and look. Just look!” Her sturdy body quivered with fury. She wore the clothes she’d worn that afternoon. The flannel shirt was the worse for wear; she’d pulled the tail free from her jeans to wipe her face and tucked half of it into her waistband. The other half flapped free.

  Bree looked, although she didn’t want to. The Chatham County scene of crime team had erected huge floodlights in a fifty-foot-wide area around Shirley’s body. Her hands and feet were bagged in plastic. A photographer snapped pictures of the gory mess of her skull. She’d been shot down in an alleyway between two of the barns. Worried horses poked their heads out of their stalls. Their stamps and snorts added a surreal undercurrent to the mutters of the swarm of technicians and police officials. A small family group huddled against the walls of the barn to the left of the corpse. Mr. Chavez, most probably, and two olive-skinned, dark-haired teenagers. All three were weeping.

  “I’m afraid you might be right,” Bree said quietly. She closed her eyes and swallowed. This was her fault.

  “She was so excited over that whacking damn check you people gave her. Well, you bought her and then you buried her. I hope you people are proud of what you’ve done.”

  “Missy.” Abel stood by quietly. He came forward and took her gently by the shoulders. “I want you to go into the house and wash your face.” He glanced over her head at Sam Hunter, who was standing with his hands shoved into the pockets of his chinos. “Are you through with her?”

  “We’ll need a signed statement from her about the discovery of the body, but yeah, go on ahead. I’ll send someone on up to the house as soon as we’ve finished here.”

  Abel smiled at Bree, a rueful twist to his lips. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ve got to get Virginia settled. Will you be here a while?”

  Bree nodded. Her face felt frozen. Sasha stood at her knee, subdued, his attention drawn to the busy figures at the site of the body. Hunter glanced swiftly from Bree to Abel and back again. He waited until Abel’s tall figure led Missy off into the darkness that lay beyond the circle of artificial lights.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “Mrs. Trask said you’d visited Shirley Chavez this afternoon. She seemed to think you’d have some idea of the motive behind the killing. I didn’t realize she was so upset with you.”

  “She liked Shirley.” Sasha thrust his warm nose into her hand, and she cupped his head. There was something very calming about the shape of a dog’s head beneath your hand. Bree stroked the dog and stared at the ground. Anything rather than look at that poor huddled form beneath the lights and hear the weeping family in the shadows. “Missy has a right to be angry. She lost her husband just three weeks ago, so she’s a bit fragile to begin with. This is another horrible injustice. You knew Charles Trask had died?”

  Hunter nodded. “Fell and broke his neck jumping a horse over a fence.” He sounded faintly surprised that something like that could happen. “I’ve been a good city kid all my life. Can’t see the attraction in it.”

  “Hunting can be a dangerous sport.”

  “Especially for the fox.”

  Was that disapproval in his voice? Bree looked up. “They haven’t had a live hunt here in years. They use a drag.”

  Hunter quirked his eyebrow up.

  “A drag is a pouch saturated with a chemical scent. The hounds follow that instead of . . . you’re trying to distract me up, aren’t you?”

  “I’d like to get that look off your face.”

  Bree looked at her feet again. “I do feel responsible for this, Hunter.”

  “You want to tell me why?”

  She hesitated, trying to order her thoughts. “There’s some connection here. It’s just not clear to me yet.”

  “Connection between what?” Hunter demanded.

  Marlowe’s. The warehouse. My daughter. Help me. Help me.

  “This murder. Probert Chandler’s murder. And a couple of robberies at the Marlowe’s warehouse on Route 80.”

  Hunter�
��s lips tightened to a thin line. But all he said was, “What robberies?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” She leaned forward, the better to see his expression.

  Hunter’s face darkened in the glare of the harsh lights. “I don’t have time for this,” he said tightly.

  “You haven’t had any reports of any break-ins out at the Marlowe’s warehouse?”

  “No.” He stared back at her, his gaze as assessing as hers. “You know something. What?”

  He wasn’t hiding anything from her. She was sure of it. “Shirley told me someone’s been stealing pallets of PSE from Marlowe’s. And that the corporate types have been all over the local guys, trying to keep it quiet.”

  Hunter didn’t say anything for a long moment. His face was totally expressionless. Finally, he said, “Let me get back to you on that.”

  “You promise?”

  “If you promise to tell me about anything, anything that you turn up as soon as you get it.”

  “Sure. As long as you give me a little time to set up my own case.”

  Hunter rubbed the back of his neck and stared up at the night sky. She could hear him taking several deep breaths. “You aren’t seriously suggesting I compromise an investigation on behalf of a civilian? Or that I forget that I’m working for the Chatham County Police Department?”

  “Of course not!” Bree straightened up belligerently. She looked around the busy area. “Is there a place where we can sit down?”

  “I’m finished here, for the moment. Forensics is in the middle of doing their thing, and I’ve got two detectives taking statements from the workers. Let’s go into the farm office.” He flipped open his cell phone, told whoever was on the other end of the transmission where he’d be, and followed her back across the paved courtyard to the old brick building. Somebody had made a fresh pot of coffee in the automatic pot that sat on the worn pine credenza. Bree poured both of them a cup. The heat warmed her hands. The shock of the incident was wearing off. She sat down in the chair across from the desk and tried to kick her brain into first gear. “Let me start with what I know for sure: a representative of the Chandler family authorized Stubblefield, Marwick to give the Chavez family five hundred thousand dollars to drop any civil charges against Lindsey.”