Angel's Advocate

by Stanton, Mary

  Bree heaved a deep sigh. “I’m mired, Goldstein. Mired.”

  “Yes. Well. The patient accumulation of data. That’s the trick.”

  Bree left the Hall of Records and took the elevator down to the first floor, where a small crowd of the decidedly unangelic citizens of Chatham County milled about. Four portly gentlemen in the brown and cream uniform of the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department glowered at the line filing through the arch of the metal detector. Two young guys in the dark blue uniforms of the Savannah PD marched a sulky-looking lady in pink curlers across the broad terrazzo floor. “You there in the suit! You a lawyer?” the lady in the curlers shouted. “I need me a lawyer!” Another pair of uniforms came through the back from the holding pens.

  Between them was Payton McAllister.

  Bree stopped and stared.

  His Italian-made suit was wrinkled. He was tieless. His pink-striped, white-cuffed shirt had a coffee stain down the front. He glared furiously at her. A fourth man, in a conservative seersucker suit, trailed behind them. Beyond the glass doors that led to the parking lot outside, the van for WSAV TV pulled up, and a gorgeous young blonde spilled out, followed by a cameraman and a Steadicam.

  Bree bit her lip to stop from grinning. Her first thought was to let the lady in the pink curlers know that there was a lawyer, right there. If not Payton himself, then the guy that walked behind him. Her second was to offer a sympathetic shake of the head and slip unobtrusively away. Just then Payton jerked his arms free of the officers and shook his fist at her. “You bitch!” he shouted. “This is your fault!” So she had a third option; she smiled, waved, and caroled, “Good morning!” The younger of the two men in uniform dropped her a wink.

  Bree paused in the middle of the foyer and mentally flipped through the possibilities. There was only one, really, and that was to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk with Lindsey herself.

  But she’d have to make sure to catch the news at noon; Payton’s gorgeous blue eyes were nicely bloodshot. The cameras should catch it all.

  “She’s not here.” Carrie-Alice wasn’t all that pulled-together this morning, either. She wore the cotton twinset that she’d worn the night before. There was a run in her stocking. She’d neglected to put on any makeup. It made her look younger, and more vulnerable. Murder investigations certainly seemed to have a deleterious effect on the way those concerned presented themselves. Bree tucked her tee more neatly into her waistband and tried to look calm, collected, and competent.

  “I’m here to help, Mrs. Chandler. I think Lindsey may know more than she realizes.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not precisely sure,” Bree admitted. “But if I could just sit down with her, alone, get her to relax a bit . . .”

  “I told you, she’s not here.” Carrie-Alice twisted her hands together and walked to the front window. The security guards were back. And beyond them, the quiet street wasn’t quiet anymore. A small contingent of reporters and cameramen crowded together at the foot of the driveway. Carrie-Alice watched them with something like despair on her face. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”

  “They arrested one of the lawyers from Stubblefield, Marwick this morning,” Bree said. “Or at least, brought him in for questioning. The folks outside are probably after a comment from you.”

  “About what?”

  “Bribes. To pay off the Chavez family, I should think.” Bree leaned back against the couch. “If someone from the family in fact authorized it, the police will be here to inquire about it.”

  “George!” Carrie-Alice shouted. “George!”

  Bree jumped. This was very unlike Lindsey’s detached, remote mother.

  Norah came quietly into the living room. “Is something wrong, Mrs. Chandler?”

  “George is in his father’s office,” Carrie-Alice said distractedly. “Ask him to come in here, please.”

  Norah left as quietly as she’d come and returned with George a few moments later.

  “You handle this,” Carrie-Alice said abruptly. “I’m going upstairs to lie down. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I’m exhausted.” She left the room, half running.

  George watched her go, a look of mild concern on his face, and then sat down in the chair across from Bree. “You’ll have to excuse Mom,” he said. “This has been really hard for her. Hard for us all, actually. Have you got some news for us already?”

  George, at least, was neatly dressed. His tan chinos were pressed, his blue dress shirt had just come from the dry cleaner’s, and his tie was precisely knotted. Bree wondered if this meant anything other than that he kept cool in a crisis. Or was too thick-skinned to care.

  “I really need to talk to Lindsey, Mr. Chandler.”

  “Call me George, would you? I haven’t quite adjusted to Dad’s death. He was always Mister Chandler.”

  Bree suppressed a sigh. “I really need to talk to Lindsey, George.”

  “She’s not here, I’m afraid.”

  “Then I need to go where she is and talk to her.” Her lack of sleep was definitely affecting her temper.

  “But you’re not representing Lindsey anymore. That case is over and done with.” He looked over his shoulder uneasily, as if a TV anchor lurked under the davenport. “And she doesn’t know anything that could help you in Dad’s death.”

  “She might.”

  “Like what?” He looked genuinely bewildered. “She’s a kid. And she’s never been an easy kid, as you know by now. The likelihood that Dad would have confided in her is slim to none. I don’t want to shock you, but I don’t think he liked her much. I’d prefer to be logical about this.”

  Too thick-skinned to care, obviously. Poor Lindsey. Bree’s sympathy was well and truly stirred. If she could just get to the kid, something could be done to help her, couldn’t it? Everyone deserved a shot at redemption. Everyone needed a champion now and then. Bree forced herself to think fast. What sort of plea would a neatly pressed, “life’s logical” person like George respond to? “Just dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s, George. There’s no real trick to good solid investigative work, you know. It’s a lot of slog, slog, slog.”

  “That’s true. Dad always said that God is in the details.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay. Mother’s not going to be happy about this, but we’ll set it up.”

  “Where is she?” Wild ideas zipped through her brain. Lindsey stuck in a sinister clinic somewhere? Held captive by hired thugs?

  “At the Cliff’s Edge Academy. We had her taken there last night, after the police brought her home. It’s been in the works for a while. To be frank, it may have been the reason behind this latest escapade with the Girl Scout. Mother had talked to her about it a week ago. The Savannah School thought it’d be best if we transferred her out. And the academy has a decent reputation for handling challenged children.” He frowned. “Expensive, though.” The heir to the world’s tenth-largest fortune stood up and shook the creases from his khakis. “I’ll call them and set up an appointment. Is there a time that would be convenient for you?”

  “It’s a two-hour drive from here, up toward Atlanta? Late this afternoon would be just fine.”

  The doorbell chimed. Norah rustled by. There was a murmur of voices, and the noise of several people moving out in the hallway. “Mr. Chandler!” somebody shouted.

  “Excuse me,” George said. “That’s the head security guard. Would you mind getting the Atlanta phone book while I take care of this, Bree? There’s a copy in Dad’s office.”

  “You need the number for the Cliff’s Edge Academy?”

  “Please.” He waved a hand at her as he disappeared toward the front door. A practical man, George Chandler, not one to waste a few bucks on a 411 call to information services.

  Bree felt a small twinge of anxiety about returning to the scene of Probert’s appearance, offset by a lunatic hope that his ghost would appear with the name of his murderer on his lips. She edged into the room with s
ome trepidation, and spotted the Atlanta area phone book on the credenza. She picked it up and said quietly, “Mr. Chandler? Probert?”

  Nothing.

  She cleared her throat. “Anything more you can tell me about this case? I’m off to see Lindsey this afternoon.”

  A small current of air stirred the papers on top of the desk.

  “I can’t help but feel she’s at the heart of the murders, here. You know that, of course, since it’s why you’re, well, where you are.”

  A howl shattered the air with the sound of an enormous hammer on a huge block of ice. Bree fought the temptation to run like hell and held her ground. Hot air burst through the room, flinging papers, magazines, books, and folders in the air. The U of Oregon photograph of Probert and his friends flipped off the wall and landed with a crash at her feet. The family portrait fell off the desk and shattered. The City of Savannah phone book flew into the air, struck the wall opposite the window overlooking the pool, and ricocheted into the wastebasket.

  The desk began to vibrate. It was a massive piece of furniture, topped by a thick slab of mahogany. It shook as if possessed. The bottom drawer sprang open. Bree clutched the phone book to her chest and wondered what George Chandler was going to say when he saw the complete mess his father’s ghost had made of his office. The bottom drawer jumped forward, as if being pulled by invisible hands. It flipped over, spilling the contents on the floor.

  A syringe. A Marlowe’s paperweight the size of a baby’s fist. A lab report. Bree picked the lab report up first. It was a simple blood test, and it identified Carrie-Alice’s type as O negative.

  The wind died with the suddenness of a power failure in the middle of a storm.

  Bree hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. The room was so quiet she could hear her blood pounding in her ears.

  She addressed the air. “Anything else?”

  Nothing. The air was still. No tortured figure appeared before her, hands outstretched in appeal. A distant door slammed; George, she guessed, and the sound of his foot-steps meant he was headed this way. Bree retrieved the phone book, stuffed the syringe and the paperweight in her suit coat pocket, and slipped out, closing the office door behind her.

  George came down the hall toward her, an abstracted frown on his face. It lightened a little when he saw her. He frowned at her. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  Bree looked down. The lab report was crushed in her right hand. “Just a piece of paper that marked a place in the phone book,” she said brightly. She crumpled the paper into a ball and shoved it between the syringe and the paperweight. “It marked places that deliver pizza,” she added unnecessarily. “Lindsey must have wanted to order out.” She leaned against the office door and tucked the phone book into the crook of one arm. “I’ll just look up the academy’s number, shall I? We can give them a call on my cell. And it’ll be more comfortable in the living room, don’t you think?”

  “What? The living room? Probably not. We can use the phone in here.” He reached past her to the doorknob. Bree didn’t budge. His breath smelled like scrambled eggs. “Any trouble up front?” she asked brightly.

  “Excuse me,” he said firmly. She backed off. He opened the door and walked into the office. She heard him exclaim. Bree briefly considered making a dash for it. “Well?” he said called out impatiently. “Is there something wrong, Miss Beaufort? Are you coming in?”

  She peered around the lintel.

  The office was as neatly arranged as when she’d first walked in to retrieve the phone book. She considered the properly stacked piles of paper, the neatly arranged magazines, and the orderly row of stapler, penholder, and writing pads on top of the desk. All four drawers were in place and firmly closed. George was crouched down by the bottom drawer. “This is weird,” he said. “These keys of Dad’s have been missing since he died. And I found them under the desk.” He held them in his hand as if weighing them. “Funny how that happens, isn’t it? Huh! And here’s that old picture of Dad and his disco band. Must have fallen off the wall.” The glass was intact. He picked the photo up and positioned it back on the wall. He tossed the keys on the desk.

  Keys? Should she have picked up the keys, as well?

  “Keys to anything important?” Bree asked casually.

  “To the manufacturing plant and the warehouse near the store here. I had the security locks changed both places, just to be sure, when the keys turned up missing. Darn. I could have saved ten grand if I’d just searched for these hard enough. Shoot. I could have sworn I’d looked all over this place.” He sat down in the leather executive chair with a sigh.

  Bree took a few steps into the office and stared at the photo on the wall. “That’s John Lindquist.”

  George seemed not to hear her. “Anyway. Sorry for the brief delay out there.”

  “What happened?”

  George took a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his forehead. “A couple of big black dogs were loose in the garden. One of the TV people claimed Cap shaw set the dogs on him. We don’t own any dogs. I have no idea where they came from, or where they went.”

  “Oh, dear,” Bree said. “No one was hurt, I hope?”

  “Nah. Just a momentary diversion. If you ask me, one of those reporters brought ’em along just to see if they could get one of us out of the house. The minute I went out there I got a microphone stuck in my face and they started with the questions about the so-called payoff to Miss Chavez.”

  Bree’s hand went to the syringe and the paperweight tucked in her pocket. “I can get an injunction to keep them off the property, George.”

  He shook his head dismissively. “I’ve got people to handle that. Let’s call Cliff’s Edge and get on with this. The sooner I can get back to real work, the better.”

  Seventeen

  It’s a white whale, I say.

  —Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

  “Uncle Jay drew blood from me,” Lindsey said with a shrug.

  “You mean John Lindquist,” Bree said.

  Lindsey nodded. “And when he wasn’t around, Dad did. No one was supposed to know about it.” She looked at the syringe Bree had laid on the table in front of her. The headmistress, a Miss Violet Henry, had offered them the use of a well-appointed, quiet conference room on the main floor of the beautiful old mansion that housed Cliff’s Edge Academy. “You read Anne Rice?”

  “What? No, no, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “When I was little, I used to think they were vampires, Dad and Uncle Jay. Or that they were using the blood for some weird rite, you know? Like in that video game, Vampire’s Bloodlust. And then I’d pee in a cup.”

  Lab tests, Bree thought. Weird rite, indeed. But for what?

  “So?” Lindsey challenged her.

  “I think that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Yeah?” Lindsey said. “You believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you,” Bree said gently. “What I have a really hard time understanding is why. I mean, don’t you get regular physicals?”

  Lindsey picked at her upper lip. “I’ve got AIDS, I guess. They didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “What!” Bree reached across the table and took Lindsey’s hands in her own. “Who told you that?”

  “Well, it’s got to be something like that, doesn’t it? Uncle Jay told me if anybody knew what I had, there wouldn’t be a school in the country that’d take me, and I wouldn’t have any friends.”

  Bree turned Lindsey’s hands over and looked at the nails. They were bitten down to the quick. But the color was good, her hands were warm, and, as hospital records might have expressed it, hers was the body of a well-nourished white female approximately seventeen years of age. Other than the troubled hunch of her shoulders and her sullen expression, Lindsey looked perfectly healthy. Which, as Bree well knew, was no proof at all that the child wasn’t dying of something awful. If she had been on uppers, there was no sign of it now.

  “Are you taking an
y kind of medications for this condition, Lin?”

  “Vitamins.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, yeah!” She slouched further down in the chair and glared at Bree like an angry cat.

  “And what about other kinds of drugs?”

  “That’s the first thing any of you think when you talk to kids,” Lindsey said. “Drugs drugs. Blah blah blah. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We don’t do drugs.” She looked away and drummed her fingers on the table.

  Bree caught the use of the word “we” and sent up a brief apology for the deception she was about to practice. She said smoothly, “That’s not what I hear, Lindsey.”

  Was that a flicker of alarm in those angry eyes? It was. Good.

  “I’ve talked to Chad.”

  “Chad.” Her tone was absolutely flat.

  “Madison and Hartley, too.”

  Silence. Lindsey hunched her shoulders and shut down.

  Bree let it roll on. It’s surprisingly hard to maintain total silence between two people. Bree remained perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes steady on Lindsey’s bowed head. She knew what she had to do. If anyone needed Bree’s services as a lawyer, it was poor Lindsey.

  “Just a few uppers once in a while,” Lindsey said. She rubbed her nose fiercely. “And a downer or two. And only from Chad. And then when—” She clamped her mouth shut.

  “When what?” Bree asked gently.

  “My dad found out. He made us break up. He threatened to do something totally gross to Chad’s dad, like taking away his law license.”

  Bree doubted even Probert Chandler could accomplish that. But she had a brief, unwelcome vision of the celestial scales of justice and the little dial that pointed down down down. “When was this?”

  Lindsey sighed. “A couple of weeks before he died. I dunno. The accident was in June, right? So it was later. A couple of weeks after Chad was supposed to graduate from high school.”

  “This didn’t happen the day of your father’s . . . accident?”