Angel's Advocate

by Stanton, Mary

  “Nope.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” She stared at Bree, and then barked with laughter. “You think Chad had something to do with my dad’s death? No way. No way. Chad, he’s . . . well, he’s comfy. You know. Cosy. Nice. Besides,” she added earnestly, “he’s a vegetarian.”

  Bree pinched her knee hard, so she wouldn’t laugh, and took a moment to compose herself. Then she put her elbows on the table and leaned forward to stare at Lindsey eye to eye. “Then, I want the whole story about this syringe. From the first you remember up to right now.”

  There wasn’t much more to the story, actually. Lindsey didn’t remember a time when her view of the universe failed to coincide with the expectations of the world around her. As nearly as Bree could tell, Lindsey arrived in this world with a permanent inability to do the good thing and, worse yet, a positive drive to do the bad.

  When she left, she took Lindsey’s supply of vitamins with her.

  “It’s a horrible story,” she said to Hunter several hours later. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think. She remembers talking to a series of doctors when she was little. And the blood draws started after she turned ten. She has that specific a recall because she screamed when a few blood drops got on a pair of jeans she’d gotten as a tenth birthday present. They had sequins on the cuffs, she said. And she outgrew them way too fast.” She wanted to put her head in her hands and weep. Instead, she took a bite of her Cobb salad. “I stopped back at the office before I came here, and Ron had dug up her medical records for me. I’m so bummed I don’t even want to take a look. What the hell do you suppose was going on?”

  “I think you’ve gotten way overinvolved in this case.” Hunter ate his Brunswick stew with calm efficiency.

  They’d met for dinner at Isaac’s. It was late, after ten, and Bree felt as if she hadn’t slept for days. Her eyes were sandy. Her head ached.

  “It sounds to me like she’s just a troubled kid.”

  “Just!”

  He reached out and placed his hand flat against the manila folder that held Lindsey’s records. “May I?”

  “Those are confidential,” Bree said automatically.

  “Well, I won’t ask you how you got them so quickly if you don’t nag me about looking at them.” Hunter didn’t wait for her reply, but paged through the neat stack of photocopies. Bree separated the bacon bits in her salad neatly from the chopped tomatoes and sprinkled salt over the diced hard-boiled egg. Then she ate all the black olives.

  “Almost all of this is behaviorally oriented,” Hunter said. “Physically she’s fine.” He held up a densely printed sheet of cream-colored paper that listed lab results. Bree caught the first line: Blood type AB-, followed by a normal range for the hematocrit, sed rate, blah blah blah.

  “And through the years,” Hunter said, “the blood draws were to test levels of various antidepressants, mood elevators, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors . . .” He tossed the file flat on the table. “All of this crap was in the vitamins. You know the drill.” He tapped the papers into a neat pile. “You haven’t seen this yet.”

  “No. I don’t think I want to.”

  “You might want to take a look at the name of the prescribing physician.” He lifted the top paper off the stack and handed it to her.

  “Lindquist!” Bree said. “That son of a bitch!” For a brief, unsettling moment, the world tilted and she saw the restaurant, Hunter’s grim and angry visage, the stack of incriminating reports in a sea of red. Her hands clenched. A breeze rose around the table and stirred her hair. Her breath came short. With an effort, she calmed herself, but it was several minutes before she could speak. She knew Lindquist was a rat—but this violation of his oath as a physician was too much.

  “The blood draws,” she said. Her voice was hoarse with rage. She took a sip of water. “They were just making sure the levels of the drugs they were giving her were safe.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well, that sucks,” Bree said furiously. “She’s a minor. Half that crap hasn’t been tested on kids. Who knows if it’s safe? What sucks the most is that they didn’t tell her.”

  Hunter spread his hands in a gesture of demurral. “The tentative diagnoses are all pretty grim. Suicidal tendencies. Depression. Paranoia. Probable manic-depressive illness . . .”

  “Bipolar disorder,” Bree said. “It’s called bipolar disorder now.” She contemplated the pile of grilled chicken that topped her salad and felt suddenly cheery. “I’ve got a lot of ammunition for a defense, at least.”

  “If the Chandlers let you use it.”

  Bree nodded. “And he was trying to save her, God help him. At the very least it’s mitigating.”

  “Who was trying to save her?”

  “Never mind,” Bree said. “Hey! Listen. I’m beginning to get a handle on Lindsey’s part of the problem at least. I just need the answers to two questions. First, I assume Payton McAllister spilled his guts with little or no prompting from you guys.”

  Hunter grinned.

  “He did. So who authorized the payoff to the Chavez family?”

  “John Allen Lindquist.”

  “Really!” Bree sat back. This was interesting. She would have made (and lost) a large bet that George was behind the cash payment. Maybe she was wrong about George. Or perhaps George and Lindquist were working together. She thought about George’s reaction when she’d last mentioned Lindquist to him. “And do you know who put the pressure on the DA’s office to make Cordy reconsider pressing charges in the cookie robbery?”

  “It’s just scuttlebutt,” Hunter said cautiously.

  “Then nod if it’s Lindquist.”

  Hunter jerked his chin at her. She smiled grimly. “I thought so.”

  “Any reason why you thought it was Lindquist?”

  “He could close the Marlowe’s store here—that’s over five hundred jobs at risk, and it’s an election year. And he’s turned out to be pretty sneaky, all things considered. He and Probert double-teamed poor old Lindsey. And that rat George must have known, and let them do it.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I wonder if I can sue the two of them, on Lindsey’s behalf. Putting her through all that trauma, all those years. All the secrecy. The fear she was dying of something horrible. What is wrong with people, Hunter? Maybe I can petition the court to get her away from them. I’m representing her now, did I tell you that? I’m going to tell George and his mother to go fly a kite. First thing in the morning.”

  “Just to make this perfectly clear: you intend to sue your soon-to-be-former clients based on information received while they were your clients?”

  Bree stared at him, her mouth slightly open. She sat that way for a long, agonizing moment. “Oh. My. God,” she said. “I can’t believe . . .” She buried her head in her arms and shouted silently into the tabletop. She raised her head, took a deep breath, and said, “I have to tell them I am going to resign as their counsel. And I have to do it now. And I’ve got to get some kind of retainer from Lindsey.”

  “I’m sure they’re already well aware that you’ve been to see her.”

  “How could they be?”

  Hunter smiled. It wasn’t a very kind smile. It was a “gotcha” sort of smile. “Did you overhear George’s phone call to Cliff’s Edge?”

  “Did I? No. Do you think I’m the kind of person who’d listen in on somebody’s private phone call?”

  “You’d better be, if you’re going to become any kind of an investigator.”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said with a rather pitiful attempt at dignity, “I went out to check on my dogs. Someone must have let them out of my car and let them run around the Chandler place, creating all kinds of havoc. I can’t imagine how they got out otherwise.” Well, she could, but she wasn’t about to let Hunter in on why.

  “I can’t imagine anyone coming within half a mile of those animals voluntarily, much less putting a hand on the door of your lit
tle car. They’d eat whoever it was alive.” His look over his Brunswick stew was suspicious.

  “Well, they were safely tucked up when I left them to drop in on the Chandlers and they were just as safely tucked up when I went out to check on them. We could go ahead and ask them what happened. Only I vote you do the talking.”

  “Let’s get back to the point here,” he said patiently. “You drove up to Cliff’s Edge about just after lunch?”

  “And got there about four, yes. Violet Henry arranged one of the conference rooms the school sets aside for family.”

  “And Henry didn’t stay with you throughout the interview?”

  “No. Should she have?” Bree slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead. “Damn. Damn, I am so stupid. My conversation with Lindsey was taped, wasn’t it? Oh, I should be smeared with molasses and hung in a beehive.”

  “And the tape turned over to the family by now, don’t you think?”

  “Double damn, damn, damn.” Served her right for leaving Sasha with Belli and Miles in the car. Sasha would have alerted her to the tape recorder. She was sure of it. But she hadn’t wanted her precious dog anywhere near the tormented Lindsey.

  “Here,” Hunter said in a kindly way, “beat yourself over the head with this.” He pulled a baguette from the breadbasket and offered it to her with a flourish. “I don’t need to add that civilians rummaging around in police investigations leads to precisely this kind of thing, do I?”

  “If you don’t shut up,” Bree said fiercely, “I’ll stuff that stew right up your nose. And I mean it.”

  There was a well-dressed couple in the booth next to their table. The woman, a little older than Bree, glanced at them, shifted nervously in her seat, and whispered to her male companion. Bree fought the impulse to stuff stew up her nose, too. “What do we do now?”

  “We? Got a mouse in your pocket?” Hunter sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. But you do realize your behavior violates at least three separate tenets in your canon of ethics.”

  “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

  “You’re risking your license to practice law. No skin off my nose.”

  “Thanks for the sympathetic ear,” she said sarcastically. “I didn’t stop to think. I was a fool. Worse yet, I’ve been unethical. My father,” she added gloomily, “is going to spit rocks.”

  Hunter’s face softened, just a little. “Get some sleep. Back off a little. Give yourself time to calm down. You get tired or you let a case get to you, you’re going to lose your objectivity and make mistakes.”

  Bree swallowed another piece of the baguette, along with the lecture. She waited until the flush had cooled from her cheeks and her blood pressure had returned to a relatively normal state. “So how’s the investigation into the murder of Shirley Chavez?”

  “The call to the cell phone she made after she talked to Stubblefield’s office was to a cell phone with prepaid minutes. And we’re sifting through the forensic evidence we gathered at the murder site right now. Not much hope there, I’m afraid.” He look tired, and older, all of a sudden. “There’s nothing harder to solve than a seemingly random, opportunistic act like this one, Bree. If we don’t get a break in the case, it doesn’t look good. That eyewitness to Probert’s car crash? You wouldn’t care to pass that name along?”

  Bree remembered her promise to Ron. “That person’s not going to come forward,” she said. “Not unless we get a miracle.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about the robberies. She couldn’t. Not until she knew more. Not until the pattern between these two cases started to make some sense.

  And not until Sam Hunter’s respect for her had come back. Just a little.

  “It’ll take a miracle to solve this sucker.” Bree stared out her office window at the graveyard. She’d resigned from representing Carrie-Alice and George. Although the morning had dawned bright and sunny, the sun never seemed to reach under the boughs of the live oak tree. Josiah Pendergast’s grave gaped wide. She imagined she could smell the dank and fetid air that rose from it, and rubbed her arms as if she were cold. At least she’d gotten some sleep the night before. And she’d gone for a run by the river early in the morning; she felt rested, and her head was clear.

  But the case looked worse than ever.

  “I don’t know about miracles. Some good investigative work will help. We’ve narrowed down the suspect list.” Ron placed a sheet of paper on her desk with an air of triumph. “Three of the people on this list have no alibi for the time of Mr. Chandler’s death. All three have a grudge against him or the company, and have threatened him in the past. And all three have committed felonies related to crimes against property.”

  “As opposed to crimes against persons,” Petru said with an air of helpfulness. “We thought that the warehouse burglaries were of some significance.”

  “I wish I knew for sure why the Chandlers are turning cartwheels to keep it quiet.” Bree took a look at the list: Stephen Hansen; Marvin Kleinmetz; Tiffany Burkhold. The name Hansen rang a faint bell. Was she thinking of the notorious spy? She hoped they weren’t whistling in the wind. What if Probert had been killed in some insane, random act? What if Shirley—no. There was no possible alternate interpretation for what had happened to Shirley. She had been murdered. It was murder, clear as daylight and twice as strong. And it had to connect to these other events. It had to. And it all had to connect to Marlowe’s.

  “What’s the grudge each has against Chandler?”

  “Hansen’s owner of a small family pharmacy that went totally bankrupt when Marlowe’s built that store off of Highway 80. He brought a nonsense lawsuit, lost, and threatened to kill Chandler, right there in open court. The guy’s not too tightly wrapped, according to his neighbors. One interesting thing—his pharmacology degree’s from the University of Oregon. Same year as Lindquist and Chandler, as a matter of fact.”

  Bree sat up. We were all chem majors, Lindquist had said during the party at Plessey. Steve Hansen, Bert, and me.

  “There’s more. He’s been indicted and convicted for tax fraud in the past. And he apparently has quite a gambling habit.”

  “Gambling,” Bree said.

  “Money is always a motive,” Ron offered. “One of the best.”

  Bree bit her lip to keep from yelling hoorah! and behaving like an idiot in front of her staff. “Wow. This is looking better and better.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Petru made a grumbling noise. Ron smirked. “As for these others: Marv Kleinmetz is a union organizer, with a long history of thumping people’s heads. He’s been trying to organize the Marlowe’s workers for years. He was fired for theft last year, and Marlowe’s prosecuted. He was released from prison a week before Probert’s accident out on Skidaway. And he’s a big-time deer hunter.” He raised his eyebrows at Bree’s puzzled look. “The deer-jacking flashlight, remember? Not conclusive, to be sure, but inertia plays a large part in human behavior. You tend to use what’s at hand.”

  “Did you get any details on the theft?”

  Ron’s smile was beatific. “He was in charge of inventory control. When he was hauled off to the pokey, the store manager replaced him with Chad Martinelli and Shirley Chavez. Ready for the finale?”

  “Ready.”

  “He’s the registered owner of a .38.”

  “Well,” Bree said. “Well, well, well. And the third person?”

  “Tiffany Burkhold is a former employee. She was fired from Marlowe’s four and a half months ago—a couple of weeks before the car crash.”

  “So she would have worked with Shirley.”

  “Oh, she worked with Shirley, all right. Shirley caught her swiping prescription drugs from the pharmacy and turned her in. Tiffany lost both the Marlowe’s job and her part-time job as a teller at the Bank of Savannah. She wrote a letter threatening Probert personally. Stubblefield, Marwick got a restraining order on behalf of Chandler. She does have a record as a juvenile. It’s sealed, but it’s relevant. She was
involved in a series of snatch-and-grabs as a kid.”

  “Shirley turned her in?” The one time I didn’t mind my own business, it came back to bite me in the ass.

  “So Tiffany’s still paying for offenses committed how long ago?”

  “Twenty-five years, at least.”

  “Yikes.” Bree traced the names on the paper with her finger. “Did you turn these names over to Sam Hunter?”

  Ron nodded. “First thing this morning. He said to tell you he’s on it.”

  “Shirley’s death changes things,” Bree said.

  “Lieutenant Hunter said to tell you he’s on that, too.”

  Bree bit her thumb and brooded.

  Ron sat on the edge of his desk and swung his legs jauntily. “So what’s next, chief?”

  “There’s something very off, here.” Bree frowned. “All three of these people made public threats against Chandler himself. And Chandler responded the way any citizen should: he called the cops. And he used the court system.”

  “So why the deep silence over the warehouse robberies, perhaps?” Petru said.

  “Exactly.” Bree bent over the list again. “I like Hansen for it. I like Kleinmetz for it. Tiffany, not so much.” She looked up. “Uncle Jay, a.k.a. John Lindquist,” she said. “I really, really want to talk to Uncle Jay. And then Tiffany Burkhold. And then Kleinmetz. In person. Hansen. Do we have an address for him?”

  “Not yet. He seems to have disappeared. But I’ll find him.” Ron shook his head. “You think this is all connected with Marlowe’s?”

  She thought of the keys. “It has to be.”

  Lindquist agreed to meet her at the manufacturing plant, which was located near the Marlowe’s retail operation on Highway 80. On the way to the meeting, Bree had a brain wave of an idea. She stopped at the store, made several purchases, and tucked them away in her briefcase.

  Both the research center and warehouse were located a quarter mile from the Marlowe’s store, at the very rear of the Marlowe’s property. It was pretty clear which was Marlowe’s property and which was not: all of the trees and shrubbery had been cleared from the land, to be replaced by lots of concrete and grass mowed within an inch of its life. Parts of the research center were still under construction. A large sculpture of the Marlowe’s logo in front of the two-story building was in the final stages. The concrete pad around the base was newly poured and drying in the sun.