by Mary Stanton
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her voice seemed to come from somebody else.
“I’m not ridiculous.”
“You think I’m going crazy?”
“I don’t know what to think. All I know is, ever since we’ve moved here you’ve gotten well and truly weird.”
“Maybe you could be a little more specific,” Bree said. She could be very sarcastic if she put her mind to it and she was putting her mind to it right this minute.
Antonia flinched, but said, “Sure. You want specific? I’ll get specific. I hear you talking to people and when I walk into the room—nobody’s there. I hear you screaming at night with bad dreams. And those huge scary dogs? Miles and Belli, you call them?”
“They’re Russian mastiffs,” Bree said. “I told you: I’m taking care of them as a favor for Professor Cianquino while he’s out of town.” This was a good fib. She wished she’d thought of it before. “They’re a pair of perfectly normal Russian mastiffs.”
“You didn’t tell me any such thing. And if you had, I would have said bullshit, bullshit, bullshit! If those are Russian mastiffs, I’m king of the Martians.”
“King of the who?” Bree said, bemused.
“Well!” Antonia stood up and placed both hands on her hips. “I know you don’t have a lot of respect for me, Bree, being your dumb little sister and all, but I just happened to mention them tonight at the theater, and you know what John Allen Cavendish said?”
Bree chewed on her lower lip. John Allen Cavendish had been a classics undergraduate at Yale before he’d gone on to the drama school.
“He says those names mean ‘War’ and ‘Soldier’ in Latin. So what’s normal about that? Nothing!” Antonia yelled “Aaagh!” for good measure, and then went on, rapidly, “Nobody I know seems to be able to find this office on Angelus you’ve supposedly rented—and the only actual live employee of yours I met is Ron Parchese, and there’s something weird about him, too.”
“He’s gay,” Bree said flippantly. “Maybe that’s too weird for you.”
“You’re a lot of things, Bree Beaufort, but you’re not a creep. At least, not until now.”
Bree flushed with embarrassment and said, firmly, “Cut out the drama queen crap, will you? I don’t have time for it.”
“And there’s something else.” Antonia had the brave, rather hopeless air of someone walking defenseless into an ugly storm. “Which is why I want you to get, like, a complete physical or something. You’re getting harder looking, Bree.”
Bree stared at her in exasperation. “What?!”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve lost weight. Don’t think I haven’t noticed those size six jeans of mine are, like, hanging off you.”
“Those aren’t your jeans.”
“They absolutely are! Who picked them out?”
“Who paid for them?” Bree shot back.
“Fine!” Antonia, prone to fits of temperament which were very satisfying to her, if to nobody else, made a visible effort to get herself under control. “Let’s not talk about jeans, okay? Let’s talk about this weirdness I’m seeing.”
“Okay, let’s.” Bree was good at keeping a poker face. Even a lawyer specializing in corporate tax law—actually, now that she thought about it, especially a lawyer specializing in corporate tax law these days—needed to ‘keep her head when all about her were losing theirs.’ “What’s weird, exactly?”
Antonia squinted at her. “It’s hard to say out loud. It’s like part of you is being pruned away.”
Despite Antonia’s out-of-control imagination and fondness for melodrama, she was an acute observer. Most actors had to be, if they had any hope of a career, as Antonia frequently pointed out. Bree patted her sides and admitted, “I have lost a couple of pounds. But who doesn’t need to lose a couple of pounds?”
“You remember that ceramics class Mom dragged us to when you were in Girl Scouts? It’s like you went into the kiln a person and came back out something else. Harder. Tougher. Glossier.” She leaned forward and said, with an urgency that made Bree’s flesh creep: “It’s like you’re turning into something else. Tell me something. When’s the last time you had a date?”
“A date?”
“You know. A date. A normal sex life. I thought maybe you were coming back to normal when you were flirting with Tony Haddad this afternoon, but after you came out of that meeting with Tully, and he asked you out for a drink, you, like, totally ignored him. Tony Haddad! I mean, even if you can ignore what a fabulous, fabulous brain he’s got, he’s absolutely gorgeous!”
“I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to go to work in the morning.”
“You’d better have time for this. You’re, like, consumed with this career thing. It’s not normal. It’s unhealthy.”
Bree got up. “I’m going to get something to eat. Did you have dinner at the theater or do you want something, too?”
Antonia grabbed her elbow.
Bree shook it off and said tightly, “It’s not a good idea to piss me off, Antonia.”
“Oh, yeah? Like, you’re the Incredible Hulk or something?”
Or something. Bree had to smile. “Okay. You made your point. I hear you. I said I’m not in the mood for this right now, and I meant it.” She wheeled around and drove herself into the kitchen. Sasha got to his feet and followed her, and then, after a long moment, so did her sister.
Bree opened the refrigerator door and began to pull containers and packages out one by one and stack them on the blue-tiled countertop. Genoa salami. Yogurt. The last few slices of a seven-grain bread from the bakery on Bull Street. A jar of sweet pickles. She hated sweet pickles.
“Here.” Antonia pushed her into a kitchen chair and worked a jar of pesto free from her clutching fingers. “First, I’m making us both a cup of chai. Then I’m making us both a sandwich. I picked up some watercress from Parker’s Market yesterday and it’s going to be fabulous with the salami. You just watch.” She kept up the stream of aimless chatter as she plugged in the electric tea kettle, took down plates and cups from the cupboard, and brewed the tea. Bree listened and reminded herself to be patient, and when, finally, their impromptu supper was laid out in front of her, she said, “What’s this really all about?”
Antonia poked at the sandwich she made and set it aside. “I’m scared of you.”
Then:
“It’s like those pod people in the movies.”
And finally:
“I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Bree stared at her sandwich. She wasn’t hungry. She hadn’t really been hungry for a long time. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a good night’s sleep.
Bree took a good look at herself in her bathroom mirror before she went to bed. She was thinner; there wasn’t much doubt about that. Her cheekbones stuck out. The skin around her eyes had a silver-gray cast to it. She glanced down at Sasha, a warm and reassuring presence at her side.
There is a price. Nothing occurs without cost.
And Antonia, who just wouldn’t shut up: How long since you’ve had, like, a regular date? Gone out like normal people? Had a normal life? You want me to lay off? Fine. Then start living like a person.
“This case will take a few weeks,” Bree said to the mirror. “I can think about it then.”
At her feet, Sasha sighed and looked away.
Five
You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel
lucky?” Well, do you, punk?
—H. J. Fink, R. M. Fink, and D. Riesner, Dirty Harry
“We’re going to have to open a satellite office sooner or later,” Bree said to her office staff early Monday morning, “and this may be the best time to do it.” She moved restlessly in her chair. She hadn’t slept well again. She felt like she hadn’t slept well for weeks.
“They’ll want a pot of money for the rent, those folks,” Lavinia said. “If you’re talking about Franklin’s old place. Nowhere near as good a bargain as this.”
“Yes,” Bree said. “But it’s a normal office, isn’t it? I mean, my friends and family will be able to come and visit me there? They’ll be able to find it? Walk in? Sit down? Have a cup of coffee? And I’ll have a semblance of a normal life?”
“Ah,” Petru said.
“Oh, dear,” Ron said. “It’s getting to you, isn’t it? This life. Beaufort & Company.”
Her landlady clucked disapprovingly—Bree hoped at the prospective cost of the new office space, and not at her bid for a little freedom—and moved the cream pitcher within Bree’s reach.
The five of them sat around the long oak table that served the little conference room in the office on Angelus Street. Bree rented the first floor of the two-hundred-year-old house, and, as Lavinia had just pointed out, the rent was indeed cheap. The house sat smack in the middle of Georgia’s only all-murderers cemetery. Despite the fact that they were a mere three blocks from the Savannah River in the highly desirable Historic District, the weedy graves and pallid oaks surrounding the house were distinctly off-putting. Bree sometimes wondered why she had to pay rent at all, since the office location served only the dead, but she didn’t have the nerve to address Lavinia about this directly. She went ahead and paid Ron’s and Petru’s salaries, too, even though she wasn’t at all sure what the two other angels did with the money. Ron was exceptionally well dressed, so she suspected he spent a lot of his salary on custom pima cotton shirts and elegant ties, but Petru wore the same dingy black suit to work day after day. And if the state of his thick black beard was any indication, he did all his own barbering. As for Sasha . . . her dog lay curled next to her chair, and she bent down and scratched behind his ears. He yawned happily, rolled one golden eye up to her, and went back to sleep. Sasha didn’t have any expenses at all, since she bought his dog food herself.
“Uncle Franklin’s old lease was voided by his death,” Bree said. “And what with the brouhaha over the Benjamin Skinner case, I never did get around to talking to the owners about a new one. If you could check on that, Ron, I’d appreciate it.” Great-Uncle Franklin, who had left Bree her unusual law practice and her even more unusual set of employees, had a small one-room office in a refurbished brick warehouse six blocks from Angelus Street. Like many of the great old brick buildings lining the Savannah River, it was in constant need of updating. The latest remodeling had been lengthy and expensive. The entire brick façade had been pointed, the terrazzo floors ground and waxed, and the elegant basswood moldings and balustrades stripped and refinished. But the renovation was almost complete, and she needed to address the issue of moving in.
Ron entered a brief note into his BlackBerry and looked at her expectantly. “Office furnishings?” he said hopefully. “Do we have a budget for that?”
Franklin had died in a fierce fire, which had been contained within his office on the sixth floor. The only things that remained were his desk, which Bree used in her Angelus office, and an old leather chair. So the new space would have to be furnished from scratch. “A small one,” she said. “Maybe you can find a few things at Second Hand Rows off Whitaker. Not too much—a little conference table for the corner window and a desk and a chair for me. We’ll keep most of the files here.”
“The widow O’Rourke?” Petru rumbled. “She has offered a retainer? This should help the finances.”
Bree set her coffee cup down, and then crumbled the remains of her piece of Lavinia’s cinnamon cake into even littler bits. “I’m still not sure we should take her on as a client.”
“A conflict of interest, perhaps? If we are to represent the husband it would be against the widow’s interest?” Petru tapped his cane on the floor with a thoughtful air.
“Well, he’s dead and she’s not,” Ron said crossly. “We’re not filing an appeal for her. We’ll be reviewing contracts and setting up leases. Two different areas of law entirely. You’re the paralegal. You should know that.”
“I am ke-vite well aware of the areas of law in question,” Petru said. When he was upset, his Russian accent became more pronounced. “And as you are merely a secretary, I doubt that you should be offering an opinion at all.”
“Stop,” Bree said. She had no idea what had started the two angels sparring with one another this time, but she wasn’t about to let it affect affairs in the office. “I’m not concerned with conflict of interest. I just don’t like the woman or the way she operates.” She held up a hand to forestall any protests. “I know. An advocate’s role is just that. We stand up for the client’s interests and we have no business passing judgment on personalities. But honestly, the way she stiffed that poor auctioneer was brutal. A client like that will try and stiff us, too. You can bet on it.” Bree rubbed her face briskly. “Anyhow. Let’s finish up the coffee and get started. Petru, I’m going to need all of the background material you can find on Russell O’Rourke, especially the circumstances surrounding his suicide. He died in New York, at their penthouse. It was somewhere near Central Park, I think, but I don’t remember much more than that. So if you can get onto the Internet and start creating a file, I’d be grateful. Ron? The two of us better get over to the records department at the courthouse and see Goldstein. We’re going to need a copy of the appeal that’s been filed.”
“Anything I can do for you this morning?” Lavinia asked hopefully. Her landlady was tiny. Bree was willing to bet she was no more than ninety pounds soaking wet, and her bones were as fragile as a bird’s. She was dressed in her usual droopy skirt, worn woolen cardigan, and soft print blouse. Her cloud of white hair drifted around her mahogany face like a halo. “I was thinking that maybe Sasha could use a good bath.”
Bree looked down at her dog. After the auction yesterday, Bree had taken him for a nice long run by the river. He could, in fact, use a good wash and a brush. “Good idea.”
Sasha lifted his head and looked reproachfully at Bree.
“That’s settled, then,” Lavinia said with a contented sigh. “I’m givin’ some of my littlies a scrub this morning, too. He’ll come out smellin’ just as sweet.”
Bree wasn’t sure about the exact nature of Lavinia’s littlies, but Sasha’s expression seemed to indicate they were beneath his dignity as a noble mastiff-retriever cross. But he got to his feet with a good-natured grunt and padded to Lavinia’s side.
Bree collected her briefcase and followed Ron out to the tiny foyer that fronted Angelus Street without looking at the grim painting that hung over the fireplace in the living room. It showed a ship plunging in the midst of a stormy sea, surrounded by the dead and dying. The painting was both a reminder and a statement of the mission she and her Company were on, but she loathed the sight of the thing. She did pause on her way out the door to look at the painted frieze of angels that marched up the wall of the staircase to the second floor. Where the Rise of the Cormorant terrified her, the parade of brightly colored Renaissance angels lifted her heart. The figures had wings the color of beaten gold and were robed in scarlet, royal purple, vibrant turquoise, and rich velvety browns. Bronze halos shone about their heads. The angel at the very foot of the stairs, dressed in brocaded robes of sapphire and cardinal red, was crowned with braids of white-blonde hair the color of Bree’s own. A small whippetlike creature danced at its side.
“Looks like rain,” Ron said from the front stoop. “Do you want to walk or drive?”
Bree peered around his shoulder. The records for the Celestial Courts were on the seventh floor of the six-floor Chatham County Courthouse on Montgomery, which was about ten blocks straight down Bay Street. Bree liked to walk, especially on cool November days. The Historic District was one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the world, in her opinion, and a walk down Bay, with its pockets of emerald grass shaded by live oaks, was endlessly interesting. But the sky over the nearby river was clouded over and the air held the scent of rain.
“We’d better drive.” Her car was parked curbside at the end of the brick path that led from the porch to the street. Despite herself
, she kept her gaze firmly ahead as she followed Ron to the car. The Pendergast graves gaped open underneath the dying oak that stood in the middle of the cemetery, and she was never sure what was going to beckon to her from its depths.
She settled into the driver’s seat next to Ron and grumbled, “One of these days, we’re going to have to do something about those Pendergasts. I can’t scuttle down the path to my own office like a scared rat every time I go in and out.”
Ron looked at her with interest. His blond hair feathered over his forehead and his light blue eyes were guileless. “Why not? At the moment, the Pendergasts are nothing to fool with. I don’t know if you noticed, but I was scuttling faster than you.”
Bree started the engine. “It’s not dignified.”
“You know what they say about pride,” Ron said, rather primly. “You may choose dignity over getting dragged somewhere awful by a rotting corpse, but I vote scuttle every time.”
“You’re pretty smug, for an angel,” Bree said. “Do you suppose that’s why you and Petru snipe at each other?”
Ron shrugged and then smiled. “Possibly,” he said. His smile, like all angels’, was impossible to resist. The smile sent warmth from the top of your head to your feet.
“Don’t smile at me,” Bree warned. “I’m getting wise to your ways, Ron Parchese.”
But she arrived at the Chatham County Courthouse in a much improved mood.
Bree had been at the courthouse at all hours during the day, and it was always filled with a cross section of citizens of the state of Georgia. Young kids swaggered through in baggy pants and oversized T-shirts. Blue-uniformed policemen of the Town of Savannah rubbed shoulders with the brown-uniformed officers of Chatham County. Couples with children wandered the lower floors, peering at the office listings on the notice boards. Guys with straw hats and saggy coveralls ambled up to the coffee cart.
And the lawyers were everywhere.