“We got that there to worry about.” She jerked her thumb to the outside.
“Right,” Bree said.
“There will be time for you to sort this through,” Petru said kindly. “As much time as you need. An eternity, if all goes well.”
Suddenly, Bree didn’t want to hear any more. She’d had enough. She’d learned too much, in too short of a time. It was all she could do to look at the faces of her company, ringed around her as they were.
“Enough!” Ron clapped his hands together, breaking the silence. “We have work to do. Time’s a-wasting. We have a client to defend. Now!” Ron said briskly. “Petru’s ferreted into the finances behind Island Dream. Our Mr. Fairchild owes money all over south Georgia, and parts of South Carolina, too.”
“Really,” Bree said, with deep interest. “Did you get a rough figure for me?”
“To the tune of twenty million,” Ron said. “It took a bit of digging, but I’ve got a list of the principal creditors for you. Poor old Mr. Skinner was on the hook as guarantor, by the way.”
“Is there any one creditor that stands out?”
“Montifiore, of course. He’s owed a ton.” Ron wriggled his eyebrows. “There’s something else about Montifiore. A couple of his last projects have been shut down temporarily by the building inspectors. I couldn’t find out if there was anything in it—but from all accounts, he’s in pretty tough shape.”
“Now, that is interesting,” Bree said thoughtfully. She became aware that Lavinia was tugging at her sleeve. “I do apologize, Lavinia. Did I forget something?”
“Only my poor niece. If y’all don’t mind? She’s been waiting some time. Yes.”
“Golly,” Ron said. “I almost forgot about her. She’s in your office, Bree.”
“Lavinia’s niece is in my office?”
“New client.” Ron hustled her gently to her office door, opened it, and ushered her in. “Business is picking up!” he beamed. He backed out and left Bree to face a broad black woman with a familiar face. She sat in the worn leather chair, with her purse settled firmly in her lap.
Bree extended her hand. “How do you do? I’m Bree Beaufort, but you probably know that already. And I believe we’ve met. At Liz Overshaw’s? You were giving her a hand with the housekeeping. It’s Mrs. Mather, isn’t it?”
“Elphine Mather. It’s Rebus Kingsley who’s kin to me and, through me, kin to Lavinia. I’m Lavinia’s niece. That’d be it.”
Rebus Kingsley. The name struck a faint bell. Bree frowned thoughtfully and settled herself behind her desk. “How can I help you, Mrs. Mather?”
“It’s my husband’s boy. My stepson.”
Bree nodded. “Rebus Kingsley?”
“You heard about that county building inspector fallin’ off the tower and getting killed?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t, no.” Bree thought a moment. “Wait a second. There was an item on the news, yes. About a county employee who was killed on the job.” She looked thoughtfully at Elphine. “That was your stepson? And he was a building inspector for Chatham County?”
“That’s him. And he was murdered. Or so he keeps on tellin’ me and tellin’ me.” Elphine heaved a deep, somewhat exasperated sigh. “Now I’m here to tell you that the boy was a thorn in my side when he was alive, and he’s an even worse thorn in my side now that he’s dead.”
Bree swallowed hard. “You mean he’s haunting you.” There. It was out. And it didn’t feel too weird. It felt almost ... routine.
“That’d be the case, Ms. Beaufort. Claims he was murdered. Won’t rest until there’s another just grave in the cemetery out there.”
Georgia’s only all-murderers’ cemetery.
Of course.
Bree felt a little dizzy. She didn’t think it was because of the bump on her head yesterday. Her head felt just fine. But her law firm was located right in the middle of murderers’ graves. And it wasn’t by accident. Of that she was certain.
“Ms. Beaufort?”
“I do apologize, Mrs. Mather. You’d like to retain Beaufort and Company to find the murderer and set your stepson’s soul at rest,” Bree said.
“I don’ know if that alone will do it,” Mrs. Mather said. “The boy has a lot of sin to answer for, and perhaps he’s hoping that you’ll plead his case the way you’re going to plead Mr. Skinner’s.”
Since Bree had absolutely no idea how this was going to be accomplished, she merely said, “Hmm.”
“We won’t know that until you sit down and talk to him.”
“Yes,” Bree said. She had to take a moment to swallow, and then she said, “Of course. You’ll take me to him, I suppose?”
“Ms. Beaufort, if I never see that boy again, it’ll be too soon.” Mrs. Mather folded her lips in a grim expression. “I expect you’ll find him on your own, the way you did Mr. Skinner. All I want is a good night’s sleep.”
“Yes,” Bree said. “That’s been a common problem for our clients. An unfortunate consequence of the hauntings. We will do what we can.”
“I can write you a retainer check right here.” Mrs. Mather dug into her purse, rustled around, and brought out a checkbook. “If you’ll suggest an amount?”
“There is some professional courtesy here,” Bree said. “Lavinia, I mean, your aunt, is a member of our company. I’m not even sure I should ...”
“Elphine!” Lavinia’s voice came through the office door loud and clear. “You write that girl a check for five hundred dollars. Don’t you even think about takin’ advantage.”
Elphine wrote the check. Bree accepted it with thanks. “We’ll do the best we can, Mrs. Mather.” She looked at her watch. Half an hour to the open house. “If you can tell me where your stepson died? I’ll be out there to inter ... um ... that is, I’ll be out there first thing in the morning.”
“That’s no secret, Miss Beaufort. It was out at those condos of Mr. Skinner’s. The place they call Island Dream.”
Twenty-two
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
—Hamlet, Shakespeare
“Now, who would have thought with all this weather there’d be such a wonderful turnout!” Francesca was in her element. Dressed in a softly elegant suit of blue silk shantung, the family pearls at her throat, she hummed with pleasure. She twinkled up at Bree. “And that shimmery red velvet dress, honey. You look like a queen. As for the food—the chef deserves every one of those five stars. The food’s magnificent.”
700 Drayton was part of the Mansion in Forsyth Park, and Francesca had chosen well. The restaurant had a series of smaller dining rooms on the second floor that were ideal for Bree’s introduction to Savannah legal circles. The walls were painted a deep eggplant. The dangling light fixtures had various shades of gold and red, and silver lamé draped the windows. The interior shouldn’t have worked, but it did.
Francesca poked Bree in the side. “Now, who’s that good-looking young man talking up a storm with your sister? You suppose he’s with one of the big law firms from Atlanta? He looks so downtown.”
Bree craned her neck. Antonia, splendid in a black cocktail dress with no back and a plunging front, was in close conversation with a stunningly handsome man with long hair and a black leather jacket. “Sorry, Mamma. It’s the lead actor from the Savannah Rep. I met him when she hauled him in here. Cute as bug and poor as a church mouse.”
“I should have guessed it,” her mother grumbled. “How come all the good-looking ones are broke?”
“Daddy was broke when you married him,” Bree pointed out. “I hate to mention it, Mamma, but the money’s all on your side.”
“There’s broke and then there’s broke,” Francesca muttered. “Your daddy had prospects.”
Bree prowled the room, feeling like a sliced potato on a red-hot griddle. John Stubblefield held court at the small mahogany bar. Every so often, his little gray eyes slid sideways in her direction. Payton skulked at his elbow. Douglas Fairchil
d was conspicuous by his absence; Hunter had decided to press obstruction charges, and either Fairchild or his wife had decided to skip the whispers that would follow a public appearance. The gossip wouldn’t last for long; with the possible exception of a murder indictment, Southern society tended to be most forgiving of its own. Bree accepted condolences on her uncle Franklin’s death from a fellow judge and the senior partner in a local accounting firm, fielded some nosy questions about Jennifer Skinner from a mutual friend, and ducked questions about the actual whereabouts of her current practice.
“You’ll think about moving into Franklin’s old offices as soon as the restoration’s done, if you mean to stay here in Savannah,” Royal said during a lull in the chatter. “This address on Angelus seems pretty out of the way. I’ve been telling people it’s temporary.”
“I may split my time between the two,” Bree said, deliberately vague. “That’s Carlton Montifiore over there.”
Her father was tall, and he squinted over the heads of the crowd. “Yes, I believe it is. Franklin’s old colleagues did right well by you, Bree. There’s a lot of money and power in this room.”
“Excuse me, Daddy. I’ll just go say hello.”
Bree wound her way through the mass of people. Montifiore stood with his back to the wall. His gray sports coat strained over his broad back. He’d loosened his tie. Unsmiling, he watched Bree’s approach. Her relaxed and genial guide to the Pyramid Office Building had disappeared. In these surroundings, he looked tense and angry.
“Is there anything I can get for you, Carlo?” she asked politely. “I hope you’re finding everything to your satisfaction.”
“Stubblefield tells me you’re the woman who nailed Doug Fairchild’s butt to the floor.”
“I guess I am.”
He smiled, shifted his Manhattan to his left hand, and squeezed her by the upper arm in a congratulatory way. His grip was hard. Irritated, Bree shook herself free. “It’s time someone took Dougie down a peg. Glad to see it.”
“You thought he was getting a little too big for his britches?” Bree said.
“Let’s say his eyes were bigger than his ability to borrow.”
“Your company’s listed as one of his chief creditors,” Bree said. “Must be a bit troubling for you.” And, she added silently to herself, you lied like a rug, Carlo. Plenty of money around, indeed.
Montifiore’s eyes darkened, but he said genially, “Oh, we end up getting our pound of flesh, one way or the other. Don’t you worry about us.”
Bree bet that the banks were real worried about Montifiore. But her mother would skin her alive if she started a brouhaha at a social event. She said merely, “Maybe we should talk about that, Carlo.”
He stiffened, glared at her, and turned on his heel to walk away.
Someone struck a wineglass with a fork. The “ting” rose above the clatter, and conversation slowed, then stopped. The waitstaff began circulating through the crowd with trays of champagne. Bree turned and faced the hors d’oeuvres table. Her father and mother stood hand in hand, smiling. Royal cleared his throat, raised his wineglass, and said, “Bree? Come up here, darlin’.” Bree nodded to Carlton Montifiore and made her way up to the front of the room. Her father clasped her hand, and tucked it into his arm. “I’d like to welcome you all to this celebration. It’s a happy day for Francesca and me. Our oldest daughter has taken up the reins of Franklin’s practice, and begun a new life and a new career here in Savannah. My family and I would like to thank you all for being here with us. Here’s to you all. And to the fine practice of law in Georgia!” He raised a glass in a toast.
“To the law!” Everyone followed his lead and drank.
Francesca turned with a flutter to the towering cake that occupied the center of the table. Ron had outdone himself. The cake was a miniature replica of the Hall of Justice on Montgomery. A gust of wind rattled the windows as Francesca cut into the cake, and she shuddered dramatically.
Then, with a slow, crumbling slide, the cake toppled onto its side. Francesca turned to the crowd with a look of mock dismay and laughed. Antonia called out, “Now, sister! I sure hope Georgia law’s got a firmer foundation than that!” Bree turned around to make a face at her aggravating little sister.
Carlton Montifiore stared back at her. He drew his teeth back in a feral grin. Malice glittered in his eyes.
Bree stood stock-still. Foundation. When she’d been hit on the head, she was kneeling in front of the basement foundation. She had a plastic bag in one hand, and she was exploring the base of the wall with the other. As if she was going to take samples of the concrete?
She was surrounded by whispers, too faint to hear clearly. The staticlike sound rose to a peak, then trailed off.
... murder ...
She shook herself free of the tormented sounds. Facts. Logic. Reasoned analysis. That’s what Professor Cianquino had taught her, and that’s what she needed to apply now:
The building inspector was dead.
Skinner had desperately wanted out of what should have been a very lucrative deal. He was in the process of stopping the project in its tracks.
Fairchild was in a lot of financial trouble.
Montifiore had been in trouble with building inspectors before.
Bree didn’t know much about construction, but she did know that the new hurricane codes were ruinously expensive. You could save hundreds of thousands of dollars by substituting sand for concrete in a foundation; and thousands more by reducing the bolts and supports in the walls by half. Or even more than half.
She set her champagne glass on the table and started toward Montifiore. He turned his back and forced his way through the crowd. Bree started after him, and then stopped short, as if she’d slammed into a wall. The whispers rose around her in an agonized cry: Save her ... save her . . .save her ...
The wind belted against the side of the Mansion and a roar of rain shook the windows.
Bree came to herself with a jolt.
She had to get Chastity out of Island Dream—before it turned into an island nightmare.
“How sure are you of the facts?” Sam Hunter drove with seeming indifference to the wind rocketing around his car. Rain sluiced down the windshield like an incoming tide; Bree could barely make out the lights of the emergency truck in front of them.
“You should have seen Montifiore’s face. Guilt all over it like kudzu in a field of wheat.”
Sam grunted, unamused. “Facial expressions aren’t admissible proof in any court in Georgia. Texas, maybe.”
“Very funny. The proof will be in the building itself. Will you hurry?” Bree’s impatience was edged with guilt. Publicly, her mother had taken Bree’s abrupt abandonment of her own party with her usual grace. But she was sure to hear about it later.
“You’d better have a damn good reason to get the rescue crew out on a night like this one. The whole island’s been evacuated. There’s nobody left there.”
“Chastity’s still there,” Bree said stubbornly. “She said she wasn’t going to leave unless she got thrown out, and I got cut off before I could tell her the whole building was going to fall down around her ears. She doesn’t have a cell phone, the lines are down, and the wind would knock a helicopter six ways from Sunday. We’ve got to save her.”
“But you haven’t any proof that she’s in danger.”
“That building isn’t going to stand up to a storm like this one.”
Sam’s sigh was both exasperated and annoyed. “You’re arguing like a revolutionary. All emotion and no facts. Maybe you could try looking at it like the lawyer you are?”
“Okay, it’s an educated guess,” Bree said impatiently. “But no other explanation fits the facts as well as this one: Montifiore and Grainger Skinner were skimming money from the project. Montifiore indulged in the fine old practice of chiseling on the quality of the building materials.”
“I can think of at least two other reasonable explanations,” Sam said. He steered the car expert
ly through a knee-high drift of water.
“Well?” Bree said after a long silence.
He glanced at her with a grin. “Okay. So I can’t think of anything else that doesn’t leave some loose ends. Damn!” Both of them ducked involuntarily as a tree branch whirled by the driver’s door. “And Chastity’s just brainless enough ...”
“She’s not stupid,” Bree snapped. “She’s just never had a chance.”
Sam muttered something that might have been “heard that one before.” Bree hoped not.
The wheels took on a thrum of tires on metal. They were headed over the bridge. Bree looked out her window. Huge waves lashed at the bridge pilings. “I’m not very good at estimating heights,” she admitted. “Did the weather report say anything about the surf?”
“Up to twenty feet. The storm surge is estimated at fifteen.” He glanced at his watch. “It’ll be along in about twenty minutes or so.”
Bree leaned forward and peered into the darkness. She couldn’t see a thing. She leaned back in the seat with a sigh. Sam’s car was a mess. Old Styrofoam coffee cups, crumpled burger wrappers, and empty bottles of water cluttered the floor. She nudged a Dunkin’ Donuts box aside with her toe. “Have the Skinners talked yet?”
“Just through their lawyer. Stubblefield’s a sleazy son of a bitch.”
“No kidding.”
“The story goes something like this: If Dad was dead before they took the Sea Mew out—and they aren’t admitting to a thing—it was because they got a panicked phone call from Fairchild to give him a hand disposing of the body. And if they felt it was incumbent upon them to help an old family friend, it was only because everyone’s investment was at risk. If Skinner had succeeded in pulling his money out of Island Dream—and his new lawyers were planning on going ahead with that, even though he was dead and gone—Fairchild stood to lose everything. Grainger isn’t admitting how much he personally was going to lose, but I’ll bet it was a lot.”
“And Fairchild didn’t kill him?”
“Fairchild has an alibi. Grainger and Jenny have an alibi. That dumb-ass Tiptree found Skinner’s body, called Fairchild in a panic, and Fairchild called Grainger, since Grainger was already two minutes away at the arena.”
Defending Angels Page 24