Angel Condemned

by Mary Stanton

  “In Savannah. Right.”

  “Big cat of some kind? Panther?”

  “There haven’t been panthers in Georgia in a hundred years, Hunter.”

  He shrugged. He was making rapid work of the food. She poked restlessly at her own plate.

  Hunter grinned at her. “So you won’t buy a panther attack? Painter—isn’t that what they call them here in Savannah?”

  “In the Low Country, yes.”

  “If it wasn’t a panther, I haven’t a clue. Won’t until the autopsy report’s in, and . . .”

  “The forensics are back,” she finished for him. “Could you keep me in the loop?”

  “You know I can’t keep you in the loop. Are you going to finish that?”

  She pushed the remains of the food around her plate and shook her head.

  He took both plates to the sink, rinsed them off, and put them in the dishwasher, then put the sauté pan in the sink to soak.

  Bree was used to stonewalling, not only from Hunter and the police, but the rest of the law-enforcement establishment in Savannah. Beaufort & Company itself was constrained by a set of celestial barriers that Bree had to figure out early on in her cases; her angels could only collect information available to the public, and their activities were limited to appeals work for the dead. “This isn’t even my case,” she said aloud.

  “Exactly. And even if it were, you know better than to put your oar in.” Hunter tossed the dishtowel onto the counter and crossed the floor. He was so close, she could feel the heat from his body. “I’d better be going.”

  It was a question. She hesitated. Sasha walked into the kitchen and sat at her feet, his body warm against her ankles, his head on her knee.

  It’s time.

  She reached up and slid her arms around Hunter’s waist. “You won’t stay away too long?”

  “Your call, Bree.”

  “Saturday, then.”

  “Saturday? Dinner at my place?”

  “Dinner at Forsythe Park,” she corrected him. “Aunt Cissy’s wedding reception.”

  “Um.” He made a face. “I might be on call that day.”

  She tilted her head back, smiling. “What is it about men and weddings?”

  “Depends on who’s getting married, doesn’t it?” His kiss shook her deeply. She drew back. In silence, Hunter cupped her face with his hands and held her for a moment. He turned, and she followed him across the kitchen. He let himself out the back door.

  She kept watch until his car disappeared into the distance.

  The dog pressed his head against her side, and she heard the message again.

  It’s time.

  Bree put her palm against her cheek, as if to keep the feel of Hunter’s skin against her own. Sasha whined low in his chest. She drew a deep, sad breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. It’s time.”

  Eight

  She unlocked the top bureau drawer and pulled it open carefully. The cheap little pine box sat on top of a pile of silk T-shirts. She picked it up. She didn’t want to open it up in the living room because of the horned thing.

  If she didn’t open it up in the living room, it’d be a retreat.

  Sasha at her heels, the box in hand, she sat on the couch and stared up at the mirror. It reflected nothing—not the couch or the living-room wall or the brass lamps on the end tables.

  “I suppose Beazley’s murder changes things.”

  Sasha thumped his tail, gently.

  “It’s connected, somehow, all of it. Beazley’s murder, Prosper’s case. And if I don’t take on this client—I can’t risk the family, can I?” She bit her lip. “I can negotiate a settlement with Chambers if I have to end up paying the poor guy myself. And with him out of the picture—there’s no connection—none at all.” She looked at the box that held the Cross. “Unless I take on this poor guy as a client. Which will keep up the connection, Sasha. Damn. Damn it all.”

  She bent her head over the box, snapped the lid open, and picked up the Cross. It was warm—hot—in her hand. A wisp of dark smoke rose into the air and dissipated.

  “Miss Winston-Beaufort?”

  Startled, she looked up. There was someone in the mirror. A young guy—perhaps Antonia’s age—with long, fair hair curled over his ears. And sideburns?

  His face filled the frame. She glimpsed moving water behind him. An ocean perhaps, or a fast-moving river.

  “I’m Schofield Martin. I got your name from one of the souls here in the seventh circle. I was wondering if you could look into my case. I’d like to file an appeal.”

  Bree looked at Sasha, pleased that for once her communication with her clients was unimpeded by the Opposition. Her petition to Goldstein must have been approved.

  “It’ll help if I have more information, Mr. Martin. Where are you now?”

  He looked over his shoulder, at something she couldn’t see. “The seventh circle.”

  “And your conviction is for what crime?”

  “Violence against Art.”

  She’d have to look that one up in the Corpus Juris Ultima .

  “But I didn’t do it.” He grinned cockily at her.

  Bree didn’t say what she was thinking: That’s what they all say. “And your sentence?”

  “Totally unfair. Totally unwarranted. I was the victim of a conspiracy. The system set me up.” He bent his head, so that his face filled the frame. He looked terribly earnest. “I was framed.”

  “I meant the length of your sentence.”

  Hopelessness devastated his face. “Eternity.”

  “Yikes.” Celestial justice could be harsh. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She didn’t say what she was thinking this time, either: The legal system in the Celestial Sphere isn’t corrupt . Unfair decisions based on cases where evidence hadn’t been entered in fact happened occasionally—primarily due to unresolved events in the temporal world. That was how she herself got reversals in judgments. But deliberate abuses of the celestial system? Never. This guy must be guilty of something. She looked at the Cross in her hand.

  “And what’s your connection with the Cross of Justinian?”

  The landscape behind Schofield Martin began to shift and swell. His eyes widened and rolled up. His image wavered. He flung one hand up in wild appeal and shrieked. “They’re coming!”

  Instinctively, she stretched her own hand out in response. The familiar stutter of black-and-white light spread across the mirror, and Martin blinked in and out of view like a figure in a silent film. She heard his voice, faint and almost lost in the swelling roar of sound. “Dig . . . Help me . . . Murder.”

  Martin plunged from view. The mirror went dark.

  Bree tossed the pine box onto the coffee table and said, “Great.”

  Sasha nosed the box open. The Cross gleamed a little in the light from the reading lamp.

  “I did pro bono work for Daddy’s firm the first year I was out of school, Sasha. I’ve been conned more than a few times. Guys like that make a career of trying to game the system.”

  Sasha put his head on her knee and sighed.

  “I know you think I should take this case.” She stroked the dog’s ears. “This is trouble. The phony Cross is mixed up with Chambers, who’s mixed up with White, who’s mixed up with Beazley, which is bad for Cissy.” She resisted the impulse to fling the pine box across the room. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  She went to bed, and lay, sleepless, for a long time. When she did fall asleep, she dreamed of drowning souls, of being locked in a grave far beneath the earth, of suffocation. She woke to a grim and dreary dawn, which darkened her mood even further.

  She’d made her decision, and her Company was just going to have to lump it.

  Nine

  Bree called a midmorning meeting at the Angelus office to begin the research on Schofield Martin’s case. Ron had greeted her with fresh coffee and beignets; Lavinia with bunches of fragrant herbs. She had decided not to mention the visitation by the horned figure th
e night before. She didn’t want any of the Company to have a reason to change her decision.

  “Lavender’s a cheery smell,” Lavinia said comfortably. Her landlady wore her usual shabby wool cardigan and a print challis skirt that drooped around her ankles. Her mahogany face was surrounded by an aureole of wispy white hair. Bree had always placed Lavinia’s temporal age in the mideighties, but with angels, you never knew.

  She’d placed bunches of the dried herbs around the conference room table, and the crisp scent lifted Bree’s heart.

  Lavinia fanned a few sprigs out in a Mason jar and smiled at Bree. “You don’t much like this new case, child?”

  “I don’t know enough about it, yet. Just the client’s name. Although I’ve run across his type before.” Bree didn’t give in to the temptation to say what type; it wouldn’t have been professional. Since what she was about to do wasn’t professional, either, she figured she’d better occupy the high ground as long as she could. “I can’t let this case involve Cissy. That’s the main thing. I asked EB to set up a meeting with White at the Frazier Museum today. It’s at eleven. If I can get Chambers off White’s back, Cissy won’t have any connection with it.” She picked up a sheaf of lavender and brushed it across her lips, enjoying the scent. “You might as well know right away. If Chambers won’t settle, which means Cissy’s still exposed to Caldecott, we’re going to turn down Martin’s case.”

  Lavinia pulled her woolly sweater a little closer around her thin frame.

  “I can’t be the only celestial advocate out there,” Bree said, as if Lavinia had raised an objection. “Schofield Martin has to find somebody else. I’m worn out. I need a break. Just a short one. I’m going to take some time off. I’m going away for the weekend.”

  Lavinia pursed her lips. She didn’t actually say the words “whiner, whiner, whiner,” and maybe she didn’t even think them, but Bree felt guilty anyway. “Which weekend would that be, child? Your aunt’s wedding is comin’ along in a few days.”

  “The next available weekend. Guess what?”

  “What, child?”

  Bree dropped her voice to a delighted whisper. “I’m not going alone.”

  “Mercy,” Lavinia said without surprise.

  “I woke up as cross as two cats and went for a run along the river. The farther I ran, the worse this case looked. I refuse to get swamped by this job, Lavinia. I absolutely refuse. There’s no reason why I can’t turn this over to somebody else, is there? I’ll prepare a summary for the next advocate. Then I’ll take it to Goldstein and ask for a referral. The temporal system has a process for case referral. The celestial system must, too. Doesn’t it?”

  “What is time to the souls in the Sphere?” Lavinia asked rhetorically. She answered herself: “It don’t exist, that’s what. So I suppose Mr. Martin can wait for the next advocate to come along.”

  “Exactly,” Bree said, although, since she was still confused about the metaphysics of the Spheres, she felt her confidence might be misplaced. “So I called Lieutenant Hunter and told him about my availability. For a weekend.”

  Lavinia’s eyes were calm, deep, and expressionless. “That was a happy man you called, I think.”

  Bree blushed. Hunter had been very happy.

  “You tole the others yet?”

  “I will now.”

  Petru stumped into the conference room, a messy manila folder in one hand. Ron followed him, his iPad tucked under one arm.

  “So,” Bree said, as they settled themselves around the table. “What have we got?”

  “I was not able to find a great deal of information about the artifact itself, as yet,” Petru said ponderously. “But there is an account of an archeological dig thirty years ago near Constantinople.”

  “Istanbul,” Ron said a little crossly. “It hasn’t been Constantinople for years.”

  “Thirty years ago?” Bree said. “Hm. That’s what Chambers must have meant when he said ‘again.’ He found the Cross once, and then lost it?”

  “It appears so.” Petru turned over the pages of the file one at a time and pulled a single sheet out. “Here is a newspaper story. It is primarily an account of Mr. Martin’s death.”

  The story carried a photograph of a trawler. The name Indies Queen was just barely visible on the prow. A bright-white arrow was superimposed near the afterdeck.

  GRADUATE STUDENT DROWNS ON DIG

  Professors Claim Valuable Artifact Lost

  A dig for Roman antiquities ended in tragedy yesterday when a young graduate student fell to his death from the Indonesian trawler Indies Queen. Schofield Martin, a PhD candidate from the University of Georgia in the United States, apparently drowned while conducting routine duties. Archeologists Allard and Jillian Chambers, joint directors of the project, told authorities that Martin was in the midst of transferring a valuable Roman cross to the hold of the ship when he apparently slipped on deck and fell overboard. (See arrow for death site.) Rescue efforts were mounted immediately, but neither body nor artifact has as yet been recovered.

  “Not much to go on there,” Ron observed. “Anything else?”

  “An interview with Chambers in his local paper, upon his return to the United States immediately after the event. He vows to dedicate his career to the recovery of the artifact and the body of our unfortunate client.” Petru placed a second piece of paper on the conference table. It was a photo of a younger, somewhat haggard Chambers. A thin, fierce-eyed woman stood next to him. The article was a few short paragraphs iterating Chambers’s commitment to recovering the Cross. The photo caption read, Professor Allard Chambers and wife Jillian. Bree wondered at that. Jillian was a professor, too, wasn’t she?

  Petru smoothed his rough black beard with one hand. “There are few mentions of the professor’s search for the artifact throughout the years. I did not bother to print them out as they provided little of substance to the case at hand—other than proving that the search continued. There were no results until eight months ago, when Chambers e-mailed his university that he had successfully recovered the Cross. But not, alas, the bones of our client. It may be worthwhile to note that the university had just notified those on the dig that the funding for these trips was to be cut.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ron said.

  “Yes. The professor had quite a motive for fraudulent representation.”

  “If he was the one who made the fake cross,” Bree said. “White has a lot of contacts in the art world. He’s more likely to have commissioned a fake, don’t you think?”

  Petru pursed his lips. “From my own time in Istanbul, I can tell you that there are many, many opportunities to have elegant copies made by those more interested in preserving historical continuity and the past than in the strictness of an actual artifact.”

  “It’d be easy to find someone to make a good copy?” Ron said. “If that’s what you mean, why don’t you just say so? Honestly, Petru. You’d think we bill by the word here.”

  Petru ignored him. “I then retrieved increasingly acrimonious communications between Chambers, Prosper White, and eventually, the university authorities who stripped the man of his position, denied him his pension, and cast him adrift to run the antiques store, Reclaimables. The correspondence is noteworthy for the passion with which Mrs. Jillian Chambers attacks all concerned.” Petru closed the manila folder and tapped it. “No mention of the lad Schofield Martin at all.”

  “Did he have brothers and sisters?” Lavinia asked softly. “A mamma and daddy to mourn him?” She shivered a little, although it wasn’t cold. Bree was concerned to see that she was looking faded. The soft gold light she carried with her was dimmer than it had been.

  “I have not come across such as yet, Lavinia. The lad appears to have had a brother. He was a scholarship student. That I did ascertain.”

  “What about a report from the Turkish police?” Bree asked.

  “That is here.” Petru flipped to the back of the file and retrieved a yellowed parchment-like document. “It is i
n Turkish, of course. It is fortunate that I read Turkish. I made a translation for you, Bree. It is attached. I can sum it up, if I may. No witnesses. No foul play. No body. No clues. Disposition of case: accidental death.”

  “He’s claiming he was murdered?” Ron said.

  “Chambers told me that a good man died in pursuit of the Cross,” Bree said. “If he was referring to Schofield Martin, he was wrong about the good part.”

  Ron raised his eyebrows. “You have taken against this client, haven’t you? We don’t know why he was condemned to the seventh circle, do we? For Violence against Art he said? An odd sort of felony, seems to me.”

  “Not to Signor Dante Alighieri, who catalogued many of the crimes that we appeal,” Petru said. “I have researched Dante, also. The felonies range in degree from first to third: to wit, desecration of a work of art and artist; perversion of a work of art and artist; defacement of a work of art and artist; mutilation of—”

  “Enough.” Bree tapped the newspaper articles into a neat pile. “I’ll take a look at the disposition of Martin’s original case when I go and see Goldstein this afternoon. But it doesn’t really matter at this point. We’re turning him down.”

  Nobody moved, expect Lavinia. She crushed a bud of lavender between her thumb and forefinger. The sharp, welcome scent heartened Bree, and she swept the table with a smile. “Petru, if you could prepare a short summary of what we know to date, attach the exhibits, and draft a referral letter, I’d appreciate it.”

  “A referral to whom?”

  “There must be somebody else. I was hoping that you guys might help with that. You were acquainted with my father and mother. They couldn’t possibly have taken on all the clients who approached them for an appeal.”

  Nobody said anything. Bree raised her voice, hoping she didn’t sound as defensive as she felt. “Well, did they?”

  “Leah didn’t take on any work when she was pregnant for you,” Lavinia said. “That I do recall.”

  “There,” Bree said, with relief. “So there must be a process for referral.”