“If it was anything like the last time, I’ll be back in time for a nice cup of tea.” Bree shook the folds of her red velvet robe free of the box it was stored in and held it up against her. She, Petru, and Ron stood on the seventh floor of the six-floor Chatham County Courthouse.
“Ke-vite different, this Court of Appeal,” Petru said glumly. “This is not traffic court, dear Bree.”
Ron draped the robe around her and twitched a sleeve into place. Bree was getting quite fond of it. Lavinia had worked the lapels in fantastic gold embroidery. The velvet itself was whisper thin, and shimmered with sunset-light. Ron folded the high collar into place. The wall that held the great gold seal of the Celestial Courts reflected her image back to her. She looked a stranger. Her silvery hair was piled high in elaborate braids. The gold collar surrounded her face like a stiff halo. The robe flowed around her feet. She looked eerily like the defending angels on the stairs leading up to Lavinia’s rooms in the office on Angelus Street.
“Your pleadings,” Petru said. He handed her a stack of vellum, elaborately inscribed. “The case summary is rationally well argued, if I do say so myself. Mr. Probert Chandler discovered Lindsey was Hansen’s daughter and his partner was allowing Hansen access to the drugs in the warehouse. He confronted Lindquist, and intended to stop him, even though it would mean the ruination of all he’d built up. This should weight the scales in his favor. He did not betray the child he raised. He was trying to save her.” He sighed heavily. “This case can go any way at all. There’s no hope of Heaven, I would say; I would cross my fingers and hope for Purgatory.”
Bree drew a deep breath, tapped at the bronze door labeled NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS, and stepped inside.
She froze.
She’d defended Benjamin Skinner in a quiet, cloud-drenched room with no ceiling. There had only been one angel present, a delightful, puckish old guy who’d har rumphed as she’d entered her pleadings, and dismissed her with an avuncular wave of his hand.
This place was entirely different.
She stood in a gallery built around the top of a huge expanse. The place was suffused with an indirect, blue-tinged light. There was no ceiling above her—just a dark, cloudy mass of roiling air. Below her was a large wood-paneled expanse. Painted murals lined the wainscoted walls. At first glance, the murals resembled the angels marching up Lavinia’s stairs. But then Bree saw that the brightly painted figures moved, and that the scenes were of the cases cited in the documents she held in her hands.
The expanse below was set out in the familiar pattern of courtrooms everywhere. The prosecutor’s dais was on the right; the defense was on the left. And on the judge’s stand in front sat a huge pair of golden scales. The bowls tipped gently back and forth in the currents of air.
Caldecott and Beazley took their places on the right.
A broad staircase led down to the floor.
And Bree descended.
Epilogue
“You’re working on a Saturday, Bree? Got a hot case?” Cordelia Eastburn wasn’t a large woman, but she seemed to take up a lot of space in the elevator. She punched the Down button to head to the first floor of the courthouse.
“An appeal,” Bree said. “Not your jurisdiction,” she added, in case Cordy got a little nosy.
“Doesn’t seem to be going all that well, from the look of you.”
“Could be better,” Bree admitted. “I don’t think I’m going to get a reversal. I did get a review of the sentencing, though. I suppose that’s something.”
“Win some, you lose some,” Cordy said. “All part of the great game of justice. But you did okay on the Lindsey Chandler case. Got the kid into therapy instead of a jail sentence. There’s hope for that kid yet.”
The elevator bumped to a stop. Cordy got out. So did Bree.
“I do believe there may be. She walked up to the theft charges, and that helped a lot.”
“Ah, the rewards of plea bargaining.”
“She wouldn’t allow me to plea-bargain, Cordy. Just threw herself on the mercy of the court.”
“Uh-huh.”
Bree smiled a little. “But even cynical old you have to feel good about this other thing, Cordy. You know the program Lindsey’s in—it’s good. Plus, if you keep your nose clean for the first six months, you can choose either to be released to your family on weekends or to stay in the center. Her mother asked her to come home, and Lindsey’s agreed. So there’s a step in the right direction there. And what’s more, she’s volunteered restitution of sorts. She’s talked her brother into sharing the costs it’d take to fund a new rehab facility here in Savannah.”
According to Ron, Carrie-Alice’s confession about her affair with Hansen had not divided mother and daughter. Lindsey had given her mother a long, thoughtful look, and said: “So you’re sort of a screwup, too?” And then did The Shrug, of course. But it was The Shrug accompanied by a reluctant smile.
“Maybe.” Cordy snorted. “Your appeals case having the same kind of mixed result? Little teeny steps instead of a nice clear win? How much of a long shot was it?” She held the glass doors open, and Bree went through first. Outside, the sky was the crisp blue that heralds the advent of early winter in Savannah. Ron waved at her from her car. The sun glinted off the gold of Sasha’s fur, as he poked his head out of the driver-side window. He barked when he saw her coming. Bree waved them on. She wanted to walk.
“How much of a long shot?” Bree repeated. She thought of Probert Chandler who betrayed his daughter. She thought of Josiah Pendergast—and the kind of eternity he faced; driven by hellish forces to haunt Bree until some final showdown. No neat resolutions for any of them. “Nine to one, going in. But I got the sentence reduced. And it’s three to one that he’ll feel it’s fair.” She faced Cordelia with a smile. “He did it, you see. The crime he was committed for. But like Lindsey, he threw himself on the mercy of the court, and he’s attempted restitution. And like Lindsey, he was pretty sorry about the way he’d lived. But we’ll see.”
She stopped at the corner of East Bay and Houston. They had walked all the way down to the turnoff for 66 Angelus Street. Cordy couldn’t follow her there. But Sasha could.
“I guess you could say the whole thing’s in Limbo, for the moment.”
There was a newly dug grave in the cemetery surrounding 66 Angelus Street. It was empty, of course, but the tombstone awaited the arrival of the murderer. Justice would catch up with him. It always did.
STEPHEN HANSEN
TANT’È AMARA CHE POCO È PIÙ.
IT IS SO BITTER, DEATH IS HARDLY WORSE.
A Note on the Celestial Spheres
The magic that drives Beaufort & Company in its quest to redeem tormented souls evolves from old beliefs in the Celestial Circle of Angels. The idea of the Celestial Circle itself arose from an amalgam of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theology in the early Middle Ages. Modern sources describe the Circle as the hierarchy of angels that form “an endlessly vast sphere of supernatural beings that surround an unknowable center, called God.” The sphere is constructed of the Upper, Second, and Third Triads. Within each Triad are ten Choirs, whose beings include seraphim, serpent fires of love, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, and the so-called Magnificent Seven, among others. I have added the concept of a Shadow Circle of Dark Angels that parallels the Celestial Circle.
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