“Um...the light?”
“The white light. You’ve heard of it. It’s really there, Adam. You really do see it when you die.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“No, you’re not.” She paused to swallow. She tried to clear her throat. “But it’s there. And it spoke to me. It sent me back to you.”
“Claudia...listen...you should not try to talk now.”
“Wait, I’m jumping ahead. The white light comes later. The first thing you know, you’re out of your body. You’re just kind of floating above it. I saw myself lying in the dirt where I fell. And I saw when the doctors were working on me. But you never get upset. You almost don’t mind. Then you sort of remember that you have to go someplace and suddenly you’re in this long tunnel.”
“And the light is…at the end of the tunnel.”
“Actually, it comes toward you like it wants you to stop. I slowed down, but I wanted to see past it. There were people there, Adam. Way off in the distance. They were on the other side of a beautiful meadow. I could only see shapes, but they were definitely people. They were waving at me, Adam. They were waiting to greet me. I bet one of them was my father. You think?”
Whistler shrugged. Or nodded. Or did something in between. He had known that her father was long deceased. He had broken his neck in a rock-climbing accident when Claudia was five years of age.
“And they had a dog with them. It was wagging its tail. It was good to see that dogs go there, too.”
The whisper, he realized, wasn’t all from her injury. It was as much a sound of wonderment, of awe. It did hurt her to speak, but she didn’t seem to care. She narrowed her eyes as another thought struck her.
“I didn’t see a cat, but there were birds in the meadow. If they have dogs and birds, they’d have cats, don’t you think? Not that the cats would go after the birds. Nothing bad happens there. It’s all love.”
He said, “You need your rest. We’ll talk later.”
“Adam, sit.”
“Claudia, I’m so sorry. This whole thing is my fault. I never dreamed that they’d try a stunt like that. And you were right about me...well...some of it, anyway. I just wish...”
“Adam, hush. Get a chair.”
“I should go.”
“You’re staying, Adam. Now go get a chair. You’re going to want to hear this sitting down.”
A nurse stopped at the door. She tapped a finger on her watch, reminding him not to overstay. He nodded, but he did take a seat.
“Now hold my hand and listen,” she said, and he obeyed. He was glad to feel some strength in her fingers.
“Believe me,” she told him, “I know how this will sound. But you haven’t been there. I have.”
“I’m listening.”
“And don’t argue with me, Adam. You’ll be wasting your breath. You don’t have a choice. I don’t either.”
He thought he was about to hear some sort of prophecy. That some biblical catastrophe was about to occur if mankind did not change its ways. Or else that...although it was well after Christmas...three spirits were going to visit him that night and give him a chance at redemption. This last turned out to be the closest.
She proceeded to tell him she’d been given a mission. Her task, the light told her, was to go back and save him. She would teach him how to live, how to love, and love freely. She would be his friend, his companion, his protector, so that he needn’t fear those who still lived in darkness. And when he’s become the man he can be, they would start to build a family…have children.
“Um…Children?”
“I’m pretty sure, yeah. I think that’s part of the plan.”
“I see. Would this...be anytime soon?”
“That’s long term, I think. No big hurry. First things first. Unless you’d rather...”
“I can wait.”
She looked at him, squinting “You think I’m nuts, don’t you.”
“Claudia…no, I do not think you’re crazy. But I think you need time to get well.”
“Adam, I told you. I know how this sounds.”
“And that it wasn’t your idea. I believe you.”
“Do you really?”
“As you’ve said, you were there and I wasn’t.”
“Good. Now here’s a question. Do you think I have powers? Wouldn’t you think an angel would have powers?”
“Um...hold on a minute. This guy...this white light...”
“Who said it was a guy?”
“Okay, her.”
“It’s a spirit, Adam. So it could be an it.”
“The thing is, I have read about the white light and the floating and the tunnel and all that. From what I’ve read…well, let me ask another way. Are you sure that this spirit turned you into angel? Or did it just say it isn’t your time yet?”
“Whistler’s guardian angel. Exact words. Loud and clear. It knew all
about you, Adam. It knew stuff I didn’t know.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you happened. How you got caught up in this. Then we talked about us and how I can help you, but I never asked about powers.”
“I’m...sure that you have some. I would think that’s a given.”
“Whistler...watch it. Don’t patronize me.”
“Okay, say you might. But like what, in particular?”
“I don’t know. Not miracles or anything like that.”
“And flying, I assume, is out of the question as long as you’re stuck with a body.”
“Except that would convince you.”
“It would, but don’t try.”
“What about heightened senses? Mine all seem so clear.”
That was common, he knew, after any near miss. The aftermath of an adrenaline rush. It’s been known to last for days, even weeks before it fades.
“Maybe healing?” she asked. “No, scratch that. No miracles.”
“Healing sounds about right. But start with yourself. I want you to try to get some sleep now.”
She squeezed his fingers. “Stay with me.”
He’d hoped that this was only the sedatives talking. Or the short-term mischief of an oxygen-starved brain. He sat and held her hand until she drifted off to sleep.
He didn’t want to leave her for a number of reasons. Not least was that, when he did leave her room, he would have to face Claudia’s mother.
THREE
Her mother, Kate Geller, had raised Claudia alone while running a business that she’d started. She’d begun by opening a small flower shop that grew into a good-sized garden supply center in the town of Cherry Creek, outside Denver. Knowing him had almost cost her that business.
Lockwood and Briggs, as he’d said, were both goons. Goons always seem to want to prove that they’re smart. Their boss, Felix Aubrey, had ordered them to see what they could dig up on Claudia and her mother that might help induce them to cooperate. Lockwood and Briggs, being strangers to subtlety, decided to approach them directly, on their own, to bully them into assisting.
Aubrey must have been horrified when he learned of that meeting. He’d assumed that he, Whistler, would respond with a vengeance as soon as he learned of it himself. The fat was in the fire. Aubrey’s hand had been forced. He decided that he had no time to lose if he was to regain the advantage. If he couldn’t use Claudia and her mother in one way, he would use them as bargaining chips.
There were two greenhouses at Kate Geller’s garden center, in addition to the main display area and shop. The Geller home was on a hill just beyond. One night after closing, he had Lockwood and Briggs break into one of the greenhouses. They brought with them a dozen cannabis plants and stashed them amid a group of ferns. They had already lined up the local police and a judge to sign off on a warrant. The police – at least some of them - and certainly the judge had been in Aubrey’s pocket before this.
The thing that galled Whistler was that he’d long known it. Cherry Creek, however, was just one of many towns whose officials had profited thr
ough their dealings with Aubrey. Even so, as long as he caused them no trouble, he’d expected no trouble from the local police. The most that they would do was keep an eye on him for Aubrey and report that his activities seemed innocent. It was a mistake. He’d been very foolish. Now, with the help of Lockwood and Briggs, the local SWAT team was planning a drug raid on the Gellers. It would take place just before dawn.
Claudia and her mother were already up. They’d had a rush order for some funeral arrangements for a service to be held that same morning. They were in the other greenhouse, the smaller of the two, when they saw the flashing lights of police cars. They heard breaking glass. They didn’t know what was happening. They stepped outside, the mother ran toward the cars. Claudia, however, had pulled up short. She’d seen movement inside the larger greenhouse.
She entered through a door at its opposite end, where the greenhouse was in almost total darkness. She saw the two policemen ripping out ferns. She saw, in the beams of the flashlights they held, several plants that had not been there earlier. She also recognized one of the suits who had come to her house two days before. Briggs, the bald one, the one who had threatened her, had gone in with the two black-clad policemen.
The cops said she shouted, “I’ll kill you, you bastards.” She did not. She would not have. Not Claudia. All her mother heard her say was, “Hey, stop it.” In that instant, several muzzle blasts lit up the greenhouse. The next thing Kate knew, she’d been thrown to the ground and the other suit, Lockwood, was cuffing her. He wouldn’t let her up. He held her down with his foot. She kept calling out, calling Claudia’s name. There was no answer from Claudia. Minutes later, she heard another gun shot.
The story was that Claudia had burst into the greenhouse, a small chromed revolver in her hand. The officers identified themselves as police, but that was when she cursed them, then she raised her gun and fired. They were forced to shoot back in self-defense. Seven shots were fired in all. Most hit plants or glass. One struck her in the throat.
She might or might not have had something in her hand. Shears or a trowel perhaps, not that it mattered. The call for an ambulance was delayed for twenty minutes while Briggs was sanitizing the scene. While Claudia was probably still writhing on the floor, Briggs had produced that small chromed revolver and pressed it into her hand. He raised her arm and squeezed off a single shot. That was the later shot heard by her mother. She was no longer writhing when the ambulance arrived. That was the first time her heart stopped.
The government, meanwhile, seized everything they owned. The seizure was instant, automatic by law. That law took their home and the family business, calling them drug related assets. It took their cars, their bank accounts, their IRA investments, and even the cash in their wallets.
As the law stood, all this would be forfeit. As the law stood, it would not be returned, not even if the government should decide not to bother taking the charges to trial. The local authorities would keep eighty percent of the revenue from the sale of the property. That was why the authorities of such towns as Cherry Creek were usually eager to participate. That was why some authorities, Cherry Creek’s in particular, were not above making sure in advance that illegal drugs would be found.
The police charged Kate Geller with growing marijuana for the purpose of distribution and sale. Claudia, being in residence at the time, was charged with aiding and abetting. These were the only charges that had been intended when the idea of the drug raid was conceived. They might, or might not, have gone to trial. But the charges were to be held over their heads in order to insure that the Whistlers would behave. The shooting, however, had complicated matters. Claudia was charged with attempted murder during the commission of a felony.
Whistler was in Arlington, Virginia when this happened. It was where he was living at the time. He’d flown back there the day after Claudia told him that she wanted nothing further to do with him. On the day of the shooting, that afternoon, he got a call from Kate Geller’s attorney. Before he could ask why she needed a lawyer, the lawyer put Kate on the phone.
She was very upset; he could hardly understand her. When she spoke of Claudia being “terribly hurt,” he thought she was talking about feelings. It was only when her mother said, “she might never wake up,” that he realized that something more serious had occurred. He managed to calm her down just enough to tell him what had happened that morning. She was calling from the Cherry Creek jail. The judge had refused to release her on bond. He would not let her be at Claudia’s side, not even under guard and wearing manacles.
Whistler’s first reaction was stunned disbelief. The next was a murderous rage. He had wanted to hurt someone...anyone involved. But the first thing he did was get out of his apartment and use a safe phone to call his father in Geneva. His father took the news with a maddening calm. He wanted to know everything, including what led to it. Whistler told him about Lockwood and Briggs and the call they’d made on Claudia and her mother. He said that he’d be flying out to Denver at once. He would contact him again when he got there.
“Do not fly to Denver,” his father said firmly. “You stay where you are. I’m sending help.”
“I’m not waiting for help. They can meet me.”
“That’s your anger talking, Adam. You know better than that. And why didn’t you tell me they’d gone to Kate’s house and told them all that crap about us?”
“I…guess I hoped that was the end of it.”
“Why would you have thought so? Because Kate threw them out? They made a stupid move; they guessed wrong about the Gellers. They assumed that you would go after them for that. But you didn’t. Why not? Why did you keep it to yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do, and you weren’t using your head. All you could think about was you being dumped. I’m sorry, but you should have seen this coming.”
“Seen what? Planted drugs? That they’d try to kill Claudia?”
“They never meant to shoot her. You do know that, don’t you? All they wanted was something to trade.”
“Dad…they shot her. I don’t care what they meant.”
“And, damn it, stop thinking this is all about you. They defied me as well when they went to that house. They knew they had to move before I found out. I didn’t because you didn’t tell me.”
He was right, of course. Whistler hadn’t been thinking. All he’d had on his mind were Claudia’s words and the look on her face when she told him to get out. And his father was right about them wanting to trade. That would have been the point of the property seizure. “You have something we want. We have something you want. Let’s calm down and discuss this like gentlemen.”
Whistler took a breath. “What help are you sending?”
“The twins. Then we’ll see. Let me make a few calls. You are not to make a move until they get there.”
“Could you…try to remember that I’m a grown man?”
“Then act the part, Adam. In the meanwhile, stay put.”
The twins were the Beasley twins, Dennis and Donald. They had been with his father since Whistler was a boy. They were now in their fifties, heavy set, thinning hair and had always been a little bit strange. The Beasley twins arrived and, as always, they came separately. No one ever seemed to give them a second glance as long as they weren’t seen together. He met one in Baltimore, the other in Newark. Having had to go through customs, they arrived unarmed. Whistler offered to supply them with weapons. Dennis said, “Not here. We’ll get fixed up out there.”
Donald said, “We got friends there. They’ll have what we need.”
“Friends where? In Denver?” Whistler asked him. “Who are they?”
“Not from there. They flew in. Bunch of lawyers and such. They already got the lady out of jail, by the way. Your father put up half a million.”
“Yeah, but…wait a second. We were talking about weapons. My father has lawyers who do guns?”
“Nah. Not them. Different friends who flew in.”
“Never mind who. You don’t need to know. They flew in; they’ll fly out when this is done.”
He was glad to hear that Kate Geller had been freed, but, “Why won’t you tell me who they are?”
“It’s how they want it. No big deal. Relax.”
“But they’re already out there? They’re in Cherry Creek now?”
Donald rocked a hand. “Thereabouts.”
“Well, they couldn’t have gotten there from Europe this soon. So these friends of my father are local?”
“I guess.”
“You don’t guess. You know. Why can’t I?”
“Adam…will you stop? Just be thankful you got friends.”
“Yeah, well I’m getting tired of being treated like a kid. You’ll recall that I’m not exactly new at this.”
“No, you’re not, but mostly it was never this personal. Being mad’s a good way to get dead. Your father’s right.”
Dennis said, “Let’s just get there and do this.”
Whistler and the twins made their way to Cherry Creek, each getting there
by a different route. Donald Beasley was the first to arrive. By the time they regrouped, Donald had the names of the two SWAT team cops who’d shot at Claudia.
“Want to know what these guys drive? One’s got a Jaguar,” said Donald. “The other one has a Corvette. You surprised?”
Dennis said, “Life’s been good to the cops in this town.”
Whistler didn’t bother asking where Donald got their names. All he wanted to know was where they were.
“See that?” said Donald. “You’re still much too hot. That’s why those two cops weren’t left up to you.”
Whistler heard the past tense. “They’re both dead?”
“One would assume.”
“Don’t worry about those two no more,” Dennis told him. “Me and Donald, we’ll go see that judge these guys used. You go get those two guys you know.”
Lockwood and Briggs. “Do we know where they are?”
Whistler's Angel (The Bannerman Series) Page 2
