Avenging Angels

by Mary Stanton

  “Me? I don’t think so.”

  “Not you live. You on tape. It was some old footage they were running about that kid that swiped the money from the Girl Scout. But it was about some body found at your house.”

  “Lindsey Chandler?” Bree had endured more than a few press interviews in the middle of that particular case. The station must have kept the footage and rerun it when Eddie’s body was discovered at her front door.

  “You’re Bree Beaufort!” He pointed his finger at her. A couple of the people sitting at the bar turned around and looked at them. “And you’re the lawyer that has that dog with you all the time, right?” He leaned over and peered under the table. “Yep. There he is. Is this cool, or what? Hey, boy. How’s it going?”

  Sasha responded with a courteous “whuff.”

  “And they found that cop’s body in your front hall yesterday night. That’s who you are.” His face brightened. “You think those Texans had something to do with the cop murder?”

  “Not if they were here from two until five thirty.”

  “ ’Fraid so,” he said sympathetically. “And they buzzed in straight from the airport. One of my friends works the front desk and he said they brought eight pieces of luggage for a weekend stay.”

  “They’re planning on leaving soon?”

  “Monday morning, or so I hear.” He leaned forward and said in a near whisper, “They’re already driving the staff nuts. Especially ‘Big Buck.’ We call him Big Pri—”

  Bree cleared her throat.

  “Yeah, well, you get my drift.” He extended his hand. “Name’s Brian. And I already know who you are and where to find you. But you don’t have my phone number yet, although it’s very, very available.”

  “Thanks, Brian. I’ll think about asking you for it.”

  “You need me as a witness or anything, you just give me a call.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He glanced down at her uneaten sandwich. “Anything else I can get for you? Glass of wine, maybe?”

  “Not right now.” Parsall’s whiskey was already sitting uncomfortably in her stomach. “I’m waiting for somebody. Very tall. Swedish blond—a guy,” she added hastily, seeing his hopeful face. This guy must really need a date. “A Dutchman. If he comes in looking for me, please let him know I’m here.”

  She’d finished the sandwich and was seriously considering an order of bread pudding when Rutger VanHoughton walked into the bar.

  VanHoughton had the kind of presence that made heads turn. He wore a double-breasted navy wool suit, a rep tie, and a striped shirt with white collar and cuffs. A gold watch so expensive even Bree didn’t know the name of it was on one wrist. He caught sight of Bree almost immediately. By the time he’d made his way over to her table, Brian was at his elbow, menu in hand.

  “No food,” VanHoughton said. “A dark beer. Guinness will be fine.” He leaned back in his chair, totally at ease. “Miss Beaufort? I am here, as you requested.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You look rather serious. Having a hard time of it, with Tully’s little investigation?”

  Bree didn’t know a great deal about VanHoughton, but she read the financial papers, and she knew the basics. His father had made a respectable fortune in concrete right after World War II. Rutger had gone to Oxford, then the London School of Economics, and then returned to Holland to grow the respectable fortune into billions through a series of perfectly timed acquisitions and mergers. He wasn’t married, but all of the tabloid press pictures of him showed him with two or three beautiful women at his side, and one or more beautiful men. Bree thought there was very little this man didn’t know about human nature. The trouble was, she knew nothing at all about his.

  Rather than answering his question directly she said, “Have you known Tully long?”

  “I knew Russell before I knew Tully. But yes, I would say so. We first met over a deal I was doing in Brussels fifteen years ago.” He moved his hands off the table when Brian set the stout in front of him. “Russell handled some of the financing.” He smiled. His teeth were large and square. “We hit it off, Russell and I. And then I met Tully and the three of us hit it off extremely well.”

  Bree folded her napkin into a neat square, trying to size him up. “Do you think Russell was murdered?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have always thought so.”

  “Do you have any concrete evidence, or is it just supposition?”

  He cut her off before she finished. “Of course I have no evidence. If I had, I would have turned it over to that poor schmuck.”

  “And which schmuck would that be?” Bree asked.

  “You are inferring that there are quite a few floating around this case?” He laughed. “You are correct of course. The so-awful Big Buck is a big schmuck, I believe. And the wife. Harriet.” He shuddered delicately. “And there is poor Fig, of course.”

  Suddenly, she was dispirited. She wouldn’t want to sit down to dinner with any of the people in this case. “Do you suppose any of them was once a nice little kid?”

  “If that is a very indirect question about whether man is born bad or made bad, I can’t answer that. On the whole, I believe genetics determines a great deal more of our character than we are ready to accept. As far as Fig? He was never a nice little boy. But you will find that out for yourself when you sit down and talk to him. As for the Parsalls? I think perhaps Buck has made a series of decisions that have had a bad effect on his character. The first of which was to marry the oh-so-repellent Harriet.” VanHoughton gave a very European shrug. “Who is to say?”

  Bree wasn’t about to get into a discussion over free will in a bar on Drayton Street, no matter how upscale the bar or the Dutchman. But she did appreciate the fact that VanHoughton was as subtle as she’d guessed him to be.

  VanHoughton’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he said, affably enough, “The schmuck I referred to in this case is the poor deceased policeman, Eddie ‘the Ninja’ Chin.”

  “Tully sued the NYPD to get him to stop investigating. I have an idea why, but I’d like your thoughts on the matter.”

  “Do you think Tully killed him?”

  This startled her. “Good grief.” She thought hard. “No. No, I don’t. I may have at one time. But I don’t think so now. I’ve been wrong before.”

  “I doubt that she did, myself. She is certainly capable of it. Tully, as you have already determined, is a woman who seeks her own vengeance. She wanted Eddie out of the way, and your legal system provided a tidy way to accomplish that. And you have to remember, too, that Chin’s effort seriously impeded a pursuit of the real murderer. With all of the attention focused on Tully, there was none directed to finding out who actually did it.”

  “Had you seen or talked to Eddie Chin since he arrived in Savannah?”

  “Our very own Oriental Don Quixote? No. I did not see him. He did leave a call for me on my cell phone. I rather suspect he left the same call on more phones than mine.”

  She stared at him. “You’re not kidding, are you? He called you?” Then: “I don’t suppose . . .”

  “That I saved the message? Of course I did.” He pulled his cell phone from his suit jacket, tapped at the screen, and handed it to Bree.

  Eddie’s voice came through loud and clear. It was high, excited, and tense: I know how you did it. And I’m coming to get it. Two o’clock at the visitors’ center.

  Seventeen

  O what a tangled web we weave.

  —Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

  “ ‘I know how you did it. And I’m coming to get it.’ ” Petru repeated the message, then folded his hands on his cane and dropped into a broody silence.

  “Did you manage to get the cell phone records?” Bree felt she’d been plugged into an electric socket. The recording of Eddie’s phone call was a huge break in the case.

  “I did.” Petru held up a sheaf of paper. “The police have downloaded his cell phone. These are the numbers.”


  They were all in Bree’s small office. Lavinia sat in the battered old recliner in the corner. Ron perched on her desk and peered over her shoulder. Petru stood in front of the desk, leaning on his cane. She spread the sheets across the desk. “We’ll start with numbers from Tuesday on, shall we? With call durations of, say, thirty seconds or less.” She started to read. Then, baffled, she looked up at Petru. “There have to be forty calls here, all within the space of an hour yesterday morning, and all lasting about thirty seconds! What’s going on?” The penny dropped. She sat back and said, “Oh.”

  Petru nodded. “Yes. He called everyone possibly connected to the case. With precisely the same message. In the hope that this would flush out the actual perpetrator.”

  “Trolling,” Lavinia said. “Like a fisherman with a big old net.”

  Bree bit her lip in frustration. “And you say Sam Hunter has this printout?”

  “Of course. If not . . .”

  “Right. We wouldn’t have it. We’re only allowed information that will pass into public record.” She smacked the desk with her fist. “Hell!”

  The ensuing silence was disapproving, but short.

  “I mean, ‘Nuts!’ I guess.”

  “He’s a smart killer, this one,” Lavinia observed. “We catch him, there’ll be a new grave all ready out back.”

  Bree put her hands over her eyes and leaned her elbows on her desk. “Let’s think about this. Eddie set up a meet. At the visitors’ center, which is smart, because it’s right on the riverfront next to the Hyatt and it’s always hugely busy. But the killer called him back, obviously, to reset the time and place, since the police weren’t called to the scene of a shooting in broad daylight. Or we would have known about it.”

  “So there should be a return phone call, from the killer,” Ron said. “Let’s have a look.” He ran his finger down the page of numbers.

  Bree got up. “I don’t think so. The killer wouldn’t have wanted Eddie to set a trap, or alert somebody like Hunter. Eddie would have had half the Chatham County police force lurking in the bushes. No. I think Eddie got there and somebody handed him a note. Or somebody else met him and lured him away. Eddie was a smart cop, but it’s pretty clear he was obsessed with this. He may have been so eager to move the case along that he abandoned the usual precautions. I’ve wondered all along why he didn’t keep Hunter in the loop.”

  “No one really b’lieved him, though, did they?” Lavinia’s voice was soft.

  “That’s very true,” Bree said.

  “So he gets, perhaps, this note from the killer. And it says something like: ‘Go to the underpass at the electric company,’ ” Petru said. “Or, ‘Come down to the docks by the river.’ Yes. I can see that our clever killer would think in just this way. But how are we further along? We do not know what happened as a result of all these phone calls.”

  Bree realized, suddenly, that this promising lead had petered out. She got up. “We’re almost back where we started.” The room was too small and too crowded. She had to get out, to move. Then she sat back down again. She needed mental energy, not physical.

  “At least I’ve made a good start on tracking his movements his last day,” Ron said. “He’s renting a room in a little house at the north end of Abercorn. It’s on the second floor and the proprietor’s bedroom is right under his and the insulation isn’t all that good, so she knew when he was there and when he wasn’t. She heard him making phone calls Wednesday morning, one right after the other, and now it turns out we know what that was all about. He went out about ten. I tracked him to the coffee shop on Broughton, and he had a couple of black coffees. The girl behind the counter remembers him because he was so restless. Up and down out of that big chair that sits under the window. Exactly like you’re doing right now.” He smiled at her. Ron saved that smile for occasions like this one, when she was wound up or overexcited, and it acted like a dose of Prozac, only quicker. Bree felt herself relax slightly. She sat back down. Ron patted her head. “And then I left the trail and came back here when you called this meeting. But I’ll pick it up again in the morning. We may find out where he went and who he met, and solve this case after all. But I don’t think we should try to do it all tonight.”

  “You’re exhausted, child,” Lavinia said reprovingly.

  “We’re getting very close,” Bree said. “We can’t stop now.”

  “It is time, perhaps, for all of us to take a break.” Petru sighed. “Rose has promised pot roast for this evening’s dinner. I am very fond of pot roast.”

  “Pot roast?” Bree demanded with some heat. “When we’re inches away from tracking down someone who’s killed two people, you’re talking pot roast?”

  Her cell phone rang. Impatiently, she flipped the cover. The little screen read: FRANCESCA. Bree put her head on her desk.

  “Your parents, I think,” Petru said kindly.

  Bree put the phone to her ear. Her mother’s light, pretty voice sounded anxious. “Bree, honey?”

  “Hello, Mamma.”

  “Your father and I are here at the town house.”

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “Did Antonia tell you we were coming?”

  “I think so, Mamma.”

  “Are you working late, dear?”

  Bree looked at Petru, Ron, and Lavinia. All three shook their heads and Ron mouthed, Get some sleep. “Not anymore, Mamma. I’ll be right there.”

  She jogged back to the town house.

  Francesca Winston-Beaufort was small, round, and the chief determiner of Antonia’s red hair and blue eyes. Their father, Royal, was fond of saying that he fell in love with her hair the moment he saw her across the dining room at Duke University thirty years before, and that love for the rest of the woman came later.

  By the time Bree and Sasha came through the back door and into the kitchen, her mother had set the dining room table for four and prepared a green salad, a fruit salad, and a basket of hot rolls. A welcome aroma drifted in the air. “You do smell Adelina’s mushroom casserole in the oven. I brought it all the way down from Plessey. And she sent some of her cinnamon rolls, too.” Her eyes darted to her daughter’s too-slim frame, but she said merely, “And your father drove off to Cissy’s to fetch Antonia.”

  “Then we’d better set a place for Cissy, too,” Bree said practically. She kissed her mother and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “You mean she’ll want to know all about this horrible murder. You’re right about that.” Francesca bent and cuddled Sasha’s face between her hands. “And you look pretty good for a dog recovering from a bullet wound.” She smoothed his fur with her thumb. “My goodness, dear. It doesn’t look like more than a scratch. From the way your sister talked about it, I thought poor Sasha’d be scarred for life.”

  “He’s a good healer,” Bree said. She also made a mental note to whale on her sister for blabbing.

  “The poor pup certainly has been through a lot. First that steel trap and the broken leg. And then the bullet wound . . .” Her mother perched on the opposite chair and said, with an attempt at artlessness that didn’t fool Bree for a minute, “Your life’s taken on some excitement since you moved down here.”

  “That it has.”

  Francesca wore her favorite combination, a silk shirt and a pair of silk pants. This set was a deep cadet blue that matched her eyes. She set her jaw determinedly, which made her face pink and her eyes even bluer. “Bree, your father and I think that you’ve bitten off quite a lot here, with taking on Franklin’s old practice and all.”

  Bree knew what was coming: This job is too dangerous, Bree. We want you to come back to Raleigh and practice law with your father, Bree. And her response? Butt out, Mamma. Or rather, since she was her adoptive mother, and Bree loved her dearly: I can take care of myself, Mamma.

  She said merely, “I like the way you’re doing your hair, Mamma.”

  Francesca bit her lip. Then she sighed heavily and gave it up. “You like this new style?” She touched the short red
curls. “Your father, you know, likes it long. But what woman over fifty can get away with that? It’s bad enough that I have to refresh the color every six weeks. I spend more time fussing with my hair than—Darling,” she interrupted herself, “I’m so sorry. I just can’t shut myself up. We’re worried about you, your father and I. What in goodness’ name is going on? You had a dead man in the front hall of this town house yesterday. Your father and I heard about it on the news.”

  There was an undercurrent of slight horror when she said the word “news.” Her parents were firmly convinced the only time the family name should appear in the media was to announce a birth, a marriage, or a death.

  “That I did, Mamma.”

  “And you look absolutely exhausted.”

  “Did I tell you I had a physical this week?”

  “You did? You actually went and saw a doctor? Did he give you a tonic? Maybe that’s what you need, a tonic.” Her mother jumped up and took a bottle of wine from the rack next to the refrigerator. “We’ll have a glass of wine. Red wine’s good for strengthening the blood.”

  “What does Daddy say all the time? I’m finer than a frog hair. That’s me. I’m in the best shape of my life, Mamma. The doctor says so.”

  Francesca looked doubtful. “What kind of doctor did you see, darling?”

  A forensic pathologist, Mamma. Bree bit her lip. Her mother would totally flip at Megan’s preference for corpses over people. “She’s in practice with her brother, Megan Lowry is her name. I like her. She’s very nice.”

  “Lowry.” Francesca drew her eyebrow together. “The name’s not familiar at all.”

  “Well, she practices here in Savannah, and you don’t get down here all that much.” Bree regretted that the minute she said it.

  “We’d come down a lot more, darling, if you’d just say the word.”

  “You come down exactly the right amount,” Bree said.

  “We miss you girls, you know.” Francesca cocked her head and smiled suddenly. “There’s the back door. I think I hear your father.”