Avenging Angels (21 page)

Bree stamped back downstairs. Ron was a neat and methodical worker, and his desktop was always precisely arranged. He’d set a note in the center of the blotter:

“Hm,” Bree said. “The thing is, Sasha, it is totally unprofessional to leave the phones unattended. Answering machines are for the birds. Ron and Petru want a performance review? I’ll give them a performance review.” Rather crossly, she shoved her cell phone back into her purse. The phone lit up. The erratic battery was working again. She speed-dialed the office number. Either Petru or Ron would collect the messages when they wandered in, and in her current mood, she wanted to be very specific. Do. Not. Leave. The. Office. Phones. Unattended.

The phone on Ron’s desk rang, and Bree took a breath. Short and sweet, that was the ticket. How’s about: This is your boss. Never never never . . .

“Beaufort & Company,” a vaguely familiar voice said. “May I help you?”

“Mrs. Billingsley?” Bree said. “Is that you, Mrs. Billingsley?” She looked around the empty room, expecting to see the contralto-voiced new hire hiding behind the couch, maybe.

“Miss Winston-Beaufort?”

“Yes.” Bree stopped, then started again. “Where are you?”

There was a pause, then Mrs. Billingsley said politely, “Here in the office, ma’am. Answering the phone.”

“
I’m
here in the office,” Bree said. “I—oh. You’re in the Bay Street office.”

“Yes’m.”

“I’m in the Angelus Street office,” Bree said helpfully.

“Yes’m? You want I should switch the phone back there?”

“The phone rings here and you answer it there?”

“Yes’m.” Was that a trace of impatience in Mrs. Billingsley’s voice? Probably. Bree would have brained herself by now, if she’d been Mrs. Billingsley.

“You had the phone company set it up so both offices can ring either place.”

“Seemed more efficient that way,” Mrs. Billingsley said mildly. “You want phone coverage all the time, I expect. Except maybe not today. The newspapers and the TV people, they’ve been calling like a flood. No comment, is what I say to all of them. And sometimes I say: She’s not available.”

Bree had expected that. A corpse on the doorstep of a young lawyer practicing in a city as small as Savannah was bound to attract the newshounds. She was glad Antonia was safely out of the way, although it probably wouldn’t be too long before they tracked down Aunt Cissy. Everyone knew who was related to everyone else in Savannah.

“Miss Winston-Beaufort? I’ve been handling things to your satisfaction so far?”

“Yes,” Bree said. “Absolutely.”

“Nobody knows you signed the lease on this place yet, so I don’t expect they’ll be hammering down the door here.” She paused. “Now, then. The furniture man is at the door with the other desk and divider. If you’ll wait on a minute, I’ll be right back.”

“You go ahead,” Bree said. “I’ll be there directly.” Bree snapped her phone shut. “You know what I think, Sasha? I think we did a smart thing hiring Danica’s auntie.”

Parking at that end of Bay could be a problem during the workweek, so Bree walked the six blocks to the new office, thinking hard about Megan Lowry’s theory of the second bullet.

The same security guard who’d retrieved her from Franklin’s office two nights before was at the kiosk in the foyer. Bree waved at him in an absentminded way, punched the elevator button, stepped into the car when the doors swished open, and ran nose first into Payton the Rat.

“Ugh,” she said coldly.

“And isn’t
this
a surprise,” Payton smirked. “I heard you were taking over the judge’s old offices.”

Bree stepped to the back of the car, ignoring him.

“Couple of guys brought in some used desks a little while ago,” Payton said. “Headed for your place, were they?”

Bree punched the sixth-floor button in a pointed manner.

“Think there’ll be enough room for all your clients up there?”

The doors began to close. Payton stuck his foot out to keep them open.

“Aren’t you getting out?” Bree demanded. “Because if you aren’t, I am.”

“In a minute.” Payton shot the cuff on his immaculate pinstriped shirt and looked at his watch. “I’m meeting a new client for lunch. He can wait. I’d much rather talk to you.” For some reason—known only to the God of Irony—Payton got better looking each time she ran into him. He’d dropped the two-day-old-stubble look and the earring stud. He’d let his hair grow a little longer, and it curled around his ears in a repulsively adorable way.

“Like the new haircut,” Bree said sweetly. “I’ll bet it drives the sixteen-year-olds wild.”

He smoothed his hair with both hands. “Yeah, well, screw you, too. Actually, running into you will save me some time. You know that our firm represents the interests of Cullen Jameson here in Savannah.”

Bree addressed the air over Payton’s head. “Why am I not surprised?” Then she looked at him. “Now, how did Mr. Jameson get the name of your firm? Oh! Of course. He called the 1-800 number you guys post on those infomercials. He’s got an asbestos claim, maybe? Or he fell down in the Wal-Mart parking lot?”

Payton was a junior member in Savannah’s most litigious law firm, Stubblefield, Marwick. John Stubblefield’s smarmy smile was plastered all over the late night infomercials soliciting class action claims from the dying and the disabled.

“Yeah, well. We’d like to take a look at the contract between him and Mrs. O’Rourke, in the matter of the Shakespeare Players.”

Bree addressed the ceiling again. “Fine.”

“We need to take a meeting.”

“Fine.”

“Like, we need to take a meeting
now.
I have some serious questions about the indemnification portions of this alleged good deal.”

Bree looked at him thoughtfully. She had the best lead of the entire case, and this bozo was wasting her time. And the know-it-all smirk drove her absolutely nuts. Her temper woke, stretched, and flexed. “Why don’t you take a hike, instead.” She put one hand against Payton’s chest and shoved hard. He shouted, flew into the air, and thumped backwards into the foyer.

“Sacked. Just like the Miami Dolphins,” Bree said to Sasha.

As the doors pulled closed, slowly, Payton glared at her from his position on the terrazzo floor. “You’ll be hearing from me!”

“Can’t wait!”

She did another little victory dance in the elevator, got off on the sixth floor, and walked down to 616 feeling almost smug.

“You look pleased with life this morning, Miss Beaufort.”

“I am truly pleased with life this morning, Mrs. Billingsley.” She looked around the small space with approval. “And this looks great.”

Mrs. Billingsley wore the same carefully tended navy suit she’d worn for her interview. Her crisply ironed blouse was pink. She sat behind a massive old oak desk in the front half of the room, in an old but comfortable-looking leather chair. A pot of sweet potato vine and a framed photograph sat at one edge of the desk, in front of an old computer. An outdated telephone sat on the other side of the desk.

The back half of the room was separated off by a six-foot-high rattan folding screen.

“I told the delivery gentlemen to put your desk back here, Miss Beaufort.” Mrs. Billingsley took a brand-new steno pad from the desk drawer, rose, and walked around the screen. The desk was made of battered mahogany and smelled slightly musty. It was smaller than the oak, and it was set facing the window. An old piecrust tea table was tucked into the far corner, next to a captain’s chair made out of pine. The desk chair was a plain pine dining room chair with a gingham cushion.

Bree set her briefcase on the desk. Sasha sniffed at the carpeting, the desk legs, and Mrs. Billingsley. Then he pressed next to the secretary and allowed her to pet his ears.

“You think this is fancy enough for a law office?” Mrs. Billingsley asked dubiously.

“I think it’s a miracle Ron got all this stuff on our budget.” Bree sat down and contemplated her new offices with a feeling of satisfaction. “I’ve got some pictures stored away in a back closet in the town house. I can bring those in.”

“I could spruce up things some with cushions and all.” Bree sat down in her pine chair. It was very uncomfortable. She nodded toward the captain’s chair. “Try that one, Mrs. Billingsley.”

She sat down cautiously and then settled back with a faint smile. “Now, this is not too bad.”

“So here’s what we do. Some clients get the good chair. Other clients get the bad chair.”

“And how we going to decide that?”

“On how rude and obnoxious they are.”

The smile was a little broader. “I can think of a few folks to put in the bad chair right now.”

“Me, too.” Bree abandoned the pine chair and perched on the edge of the desk. “Ron called you and told you to make a list of office supplies?”

“Yes’m.” She shook her head. “That boy’s got a voice on him. He black?”

“No,” Bree said. “He’s not black.”

“Now, that’s a shame. We could use a voice like that at the church choir. But he’s going to stick out if he’s not black.”

“I wondered if you were a singer,” Bree said. “You’ve got a lovely voice yourself.”

“Thank you.” She nodded gravely. “All for the good name of Jesus.”

“Yes.” Bree cleared her throat. “Now, Mrs. Billingsley, you know that I came to Savannah to take over my great-uncle Franklin’s law practice.”

“The gentleman that passed.”

“Yes. He died. About four months ago.”

“In this very office, I hear.”

“That’s true. There was some sort of freak accident with a fire.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Beaufort.”

“I wish I’d known him better. At any rate, he had a small number of regular clients—wills, estates, general family law. I sent them all a letter after his death, telling them that I would be happy to carry on where Franklin left off.”

“Regular clients?” Mrs. Billingsley asked. “Are there other kinds of clients?”

“Well. Yes. The Angelus Street clients. You won’t have to worry about those. They are mainly . . .” Bree paused, searching for an inspired word. “Out of state.”

“This office is just for the Georgia clients, then.” Mrs. Billingsley opened the steno pad and began to take notes.

“That’s exactly right,” Bree said. “Exactly. Anyhow, I’d like you to take the names and addresses and give each of these poor guys a courtesy call. Just let them know the office has been reopened, and that we’re here if they need us.”

“And a follow-up letter, too? In case they forget.”

“Yes. A follow-up letter is an excellent idea.” Bree pulled the Franklin Winston-Beaufort LLC bequest from her briefcase, where it’d sat unopened since her arrival in Savannah. “The original client files are in a vault at First Savannah Bank. I’ll have them sent along directly. There’ll be clients who’ve gone on to other firms, and we should forward any relevant information to them.”

“Existing clients,” Mrs. Billingsley murmured. “Now for the new clients.”

“The new clients,” Bree repeated. “The new temporal . . . I mean, the new Bay Street client is Tully O’Rourke.”

“The lady with the husband that shot himself? I read about that in the papers. That our case?”

“That’s our case.” Bree’s excitement at Dr. Lowry’s postulate returned with a bang. “And it’s a doozy, Mrs. Billingsley. Just wait until you hear what happened this morning.”

“My, my, my.” Mrs. Billingsley took an appreciative sip of her tea and swallowed the last of her oatmeal cookie. Bree’s summary of the case had taken longer than she’d anticipated, and Mrs. Billingsley had insisted that Bree share her lunch. They split a tuna fish sandwich, a small bag of Cheetos, and a bag of celery sticks. They’d moved the captain’s chair out to sit beside Mrs. Billingsley’s leather office chair, so they could both be comfortable.

Fortunately, there’d been two home-baked oatmeal cookies.

Mrs. Billingsley frowned at the notes she’d made as Bree listed the events of the past four days. “This is quite a confusing case, Miss Beaufort.”

“You bet it is. So, the big question is: what next?” Bree was talking more to herself than to her new secretary. “The weird thing about this murder is how long it took. The murderer paralyzed Russell with a shot to the spinal column and rigged up the shotgun to fire when the group of suspects came back into the room. And then Russell didn’t actually die until he was on his way to the ER some twenty minutes later. Who was the last person to see Russell O’Rourke alive and whole? I’m going to have to work back from that.”

Mrs. Billingsley dabbed at a bit of cookie. “Maybe the Eddie Chin case would get you there faster.”

Bree looked at her. “You think so?”

“I do indeed think so. You’ve got yourself quite a list of suspects with this Russell. Do you think the same person killed Eddie Chin?”