Avenging Angels (26 page)

“You’re on this current case, I take it?” Royal said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Bad business, that.”

“Yes, sir. He was a friend of mine.”

“Things progressing well?”

“Well enough.” Hunter nodded at Francesca. “Excellent casserole, ma’am.”

“Do call me Francesca. And it’s a wonderful casserole. It’s one of Adelina’s specialties. The girls have loved it since they were little.”

Hunter cocked an eyebrow at Bree. “Adelina?”

“Our cook,” Bree said shortly. She and Hunter didn’t see eye to eye on the advantages of her family background. He tended to resent it. She resented it, too. But she didn’t like anyone else resenting it.

“About this case, Lieutenant.” Cissy broke into the conversation with a determined air. “I’m just fascinated by the way y’all work in the police. You must know who committed this dreadful crime by now. Do you . . .”

“Cecilia.” Royal’s interruption was firm. “The lieutenant’s not allowed to discuss current cases. Pass the fruit salad to me, would you? And tell me how things have been with you lately. Did your counsel—what’s his name?”

“Dave Burbank?”

“That’s the one. Did Burbank straighten out the quit-claim deed on the cabin for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to let something like that drag on.”

“Maybe Bree can handle it.”

“Bree doesn’t handle real estate law.”

Bree cast her father a grateful look, both for the diversion in the conversation and for saving her from the irksome details of Cissy’s muddled affairs.

“She could if she wanted to,” Cissy said with sublime confidence. “Bree can handle anything. Besides, she’d never send me a bill.”

Bree caught Hunter’s eye and bit her lip so hard it hurt.

The conversation meandered on like the Savannah River on a hot afternoon, digressive and placid. When Bree got her relatives out the door at the end of the evening, she collapsed on the living room couch with a sigh of relief. Antonia bounced out the door to take Sasha for a last nighttime walk. Hunter leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed.

Bree batted her eyelashes and struck a pose. “Did Aunt Cissy manage to get your phone number?”

A look of alarm crossed his face.

“She’s a force of nature, Cissy is.”

“I like your mother.”

Bree smiled. “Everyone likes Mamma.”

“And your father, too. Your aunt’s . . .”

“A caution,” Bree agreed. “Mamma slipped up once and called her man-hungry. But she means well, Cissy does. She doesn’t have a clue about what kind of law I actually practice, but she’s always dragging prospective clients in to see me, no matter what the problem is.”

“Like the O’Rourke case.”

“Yes.”

He came and sat next to her. He sat close, but they didn’t touch. “We’ve got a few leads on Eddie’s movements just before he met up with the killer.”

“His cell phone records?”

Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about his cell phone records?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? If he talked to you about what he discovered in the autopsy records he must have talked to a pathologist, right? Maybe even the killer. That’s where I’d look first,” she added disingenuously.

“We did run the cell phone records. He did talk to the police pathologist.”

“What about?”

“Eddie had some notion that O’Rourke was shot twice.”

“Twice?” Bree hadn’t had time to think about how she’d present Lowry’s theory to Hunter. She did know she faced a number of minefields. There would be a lot of questions about how she’d obtained the actual copies of the investigation from New York. She could fudge a little, maybe say that Eddie had let her have copies, but Hunter was too smart and too quick to swallow that whole. If she asked him leading questions, he was going to be furious if he found out later that she’d had information about the case that she hadn’t turned promptly over to the police.

Finally, there was her duty to her clients—the live one and the dead one. The canon of ethics was quite clear: she had no obligation to turn information about past crimes over to the courts or the police.

“What did the police pathologist say about Eddie’s idea?”

“Forester? He’s a crusty old s.o.b. Told Eddie to get back on his meds. Not the kind of guy that likes to be proved wrong.”

“Do you think he’s wrong? The pathologist? That maybe O’Rourke was shot twice?”

Hunter shrugged. “Forester’s the best we’ve got. When he gives an opinion, you can bet it’s going to hold up under the toughest cross-examination.”

“But?” Bree urged.

Hunter put his head back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Evidence has to hold up in court. It’s worthless unless it does. This second-bullet theory is a lead I’ll follow up, of course. But I don’t expect it to pan out. This case was so thoroughly covered the first time around, I’d be surprised if anything new came up at this point.” He put his hand over hers. “You have any ideas?”

Bree got up and moved away from his warmth. It was dangerous, that warmth. And all that it represented.

“No,” she said. “Not a one.”

At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.

—Swinburne, “The Triumph of Time”

 

 

 

“Auntie Em is having a wonderful time working for you,” Danica Billingsley said. “I hope she’s fitting in okay.” She unlocked the door to Tully’s den and stepped back so Bree and Sasha could go in.

“Auntie Em?” Bree paused in the doorway. Had she heard Dani correctly? She was on edge; in addition to talking to Fig O’Rourke this morning, Ron had arranged an interview with Sir Ciaran and Barrie Fordham. Bree had promised to get Francesca an autograph, if she could do it with aplomb. Or at the very least, without turning bright pink.

Danica winced. “I know. But we love
The Wizard of Oz.
We watch it every Easter, all of us squashed together in Aunt Emerald’s trailer. And I mean squashed. My mamma’s the same size as my aunt. It’s a family tradition. Eating moon pies and singing our little hearts out. Ever since I was five and my little brother was three.”

Bree laughed delightedly at the thought of the two small children squashed on the couch between the “traditionally built” ladies. “She’s great, your aunt Emerald. And quick. We hadn’t been working together more than two hours before she pulverized a colleague I especially dislike. And talk about deft. The guy never knew what hit him.”

Danica’s smooth brown face sobered. “She didn’t have the chances I did, Bree. If she had—she’d be governor by now! Never got beyond eighth grade and thought she’d be working in the Hyatt kitchen all her life, scrubbing pots. But she took that online secretarial course, and you gave her the first chance she’s had to move on up. Things are going to get good for her. I can feel it.”

“It’s going to be a real pleasure working with her, I’ll tell you that.” Bree went into the office and sat down at the small conference table. Danica lingered in the doorway. Sasha sat in the corner, eyes alert. “I’m not so sure it’s going to be a pleasure talking to Russell Junior, though.” She glanced at her watch.

“He makes a point of being late,” Danica said regretfully. “If he’s in his Goth mode, you won’t get much sense out of him at all. If he’s in his Young Heir mode, he’ll be insufferable. As for the Fordhams, whatever else they are, they’re real professionals. If they said they’d be here at eleven, it’ll be to the minute.”

Danica lived with these people. She’d be a great source of information if Bree could get her to talk a bit. “Can you come in and sit down until Fig gets here?”

“I’d better not, as much as I’d love to. The house is in an uproar over the prep work for the party tonight.”

“I noticed.” When she’d walked in the front door, she’d dodged flower deliveries, professional cleaners, a caterer or two, and the liquor salesman. Anthony Haddad held court in the huge living room, surrounded by his acolytes. “How many guests do you expect?”

“Three hundred or so. Ah. Here he is. Hey, Fig.”

Fig stopped just outside the door, hands shoved in his pockets. There were deep smudges under his eyes, his clothes were wrinkled, and he needed a shampoo. He yawned. “Somebody said I was supposed to come and see you. I see you. Now what.”

Dani looked at Bree and mouthed:
Goth.

“Why don’t you come in and sit down?” Bree suggested.

“Yes, Fig. Miss Beaufort just has a few questions, and then you can go back to bed. I’ll be around if you need me, Bree,” Dani added. “Check with the kitchen. They’ll track me down in nothing flat. Em’s in there, and my mamma, too. Maybe you can meet them later. Oh. And be sure to lock the door when you’ve finished up, will you? Tully’ll have a fit, otherwise.” She turned and disappeared down the hallway.

As Fig slouched past the desk, he ran his hands over the top. Then he shouted,
“Dani!”

Bree imagined that the short silence from the hall was an exasperated one. Danica’s expressionless face appeared around the door a few seconds later. “Yes, Fig.”

He pointed to the desk. “She’s done it again. The pot, this time.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Sorry, Bree, this will just take a minute. Okay, Fig. I’ll let your mother know.”

Fig sat down in the recliner and bumped the footrest up. “It’s Her Highness, Lady Barrie,” he explained, although Bree hadn’t asked. “Tends to be light-fingered with small, valuable objects. Dani says it’s because she grew up dirt-poor and is scared to be broke.”

Bree had to admit she was shocked. Barrie, Lady Fordham, a petty thief? But it explained Dani’s “whatever else they are” comment. And it did provide a good lead-in for one of the questions she had for Fig. “Is that why your father disliked the Fordhams? Because Barrie is a bit of a . . .”

“Crook?” Fig said. “How the heck should I know? Actually,” he corrected himself, “I do know. He’d get all hot and bothered about missing petty cash, or some of Mother’s jewelry, and then it’d blow over. She and Mother go way back, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know Mother Dear started out in the thee-ay-ter? Barrie went on to fame, if no fortune. Mother went on to Father. And to me.”

Bree didn’t deal well with adolescents. Lindsey Chandler had been as balky and rude as this kid, and she found herself wanting to give Fig a good smack up the side of the head, same as she had with Lindsey. At least Lindsey had washed her hair.

“Fig. You know that part of the reason your mother hired me was to look into your father’s death.”

He shrugged.

“Something very tragic has come up related to that.”

“The Chinese guy. The cop. Somebody blew his head off, too.” He grimaced. “Sweet.”

“Yes. Tell me, how well did you know Eddie Chin?”

“Pretty well.”

“Pretty well?” Bree stared at him, astonished.

“Sure. Eddie thought Father was murdered. I think so, too. After it . . .” He paused, swallowed, and then went on. “After it happened, Eddie started to, like, cozy up to me, you know? Thinking maybe I’d spill some family secrets or whatever. But I said, like, Man! I’m down with this. I think somebody offed the old man, and I want to catch him just as much as you do.”

“Did you see much of him when he was in Savannah?”

“Nah. After Mother Dear took him to court to stop harassing her, he kind of lost it, you know? Like maybe the wheels came off?” He whirled his forefinger around his ear in a rapid circle.

“So you didn’t have any contact with him after that?”

“No. Well, there was that, like, totally off-the-wall phone call a couple of days ago. I was, like, ‘Man, you’re off your meds.’ ”

“What phone call was that?”

“Aah, let’s see. I was awake, so it must have been after eleven. And the sun was out. And my cell rings and this voice says: ‘I know you did it. I’m coming to get it.’ And I go, like, ‘Hey Eddie, is that you? It’s Russell, man. What’s going on?’ And he goes, like, ‘Russ? Is that you? Sorry, man, sorry.’ Then he hangs up.” His eyes shifted sideways. “That was it. Weird, huh?”

“What do you think he meant? ‘I know you did it. I’m coming to get it.’ ”

“He knows I did what? Killed Father? No way. He’s coming to get it? Get what?”

“He called you Russ, not Fig?”

“My friends call me Russ, yeah.”

There was something about the story that didn’t ring true. Bree looked at Sasha, still sitting patiently in the corner. Fig hadn’t acknowledged the dog. It didn’t mean he didn’t see him. Sasha lifted a paw and set it down, which was not at all enlightening.

“Do you prefer to be called Fig, or Russ?”

“He’s called Fig because he liked the cookie when he was little. You know, Fig Newtons?” Tully swept in. She held the silver inkstand in one hand and the little cloisonné jar in the other. She was wearing very well-cut jeans, a man’s white shirt, and a small fortune in diamond earrings. “That damn Barrie,” she said with a mock-tragic roll of her eyes. “Just one of her delightful failings. Where the hell should I put this? Not back on the desk, that’s for sure. The credenza.”

Fig got out of the recliner. “Here, Mother. I’ll get it.” He thought a minute. “Maybe you ought to put the earrings in there, too.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Tully snapped. “And don’t be more of an ass than you can help. And for God’s sake, go clean up. We’ve got three hundred people showing up in a few hours and you look like an unmade bed.” Tully slammed the credenza door closed and faced Bree. “Are you through with him?”

“Yes,” Bree said mildly. “Thank you for your time, Russ.”

“And do you think my son created this elaborate plot to kill my husband?”

“What the hell?” Fig said. “You think I had something to do with Father’s death?”