Defending Angels Read online

  “I mean to say,” Lavinia continued, with quavering emphasis, “where you going to find a nice place as cheap as this?”

  Bree surveyed the rooms more slowly this time. The secretary and the paralegal could share the living room. And there was enough space for a small love seat and a coffee table. The bedroom would suit her very well as an office. With the addition of a microwave, the small, 1950s kitchen would be fine as a break room. She hoped she wouldn’t have to spend too much on setting the office up; the smaller the space, the less she had to furnish.

  “I got my own rooms and my workshop upstairs,” Lavinia said. “But I work mainly at night, so I won’t bother you a bit. And I’ll keep the small folks from coming down the stairs and hassling you.”

  Bree managed to keep the astonishment from her voice. “You have children?”

  Lavinia’s giggle was so infectious Bree found herself laughing, too. “And at my age, young Bree! No, no children upstairs at all.”

  Pets, then. Bree tended to trust people who had pets. She looked around one more time. Lavinia was right. The office space was a bargain, even with the hideous surroundings outside and the mysterious golden dog hair inside. A few dedicated gardening weekends in the old cemetery would make a dramatic difference.

  Take it, the voice in Bree’s head said. She trusted that inner voice. It’d been with her all her life. It’d led her to law school, to the job in her father’s firm, and here, to Savannah. It had also warned her against her last lover, Payton the Rat. She hadn’t listened to it then. And look at all the misery that had come from that.

  She’d take it.

  “I would very much appreciate the opportunity to rent this space from you, Lavinia.”

  “I would very much like to rent to you, honey.”

  Solemnly, they shook hands. Lavinia’s fingers were dry and cool and felt like the bones of small birds.

  The decision made, Bree stood a little taller in relief. “Now, if I could take a look at the lease?” A contract was familiar territory; she’d been feeling a little out of her depth until now.

  “Lease,” Lavinia snorted. “Honey, what would I need a lease for? You work out, you can rent this place from me as long as you like. You don’t work out, we’ll just agree to part ways.”

  “But I’ll be making quite an investment, Mrs. Ma—I mean Lavinia. And I don’t believe either one of us—”

  “No lease.” Lavinia shook her head. “Don’t trust the courts. Don’t trust the law. Trust in God. And,” she added firmly, “my own good digestion.”

  Bree hesitated.

  It’s the right thing to do.

  She did trust that voice; it was her own highly developed intuition, wasn’t it? It had led her out of Raleigh and working for her nutty—if adorable—father, Royal Winston-Beaufort, and here to Georgia, where the very air smelled of freedom. She didn’t have to take on her great-uncle’s clients; his bequest had been “to see to their needs,” and she could have parceled them out to existing law firms if she’d really wanted to. But Savannah was a chance at a life of her own and she’d grabbed at it.

  “That’s all right then.” Lavinia, who seemed to have heard this internal dialogue, trotted out of the dining room, across the living room, and back to the foyer. Bree followed. Bree had long legs, especially measured against Lavinia’s short ones, but she had to hurry to catch up. She found Lavinia wriggling the door latch impatiently.

  “I’ve a lot to do upstairs, honey. So if you don’t mind, you can show yourself out, as the saying goes. You can come back tomorrow and start moving in.” She peered out the door, and up and down the street. “You be sure it’s locked behind you. This here’s a good neighborhood, but you just never know about kids these days. Not to mention the Josiah Pendergasts of this bad old world. This murderers’ cemetery is the only place for a beast like that.”

  Bree’s lawyer’s conscience prodded her. “Don’t you want to have a lease for your own protection, Lavinia? I mean, I’m surely flattered that you trust me on sight. But it is a hard old world out there. You’re right. Just in case, why don’t I bring a copy of a standard contract with me tomorrow?”

  “T-uh,” Lavinia said. “You can put your standard contracts where the sun don’t shine.” She reached up and curled a strand of Bree’s long hair around one finger. “That’s natural, isn’t it, honey?”

  “Well, yes.” Bree blushed. She had very few vanities. Her luxuriant hair, long, white blonde, and as fine spun as sugar, was one of them.

  Lavinia leaned in close. Bree caught the spicy scent of dried herbs and another, sweeter smell of exotic flowers. “You see those angels I painted on the stairs, don’t you? Your hair’s exactly the color of the bravest and the best one a-them.” Her smile lit her face like a sun breaking over the horizon. “It’s meant that you rent this place. Couldn’t be clearer.”

  What was clear, Bree thought, was that her new landlady had a very small screw loose. But Lavinia’s screws were definitely tighter than Aunt Corinne-Alice’s or Great-uncle Franklin’s. Both of those relatives had dabbled in some pretty weird stuff. And Bree had survived those eccentricities of her childhood just fine. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said. “And thank . . .”

  Lavinia whisked up the decorated stairs like a puff of smoke, leaving nothing but the scent of herbs and flowers behind.

  “Mrs. Mather? Lavinia?”

  No answer. Just the decisive slam of an upstairs door. Bree raised her voice a little, “I’ll see you about ten o’clock, then?”

  Not a word from her putative landlady. But the scent of unfamiliar flowers drifted down and she caught the sounds of skittering feet. A cat, maybe, or a small dog. As for the perfume, Bree inhaled with pleasure. Roses, perhaps, and something more than roses. She waited a long moment to see if Lavinia would call down to her, then let herself out the front door.

  Outside, the breeze had quickened and swung round from the west, bringing with it a foul odor of decay from the cemetery. Bree stopped short, horrified. She sneezed heartily. No wonder Lavinia perfumed the air. The stink was horrendous. Strange that she hadn’t noticed it before.

  She stood on the top step, irresolute, struck with the conviction that this rental was a really, really dumb idea. Unless Uncle Franklin’s practice was limited to the smell-impaired, nobody would come back for a second appointment. And her clients would have to be really nearsighted not to disapprove of the derelict cemetery. The Historical Society wouldn’t mind if she weeded and mulched, but she doubted sincerely that she’d be allowed to transform the place into something more habitable by moving the graves to a proper cemetery.

  She thought suddenly of Josiah Pendergast. Lavinia didn’t think he belonged in a proper cemetery at all. “This is the only place for a beast like that.”

  Phooey. Corpses didn’t inhabit a place. They just occupied it. Like furniture. Highly unattractive furniture, from any prospective client’s standpoint, and it was furniture that couldn’t be tossed out in the trash.

  On the other hand, the office was quiet. It was tucked far enough away from Bay Street that the noise of the city and the wharf was diminished to a mere grumble. And that was a plus, surely.

  But the rotten scent hung around her like a dreadful cape. Bree pinched her nose shut, to see if it helped. Nope. The smell was everywhere. Quiet wasn’t enough. This wasn’t going to work. She turned to face the front door and stretched out her hand to knock again. She’d tell Mrs. Mather she was sorry. Somebody else would surely want the office space.

  A scream of agony split the air.

  Two

  Vex not his ghost.

  —King Lear, Shakespeare

  Bree froze, hand upraised. The shriek came again, not, Bree realized almost at once, a human shriek, but the sound of an animal in pain. And it came from behind the decayed magnolia tree. She was off the steps and running toward the gravestones before she’d actually thought to move.

  The howl trailed off to whimpers. Bree skidde
d to a stop in the middle of the graveyard. She took one deep, calming breath. It was stupid to rush into whatever it was. She stared intently at the magnolia tree. It was old and almost leafless, the bole the width of her shoulders. The terrible sounds came from behind it, she was sure of it. She set her briefcase down and slipped off her jacket.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Hey!”

  The whimpers trailed off into silence.

  A scrabble of dead leaves made her jump. She caught the back view of a skinny figure enveloped in a smoky mist. Bree blinked hard and rubbed her eyes.

  “You, there,” Bree called, “hang on a minute.”

  The figure turned at the sound of her voice. She caught a brief glimpse of a white face, the mouth split in a terrible grin. The scent of decaying corpses was stronger now. Bree took an involuntary step back. She heard a thud, then another, and the sound of a bat or a stick falling onto flesh. The animal shrieked again. Bree shouted and sprang forward, fury almost overwhelming her common sense.

  The shrieks stopped. Then whoever it was, whatever it was, jumped the wrought-iron fence and disappeared behind the brick warehouse that sat next to 66 Angelus Street. The whimpering remained behind and trailed off into a hoarse, painful panting that struck at her heart.

  Bree raced back to her briefcase and slipped her cell phone into her skirt pocket. She grabbed one of the thick, dead branches that littered the pathway. She ducked under the Spanish moss that hung from the magnolia like hair, brushing the damp tendrils aside with an impatient hand.

  A dog lay huddled against the far side of the trunk. It raised its head as she approached, its teeth drawn back in a snarl. Bree crouched a short distance away and used the voice that had calmed both foals and lambs when she was home at Plessey. “There now,” she said. “There now.”

  The dog struggled to sit up. It was large, perhaps the size of a Labrador retriever. The dingy gold coat was snarled with burrs and twigs. It was horribly skinny, as if it hadn’t eaten for days.

  Bree put the branch down. The dog’s hind leg was caught in a steel-jawed trap. At least it couldn’t lunge far, if fear and panic drove it to bite.

  “Easy,” Bree said in a calm and cheerful voice. The dog sank back into the pile of leaves. Its tail gave a feeble thump. Bree edged forward on her knees, half-singing a constant “there now, there now.” She laid one hand on the dog’s head. It licked frantically at her wrist. She ran the other hand over the dog’s matted ribs and down to the trapped leg. She knew this kind of trap. Her grandfather had banned it from Plessey years before, but not before he’d taught both Bree and her sister, Antonia, how to release animals captured in its teeth. She pressed the spring release and the jaws relaxed with a sudden twang. The dog jerked away from her soothing hand and struggled to its feet. His feet, Bree realized after a moment.

  “Well, boy,” Bree said. “You just steady on, now. Steady.”

  The dog’s dark brown eyes met her own, briefly. Bree cupped her hand around his muzzle, and gently probed the injured leg. “It’s broken, for sure,” she said softly. “I’ll have to carry you, pup. You going to mind that?”

  The dog looked up at her, as if to deliberate. Then he sank limply back into the leaves. Bree slid one arm under his chest, and supported his hindquarters with the other. She struggled to her feet with a whoosh of effort. She hauled a hundredweight of horse feed around the barns at home, and the dog weighed less than that, but not by much. She staggered slightly as she left the cemetery and headed to the curb where she’d parked her little Fiat. No good at all to drag Lavinia into this. She’d call the police and the Humane Society from her car.

  The dog just barely fit into the backseat. He lay quietly, not, as she feared, unconscious, but simply accepting her attempts to make him comfortable. She settled him as best she could, then went back to retrieve her briefcase and her suit jacket. Should she take the trap for evidence? Better to leave it, perhaps. The police usually wanted crime scenes undisturbed, didn’t they? The trap was new; the stainless steel jaws blotched with the dog’s blood. And it rested on a toppled gravestone. She knelt and brushed aside the leaves that covered the inscription, careful to avoid adding more of her fingerprints to the trap.

  OLIVIA PENDERGAST I CHRONICLES 29:15

  “A relative of the restless Josiah,” Bree mused aloud. “Yikes.”

  She rose to her feet and looked beyond the fence for the white-faced thing, or at least some trace that it’d been there. She found nothing, and after a second, even briefer search of the area around the magnolia, she keyed 911 into her phone and requested police presence to investigate a case of animal abuse, just off East Bay at Mulberry.

  A squad car turned the corner almost before she’d slipped the cell phone back in her pocket. Bree lifted her hand and stepped off the curb. The siren was off, but the red lights flashing red-orange-red were scarier than the siren would have been. She cast a worried look up at the second story of the little house, but the curtains remained drawn and motionless. She wanted to keep this from Lavinia, if she could. The old were fragile. And there was something particularly horrifying about animal abuse. As tough as she was, it’d likely scare poor Lavinia into the next county.

  The squad car drew to a noiseless stop next to her. The officer inside was young, pink-faced, and alone.

  Bree smiled at him. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Officer.”

  “I was just around the corner, ma’am.”

  She looked past his shoulder to a tray of Starbucks coffee on the front seat next to him. He followed her glance and blushed. “The guys sent . . . that is, I volunteered for the coffee run. Since I was right close when the call came in, I said I’d take it.” He put the cruiser into park and emerged from the driver’s seat. His uniform looked as if it’d just been unwrapped from the box it came in. His black shoes were shiny and new. And he carried a brightly painted baton, and no gun. He stuck his hand out, and said, “Officer Dooley Banks, ma’am.”

  Bree took his hand a little dubiously. She hadn’t much experience with the police. But this guy surely didn’t behave like the cops on Law & Order. “Brianna Winston-Beaufort,” she said. Then added, “Attorney-at-law.”

  He touched his cap, “Miss Beaufort. You had some complaint about animal abuse?”

  “I suppose,” Bree said into the phone some hours later, “that I was purely lucky that Officer Banks had been on the force all of oh, five minutes. Maybe less.”

  “Lucky?” her mother echoed. “Lucky? I don’t want you anywhere near that place, Bree honey. It sounds dangerous. And you said it’s in the middle of a cemetery?”

  “It’s a very pleasant cemetery,” Bree said, fingers firmly crossed. “And Mrs. Mather’s as sweet as can be. In her late seventies, if I’m any judge. Just a nice old lady, Mamma.”

  “And what do you mean, lucky?” her father demanded. “You have any trouble at all getting the right kind of attention from those people in Savannah, you let me know, hear?”

  Even on the extension, two hundred miles south of the town house, her father’s nosy concern set Bree’s back up. And she’d edited out the truly eerie parts of her day’s adventure. But she said mildly, “Well, a dog with a broken leg’s more a case for the ASPCA than the police. But Officer Banks filled out a report just as nice as you please. So if it was a malicious act, and I do catch the guy, they can charge him.”

  “You took the poor thing to the pound, didn’t you?” her mother said. “You know the town house rules about dogs.”

  Bree gazed at the ceiling. She was calling from the living room. The Oriental carpets on the pinewood floors were faded with age. Her grandmother’s grand piano occupied the corner closest to the fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined either side of the French doors to the balcony. Beyond the balcony, the Savannah River drifted by. It was all familiar, and much beloved. “The crown molding’s getting a little chippy,” she said. “Do you think I should have the painters in?”

  This diverted her mother’s
attention, as she’d hoped it would. “Why, we just had the whole place repainted not five years ago,” she said indignantly.

  “Ten,” her father said impatiently. “It’s been ten years or more, Francesca. But maybe we should have the painters in, Bree honey. We can hurry right down and see for ourselves, if you like. We can be in there in five hours. Less.”

  “No need,” Bree said hastily. “Now that I look a little closer, it’s just cobwebs.” She got a firmer grasp on the phone. “Now, look. I’m so glad y’all called. But I’ve a couple of résumés to look over tonight.”

  “It’s well after eight,” her mother protested.

  Bree didn’t say anything. This kind of intrusive, loving, crazy-making concern was one of the reasons she was here in Savannah, and not practicing law at home.

  “You know how you get.” Francesca pressed on. “You’ve been sleeping okay, Bree darlin’? She hasn’t been eating again, Royal. I just know it.”

  “I’ve been eating just fine,” Bree said firmly.

  “You’re going to keep on working after the kind of day you had?” Francesca demanded.

  “I’m going to need someone to answer the phones, at the very least,” Bree said. “I’ve been getting some pretty good responses to the ad I put in the Savannah Daily. And since I’ll be moving into the new offices tomorrow, it’ll be a good thing to have someone around to give me a hand sooner rather than later. So I need to start interviewing.”

  “For all of that, sweetie,” her father said instantly, “we can come on down and give you four hands.”

  “Yes, indeed,” her mother said. “And you’ll want someone to help you pick out the right color paint. And what about drapes?”

  Bree suppressed a groan. “I appreciate that. I truly do. But I have to go now. And thanks for calling, y’all. I’ll talk to you later in the week.”

  “But Bree . . .” her father said.

  “Now, Royal,” her mother said. “Don’t scold. Bree, you just let me know what your color scheme is going to be and I can bring down a couple of samples . . .”