Angel's Advocate Page 5

  Which was an answer of a sort, Bree supposed. “Well, we need to find out what kind of choices Probert Chandler made when he was alive, or I won’t be able to plead his case now that he’s dead.”

  “What’s he in for, anyway?” Ron asked.

  “In for?” Bree said blankly.

  “You know, Ben Skinner was originally sentenced to three to ten” (not years, but millennia, Bree had learned) “for misdemeanor greed. What’s Chandler done?”

  “And where’s he servin’ time?” Lavinia bit into a beig net. “Purgatory or Hell itself?”

  “Y’all don’t know?” Bree said.

  “Gosh,” Ron said. “Should we?”

  “If you don’t know, who does? Wait a minute.” She frowned in concentration. “Gabriel Striker told me about the initial charges against Ben Skinner. Who told him?” Then, because she wasn’t really sure she wanted to know the answer to that, she amended her question. “How did Striker find out?”

  “I s’pose you should ask him,” Lavinia said vaguely.

  Bree scowled. Striker was a PI who had been recommended to Bree by her former law school professor Armand Cianquino. Striker’s function within the Company, as near as Bree could figure out, was to get in her way. As for the professor, Bree found him mysterious in law school and even more mysterious now. Armand’s job seemed to be to point her in the right direction, stand back, and let her fall flat on her face.

  Petru tapped his cane on the floor. “No need to bring in Striker. I will check the reports.”

  “The reports?” Bree said blankly. Then, “Oh! The reports .” The depositions of all criminal and civil cases, from arraignment to final outcome, were listed in reports filed daily at the courthouse. In municipalities like Chatham County, at any rate. Bree wasn’t sure about matters celestial.

  “And then, of course, since Chandler has filed a request for an appeal, you will need a copy of the original case. I will obtain that also. Ke-vite routine, dear Bree.”

  “Of course,” Bree said. “Then I suppose those will be located . . . where?”

  “On the seventh floor of the courthouse, ‘dear Bree,’ ” Ron said, with a scowl in Petru’s direction. “I can get those for you this morning.”

  “I am the paralegal,” Petru said. “Such is the occupation of same. I will retrieve the files.”

  “I’m the secretary,” Ron said. “Such is the occupation of me.”

  “Cool it, you two.” Bree looked at them thoughtfully. “You know,” she said, “I think I’d like to do this little chore myself.”

  “I’d better come with you,” Ron said briskly. “If you’re new to the process, it can take forever to get copies of the appeal.” He winked. “Thank goodness we’ve got friends in high places.”

  The Chatham County Courthouse was a newish, rather ugly six-story building made of concrete block painted the color of scrambled eggs. Bree found a parking spot just off Montgomery, opened her purse for inspection by the police officers on guard, and went through the metal detector, Ron at her heels. The hall was crowded with lawyers in suits, policemen in both the brown uniform of the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department and the navy blue of the city police, and ordinary citizens. Most looked either bewildered or sad. Nobody looked happy.

  Bree stood in front of the bank of elevators, surrounded by three cops; a large lady in flip-flops, baggy pants, and a T-shirt that read I’ve got PMS and I’ve got a gun; and two young kids making a noticeable effort to be cool. A sign by the elevator listed the function of each of the building’s six floors.

  Bree and Ron rode to the second floor, where the kids got off; the fifth floor, where the belligerently T-shirted lady got off; and then to the sixth and last floor, where the cops got off. The older cop held the door for her politely—she noticed he didn’t seem to register that Ron was in the elevator, too, and she smacked her head with the heel of her hand. “Forgot something!” she said. “Thanks!”

  The elevator doors closed and the car kept on going up. The doors swished open to a place Bree had been just once before: the home of the Seventh Circuit of the Celestial Courts.

  She’d been too nervous on her previous visit to register much of her surroundings.

  Sunlight from a series of skylights in the ceiling flooded the hallway. The floor was of terrazzo tile, and the walls had wainscoting of warmly polished cedar. Or a wood that looked very much like cedar. The air was fresh and springlike.

  Instead of the Great Seal of the State of Georgia, the wall opposite the elevators held a seal lettered CELESTIAL COURTS. She did remember that. The symbol in the center was becoming increasingly familiar: a pair of the Scales of Justice surrounded by angel wings. To the right of the seal was a directory:

  Justice Court—Circle One (Justice Azreal presiding)

  Circuit Court—Circles Two, Three, and Four (Justice-in-Residence)

  Court of Appeals—Circles Five, Six, and Seven (St. Peter presiding)

  Appellate Division—Circles Eight and Nine

  Hall of Records

  Clerk of Court (Recording Angels)

  Detention

  The directional arrow to the Court of Appeals pointed up. The arrow to Detention pointed down. All the other arrows pointed to either the east or the west. Ron touched her arm. “This way.”

  She followed Ron down the hall to a door marked RECORDS. Ron tapped lightly, and then opened it up.

  The records room was dim, dark, and cavernous. It took her a moment to adjust to the low light, since the main source of illumination was lanterns. Rows of breast-high pedestal desks ran the length of the space. The floor was paved in stone. The ceilings soared up, a series of vaulted arches. Flaming sconces flared on the walls. The figures huddled over the desks were . . .

  “Monks?” Bree said, in a half whisper.

  Ron rolled his eyes. “Complete with quill pens and inkwells. Can you believe it? I’ve been trying to get them to modernize since 1867, the year you temporals invented the typewriter. But am I getting anywhere? Not so’s you’d notice. Tradition is everything around here.” He walked briskly down the center aisle. Bree had to trot to keep up with him. A few of the cowled figures looked up as they passed; Bree caught a glimpse of eerily bright eyes. And there was a hum of recognition, the words as soft as a dove’s murmur. “Leah’s daughter . . . Love the hair . . . Did all right in the Skinner case . . . ’spect to see her moving up one of these days . . .”

  “Ron!” Bree caught at his arm. He stopped and turned. “Did you hear that?” She kept her voice down, despite the urgency she felt. “Somebody said ‘Leah’s daughter.’ That’s my mother. The one who gave me up. Ron! Do they know her here?”

  Ron smiled at her. The smile suffused his face in light. A feeling of warmth and safety flowed over her like a cozy blanket. Lavinia had smiled at her in just that way. A faint—very faint—rumble of thunder sounded beneath her feet, and then died away. “We’ll find the files over here.”

  Stonewalled again. Or rather, angel-walled.

  Ron wound his way briskly around the desks to a chest-high oak bar that ran the length of the far wall. Bree had to stand on her tiptoes to look across its width to the activity. A narrow aisle ran between the bar and the wall, which held hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cubicles. Ron shook his head. “Goldstein modeled it after the library at Alexandria. Never mind the fact that any decent software program could free up this whole space for other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?” a surly voice demanded. “I ask you. What other stuff would there be? This space is here for this stuff.”

  “It’s you, is it?” Ron said unenthusiastically. “Hello, Goldstein.”

  “If it isn’t St. Par-chay-se,” Goldstein sneered.

  “If it isn’t St. Luddite,” Ron sneered back. “When are you going to computerize, Goldstein?”

  Goldstein was short and bald, with a belligerent lower lip and a pair of large, melting brown eyes. He wore his cowl shoved back onto his shoulders, and Bree cou
ld see the tip of a feathery wing beneath the folds of fabric around his neck. “When will I computerize? When Hell freezes over!” Goldstein shouted. “Ha! Ha-ha!”

  “That joke’s older than Adam,” Ron muttered.

  Goldstein smiled at Bree. “And this, Ronald, is this Leah’s daughter?”

  “Of course it is,” Ron said. “Bree, this is Goldstein. He’s section head of Records.”

  “How do you do?” Bree said. She extended her hand over the counter. Goldstein reached across the boards and shook it gravely.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I knew and admired your mother. She is sorely missed. Now, how may I assist you?”

  Ron’s hand on her shoulder forestalled any questions. He said, “We think we have a new client. Probert Chandler. He’s filed an appeal. We’d like to see the case file.”

  “Chandler.” Goldstein closed his eyes. “Hmmm. Let me think. Chandler. What jurisdiction?”

  “We have no idea,” Ron said. “Aren’t you cross-referenced by name?”

  “The name doesn’t help a whole lot,” Goldstein grumbled. “Do you know how many millions of Chandlers have lived and died since the Word?” He blinked twice. “Oh, my. I recall it now.” He frowned and tsked. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you on this one. It’s a ninth-circle case.”

  “Hm,” Ron said. “Quite serious, then.”

  “Quite.”

  Bree looked a question.

  “Nine circles of Hell, nine court jurisdictions,” Ron said briefly. “The charges get worse the higher you go. Mr. Skinner, now, he was a circle one, which is your basic misdemeanor greed. This one must be a doozy . . . hand it over, Goldstein.”

  The records clerk pulled a thick roll of parchment from one of the cubicles and passed it over to Ron, who tucked it under his arm. Goldstein pulled out a fat, leather-bound book, paged through the dusty leaves, placed it flat, and turned it to face Bree. He shoved a quill pen and inkwell set in her direction. “How long will you want it for?”

  “Just until we copy it, I guess,” Bree said.

  “This is a copy. Copy number one. We track all the copies, of course. Just sign your name and check the relevant due date.”

  “A month, then?” Bree hazarded. She grasped the quill pen, signed her name with some difficulty, due to the thickness of the ink, and looked on in amazement as the signature styled itself in perfect Copperplate:

  She hesitated, then checked the 30-day due column.

  “Thank you, Bree.” He smiled at her, and that sense of cheery comfort flooded her with calm and warmth. There were advantages to dealing with angels, even testy ones. She doubted that she’d ever need Prozac.

  “Think Microsoft in future, Goldstein,” Ron said. “It’d save us a trip down here. C’mon, Bree. This is going to be interesting. A ninth-circle case. I can’t wait. Shall I take a look?”

  Bree turned and swept the huge room with her gaze. One of the torches in the wall snapped and sputtered. The angels in their monk’s habits scribbled away peacefully. Bree breathed in the dusty, library-scented air and said, “I don’t know if I can handle anything much more interesting than this.”

  “La, la,” Ron said, unrolling the parchment, reading as he went. “Simony. Profiteering. Hm. That’s all seventh-circle stuff. Not nine. Doesn’t matter, though. So maybe he did get a raw deal. It’s been known to happen, especially if the prosecution’s zealous.” He shook his head. “If Chandler’s appeal isn’t reversed, he’s going to have an uncomfortable time of it, hereafter. Looks like a worthy case, Bree.”

  “Let me see.” Bree took the paper and scanned the first few paragraphs. The petition was laid out in an elegant Gothic script. “This isn’t an appeal. It’s a request for a retrial based on evidence not in fact.”

  “Humph,” Goldstein said. “That’s what they all say.”

  Bree looked at him with a slight frown. “Mr. Chandler’s disputing the suicide charge. He says he didn’t kill himself. He says someone else did.

  “He says it’s murder.”

  Five

  It was not that legislators, judges and attorneys weren’t

  good and decent human beings—though some cer

  tainly were not, Ford thought. The problem was they

  and their legal forbears had gradually perverted the

  legal system for the protection of their own profession.

  Jurisprudence was no longer a moral process. It was

  a competition in which the competitors—attorneys—

  created their own rules.

  —The Heat Sand, Randy Wayne White

  “Come on, Cordy,” Bree said. “The kid’s seventeen years old. Her hormones are running amok. Not only that, there’s a lot of case law about the wonky developmental stages of the teenage brain. I can make a pretty good case for diminished responsibility.”

  Cordelia Eastburn snorted derisively. She was good at it. “The wonky defense? Give me a flippin’ break, girlfriend.” Cordy’s charm and presence reminded a lot of people of Oprah Winfrey. Unlike that smart and genial talk show host, Cordy had a temper to rival an F5 tornado and an unabashed ambition to become the first black female governor of the State of Georgia. Most of the time, she scared Bree to death. The rest of the time, the two of them got along like a house afire. “She’s a spoiled rich kid with an attitude. You tell me how that’s going to go over with a jury.”

  “Well, not so hot,” Bree admitted. She settled back in the visitor’s chair. The district attorney’s office occupied a corner suite on the fifth floor of the courthouse. Cordy’s Stanford law degree hung over the credenza, surrounded by photos of Cordy with the current governor of Georgia, two former presidents, and two of the Take Back Our Street missions to which she dedicated much of her off-duty time.

  On impulse, Bree had stopped to see if she could catch Cordy on the fly. She’d sent Ron back to Angelus to begin researching Probert Chandler’s background. The thrifty family man image was at odds with the charges in his original case, and there was a pile of investigating to do. Cordy was in, and agreed to spare Bree a couple of minutes.

  She wore what Bree had come to think of as the uniform for professional Savannah women: a dark suit with a skirt that came to below the knees, a silk turtleneck, and low-heeled shoes. Cordy’s only concession to frivolity was her earrings, which were large, splendid, and handmade.

  Bree looked her right in the eye. “Let’s be blunt here. Is this push for a prison sentence because she’s a spoiled rich white kid?”

  The DA glared at her. Her temper was legendary. Bree was hard put not to sink down in her chair, close her eyes, and stick her fingers in her ears in anticipation of the coming storm. But Cordy controlled herself with an effort, expelled her breath with a sharp “Pah!” and then said, “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

  “Your current drive to break up the street gangs has the support of a whole lot of people,” Bree said. “But you and I both know that the drive’s been politicized. And it’s not just that small segment of the African American voters who’re screaming your cleanup campaign is racially motivated and that you’re an Auntie Tom. A lot of white liberals are, too. If I were in your shoes, Cordy, you bet that I’d be taking a kick-butt attitude about this little case, if only to demonstrate that the law applies equally to everybody. It’s high profile enough to make your point without you having to defend yourself on the early morning talk shows. So—do I think you’re pushing this because she’s a spoiled rich white kid? You bet.” She leaned forward and said firmly, “I’m not going to holler about a rigorous prosecution. You want to push the aggravated theft charges, that’s fine with me. But this business of threatening bodily harm with the Hummer is a real stretch. I watched the video of the surveillance tape on the late night news before I went to bed last night. What I am hollering about is your excess of zeal.”

  Cordy tightened her lips, thought a moment, and said, “You’ve got a point.” There were a lot of good things a
bout Cordy; chief among them was that she conceded with grace and a no-hard-feelings attitude. She chuckled. “The kid’s gonna hang herself the minute she opens her mouth anyway.”

  “No kidding,” Bree said gloomily. “So we can deal a little on these charges?”

  “Tell you what. The kid allocutes to the crime on camera.”

  “Cordy!”

  “Not negotiable. Sorry. I’ve got to feed the ravening herd. The people of this state want to see some groveling. And I want to see her express a little remorse. But then we can talk about a community service sentence. Scrubbing public toilets, maybe. Like that model.”

  “I’ll talk to her.” Bree extended her hand. “Thanks, Cordy.”

  Cordy reached across the desk and took Bree’s hand in both of hers. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you lately, Bree. Ever think about joining the good fight down here at the DA’s office?”

  “Me?” Bree said. “Really?” She could feel herself blushing. She had an enormous respect for the DA’s office and the furious focus that Cordy brought to the job.

  “Liked the way you stood up to John Stubblefield over that Skinner case.”

  “If I went into public service, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather work for than you,” Bree said honestly. “But I’ve got my hands full at the moment. Maybe in the future . . . I don’t know. Let’s meet for a drink sometime.”

  “I’ve got high blood pressure, and problems with sugar. So I don’t drink. But I’ll be glad to buy you one, any old time.” Cordy grinned at her, released her hand, and stood up. “All right, then. You’ll let me know if the kid agrees to the deal?”

  “Fast as I can. I’d like to get this one out of the public eye sooner than quick.” She followed Cordy to the door. “By the way . . .”

  Cordy paused and sighed. “How come there’s always a ‘by the way’? I give a lot more than I was intending to, let you push me around, and instead of a ‘Thank you, Miz Cordy, for all your help’ I get a ‘by the way’?”