Angel Condemned (20 page)

McCallen gave her a sour smile. “I do believe we will, Mrs. Billingsley.”

“I think we’ve got everything the cops have got, at least so far,” Ron said. “Do you want to go over this stuff now? Or do you want to go see Goldstein first?”

“I am on the Internet, searching for background data on the Cross,” Petru said. “I am not having much success, but I will persevere. Would you like to see what
I
have so far?”

“I don’t know,” Bree said. “I need to think.”

The three of them were in Bree’s office. Petru sat in the recliner, his cane at his side. Ron leaned back against the wall, arms folded.

Bree sat at her desk and looked at the neat stacks of paper in front of her. If she turned her head, she could see the painting of
The Rise of the Cormorant
over the fireplace through her open office door. She’d glanced at it on her way in. There were more drowning souls in the fiery ocean than there had been the day before. There was no pale-faced woman shrouded by the rigging.

“Bree?”

Bree turned back to her desk. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to lose focus. I can’t afford to.” She looked up at him. “There’s so much at stake. Except that it’s all personal. I suppose that in the great scheme of things, with all that happens in this world every day, it’s not so much. Is it?”

Petru may have been smiling beneath his beard. It was always hard to tell. “John says: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself. Each man’s joy is joy to me. Each man’s grief is my own.’ Wise words, I have always thought. The great scheme as you call it, dear Bree, is made up of many matters such as these.”

“That doesn’t help,” Ron said crossly. “What’s on the action list?”

Bree flipped a page on her yellow pad. “I need to interview the Chamberses. I have to get that bloody Cross back, and I haven’t a clue as to who’s got it. I’ve got to get to Bullet Martin before he goes back to Texas. And Cissy has to get that damn ankle bracelet off. The woman’s humiliated in addition to being squashed flat with grief over that jerk White. I’m feeling . . . messy. Maybe it’s my hair.” Bree hadn’t taken time to braid her hair that morning. She’d wakened late after her terrible nightmares. She’d bundled it up in a knot at the top of her head, and it was falling down. “Maybe it’s that condescending son of a gun Lewis McCallen. You know what’s bothering me the most?”

Petru nodded. “The presence of Mr. Caldecott as your aunt’s executor.”

“Right.” She tossed the yellow pad aside. “I’m feeling pushed. I like order, Ron. You know that. At the moment, I’m not sure where to start.”

“Order and method,” Ron said. “Optimize the use of the little gray cells.”

Bree looked blank.

“Never mind. When you retire from all this, you’ll find time to read.” A DVD sat on top of the first stack of material. Ron tapped it with his finger. “This is a copy of the footage from the surveillance cameras. There’s also the footage from Channel 5. I’d start here. We need to know just how strong the case against your aunt will be.”

She brooded for a long moment. “You don’t think she really did it, do you, Ron?”

“No. But you never know with mortal juries. They can be swayed. Cordy’s a terrific prosecutor. Word on the street is that she wants to handle this one herself.”

“I am going now, to prepare a file on the relic.” Petru heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. “I will prepare a summary. Ron will also. This will help you decide where to plunge in first.” He stumped out of the room.

“I ought to be tired,” she said. “I had another of those dreams last night.”

“I’m sorry.” Ron voice was warm with sympathy.

“I don’t feel tired, though. That’s odd, don’t you think?”

“I rarely feel tired,” Ron said simply. “That will happen to you, too. It’s very nice, not being heir to everything that ails the flesh.”

“You need reading glasses, though.”

“Yes. This temporal body’s aging. At a slower rate than a mortal’s would, but aging it is.” He tapped the stack of files he’d placed on her desk. “Time, now. Time’s not something I can halt or change. We don’t have a great deal of it, at the moment. Do you want to look at the evidence that supports your aunt’s arrest?”

Bree slipped the DVD into her laptop and booted it up. After a moment, the facade of the Frazier appeared onscreen.

“The surveillance cameras are motion-activated,” Ron said. “There’s four cameras. Two in the front, one in the parking lot, and one on the west side of the building, where the delivery entrance is. What you’re seeing now is the beginning of the demonstration Chambers staged at the front. I’ll take the time this afternoon to go over the tapes from the other sides of the building. We need to know who slipped away when the going got tough.”

Allard Chambers drove a battered Ford Fiesta into view. The yellow school bus from the City of Light Thrift Store and Grocery was right behind him. Allard got out of the driver’s side of his car, then went to the passenger side and opened the door. Jillian got out. She jerked away from Allard’s supporting hand, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the front of the museum.

The camera was angled about 45 degrees, so Bree’s view of Jillian was distorted. She was painfully thin. She wore a long, baggy print dress that looked as if it was made of cotton and a puffy ski jacket. Her feet were in thick socks and heavy sandals. She carried a paper bag over one arm, the kind with paper handles.

The doors to the yellow bus opened silently, and people began to stream out onto the driveway. Jillian gestured at them, and they lined up at the side of the bus. Jillian went down the line, dipping into the shopping bag.

“What’s she giving them?” Ron said.

“Tomatoes, squishy fruit, whatever,” Bree said. “The parking lot was a mess.” She leaned back in her chair. “Look at her posture, Ron. She’s clearly the organizer here.”

Allard pulled the two signs from the back of the Fiesta and leaned back against the car, glancing frequently down the driveway.

“Waiting for Channel 5, I bet,” Ron said.

He was right. As soon as the Channel 5 van pulled up and Felicia Fairfax got out with her microphone and her cameraman, the protestors went into action. Allard handed the smaller sign—the one that read PROSPER PROSPERS WHILE INNOCENTS STARVE—to Jillian. He hoisted his sign up. His mouth moved. Jillian prodded the homeless people lined up at the bus with her sign, and they began to chant in unison.

“They’re saying ‘thief, thief, thief,’” Bree said.

The stretch limo pulled around the yellow bus and parked directly in front of the museum steps. Charles Martin got out, along with several other people.

Bree stopped the DVD. “Do we have a list of who came with Martin?”

Ron pulled a manila file off the top of the stack. “Four people: Martin’s assistant, along with a member of the Bowie Museum board in Houston and her husband. Martin’s girlfriend is the one in the sable hat.”

“This is in black and white.”

“Sable as in fur,” Ron said. “Don’t tell Antonia. Anyhow, the only person who’d met White before was Martin. Everyone else seems to be along for the ride.”

“Good. We’ll set them aside as suspects for the moment,” Bree tapped the Play button, and the footage moved forward. “And there’s the four of us, coming out of the building.”

They both watched as Bree came out of the front doors. She was several steps ahead of the others. Cissy crowded on one side of White; Alicia clutched his opposite arm.

“I don’t look skinny,” Bree said. “No matter what anybody says.”

The security guard and the girl from the kiosk came out behind them. The guard stopped, looked at the crowd, and put his hand on his pistol. Martin caught sight of White, lifted his hand, and started toward the front steps.

Jillian lifted her sign. She shouted. The crowd of homeless people surged behind her, and they rushed the steps.

“There,” Bree said. “Look. It’s Martin who moved me out of the way.”

She saw herself stumble a little. White was completely surrounded by the crowd.

“Look!” Bree said. “Cissy’s been pushed to the side. There’s at least one head between her and White.”

“It’s Alicia Kennedy.”

White went down in a melee of bodies.

Bree stopped the DVD and reran it. She reran it again. And again.

The actual killing wasn’t visible. Bree didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry.

“The Channel 5 people were too far away to get anything,” Ron said. “Look. The camera guy never left his post in front of the news van.”

She let the rest of the video run. There was a short moment of chaos, once White was down. The recruits from the City of Light raced for the safety of the bus. The security guard talked frantically into his cell phone. Fairfax pushed closer to the body. Cissy fell to her knees. Alicia Kennedy threw herself across White’s body. Charles Martin stood still for a moment, then pulled out his cell phone. The Chamberses, husband and wife, stumbled back and stood together. Jillian clutched Allard’s arm, her eyes wide. Allard looked shocked. The jackets they both wore were spattered with dark splotches. Bree saw herself move people away from White’s body, then lift Cissy to her feet and turn her over to Charles Martin. She knelt at White’s side and pulled open his suit coat.

She remembered knowing instantly that he was dead.

“Ugh.” She hit the Stop button, then Replay.

“Are we looking for something specific?”

“A little toad-like guy. Do you see anyone who resembles a toad?”

Ron bent over her shoulder. He smelled like sunshine and peppermint. “Our toad would be?”

“Mr. Dumphey.”

“Ah. Dumphey of Barlow & Caldecott?”

“The same. He’s listed as a witness in the police reports. Aunt Cissy’s met him; hence the description. The only possible place he could have come from would be the bus.”

Ron shook his head, pulled out another manila file folder, and opened it up. “I’ve got the names of the bus people. No Dumphey here.”

“Wait a minute.” Bree stopped the DVD and zoomed in on a face. “Would you say that’s a toady sort of face?”

“The security guard.”

“Yeah.”

Ron flipped a couple of pages in the file. “Here he is. Lloyd Dumphey. Employed as a security guard, part-time. His first day on the job was—”

“Don’t tell me. Yesterday?”

“You got it.”

Bree drummed her fingers on the desk. “Well, well. You know, Ron, there’s no rule that says villains like Caldecott have to be smart. And a good thing, too. If nothing else, I have a strong hunch where the Cross is. Would you make an appointment for me, Ron? With Mr. Caldecott and his paralegal. No. Strike that. I’m going over there right now.”

“Maybe you should take Gabriel with you.”

“Against Caldecott? That’d be using a nine-pound hammer to drive a halfpenny nail. And Dumphey? Did he look like a demon of the—what did you call it? The really vicious guys. The nephiliam class?”

Ron’s brightness dimmed, and he said soberly, “You don’t want to joke about them, Bree.”

“Okay. I won’t. But I’m going over to see Caldecott and his little toady buddy right now.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Nonsense. Why waste the energy?” Every time her angels appeared in the temporal world outside the Angelus Street office, it took a little of their mortal life span from them. She was already concerned about Lavinia, who seemed to be fading before their eyes.

“At least take Sasha with you.”

“That I can do.”

She was out marching down Bay Street in minutes. It felt good to have a clear, unambiguous job to do. Halfway down Bay, Sasha caught up with her. He cocked his head at her in what seemed to be a worried way but trotted along obediently beside her.

The lobby to the Bay Street office was lightly crowded with people going to lunch. Bree thought about heading up to her own office first but decided it’d be better to tackle Caldecott before he, too, headed out to lunch.

“Unless he isn’t in at all,” she said to Sasha when they were headed to the basement in the elevator.

“And Dumphey?”

“And what’s-his-name. Barlow?”

No answer from her dog.

The elevator door slid open. Bree stepped out into the short hallway. The entire Bay Street building had undergone a complete renovation some months before Bree had moved in, and it had been a large and expensive task. One builder had gone bankrupt in the middle of it, and the second had cleared out of Savannah just before the place had reopened. Neither builder had felt the basement needed the kind of attention that had been paid to the upper floors.

The walls and the floor were faced with twelve-by-twelve industrial ceramic tile. The color was a sickly yellow. Bree had to admit the color might be due more to the cheap lighting than the actual tile. Sixty-watt bulbs were placed at ten-foot intervals along the ceiling. Bree marched past a janitor’s closet, the furnace rooms, and a supply room before she came to the door labeled BARLOW & CALDECOTT ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW SUITE 0. The bottom half of the door was battered mahogany. The upper half was rippled glass, just like her own office door on the sixth floor. Even the font of the lettering was the same. She put her hand on the brass door knob, threw it open, and strode in.

Her first thought was that she couldn’t imagine Cissy in the place. A waist-high room divider made of dented and splintered particleboard closed off the paralegal’s desk from the waiting area. Two orange plastic chairs with bucket seats had been placed on either side of a rickety end table. Red plastic roses in a cheap vase sat on top of it.

Her second thought was that somebody had heard her coming and had scuttled off behind one of the office doors that led off of the little lobby. One door was labeled BARLOW. The other, CALDECOTT. A faint smear of glue beneath Barlow’s sign picked out the ripped-off letters: Z. BEAZLEY.