Defending Angels (20 page)

Bree looked at him inquiringly. “It’s my wife,” he said in an amused whisper. “She’s a little sensitive about the Italian thing. My mamma named me Carlo, and that’s what I am to my friends.” His eyes darkened momentarily. “It’s the outsiders that call me Carlton. Like those goddamn media parasites.” He ran one hand through his thick, dark hair. “Forget that. Let’s take a look at your uncle’s office.”

The Pyramid was built of cobblestone badly in need of repainting after two hundred years of Savannah’s semi-tropical weather. The huge oak beams that formed the building’s skeleton had been rotted away due to a combination of damp and that scourge of Southern architecture, the termite. Carlo led her up a broad marble staircase that reached from the ground floor to the fifth and highest floor of the building.

“We had to strip off the whole face of the building, replace the wood framing with beams, and put the cobblestones piece by piece in the original pattern.” He stopped in the third-floor stairwell and opened the door to the hallway for her. “After you.”

Bree stepped into the hallway. The terrazzo floors had been sandblasted clean. The pecan paneling had been stripped, sanded down, and refinished to a glossy sheen. The air smelled pleasantly of raw wood, fresh paint, and some piney astringent. Carlo led the way down the hall past thick old office doors topped with rippled glass. He came to a halt in front of number 7. “Here it is. Now this looks pretty good, but we’re not going to get a C of O for another couple of months. So you’ll be in your temporary office space for some little time yet.” He stepped back, to allow her to open the door herself. “You knew there’d been a fire in your uncle’s office? That he died here before he could be rescued.”

Bree paused, her hand on the heavy bronze doorknob. “Yes,” she said briefly.

Carlo drew his eyebrows together in a slight frown. “Very odd, it was. Intense. Killed him instantly.”

Bree shook her head. “We never did hear how it started.”

He shrugged. “Fire department couldn’t get a handle on it. Nobody seemed to know. Kept itself to this room, thank God.”

Bree hesitated a moment, and continued on inside. It may have been her imagination, but a faint smell of ash and rotten eggs hung on the air. An aftermath of the fire? The room was small—no more than fifteen by fifteen. A single, double-sashed window looked out over Liberty Street. His desk was gone, of course, and so were the glass-fronted barrister’s bookcases that lined the far wall. Bree lost herself in thought. She remembered the office well. She could almost see her uncle’s stooped and kindly figure, sitting behind the heavy oak desk in his old red leather chair.

And now, as she stood in the middle of the office, she felt something else: desolation, betrayal, an overwhelming fear. Then, with a sudden, horrifying blow, she felt the pitch and sway of her nightmare ship beneath her feet. The percussion of deadly wings beat above her head. The screams of the dying filled her head. She clapped her hands over her ears and bit her lip to keep from screaming.

A battle had been fought here.

And Franklin had lost.

Carlo touched her arm. “You okay there, Bree?”

She pinched her nose to keep the tears from falling, then took a steadying breath. “I miss him,” she admitted. “He was very old, you know, and past his time, Mamma said.” She breathed in with a sort of hiccup. “But what’s that mean? His time. Past his time. I wished he’d lived forever.” Tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks.

“Well.” Carlo cleared his throat and looked at his feet. She’d embarrassed him. She put the backs of her hands under her eyes and took another deep breath. She was losing it. And in front of one of the most influential men in the city. “Sorry. Now, about Ben Skinner ...”

“I know Liz is convinced that someone did the old guy in,” Carlo said wryly. “The sooner that’s cleared up the better. What is it that you need to know?”

Bree took him through her list of prepared questions. Yes, Skinner had hit the roof over the change in the design plans for the Tybee Island site and yes, his rage had been directed at the innocent and guilty alike. He’d threatened to pull all his project business from Montifiore Construction, and yes, that would have put a significant hole in Carlo’s business. “We took care of most of his projects here in Georgia,” Carlo admitted, “and the old bastard had a way of getting under my skin, no question about it.” He guided Bree out the office door and down the marble staircase that led to the bottom floor. “But the Island Dream project had the right kind of financing behind it and the project itself wasn’t in jeopardy.”

“There was enough money to stay afloat, even if Skinner insisted on pulling his cash out?”

Carlo shrugged. “No problems there. Always plenty of cash around. Besides, my guess was that it was all going to blow over in a month or two.”

“Guess?” Bree let her dubiety show.

“Well, ‘hope’ is a better word, I suppose.” He followed as Bree walked through the magnificent old front doors and onto the pavement outside. She faced him. “Where were you the morning Mr. Skinner passed on?”

“Here.” Carlo turned and looked up at the cobblestone wall towering above them both. “Right here. There’s a good twenty people that were here along with me.”

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

—King Lear
, Shakespeare

“Of course we’re truly sorry he’s gone,” Jennifer Skinner said. “He really was a bit of an old pet.”

“I suppose his mother said that about King Kong,” Grainger Skinner said under his breath. He added another two inches of Tanqueray to his gin and tonic and smiled at Bree. “Can I freshen that for you?”

Bree looked down at her own gin and tonic. She’d forgotten how much she liked gin and tonics, especially when the afternoon was warm and the sun was bright. “No, thank you.” She shifted restlessly on the stone garden seat. It was damp, hard, and uncomfortable. Jennifer’s garden was spectacular, though. Many of the mansions in the Historic District had enclosed gardens at the back or side, and the Skinners had one of the loveliest. The entire quarter acre was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence (paneled with a design, Bree was relieved to see, of perfectly normal acanthus and ivy leaves) and paved with brick cobblestones. A large live oak shaded the northern half of the garden, drooping protectively over five-foot-wide hostas, huge freesia bushes, and waist-high plantings of Canterbury bells. The southern half of the garden held azaleas and rhododendrons. Bree wished she had seen the garden in the spring, when these flowering bushes were at their best. Roses and hydrangeas were planted in between; the last of their summer blooms were faded now, an echo of former glory. A new, and to Bree, rather garish outdoor kitchen had been added on to the rear of the house. A stainless steel outdoor grill held pride of place in the center of the brick U that formed the kitchen itself. A counter-high refrigerator and a big double sink made of Italian tile flanked the grill. Grainger and Jennifer sat at the large outdoor dining table; Bree had retreated to the stone bench at the edge of the little fountain, where a replica of Niobe dripped tears into the stone pool.

“Grainger, darling,” Jennifer said plaintively. “He hasn’t even been buried yet.”

“The funeral’s tomorrow?” Bree asked.

“Yes. We thought we’d wait until everyone who wanted to attend could get here ...”

“All three of them,” Grainger interrupted. “And
they’re
just coming to make sure he’s safely underground.”

Bree choked a little.

“Too much gin for you?” Grainger asked sympathetically. “I tend to make drinks a little stiffer when I’m not on call at the hospital.”

“It’s just fine, thank you,” Bree said.

“We wouldn’t want Bree to think we’re glad Dad’s gone,” Jennifer said. “Maybe you are making those drinks a little too strong, darlin’.”

“I
am
glad the old bastard’s gone,” Grainger said. Then, with a rather vicious twist to his voice, “
darlin
’.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes at Bree in a “these men!” gesture.

Jennifer hadn’t been a beauty when she and Bree were at school together, but she had a slim and elegant presence then and an even more high-fashion look now. Her dark hair was drawn back in a sleek bob. For these Saturday afternoon cocktails (“Drinks in the garden, Bree. About four o’clock? Don’t worry about dressing up.”), she wore cream loose linen trousers, an extremely flattering matching linen shirt unbuttoned to show a tank top in sepia brown, and a robin’s egg blue scarf around her waist. Bree didn’t know where the turquoise and silver jewelry at her ears and throat came from, but the total effect was spectacular.

Bree wore her best pair of jeans. At least her white shirt was silk.

“From all accounts, he must have been a difficult man to be around in business,” Bree said. “But you must have been on pretty good terms. You said y’all went out sailing at least once a week, barring the weather?”

Jennifer gave her a sharp look. “I didn’t say that,” she said coolly. “Who told you that? But yes, we did our best to make time for him. Poor pet, it was almost the only relaxation he had. He just didn’t take any personal time for himself, you know what I mean. Personal time,” she repeated, rather vaguely. She poured herself another glass of white wine from the bottle on the table. It was now about five o’clock in the afternoon. In the last forty-five minutes, Jennifer had been through a large whiskey julep and two glasses of wine. This made the third. Bree got dizzy just thinking about drinking that amount of liquor in so short a time.

Grainger Skinner caught her observing his wife and lifted his eyebrow with a knowing sort of smirk. Bree felt her cheeks turn pink.

“I understand you’re opening a practice here in Savannah?” he asked genially. He didn’t look much like his father; Benjamin Skinner had been a short, wiry man with a big nose and, in later years, a bald head. Grainger Skinner was tall, with a thick head of light brown hair and a slight paunch. “Finding our city to your liking?”

“It’s very beautiful,” Bree said. “The family spent a few summers here when I was little. When my uncle Franklin died and left me his practice, I was glad to think I’d spend time here again.”

Grainger snapped his fingers. “That’s right! You’re kin to the judge. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“You’ve forgotten all about the fact that Bree was the one who called you the day Daddy died, too,” Jennifer said suddenly. She smiled, spitefully, and sipped at her wine.

Grainger blinked at her through the haze of gin. “That was you? Ambulance-chasing?”

“A mistake,” Bree said hastily. “I do beg your pardon for that. It was a thoughtless joke on
...
somebody’s part.”

“But it’s not a mistake that you’re representing that crazy Liz,” Jennifer said coldly. “She’s telling anybody who’ll listen that Daddy was murdered.”

“He wasn’t
your
Daddy,” Grainger said. “I wish you’d stop calling him that.”

“And, of course, since we were the last ones to see him alive—since we were there when the poor man fell overboard and into the ocean—since you think Grainger benefits from the will, it’s
us
you’re accusing of murder, isn’t it?!” Jennifer lowered her head, got to her feet, and walked toward Bree. Her face was flushed. Her voice rose to a squall. “What I want to know is, where you get off spreading this kind of shit around town.”

It’d been too easy. The phone call to Jennifer, the glad cries of renewed friendship, the instant offer of a pleasant afternoon in the garden. Bree could have kicked herself. She was a sap. She’d walked right into a trap to make her give up the investigation.

For the first time since the whole peculiar business began, Bree began to believe Benjamin Skinner really had been murdered.

“You’re absolutely right,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “So maybe you could help clear a few things up.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Jennifer said. She sat back down at the table, almost missing the seat. She adjusted herself with a flounce. “Why the hell should we help you?”

“If you’re guilty, you’re absolutely right. You should ask me to leave right now.” Bree set her glass on the stone bench with an air of finality. “On the other hand, if you’re innocent, why not help me? Savannah’s a small town. I’m not the only one with questions about Mr. Skinner’s death.” This, Bree reflected, was probably true. “You don’t want to end up with tour busses going up and down in front of your house, like they do at Mercer House.”

This reference to the Billy Hanson case, Savannah’s most notorious modern murder, sent Jennifer rigid with rage. Grainger Skinner, on the other hand, threw his head back and began to laugh. It was genuine, spontaneous laughter.

“Shut up!” Jennifer threw her wineglass at him. It shattered on the brick paving.

“Ah, darlin’.” Grainger sighed. He looked at the shards of glass. He bent down and picked them up carefully, one by one. When he had a handful, he flung the pieces into the fountain pool and began all over again. “Thing is,
Ms.
Beaufort, there’s a witness.”

“A witness? To Mr. Skinner falling off the
Sea Mew
?”

He straightened up, his face flushed. “Dougie Fairchild was out in his boat and saw the whole thing.”

“There!” Jennifer shrieked. “You see?”

“Mr. Fairchild saw the whole thing?” Bree looked thoughtfully at them. Jennifer had the triumphant look of the vindicated. Grainger merely looked shifty. “That wasn’t reported at all, was it?”

“Not initially, no.” Grainger tossed a few cubes of ice into his gin and tonic and replenished the gin. “Why would he? The only person who’s had a question about Dad’s death was Liz, and the police brushed her off. That is,” he added malevolently, “until your people started poking around.”

“And that bimbo girlfriend of his, of course,” Jennifer added.