Angel's Verdict (11 page)

Bree felt a surge of intense dislike. White looked at her face and scowled. Then, with an aggressive air, he challenged her: “You’re representing Justine Coville, is that right?”

Bree nodded once.

“It’s in her best interest to let us buy out her contract. You’d be wise to consider it.”

Bree didn’t say anything.

“She’s past it, Br . . . Ms. Beaufort. Way past it. She wasn’t much of an actress when she was younger . . .”

“Actually, that’s not true, Mr. White.” Mila, who seemed unaccountably nervous, glanced from Bree to White and back again. “She won a Tony for
A Little Night Music
. And she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her
Streetcar
.”

“Christ! That was when, back in the ’80s? Times are different now. There’s no money in the stage, anyhow.” He crossed one trousered leg over the other and balanced his drink on his knee. “I’ll let you in on something you’ll appreciate, Ms. Beaufort.”

Bree didn’t like this fake camaraderie any more than his hostility. Her dislike for this guy was growing.

“Money,” he said. “Art is all about money. If we had a bankable actress in the role of Consuelo, we’d be looking at maybe digging ourselves out of quite a hole. Someone like Allison Buckley, say. Fact is, this production’s in trouble. Not because of Tyra. The only reason we have a hope in hell of success is because she’s such a draw. She could be big. Really big, bigger than Angelina. All she needs is the right vehicle.” He dropped his voice to a confiding whisper. “I’m in on a production right now that could put her over the top.”

Bree looked at her watch. Her face felt frozen.

White looked at her and glanced hastily away.

She relaxed her hands and said as calmly as she could manage, “You’ll excuse us, Mr. White. Mila was good enough to give me a half hour of her time, and I haven’t finished my business with her. I don’t want to waste it.”

He set his drink on an end table. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “Sure. See you around.” His gaze fell on Mila, and he said with abrupt viciousness, “I’m going to get Tee a drink. Call me if Phil shows up. I’m pretty pissed off about those cost overruns. You tell him from me that you’re all in a world of hurt.” He left without looking in Bree’s direction again. Bree waited a long moment until her irritation was under control. She wanted to go back to the office, sit down, and try to put all of this stuff in order.

“You wouldn’t be available to work on the shoot, by any chance?” Mila said.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The way you routed White.” Mila sighed. “We work with a lot of jerks in this business, as I’m sure you’ve heard. He’s not the worst. Not by far.”

“He’s a predator,” Bree said. “You’re watching out for Tyra, I hope. She can’t even stand to look at him.”

“Tyra’s no rocket scientist, Bree. But she hasn’t gotten this far without being able to handle herself around men.”

“She’s going to handle herself better around Justine, I hope?”

“I think so. Tyra’s a little idiot. She’s halfway convinced herself that she is possessed by spirits. It started as a joke. But I have to admit she’s taken it a little far.”

“I don’t want to see Justine hurt.” Bree couldn’t help but smile. “Or Tyra, either.”

“Yeah, she grows on you.” Mira sighed. “Now if you could just teach me that wrath-of-God look of yours, the one that reduced Vincent the Vile to a nice little jelly, I’d be a contented woman. For the next five minutes, anyway. Where did you pick it up?”

“Here and there,” Bree said sadly. “Here and there.”

Forbear to judge,
For we are sinners all.

—Henry VI, Part 2
, William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

By the time Bree got back to the office, Lavinia had gone up to her apartment. Petru and Ron had drifted off to their own homes. She sat down in her small office to think and make notes.

It was close to eight o’clock by the time she was satisfied with her preliminary action plan. She closed down her computer, rinsed her coffee cup in the kitchen sink, and turned off the overhead light in the parlor she had converted into a waiting room.

Not that anyone ever actually waited there. She’d been incredibly naïve in those early days, imagining a raft of clients, all responsible about paying their bills, all with interesting tax problems, which had been her specialty in law school.

Instead . . . dead people. Who didn’t seem concerned about her own need to pay the bills. And a career that seemed to be turning her into some sort of . . . what?

Ron’s desk stood in the far corner. She’d purchased an old leather couch and chair from the thrift store down the block, and set them at right angles to the fine old brick fireplace. An old wooden chest acted as a coffee table.

Above the fireplace, over the Adams-style mantel, hung the painting of the
Rise of the Cormorant
.

Bree had to steel herself to look at it. A three-masted schooner rode flame-tipped waves. The sea was filled with the hands and arms of drowning men. The shadowed face of a dark-haired, silver-eyed woman hovered at the stern of the ship. Above it all was the slim, wicked figure of a seabird, beak open, and eyes glittering with hate, its hungry gaze on the dead and dying that thrashed desperately in the water. The cormorant, an avatar for Lucifer.

Who was the woman in the ship?

Who would try to help save the drowning souls?

Who was
she
, for that matter?

She knew the answer to the second question: it was the Company’s job. Her job.

She suspected she knew the answer to the first. It was her birth mother, Leah, whom she longed to know. Leah had been an advocate for the damned, just as she was now.

As for the last question: Who was she?

She didn’t want to think about it.

They had a small bathroom off the kitchen. It dated from the ’50s, with a pedestal sink, toilet, and a tiny tiled shower. There was a mirror over the sink. The silver nitrate was wearing off the back, so it was speckled with black. Bree walked in, pulled the chain for the lightbulb, and stared at herself: A nice face. A face that had its share of admirers.

She thought of Vincent Victor White settling into Tyra’s chair with that despicable smirk.

Her lips thinned. Her eyes grew hard and bright. And her face . . .

She reached upward, wildly, and wrenched the chain so hard it came away in her hand. The lightbulb flared and went out.

She was hit, suddenly, with a tidal wave of fatigue. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She wanted to go home, see her sister, and maybe give Sam Hunter a call. She hadn’t seen him over the holidays, and they’d exchanged vague promises of getting together for a drink as soon as she was back in Savannah.

Time to go home. She walked into the small front foyer, with a glance at the frieze Lavinia had painted on the stair wall. Brightly colored Renaissance angels followed one after the other in a gorgeously hued procession. Their robes were scarlet, trimmed with gold, edged with celestial blue. The halos gleamed gold fire, and their wings were a silver prayer. The angel at the end of the procession had white-blonde hair piled in intricate braids underneath her halo. Lavinia was convinced the angel looked just like Bree.

She snapped off the foyer light, stepped outside, and locked the front door behind her.

The temperature had dropped into the thirties as soon as the sun was down, and the chill was welcome after the musty warmth of the old house. The night was clear. The moon was up, half-grown, the threat of rain gone. It threw a pale light that half illuminated the inscriptions on the gravestones nearest the little house. Beyond the waist-high wrought iron fence that encircled the property were the normal sounds of a Savannah night. Inside the fence . . . Bree gave herself a mental shake. It’d been a long day and she didn’t want to deal with whatever lurked in the cemetery after dark on nights like this one. She looked hesitantly under the live oak that grew at the Pendergast grave; the ground was quiet. Then she heard the familiar tick-tick-tick of Sasha’s paws on the brick path.

“There you are, Sasha. I was hoping somebody would show up to walk me home.”

He bounced up the steps and nudged her knee with his head. She was grateful at how happy he was to see her. She scratched behind his ears and dropped down to kiss the top of his golden head. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

Somebody coughed in the darkness. Bree’s hand tightened on the fur at Sasha’s neck. The dog’s angelic powers only went so far. If she faced real trouble, she was pretty certain Gabriel would be around sooner or later, but there wasn’t a hint of his presence. “Who is it?” she asked sharply.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, young lady.” There was a smell of cigarettes. A shoe scraped on the pavement, the cigarette butt flared out, and a big, dark figure shuffled on the other side of the gate.

“Dent,” Bree said. She went down the three short steps to the pathway. “Good. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Need to talk to you, too. Thought you might want to get a bite to eat or something.”

“We need to get a couple of things straight first.” She turned back to unlock the front door. “Why don’t you come in for a minute?”

“Can’t,” he said shortly.

“You have another run to do for Sundowner?”

“No. My shift’s over. Which is why I thought you’d want to grab a bowl of chili. Maybe a hamburger.”

“It’d be nice if we talked in private,” Bree said. “Everyone’s gone home, except Lavinia. But once she’s upstairs, she doesn’t come down again until morning.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“I’m Out, remember?”

“Out,” Bree repeated. “Oh! You mean Outca . . . I mean, yes. Of course.” Poor guy. Was it okay to refer to his status, or not? She didn’t really have the right to ask, did she? “You’re Out. And I’m In. Inside the fence I mean. Sorry to babble. You startled me. I’ll be right there.”

Sasha trotted ahead of her and waited while she unlatched the gate. He stepped into the road with her, gave Dent a brief once-over, and then ignored him.

“Nice dog,” Dent said, looking down.

“He’s part golden retriever, part Russian mastiff. The mastiff part is why he’s so big.”

“He works for you.”

“Yes, he does.”

Dent bent to pat him. Politely but firmly, Sasha moved away.

“Oh dear,” Bree said. “He’s usually very friendly.”

“Yeah, well. It’s part of the program.”

“Part of being . . . Out.” Bree bit her lip. “Well,” she said brightly, “I’m so glad you dropped by. I was hoping we could have a frank discussion about my role as sponsor.”

Dent had exchanged his black jacket for a tweed sports coat that was much the worse for wear. He wore the same baggy twill trousers. A grimy blue cotton fisherman’s hat was shoved back on his balding head. He stood with one hip cocked and his arms folded. He had on a pair of scuffed leather oxford shoes whose worn laces had been knotted and reknotted. He’d shaved recently, though, and he smelled faintly of strong yellow soap.

“So, how’s about that hamburger?”

“I think we can get a hamburger at B. Matthew’s,” Bree said. “It’s right across from the town house.”

“That place? Too fancy. I want somewhere I can get a decent piece of meat. Not something ritzy.”

“Pizza?” Bree said. “With meatballs? We can go to Huey’s.”

“Huey’s is a little too snobby for me. Isn’t there a White Castle around here somewhere?”

“Not for years,” Bree said. “If it’s junk food you’re after, there isn’t much.”

“Huey’s, then.”

Bree and Antonia lived less than three blocks from Angelus Street at the end of a row of town houses overlooking the Savannah River. In the old days, when the city had been a busy port shipping cotton all over the world, massive brick warehouses lined the banks. The old Cotton Exchange still dominated Front Street, although most of the other warehouses had been converted to shops, offices, restaurants, and comfortable old apartments.

They walked the short distance down Angelus to Mulberry and turned right onto Bay. There was a button on the light standard for the Walk signal, and Bree punched it. When the little white figure flashed on, Dent took her arm with a Boy Scout determination that both amused and exasperated her. Sasha trotted along behind them. As they passed Bree’s town house, Sasha veered off and disappeared around the back.

“He lets himself in,” Bree said. “Antonia won’t even know he’s been out. Huey’s is down this way.” She shook free of Dent’s proprietary arm and went down the wrought iron steps that led from Factor’s Walk down to Front Street.

In the spring and summer, Front Street was usually packed with tourists. Now, in January, the old cobblestone road was quiet, and the wooden market stalls that held the seasonal businesses were closed. The people that were there were locals, bundled up against the cold weather. As they passed the storefront for Savannah Sweets, Bree stopped.

Dent narrowed his eyes and scanned the quiet street. “What’s up?”

“In 1952, Alexander Bulloch rolled a handcart down this street with Haydee’s body in it.” Bree wondered if she stood there long enough, if Haydee’s shade would rise up from the cobbled stones.

“Nah, not here,” Dent shook his head. “That’d have been the far end of the street. Just in front of that sign for the tourist bureau. Mercury got permission to shoot the scene there, but he hasn’t done it yet. They were down here a couple of weeks ago, getting background footage. Your place is up there, right?” He turned and squinted up. “You should have seen the crew when they were set up. Those French doors of yours look right out on the river.”

“Tonia and I went home to Plessey for the holidays.”