Avenging Angels (29 page)

“Of course it’s a new case!”

“Shall I start a file?”

“You can start by not bugging me,” Bree snapped. She held her hand up in quick apology. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling foolish. And when I feel foolish, I get crabby. Let’s take this one thing at a time. You bring the coffee out, Ron. Petru, for Pete’s sake, if you have any ideas about what to do next, come into the living room right away.”

Lavinia rose from the couch as Bree came back in. Sir Ciaran sat quietly, his face in repose. Bree recalled seeing him with Barrie in Tully’s living room the day before. Then, as now, the sense of absence was strong.

Bree looked at Sasha.

This was new, too. This direct communication from her dog.

Bree made herself relax. “Can you tell us what brought you to this, Sir Ciaran?”

“He doesn’t remember much,” Lavinia said. “But his heart went bad on him, oh, maybe a year ago.”

“He had a heart attack,” Bree said. “I remember reading about it.”

“He went toward the Light, like a lamb. And he says something big and cold snatched him up before he could get to the end. Something with a voice like concrete, he says.”

Bree recalled the huge, chilling thing in Franklin’s office. “What was it?”

Lavinia pulled her woolly sweater a little closer. The fog that swirled outside the windows darkened the room. “I don’t know. This poor creature”—she patted Ciaran’s knee—“he’s stuck at the beginning of his journey home. All this talking and walking around? He’s got some kind of knowing that it’s going on. But mostly, he jus’ waiting.”

“For what?” Bree asked, although she was afraid she knew.

Lavinia’s voice was filled with pity. “He wants to go back. To go home. To finish the trip to the Light. He asks her all the time, his wife, What happened to me? And she says, I couldn’t let you go.”

“Yes,” Bree said. “Tully told me that Barrie had dabbled in the Kabbalah.” She looked at Ciaran with something like awe. “Some dabbling.”

Ciaran stirred. “Can you help me? Can you help me go home?”

“I think perhaps we can.” Petru stumped solemnly into the room. He had a computer printout in one hand. “The rule of law is quite clear. If I had not been so distracted by my own failure to address the omen of the
Cormorant
, I should have known immediately what to do.” He addressed Sir Ciaran. “You are a Displaced Person, sir.”

Ciaran sighed, a long, slow exhalation that was like a dank breeze from a tomb.

“We can file the necessary briefs, but it will take some time. Perhaps you will agree to wait? I am sorry for the delay.”

“How long?” Ciaran asked. “It’s pleasant here in this room, I admit. But I do need to go on.”

“Not long.” Then Petru added kindly, “We will move as fast as we possibly can. But you cannot, I think, wait here.”

“I see.” He got up slowly. “You will let me know, as soon as you hear anything?”

“We will, indeed. You may, in point of fact, need to appear with counsel to answer any inquiries into your case. But the resolution should be ke-vite rapid after that.”

“I do hope so.” The actor got to his feet.

“One moment.” Petru reached up and retrieved the cloisonné jar from the mantel. “You will need this, I think.”

“Thank you. I cannot, as you perceive, be very far from it.” He slipped the jar into his coat pocket. And then, whatever was left of Sir Ciaran Fordham bowed gracefully to them and walked out of the offices on Angelus Street.

“That’s the only evidence we have,” Bree said to Petru. “The fishing line’s in there.”

“So is his heart,” Petru said dryly. “Dybbuks are created by . . .”

Bree held a hand up. “You know what? I don’t think I want to know right now. Maybe later. But I take it that whatever means Barrie used to create the dybbuk involved a sort of mummification.”

“Yes.”

“It was Barrie that did this to him? His own wife?” Ron set the coffee tray down on the table and put his hands on his hips.

“I think so,” Bree said. “And I think that Tully knew about it. As a matter of fact, I’d bet a month’s pay on that. Tully was really anxious to get the jar back. And when she did, she made sure that the jar was kept locked up in the office. And you remember how surprised everyone was that the great Sir Ciaran Fordham would sign on to a company like the Shakespeare Players? Antonia thought it was because his heart attack made him feel vulnerable, that the Players would be a safe haven for him. I think it was because Tully and Russell got hold of the cloisonné jar and wouldn’t let Ciaran go. Tully said she and Barrie dabbled in the Kabbalah together. Tully would have seen the change in Ciaran’s acting right away. And Tully’s no fool. You remember the crime scene photos? That jar was right there on the desk where Russell could keep an eye on it.”

“That is quite awful,” Petru said.

“She loved him too hard,” Lavinia said. “Wouldn’t let the poor man go.”

Ron’s lips thinned with disgust. “Well, boss. I’m certainly glad I don’t have a partner like Barrie Fordham! The man’s in agony! Talk about the tortures of the damned!”

“There’s love that’s so selfish, it doesn’t care,” Lavinia said. “You can see that, Ronald. I see it, too.”

“Well, if she’s our murderer, and Bree catches her, it serves her right.” Ron picked up a cup of coffee and set it down again. “I’m so upset I don’t even want this coffee. Anybody else? No? Then I’m going to dump this out in the sink. Right along with my good opinion of Barrie, Lady Fordham.”

Bree smiled at him. “Except that Barrie’s not our killer. The jar was at hand and the killer dumped the fishing line in it because there was nowhere else to put it. I may have had the wrong client all this time, but I have the right case. Barrie didn’t kill either one of the victims. But I know who did.”

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this.

—Shakespeare,
Hamlet

 

 

 

The house on the square blazed with light. Tiny white garden lights glittered in the trees and hedges. At the windows, the curtains were drawn back so that the yellow warmth of the chandeliers spilled into the street. A couple of kids in black pants and white dress shirts parked the cars as guest after guest arrived.

Bree wore her red velvet dress. It was tea-length and swirled just above her ankles. It had a cowl neckline and no sleeves. The fabric was tissue-thin and the color was the soft sheen of a sunset. The only jewelry she wore was a pair of gold Scales of Justice earrings left to her by her birth mother, Leah. Her silver-gilt hair was swept up and out of the way on the top of her head.

She’d walked from the town house, and she was late. If she hadn’t had the kind of employees who could work minor miracles, she would have been later still. But if the information existed in a public record somewhere, it didn’t take Ron and Petru long to come up with it. The biggest time waster had come about due to the very quality she valued so much in Petru: his stubborn insistence on understanding and following the rules.

The Beaufort & Company charter, Petru argued, did not allow the angels to work on temporal cases unless the case was related directly to the needs of a client. Russell O’Rourke was apparently grateful to be assigned to Purgatory and not any of the circles of Hell to which an unkind Providence might have assigned him to. (“And so he should be,” Ron had sniffed. “How many widows and orphans did the crash of O’Rourke Investment Bank leave in the lurch, anyway?”) So what did Ciaran Fordham’s plight have to do with the murders? He, Petru, could not in good conscience use his unique talents to produce the data Bree needed by the time of Tully’s party.

Bree pointed out that the cloisonné jar would be held in evidence for as long as it took to convict the murderer—and given that the wheels of temporal justice ground exceeding slow—it was in Ciaran’s best interests to get the murderer convicted as quickly as possible. And Ciaran
was
their client.

So Ron and Petru had come up the circumstantial evidence in excellent time. And if all went well, Bree would have her murderer, and she could finally wrap up the Case of the Mistaken Client.

The party filled the living room and the dining room and spilled out of the French doors into the garden court-yard at the rear of the house. Waiters circled the crowd with trays of drinks and food. Someone at the piano played show tunes. A few of the young actresses from Haddad’s group linked arms and started to sing “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Haddad stood out with his black jeans, black T-shirt, and handsome face. He waved at her. Bree nodded back.

Bree caught a glimpse of her mother’s bright head in one corner, and Antonia’s in another. As usual, Antonia was mobbed with men: older businessmen, young actors, a stockbroker or two, and poor Fig, who stood with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his gray flannel trousers at the edge of the crowd. As Bree watched, Antonia’s slim arm emerged from the group and pulled Fig in a little closer.

“You’re pretty fond of your sister,” Hunter said. “You ought to see your own smile when you look at her.”

“There you are. I hoped you’d gotten my message.” Bree slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “And yes, I am fond of Antonia, at that. She’ll drive me to the screaming point, and then she’ll do something really sweet, like make sure that poor old clueless Fig isn’t left out of a good time. But if you tell her that, I’ll have to pull your hair out. I can’t explain it. It’s a girl thing.”

“You were right about the rental car,” he said abruptly. “We found Eddie’s blood and hair in the trunk.”

“Thank God.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I thought this was a lead pipe cinch. That’s what you said on the phone—it’s a lead pipe cinch.”

“I was darn sure of the motive—the financial records Petru unearthed leave no doubt about that. And I was darn sure about the means. But you said it yourself—you can never be certain. Poor Eddie. But that ought to clinch the case, for sure.” She nudged him. “Over there.”

Hunter scanned the crowd. “Got it.”

“You’re going to make the arrest?”

“Markham’s ready when I am.”

“Can you wait two seconds? I want to ask the piano player to do something for me.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. Bree held up two fingers. “Two seconds. I’ll meet you there.”

Bree made her request, and as the pianist broke into the obnoxiously jaunty theme from
The Producers
Sam Hunter arrested Harriet and Big Buck Parsall for the murder of Edward Chin, formerly a sergeant in the Homicide Division of the New York Police Department.

 

“You sure know how to break up a party,” Aunt Cissy grumbled. “Of all the things, Buck and Harriet doing for Russell O’Rourke.”

“They weren’t arrested for that murder, Cissy,” Francesca said. “Although our Bree said they did that, too. They’re going to be convicted of Lieutenant Chin’s death.”

“I sure hope so.” Bree tucked her feet under her. They were all seated at the dining room table, Royal, Francesca, Cissy, Antonia, and Bree herself, eating crab cakes and sweet potato fries from Huey’s. The arrest of Harriet and Buck might have gone unnoticed by most of the partygoers, but for the fact that Harriet threw a spectacular fit of hysterics and attacked Tully O’Rourke with a party skewer before Markham could get the handcuffs on her. Tully, with a notable scratch down one cheek, had thrown everyone out. The last Bree had seen of her temporal client was a rueful look and a shrug:
Sorry about that,
the look said, and then,
who knew it’d turn out like this?

“But you’re pretty sure they committed both crimes?” Royal patted his blazer jacket for his absent pipe and sighed.

“Almost certain,” Bree said. “But Hunter doesn’t think there’s enough hard evidence to get them on the first one.”

“Why kill anyone in the first place?” Cissy said. “It’s just stupid, that kind of thing.”

“Buck and Harriet couldn’t handle losing all their money,” Bree said. “And they blamed Russell O’Rourke for it. They started raising some funds by selling off their shares in the Shakespeare Players over and over again. Just like that silly plot in
The Producers
.”

Cissy looked blank.

“Never mind, Aunt,” Antonia said kindly. “I just think it’s totally cool my sister solved a murder with a theater clue.”

“That isn’t exactly true, Tonia, but thanks all the same. Anyway,” Bree sighed, “Russell discovered the scam and threatened them with exposure. So Harriet set up the very elaborate murder scheme, and it worked.”

“You’re fairly sure they can’t be convicted of that crime, too?” her father asked.

“The suicide note was torn from a letter Russell sent to Buck accusing him of fraud with the Players’ stock. Petru unearthed the original letter. It starts with accusing the Parsalls of selling the shares over and over again, and ends with O’Rourke’s apology for losing all the Parsalls’ money in the crash. ‘I very much regret the collapse of the O’Rourke Investment Bank, a regret that I will carry to my grave. My apologies to all. Good-bye.’ That’s where all the language about guilt over the collapse of Russell’s own business venture came. He was greedy, Russell was, but Tully was right. He was within his rights to run his company the way he did. And VanHoughton did step in with an offer to put things right. But then O’Rourke died.