Angel's Advocate (32 page)

“The thing is,” she said aloud, to the attentive dogs, “I want to avoid Miss Violet Henry like the plague. The only hope I’ve got of getting Lindsey to Tell All is if I convince her no one knows for sure about the robberies but me—and as her attorney, I’m bound to keep my mouth shut about stuff that can put her in jail.”

Sasha put his paw on her knee and yawned.

“As for you two”—Bree glanced in the rearview mirror, where Belli and Miles sat as immobile as a pair of temple dogs guarding a Chinese emperor’s palace—“I just hope you’ll come runnin’ if I end up needing some help with nosy security guards. Ah. There we are.”

There was a gap in the fence. More properly, there was a stile in the fence, which horses with the local hunt could jump over. There was a security camera perched on one of the fence posts. The camera would capture anything over five feet tall. Bree pulled up on the grass and parked the car. She got out, then released Miles and Belli. “Heel,” she said to Belli, and pointed to her right. Belli stood at her right shoulder. If Bree bent over, she was concealed behind the big dog’s shoulder. “Miles,” she ordered, “heel!” She pointed to her left, and Miles took his position on her other side. She hitched her purse over her shoulder and took a deep breath.

“Up and over!” Bree commanded. She took off for the stile at a dead run, the two dogs running silently on either side. They scrambled over the stile in unison. Bree fell to the grass, rolled over, and lay there for a moment, to catch her breath. She got to her feet and ordered the two dogs back over the stile. They jumped back onto the grass verge by the road with ease, and stood looking at her doubtfully. From the safety of the front seat, Sasha cocked his head and looked on with interest.

“Stay,” Bree said. All three of the dogs dropped to a stay position, and Bree took off across the lawn, toward the sprawling mass of the school building. With luck, she’d have twenty minutes or so before the guards who went out to check on the dogs thought to check on the owner of the car.

She found Lindsey in the dining hall. Cliff’s Edge treated its students well. The room was large, sunny, and carpeted. The round tables, each seating eight, were draped in white cloth. Lindsey was slouched at a table in the corner. She was alone, picking listlessly at a hamburger. Bree threaded her way through the tables, nodding with confidence at the several teachers seated with the students. She reached Lindsey unchallenged, and paused and looked her over. Lindsey’s color was good. Her skin was more pink and less gray. Her hair was washed. The circles under her eyes were less pronounced. The girl looked up at Bree in mild surprise, quickly replaced by her usual sullen, hostile sneer.

“I need to talk to you,” Bree said without preamble. “And I don’t want to do it here.”

“There’s grass stains on your skirt,” Lindsey said.

“Yeah, well.” Bree grinned. “My entry was a little unorthodox. Nobody knows I’m here.”

“My brother didn’t send you?”

“No. I came to talk to you. Come outside with me, will you?” She held her hand out, and added gently, “Please. It’s about your father.”

Lindsey shrugged. Then she shoved the hamburger aside and got to her feet. She followed Bree through the French doors to the terrace fronting the lawn outside.

“Let’s sit here, shall we?” Bree pointed to a stone bench set under one of the ubiquitous live oaks. Lindsey perched on the very end, then drew her knees up to her chin and stared at Bree.

“Do you have a dollar?”

Lindsey blinked at her.

“I’ve quit my job as your brother’s lawyer. I’m signing on with you. But I can’t represent you unless you give me an official retainer.”

Bree knew she desperately needed to gain the girl’s confidence.

“I think you got a raw deal, Lindsey. I want to help you.”

A peculiar smile flickered across her face. She shrugged—that shrug!—dug into the pocket of her jeans, and handed Bree a dollar.

“Good.” Bree folded the dollar and tucked it away in her suit coat. Then she plunged her hand into her purse and brought out her set of car keys. She held them loosely in her hand, so that Lindsey couldn’t see anything but the keys to the front and back doors of the town house. “Keys to the pharmacy and the warehouse at Marlowe’s,” she said gravely.

Lindsey sat up, her eyes wide.

“Your dad found out about the robberies.”

“My dad?”

“Easy as pie, I suppose. Coming into the store, late at night, with a set of these.” She jiggled the keys and they chimed faintly in the thick air.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hunched over and rubbed her arms, as if she were cold.

“I’m on your side,” Bree said. “I’m not turning any of this over to the police. I just need to know who else was in on it with you.”

Lindsey looked frantically from side to side. “Nobody,” she said. “Just fuck off, will you? Just fuck off.”

Bree grasped Lindsey’s hands and held them, hard. “Don’t lie to me, Lindsey. If you lie to me, I can’t help you at all.”

“Leave me alone!” Lindsey screamed suddenly.

“This boyfriend of yours, Chad Martinelli . . .”

Lindsey sucked her teeth.

“I’m looking at him for some bad stuff, Lindsey. If he helped you with this, it’s possible he was responsible for your dad’s death. Possible that he killed poor Mrs. Chavez, too.”

“Killed my dad?” Lindsey said. “Somebody killed my dad?”

“Miss Winston-Beaufort. Stop right there!”

Bree sighed. Less than twenty minutes. The security team was sharper than she’d thought. She stood up and waited for Miss Henry and the two burly guards trundling after her. “I’m going to see what I can do to fix this, Lindsey. I’m going to have to talk to Chad. You have any idea where he might be today?”

Violet Henry plowed to a heaving dusty halt in front of them, reminding Bree of the Road Runner in the cartoons. She stifled the impulse to say “beep beep.”

“How did you get in here?” the headmistress demanded. She was furious. A very Southern Lady sort of furious. Her voice was low. Her smile was fixed. There wasn’t a hair out of place. But she’d buttoned her suit jacket up starting with the wrong button, and a smear of gravy was on her chin. Clearly, she’d been interrupted while eating. Behind her, the two guards put their hands on their gun belts and looked menacing.

“She’s my lawyer,” Lindsey piped up. “She’s my lawyer and I asked her here.” She folded her arms defiantly. “So just fuck off, okay?”

Bree bit her lip. “I’m sure Lindsey’s sorry for the language, Miss Henry. But I can’t help but agree with the sentiment.”

Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Talk to Madison, Bree. Okay? She’ll tell you Chad didn’t have a thing to do with it.” She swallowed hard. “She’s my best friend. She knows I didn’t have anything to do with it, either. I know you won’t believe me. But everybody believes her.”

“Get out, Miss Beaufort,” Miss Henry said between her teeth. “Right now.”

So Bree got.

“She’s not here,” Andrea Bellamy said, when Bree got her on the cell phone twenty minutes later. “She didn’t come straight home. She volunteers at the hospital on Wednesdays. She’s a candy striper.”

“Until what time?”

“Four thirty. Then she heads out to the Y to swim. She picks up Hartley first.”

Bree sat in the driver’s seat of her car. She’d made it back to Savannah around six, having been evicted from the Cliff’s Edge premises in record time. Sasha yawned beside her. Behind her, Belli and Miles sat upright, staring at the street. She’d postponed the promise of the walk to blank looks from all three of them. She said, now, to Andrea, “Hartley Williams? The judge’s daughter?” Cordy’d backed off the whole Sophie Chavez mess with amazing speed, due, Bree had suspected, to a couple of discreet phone calls from that same eminent gentleman.

“Is her father a judge?” Andrea said, impressed. “You’re kidding. I thought he ran a business of some kind. You know what? I’m a liar. It’s her stepfather who runs the business. A judge. What do you know?”

“Does she live with her mother or her father?”

“Oh, her mom. I’ve met her. I can’t believe Dorcas dumped a judge. ’Course, from what I hear, she’s dumping this new husband, too.”

Bree made an effort to control her impatience. “Do you have the address?”

“Sure. Hang on.” Andrea put the handset down with a clatter, and then picked it up again. “It’s a housing development out by the Oglethorpe Mall. Twenty-two Trail View. I’ve been there once. It’s right off the main entrance. There’s this pair of stone monuments with the name carved in them: Valley View. Trail View’s the first right as you come in the front.”

She’d rather talk to Madison in a venue less public than either the hospital or the Y. “May I have Madison’s cell phone number? I’d like to meet her at Hartley’s, if I could.”

Andrea rattled it off. Bree scribbled it down, promised to let Hartley know her father was welcome at the Bellamy residence anytime, and phoned Madison. She went straight to voice mail. “It’s important,” she said. “I need to talk to you about Lindsey and the robberies at the warehouse. If you and Hartley know anything at all about this, Madison, I really need to talk to you. Lindsey needs your help.”

Then she punched Hartley’s address into her GPS. The trip time was less than twenty minutes. “So, you guys, we’ve got time for the walk after all.”

Belli placed her huge head on the backrest and slobbered gratefully in Bree’s ear.

By the time she reached the turnoff for Valley View—which had neither a valley nor a view of anything but the back end of the Oglethorpe Mall, Bree was running a little late, and the weather had worsened. It was going to storm again and storm hard.

Madison’s little red Miata was already in the driveway. The housing development was new, and the landscaping was sparse. There seemed to be three different styles of houses. Twenty-two Trail View was at the more modest end of the scale. It was two stories, with a small front porch and an attached garage. A For Sale sign sat on the lawn. Bree parked at the curb, just past the mailbox, and got out of the car. The front door opened and Madison Bellamy waved at her. Bree waved back. Madison wore a bright pink T-shirt. The Savannah Sweethearts Social Club logo was picked out in sequins and the lowering sun struck metallic flashes off her chest. Bree squinted against the fractioned light; there was somebody behind Madison. Some guy, she thought. Hartley’s stepfather, perhaps.

She reached into the rear seat for her briefcase, shoving aside Belli’s huge forepaws to get it. As she backed out of the car, the briefcase awkwardly positioned under one arm, she collided with the mailbox.

“Watch it,” Madison said in her ear.

Bree jumped. She shut the door. The dogs looked out at her. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come up. And it looks like I whacked the mailbox a good one. Sorry.” The cheap wooden stake lurched to one side and the metal door to the mailbox gaped open. Bree gave the stake a firm shove to keep it upright, and palmed the door shut, idly noting the name as she did so.

The name on the mailbox was Hansen.

Bree froze.

Marv Kleinmetz. Tiffany Burkhold.
Stephen Hansen.

“Nice to meet you at last, Miss Beaufort,” Stephen Hansen said.

“Oh, Madison,” Bree said. She felt sick.

Hansen had a scar on his cheek.

Shirley:
He had a scar under one eye.

Hansen was the third man in the old photograph in Probert Chandler’s office.

Lindquist:
We were all chem majors . . . Steve Hansen was with us for a time.

Madison stepped away from the car. The man behind her stepped forward. His hair was cropped close to his head. He had to be at least forty-eight, Bree thought, but he looked a lot younger.

Madison:
I prefer older guys myself.