Angel's Advocate (6 page)

Ron fussed with the coffeepot. Petru sat with his hands folded over his cane. Lavinia Mather added three tea-spoons of sugar to a cup that was mostly cream and regarded them all with bright black eyes.

“There
is
a point,” Ron said. “If you’ll just let me make it. I was a dog walker, as I said. For about ten seconds. Horrible job. When I was living in New York. Four dogs at a time. A Boston pug, a fox terrier, and two whacking big black Labs. The minute I got those dogs onto the pavement outside the Dakota, they set off in all directions. I about split into four separate parts. That’s what this case is like. Four different directions. Well, two anyway.”

Bree looked at him with some perplexity. She still hadn’t figured out how her angels managed their temporal existence. But every time she asked any one of them about their earthly lives away from the office, all she got were angelically innocent smiles and charming evasions. Like this one.

“Perhaps the robbery and the death of Mr. Chandler are not connected,” Petru said. “That is perhaps what Ron is trying to say. We should not concern ourselves with the bumptiousness of teenagers, but rather with the appeal of Mr. Chandler for a reversal of his sentence.” His expression behind the thicket of his big black beard was hard to read, but his Russian accent somehow made everything he said sound wise. If Tolstoy had been a paralegal, he would have sounded a lot like Petru.

“Now, I can’t agree with that. That chile’s behavior comes from something bad in that family,” Lavinia said. “And that daddy of hers got called down instead of up when he died ’cause
he
did something bad.” She took a huge, appreciative sip of her coffee. “You come right down to it, everything’s connected.”

Bree rubbed her forehead. She hadn’t slept well. The attempted attack on the street last night had unsettled her, even though she’d decided not to bring it up. Plus, she wasn’t too sure about the mayonnaise in the tuna panini. Now her dramatic opening failed to inspire her employees to direct and immediate action. Just blabber blabber blabber about dog walking. “I don’t know, Lavinia. Do you think that’s true? Do you think some people are just born bad? Or that they get made bad?”

“Everybody,” Lavinia said firmly, “gets at least a couple of chances to choose.”

Which was an answer of a sort, Bree supposed. “Well, we need to find out what kind of choices Probert Chandler made when he was alive, or I won’t be able to plead his case now that he’s dead.”

“What’s he in for, anyway?” Ron asked.

“In for?” Bree said blankly.

“You know, Ben Skinner was originally sentenced to three to ten” (not years, but millennia, Bree had learned) “for misdemeanor greed. What’s Chandler done?”

“And where’s he servin’ time?” Lavinia bit into a beig net. “Purgatory or Hell itself?”

“Y’all don’t know?” Bree said.

“Gosh,” Ron said. “Should we?”

“If you don’t know, who does? Wait a minute.” She frowned in concentration. “Gabriel Striker told me about the initial charges against Ben Skinner. Who told him?” Then, because she wasn’t really sure she wanted to know the answer to that, she amended her question. “How did Striker find out?”

“I s’pose you should ask him,” Lavinia said vaguely.

Bree scowled. Striker was a PI who had been recommended to Bree by her former law school professor Armand Cianquino. Striker’s function within the Company, as near as Bree could figure out, was to get in her way. As for the professor, Bree found him mysterious in law school and even more mysterious now. Armand’s job seemed to be to point her in the right direction, stand back, and let her fall flat on her face.

Petru tapped his cane on the floor. “No need to bring in Striker. I will check the reports.”

“The reports?” Bree said blankly. Then, “Oh! The
reports
.” The depositions of all criminal and civil cases, from arraignment to final outcome, were listed in reports filed daily at the courthouse. In municipalities like Chatham County, at any rate. Bree wasn’t sure about matters celestial.

“And then, of course, since Chandler has filed a request for an appeal, you will need a copy of the original case. I will obtain that also. Ke-vite routine, dear Bree.”

“Of course,” Bree said. “Then I suppose those will be located . . . where?”

“On the seventh floor of the courthouse, ‘dear Bree,’ ” Ron said, with a scowl in Petru’s direction. “
I
can get those for you this morning.”

“
I
am the paralegal,” Petru said. “Such is the occupation of same. I will retrieve the files.”

“I’m the secretary,” Ron said. “Such is the occupation of
me
.”

“Cool it, you two.” Bree looked at them thoughtfully. “You know,” she said, “I think I’d like to do this little chore myself.”

“I’d better come with you,” Ron said briskly. “If you’re new to the process, it can take forever to get copies of the appeal.” He winked. “Thank goodness we’ve got friends in high places.”

The Chatham County Courthouse was a newish, rather ugly six-story building made of concrete block painted the color of scrambled eggs. Bree found a parking spot just off Montgomery, opened her purse for inspection by the police officers on guard, and went through the metal detector, Ron at her heels. The hall was crowded with lawyers in suits, policemen in both the brown uniform of the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department and the navy blue of the city police, and ordinary citizens. Most looked either bewildered or sad. Nobody looked happy.

Bree stood in front of the bank of elevators, surrounded by three cops; a large lady in flip-flops, baggy pants, and a T-shirt that read
I’ve got PMS and I’ve got a gun
; and two young kids making a noticeable effort to be cool. A sign by the elevator listed the function of each of the building’s six floors.

Bree and Ron rode to the second floor, where the kids got off; the fifth floor, where the belligerently T-shirted lady got off; and then to the sixth and last floor, where the cops got off. The older cop held the door for her politely—she noticed he didn’t seem to register that Ron was in the elevator, too, and she smacked her head with the heel of her hand. “Forgot something!” she said. “Thanks!”

The elevator doors closed and the car kept on going up. The doors swished open to a place Bree had been just once before: the home of the Seventh Circuit of the Celestial Courts.

She’d been too nervous on her previous visit to register much of her surroundings.

Sunlight from a series of skylights in the ceiling flooded the hallway. The floor was of terrazzo tile, and the walls had wainscoting of warmly polished cedar. Or a wood that looked very much like cedar. The air was fresh and springlike.

Instead of the Great Seal of the State of Georgia, the wall opposite the elevators held a seal lettered CELESTIAL COURTS. She did remember that. The symbol in the center was becoming increasingly familiar: a pair of the Scales of Justice surrounded by angel wings. To the right of the seal was a directory:

The directional arrow to the Court of Appeals pointed up. The arrow to Detention pointed down. All the other arrows pointed to either the east or the west. Ron touched her arm. “This way.”

She followed Ron down the hall to a door marked RECORDS. Ron tapped lightly, and then opened it up.

The records room was dim, dark, and cavernous. It took her a moment to adjust to the low light, since the main source of illumination was lanterns. Rows of breast-high pedestal desks ran the length of the space. The floor was paved in stone. The ceilings soared up, a series of vaulted arches. Flaming sconces flared on the walls. The figures huddled over the desks were . . .

“Monks?” Bree said, in a half whisper.

Ron rolled his eyes. “Complete with quill pens and inkwells. Can you believe it? I’ve been trying to get them to modernize since 1867, the year you temporals invented the typewriter. But am I getting anywhere? Not so’s you’d notice. Tradition is everything around here.” He walked briskly down the center aisle. Bree had to trot to keep up with him. A few of the cowled figures looked up as they passed; Bree caught a glimpse of eerily bright eyes. And there was a hum of recognition, the words as soft as a dove’s murmur.
“Leah’s daughter . . . Love the hair . . . Did all right in the Skinner case . . . ’spect to see her moving up one of these days . . .”

“Ron!” Bree caught at his arm. He stopped and turned. “Did you hear that?” She kept her voice down, despite the urgency she felt. “Somebody said ‘Leah’s daughter.’ That’s my mother. The one who gave me up. Ron! Do they know her here?”

Ron smiled at her. The smile suffused his face in light. A feeling of warmth and safety flowed over her like a cozy blanket. Lavinia had smiled at her in just that way. A faint—very faint—rumble of thunder sounded beneath her feet, and then died away. “We’ll find the files over here.”

Stonewalled again. Or rather, angel-walled.

Ron wound his way briskly around the desks to a chest-high oak bar that ran the length of the far wall. Bree had to stand on her tiptoes to look across its width to the activity. A narrow aisle ran between the bar and the wall, which held hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cubicles. Ron shook his head. “Goldstein modeled it after the library at Alexandria. Never mind the fact that any decent software program could free up this whole space for other stuff.”

“What other stuff?” a surly voice demanded. “I ask you. What other stuff would there be? This space is here for
this
stuff.”

“It’s you, is it?” Ron said unenthusiastically. “Hello, Goldstein.”

“If it isn’t St. Par-
chay
-se,” Goldstein sneered.

“If it isn’t St. Luddite,” Ron sneered back. “When are you going to computerize, Goldstein?”

Goldstein was short and bald, with a belligerent lower lip and a pair of large, melting brown eyes. He wore his cowl shoved back onto his shoulders, and Bree could see the tip of a feathery wing beneath the folds of fabric around his neck. “When will I computerize? When Hell freezes over!” Goldstein shouted. “Ha! Ha-ha!”

“That joke’s older than Adam,” Ron muttered.

Goldstein smiled at Bree. “And this, Ronald, is this Leah’s daughter?”

“Of course it is,” Ron said. “Bree, this is Goldstein. He’s section head of Records.”

“How do you do?” Bree said. She extended her hand over the counter. Goldstein reached across the boards and shook it gravely.

“Welcome,” he said. “I knew and admired your mother. She is sorely missed. Now, how may I assist you?”

Ron’s hand on her shoulder forestalled any questions. He said, “We think we have a new client. Probert Chandler. He’s filed an appeal. We’d like to see the case file.”

“Chandler.” Goldstein closed his eyes. “Hmmm. Let me think. Chandler. What jurisdiction?”

“We have no idea,” Ron said. “Aren’t you cross-referenced by name?”

“The name doesn’t help a whole lot,” Goldstein grumbled. “Do you know how many millions of Chandlers have lived and died since the Word?” He blinked twice. “Oh, my. I recall it now.” He frowned and tsked. “You’re going to have your work cut out for you on this one. It’s a ninth-circle case.”

“Hm,” Ron said. “Quite serious, then.”

“Quite.”

Bree looked a question.

“Nine circles of Hell, nine court jurisdictions,” Ron said briefly. “The charges get worse the higher you go. Mr. Skinner, now, he was a circle one, which is your basic misdemeanor greed. This one must be a doozy . . . hand it over, Goldstein.”

The records clerk pulled a thick roll of parchment from one of the cubicles and passed it over to Ron, who tucked it under his arm. Goldstein pulled out a fat, leather-bound book, paged through the dusty leaves, placed it flat, and turned it to face Bree. He shoved a quill pen and inkwell set in her direction. “How long will you want it for?”

“Just until we copy it, I guess,” Bree said.

“This
is
a copy. Copy number one. We track all the copies, of course. Just sign your name and check the relevant due date.”

“A month, then?” Bree hazarded. She grasped the quill pen, signed her name with some difficulty, due to the thickness of the ink, and looked on in amazement as the signature styled itself in perfect Copperplate:

She hesitated, then checked the
30-day due
column.

“Thank you, Bree.” He smiled at her, and that sense of cheery comfort flooded her with calm and warmth. There were advantages to dealing with angels, even testy ones. She doubted that she’d ever need Prozac.