Avenging Angels Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Epilogue

  ALSO FROM MARY STANTON

  PRAISE FOR

  Angel’s Advocate

  “Stanton packs this story with murder, mystery, and suspense . . . An entertaining mystery with a dash of the unknown.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Stanton has melded legal procedure, medieval philosophy, and theology into a fresh, unique, and ever-expanding world.”

  —ReviewingTheEvidence.com

  “A very intriguing, impossible-to-put-down mystery.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A brilliantly plotted whodunit . . . I couldn’t put it down!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Highly original and plain fun!”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Great new series from Mary Stanton . . . A very unique take on a cozy legal!”

  —Gumshoe Review

  Defending Angels

  “Engaging and charismatic . . . A breath of fresh air for fans of paranormal cozy mysteries.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Witty, charming, and briskly paced.”

  —Romantic Times (pick of the month)

  “Mary Stanton brings a unique mixture of charm and quirkiness . . . Bree and her unconventional employees are impossible to resist.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  “Don’t start reading too late at night—it’s one of those books you can’t put down until you finish.”

  —The Compulsive Reader

  “Packed with Southern charm and spooky foreshadowing that will delight readers!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “This is not one of the cozies that make for some mundane reading, but instead it is a mix of hilarity, heart-stopping danger, and clever storytelling.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “Spooky Southern charm and a wonderfully inventive approach to the afterlife with a celestial twist makes Mary Stanton’s Defending Angels a real standout. Brava!”

  —Madelyn Alt, bestselling author of Where There’s a Witch

  “Mary Stanton’s Defending Angels gives heavenly choirs reason to sing! From its opening scene in a haunted graveyard to its final, satisfying conclusion amid a quartet of suspected killers, Defending Angels successfully spices the madcap zaniness of Bridget Jones with the determined goodness of a young lawyer fighting to build her first practice.”

  —Mindy Klasky, author of How Not to Make a Wish

  “Mary Stanton has truly captured the spirit—or spirits—of Savannah.”

  —Don Bruns, author of Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

  “Intriguing and wholly different and original. Defending Angels is at once charming, erudite, and chilling. This book should give Mary Stanton the same kind of cult following usually reserved for Charlaine Harris.”

  —Rhys Bowen, award-winning author of the Molly Murphy Mysteries and the Royal Spyness Mysteries

  “Mary Stanton’s imaginative Defending Angels definitely has wings. An elegant enchantment with a delightful heroine and a historic setting.”

  —Carolyn Hart, author of Merry, Merry Ghost

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Mary Stanton

  DEFENDING ANGELS

  ANGEL’S ADVOCATE

  AVENGING ANGELS

  Titles by Mary Stanton writing as Claudia Bishop Hemlock Falls Mysteries

  A TASTE FOR MURDER

  A DASH OF DEATH

  A PINCH OF POISON

  MURDER WELL-DONE

  DEATH DINES OUT

  A TOUCH OF THE GRAPE

  A STEAK IN MURDER

  MARINADE FOR MURDER

  JUST DESSERTS

  FRIED BY JURY

  A PUREE OF POISON

  BURIED BY BREAKFAST

  A DINNER TO DIE FOR

  GROUND TO A HALT

  A CAROL FOR A CORPSE

  The Casebooks of Dr. McKenzie Mysteries

  THE CASE OF THE ROASTED ONION

  THE CASE OF THE TOUGH-TALKING TURKEY

  THE CASE OF THE ILL-GOTTEN GOAT

  Anthology

  A PLATEFUL OF MURDER

  For Bob and Eleanor

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  AVENGING ANGELS

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Mary Stanton.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18484-4

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  One

  Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards

  And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

  —John Keats, “To Sleep”

  Brianna Winston-Beaufort wasn’t interested in antiques, particularly, but the desk really was a beautiful old piece. Made of dark, hand-rubbed cherry, it had legs that ended in hand-turned lion’s paws. The top was inlaid with fine-grained le
ather, edged with a hairline of gold leaf. Gold-leaf bees danced in a fanciful design in the desk’s center. The auction people had set it on a raised dais, but it was crowded on all sides by the sheer weight of the other stuff due to be auctioned off.

  Bree flipped through the auction catalog and found the desk listed on a page all to itself. (Probable) Empire campaign desk, circa 1789. May have been carried by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Egypt campaign of 1799 .

  An old silver inkstand sat to the right of the golden bees, and a cloisonné jar with a jade lid sat to the left.

  “Gorgeous,” Antonia said. “I think this is part of the lot that Tully O’Rourke’s trying to buy back from her husband’s estate.” She cocked her head speculatively. “It might even be the desk where he shot himself. Russell O’Rourke, that is.”

  “Ugh,” Bree said. Her sister had a ghoulish side. “So we should make a bid on it when it comes up?”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” Antonia said crossly. “I’m here to . . . well . . . just sort of make contact with the widow.”

  “No!” Bree said in feigned surprise. “I thought you were here to pick up some inexpensive stuff for your theater group.”

  Antonia was the stage manager for the Savannah Repertory Theater. It had been her brilliant idea to attend the auction for the ostensible purpose of picking up props for the theater’s upcoming winter season. The O’Rourke estate was part of a larger (and much cheaper) sale of various items from the World of Art Auction Mart. Yesterday’s sudden announcement that the auction was to be held early Sunday morning had swept through Savannah’s gossip mills like brushfire. Bree’s aunt Cecilia had called Antonia, Antonia had called Savannah Rep’s finance guy and talked him into handing over a modest budget, and here they were.

  “You know perfectly well why we’re here. Aunt Cissy promised to introduce me if we just happen to run into each other here, and how can I pass up a chance like this? But I’ll tell you this! Trying to grab her dead husband’s desk out from under her nose isn’t going to make the best impression on Tully.” Antonia poked fretfully at her hair. “I don’t know why you insisted on dragging along with me, anyhow.”

  “Well, here’s a fine thing,” Bree said indignantly. “This is the first Sunday I’ve had off in weeks. I’m only here because you flat-out begged me to come.”

  “I don’t want Tully to think I’m trolling for a job.”

  “You are trolling for a job.”

  “Hush up. Somebody will hear you.”

  Bree rolled her eyes. She could be jogging along the Savannah River with her dog Sasha. She could be drinking a nice cool glass of white wine at Huey’s. She could even be catching up on back copies of the Law Review. Instead she was stuck indoors with a couple of hundred gawkers all trying to catch a glimpse of the notorious Tully O’Rourke and maybe grab a piece of the bankrupt estate. And on top of it, she had to put up with the company of her aggravating little sister.

  Rumors about Tully O’Rourke had been flying around Savannah for weeks. The widow had recovered both her composure and a pile of insurance money after her late husband’s headline-grabbing suicide. The most persistent rumor—and the one most important to Antonia—was that she had decided to bring back the internationally known Shakespeare Players to her hometown of Savannah. But first, Tully was going to recover the contents of her several mansions from the bank that had grabbed them at the conclusion of O’Rourke’s bankruptcy.

  “And since you did insist on coming along, you might have dressed up a little bit. You’ve got Sasha’s dog hair all over your sweater,” Antonia said. “Honestly. Of all the times to look like an unmade bed.”

  Bree brushed futilely at the golden fuzz spread over her sweatshirt and thought about whacking her sister with the auction catalog. Antonia had changed her outfit three times before they’d set off for the auction house. Then she’d driven Bree to the screaming point about whether to wear her dark red hair up in a topknot or cascading down her back. Then she’d slugged back five cups of coffee, sending her nerves into the stratosphere. She dived into her purse for her mirror and checked her makeup every three minutes. At this point, Bree was beyond affectionate exasperation and into serious annoyance. Her little sister was beautiful, no matter how she wore her hair or what kind of T-shirt she put on, and despite the Bobbi Brown lip gloss smeared over her upper lip. Even someone as used to a celebrity-soaked lifestyle as Tully O’Rourke could see that. And Bree was really tired of telling her so.

  Antonia’s acting talent was another issue altogether. (Bree loved her sister dearly—but she really wasn’t very good on stage.) There was no way to convince Tully of her talent during Aunt Cissy’s carefully planned chance meeting, unless Tonia engaged in some highly suspect boasting. So that was Bree’s job, should the Great Mrs. O’Rourke actually ask about Antonia’s credentials: to brag on her sister. “Just say you’re my lawyer,” Antonia had said as they set out from their town house on Factor’s Walk to the auction house. “Which you would be, actually, if I ever needed one. And when you talk about my reviews in Oklahoma it’d be okay if you didn’t mention it was a high school thing.”

  So Bree had spent most of that morning alternating between telling her sister to shut up and threatening to go home.

  “You know, Tonia,” she said as she bent forward to take a closer look at the cherry desk, “this isn’t as much of a waste of time as I thought it’d be. There’s some pretty cool stuff here. Just feel this leather. It’s like silk.” She placed her palm on the desktop and swept her hand past the jar and the inkstand.

  Help me!

  Bree jumped back, as if burned. The scream was all the more agonizing for being silent.

  HELP ME!

  The air above the desktop rippled, as if stirred by a witchy hand. Bree took a deep breath and glanced cautiously around. Antonia had drifted on to look at the contents of a glass-fronted cabinet some thirty feet away. Bree caught a glimpse of people clustered at the far end of the narrow aisle that snaked through the clutch of auction stuff. For the moment, though, she was alone.

  The eddy of cold air spiraled upward. Bree reached out to touch the desk again. The air thickened to a gray and white soup.

  Let me out. Letmeout. LETMEOUT!

  A skeletal hand formed in the middle of the gray and white mist and stretched out imploringly. Bree was never quite sure what to do in these circumstances. Should she try to give the ghostly hand her business card? She wished, not for the first time, that her prospective clients had clearer avenues of communication. Barring face-to-corpse conferences, which circumstances didn’t allow her to do—a phone call would be nice. E-mail would be even better.

  “Mr. O’Rourke?” Bree whispered. Then, feeling an obscure obligation to make certain her client knew how to find her, she said as she placed her card on the desk, “I’m Brianna Winston-Beaufort. I’m an attorney, and I can help you. My staff of angels and I represent dead souls who need to file appeals about their sentencing. Our office is at 666 Angelus Street here in Savannah. Can you tell me what the trouble is?” She thought a moment, remembering Benjamin Skinner. “Or you could call me. The cell number’s here, too.”

  I WANT TO GO HOME!

  “Um,” Bree said, in a diplomatic way, “that isn’t possible, of course. But we can certainly try to get you moved to more comfortable quarters. Can you tell me where you’re located right now?” She gritted her teeth. She still wasn’t used to this. If it was Mr. O’Rourke—and who else could it be but the dead financier?—he must have a lot on his conscience. He was somewhere in the higher circles of Hell, she would imagine. And it was very hard to hear him. The clarity of her conversations with her clients was directly affected by interference from the Prosecution. The more static, the greater the crime, and the higher the stakes.

  “Sir?” Bree said again.

  Help me . . . I looked back. I looked back.

  The hand clenched into a fist, then rotated suddenly and opened up, palm up, fingers splayed like a beggar p
leading for alms.

  The black-and-white stutter of light faded away. Bree stood looking at the smooth leather top of the “probable” late eigthteen-nineteenth-century desk of the late Mr. O’Rourke, which held nothing now but the inkstand and the cloisonné jar. She rather liked the jar, which was covered with intricately worked enamel. She didn’t like the fact that she had almost nothing to go on except Mr. O’Rourke’s agonized desire to go home.

  “Bree!” The all-too-human shriek of her little sister startled Bree into awareness. “The auction’s starting. We want to get seats up front.”

  “Mr. O’Rourke?” Bree said again, a little louder. She swept her hand back and forth along the leather top. Her first two cases as an appeals attorney for dead souls had come to her in much this way: a faulty apparition of her client at the site of the client’s death, a sighting that resembled film from an old black-and-white movie, and then occasional appearances at the same spot after that. She wondered if she’d have to buy the desk to keep in touch with Mr. O’Rourke. Fake or not, it looked expensive.

  Antonia tugged impatiently at her sleeve. “C’mon! Why are you still hanging around this old thing?” She drew her eyebrows together in a frown. “You’re not seriously interested in bidding on this desk, are you?”

  Bree glanced at the reserve listed in the catalog. Even a (probable) late eighteen-nineteenth-century desk was way out of her price range. On the other hand—if she had a new client—and she was reasonably certain she did—how was she to keep in contact with him if somebody else bought the desk?