Avenging Angels Read online

  Everyone looked at the jar. The enameled colors glowed sapphire, ruby, and emerald.

  “But how do you find out who rolled the fishing line up and hid it? How do we prove who bought it and rigged the rifle?” Ron asked.

  “The twelve-gauge is a shotgun, not a rifle,” Petru said.

  Ron scowled a little. “Whatever. You know what I mean, though. How do we prove it? In a temporal court, I mean.”

  “You can’t, of course. Not with this evidence. Even if we find the fragment of the .22 in the murderer’s pocket, it’s going to be hard to prove it.” Bree looked at the assembled members of her Company in turn. “Have you guys ever wondered why we exist, as a company, I mean? Once in a while I think it’s because we have a chance to do justice when it isn’t possible, otherwise.”

  “I don’t get the business about the bullet fragment,” Ron said.

  “He dug it out of the poor man’s neck,” Lavinia said. “To confuse the time of the murder.”

  “I don’t see that this gets us any further forward, however,” Petru said heavily.

  “That’s because we haven’t collected all the data,” Bree said firmly. “We’ve got the fishing line, right?”

  “Which helps confirm your postulate,” Petru said.

  “Exactly. And the suspect list. I’ve finished with the first round of interviews, and at the moment, it looks like none of them did it.” She tapped the lid of the jar with the fishing line in it. “One of the people who burst into that room triggered the blast, rolled up the fishing line that had been attached to the door or whatever, and hid it in that.” She pointed to the jar. “We’re going to find him. Or her. So we have to start checking alibis. Ron? I need you to find out what flight the Parsalls were on. Did they really get into town when they said they did? Same with Jameson, although since he wasn’t in the room when the shot was fired, I’ve put him at the bottom of the list. Petru? We need a complete financial history for everybody involved: the Parsalls, Jameson, and the Fordhams. And one final thing: I need to see copies of Russell O’Rourke’s correspondence for the two months preceding his death.”

  “And Herr VanHoughton?” Petru asked.

  Bree hesitated. “I don’t see any possible motive there. He’s cold-blooded enough to have done it, but he doesn’t seem to have any reason.” Petru drew breath, and Bree held up her hand to forestall his objection. “I know. Motive’s almost useless as far as temporal indictments go. It’s not illegal to hate somebody. It can be illegal to act on that hate, of course. But you need proof of the act. Intent’s a loser. Besides,” she added, “if Rutger VanHoughton wanted you dead, he’d just run you over with a tank. Or ruin you financially. It’s just not his kind of crime.”

  “Well, I’m on it,” Ron said.

  “And I.” Petru put his hands on his knees and shoved himself off the couch.

  “You’re forgettin’ that . . .” Lavinia said quietly.

  Bree looked at her with some surprise. “That what?”

  “You haven’t notice the change around here? There’s something Dark movin’ around, and I don’t like it at all. And it only started when you began looking into the demise of this Mr. O’Rourke.” She pointed to the painting on the mantel. “I’m talking about that.”

  They looked at the Rise of the Cormorant.

  The new image in the sky had blackened, and darkened to a curious letter shape. Petru stumped closer and peered up at it. “Oh, dear. This is not good. Not good at all. It appears to me to be the letter peh.”

  “The letter peh?” Bree frowned in puzzlement.

  “From the ancient Hebrew alphabet. It means . . .”

  An imperative knock sounded at the front door. It froze them all with surprise. Sasha rose from his seat by the fireplace and growled.

  The knock sounded again.

  “Nobody comes here, now that we’re up and runnin’ the Company,” Lavinia said. “What is it?”

  Bree found herself short of breath—Lavinia hadn’t said “who” but “what.” “The Pendergasts?” she asked, with a fair semblance of calm.

  Lavinia shook her head, wondering.

  “One way to find out, I guess.” Bree moved quickly across the room to their small hallway.

  The knock sounded a third time.

  Bree glanced at the angel at the foot of the stairs. She stared up at Bree. Her eyes were green, like Bree’s own. She looked angry. She looked scared.

  The latch rattled. The door opened.

  Ciaran Fordham stepped into the office at Angelus Street.

  Nineteen

  Justice delayed is justice denied.

  —The Honorable Chief Justice Learned Hand

  Ciaran held Bree’s card in one hand. “Miss Beaufort?” He inclined his head in greeting. “I’ve come to see how my case is progressing.”

  Outside, the mist was back. It wrapped around the actor like a shroud. Bree opened her mouth, but no sound at all came out.

  “Your case?” Bree said, finally.

  “Is this an inconvenient time?” Ciaran asked.

  “You can’t be here,” Bree said. “You can’t just walk in here!”

  “I can’t?” He closed his eyes and swayed a little. “But you gave me your card.”

  “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course you can come in. It’s just . . .” She fought for a word. “. . . unexpected.”

  He looked at her. She opened the door all the way. He stepped into the hall.

  Then he said, “You said you would help me. Please. Help me. I looked back. I want to go home. You have to help me go home.”

  He drew away from her and just stood there, his face a mask of appeal.

  “Go home?” Bree said. None of this made any sense.

  “My goodness,” Lavinia said. She trotted into the little hall, Sasha at her heels. She peered up at Ciaran Fordham’s face. She stared for a long moment. Then she turned and stared at Bree. “This man is dead.”

  “Dead?” Bree echoed, stupidly. She reached out and clasped his hand. It was light, cold, and dry.

  The hand of a corpse.

  Bree looked down at her dog. How had he missed this? Shouldn’t he have warned her about this?

  Lavinia tsked. “Russell O’Rourke didn’t ask for you, child. This man did.” She stood on her tiptoes and touched his face. “He’s been gone a long while. A long while.”

  “You mean I’ve been representing the wrong client?” Bree was so astounded, she couldn’t move.

  “You have, yes.” Lavinia shook her head somberly. “My, oh, my. And look here.” She bent down and patted the silver-haired angel on the frieze. The angel’s eyes were closed and her wings were folded tightly against her body. “He’s illegal, too, this poor soul. He’s outside our Heaven and Hell.”

  “He’s what?” Bree, like the angel, wanted to close her eyes. If she did, maybe this would go away.

  “For Heaven’s sake,” Ron said, as he came up to them. “You can’t just leave the poor fellow here standing on the doorstep. Here.” Ron fussed around the actor and led him into the living room, with Bree and Lavinia trailing behind. “Please come in, sir. Have a seat here. No, no, not the couch. There’s a broken spring under that one cushion. Sit here in the chair.”

  Sir Ciaran sat down in the armchair facing the fireplace. He looked up at the Rise of the Cormorant and everyone in the room followed his gaze. Bree stiffened. The letter in the sky now glowed as if it were made of banked coals. It looked like a left-facing fishhook, or a question mark with an up-curled tail, except that the smooth curves of the arc were broken into sharp angles.

  Ciaran put his hands on his knees and dropped his gaze.

  Nobody said anything. Lavinia sat on the couch and pulled her shawl around her shoulders. Sasha crowded close to her, watching Ciaran, his head tilted first one way and then the other.

  “I think we could all use some coffee,” Ron said.

  “I’ll get it,” Bre
e offered. She needed some time to think.

  “You make terrible coffee. It’s worse than Petru’s,” Ron said. “You’d better let me do it.”

  Bree, Petru, and Ron went into the kitchen.

  “Well,” Bree said. “This is a stunner. What’s going on? Lavinia said he’s an illegal. An illegal what? And why have we been blindsided like this?”

  “This is my fault, I think.” Petru sat down heavily at his desk. He looked very unhappy. “This is a dybbuk, perhaps. Or a golem. I’m not certain of which. But yes, soulless bodies are outside the jurisdiction of the Celestial Courts. He is therefore an illegal. T’cha!” He bit his lip. “And the peh in front of me all the while. I am stupid, stupid.”

  Bree took a moment to line up her questions in an orderly way. She took a firm grip on her confusion. A trial lawyer that could be knocked off her feet by an unexpected development was no kind of trial lawyer at all. “Okay. What’s the peh?”

  “It’s a letter. No. That is the wrong translation. It is a symbol of transformation, of change. It is a word, when used, which speaks directly to the Godhead and transforms a temporal being into a being less vulnerable to time.”

  “Less vulnerable to time,” Bree repeated. “You mean Ciaran Fordham is an immortal?” The tag “immortal of the stage” had followed Ciaran around most of his life. Except he wasn’t alive; he was dead. So Bree was pretty sure the critics had been engaging in hyperbole. Ha. She bit her lip. “Hang on a minute, guys.” She took three deep breaths. “Okay. I’m on it. I’m focused. Except I think I’m getting a headache.”

  “He is not an immortal,” Petru said impatiently. “His body is proceeding toward death, but very slowly. It will take hundreds of temporal years for the body to die, perhaps. His soul has already gone beyond him. Somebody used the peh just as Ciaran was passing from this life to the next. His body stayed here. His soul did not.” He frowned. “Which is why he must be a dybbuk and not a golem. A dybbuk is animated by a malicious spirit. A golem is a creature of clay animated by such.”

  “A malicious spirit,” Bree said. She was beginning to feel like Archie, with his annoying tendency to echo phrases.

  “Yes. This is from the traditions of the Kabbalah, which is not used so often, now. The Kabbalah is one step further along the Path from its predecessors, the Egyptians. The Egyptians of Osiris, Set, Hathor, and Isis, that is. Not Mr. Sadat and his ilk. The dybbuk is a very old creature of the Sphere. Its animating spirit is not so much Dark as it is unenlightened.”

  Bree peeked out into the living room. Ciaran and Lavinia were talking. Sasha looked from one to the other, his tail wagging anxiously. “Are you saying that whatever makes Ciaran’s body function is like a poltergeist?”

  Petru’s gloomy face lightened. “That is a very good expression for the inexpressible. This poltergeist has no mind or knowledge of its own, you see. It is an animator, merely. Like yeast.”

  “Yeast,” Bree said and pinched herself hard. Pain helped you focus better than anything.

  “When we free Sir Ciaran’s body to die as it should have died, the spirit will dissolve away.”

  Bree took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Are we supposed to do things like that?”

  “Not us, personally, no. We are advocates, not judges. We must represent his case to the proper authorities.”

  “But if he’s outside the Celestial legal system, what can we do?” At some level, Bree was aware that she was keeping her mind busy with questions about process. Process was a secure thing in a world that was becoming increasingly insecure. Process was important. She couldn’t take on a client for whom there was no possible remedy in law.

  But it appeared that she had. She had left her card on the desk at the auction house, five days ago. Of course Ciaran had her card. He’d gotten it then.

  “I will have to research this, perhaps.” Petru sat down at his desk.

  “Good grief,” Bree said. “Not now!”

  “When should I do it, then? He believes we are his counsel. We must have an answer for him.”

  “You’re right. Of course. Please. Look something up. Anything. Maybe we should call Goldstein.”

  “Goldstein is a clerk of court,” Petru said. “Not a scholar. The professor will be able to help us, if I am at a standstill. But I am rarely at a standstill.”

  “Sure. Fine. Whatever.” Bree wanted to tell him to stop being such a pedant, but she didn’t. If he’d been more of a pedant about the strange symbol in the painting, she might have had a little more forewarning. So she said, “Thank you. I appreciate your efforts.”

  Ron fussed with the coffee grounds and shook his head disapprovingly. “So where does this leave us with the O’Rourke murder? Not to mention Lieutenant Chin’s murder? Can you believe it? We’re representing the wrong client!” He gasped. “What if the murders and the client aren’t related at all? All this work, right down the tubes!”

  “Shh,” Bree said crossly. “Sir Ciaran might hear you. And Tully hired me to solve the murder of her husband, so we haven’t wasted a thing.”

  “I suppose we could look on this as a totally new case,” Ron said.

  “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.

  And I was outside.

  Bree looked at Sasha.

  I met him just now, for the first time.

  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 g
o 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.”