Angel Condemned (25 page)

Royal stood up. “Here they are.”

“Bree, darlin’!” Cissy swept down on them in a flurry of perfume, cashmere scarves, and gold jewelry. She glanced at the other diners; then, with a mischievous look, she pulled her pants leg up to reveal a bare ankle. “Free!” she announced, and sat down with a happy sigh.

Lewis McCallen followed her at a more leisurely pace. “Morning.” He shook hands with Royal, and saluted Bree with a warm grasp on her shoulder. “Happy resolution to the case, I think.”

“I just can’t thank y’all enough. Royal? You’re stayin’ for breakfast of course. Bree? You’re looking wonderful this morning,” Cissy bubbled. “Here, Lewis. Sit down by me. I’m just tickled pink this is all over!”

“It’s not quite all over,” Royal cautioned.

“Well, they hauled that lunatic woman off to the pokey, didn’t they? I’d say it’s all over but the shouting.”

“You may be called to testify at the trial,” Lewis said. “I’ll be back to hold your hand for that, if I may.”

Cissy shook her head so that her hair bounced flirtatiously. “I think I’d like that, Mr. McCallen.”

Bree glanced at her father, who looked amused. You could knock Cissy down, but she wouldn’t stay down for long.

“Anything I have to say to put that crazy woman behind bars for the rest of her life, you just tell me, Bree darlin’. And if she’s gone and murdered Prosper, are the Chamberses still allowed to sue me?”

“Of course they can, Cissy, but . . .” Royal sighed, so lightly that Bree was the only one to know how exasperated he was.

“Outrageous. I’d like to see that over and done with.”

Bree looked at McCallen. “You haven’t told her?”

“Told me what?”

“Bree managed to get the suit dropped, Celia,” McCallen said. “Isn’t she something, your niece? Just like that.”

“I told you she’s the best lawyer in Savannah, just like you’re the best lawyer in Atlanta, Lewis, and Royal, you’re . . . Wait a minute. If they can still sue me, how come they’re not? Suing me, I mean.”

“I’m going to represent Jillian, Aunt Cissy. In exchange, the Chamberses agreed to drop the lawsuit over the
Photoplay
cover.”

“What?”

“I’m going to defend her.”

Cissy’s voice rose several decibels, to the interest of the gray-haired couple one table over. “You’re defending Prosper’s murderer?! How can you?!”

Both men looked around uneasily. Nothing like a hollering woman to get Royal and Lewis upset.

“I don’t think she did it.”

Cissy was motionless, her face perfectly blank, her eyes terror-filled. Stricken, Bree leaned forward and touched her shoulder. “I know you didn’t do it, either, and if you’re thinking you’re going to be rearrested, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s unbelievable how sophisticated forensic science is these days—and the more of it that comes back, the clearer it becomes. That you didn’t do it, I mean. I never thought you
did
.”

Cissy’s eyes moved, first to Royal, then to Bree. “Well,” she said finally. “As long as I don’t have to go back to that horrible jail . . . I guess it’s okay. You know what you’re doing. I’ve always said so.” She shook herself briskly. “So. If Jillian Chambers didn’t do it, who did?”

Bree sent up a prayer of thanks for her aunt’s family loyalty. It was good to have her mother’s sister believe in her. It was even better that, for Cissy, blood was the strongest tie there was. “I don’t know yet.”

“She doesn’t need to know who the murderer is, Celia,” Lewis said. “She just needs to establish reasonable doubt of Mrs. Chambers’s guilt in the minds of a jury.”

“Let’s roll this conversation back a bit,” Royal said with a frown. “You said ‘yet.’ That you didn’t know who did it
yet.
Are you planning on investigating the murder further, Bree? You know your aunt is right about the poor woman’s sanity.”

Bree looked around the room. The other diners were too far away to overhear normal conversation. “I have to admit, the evidence against my client is fairly strong.”

Lewis snorted. “Strong? That’s understating it. She had plenty of motive: White ruined them. As for opportunity, her proximity to the victim is on tape. As for the evidence? Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Sounds like a slam dunk to me. Your only hope is an insanity defense.” He sipped his coffee, managing to keep an infuriating grin in place. “From the little I’ve heard, the woman’s got a psychiatric history as long as your arm . . . Although that defense is a lot harder to prove these days than it used to be.” He set his cup down with an “ah” of satisfaction. It was a personality quirk that annoyed Bree profoundly. People should shut up when they drank coffee. “It’s an interesting case. High profile, too. Let me know if you need an expert hand.”

“Be a good fellow and drop the needle, Lewis.” Royal folded his napkin into neat thirds. “Your mother and I were hoping that you wouldn’t get wrapped up in a murder investigation this time, Bree.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re more than capable of handling an insanity defense. It might be something to consider.” He glanced at Cissy. “White was mixed up with some unscrupulous people. Charles Martin, for example. The man’s been indicted twice under the RICO statutes. I can’t say I see much good poking around in his background will do you.”

“I know all about Charles Martin,” she said untruthfully. She made a mental note to have EB follow that up. “The thing is—she’s innocent.”

Lewis chuckled. “Look at her, Royal. She’s got a righteous fire in her eye.” He took a raisin roll from the basket and buttered it lavishly. “Ah, to be young again. Or maybe not.”

Cissy took the muffin away from him. “Now, Lewis, you have to be watching your cholesterol. Use some of this margarine here. Close your eyes and you won’t know that it’s not butter.”

Bree didn’t dare look at her father again. Cissy was nothing if not undaunted in her pursuit of men.

“Does ‘non compos mentis’ mean she’s crazier than an outhouse rat?” Cissy asked chattily.

“The insanity defense requires that the perpetrator not know the difference between right and wrong,” Lewis said. “And the current law requires pretty stringent proof that the defendant didn’t know right from wrong
at the time the crime was committed
. The poor woman would have to have been in the middle of a psychotic episode. You’ve got videotape that shows she was capable of planning the demonstration, recruiting the demonstrators, not to mention equipping them with last week’s vegetables to pitch at the victim . . . Pretty hard to prove incompetence. Especially for newbies. Like your niece.”

“I don’t plan an insanity defense, Lewis,” Bree said pleasantly. “Such an unimaginative strategy, don’t you think? I prefer a straight on assault on the Prosecution.”

That got the grin off Lewis’s face. Royal’s eyes twinkled. Cissy set down the muffin and looked from Lewis to Bree. “You two fighting over something? You are? You don’t want to get into a you-know-what-swinging contest with Lewis, Bree. For one thing, you don’t have one. So cut it out. For another, he’s a tough old bird, and wily, to boot. I hate to see my niece go all wily on me. Most unattractive. Besides, this is a celebration breakfast.” She banged her fists down on the table . . . not hard . . . and yelled, “Jillian Chambers is in jail, and I’m not! Whoop! I’m free as a flippin’ bird!” which drew the attention of a group of salesmen in the far corner, a couple with two children three tables away, and the entire waitstaff.

Bree wondered if there was going to be yet another restaurant in Savannah she’d have to avoid. She decided not to risk it. She stood up, waved at the waiter, mimed signing the tab, and then pointed to Lewis, who looked startled. “Thank you for breakfast, Lewis. And the advice. You’ll excuse me. I’m late for an interview.” She kissed her father and Cissy and then turned on her way out of the dining room and said loudly. “Just so you know, I am absolutely confident that I’m going to win this one.”

The salesmen in the corner could chew over
that
for a while.

Ten minutes later, in the Bay Street office, she wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know how we’re going to win this one, EB.” She dropped her coat in the corner, marched around the desk to the screen, and folded it up flat in two energetic jerks. She propped it against the wall. “There. Now we can discuss this thing without having to holler through wicker.”

EB picked up her steno pad and settled in with a practical air. “What should I do first?”

“I have to file a request to remand Jillian into medical custody. She was in pretty bad shape yesterday, but I couldn’t convince the prosecutor’s office to send her to the psych ward. They did agree to get her evaluated this morning. E-mail my father’s office and ask for a sample document, fill it in, and then file it at the courthouse. I also have to file a motion to dismiss, but that can wait until later this week. Jillian will be arraigned and a decision made by the judge to turn her over for trial. The motion hasn’t got a chance, I’m afraid. The evidence against her is too strong. But I have to try. The problem is, I can’t file a motion without a rough idea of our defense tactics.”

“You mean the plea?”

“Exactly. We have a couple of choices: innocent because she didn’t do it; innocent because she did do it, but she was out of her mind and wasn’t responsible for it; innocent because somebody else did it.”

EB had been scribbling away. She dropped her pencil. “Did she kill Mr. White?”

“I don’t know.” Bree rubbed her forehead with both hands. “But if she did, it wasn’t her fault. That much I do know.”

“Maybe you should ask her?”

Bree shook her head. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. What time is Allard coming in?”

“Another ten minutes.”

“Okay. I’m going to take him down to the Pirate’s Cove so you can start making phone calls and generating documents. First: I’ll need written permission from him to access Jillian’s medical records, all of them. Second: I’ll need background checks on Charles Martin and Alicia Kennedy. Call the same firm my father used to investigate White. Their work was impressive.”

“They got an impressive price tag, too. Are you going to get a retainer check from Allard Chambers?”

“He doesn’t have any money. We can apply to the state . . .” Bree stopped her pacing. She really missed Petru. But she had faith in EB. “There’s not enough time. You’re pretty good on the Internet, too. Do a global search on Martin and Kennedy and see what comes up. Narrow it down to any way that either one of them made the news in the last five years—Martin in Texas, and Kennedy in New York. We’ll see where we want to take it from there. Don’t spend a lot of time on it—I need you to do something else today, if you can.”

She perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair and frowned at the floor. “Cissy’s housekeeper’s been with her a long time. Her first name’s Lindy. I need to know how that knife got out of Cissy’s kitchen and into Prosper White.”

EB’s face glowed so brightly, it looked as if she’d been plugged in. “You want me to question her!”

“I do. Find out when she first missed it. If she did miss it. Find out if there’s any connection between her and the Chamberses, Martin, or Alicia Kennedy. And see if anyone was in her kitchen in the past three weeks who shouldn’t have been there.”

“Got it.”

Somebody knocked at the office door.

“That’ll be Professor Chambers.” EB turned to her computer. “Requests for records, first. You bring him back here after you two talk; I’ll have everything ready for him to sign.”

“Thank you, EB.” She looked up as Allard Chambers walked in. He was wearing a tweed sports jacket, a tie, and chinos and carrying a plastic grocery bag. “You’re dressed up this morning.”

“I stopped by the Chatham County Jail to leave a few things off for Jillian. They wouldn’t let me see her.” He swung the bag. “They wouldn’t let me drop this off, either. It’s just some shampoo and a few energy bars.”

“It was good of you to try,” Bree said kindly. “Mrs. Billingsley is going to make up a few documents for you to sign. While she’s doing that, can I take you to breakfast?”

He blinked. “Breakfast.”

“Some food will do us both good. There’s a café right around the corner.”

He kept his replies to a minimum as she escorted him down the elevator and across the street to the Pirate’s Cove Bar and All Night Restaurant. Yes, he’d slept all right, considering. As for her fee—he had five or six hundred dollars in an emergency fund; he’d stop by the bank and get her a check.

“We can wait on that for a moment.”

He waited courteously while she seated herself in the booth, and then sat across from her. “It’s good of you to take this on, Athena.”

“We have to talk about our approach to the defense.”

“Is there one?” he said unhappily. He covered his face with his hands. “If there was any justice, I’d be sitting in that holding pen, not my wife.”