Angel's Verdict Part 22

Bree was tired and snappish. "It most certainly does not happen all the time. But it happened here. There wouldn't have been a cover-up if Haydee hadn't been pregnant. The child she bore five months after Norris attacked her was almost certainly Commissioner Oliver's. Craig Oliver seems to think so, anyway, since that was the man who raised him. Although unless somebody orders some paternity testing, no one will know for sure. Justine just shrugged when I asked her directly. And she's lied so much and so often I wouldn't trust it if she did say so. My guess is she's not sure who the father was, and doesn't care much."

"She must be a cold, cold woman." EB picked up a shrimp and set it down again. "So there was no murder at all, was there? All this fandango and Haydee Quinn's as alive as you or me."

Bree was grim and angry. "Murder was done, make no mistake about that. Three murders. Three innocents. Poor Flurry. Bagger Bill Norris, executed by the state for a crime that wasn't committed. And Charis Jefferson, whose dearest wish in life was to become a star like Lena Horne. It was her body that Alexander Bulloch burned that night by the banks of the Savannah River."

"Justine confessed to all this?" Antonia said. "How come she isn't in jail with poor Craig Oliver?"

"Don't waste any sympathy on Craig Oliver." Bree rubbed her eyes with the heels of both hands. "He admitted to having a role in Florida's death. Hunter may have to reduce the charge to manslaughter. I hope not. As to why Haydee isn't in jail . . . Hunter doesn't have any admissible evidence to charge her with a thing. Except complicity in the false reporting of a death, and the statute of limitations ran out on that years ago."

EB shoved the bowl of shrimp at her. "Eat something, child. You look like death warmed over."

"And then start from the beginning," Antonia said.

EB frowned. "She needs her sleep."

"You're not tired, are you, Bree?"

"I'm not tired, I'm mad as h.e.l.l."

"She's not tired, EB. She said so herself. I can't believe this. The Craig Oliver arrested for murder. Are you sure he killed Florida Smith? Why did he do it?"

Bree ate a shrimp. Then another one. "I'm sure he did it. As to why he did it? I suppose he's the only one with the true answer, and Hunter says he's already lawyered up. So maybe we'll never know for sure. But I'll tell you this. I'm convinced that Haydee pressured Craig for the job on Bitter Tide so she could keep an eye on Flurry's research. She couldn't afford to have the truth come out after all these years-and Craig couldn't, either. Haydee didn't want to go to jail, and Craig's career wouldn't have survived the scandal."

Antonia ran her hands through her hair. "All that stuff Justine, I mean Haydee, told you about the sabotage?"

"Haydee herself. Mercury was right. She was trying her best to derail the shoot any way she could. Poor little Tyra was ripe for the suggestion that she was 'possessed' by Haydee's spirit. And it was easy for Haydee to flub her lines, trip and fall, mess up equipment. I almost feel sorry for Vincent White and Phillip Mercury. Almost."

"And when Flurry started getting too close to the truth?" EB asked.

Bree nodded. "Flurry had to go, too."

"Thing I can't get is a mamma turning in her own blood." EB looked grim. "Can't believe it."

"It started and ended with Haydee's ambition. Her ego. Her arrogance. She wanted to be a star. She grew up poor. Most important, she grew up poor in the '40s, Tonia, and neither one of us knows what it was like for smart, ambitious women then.

"For Haydee, with her looks, men were the only sure route to success. So that started early, and because Haydee wanted to get up and get out fast, it was often. She must have had some magic that I don't see now, with age and rampant selfishness having taken their toll on her face and personality, but men fell hard for her. Norris wasn't the first. Creighton Oliver and Alexander Bulloch weren't the last.

"Anyhow, she had a violent argument with Norris the night of July 3. She was pregnant. She wasn't going to be able to dance much longer. He wanted her to get rid of it. She wanted to use the baby for blackmail.

"Norris picked up the knife from the counter and slashed at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She still has the scars-they're faint, but they're there. Her blood was on the telephone at the bar, by the way, so we can confirm that she made a phone call. She called Oliver at home. Hunter can verify that with old records. I think Haydee demanded that Oliver come and get her and help her get out of town. There's a witness statement from the dancer Charis Jefferson, now lost, that suggests Creighton arrived at the bar around one thirty and picked her up. Craig Oliver claims that Haydee told him his father refused to have anything to do with faking her death. I think that's true, and that initially, he refused.

"Did Haydee jump in the river in a fit of despair? Maybe. Justine is the only one who knows, and she's not talking. Did Creighton Oliver throw her in? I doubt it. She was pregnant with his child. My personal guess is that she slipped and fell. And the fisherman pulled her out.

"At the hospital she must have demanded to see Alexander Bulloch senior, and most important, Alex's mother, Consuelo. I think she told them the price of her leaving her son alone was to help fake her death. Haydee took it from there. She's nothing if not resourceful.

"I don't think the Bullochs were involved in the murder of Charis Jefferson. I think Haydee came up with that on her own, although they were certainly complicit in the disposal of the body. She appeared at young Alex's bedside, having provided a handy corpse, and Alex did what she asked. Whether he knew he was burning the body of an innocent victim or not, the whole affair tipped him into a breakdown."

"My Lord," EB said. "That poor Charis. How did Haydee get to her?"

"Haydee had a pretty decent setup. The Bullochs were well connected then. Their family physician was part owner of a funeral home. The physician, Dr. Warren, signed a death certificate, and there's hospital doc.u.ments that show a body was transported to the funeral home the afternoon of July 3. Haydee agreed to turn the child she was carrying over to the Olivers after the baby was born, so Creighton Oliver ended up partic.i.p.ating in a cover-up after all. Anyhow, Haydee had cash, and Haydee had a bus ticket. All she needed was a body to bury. She had a candidate-the one person who could have blown the whole story apart.

"I think once she had the Bullochs and Oliver on board, she called her best friend at the Tropicana Tide, Charis Jefferson, who had seen the white Buick pick up Haydee after the altercation with Norris. Haydee asked Charis to pack up her things for her and bring them to the funeral home.

"Craig Oliver says his mother planned to leave town on a bus to go north at this point, with money from Creighton Oliver. My guess is that she had a bunch of cash from the Bullochs, too. I don't have admissible proof that all this occurred, but we have supporting doc.u.ments. Where it gets tricky is in the area of what happened next. Haydee knows. But Haydee isn't talking. I think Charis either asked Haydee for money or threatened to blow the whole thing apart. I'm as sure as anything that Haydee killed her, left her body in the funeral home, and showed up at Alexander Bulloch's bedside. I think she told him to burn the body. I also think she told him the baby was his, and that if he did this for her, they could run away together as they planned. So Alexander burned the body, Haydee skipped town without him, and the poor guy ended up spending a couple of years in what was euphemistically called a rest home."

"The police can't prove any of this?" Antonia demanded.

"They can probably prove everything up to who's responsible for Charis's murder," Bree said. "Haydee's lived too long and is too smart to confess to it now. But I'll tell you one thing: I'll go to my grave convinced that Haydee killed her. Haydee's medical records from the hospital and the autopsy report on Charis's body show nearly identical wound patterns. Who is most likely to have replicated that but Haydee herself?"

Antonia ran her hands through her hair again. It was beginning to look like a bird's nest. "Yeah, but Bree, was the autopsy report faked, too? You said Charis Jefferson was African-American. Haydee Quinn was white."

"Wouldn't have occurred to a coroner back then that a black woman and a white woman look the same inside," EB said. "Body was burned pretty good, from what they said."

Antonia pulled back. "You're kidding, of course."

EB smiled at Bree. "You ask your sister, Tonia. She knows."

Bree nodded. "You've never encountered old-style racism, Tonia. With a little discreet pressure from the commissioner's office to get the autopsy over and the body buried as fast as possible, you don't think that could have happened? I do. Charis was female, the same age as Haydee, and about the same height. A coroner who just wanted to get it over with wouldn't look much past that." Bree got up and stretched. She was beginning to feel the effects of her all-nighter. "I've got one more thing to do this afternoon. I'll see you all later."

"Hey!" Antonia rapped her knuckles on the table. "What about Craig Oliver killing Florida Smith?"

"Florida was getting too close to the truth. She was putting the pieces together, just the way we did. Flurry learned about the white Buick that picked up Haydee the night of the a.s.sault, traced the Buick to Creighton Oliver, and called Craig about it Sat.u.r.day night. Craig called his mother. When Sammi-Rose Waterman whacked Flurry over the head on Monday, Justine-Haydee-grabbed the opportunity to confront Flurry in her trailer. Craig Oliver says Flurry ran out of the trailer clutching the ma.n.u.script and fell into the river. Me? I think Haydee pushed her and kept Craig from calling for help. Either way, they have the ma.n.u.script."

"Any water marks on it?" EB asked.

Bree's smile was tight. "Not a one." She'd left her tote bag on the floor near the kitchen table. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulder. "I have one last thing to do. I'll see y'all in a bit."

Most of the cemeteries in Savannah were serene, well-tended s.p.a.ces. The Belle Glade cemetery wasn't one of them. It was small, the landscape ill tended, and the graves themselves neglected or forgotten. Bree stood outside the wrought iron gate for a long moment. Justine stood under a live oak, half hidden by a sweep of Spanish moss. She stared down at a small headstone.

Bree let herself in and followed the weedy gravel path on its winding way through the tombstones. She pa.s.sed Haydee's angel weeping over the flat stone, and paused to run her hand over the angel's marble wing.

Justine looked up, startled at Bree's approach.

"You look surprised to see me," Bree said.

"What do you want?" Her voice was ugly.

"Did you think I was going to let things stand as they are?" Bree's hand went to the back of her head, where the hair was growing back too slowly. Maybe she could charge the woman with a.s.sault, if nothing else.

Justine fingered the peac.o.c.k pin at her throat. "You can prove nothing," she said. Her voice was harsh.

"Maybe not in this life," Bree said pleasantly. "But surely in the next." She stood beside Justine and looked down at the headstone: CONSUELO BULLOCH BELOVED MOTHER 1929 TO 1978.

"Stuck-up b.i.t.c.h," Justine said.

Bree wasn't sure whether Justine was referring to her dead client or to her. It didn't really matter.

" 'Beloved Mother.' What a joke. Look at this place." She swept a contemptuous glare around the decrepit grounds.

Bree propped herself against a nearby tomb and slung her cane over one arm. "Dixie had a curious story to tell me."

"Another stuck-up b.i.t.c.h."

"She said you worked for Consuelo in the early '70s."

Justine raised her head. Her gaze was steady. A nasty smile curled her lips. "I had a bit of a dry spell in the thee-ay-ter. Movies, too. You might remember it. There were a couple of years when drama was moving from the grand old stories that I grew up on, to this modern stuff. For a while, n.o.body wanted me. So I was broke. Nothing new in that. I've been broke off and on most of my life. But Savannah had been good to me, one way or another. It was a place to get renewed." Her smile got nastier. "And to get myself a family lawyer."

Bree's gaze was just as steady. "You're lucky no one recognized you."

"Consuelo did."

And Franklin? Had Franklin known? Bree clenched her hands so tightly she could feel her nails sink into her palms.

Justine dropped her eyes to the ground. "The brats were too young, of course." Her fingertips brushed her cheeks. She ran her hands over her chin and nose. "And I'd had a little work done, right off. Wouldn't do to have the world recognize me as Haydee Quinn, would it? So Haydee had to go. Justine took her place."

The triumph in her voice chilled Bree to the bone. "So you came back and blackmailed Consuelo Bulloch into a job."

Justine wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Blackmail. Blackmail. Ugly word. But you see the world in an ugly way, Miss Fancy Lawyer Beaufort. The way I saw it. The way I see it now, that woman owed me. I didn't have a whole lot to lose right then. Didn't matter to me if the whole town knew about the trick I'd pulled off. Consuelo Bulloch feared scandal more than anything. Stuck-up b.i.t.c.h." The smile got uglier. "You know I met her for the first time that night. After Billy pitched a fit in the Tropi and tried to mess me up. She was just like I thought she'd be. Nose in the air. Jealous. All in a hoorah over her precious baby boy. You know she had the nerve to tell Alex we could get married after all?" Justine lifted her chin, flung out her arms, and for an eerie moment, Bree saw what Consuelo must have looked like in life. Her voice took on a soft Southern drawl. "Now that I see how it is with you, Alex, I won't stand in your way. Go ahead. Marry her!" Justine let her arms drop with a contemptuous snort. "What does that little s.l.u.t Tyra say? 'As if!' That's it. As if she really would have let baby Alex marry! As if I wanted to stick around this backwater town when I could go to New York City."

"It might have been true," Bree said quietly. "That she dropped her objections to your marriage."

"She didn't want to give me any money," Justine said. "That's what that was all about. She didn't want to fork it over then, or when I came back almost twenty years later."

"Which was when you thought you might tempt Alexander back into your life." This was a guess. Bree saw immediately that it'd hit home. "But that didn't work. Creighton Oliver didn't want to have anything to do with you, either."

"Most men do and did," Justine said reflectively. "Alexander? He was weak and crazy to boot. Creighton, he was different. Took me a little time to get him to come around with a proper amount of money to set me back up in Hollywood. But when he saw I meant to stick around at the Bullochs' ..." She raised her hands, palms up, and clenched them. "He paid up. Didn't want to mess up that nice life he had with his wife and my son. But, don't worry, I'd find my baby boy again when he became a star," Justine said. "And you know the d.a.m.n Bullochs were near broke themselves? Couldn't believe it. All that money gone. All that holier-than-thou att.i.tude. And they didn't have a dime."

"Consuelo paid in a different way, didn't she?" Bree said. "So did Charis Jefferson. Do you come to gloat over her grave, too?"

"I haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about."

" 'Buried right next to each other.' Isn't that what you told me that first day in my office? Efficient, if nothing else, having two of your victims next to one another in death."

Justine's expression didn't change, but she hissed like a snake. "You can't prove a thing."

"You know how sophisticated forensic science is. Your work on Bristol Blues should have given you a pretty good idea of what a determined pathologist can do."

"Don't be absurd." She s.h.i.+fted impatiently. "What is it you want, Miss Beaufort?"

"Of course, it depends on how you killed her. She had a weak heart, the family said. She became dizzy. Slipped and fell in the bathtub. Struck her head. And she eventually died of it. Because somebody held her under. Just like Florida Smith." Bree took the tin box out of her pocket and opened it up. "Do you know what's in here? Bobby Lee Kowalski keeps mementos of his unsolved cases. Consuelo Bulloch had a fistful of hair in her hands when she fell in that tub. I wonder if Charis does, too." She held up the sealed evidence packet. The coil of hair inside was as black as a crow's wing. As black as a starless night. "Look familiar?"

"d.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l," Justine said. "Get out of here. Get out!"

"So I got out," Bree said into the cell phone. She was sitting in her car, outside the cemetery. Her first thought had been to call Hunter. "Left her standing alone in the cemetery, by the graves of two of her victims. I suppose Bagger Bill Norris is in a pauper's grave somewhere. Or the equivalent. Anyhow, she's gone now. A cab drew up a little while ago and picked her up."

"It'll be a tricky case to prove," Hunter said.

"Impossible, I should think. But she knows I know, Hunter. That's something, isn't it? And I made her turn over that peac.o.c.k pin." The pin lay next to her, in the pa.s.senger seat. It seemed to her that the bird's ruby eye looked reproachful.

"We'll look into it. To tell you the truth, I don't think the county would have held on to evidence from a sixty-year-old murder case. We'll see."

"It's like hunting old n.a.z.is."

"Come again?"

Bree sighed. "Once in a while, even now, there'll be a news story about how somebody's identified a ninety-year-old guy who was a guard at Bergen-Belsen or some other awful place. Justice demands accountability. But there again, there's this ninety-year-old guy, frail, sick, old. So the state puts him through a trial, and he can barely sit upright on the witness stand." Bree rubbed her forehead with her free hand. "I don't know what to do."

"Leave it to me. It's not your problem anymore. I'm not sure why you made it your problem in the first place. You need to come home. You've been pus.h.i.+ng yourself too hard. It's late. I'm a little worried about you. I'm going to pick up something for us to eat, and I'll meet you at the town house. That okay with you?"

Suddenly, she wanted nothing more on earth than Hunter's arms around her. "That sounds more than okay. That sounds wonderful. But could we make it tomorrow? I've got pleadings to write tonight and a court appearance in the morning."

"Tomorrow, then. Will Antonia be at the theater?"

She could hear both the smile and the hope in his voice. "Every day and every night for the rest of the week."

"Just wanted to know how much food to bring."

"Till then." Bree clicked off.

She had a Celestial Court case in the morning. Finally, she had a defense.

It was getting dark. She picked up the jeweled peac.o.c.k and slipped out of the car. Without the sun, the air was cold. The wind picked up, bringing the scent of rain. Bree held the brooch in the palm of her hand and said firmly, "Mrs. Bulloch? Consuelo?"

At first, Bree was sure she wasn't going to get through. Then, Consuelo's shadow stirred and s.h.i.+fted, wrapping her hand in a dark swirl of something that Bree could only think of as Not. Not human, not earthly, not real, as she knew reality. She didn't have words to describe it. She had no reference point.

Miss Winston-Beaufort?

"Yes," Bree said. "It's me. I discovered how you died, Mrs. Bulloch. I'm extremely sorry."

Treachery.

"Yes. The worst kind. Mrs. Bulloch, I'm going to schedule your appeal. I want to let you know what I'm going to say in your defense."

My treachery. I regret . . . I'm so sorry . . .

"Genuine penitence is a very good thing for the court to hear, Mrs. Bulloch. So that will help. There's something else, though." Bree hesitated. "You hated Haydee Quinn."

Bad for my boy.

"Yes, she probably was. Haydee claims you would have allowed them to marry, the night she came to you for help after Bill Norris stabbed her. Is that so?"

Bad for my boy. Worse for my boy without her.

Bree nodded. "You loved your son Alexander. That's really clear. And it seems to have been unselfish. I just wanted you to know that I'll do my best for you."

The wraith faded in her hands to nothing.

Bree went home to prepare her case.