The Wrath of Angels

  ‘So: that’s our story,’ said Marielle Vetters. ‘What do you think?

  ‘You want something stronger than coffee now?’ I asked. ‘Because I do.’

  Ernie Scollay consented to a small whisky, and Marielle accepted a glass of Cab Sauv. I had the same, although I barely sipped it. I just liked having it in my hand. There was also the fact that Ernie hadn’t relaxed for a single moment since he’d entered the bar. He may not have been much of a drinker, by his own admission, but now that the story was told he clearly felt that he’d earned a glass for his efforts. Some of the tension went out of his body with the first sip. He leaned back in the booth and tuned out of the conversation, his thoughts elsewhere, perhaps with his dead brother, standing beside Paul’s closed casket.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marielle. ‘We felt that we had to tell you what happened: both of my parents mentioned you before their deaths.’

  ‘Why didn’t he come to me himself after his wife spoke of me?’ I said.

  ‘He told me that he didn’t think it would do any good, and Paul Scollay counseled him against it too. They were always frightened about the money. They were afraid that, if they came to you, then you’d report them to the police. But you were supposed to hear about what my father did, which was why he waited until the law could do nothing to him before he spoke to me of you. As for me, I guess I wanted you to advise us. We were afraid that man Brightwell might come back, but if what you say is true there’s no chance of that.’

  My hand tightened involuntarily on my wine glass. Marielle was wrong. I had been warned not to kill Brightwell: he was supposed to be taken alive because there were those who believed that the entity that animated him, the dark spirit that kept his decaying body moving, would depart at the moment of his death and migrate to another form. Only the host body died: the infection remained. Frankly, I didn’t think there was enough whisky and wine in the world to make Ernie Scollay and Marielle Vetters happy to hear that. Anyway, it might not even be true. After all, who would be foolish enough to believe such a thing?

  ‘No, no chance,’ I said. Little chance. Perhaps.

  ‘How did you first come across him?’ said Marielle.

  ‘I encountered him in the course of a case a few years back. He was –’ I searched for the right word, but couldn’t find it, so I settled for ‘unusual.’

  ‘My father had served in Korea. He didn’t think anything could frighten him more than hordes of Chinese coming at him over the brow of a hill, but Brightwell did.’

  ‘He had that capacity. He terrified. He tortured. He murdered.’

  ‘No loss to the world, then.’

  ‘Precious little.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. It’s enough to know that he’s dead.’

  Ernie Scollay came back to us from wherever his thoughts had taken him. He worried at the base of his tie, rubbing it between his fingers as though trying to remove a stain. Eventually, he said: ‘What would happen if the police found out about what Harlan and Paul did?’

  Ah. There it was.

  ‘Are you still worried about the money, Mr Scollay?’

  ‘It’s a lot, at least for a man like me. I never had that much money in my life, and I sure don’t have it now. Could they make us pay it back?’

  ‘It’s possible. Look, let’s be straight with one another here: an act of theft was committed out there in the woods. The money wasn’t theirs to take, but you weren’t aware of the source of the money until Harlan Vetters confessed on his deathbed, right? Your brother never spoke of this to you, did he, Mr Scollay?’

  ‘No,’ he answered, and I believed him. ‘My brother wasn’t above doing some poaching, when it suited him, and I know that he used to smuggle liquor and tobacco too, once upon a time. I got used to him having money in his pocket one day and none the next, but I chose not to ask him how he came by whatever he had.’

  Marielle looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Paul was a smuggler?’

  Ernie shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘I’m not saying he was a master criminal or nothing, but he wasn’t above engaging in illegalities.’

  It was a wonderful turn of phrase. I was starting to like Ernie Scollay more and more.

  ‘Did my father know about Paul’s smuggling?’ asked Marielle.

  ‘I guess so. He had eyes in his head.’

  ‘But he didn’t—?’

  ‘Oh, no, no. Not Harlan.’ Scollay caught my eye, and a corner of his mouth rose mischievously, making him look decades younger. ‘Not that I know of, anyway.’

  ‘It’s an evening of revelations,’ I said. ‘As far as the money is concerned, any potential criminal action died when those men died. A civil action, well, that’s another matter. If you were to go to the police and tell them what you know, and someone came forward with proof of ownership of that money as a consequence, then it’s possible that an attempt could be made to seek restitution from the estates of the deceased men. I’d have to seek advice on that, though. I’m just speculating for now.’

  ‘And if we remain silent?’ said Marielle.

  ‘Then that plane stays where it is until someone else discovers it, assuming that ever happens. Who knows about it? Just you two?’

  Marielle shook her head. ‘No, my brother was there when my father told his story. He knows most of what I do.’

  ‘Most’: that was an interesting choice of word.

  ‘Why “most”?’

  ‘Grady is a troubled man. He’s had problems with alcohol and drugs. My father’s dying hit him hard. They’d always fought, and even on my father’s deathbed they struggled to make up. I think Grady felt angry at my dad, and guilty for what he’d put my dad through by acting like a douche for most of his life. He found it difficult to be in the same room as him. The story my father told, he told to us over the space of two days. Sometimes he’d fall asleep, or lose his concentration. He’d become anxious or frustrated, and we’d have to calm him down and let him rest, but he always came back to the tale. But by then Grady wouldn’t always be around. He was hooking up with old buddies, reliving his youth. It wasn’t quite a party for him, but sometimes it sure seemed that way. In the end, he wasn’t even there when my father finally passed away. One of my dad’s friends had to go drag him from a bar before the body went cold.’

  ‘Can you trust him to keep his mouth shut?’

  Her shoulders sagged. ‘I couldn’t even trust him to stay sober for the funeral.’

  ‘You have to make the possible consequences of loose talk clear to him. Did your father leave much in his will?’

  ‘Hardly anything at all: the house, a little money in the bank. Most of his savings –’ she paused at the word, smiled resignedly, and continued – ‘went to caring for my mother.’

  ‘Who gets the house?’

  ‘Everything was split evenly between us. Even with all of Grady’s problems, my father didn’t want to be seen to favor one child over another. I’m trying to secure a bank loan to buy out Grady’s half of the house. He doesn’t want to live up in the County again, and he certainly doesn’t want to be tied to Falls End. There aren’t enough bars for him, and his exes are mostly married, or overweight, or gone to Texas. The novelty of being back in Falls End wore off about the same time that my dad died.’

  ‘Do you want me to speak to your brother?’

  ‘No. I imagine you can be quite persuasive, but it’s better if I talk him around myself. We get on okay, Grady and I. His beef was with our father, not with me.’

  ‘Well, make sure he understands that, if he talks, the house itself may be at risk, and in that case nobody will get anything. And you, Mr Scollay? Did your brother bequeath you anything when he died?’

  ‘Just his truck, and even then he still owed payments on it. He was only ever renting his house. Money went through my brother’s fingers like sand. I’m just glad that he held onto enough of that
forest cash to make fighting his sickness easier for him, but it was all pretty much spent by the time he died. I guess that’s as it should be. That money was tainted from the moment they found it, and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about any of it now. In conclusion, I got no interest in anybody else hearing about that plane in the woods. In an ideal world, you’d forget we ever told you anything at all.’

  And that seemed to be that, as far as they were concerned. Marielle asked me about payment for my time, and I told her that all I’d done was listen to a story over coffee and wine in a bar. That hardly counted as billable hours. Ernie Scollay looked relieved. He probably didn’t believe that anyone down in the cities did anything for nothing. He asked Marielle if she was ready to go, and she said that she’d follow him in a few minutes, just as soon as he brought the truck around. He looked a little reluctant to leave, as though fearful that there might be further disclosures.

  ‘Go on now, Ernie,’ said Marielle. ‘I just need a moment or two with Mr Parker here about a private matter. I’m not going to speak out of turn.’

  He nodded, shook my hand, and headed out into the evening.

  ‘A private matter?’ I said.

  ‘Private enough. This Brightwell: who was he really? None of that bullshit about him being unusual or nothing. I want to know the truth.’

  ‘You could say that he was a member of a cult. They called themselves “Believers”. That trident symbol on his wrist was an identifying mark.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘For others like himself.’

  ‘And what did they believe in?’

  ‘They believed in the existence of fallen angels. Some of them even believed that they were angels themselves. It’s not an uncommon delusion, although they took it to a rarefied level.’

  ‘Did Brightwell believe he was a fallen angel?’

  ‘He did.’

  She considered what I had just said.

  ‘What did my mother mean when she spoke of a “hidden angel”?’

  There were two possible meanings. The first was a legend arising out of the great banishment of the rebel angels, and their fall from heaven to earth: that one repented and, even though he believed he had no hope of forgiveness for his transgressions, he continued to make recompense, turning his back on his angry, despairing brethren, eventually concealing himself amid the great sprawling mass of humanity.

  But I shared with Marielle the second possibility. ‘Brightwell believed that he was the servant of twin angels, two halves of the same being. One had been found by its enemies a long time before and imprisoned in silver to prevent it from roaming, but Brightwell and the other angel had continued to search for it. They were consumed by their need to free it.’

  ‘Jesus. And did he find what he was looking for?’

  ‘He died finding it but, yes, he thought that he did, at the end.’

  ‘That woman, Darina Flores, could she have shared the same beliefs?’

  ‘If, as it seems, she was with Brightwell when he came to Falls End, then it’s possible.’

  ‘But she didn’t have a mark like that, I asked my father.’

  ‘It might have been hidden. I’ve never heard of Darina Flores until tonight.’

  She sat back and stared at me.

  ‘Why was Brightwell so interested in that plane?’

  ‘Are you asking me to find out?’

  She considered the question and then some of the tension released itself from her.

  ‘No. I think you’re right, and Ernie is too. We should just stay quiet, and leave the plane where it is.’

  ‘In answer to your question, Brightwell wasn’t interested in money, or not as an end in itself. If he was curious about that plane, it was because of something else. If your father was right about a passenger being on that plane, cuffed to a seat, then it’s possible this individual was the object of Brightwell’s curiosity; that, or the papers your father saw. Those names had meaning. They’re a record of some kind. So the cash was only a means to an end for Brightwell. He confronted your father at your mother’s rest home because he and, presumably, the Flores woman were looking out for unusual spending patterns. The cost of your mother’s care qualified.’

  ‘Do you think Brightwell accepted my father’s lie about the source of the funds?’

  ‘Even if he didn’t, he never had the chance to pursue the matter. He died in the same year that he confronted your father.’

  Again, she gave me the stare. She wasn’t a fool. Ernie Scollay might principally have been worried about the police, or someone coming after him for money that he didn’t have, but Marielle Vetters had deeper concerns.

  ‘You called them “Believers”, plural. Even if the woman wasn’t one, that still implies that there are more of them out there, more like him.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘there were never any others like him. He was unpleasant in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. As for the Believers, I think they’ve been wiped out. But this Flores woman may be something different. That’s why it’s better if you and Mr Scollay keep a lid on this. If she’s still out there, you don’t want to bring her down upon yourselves.’

  A horn tooted in the parking lot. Ernie Scollay was growing impatient.

  ‘Your ride’s here,’ I said.

  ‘Ernie knew about the plane before I did,’ said Marielle. ‘His brother told him the story before he died, and it was only when I came to him with the rest of it that he felt compelled to seek advice. He’ll stay quiet now. He’s a good man, but he’s no fool. I’ll work on my brother too. He can be an idiot, but he’s a self-aware idiot. He won’t want to put easy money at risk.’

  ‘And you’re not going to say anything either.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Which just leaves you.’

  ‘I’m not bound by issues of client confidentiality since, strictly speaking, you’re not a client, but I know what these people are like. I’m not going to put you, your family, or Mr Scollay at risk.’

  She nodded in understanding, both at what I had said and its subtext, and rose.

  ‘I have one last question, Mr Parker,’ she said. ‘Do you believe in fallen angels?’

  I did not lie to her.

  ‘Yes, I think I do.’

  From her bag she produced a sheet of paper. It looked old, and had clearly been unfolded and refolded many times. She placed it by my right hand.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘My father left the satchel on the plane, but he took from it one sheet of names. He couldn’t say why. I think he saw it as some form of additional security. If something happened to him or to Paul, then this might have provided a clue to the identity of those responsible.’

  She rested her hand on my shoulder as she passed.

  ‘Just don’t mention our names,’ she said, and then she was gone.

  In the pristine kitchen of a Connecticut house, Barbara Kelly was fighting for what little life she had left.

  Darina Flores took an instant to react to the pain as the coffee struck her face. She screamed and raised her hands, as though she could simply wipe the liquid from her face. Then it began to burn, and her shrieks rose in pitch as she stumbled back against the kitchen island. Her legs tangled under her, and she fell to the floor. The boy’s mouth formed a silent ‘o’ of shock. He froze, and Barbara pushed him aside so hard that the back of his head hit the marble countertop with a hollow, sickening sound that set her teeth on edge. She didn’t look back, not even when she felt Darina’s nails raking at her ankle. Barbara almost lost her footing, but she held her nerve and kept her eyes fixed on the hall stand, and her car keys, and the front door.

  She grabbed the keys in passing, yanked the door open, and found herself out in the pounding rain, the car parked a few feet away in the drive. She clicked the ‘unlock’ button on the fob, the lights came on, and the car beeped its welcome. She already had the driver’s door fully open when something landed on her back, wrapping its legs around her belly as its
hands tore at her hair and eyes. She turned her head and saw the boy’s face close to the left side of her own. His mouth opened, revealing nasty, rodentlike teeth, and he bit hard into her cheek, tearing at the flesh until a chunk of it came away; now it was Barbara’s turn to scream. She reached behind her, pulling at his windbreaker, trying to yank him off. He held on tightly, and now his jaws were coming in for a second bite, this time at her neck.

  She slammed him hard against the body of the car, and felt the wind go out of him. She did it again, and this time she followed through with the back of her head. His nose broke against her skull, and he released his grip on her, but he knocked the keys from her hand as he fell. He slumped to the ground, one hand protecting his ruined nose. She turned on him and aimed a sharp kick at his ribs. God, her face hurt! She could see her reflection in the glass, a jagged red hole the size of a silver dollar in her cheek.

  She looked to the gravel and found the keys. She bent to pick them up, and when she stood again Darina was behind her. Barbara had no time to react before the knife sliced at her left leg, cutting the tendons behind the knee. She went down hard, and the full weight of the woman struck her, followed by more pain as the second sweep of the blade disabled Barbara’s right leg. Now she was the one being kicked as the woman forced her onto her back, forced her to gaze upon what Barbara had done to her looks.

  Darina would never be beautiful again. Most of her face was a deep, scalded red. Her left eye was red and swollen. From the way she held her head, Barbara could tell that she was now blind in that eye.