Free Murder Among the Angels by Stefanie Matteson

relative of the founder.”
    “The granddaughter,” Jerry said. He continued: “By and large, the Swedenborgians believe that it’s dangerous to try to see over to the other side, as they call the afterworld. But they admit that the barrier is sometimes lowered, allowing people to communicate with the angels.”
    “And is this what Miss Archibald thinks happened to her?” Charlotte asked. “That her niece appeared to her as an angel?”
    “At first, she did. Or, I should say, she was confused. She wasn’t sure if the young woman she saw was an angel, or a real person. If she had believed wholeheartedly that the young woman she saw was an angel, she wouldn’t have bothered coming to me. I don’t deal with angels,” he added.
    “I would think that real people would be hard enough,” Charlotte said. “I wonder if you can photograph an angel?” she mused.
    Jerry continued: “But after the second sighting, she was convinced she was a real person. And now, of course, she’s come up with the amnesia scenario.”
    “How exactly did the niece die?” Charlotte asked.
    “She was on vacation with her husband, Dr. Louria.”
    “Is he a Swedenborgian?” Charlotte asked, thinking it must be hard to reconcile a belief in angels with a career in medicine.
    “No. They met when he moved here. Most of the houses on the river side of River Road have been bought up by non-Swedenborgians. They’ve become too expensive for the locals.”
    Charlotte nodded.
    “The accident happened on the last day of their vacation, just before they were due to head out to the airport,” Jerry continued. “They had decided to take a last swim on a deserted beach, not realizing that it was infamous for its riptides. She was carried off by the undertow.”
    “What about Dr. Louria?” she asked.
    “He tried to save her, but he couldn’t reach her in time. He got caught in the current and nearly drowned himself. I suspect that Miss Archibald’s delusions, if you want to call them that, have been fostered somewhat by Dr. Louria’s actions after his wife’s death.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “From what I understand, he had a difficult time accepting the fact that his wife was dead. He made a number of trips to Mexico to make inquiries in the villages on Cozumel and along the coast of Yucatán about a missing gringa with red hair who might have washed ashore.”
    But Charlotte was still thinking about the girl’s brokenhearted aunt. “Getting back to Miss Archibald …”
    He nodded.
    “Are you going to do anything about her request?”
    Jerry picked up the piece of paper on which he had written down the name and address and looked at it for a moment. Then he stuffed it into his pants pocket. “I don’t know. If I have some spare time, I might make a few inquiries, just to get her off my back.”
    Charlotte had picked up the photograph from Jerry’s files again. “She was a beautiful girl.”
    “Gorgeous, from what everyone says,” Jerry said. He looked at his watch. “How about lunch? I’d still like to take you to Sebastian’s.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Charlotte replied.
    Sebastian’s restaurant was situated a mile or so to the north in a charming hamlet of dollhouse-like Victorian homes that Jerry said had been built to house the hundreds of artisans that Edward Archibald had imported from Europe to build his Utopian community. The hamlet, which was named Corinth, was the same place that Mrs. Archibald had given as the address for the Lily Louria look-alike. It was situated on a steep bank overlooking the Hudson, and, according to Jerry, had in recent years undergone a renaissance at the hands of yuppie defectors from urban life. Lured by the charm and low cost of the housing stock, the outstanding reputation of the local schools, and the magnificent river vistas, they had renovated the houses one by one, slowly turning what had been a down-at-the-heels blue-collar town into one of the most desirable communities on