The little maid-the clever one-told me that the poor Major was heard to say, “Oh, Lucy, why did you do it?” But this may be put down to the ravings of a delirious man. Indeed, I have given the matter much thought, and I have decided that if Lucy Avery made away with her husband, she is a cleverer woman than I take her for, for I cannot see how she could have accomplished it.
The Compsons stayed on after the death of Major Todhunter, ostensibly to give aid and comfort to their bereaved kinswoman, but also perhaps because the local law-enforcement people wanted them to be available for questioning, and to testify at the forthcoming trial.
I told them all I knew, Mary Hadley Compson recalled. Which was that Lucy seemed a dutiful helpmeet, and a sympathetic nurse to the dying Major. She had voiced no complaint to me about her marriage, and at no time did I see her behaving in a sinister fashion, with potions or anything of the sort She gave him a pastry, I told them in court, and I know it was not tainted, because we all ate from the same plate. Any one of us could have chosen the one he ate. So there! Mercifully, Lucy has been acquitted, and we have not spoken of the unpleasantness, although she knows that we are anxious to leave. We think it might not be wise to eat too many Virginia… pastries.
“Ha! Mary Compson suspects Lucy, too!” said Elizabeth, tapping the paper. “But she isn’t sure of her guilt, because she can’t figure out how it was done. Neither could anybody else, which is the only reason Lucy was acquitted. How do you poison a man with a doughnut, when you didn’t have the opportunity to tamper with it? I wish I knew. But, clearly, nobody thinks the major did it to himself. And why did he cry out, ‘Lucy, why did you do it?’ I have to figure out what it was that she could have done.”
By the time Elizabeth had finished reading the Compsons’ testimony about their visit to the ill-fated household, and then the medical reports of the deceased, she was fairly certain that she knew the motive for the murder of Major Todhunter, and she had a suspicion about what might have caused his death, but now she needed to do some reading on nineteenth-century medicine-or nineteenth-century ailments.
If I’m right, this will be one of those good news/bad news situations, thought Elizabeth. I hope Bill looks on the bright side. I think his client’s great-grandmother committed murder, but not in a way that Donna Jean Morgan could duplicate. Now I suppose I’ll have to figure out that poisoning, too.
Elizabeth looked at the clock. Just after ten, but this was urgent. She found Edith’s home phone number scribbled on the erasable message board in the kitchen, and dialed the number. “I know it’s late,” she told the secretary, “but I remembered that Bill said you had gone with him to Chevry Morgan’s church one night. I wondered if you could give me directions on how to get there. I need to look at the place as part of my investigation.”
“You sure do,” said Edith. “We got a call from the widow Morgan late this afternoon. They’ve arrested her for murder. I thought I’d wait until she was convicted to notify the Nobel Prize people.”
“I thought she claimed to be innocent.”
“Just modesty, I expect,” said Edith. “But I realize that Bill has to get her off, because her husband has done enough harm to her without inconveniencing her with a prison sentence, so you just let me know how I can help.”
“Can you tell me how to find the church, Edith?”
“Well… it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. Anyhow, I can’t remember all those three-digit state road numbers that they use for those cow paths. It would be easier just to show you where it is. Do you want to go tomorrow?”
“Yes, but I was planning to go early. I also need to drive to Charlottesville tomorrow to consult the UVA medical library. How long will it take us to find the church?”
“Let’s allow two hours for the round-trip and the poking around,” said Edith. “Meet me at Shoney’s at six, and we’ll have the breakfast buffet before we drive out there.”
“Thank you, Edith,” said Elizabeth. “I really appreciate your taking the time and trouble to do this for me.”
“You’re buying breakfast,” said Edith, followed by a dial tone.
Elizabeth replaced the receiver, still thinking about the poisoning cases. She supposed that she ought to go to bed if the day’s research was going to start so early. Somewhat startled, she realized that she had not thought about Cameron Dawson for nearly two hours.
“What do you mean, my lawyer’s in Florida?” asked Donna Jean Morgan, her eyes red from crying.
“He’s getting depositions for another case,” said A. P. Hill. She was uncomfortable in the presence of strong emotion, and she hoped she wouldn’t be expected to bestow comforting hugs, or to cope with hysterical outbursts from this poor, drab woman.
“But I’ve been charged with murder, ma’am,” wailed Donna Jean. “How could he leave me at a time like this?”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” murmured A. P. Hill automatically. “I answer to Powell, or A.P., or just about anything, except honey.” A guard had just tried that last one, and received a blistering lecture on the deportment of law-enforcement personnel, delivered in an icy tone from four inches below his shoulder patch. Bill hadn’t been able to get an evening flight back into Danville, because the connecting flights were full, so he’d phoned to say that he was taking the red-eye to Charlotte, and the puddle jumper he’d be on from there would get him to Danville about ten in the morning. That seemed fine until an hour later, when Donna Jean Morgan had used her traditional jailhouse phone call to summon her lawyer, as she had just been charged with her husband’s murder. A. P. Hill hoped that nothing would delay her partner’s return: she couldn’t cope with two murder cases at once. Eleanor Royden was more trouble than a shoe full of fire ants.
“They said they got the autopsy back, and that Chevry had arsenic in him. They’re saying I poisoned him. I just knew they’d blame me!” Tears trickled out of her swollen eyes.
“But you didn’t do it?” asked Powell Hill. She asked merely out of curiosity; it was Bill’s case, but, personally, she would have taken an ax to the old trout weeks earlier, and she marveled at Donna Jean Morgan’s self-restraint. (Had the woman not been a client of the firm, A. P. Hill would have characterized her behavior with words less charitable than self-restraint.)
“I did not kill my husband,” said Donna Jean. “Not that anyone will believe that, on account of my great-grandma being a famous poisoner and all.”
“Oh, yes, Lucy Todhunter. Well, don’t worry about that, Mrs. Morgan. The sins of one’s ancestor are not admissible as evidence in a court of law. What Lucy did or didn’t do has no bearing whatsoever on your case. Besides, MacPherson and Hill have their best investigator working on your husband’s murder. We may find evidence that will give the DA something else to think about.” She forbore to mention that MacPherson and Hill’s “best investigator,” Elizabeth, was in fact the firm’s only investigator. The poor woman needed reassuring, after all.
“I don’t see how anybody else could have done it. Tanya Faith sure had no reason to want him dead.” Donna Jean looked thoughtful. “I expect she would have, you know, in a few years’ time. When she realized what-all she missed of her youth, and what a dull, sorry life she’d be leading as an old man’s darling, I reckon she’d wish him dead fast enough, but right now she was as high as a wave on a slop bucket. So don’t think you can pin this on her.”
“We don’t have to pin it on anybody,” said A. P. Hill. “All we have to do is to provide a reasonable doubt about your guilt. Rounding up other suspects is the sheriff’s job, not ours.”
“Do you think that Mr. MacPherson can convince them I didn’t do it?”
“He believes in you,” said A. P. Hill, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “We’ll do everything we can. Starting with a bail hearing.” She glanced at her watch. “You may have to trust me to handle that for you. Bill’s plane is delayed.”
Donna Jean Morgan nodded politely. “I’m sure Mr. Ma
cPherson has taught you everything he knows.”
Professional loyalty kept A. P. Hill solemn. “I guess he has,” she agreed. “Now let’s see if they feel like letting you out of here.”
10
“I SUPPOSE YOU’RE related to the general?” said Eleanor Royden, when her attorney joined her at the conference table. She nodded toward A. P. Hill’s navy-blue suit and tailored blouse. “You look like you’re in uniform, too.”
A. P. Hill sighed. “Leave it to you not to want to talk about your impending murder trial,” she said.
“Well, it isn’t as if it’s coming anytime soon,” Eleanor pointed out. “Besides, I just found out that there was a Confederate general called A. P. Hill. I’d heard of the Boy Scout camp by that name in northern Virginia. I suppose that’s named for him, too. He was no Boy Scout, though.” Eleanor chuckled. “Imagine catching syphilis while you’re a West Point cadet. I hope you didn’t inherit that, too.”
“I didn’t.” A. P. Hill scowled. “That was a few generations back. Where did all this historical trivia come from?”
“I have been reading,” said Eleanor triumphantly. “I never had much time for it before, but now that I am a lady of leisure, I have taken to cultivating my mind. Unfortunately, the jailhouse library consists of dog-eared Louis L’Amours, and a full collection of tomes about the Civil War, donated by the widow of the judge who collected them. That’s one way to clean house. Of course, it’s fairly tedious for me, having to sit around my cell day after day, reading about that tiresome war.”
“I expect it is,” said A. P. Hill. As a reenactor, Powell Hill’s idea of heaven would be to sit around all day with nothing to do but read books about the War. Maybe I should shoot someone, she thought. Time to get back to business. “Are you ready to talk about the battle in progress, Eleanor?”
“Not yet. I had a question. Are you, by any chance, a bastard?”
Powell blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, your last name is Hill, but I was reading a biography of the general, and it mentioned that all his children were daughters, which means that they should have ended up with different surnames, so, of course, I wondered-”
The attorney sighed. Everybody wondered. Sooner or later real war buffs always got around to delicately phrasing that question. “It’s like this,” she said. “I’m descended from the general’s youngest daughter, Ann Powell Hill, who was born June sixth in Culpeper, a few weeks after her father’s death. She married Randolph Junkin and, since there were no other descendants, the couple decided to preserve the general’s name by calling themselves Randolph and Ann Hill-Junkin. When the family moved to southwest Virginia in the 1930s, the male heir thought that the name was too pretentious sounding for a rural law practice, so he dropped the Junkin part. Personally, I’m glad they kept Hill, because of the historical connection, and because I like the sound of it. So I am descended from Confederate general A. P. Hill. Okay?”
“God,” said Eleanor. “You’re so straitlaced, you can’t even be a party to a scandal once removed. Enough about your ancestors! You’re almost as boring as the jail library.”
“How gratifying,” said her attorney. “Then you’ll be thrilled by a change of subject. Dr. Stanfield has given me his report.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Skippy, the Boy Shrink. That must have been fun reading. What’d he say about my little legal problem? That I should have reloaded and fired again?”
A. P. Hill frowned. “No. Remember that you want him to find psychological problems in your personality, because that’s what will keep you from being convicted for first-degree murder.” She opened her briefcase and withdrew a computer printout. “He says you’re narcissistic, overly dramatic, and… repressed.”
Eleanor Royden cackled. “Did you keep a straight face through that one?”
A. P. Hill did not smile back. “I admit it sounded a bit odd, but Dr. Stanfield explained what he meant by repressed. He says that you put on a show of being funny and charming so that people won’t know how you really feel.”
Eleanor nodded. “It’s called being Southern,” she said. “You paid him for this pronouncement?”
“He seems to think you put on such a show for people that you have lost touch with how you really do feel.”
“I was pretty clear on Jeb and the bimbo,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Yes, but that was in a private setting, and the people involved hardly had time to think harshly of you.” It was as close to sarcasm as A. P. Hill ever came. “In public, you make a great show of concern for others, and you seem obsessed with what they think of you. Like just now when you thanked the guard for holding the door open for you. He was just doing his job.”
“I was raised to be pleasant, Sunshine. It’s supposed to make life easier for all concerned.”
“You overdo politeness, Eleanor. You are perky on automatic pilot so that no one ever knows how you really feel about anything-including yourself.”
“Is that a defense?”
“Well, it does suggest someone who might not realize the depths of her rage. It means that people couldn’t tell how you really felt about anything, which would mean that their testimony regarding you was unreliable. We might be able to argue a sort of Dr. Jekyll syndrome-that you thought you were all right, but the carefully concealed rage inside you took over, and killed the Roydens without conscious effort on your part.” Powell Hill shrugged. “Diminished capacity due to an emotional disorder. It could work.”
“I still like unauthorized pest control,” said Eleanor. “Ha! You almost smiled. I knew I could make you laugh, Sunshine!”
“Yes,” said her lawyer sadly. “You can always make people laugh, can’t you?”
Elizabeth MacPherson had to slow down at every country intersection while Edith, her navigator for the expedition, strained to read the three-digit numbers on the county-road signs. Stretched out on Edith’s lap was a map of Pittsylvania County, with the route from Danville to the scene of Chevry Morgan’s death outlined in yellow Magic Marker.
“We’re in the wilds of Pittsylvania County now,” Edith remarked. “Some of these places are so remote, they’re only on the map two days a week.” Yet another blacktop proved not to be their turnoff.
“Don’t worry,” said Elizabeth. “I have a full tank of gas, and a compass in the glove compartment.”
“Sure,” said Edith. “And the hunters will find us, come fall. Oh, wait-there it is. Make a right. Well, if you’d stop driving so all-fired fast! This isn’t an interstate. Okay, back up and make a right; there’s nobody behind you. It should be about a mile down this road, and then a right turn. Bill and I came out here after dark, so I’m a little hazy on landmarks, but I think we’ll see Chevry’s church before we spot the house.”
It was a peaceful road, lined with cornfields, and patches of oak and maple woodlands. Later in the day the level farmland would become oppressively hot, but now it was pleasant, with a faint breeze ruffling the tall grass in the meadows. Black-and-white cows ambled along the fencerow, watching them solemnly. After an early-morning breakfast in Danville, Edith and Elizabeth had set off for the country. In the trunk of the car, Elizabeth had stashed her notes and references on the Morgan case and the Todhunter historical records so that after the expedition she could drive to the UVA library for research without losing any more time.
For the first few miles Edith had entertained the driver by reading aloud the autopsy report on Chevry Morgan-with perhaps more enthusiasm than was strictly warranted. She then switched to the photocopy of Donna Jean Morgan’s account of the last day of Chevry’s life. By the time she finished her oral interpretation of that document, they were turning off the main road, and she had to shift roles, from talking book to navigator.
“I don’t know what you expect to find out here,” Edith remarked. “Not that I mind a nice ride in the country. Do you think the police will have overlooked a clue?”
“There’s little chance of that,” said
Elizabeth. “I’m sure they were thorough, but there may have been something they overlooked. Something that didn’t register to their senses as evidence. Remember, they went in with a strong belief that Chevry had been poisoned by his wife.”
“Like what, for instance?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Elizabeth. “I only hope we find it.”
After a few more miles Edith spotted the correct road sign, and minutes later they pulled up in the gravel parking lot of the little country church. Elizabeth stopped the car and got out to look at the scene of Chevry Morgan’s revelations. “So this is it,” she murmured.
“This is it.”
Elizabeth shook her head at the shabby old building, and then walked past it to the cemetery beyond. The gravestones were worn granite slabs, with an occasional lamb or cross scattered among the rectangles. All the graves were well tended, even those whose inscriptions were faint, their death dates in the 1800s. Here and there a plastic arrangement was propped against a stone. Near the stone wall that marked the cemetery’s outer boundary lay a cluster of graves, each marked with a cinderblock-sized headstone. The death dates ranged from 1862 to 1865, and the birth dates were barely twenty years earlier. Each name was followed by the initials C.S.A. These were the Confederate dead, resting in peace under a spreading oak tree that had seen them born and then outlived them by more than a century.
Chevry Morgan’s grave was out in the sunlight, heaped with sprays of red and white carnations, and a few bedraggled bunches of roses from parishioners’ gardens. There was no headstone yet. The newly dug grave would be left to settle for several months before a permanent marker was installed. Elizabeth wondered who would choose the monument, and what it might say. Would Tanya Faith put down a modern bronze marker, or would the faithful take up a collection for a marble angel to mark the resting place of their controversial prophet? Elizabeth couldn’t imagine any marker commissioned by Donna Jean for her errant husband.
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him… Page 16