Elizabeth MacPherson 07 - MacPherson’s Lament

by Sharyn McCrumb

  Things were getting serious, though. It looked as though we were running out of time. I called some more moving companies and finally found one who remembered the old ladies. Yes, they had gone out to the Phillips Mansion and packed up all the furniture. Where had they taken it? I asked breathlessly, ready to solve the case.

  “It’s in storage,” the man said. “We are waiting for further instructions.”

  Old ladies: three. MacPhersons: nothing.

  Spurred on by the ominous SBI agent and the cleverness of our opponents, I thought furiously for a while. Where would they go? How would they get there? Did they have a car? Maybe they bought one. How many car dealerships are there in Danville? Wait. If they didn’t have a car, how did they get to a dealership? Are there taxis in Danville? I grabbed for the phone book. It was going to be a long afternoon. I could tell that this was going to be tedious. If I had wanted to go around asking prying questions of total strangers, I would have become a social worker.

  With all eighteen pounds of silver-striped Beauregard purring contentedly on her lap, Anna Douglas squinted at her sketch pad and looked again at the swirl of colors in the seascape in front of her. She really did have a lovely view from the patio of her room at the Comfort Inn. The motel was set parallel between the island’s main road and the ocean, so that every room offered a sea view. Anna, Jenny, and Julia Hotchkiss had adjoining ground-floor rooms with kitchenettes and sliding glass doors leading to small concrete patios. They were lounging in the salt air, with Anna sketching, Jenny dozing, and Julia working her way through a box of saltwater taffy.

  Anna thought the island was most satisfactory. The few little shops on the island were all within walking distance of the motel, and the nearest restaurant had proved satisfactory. The latest issue of Home Guide that she’d found in the restaurant advertised several suitable one-story houses for sale on the island, but decisions regarding permanent residence would have to wait until the others arrived with the car. True, the island was a bit too crowded with summer tourists, and the one main road was clogged with cars, but there were compensations for these inconveniences. Winter would be very pleasant in this summer climate, a far cry from the bitter chill of Virginia. When the chauffeured car had brought the three of them on the long drive from the airport, Anna had decided to take up temporary residence in the Comfort Inn while she waited for Flora and the others to arrive. They had determined to meet at the island’s post office (across the street) at noon two days hence.

  Meanwhile, Anna had busied herself by locating a licensed practical nurse to look after the two invalids and finding out the particulars of community life: distance to hospital, location of local churches, and so on. She took long walks around the island, noting landmarks and FOR SALE signs. Most of the island’s population seemed to be elderly, which pleased her immensely.

  It was by no means certain that the group would decide to stay there once they were reunited, but Anna hoped that she could persuade them to do so. Anna never liked to feel that she was without a home. When she was a young girl, during the Great Depression, her parents had lost their home, and the memory of that banishment had remained in her mind all these years, like a shadow on an X ray. She thought she hadn’t minded so much losing the Danville mansion because the others kept assuring her that there was plenty of money to purchase another house. But now that she had been a transient for a while, the old feelings of sleeplessness and nagging anxiety had crept back. She wished that Flora would hurry up and get there so that they could get settled.

  Anna looked down at her sketch pad. In the middle of the placid ocean, she had drawn the dorsal fin of a shark.

  There’s an old country song that says, “It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville.” It certainly is, especially if you have to do it by telephone, calling every car dealership in between. Having just done that, I believe I’d rather try it next time in the runaway freight train.

  After many hours of absolutely cloying charm (which does not come naturally to me, despite my Southern upbringing) I managed to find a car dealer in Lynchburg who clearly remembered selling a Chrysler to a gaggle of old ladies who arrived by taxi and paid cash for their purchase. He didn’t know where they were headed, though, and I didn’t think that I could persuade the police to put out an all-points bulletin for a nonstolen car. Especially since I had no real evidence that the new owners were the old ladies from the Home for Confederate Women. According to the dealer, the car had been purchased by a woman calling herself Mrs. James Ewell Brown. Very funny. I guess they left off the general’s last name because that would have been too obvious. If they had added Stuart, even a car dealer might have figured out that Mrs. Jeb Stuart was probably an alias. And what were the rest of them calling themselves? Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Jackson, and Mrs. Bedford Forrest? Actually, I was beginning to feel a sneaking admiration for the feisty old dears, and if it hadn’t been for the imminent prospect of my brother’s going to prison, I might have been tempted to wish them Godspeed and forget the whole thing. As it was, I thought I’d better find them and try to work out a compromise thereafter.

  It was nearly seven o’clock. Midnight in Scotland. I decided to call Cameron and give him a report on the situation thus far.

  “I thought it would be you,” he said. “Even before I heard that four-syllable hello of yours. Nobody else would call at this hour.”

  “Blame the time zone,” I told him. “I’ve been working all afternoon and couldn’t spare a moment earlier.”

  “How are things in the colonies? I trust your parents are well?”

  “I trust so, too,” I said. “I haven’t had time to contend with them yet. I’m not looking forward to it, either, mind you. But Bill’s problems had to come first.”

  “And have you solved all the troubles of Clan MacPherson? Cleared your brother’s name, and all that?”

  “Not yet I haven’t.” I told him all about Bill’s ill-fated house sale and the ensuing chaos when both the residents and the purchase money went missing, leaving Bill looking like a swindler with both an irate buyer and the assistant state director of art and antiquities after his hide. “The old ladies are still missing, and so is the money. If only I could find them, I could sort all this out. I managed to track them to Lynchburg. They took a taxi there and bought a white Chrysler from a local car dealer. Where they went after that is anybody’s guess.”

  “North Carolina, I expect,” said Cameron. “And then South Carolina.”

  “What?”

  “You said it was anybody’s guess,” he replied smugly.

  “Don’t confuse me,” I warned him. “There isn’t much time left. Already SBI agents are calling here asking for Bill in ominous tones.”

  “Well, then you’d better get busy, dear.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Begin by returning a call from your cousin Geoffrey. He rang up earlier this evening for you. I told him you were in America.”

  “Geoffrey! I certainly don’t have time to bother with him right now.”

  “Nevertheless, you ought to call him. Because he told me that he met a group of old ladies who knew Bill, and that in his opinion they were behaving oddly.”

  “Where is he?” I whispered. Geoffrey has the most maddening habit of being in the right place at the right time.

  “Geoffrey? He’s in Atlanta. Shall I give you the number he left?”

  “Yes, please,” I said evenly. “I’m going to hang up now and call him. And I only wish it were midnight in Atlanta.” Not that the lateness of the hour would inconvenience my cousin. Midnight is the shank of his evening. I dialed his number with shaking fingers, because there was an excellent chance that he was out at dinner or partying. (Geoffrey’s last quiet evening at home was believed to have taken place in 1983 during a flu epidemic.) Sure enough, the phone rang about ten times and nobody picked it up. I figured I had about five hours to kill before Geoffrey tottered in from his revelries, so I hung up, and cast about for something else t
o keep me occupied.

  I went over and inspected the bookcase. Bill didn’t keep any books or magazines worth reading in his office, and Edith’s crossword puzzle books didn’t interest me either. I was about to go up to Bill’s apartment to watch television, not a pleasant prospect, because he has a tiny black-and-white set with no vertical hold. Surely there must be something else I could do, I thought. Short of dusting the office.

  Suddenly I noticed the manila folder that A. P. Hill had left with me: the autopsy report on her murder case. I settled back in Bill’s chair and began to sift through the report. It began, as they often do, with “the body of a well-nourished female.” I suppose that’s a holdover from earlier decades when well-nourished bodies were less commonplace. I wondered, though, if some of my yogurt-happy jogger friends would merit some other opening remark. This is the body of a downright scrawny yuppie … It was a pleasant fantasy, enlivening an otherwise unpleasant chronicle of a young life wasted.

  Misti Hale had been twenty-four years old at the time of her death. The report went on to describe the lividity of the body, the coloration, the bruises on her neck. I read through the report and looked at the photographs of the girl who might have been pretty. In graduate school I’d had courses in forensic pathology, and all this looked sadly familiar. I kept thinking, though, that there was something else I should be looking for, but I couldn’t remember what it was. All my notes were back in Scotland anyhow. I was about to put the folder aside, thinking that the missing detail might come back to me later, when the phone rang. I hoped it was Bill. I hadn’t had dinner.

  “Calvin Trowbridge here,” said a male voice laden with Southern money. “Is Bill there?”

  “It’s nearly eight o’clock,” I said, glancing at my watch. “He’s not in the office. Is it urgent?”

  “No, just a thought. See, I have Bill on retainer to—”

  “Oh, you’re the one! Well, he’s terribly busy. Why don’t you go to law school if you’re so keen to know all this stuff?”

  I hung up before he could reply. I had considered many careers during my four-year stint as a liberal arts major, but public relations was never one of them.

  At ten o’clock I gave up on Bill and went back to my motel room. (I could have stayed with my brother, but lodging two people in his apartment would be like trying to live in a squirrel’s nest.) I was still thinking about A. P. Hill’s case and trying to come up with more ideas for tracing the old ladies. Washing my hair did not get me any further along on either problem.

  I waited until nearly midnight before trying to return Geoffrey’s call. The chances of waking him up were slim, but I’d hope for the best. After two rings he picked up the phone, sounding as disgustingly bright and cheerful as ever.

  “This is your cousin from Scotland,” I told him. “And don’t make any snide remarks about Queen Elizabeth I calling Mary Queen of Scots that, because I’m in no mood for Trivial Pursuit.”

  “Actually, it was James I to whom she referred,” purred Geoffrey, “but I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time with intellectual banter. You haven’t the gift for it. I did just want to tell you a story that might interest you. Cameron hinted that there were family problems in the Old Dominion. Would you care to elaborate?”

  “No. If you have anything useful to tell me, I’ll feed your hunger for gossip. Otherwise you will have to depend on supermarket tabloids for your weekly quota of sleaze. Now what’s so important that you called Scotland to talk to me about it?”

  “Actually my main reason for phoning was to see if you knew anything about the Lime Kiln Theatre in Lexington. They have a wonderful repertory company and put on a series of plays—”

  “Yes, I know about them, Geoffrey. I suppose you were thinking of auditioning?”

  “Well, I thought I might enjoy the acting experience. And I’d much rather spend a summer in Virginia than in Manhattan. Besides, they do a play called Stonewall Country about the Civil War, and I thought I might try out for the role of Jeb Stuart.”

  “Rubbish! He was a general. You’re too young to play a general.”

  “Au contraire, my little Visigoth. Jeb Stuart became a general at the age of twenty-nine. And he was by all accounts colorful and handsome. I am perfectly suited to the role.”

  “He was a braggart and a show-off,” I conceded. “So there might be some justification in casting you in the part. I’d like to see you engulfed in a red beard. But I’m sure you didn’t call me to discuss your acting career.”

  “No. That was only to give you some background so you’d understand why I was at Stone Mountain wearing a Confederate uniform.”

  I sighed. “No, Geoffrey. Even with the background you provided, I cannot make that leap. Why the devil were you trick-or-treating in a state park?”

  “Have you ever been to Stone Mountain? On the side of it is a huge bas-relief of Lee and his generals. Quite inspiring. I’d driven down to Atlanta to visit all the historical sites and also to visit a wonderful costume shop in the Underground, where I found quite a fetching Confederate uniform, in which I look unutterably dashing.”

  “Let me guess. You bought this Confederate uniform. Did it have a fringed gold sash and a plumed hat, by any chance? I thought so. And you just could not resist nipping down to Stone Mountain to prance around—”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Oh, all right. Go ahead.”

  “That’s better. Where was I? Oh, yes. Stone Mountain. I was strolling in the parking lot, trying to get the feel of being a general, when a little old lady came up to me and admired my uniform. We started to chat, and when I told her about my hopes of going to do theatre in Lexington, she said that she and her friends were from Virginia, and of course I asked what town, and she said Danville, and then we played Southern chess: do you know my friend-so-and-so?”

  “Old ladies?” I was suddenly interested. “Were there eight of them?”

  “I only counted five,” said Geoffrey. “But the one I talked to knew Bill. After a moment she seemed to realize that admitting this had been a mistake. She became decidedly uneasy. And then her friend came along and hustled her off before I could find out what was going on. It seemed fairly strange to me, because usually little old ladies want to talk your ear off, and they’ll tell you their life stories without the least provocation, so I wondered why this lot was so evasive.”

  “Well, the State Bureau of Investigation would like a word with them, for starters,” I said. “They seem to think that Bill murdered them.” I explained the simple little house sale to Geoffrey.

  “And people wonder why chivalry is dead,” he murmured. “So they conned Virginia out of a million five and left Bill to talk to the authorities. That would explain why they seemed so fidgety.”

  “Where were they going?”

  “By the time I asked that, the old lady’s bossy friend had turned up and was trying to elbow her toward their car. She said they were going to an island to meet friends.”

  “Probably the other three fugitives,” I said.

  “Well, I did ask who they were going to see, because they were acting as suspicious as all get-out, but I had to make my question charming and innocent-sounding, on account of their nervous states. As she walked away, the sweet old lady said, ‘We’ll be visiting Major Edward Anderson.’ I remember the name because he was a comedian that Captain Grandfather used to like, but it seemed odd to me that they’d be visiting an old-time comedian.”

  “Maybe they knew him. Would he be about their age?”

  “I’m sure he was much older. He played Rochester on the old Jack Benny show. And I never heard anybody call him major. I knew that the old dears were trying to be vague, but sometimes people tell bits of the truth when they’re trying to be misleading.”

  “And some people are misleading when they’re trying to tell the truth.”

  “Well, I thought it was worth looking into. If I could do it without expending any particular effort.”
<
br />   “You’ve never been mistaken for Mother Teresa, have you?” I asked, but sarcasm is wasted on Geoffrey.

  “Don’t be ungrateful. I called Mother to see if she knew an Edward Anderson, thinking he might be a politician or a social lion in Georgia, but she’d never heard of him. I suppose I could consult a library, if it’s a question of Cousin Bill going to prison.” Geoffrey yawned, not from the lateness of the hour, but at the prospect of exerting himself on someone else’s behalf.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” I told him. “But feel free to pursue the matter if the spirit moves you, Geoffrey.”

  “There’s not a reward out for the old dears, is there?”

  “No. Everyone else thinks Bill has murdered them. I suppose we could call you to testify if it comes to that.”

  “I saw only five of them,” he pointed out. “He could have murdered the other three.”

  “Thank you for that vote of family confidence, Geoffrey. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Good. And if I’m cast as Jeb Stuart, you will come and see the show, won’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” I’ll be rooting for the Yankees.

  After that I went to sleep, but I must still have been reviewing the events of the day because I kept dreaming about making phone calls and trying to find Misti Hale’s name in the phone book so I could call her up and ask her how she died. Something must have been percolating through my subconscious, though, because around six A.M. I sat bolt upright in bed, realizing that I had been mulling over that autopsy report and that there was something odd about it. It might have been a simple omission of a detail on the part of the coroner, but it wasn’t there. If A. P. Hill was any good at all at being a lawyer, she could take that fact and run with it. I wondered if I could catch her before she left the motel.

  I drove back to Bill’s, marveling at how little traffic there was. Of course it was six forty-five in the morning, and I don’t suppose that rush hour in Danville starts until about five to eight. I had my pick of parking places.