The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

“Thanks, Katy, but I think I can handle this on my own. It’s not a crime to be impersonated. And it isn’t Paine’s jurisdiction anyhow. He’s just being nosy.”

  “I hope you’re not planning to share that thought with him.”

  “No, Katy. I’ll be as civil as I can. Thanks.” A. P. Hill switched off the phone and shoved it back into the pocket of her jacket. It had happened, just as she had feared all along. That one particular memory that A. P. Hill had been avoiding, even in her reminiscences, was now going to haunt her.

  With narrowed eyes and an unbecoming scowl, she turned her back on the library and stalked off in search of the university alumni office. Now it was personal.

  “Oh,” said Elizabeth in a voice made leaden by disappointment. “It’s you.” She knew how dreadful she must sound before she had even finished speaking, but the disappointment made her cruel. A visitor, Rose had said, and Elizabeth had hurried from the art room, patting her hair down, and rehearsing words of welcome as she ran. Had it been insane of her to hope that it might be Cameron, to assume that he would suddenly materialize without warning on this side of the Atlantic like a migrating seal? At what point does the virtue of hope become the sin of obstinance?

  The young man, who was just a shade too well dressed, met her scowl with raised eyebrows and a sardonic smile. “Yes, it is I,” said Geoffrey Chandler briskly. “Don’t apologize for that note of disappointment in your voice. People usually say ‘It’s you’ in mixed tones of fear and dread, emotions that I endeavor to earn. It would be quite unsettling if anyone ever actually smiled upon encountering me unexpectedly. I’d wonder what unpleasant things they were getting away with that I ought to know about. And how is my little cousin the shut-in?” Geoffrey Chandler, a mainstay of his local community theatre, was often thought to be quoting Noel Coward even when he wasn’t. It was an effect into which he put considerable effort.

  Elizabeth took several short, deep breaths and tried to smile. “Well, Geoffrey … I’m sorry if I was rude. I know that you drove a long way to see me. It’s just that I … They told me that a young man was here to see me … and so I thought …” Her voice quavered.

  “I had not expected to find you as bad as this,” said Geoffrey quietly.

  “It was a shock,” said Elizabeth. “Except in time of war, we don’t expect young men to die. I went numb for a while, I suppose. And the word widow … somehow I simply cannot …”

  Geoffrey Chandler, who loathed tears as much as the next man, hoped to forestall the impending storm with a change of subject. He looked around at the primrose walls and chintz-covered sofas that graced the waiting room. “I have been here quite often, what with one thing and another,” he remarked. “Visiting various people of my acquaintance. Really creative souls of a certain temperament generally matriculate through here sooner or later. Not that I counted you among their number, dear.”

  Geoffrey saw Elizabeth’s eyes flash between tears, and he knew that the danger of hysterics had abated. “I believe they have redecorated since my last visit,” he remarked. “That hideously flowered sofa appears to be comfortable. Shall we try it out?”

  Elizabeth sat down, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue from a box on the end table. “You are odious, Geoffrey,” she said, “but at least you came to see me, and I am sorry that I was beastly to you. Grief makes people selfish, don’t you find? Actually, though, I did want to talk to you.”

  Geoffrey shuddered. “That remark, coming on the heels of an observation about selfishness, frightens me more than you can possibly imagine. Obviously you have thought up some way for me to be useful to you. I tremble at the possibilities. I trust it goes without saying that blind dates are out of the question?”

  Elizabeth gave him a tremulous smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t hate anyone here that much.” For a moment she pictured Geoffrey and Emma O. forced to spend an evening together, and her smile became even broader. “It is good to see you, though,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “For the past few weeks I have been packed in the cotton wool of kindness until I can’t feel anything any more. If you weren’t your usual cobra-fanged self, I’d begin to cry again, and you would flee—in the politest possible way, of course, pleading another appointment, and I’d never get to ask you for the favor that I need.”

  “I need both my kidneys,” Geoffrey put in. “Besides, the thought of organ transplants makes me queasy.”

  “You may keep all of your body parts, Geoffrey. I’m sure I speak for the world when I say that. I want you to investigate a disappearance.” She saw his raised eyebrows and knew at once that the words “North Atlantic” were hovering on his lips. “Not that disappearance,” she added hastily. “We’ve changed the subject, remember? This disappearance concerns an old man in Virginia. In fact, he’s the man who built the house that Bill just bought.”

  “Has he disappeared?” said Geoffrey. “I just spoke to your brother the other day—to ask about you as a matter of fact—and I understood that when Bill purchased the house the old gentleman was included as an accessory. If he has subsequently vanished, perhaps you ought not to call too much attention to it until you have inquired into your brother’s alibi. Perhaps Bill is hoping no one will notice.”

  “No, Geoffrey. I don’t mean that the old man has disappeared. He’s still there all right. I’m just wondering exactly who he is.”

  “He’s ninety, and you’ve forgotten who he is? Surely that is his prerogative.”

  “He says he’s Jack Dolan, but I wonder about that. You see, something very odd happened today. Bill sent me a photograph of the new house, and as I was passing it around in art therapy class, someone recognized it. An old gentleman named Hillman Randolph claims that he once knew Jack Dolan in Virginia. He claims the man was a criminal. Anyhow, according to him, Jack Dolan died in the early Fifties.”

  Geoffrey’s silence became an ice age. “Someone here said that?” he said at last. “Someone … here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Someone here. A member of the staff, perhaps? Your physician?”

  “Umm … no. Mr. Randolph is a fellow patient.” Elizabeth added quickly, “But he used to be in law enforcement.”

  “Law enforcement. I see. Was he Wyatt Earp? Eliot Ness? The entire cast of Gunsmoke?”

  Elizabeth sighed. It would be useless to tell Geoffrey that his remarks about the mentally ill were politically incorrect. Geoffrey always replied that political correctness was all very well, but he preferred other forms of hypocrisy. She decided to reason with him. “No, Geoffrey, Mr. Randolph doesn’t think he was Wyatt Earp. He’s old, and he has some sort of problem relating to his being disfigured, but he’s not delusional. He doesn’t seem given to telling tall tales. People with mental problems are not totally unreliable, you know. Aside from their one particular problem, they can be as sharp as anybody else.”

  “ ‘I am but mad north-northwest.’ ” Geoffrey nodded, cheered immensely by the opportunity to quote from Hamlet. “Yes, I take your point about that. Still, this story seems fairly improbable, don’t you think? I mean, your man claims that Jack … what’s his name?”

  “Dolan.”

  “Right. The old fellow here claims that Jack Dolan is dead, but trustworthy people in Virginia—people who are not mental patients—can testify that Mr. Dolan is alive and well and living in a house in Danville. That seems fairly conclusive.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “That’s what Bill said.”

  “This person who says Dolan is dead may be mistaken. He’s an old man. He’s talking about events that took place forty years ago. I don’t say he’s lying or trying to deceive you. I’m sure he means well. I simply think his memory is faulty.”

  “That does seem to be the logical conclusion,” said Elizabeth meekly.

  “Well, good! I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. Now let’s talk about me. When they told you someone was here to see you, did they simply say ‘a young man’? Not a distinguished young man, or a
handsome young man?” He fingered his silk rep tie, wondering what error in fashion had caused him to be so slighted.

  Elizabeth did not reply. She sat silently staring at the oatmeal-colored carpet, looking, Geoffrey thought, like someone waiting for a bus. He allowed a few more minutes for her to say something. Elizabeth always filled silences if you gave her enough time. She considered it a form of courtesy. This time, however, no remarks were forthcoming.

  “You don’t buy it, do you?” he said at last.

  “No.”

  “You actually think someone is impersonating a ninety-year-old man. Are you cra—”

  “Yes!” said Elizabeth a shade too loudly. “Yes, I am. Crazy. Officially. A certified resident of the Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital. Quite demented.”

  “Well, don’t be touchy about it, Cousin. Some of my best friends are crazy.”

  “All of your best friends are crazy, Geoffrey. It is the chief requirement for the position. Never mind my feelings, though. Sane or crazy, what if I’m right? What if the old man in the house in Danville isn’t Jack Dolan?”

  Geoffrey shrugged. “He’s ninety. Pretty soon the problem will solve itself.”

  “But Jack Dolan owned that house. Or he did until his children lost it in a land deal. At least that’s what Bill was told. Suppose it isn’t true. Does that mean Bill doesn’t own the house? Could he lose all his money in the deal? And then there’s the real Mr. Dolan. What happened to him, and when? Was he swindled out of the house? Murdered for it? Is he dead?”

  Geoffrey tried again. “Have you thought of calling the Danville police? It sounds like their business, not yours. Surely they could root around in the courthouse records and come up with something.”

  “Of course I can’t call the police, Geoffrey! What could I say?” She mimicked speaking into the receiver. “Hello, I’m Elizabeth MacPherson. I’m a mental patient, and I was wondering if you’d check out a statement about a crime made to me by another mental patient.…”

  “I see your point. Of course, you could investigate it yourself.”

  “I’m in here, Geoffrey.”

  “Ah.”

  “Voluntary commitment. Mandatory stay of one month, to be extended upon the recommendation of the attending physician. Now if I start babbling about wanting to investigate geriatric impersonators in Danville, Virginia, how likely is it that they’re going to turn me loose at the end of the month?”

  “Did you tell Bill about this? It is his house, after all. And his little old man.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Of course I told him! He made soothing noises to humor me. He would have agreed to anything I said, but he doesn’t really believe a word of it. He won’t even think it over. He’ll just think they need to adjust my medication.”

  “I don’t suppose—”

  “I am not delusional! It’s just that at present I have no credibility.”

  “But you thought that I might believe you?”

  She waved aside the implied compliment. “Oh, you! You don’t care. You don’t set any great store on normal, or plausible, or even ethical, as far as I can tell. You’d probably investigate Jack Dolan for the novelty of it. Or to test your acting skills. Or to have a tale to dine out on. But at least you would do something besides humor me. And in your own twisted way, you are undeniably clever, so while you were larking about, you just might find out the truth.”

  “What fulsome praise!” said Geoffrey, smirking. “When the time comes for my eulogy, I must leave instructions that you be the one to deliver it.”

  “Oh, shut up. Will you do this for me or not?”

  Geoffrey appeared to consider the matter. Actually, he was reflecting on the fact that a number of minutes had gone by without any discussion of the late Cameron Dawson. This new obsession of Elizabeth’s was surely nonsense, but it might also be therapeutic. As an amateur psychologist, he thought her interest in so trivial a matter was a classic case of displacement: Elizabeth’s brain was focusing on an inconsequential puzzle to distract her from the real source of her misery. A psychiatrist might try to talk her out of her obsession and urge her to focus on working through her grief instead, but Geoffrey, who was a firm believer in the avoidance of pain, thought that distraction was about all the healing that most people could ever expect. Anyhow, it was worth a try.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Since you cannot persuade anyone else to take this tale seriously, you are left with me: humanity’s professional gadfly. And you want me to do … what?”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth and shut it again. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she said. “I concentrated all my efforts on convincing you to do something, without concerning myself at all about what that something ought to be.”

  “You realize that I think this whole thing is a mare’s nest?”

  “Yes, but you will look into it, won’t you? With an open mind?”

  Geoffrey sighed. “In lieu of sending you flowers, I suppose I could give it a couple of days.”

  “Good. Now … what should you do? You might begin by finding out everything you can about Jack Dolan, and trying to get an accurate description of him as a young man. We can find out his eye color, the shape of the ears—things like that.”

  Geoffrey shook his head. “You know, with all due respect for Jeremy Brett, I have never had any desire to play Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Good,” said Elizabeth. “Because if you go prancing around Danville in a cape and a deerstalker, you’ll be back in here before you know it, and then I’ll have to get somebody else to do the research.”

  A. P. Hill was back in her hotel room by six forty-five, enough time to check her messages, shower, change clothes, and order a salad from room service before she sat down to review her notes and to wait for the arrival of Lewis Paine. She had one less thing to worry about now. The court case that had brought her to Richmond was now on hold, if not permanently abandoned. The two sides had wearied of the legal battle, and now they were going to take a break for a week or so, presumably to catch up on all the business matters that had been let slide while they whiled away the hours in the courtroom. After that, they wanted to meet to try to reach an out-of-court settlement. That was fine with A. P. Hill. She had already cleared a few days’ absence with the office, and now she would make the most of them.

  When Lieutenant Lewis Paine knocked on the door at 8:57, A. P. Hill was ready. She was calm and composed, cell phone switched off, and a manila folder of photocopied pages was tucked away out of sight in the bedroom of the suite.

  “Hello,” she said with a perfunctory smile. She motioned for him to sit down on the sofa next to the window. “Would you like a drink? There’s a soda machine down the hall.”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine. I think I should tell you that I’m not officially on duty at this time. Let’s just say that I dropped by for a friendly chat. Strictly off the record.”

  Powell Hill nodded. She sat down in the desk chair and stared past him at the lights of the city. Off the record and out of your jurisdiction, she thought, but she smiled encouragingly, because only very stupid people were rude to law enforcement officers.

  “I was just wondering about our conversation the other night. The one about the lady lawyer and her fugitive girlfriend. I seem to recall your asking me how I’d go about catching them—if they happened into my territory, I believe we said.”

  Powell shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought. Right up until the time that the police inquiry came in from northeast Arkansas, asking if we have any information on a Virginia attorney named A. P. Hill. They say their suspect is a small, blonde, well-spoken woman in her late twenties. Imagine my surprise,” he said in a sarcastic drawl. “In fact, the only reason I’m not falling all over myself to fill out your extradition papers for those good people in Arkansas is because you have such a damned good alibi: me.”

  Powell nodded.

  “It seems that at the time
Mr. Jenkins the banker was being fleeced by the two classy ladies at his country club, you were at dinner in Richmond with Katy DeBruhl and me. Or did you already know that?”

  “No, Lewis. I really didn’t. What did they do?”

  He shrugged. “The usual. You know about the previous cases?”

  “Yes, but only from what was printed in the newspapers.”

  “Well, it’s pretty much the same, except that this time they went after a better class of victim. I guess they figured he’d have more money on him than their previous marks.” He smiled. “It sounds like the banker told the police a highly edited version of the truth, but the upshot is that the two women sweet-talked the old goat into going off to a motel with them. He dances pretty lightly over the sex part, of course. Claims they’d got to talking about investments, and that they invited him back to their place for drinks so that they could continue their discussion of the stock market. Very cozy.”

  “It sounds plausible,” A. P. Hill conceded.

  “Except that the banker is the one who rented the motel room. The night clerk not only remembers him, she has the credit card slip to prove it. Besides, the next morning the chambermaid found the victim handcuffed to the bathroom sink pipe, and, believe me, he wasn’t dressed for a sober financial discussion.”

  “He’s from a small town, isn’t he? He’ll have a hard time living that down.”

  “I thought of that,” said Paine. “Has it occurred to you that these outlaw pranksters seem to delight in embarrassing people? Sure, they take the victim’s money and his car, both of which they need to stay on the run, but they seem to derive a lot of pleasure out of humiliating their victims. I thought that fact might lead somewhere, which is why we need to talk to people who knew them before the crime spree began. People like you.”

  A. P. Hill felt her face redden. “I know you think I was being evasive,” she said at last. “But I knew I couldn’t be of any help to you. Believe me, if I had told you that I knew P. J. Purdue, it would have misled you in the opposite direction. You would have thought I knew more than I actually did. In fact, I haven’t seen Purdue since we left law school at William and Mary. We were never close. All I know about her present circumstances I read in a supermarket tabloid.”