If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “Not a great deal, no. But my brother-in-law is- was-a marine biologist.” For more reasons than one, Bill wished that Cameron Dawson were present. He was running short of arguments, and he had exhausted his limited supply of knowledge about seagoing mammals.

  “Ask your brother-in-law then,” said Miri. “It’s common knowledge. Dolphins are notorious for trying to mate with their trainers at marine parks like Sea World. Believe me, it wouldn’t be rape. In fact, our whole relationship was originally Porky’s idea.”

  “Porky?”

  “My intended. It was just a physical thing on his part at first, but I was able to learn some of his language, and so our relationship progressed into a much deeper friendship.”

  Bill knew that if the words Free Willy flashed into his mind one more time, he would fall to the floor, shrieking helplessly. A movement from the kitchen doorway caught his attention, and he turned to see his sister, beckoning for him to come back inside. Bill reached in his pocket and drew out a business card. “Here’s where to find me,” he told Miri. “I charge sixty bucks an hour. If you really want to pursue this matter legally, give me a call.”

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” he said to Elizabeth as he closed the door behind him. Miri was walking in the garden. “I seem to attract them. That woman wants to marry a dolphin.”

  “I expect she’s a Pisces,” said Elizabeth. “But I don’t know that I’ve rescued you. Edith is on the phone. She said that A. P. Hill asked her to call you.”

  “That’s odd,” said Bill. “They’re never that anxious to reach me. I gave them this number in case of some emergency. We’ve never had one, but Powell is always prepared for every contingency. What does she want?”

  “Well, she asked if I could interview some witnesses tomorrow for A.P.’s murder case, but that wasn’t the main reason she called. Ask her yourself.” She handed Bill the telephone and went back to join the party.

  “Edith?” said Bill, half expecting to hear the crackle of flames in the background. “What’s wrong?”

  “Calm down,” said his secretary. “Nobody is repossessing the copy machine. A.P. asked me to phone because there has been a development in one of your cases.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Morganatic Marriage case.”

  “Not another wife!” wailed Bill. “Listen, I’ve had a very trying day here, and-”

  “A trying day is exactly what your partner reckons you’re in for. You see, the old buzzard himself, Chevry Morgan, keeled over dead last night, and wife number one says the police are asking all sorts of awkward questions about it. They seem to think it’s a case of murder. Your client is understandably nervous about the implications of that.”

  “How did he die?”

  “They’ve pumped for poison,” said Edith. “He’s been sent off for an autopsy. Wonder if they’ll find a brain?”

  “Now, Edith, the man is dead.”

  “Yeah. This time I believe he did get a message from the Lord. But apparently the Almighty had a little help in deporting old Chevry from the world.”

  “They think somebody deliberately poisoned Mr. Morgan? They haven’t charged Donna Jean, have they?”

  “No. She’s at home, but we got the impression that she’d be awfully glad to see you.”

  “I’m on my way,” said Bill.

  After delegating the tracking down of Bill MacPherson to the secretary, A. P. Hill had set off to Roanoke to interview a possible character witness in the Royden murder case. Most of the Royden acquaintances she would leave for Elizabeth MacPherson, but she wanted to hear firsthand what Marizel Farrell had to say about her former best friend.

  At Eleanor Royden’s suggestion-grudgingly given-A. P. Hill had contacted Marizel Farrell by phone. After endless reassurances of confidentiality, Mrs. Farrell had provided the attorney with directions to her home in Chambord Oaks. The upscale subdivision was much as A. P. Hill expected. A bronze sign in Old English lettering mounted on one of the stone pillars marked the entrance to the development. The two-story brick houses all looked as if they had been designed by the same architect, differing only in the placement of the Palladian windows, or in the facade: phony Colonial, sham Tudor, or faux chateau.

  Marizel Farrell’s house turned out to be a white brick faux chateau, set among clumps of azaleas and strategically placed dogwood trees. A bas-relief of mallards in flight graced the simulated wood mailbox. A. P. Hill pulled into the drive, vowing for the umpteenth time in her life that suburbia would never take her alive. She retrieved her briefcase from the backseat and went up the patterned brick walkway to interview the murderess’s best friend.

  Marizel Farrell did not seem altogether impressed by the diminutive young attorney standing on her doormat. Powell Hill was wearing low-heeled shoes, no makeup, and tiny pearl earrings. “You’re Eleanor’s lawyer?” Mrs. Farrell said doubtfully, as if she suspected that the leather attaché was a sampler case of Girl Scout cookies. “Well, come in, then, Ms.-er-Hill. Sorry,” she said, with an anxious smile, “I was kind of expecting a grown-up.”

  Women twenty years older than A. P. Hill might have taken this feeble witticism as a compliment, but tributes to Powell’s youthfulness were wasted on a woman who took offense at waiters who requested an ID before bringing her a glass of wine. She knew better than to antagonize a potential witness, however; so she managed a semblance of pleasantry as the slender, blonde woman in the Donna Karan suit led her into the house.

  “I just can’t believe that Eleanor actually did it,” said Marizel Farrell, after they had settled in the white-and-gold living room. “Shot Jeb, I mean.”

  “Why can’t you believe it?” asked A. P. Hill, noting the date and time at the top of her yellow legal pad. She also wrote down Mrs. Farrell’s name and address, estimating her age at an accurate, but unflattering fifty-five.

  Marizel spread her hands in a helpless little shrug. “Well, because it’s such a trashy thing to do. I mean, people shoot each other in trailer parks, for God’s sake, not in Chambord Oaks.”

  “I see,” said A. P. Hill, deciding to forgo the lecture in sociology that was probably called for. “Tell me about them as a couple. How did you meet them?”

  “How does one meet anyone?” said Marizel Farrell with her wide-eyed stare. “Our husbands were not colleagues. Jeb was a lawyer; Arthur is a surgeon. But we were in that professional social set-in some ways, Roanoke is a very small town. I suppose we attended the same dinner party, or got put at the same table at a charity event. I can’t really remember. We’ve known them for a dozen years at least.”

  A. P. Hill’s eyebrows maintained a steadfast neutrality. “Eleanor Royden says that you were her closest friend.”

  “How terribly sad,” said Marizel Farrell, shaking her head, more in anger than in sorrow. “You know, she was once quite a nice person, always fun to be around, and very energetic. We cochaired a couple of symphony fund-raisers together back in the mid Eighties, and at the Homeless Shelter Gala, we shared a table with the Roydens. Let me see… and bridge and tennis. I mean, I saw a lot of Eleanor, you know-the way one does; that is, until lately, when she had to get a job, and became very arch and brittle about her reduced circumstances, and then, of course, one simply had to stop seeing her. One was embarrassed.”

  A. P. Hill looked up from her notes. “So she didn’t confide in you about her frustration over the divorce?”

  “I’d hardly call it confiding,” said Marizel Farrell with a little laugh. “She certainly complained about it constantly to anyone who would listen. And she tried to be amusing about it. I’ll give her that. But, really, what could one do? She didn’t belong to the club anymore, and she couldn’t afford the usual outings of the old set, and her job kept her from the women-only socializing in the daytime. I went to lunch with her a couple of times downtown when she started working, and once I took her to the ballet on Arthur’s ticket when he had an emergency at the hospital, but I felt quite awkward around her. What could on
e say to her? Of course, we all thought Jeb’s behavior was dreadful.”

  “I understand that it was a bitter divorce.”

  “Oh, it was! But Eleanor was partly to blame for that, too. Jeb Royden was a cold, calculating attorney who had gotten his own way all his life. He could be completely charming as long as no one stood in his way. And of course he had a fling with a younger woman. I mean, it’s utterly commonplace. Men are quite childlike, really. The minute their hair starts thinning out and their eyes require reading glasses, they start looking for Band-Aids for the ego. You just ignore it as long as you can and hope it wears off. We tried to tell Eleanor that at first! Much good it did.”

  A. P. Hill, who came from a different generation than Mrs. Farrell, was privately in sympathy with Eleanor Royden’s attitude. In fact, she thought, her own behavior in similar circumstances could be used as a training film for terrorists; wisely, she refrained from expressing this opinion. “So you all thought that Mr. Royden would have his fling without resorting to divorce?”

  “Well, they usually do,” said Marizel. “I got a new Mercedes after Arthur’s little indiscretion, but then I earned it. I was sweet as pie the entire time and I never once reproached him or let him see me cry.”

  This was Martian to A. P. Hill, but she merely nodded for Mrs. Farrell to continue.

  “I told Eleanor not to throw tantrums over it. We all learned how to suffer in silence, but, oh no!- Miss High-and-Mighty Eleanor was too proud to be sensible. She made scenes in public. She confronted the bimbo and she screamed at Jeb and argued with him, until he had to leave her. Jeb Royden wasn’t the sort of man to let his wife tell him what to do. She made him furious and he walked out.” Marizel Farrell shrugged. “Then, of course, he set out to punish Eleanor with the divorce court’s version of the siege of Leningrad.”

  “So you thought that Mrs. Royden’s ex-husband was being vindictive?”

  “My dear, he was! Jeb wanted to have his own way, without any arguments, and when Eleanor wouldn’t agree to that, he set out to destroy her for being uppity. They’re all like that. Anybody could have told her. Of course, he thought he would ruin her financially, and send her off to work as a waitress and live in a trailer, while he built a palace for the new playmate. I suppose he underestimated Eleanor, though.”

  A. P. Hill nodded, suppressing a smile. “She refused to take the thunderbolt lying down.”

  “Yes-and of course, we’re all terribly sympathetic with poor Eleanor, even though she brought it on herself. At first we thought of having a benefit luncheon at the club to raise money for her defense fund, but then we were afraid that our husbands might not care for the idea. You will give her my best, though, won’t you, dear?”

  “I’ll give her my best,” said A. P. Hill.

  MACPHERSON & HILL

  ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW

  DANVILLE , VIRGINIA

  Dear Cameron:

  I have survived Mother’s first postdivorce party. It was quite a charming gathering, although I did not find the conversation all that different from the more traditional neighborhood parties that she and Daddy used to give. People still droned on about floor coverings and children; I did not see that having the opposite sex introduce the topic made the discussion any more scintillating. I must be depressed. I find everyone boring; but they were all quite likable folks, and I’m sure Mother will be happy with her new social set.

  If she doesn’t starve to death.

  Apparently, while I was frivoling my youth away in Scotland, eating went out of fashion in the U.S. Long before dinner was served, the guests began talking about their various dietary requirements. Most of them were vegetarians or vegans, and a few were ovo-lacto vegetarians, although Tim Burruss is really a reckless hedonist: he eats fish- once a week, steamed or broiled. I did think that in his honor (and mine) a salmon mousse-or even a moose mousse-could have been sacrificed for the sake of the unregenerate carnivores, but obviously our hostesses were not feeling quite so wickedly unconventional. The fish was spared, and we starved.

  I was wondering if I ought to slip outside and promise Bill a stop at Burger King on the way home, but then he got called away to see about one of his clients, so I was left in the-well, not the lion’s den; that would have been an improvement-in the koala pen with the leaf junkies. That will teach me to skip lunch.

  Mother and Casey served a three-lettuce salad- plain, of course; some boiled asparagus; an orange slice on a toothpick; and something that Mother called polenta au naturel.

  “Mother, it’s grits!” I hissed at her. It was. Unbuttered, unsalted grits.

  “I know, dear,” she replied serenely. “It’s almost the only thing that everyone would eat. And, just think, it’s so much better for you without all that butter and salt. One needs to watch one’s diet as one grows older.”

  I wondered if she was referring to herself or to me. I trust the former, because if that’s a sample of what I have to eat in order to reach thirty, I’d just as soon not go. I did not complain, however. I sat there dutifully, pushing forkfuls of grits and endive from one side of my plate to the other, and fantasizing about top sirloin and ketchup-laden french fries, followed by chocolate syrup over anything. The conversation was rather antifood anyhow-distinctly unappetizing. I asked for some sugar to go in my tea (not real tea: stewed weeds). Apparently, this request constituted blasphemy. Casey looked grieved and declared that refined sugar was quite poisonous to the system, but that they did have some honey, if I wanted some.

  I was about to settle for that when Annie Graham-Robeson remarked, “That isn’t much of an improvement over granulated poison. Did you ever stop to think that honey is actually bee vomit?”

  Well, no, I hadn’t ever thought of it in quite that picturesque way, though I shall never be able to think of it otherwise again. It did, however, dull my enthusiasm for squirting some of it into my drink. I drank weak herbal tea straight, hoping that the bitter taste of it would kill my appetite before anybody heard my stomach growling. Apparently, it is now chic to brag about how little you eat. That established, they all went back to talking university gossip, and about the many uses of pesto. At that point my mind glazed over.

  I wish I could remember what we used to talk about. I only remember that I was never bored. And sometimes, I think that if I can’t ever talk to you again, I’d be better off eating unbuttered grits until I waste away into nothingness. If that’s where you are, it can’t be all that bad.

  Love,

  Elizabeth

  7

  IT WASN’T SOMETHING that he would admit to another adult, but sometimes when he was getting ready for work, Bill MacPherson would watch Mister Rogers on his tiny black-and-white television. Occasionally when he was meeting with clients, Bill found it comforting to think of the calm and sensible Mister Rogers, who never seemed to be shocked or angered by anything. A succession of petty criminals, sullen teenage vandals, and vicious divorcing couples had convinced Bill that he and Mister Rogers did not live in the same neighborhood; today he had begun to wonder if they lived on the same planet. Dolphin weddings and dead polygamists seemed beyond the scope of any wisdom within Fred Rogers’s power to impart. Bill was on his own.

  Now, as he followed Edith’s telephone directions to Donna Morgan’s house, he tried to think where to go from here, but he knew it was too soon to make any decisions on the matter. Chevry Morgan was dead, which meant that he no longer needed to pursue a case of possible bigamy against the man. Whether Donna Jean Morgan would have farther need of his services in a criminal capacity remained to be seen.

  He found the house without difficulty. It was a one-story white frame house, with a green-striped awning over the front porch. It sat back from the blacktop road, flanked by a grove of pine trees. Donna Jean Morgan was in the front yard, near the plaster deer, weeding the bed of pansies set out in the whitewashed truck tire. She was alone.

  Bill eased the car up the bumpy dirt driveway, sighing with relief that a contingent
of police cars was not in evidence. Donna Jean, straw hat and gardening trowel in hand, came to meet him. Her dumpling face was splotched from crying, and her gray hair was scraggly and uncombed. She wore a faded housedress and men’s high-top sneakers.

  “I just had to do something,” she said, pointing to the flower bed. “I thought that if I sat in that house one more minute, listening to the phone ring, I’d go right out of my mind. It’s not that I don’t grieve for poor darlin’ Chevry. You understand, don’t you?”

  Bill nodded. All except the grieving part, he thought. “If you are saddened, then I’m very sorry that your husband is dead,” he said, choosing his words carefully. As humanity went, he privately thought the world could spare Mr. Morgan and never miss him. He wondered if Chevry had possessed the forethought to prepare a will, but decided that it would have been out of character. Just as well for Donna Jean, too. A court fight could eat up an estate in no time.

  “Where’s Tanya Faith?” he asked.

  “Over to her parents.” Donna Jean dabbed at her eyes. “She left as soon as we heard.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  She led him to a shaded circle of lawn chairs in back of the house. Bill had to decline lemonade, coffee, homemade pound cake, and a footstool before he could get her to sit down in the canvas chair and focus on the problem at hand. Finally, after a quick trip into the kitchen for a box of tissues for herself, Donna Jean was ready to talk. “Chevry went off last night, like he always did these days, to fix up that big old house next to the church for him and Tanya Faith. He came by here first, because I always packed him some supper to take along while he worked.”

  Bill had vowed not to interrupt, but he heard himself say, “Why didn’t Tanya do that?”

  Donna Jean gave him a tearful smile. “Oh, honey, Tanya Faith can’t hardly spell cook. Anyhow, I packed his food, and-”