MacPherson's Lament

CHAPTER 4

THE FLIGHT TO Danville, Virginia, might have been relatively pleasant if it had started later in the day, and if they hadn’t had to change planes in Pittsburgh. Still, it was too much to ask for a direct flight to such a tiny place, Kimball supposed. The possibility of arriving by turnip truck had crossed his mind. He had read all of The New York Times with more than customary thoroughness and had given up trying to find something worth reading in the in-flight magazine when the pilot made the landing announcement. Mr. Huff, who had slept fitfully for most of the journey, was still stretched out in the adjoining seat, dreaming with an unpleasant expression that suggested that he was playing the villain in his own nightmare. Kimball hated to awaken the sleeping dragon, but it had to be done. With some misgivings he nudged Mr. Huff gently and whispered, “We’re coming into Danville, sir.”

With reptilian alertness Huff opened his eyes and leaned over Kimball to peer out the window. “Call that an airport?” he growled.

Kimball longed to point out that Mr. Huff’s own local airport, that of Westchester, New York, was about the size of a potting shed and contained tin-sheeted wooden baggage carousels that did not revolve, but he refrained from comment, rightly suspecting that the comparison would not be appreciated.

They gathered up their briefcases and made their way down the commuter plane’s metal ladder onto the tarmac. A flight of steps took them inside the terminal to a small glassed waiting area, which was empty except for a blond young man, holding aloft a sign that read: I TOLD YOU SO. Nathan Kimball grinned, remembering Mr. Huff’s insistence on being met with a welcoming sign. “I think that must be the sellers’ attorney, Mr. MacPherson,” he said, nodding toward the sign.

John Huff scowled at the placard. “Well, how was I to know?” he demanded of no one in particular. Then he seemed to make up his mind to be charming, because he thrust out his hand and assumed a brisk smile. “MacPherson! Good of you to meet us. When can we see the house?”

A flurry of introductions later, Bill replied, “We’ve been asked to wait until two o’clock to view the house, so as not to disturb the owners. They’ll be out this afternoon, but I think that I can answer any questions you might have.” He consulted his watch. “It’s just on twelve now. Why don’t I give you a quick tour of the city. It’s a rather historic place, you know. And then we can get some lunch at Ashley’s Buffet.”

“Yes, I’m rather interested in history,” said John Huff. “I’ve heard of Danville.”

“Everybody has, thanks to Johnny Cash,” said Bill. “I can show you where the train wreck was, though of course it’s all built over now. There is a historical marker.”

Huff stared at him. “Did you say train wreck?”

“Yes. The wreck of the old 97. It’s a folk song. Johnny Cash recorded it a good while back. Isn’t that how you heard of Danville?” Bill hummed a few bars of the song. “ ‘It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville, And a line on a three-mile grade.’ That’s us.”

Nathan Kimball fought back giggles as he tried to picture Mr. Huff as a fan of country music while that austere gentleman himself seemed to be choking on unspoken comments. Their native guide, happily oblivious to the visitors’ reactions, prattled on about Dan River textiles and pit-cooked barbecue. “And we do have one local celebrity. Have you ever heard of Wendell Scott?”

For the first time Huff looked interested. “General Winfield Scott of the Mexican War? I didn’t know he-”

“No, sir, not him. Wendell Scott, the stock car racer. Richard Pryor played him in a movie called Greased Lightning. He was from right around here, but I think they shot the film somewhere else. They usually do.”

“We’d very much like to see the city,” said John Huff in tones of strangled politeness.

“Of course, if you’re thinking of moving here, you probably have a lot of practical questions about the area,” said Bill. “What sort of business are you in, sir?”

“I am an investor, but American history is something of an avocation for me. I understand this house we’ll be looking at has some historic significance.”

“Yes sir. It dates back to the 1840s, and as you know, it has been used as the Home for Confederate Women since the turn of the century.”

“May I know to whom it belonged before that time?” asked Mr. Huff. “Was it by any chance a Colonel W. T. Sutherlin?”

“No,” said Bill, looking surprised. “According to the information on the deed, the house was owned by a Mr. Phillips.”

John Huff smiled. “Even better!” he declared, and strode off toward the parking lot, leaving the two attorneys scrambling after him to wonder why he had suddenly seemed so pleased.

A. P. Hill had never looked forward to a date with anything like the eagerness with which she anticipated her twenty-minute interview with Tug Mosier. She felt a shiver of excitement at the prospect of defending someone against the most serious of charges: first-degree homicide.

She would have to keep reminding her mother that Tug Mosier was technically innocent until a jury said otherwise, because the word from southwest Virginia was that the Hill family did not think much of the idea of their little Amy associating with the likes of the defendant. In her excitement over her first major case, Powell had phoned home with the news, only to learn that murder cases did not fall under the heading of a godsend in her parents’ estimation. There was even talk of having Cousin Stinky look into the matter, which Powell Hill definitely did not want, because Stinky knew so many good old boys in legal circles that he could probably get her taken off the case (“in the best interests of the accused”) in a New York minute.

The powers-that-be would be delighted to replace her with a Silverback, and they’d probably think they were doing Tug Mosier a favor. In fact, she had already had a similar conversation with the courthouse Silverback, and he had allowed her to keep the case, but his misgivings in the matter were evident. He had advised Powell Hill to plea-bargain, and to avoid a trial at all costs. That wasn’t a decision she felt she could make yet, but one thing was certain: she had better do a good job on this case. Her immediate future was riding on it.

A. P. Hill’s client was hunched in a wooden chair, awaiting their conference without apparent interest. She looked at him appraisingly, trying to see Tug Mosier as a jury would. He would not do, she decided. She would have to see about getting Tug some presentable clothing before his court appearance; the jury and the press (not to mention her family) really would freak if they could see him in his present unshaven glory. He looked like the sergeant-at-arms for a biker gang. His shoulder-length brown hair seemed to have been styled with Quaker State, and a blue dragon tattoo peeped out from under the sleeve of his undershirt on a flabby arm the color of a fish belly. There wasn’t much she could do about the close-set piggy eyes and his habitual truculent scowl, but a suit and a haircut might soften the effect. She wondered how to bring up the topic without offending him, and decided to start their conversation with a less delicate subject.

“How’s it going, Tug?” she asked. “Are you getting enough to eat?”

He shrugged. “Not too hungry anyhow. Not with all this hanging over me.”

“The charges are very serious. The prosecution is saying that you killed Misti Lynn Hale and put her in the trunk, intending to take the body off somewhere and bury it. They say that if you hadn’t been put in jail on the bad-check charge, you’d have ditched the evidence, and maybe they wouldn’t have caught you. You need to tell me your side of the story so that we can begin to build a defense.”

Tug Mosier put his head in his hands. “You won’t believe me.”

“It’s my job to believe you. It’s the jury you have to worry about.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you. What the hell. You know I’ve been laid off from my welding job; that’s why I had trouble paying the bills. And those collection-agency people just kept calling and calling and nagging us about it and making Misti cry, so I wrote them dud checks just to get a little peace and quiet. Figured they’d leave us alone-at least till they bounced.”

“I can certainly see the temptation,” A. P. Hill agreed.

“I thought it would make me feel better, but I was still miserable, ’cause I knew it was just postponing the flak. So I got tanked up to try to put it out of my mind.”

His attorney raised her eyebrows. “Define tanked up.”

“I did some coke and some shine. I was with some old boys I been knowing for a long time, and by the end of the evening we were purt near blasted.”

Defendant used cocaine and bootleg liquor and admits to a state of complete intoxication, A. P. Hill wrote on her yellow legal pad. She looked up and nodded for her client to continue.

“So I don’t remember too awful much about that night at all. I know I went home. The next thing I knew, I was sort of coming out of it-somewhere between waking up and walking out of a fog-and there was Misti Lynn, laying on the floor, not moving.”

“Was she dead? Could you see any injuries?”

Tug Mosier frowned with the effort of remembering. “She wasn’t moving. I couldn’t see no blood.”

“All right.” There would have been no blood. Misti Lynn Hale had been strangled. “Was there anyone else present?”

Tug Mosier rubbed his scalp as if he were trying to massage his brain cells. He squinted at the bare green wall beyond the table. “That’s the funny thing,” he said at last. “Seems like I sorta remember somebody going home with me. Helping me, like. ’Cause I wasn’t in no shape to do much walking on my own. But when I came to and saw my Misti on the kitchen floor, there wasn’t nobody around.”

“So what did you do once you realized that she was dead? Did you call anybody?”

Tug Mosier looked shocked at his attorney’s naïveté. She probably would find a dead body on her floor and call somebody about it, his expression seemed to say. “No,” he said wearily. “I didn’t call nobody. I’ve had a run-in or two with the cops before, and I didn’t think I’d have too much luck making them believe in my innocence.”

“What did you do, then?”

“I picked up Misti Lynn and I put her in the trunk of my car. I couldn’t just leave her laying there. I don’t know what I was fixing to do with her. Maybe take her to the hospital, or just leave her somewhere. I don’t know. I kind of blacked out again. We had some pills in the medicine cabinet, and I think I took a couple of them. Anyhow, next thing I knew, the cops were banging on the door with their warrant about those damn checks, and it just plain slipped my mind about her being in the trunk.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about her when I first talked to you about the check charge?”

He shrugged. “Figured maybe they wouldn’t find her. I guess I was hoping I dreamed it.”

Powell Hill stared at her client. There really were people in the world who could forget about having a woman’s corpse in the trunk of their car. Or if they dimly remembered, they might ignore it, hoping that it would go away. His story rang true. It wasn’t much help with his defense, though. As far as she could tell, not even he knew if he had killed her or not.

Flora Dabney looked at her watch. It was time to start getting ready to go. At least it was time to tell Anna Douglas to start getting ready, because she always took twice as long as anybody else. It wasn’t really vanity on Anna’s part, Flora decided; it was just that Anna was a methodical person, and the good Lord had only given her first gear, so there was no use in trying to speed her up. Anna had lived in the Home for twenty years now and her housemates hadn’t found anything yet that could make her hurry. After a long spell of getting upset and angry over Anna’s slowness, Flora and the others had learned to give her an extra hour’s notice whenever they wanted her to do anything. It saved worry all the way around.

They had all been together for such a long time that they were like family now. At eighty-three, Flora had outlived her own sister by a dozen years, but they hadn’t been close since childhood. Flora married late, staying home to care for her invalid father, while her pretty younger sister had married a man from Alabama and moved far away. Finally their lives did not touch at any point. Common circumstances and decades of living together had made these seven women more her sisters than blood ties ever could. Flora felt responsible for all of them, even the exasperating Julia Hotchkiss, who looked like a bird but could eat more than a mule. They needed someone who could take care of them, and after time’s winnowing, Flora was left as the strongest in body and mind; so it fell to her to look after the others. Dolly Smith was her closest friend and she was certainly no fool, but arthritis had nearly crippled her, weakening her fighting spirit. She needed better health care than they could afford.

The others needed tending as well. Mary Pendleton was too trusting for her own good, and Ellen Morrison would rather let people walk all over her than risk offending them. Lydia had lost interest in everything in the world except her precious family tree, and Jenny Wade Allan was all but an invalid. Without Flora they would be at the mercy of any sharpster or bureaucrat who came down the pike.

Until recent years there had been other people that they could rely on: Mr. Bowers, their attorney, who was overseer of the Home for Confederate Women trust; a housekeeper-manager who supervised the running of the property; and a couple of daily maids who saw to the cooking and the cleaning. But Mr. Bowers had died, and inflation meant that prices kept going up while their income stayed about the same. Then the housekeeper resigned, so now there was only one aging maid to look after them. She cooked a little and cleaned every now and then, but it wasn’t enough. The house had begun to take on a general air of neglect and they were powerless to stop its decline. The limited income from the trust would not stretch to more than basic maintenance, at least not if they wanted to keep purchasing food. A broken furnace or a leaky roof would spell disaster for the eight remaining residents of the Home. Really they were running out of choices, just as they had run out of people to help them. Flora felt that it was up to her to take care of the others.

She looked around the spacious, sunny bedroom that had been her lair for more than twenty years. The wallpaper was faded and the ceiling a road map of plaster cracks, but still she loved it. It was familiar and comfortable, and still bore traces of a bygone elegance-like a grande dame who had fallen on hard times. The best bits of the Dabney family furniture were displayed about her, and on a mahogany chest sat her mother’s tea service of Mexican silver. Flora wished that she could continue to live there, but modern times being what they were, that wish was a pipe dream.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her white hair was carefully arranged in wings at the sides of her head, caught up in a knot at the nape of her neck. The lavender dress was a little old, perhaps, but then who noticed style in an old lady, and what did she care for the opinion of those young pups who ran the world these days? She opened the dresser drawer and took out her white gloves. It was time to make themselves scarce. Lydia could take the bus to the courthouse, and she would ask Reba to drive the rest of them to the mall for a few hours.

There was a tap at the door, and Mary Lee Pendleton peeped in. “Are you ready, Flora? I was hoping that we could have lunch at the cafeteria while we were out there.”

“All right, Mary. It’s an extravagance, but I suppose we could afford it now. We should go soon. I told Mr. MacPherson to bring them by about two.”

“Being run out of our home by Yankees,” sighed Mary. “Well, that’s nothing new.”

In his chrome-and-glass office on the twelfth floor of the bank building, Doug MacPherson was contemplating his lunch: a turd of tuna salad on wilted lettuce, enthroned in a Styrofoam tray-and a cellophane packet containing an assortment of stress vitamins. A few weeks ago he would have felt deprived for having to eat such meager fare, but now the gastronomic austerity made him feel young and invigorated. He pictured his waistline trimmer after a few weeks of such noontime abstinence, and he fancied that he could feel his blood pressure and his cholesterol level creeping steadily down to acceptable levels. A return of his thinning hair was perhaps too much to expect from raw vegetables and vitamins, but at least the attrition might be slowed by this new attention to nutrition. Anything so nonfilling and unappetizing ought to be able to work miracles, he told himself, but he banished this thought as unworthy and socially incorrect. Caroline would not approve of such an attitude. It was she who had ordered this lunch for him, and he was flattered that she should be so concerned with his health. Similar suggestions about his choice of diet had come regularly over the years from his wife, Margaret, but those he had dismissed as nagging, merely the food fads of a foolish woman. From Caroline, they were expressions of her tender concern, and as he gulped down his vitamin tablet, he raised his mineral water in a silent toast to her.

Life was no longer boring. Of course the children were outraged and embarrassed, and Margaret was behaving as if he had taken to peeing on lampposts, but he was rather enjoying all the fuss. It made him feel young again. He was someone to whom adventures might still occur, not the stagnated man of middle years who’d had stuffed peppers for dinner every Monday night since the Carter administration. The exhilaration of this new freedom was worth any amount of family strife, he thought. It was his life, wasn’t it? And he wasn’t going to live forever, so he might as well make the most of things while he still had his health. Besides, he’d worked very hard for a great many years to provide for those ungrateful offspring of his, and he had given Margaret a very comfortable home indeed. Who were they to criticize him?

Of course the apartment he now lived in was a squalid nuisance, compared with his old residence, but it was only a minor annoyance, and a very temporary one at that. As soon as the divorce was settled, he would move into a place more in keeping with his current lifestyle. And surely by then he wouldn’t have to do all those irritating domestic chores for himself. Cooking was a great bother after a hard day’s work; usually he decided that he couldn’t face it and he ate out. And he was certainly tired of having to use the cramped and musty laundry room in the basement of the apartment building every time he ran out of clean underwear. A few times he had given in and simply bought a new package at J.C. Penney’s, but that was not cost-effective.

All in all, he was doing just fine without Margaret. He felt alive again. But hungry. Still hungry. He looked down at the empty Styrofoam tray. Even the lettuce was gone. With a furtive glance at the closed door of his office, Doug MacPherson began to rummage in his desk for the breath mints.

Bill MacPherson might have enjoyed a quiet lunch with Nathan Kimball. They could have talked about their respective law practices and swapped law-school yarns, but the presence of the glacial Mr. Huff made such small talk impossible. Apparently he was too wealthy to bother to be pleasant.

Bill soon realized that John Huff was not interested in the particulars of life in the charming city of Danville, and he was at a loss to think of some other topic that might interest his guests. Huff seemed equally lukewarm on the subject of area golf courses, recreational lakes, and local cultural events. Kimball made a few fitful attempts to keep the conversation going, but he didn’t seem to know what Mr. Huff was interested in, either. In the end, they ate their chicken and dumplings in a strained silence, punctuated by innocuous remarks about the weather. Bill found that he was glancing at his watch approximately every ninety seconds.

Finally the minute hand crawled up to twelve, and he was able to down the last of his iced tea and announce with forced heartiness, “If you’re sure you wouldn’t like something else to eat, we can drive out and see the house now.”

He took the expressway to the exit for the old part of the city, the kernel of graceful houses and tree-lined boulevards that lay within the layers of interstates and neon strips encircling the original settlement. John Huff sat silently in the front passenger seat, observing their progress without apparent emotion, but Nathan Kimball peered out the window, exclaiming over various splendid examples of neoclassical architecture.

“And these date from before the Civil War?” he asked.

“A lot of them, I guess,” said Bill, whose interest in architecture had stopped with his tree house at the age of nine.

“But I thought General Sherman burned all the mansions in the South.”

“I believe he only did that from Atlanta to Savannah,” said Bill diffidently. “You know, Georgia. I expect my law partner A. P. Hill would know. She’s descended from the general.”

“Which general?” asked Kimball.

“Oh, never mind,” murmured Bill. “Here’s the house. It’s quite large, as you can see. It could stand a coat of paint, but the Orkin man assures us that it’s free of termites; the woodwork is perfectly sound. And these oak trees are all healthy, too. They’re over a hundred years old as well.”

“Very nice,” grunted Huff.

“It looks like Tara!” said Nathan Kimball admiringly.

Bill concluded from this remark that Kimball either hadn’t seen the movie or hadn’t been paying attention when he did, because in fact the Home for Confederate Women was considerably grander than the O’Hara’s North Georgia farmstead as depicted in Gone With the Wind. This Virginia mansion was a three-story white frame building built in an L-shape with an arched carriageway on one side, topped by a glassed-in sun porch. The front of the building was adorned with a circular portico supported by four Corinthian columns. Bill hoped that the subject of heating bills wouldn’t come up during the showing of the house.

He parked the car on the paved loop behind the carriageway and led the way up the flagstone path to the front door. “They’ve left the key under the mat for us,” he said, stopping to retrieve it. “It’s a very safe neighborhood. I think the ladies were shy about showing their home to strangers. And of course they didn’t want you to feel pressured,” he said to John Huff.

“I never feel pressured,” Huff replied.

Bill unlocked the door and escorted the visitors into an oak-paneled hallway that extended the length of the house. To their right was a flight of stairs with an elaborately carved banister and newel post. The carpet was threadbare and the dusty light fixture did not sufficiently illuminate the hall, but traces of the home’s former splendor were still evident in the workmanship and the materials used. “There are three stories to the house,” Bill told them, stealing a glance at an index card he’d concealed in the pocket of his blazer. “And a full basement. The third floor has been sealed off for many years, as the number of residents diminished. All in all, though, there are ten bedrooms in the house, and”-another peek at his notes-“eight baths. One on the first floor; the rest are upstairs. The main parlor is to your left. The ornamental plasterwork is original.”

John Huff inspected every room in the house with meticulous care while the two attorneys trailed after him, making what they hoped were intelligent remarks. He examined all three floors, paying particular attention to the shelves of books in the first-floor library. Bill had never heard of most of the titles, but the books were certainly old, many of them were leather bound, and they were probably valuable.

“I would expect these to be included in the sale of the house,” said Huff.

“I’ll mention that to my clients,” Bill stammered.

“Is there an attic?”

“I think so,” said Bill. “Would you like to see it?” He was trying to remember how to get there.

“Perhaps later,” said Huff. “When we looked in the basement, I noticed that there were some trunks and boxes. What about them?”

“I’ll ask. Do you want that stack of National Geographics down there, too?”

“Everything. Also, do you have any information as to what role this house played in the Civil War?”

“Nothing much,” said Bill, who didn’t have to consult his notes for that. He considered it the weakest link in his sales pitch. “I mean, Robert E. Lee didn’t sleep here or anything. Of course, Danville was the last capital of the Confederacy, for about ten days in 1865 when nobody cared anymore. You know that song, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’? When Joan Baez sings that line about being on the Danville train, that’s what she’s talking about.”

“Country music seems to have been a vast educational resource for you,” said Huff. “I believe we were discussing this house during that time.”

“Oh, right. Well, as I said, it was here then, but it wasn’t used for government business. I think that the Phillips family played host to some minor Confederate officials. People named-” He peeked at his card. “Miss Dabney wrote this out for me in case you turned out to be a history buff. Umm… here it is. A Mr. Micajah Clark, a Mr. Semple, and the postmaster general, a Mr. Reagan. Wonder if he’s any relation?”

“I think not,” said Huff, looking singularly unamused. Bill got the impression, though, that there had been a flash of recognition in his cold eyes at the recital of that list of names.

They finished their tour in the antiquated kitchen, but John Huff did not seem dismayed by the lack of modern appliances or the faded linoleum and drab green walls. “It’s a big room,” Bill said lamely. “It has possibilities.”

“So does garbage,” muttered Nathan Kimball to himself.

“I’ve seen enough,” John Huff announced. “I’ll be staying in town a few days. Perhaps you could recommend a hotel?”

“Sure,” said Bill. “There’s the Stratford Inn, the Best Western on Highway 58-”

“Never mind. We’ll look in the phone book. As I was saying, Kimball and I will be staying a few days. If at the end of that time we find that everything checks out-the appraisal, the survey, and so on-then I’ll make your clients an offer for the house.”

“Did I mention their terms?” asked Bill, waiting for the deal to come crashing down as he spoke. “I’m afraid they’re rather eccentric about business matters. They don’t seem to trust banks. It’s probably the result of having lived through the Depression, don’t you think? Anyhow, they don’t want to be bothered with financing.”

“I understand. If the details all check out, I’ll be prepared to offer them a cashier’s check for the full amount. I will, of course, expect a discount for cash.”

“I’ll tell them,” Bill promised. “I expect you’ll be meeting them at closing, so if there’s anything else you’d like to know about the house, perhaps you can ask them then.”

John Huff nodded. “Well, there is one thing. Do you happen to know if there are any secret passages in the house?”