Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

He checked to see if his shoes were shined. “Got me there, Amy girl. How’d you guess?”

“Women’s intuition,” said A. P. Hill with what passed for a smile.

“Can I buy you a Coke?”

“Sure. Why not?” She realized that this was not a casual meeting. Bob Creighton represented the DA. Old school pleasantries aside, her adversaries were about to fire the opening salvo. Still, she wanted to hear what the prosecution thought of the Eleanor Royden case, and this might be a civilized way to find out. She decided to play along.

Bob Creighton led her to the snack bar, a collection of small tables flanked by a row of vending machines. He chatted amiably about the weather, his golf game, and how much he enjoyed his work. He asked very few questions of A. P. Hill, but, in her experience, that was not unusual. Creighton was the sort of man who used women as sounding boards, preferably mute and adoring. Powell Hill thought she could just manage the former; the latter was past praying for.

They settled in metal chairs, sipping diet soft drinks and smiling warily at each other. “So,” said Bob, who had run out of small talk, “I hear you’re up here talking to that Royden woman.”

“I’m thinking of taking the case,” said Powell Hill, trying to sound casual. “I’d have thought it would be considered quite a plum. Major publicity. Possible movie interest. I can’t think why nobody in Roanoke wanted it.” She gave him an innocent smile. “Or am I just being modest? I assumed I wasn’t the first attorney Mrs. Royden contacted.”

Bob Creighton winced. “The first Mrs. Royden,” he said. “Those of us who knew Jeb like to think of poor Giselle as the real Mrs. Royden. I’m sure Jeb would shudder if he could hear Eleanor referred to by that honorific.”

“To which she is still legally entitled, of course,” purred Powell Hill.

“But morally,” said Creighton, frowning, “morally, it pains me to hear it. Consider the circumstances. Calling Eleanor that is an affront to Mrs. Royden’s memory. Jeb’s wife, I mean. His true soul mate, till death-a.k.a. Eleanor-did them part. You didn’t know Giselle, of course, but she was such a ray of sunshine in Jeb’s life.”

A. P. Hill preserved her reputation for humorlessness by not remarking, “I expect she was a hot little number, all right.”

“Jeb and Giselle.” Creighton sighed. “They were such an ideal couple. It was the most touching thing to see them together. So in love.”

A. P. Hill looked puzzled as the name finally registered. “Giselle? That’s not the name on the documents-”

“Oh, no.” Bob gave her a sad smile. “Her real name was Staci, but she once studied ballet, and Jeb thought she was so graceful, with her big brown eyes. Like Bambi. So the pet name went from Gazelle to Giselle. Giselle is a famous ballet,” he added, in case A. P. Hill were culturally challenged.

She returned his smile with a cold stare. “A ballet? Really? Is it about adultery?”

“I see that woman has poisoned your mind,” said Bob. “That’s because you didn’t know Jeb and Giselle. Eleanor couldn’t run that game on any of us around here, which is why she had to import a lawyer.”

“Maybe she just wanted an unbiased trial,” A. P. Hill replied. “Clients are funny about that.”

“Oh, we’ll be fair, all right,” said Creighton. “But we take it very personally when an hysterical middle-aged woman guns down her ex-husband out of jealousy and spite.”

A. P. Hill made a mental note to look again into a change of venue for the trial. “I hear he wasn’t exactly benevolent in the divorce,” she said.

Bob Creighton hesitated for a moment. Deciding which argument to pick, thought A.P. Finally he smiled at her and said, “He was a lot like you, Amy. I know you wouldn’t expect some old flame to support you for the rest of your life. And I know you wouldn’t care to have one sponging off you, either.”

“I might choose a spouse more carefully to begin with.”

Creighton shrugged. “Hindsight doesn’t win football games.”

“So tell me about this divorce,” Powell prompted. “I have my client’s side of it, of course, and I can get the documents, but I’m sure the legal community here saw a good bit that I won’t find in either account.”

“Oh, for sure. Everybody knew Jeb. He was a pillar of the community. Symphony fund-raiser, great golfer. Famous for his dinner parties.”

“Oh, he cooked?”

“Well, no. For the last couple of years he’s hosted his dinners at La Maison, because Giselle didn’t cook that sort of fare.”

“But before that?”

“I suppose that woman handled the cooking,” Bob Creighton said grudgingly. “Eleanor. Probably it was all she was good for.”

“You were going to tell me about the divorce.”

“It was just one of those things, Amy. Jeb and Eleanor Royden got married very young, and over the years they grew apart. It happens-and it certainly isn’t uncommon these days.”

“Not among people who can afford a trade-in, no,” said Powell Hill sweetly.

“I told you. He met Giselle and then he couldn’t see spending the rest of his life being middle-aged and bored. Then none of them would have been happy. He tried it for a while, though. He and Staci-Giselle-used to be seen around town together. She’d go with him on trips sometimes, but he still went home to Eleanor like a good boy. I think he tried to keep his marriage intact.”

“How very noble of him.”

“Yeah.” Creighton sighed. “Eleanor Royden found out about it, though. She was out with Jeb at a charity event one evening, and they ran into an attorney who was new in town. The attorney asked Eleanor if she was Mrs. Royden’s mother.”

“No doubt it was awkward,” said A. P. Hill. “I’m sure he felt just like Aldrich Ames.”

“Who?”

“The CIA fellow who got caught spying for the USSR. It’s always unpleasant to be caught.”

Creighton raised his eyebrows. “I know it’s good form to identify with one’s prospective client- publicly, at least. But such hausfrau sentiments are a little out of character coming from you, Amy.”

A. P. Hill’s civility had worn thin. “Nobody calls me Amy, Creighton.”

“You’re talking like an Amy, Counselor. All bourgeois horrified at the wicked ways of the world. Surely you aren’t so naïve, whatever your client’s failings.”

A. P. Hill gave him a mildly attentive stare, the look she used to give fetal pigs in high-school biology lab. “So, Bob, you are saying that if something is a common occurrence, one should not be upset when one encounters it. Child abuse is fairly common. Drunk driving is routine. Torture goes on in most parts of the world. Should we take all that in stride merely because it happens a lot? I thought morality depended on what was right, not on what was popular.”

Creighton looked over his shoulder. Then he turned around and peered at the empty chairs of the snack bar. “Is there a jury in here?” he asked. “I don’t see one. Or were you just grandstanding from force of habit?”

“Just presenting the rebuttal for that smug little editorial of yours. Now get back to the Roydens’ divorce. What happened after Eleanor found out about Staci?”

“Oh, she became completely irrational. Probably something to do with menopause.”

“An interesting defense,” said A. P. Hill. “What did she do?”

“She stormed out into the parking lot to Jeb’s new car. He had just bought a white Nissan 3002X.”

“Probably something to do with male menopause,” she said solemnly.

“Why shouldn’t he? It was his money. Anyhow, Eleanor got into the trunk, took a tire iron, and did a pretty thorough job of smashing that car into an unrecognizable wreck.”