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

“Well, Chevry’s behavior would inspire many wives to poison.”

“I preferred prayer,” said Donna Jean. “So, anyhow, they’ve sent his body off to the medical examiner and they’re testing all the leftover food that was in the kitchen. Now we have to wait and see what the report says.”

“Maybe it was food poisoning,” said Bill, putting away his notebook. “If you made the potato salad with mayonnaise, it could have easily gone bad and caused the poisoning symptoms. I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Mrs. Morgan.”

“Yes, I do,” said Donna Jean. “My maiden name was Todhunter.”

A. P. Hill was in conference with her client. She was by far the more apprehensive of the two, pacing back and forth, her fists clenched at her sides. Eleanor Royden, looking wan but alert in an unflattering green prison shift, was buffing her nails and watching her attorney with an expression of polite interest.

“What’s eating you, Sunshine?” she finally asked.

“This case,” said Powell Hill, through clenched teeth. “I’m wondering if I ought to resign.”

Eleanor raised her eyebrows. “Was it something I said?” she murmured.

“It’s something everybody said! The district attorney’s office sent a wreath to your husband’s funeral. None of them can say your name without grimacing. And your so-called friend Marizel wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire, so don’t expect to build any defense on her support. And then there’s you! You sit here gloating about committing two murders, and collecting case-related bumper stickers! And I’m supposed to defend you. How am I supposed to contend with all that?”

Her client shrugged. “Considering your hourly rate, what did you expect? An easy acquittal? Charlie Manson’s fingerprints at the crime scene?”

“It’s not that.” Powell Hill sighed. “I don’t mind hard work. I don’t even mind the fact that you shot them, and that you’ve admitted it. I’m just worried that my best work won’t be good enough in this case. The state is going to ask for the death penalty, and I’m afraid the jury will give it to them. I don’t know if I can live with that.”

“ I certainly can’t,” Eleanor observed.

“There you go again, Mrs. Royden. Making jokes about your situation as if it were a community theatre production instead of literally life and death. You may not take all this seriously, but I do. And I wonder if somebody else could do a better job of defending you. Someone with more experience.”

Eleanor Royden smiled. “Do you propose that I be defended by a-what was that picturesque term you had for my husband’s more distinguished male colleagues?”

A. P. Hill hung her head. “A silverback,” she muttered. “But silverbacks can be awfully effective. They have the experience, the connections, and the know-how to beat the system-if they choose to. Maybe you’d be better off with one of them defending you. Mrs. Royden, I’m almost as much of an outcast as you are.”

“That seems fitting to me,” said the defendant. “At least I know that I can trust you. You won’t make secret deals behind my back, or urge me to plea-bargain for the sake of your own fee schedule or your legal reputation. If we go down, it’s together. I like that. Marriage used to work that way; now you have to try to find an attorney who’ll promise to be with you till death do us part.” She nodded. “Yes, I do like that.”

A. P. Hill managed a faint smile in return. “That’s very brave of you, Mrs. Royden, but I’m not sure I want to play the Sundance Kid in your production. You’re the one who might be sentenced to die. Will I be able to prevent that? I just got out of law school last year. My grades were excellent, but my trial experience is minimal, and I keep thinking that you deserve better representation.”

Eleanor Royden put down her nail file and looked up at her attorney with an expression bordering on seriousness. “Amy Powell Hill, on your honor as an officer of the court, do you swear that you personally believe that I killed Jeb and Staci Royden with provocation !”

A. P. Hill stopped in midstride, her mouth open. After a moment she continued. “Provocation? Yes, I guess I do.”

“Good. Then you ought to be able to convince a jury of that, Sunshine. Till death do us part, then?”

A. P. Hill extended her hand. “Till death do us part.”

“Todhunter,” said Bill MacPherson, puzzled by his client’s worried expression. What did Mrs. Morgan’s maiden name have to do with her husband’s sudden death? “That’s rather an unusual name.”

“It’s pretty famous around here,” said Donna Jean.

Bill mulled it over, trying to figure out why the name sounded familiar. Finally it hit him-and his stomach lurched with a sudden, unpleasant realization. “Not old Lucy Todhunter! Lethal Lucy?”

Donna Jean Morgan nodded mournfully. “That’s what they call her. Only the poison was supposed to have been in a doughnut, I think. Lucy Todhunter was my great-grandmother. Of course, she had been dead for years and years, so nobody in the family ever knew her, but the fact that she poisoned her husband was common knowledge. The menfolk in the family used to joke about it at weddings. I remember they said something about it to Chevry at the reception when I married him. Funny, isn’t it?”

Not if they can find somebody who remembers them saying it, Bill thought. Aloud he said, “But I thought Lucy Todhunter was acquitted of murdering her husband.” His knowledge of the case was hazy, based more on hand-me-down references than on any familiarity with the trial records. He knew she hadn’t been hanged, because A. P. Hill kept track of such things.

“She got off, all right. But people always said it was because she outsmarted the law. Nobody ever doubted that she did it.”

Bill MacPherson nodded sympathetically. “Like Lizzie Borden. No one remembers that she wasn’t convicted. Of course, I think she was guilty, too. But the Lucy Todhunter case was more than a century ago. What difference does it make now?”

“My great-grandmother was a notorious poisoner. People think she killed her husband,” said Donna Jean patiently. “My husband Chevry just died of poisoning. Don’t you think a jury will put those two facts together?”

“I hope not,” said Bill. “I know for sure that the information about your great-grandmother absolutely cannot be introduced into the evidence at the trial. If there is a trial, I mean. They don’t even have the autopsy report yet. Your husband may have died of natural causes.”

“Not Chevry,” said his widow mournfully. “He never was one to take the easy way out. I just know what folks will be saying. If they can’t prove how Chevry was poisoned, they’ll reckon that Lucy Todhunter passed her secret down to me-how to poison your husband and get away with it. Maybe nobody will come right out and say it in court, but the word will get around. Small towns have long memories.”

“All right,” said Bill. “I’ll have our investigator look into Lethal Lucy’s trial. Maybe she was innocent, too. And you promise me that if any law-enforcement people come by to question you, you will ask for permission to call your lawyer-and you won’t answer anything until I get here. Is that understood? Before you even offer them pound cake, you call me.”

“You think they’ll be back, then?” asked Donna Jean.

“Oh, maybe not,” said Bill. “I’m just taking every precaution to ensure your safety.” Privately he would have bet a year’s rent that she’d be seeing badges before the week was out.

“I am not a distrustful or cynical person,” said Elizabeth MacPherson, eyeing a pizza deliveryman who looked suspiciously like her brother, Bill. “But when you turn up at my door at ten in the evening bearing pepperoni and mushrooms, with a look of canine eagerness on your face, I am bound to ask you what inconvenient task you want me to perform.”