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

“Family law? Sure. Piece of cake.”

“Tell that to the lawyers for the Menendez brothers,” said A. P. Hill.

An hour later Bill, in his navy-blue jacket and spotted power tie, was practicing looking professional and reassuring while he waited for Edith to usher in Mrs. Morgan. When she appeared in the doorway looking dumpy and dowdy in a shabby cloth coat, Bill felt a pang of dread. She was fifty-something, with unkempt graying hair and a sorrowful pudding face. Her brown eyes were already brimming with tears. Not another discarded wife , Bill thought with alarm. It’s like looking through the chain links in the back of the dogcatcher’s truck . He hoped that the bright young women in his generation wouldn’t end up like that-fading and sad, while their husbands went on to a second youth. He tried to picture a fiftyish A. P. Hill in such straits, but his imagination was not equal to the task. In twenty-five years A. P. Hill would probably be a tiny, testy federal judge with a stainless-steel heart. His new client sniffled ominously. Bill shoved the box of tissues to the edge of the desk and asked her to sit down.

“My name is Donna Jean Morgan,” said the woman, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “My sister said I had to come talk to you, but I want to tell you right up front that I don’t believe in divorce.”

Bill sighed. “I don’t believe in being overdrawn at the bank, Mrs. Morgan, but it happens to me occasionally all the same.”

“It’s against my religion,” she said.

“Being overdr-”

“Divorce.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

She opened her plastic handbag and drew out a family photo. Set against the blue haze of a shopping-mall $14.99 portrait special (two 8×10s; four 5×7s; twenty wallet size), Bill saw a solemn family group. There was Donna Jean Morgan, looking like a nervous mud hen in an unflattering brown dress, with tendrils of graying hair escaping from a clumsily pinned bun. Beside her sat a large florid man of about fifty, tanned and beefy, in a light blue jacket and an open-necked shirt. He smiled at the camera with boxy horse teeth and crinkled eyes, with a smugness that income and education could not account for. Bill wondered about the source of that pride. Was the man an aging athlete, still vain about his days as a high-school halfback, or was he a country singer on the local beer-joint circuit?

“Nice-looking fellow,” said Bill, thinking that the weather-beaten face looked familiar somehow. Then he got it: this man could have been the real-life model for Fred Flintstone.

“Yes, he’s a handsome one,” said Donna Jean Morgan, dabbing her eyes again. “Always has been, and it’s a cross I’ve had to bear these twenty-seven years. He’s my husband, Chevry.”

Bill looked at the third face in the portrait. Standing behind the middle-aged couple stood a grinning teenage girl with a heart-shaped face and a tangle of shoulder-length brown curls. She was wearing a navy-blue dress with a square white sailor collar and a red tie. Bill wondered where she got her looks. “What a nice smile,” he said. “Your daughter is very pretty,” he said with more sincerity. “You must be very proud of her.”

“I hate the bitch,” said Donna Jean. “That there is Chevry’s second wife.”

Bill blinked at the sudden vehemence from his client. “Mrs. Morgan, you’re divorced? I thought you said-”

“I said I didn’t believe in divorce on account of our religion. Neither does Chevry. We’re still married. But a month ago, he ups and brings home this other wife. And now he’s trying to give her my car. Can he do that?”

A. P. Hill had a purse full of tissues, but she wasn’t going to need them. Before she left to interview her prospective client, she had emptied the box in her office, thinking that any middle-aged woman who had just shot her former husband was sure to be a basket case. A.P. pictured herself trying to elicit the facts of the case syllable by syllable, between shrieks and bouts of wild sobbing.

Eleanor Royden was not like that at all.

When A. P. Hill entered the interview room, Eleanor Royden was reading the Extra section of the Roanoke Times & World News . She was chuckling as she peered over the top of the page at the visitor. “I was reading my horoscope,” she announced. “It says: ‘Show family and friends who you really are. Clean out your life and meet some interesting new people.’ Well, I’ve taken care of that, haven’t I?” She looked appraisingly at the young attorney. “ You look interesting. Actually, you look about sixteen, but you must be a good lawyer. You’ve certainly annoyed enough of the big boys.”

A. P. Hill permitted herself a smile as she sat down. “I call them silverbacks,” she said. “In primate studies that’s what they call the large male gorillas who try to dominate the rest of the troop.”

“How very apt,” said Eleanor, nodding approval. “Are gorillas monogamous, do you think?”

“I can’t imagine it’s a big deal to them.” A. P. Hill looked at her client, wondering if the woman was insane or in shock. She appeared to be neither. She was as frank and cheerful as someone chatting during a coffee break.

A. P. Hill’s experience with murderers was minuscule, but she had never heard of one wanting to chat about natural history instead of about legal strategies. A. P. Hill decided that the poor woman was in denial. She looked all right. Her silvery-blonde hair had seen a beauty parlor recently, and her gray wool dress seemed oddly formal against the fake paneling of the conference room of the county jail. Eleanor Royden resembled someone who had come from a bridge game at the country club, not from a room with a bunk, a lidless toilet, and electronically operated steel bars. A.P. began to toy with the idea of an insanity defense.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Mrs. Royden,” she said.

“It’s a long story. But the last chapter was pretty action-packed.” She folded the newspaper carefully and set it down on the table. “Who do you think would play me in the movie? I’m partial to Susan Lucci, but then I haven’t given it much thought. Sally Field, perhaps. I’ve always liked her. She does Southern really well.”

Time to play hardball, thought A. P. Hill. Leaning forward, stern-faced, she said, “How about Susan Hayward in I Want to Live , Mrs. Royden?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Much too earthy. Oh, I see. Gallows humor. Was your comment intended to remind me of the gravity of the situation? All right. I suppose it was too much to hope that you’d have a sense of humor as well as satisfactory legal credentials.”

“Tell-me-about-this-case,” said A. P. Hill through clenched teeth.

“Oh, all right. Oh, listen, can you get me some Rancé soap? Do you know they use green powdered stuff in here. Can you believe it? I’d rather scrub my face on a Brillo pad!”

“The case, Mrs. Royden.”

“Oh, call me Eleanor. Mrs. Royden got to be an unpleasant epithet in the last couple of years.” She rested her head on her upturned palms and gave A. P. Hill a dazzling smile. “You don’t smoke, I suppose? I quit years ago, but I feel that this is a special occasion.”

“I don’t smoke,” said A. P. Hill, momentarily distracted. “I have breath mints.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Not the same, Ms.- well, what shall I call you? Amy?”

“Not if you want me to take the case. Just make it A.P. I answer to that.” She looked at her watch. “I also charge by the hour. Now, are you going to get down to business, or am I going back to Danville?”

Eleanor Royden made a face at her. “Party pooper,” she said. “I’ve just killed my husband and his unspeakable child bride. Can’t you let me enjoy it?”