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

“Protestant?” asked Bill, for want of saying that Chevry seemed to lay a lot of things.

“Well, we’re not connected to any worldwide denominations. We’re just simple country people-”

From the planet Twilo, thought Bill, but he nodded sagely for her to continue.

“Not too well-off. Chevry preaches at night, but he has a day job laying carpet for the big discount carpet place here in Danville.”

Bill swallowed a quip about prayer rugs. She’s probably not kidding, he kept reminding himself. “I see. And when did your husband receive his-um- revelation?”

“It’s been three weeks now. He said the Lord spoke to him while he was in his truck driving up Highway 86. First he told Tanya Faith about it, and after she accepted him, they went and told her parents.”

“Who went ballistic?”

“I believe Dewey Reinhardt took it hard at first, but Chevry said it was a test of faith, like Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac and that they hadn’t ought to question it.”

“Wait,” said Bill, glancing around for the office Bible. “Hold it right there. Unless there has been a major rewrite since I went to Bible school, Abraham didn’t end up killing Isaac. When God saw that the old man was willing to go through with it, He allowed him to sacrifice a sheep instead.” He shuddered. “I don’t suppose your husband-”

“Oh, no,” said Donna Morgan. “He went ahead and consummated it all right. You should see them together. She’s all over him.”

“But they actually got married?” Bill tried to remember the legal age limit for marriage in Virginia. Of course, with parental consent, sixteen was probably old enough. Except for the spot of bother about bigamy.

“Well… it wasn’t a formal wedding, but he says they did solemnize their heavenly vows.”

“With a state marriage license? Justice of the peace?” Bill was scribbling furiously now.

“Neither one. Chevry said they didn’t need to fool with paperwork for a divine union.”

I’ll bet it was . Aloud and willing his lips not to twitch, Bill said: “They did this in your husband’s church? Before witnesses?” He wrote common law and a question mark.

“No, they didn’t have a church ceremony,” said the first Mrs. Morgan, her voice quavering again. “They just knelt in the back of Chevry’s carpet truck and promised to be man and wife.”

Bill pictured himself repeating his client’s story to A. P. Hill. He could sell tickets to that . To say that A. P. Hill would not be amused was a foolhardy understatement. She was practically the poster child for the humorously challenged anyhow; this little tale of lust and lunacy would enrage her beyond the power of tranquilizer darts. If there was anything Amy Powell Hill hated more than chauvinistic men, it was the women who let them get away with it. “They make it harder for me to get taken seriously,” she would rage.

He looked at his notes, thick with underlinings and exclamation points. “All right, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Your husband, a part-time minister, claims to have received a directive from God, instructing him to marry a sixteen-year-old girl named Tanya. Her parents agreed to it. They plighted their troth in the back of a carpet truck, and then he brought her home to live with him and with you, his legal wife. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

Bill sat back and silently counted to ten. Mrs. Morgan did not burst out laughing. No video cameras appeared in the doorway. No one giggled in the outer office. She really wasn’t kidding. Bill sighed. And she was his problem. Sooner or later he would accept the reality of the situation, and then no doubt he would be just as appalled as A. P. Hill. Just now, though, he was trying not to be overwhelmed by the absurdity of it.

“A couple of things come to mind here, Mrs. Morgan,” he said, doodling a row of vertical bars on his legal pad. “Statutory rape is a possibility, or a quaint old law that Virginia still has about seduction. We can even look into the exact wording of the statute on bigamy. We may be able to get him on his own admission of polygamy. I’d say the odds are favorable on Chevry doing jail time. That, of course, will strengthen your position in divorce proceedings.”

“But I don’t want a divorce,” said Donna Morgan.

Bill blinked. “You don’t?”

“I told you that it’s against our religion.”

“Yes, ma’am, but harems-I mean, multiple marriages-are against the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I don’t even have to look it up to be sure. The government feels quite strongly about it.”

“And I didn’t come here to get Chevry put in prison.”

“Mrs. Morgan, I’m a lawyer, not a marriage counselor. What do you want?”

“I just wondered if there are any rules about wives having to be treated alike. Maybe some kind of contract spelling out our rights? I mean, I believe the Lord willed this and all, but I don’t think He’d want me to take a backseat to Tanya Faith, do you?”

When Bill could trust himself to speak, he said, “I’m sure that the Lord is entirely in sympathy with you, Mrs. Morgan. Why don’t you let me do some checking on the legal ramifications of this? I’ll get back to you.”

Mrs. Morgan gave him a misty smile. “That sounds fine,” she said. “And could you talk to Chevry, too?”

“Believe me,” said Bill. “I am most anxious to do so.”

A. P. Hill’s client interview wasn’t going any better than her partner’s. Eleanor Royden was chatting with cheerful lack of remorse that would have gotten her a life sentence for jaywalking. As she talked she paced the concrete floor, looking at nothing in particular, but her delivery was as polished as a stand-up comic’s. She’s in denial, thought A. P. Hill.

“How long have I known the deceased ?” Eleanor Royden toyed with a lock of faded blonde hair and looked thoughtful. “That phrase will take some getting used to. I feel as if I’d just sunk the Bismarck .

Oh, I’ve known Jeb since before your diapers ever polluted a landfill. I met him when I was a freshman in college.”

“So you went to school together?”

“No indeed. I wish I had a cigarette. No, we weren’t at the same school. Jeb was at North Carolina State University, very macho and self-important in prelaw, and I was bouffant hair and a string of cultured pearls at Meredith, which is a Baptist women’s college. I think the State boys saw Meredith as a kind of stocked trout pond.” She shrugged. “And maybe we looked on them as potentially wealthy patrons. I majored in art. Not even art education so that I might have been able to get a teaching job. Just art . And I can’t draw worth a damn. It was just a fashionable way to pass the time while I primped and partied, and looked for a breadwinner.” She bent down and peered at the young lawyer. “Can you relate to any of this, Sunshine?”

“No.” A. P. Hill gave an involuntary shudder. “I’d sooner join the marines.”

“Yes, I believe you would,” said Eleanor, resuming her pacing. “But you are of a different generation, you know. In my day, that is what proper young ladies did. They were supposed to be half of a career. The dinner party and housekeeping part. We were raised to think that those things mattered.”

“I see.”

“Oh, I had a bookkeeping job for a bit, working for a friend of my father, but everybody called that working for dress money . It meant they didn’t have to pay me much. And I suppose I was glad enough to quit and become Mrs. Jeb Royden, do-mes-tic engineer.”

“So you did not work outside the home,” said A. P. Hill, making notes. “You devoted yourself to your husband’s career and well-being.”