Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

Tug Mosier glanced at his attorney, who nodded almost imperceptibly. He held out his arm. “Go on and stick me, then.”

While they waited for the drug to take effect, Powell Hill thought about the forthcoming trial. She wondered if she had insisted on this psychological evaluation for Tug Mosier’s sake, or for her own peace of mind. She was just beginning her career in law. She still wanted to know if things were true or false. Later, she’d heard, it all turned into a complex chess game. And only the skill of the moves mattered any longer.

“He’s ready,” said Timmons softly.

Tug Mosier seemed awake, but more subdued than before. He sat slack-jawed in his steel-frame chair, staring at the lime-green wall with a furrowed expression of concentration.

“Can you hear me, Tug?”

“Yeah.” The reply was a voiceless whisper.

“We’re going back to the last time you saw Misti. I want you to watch yourself on that wall there. That’s where the movie’s showing. Do you see yourself out drinking with the boys?”

“Yeah.”

“You see it happening, Tug, but you won’t feel it this time. You’re not going to get high just from watching, understand?”

Tug’s head jerked in what might have been a yes. He was still staring at the lime-colored wall, almost oblivious to their presence.

“Tell me when you see yourself leaving the party, Tug. Can you fast-forward to that part now?”

“Okay. Getting my jacket on. Heading for the door.”

“You’re drunk, though, in the movie, aren’t you? Not walking very well?”

“S’right.”

“Does the gang say goodbye to you?”

“Naw. Too busy partying. Nobody gives a-”

“Does anybody go with you? Maybe you needed some help getting home.”

“Yeah. Somebody’s holding on to me.”

Timmons and Powell Hill looked at each other. After a moment of silence, the doctor went on in a carefully offhand tone. “Can you see who it is, Tug?”

“Yeah. Red. Red Dowdy?”

Powell Hill scribbled the name on the note pad and waited with pencil poised for her client to continue. “Get a description,” she mouthed silently to Timmons.

“What does Red Dowdy look like, Tug?” asked Timmons with casual interest.

“Tall drink of water. Stringy red hair. Gap-toothed. Boots.”

“And have you reached your car yet, Tug?”

“Yeah. Sitting in it. Head’s spinning too much to drive.”

“Did Dowdy get in the car, too?”

“He’s pushing me over. Thinks he can drive better.”

“Do you let him?”

“Yeah. Too dizzy to argue.”

“What happens next, Tug?”

“He’s shaking me. We’re in the driveway of the house.”

“Your house? The place where Misti Lynn is waiting?”

“Yeah. He’s pushing me out of the car. I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“But you go inside. Does Red go in with you?”

Tug Mosier’s eyes widened as he stared at the pale green wall, watching Misti Lynn Hale die again.

John Huff knew that soon he would have to return to his business up north, but before he left, he intended to have matters well under way for a prosecution in the case of his house purchase. He didn’t suppose that MacPherson would get anything really satisfying, like the death penalty, even in a blood-and-guts state like Virginia. Even so, Huff was determined to see that the local authorities prosecuted the matter to the fullest possible extent. No one made a fool of John Huff and escaped unscathed.

He was in the back parlor of the Home for Confederate Women, still fully clothed although it was well past midnight. A full moon shone through the uncurtained window, giving the room an air of romance, but Huff cared nothing for such sentimental twaddle. His attention was centered on the built-in oak bookshelf that stretched from floor to ceiling on either side of the marble fireplace. As he had stipulated, the old ladies had left behind the books-and a sorry lot they generally were, too. He didn’t suppose he could get a quarter apiece for most of them at a yard sale. They were a saccharine collection of book-club novels and cheap editions of second-rate poets and historians. Still, he had to examine all of them carefully. He didn’t have much time. Soon the state might succeed in getting its house back and he would be forced to leave. But the process would take a little time.

Meanwhile, he had bullied Custis Byrd and his bureaucracy into letting him stay on in the mansion until matters were resolved. Another title search had been initiated immediately after the MacPherson fiasco came to light, and sure enough, there had been no paperwork filed with the deed indicating that the state intended to claim the house. Of course, that didn’t let MacPherson off the hook. In fact it got him in deeper, because Byrd was swearing up and down that the kid lawyer had destroyed the evidence of the state’s claim. But Huff was quick to point out that he had purchased the house in good faith, and that until the state could prove otherwise, the transaction looked legal. If they wanted the house, they would have to pay him purchase price plus ten percent. Moreover, he said, he intended to stay in his newly purchased house until somebody gave him his money back. He didn’t care who, or how long it took. That sent Byrd flitting away, mumbling to himself about consulting the attorney general, but John Huff didn’t care. He would let Fremont, Shields & Banks take care of that. Not, incidentally, Nathan Kimball, who was a reasonably competent errand boy, but not the legal chain saw Huff required for this sort of contretemps.

For now Huff was marginally content. He had possession of the house, and he intended to take full advantage of the situation, even if it meant getting by on very little sleep. It was nearly two A.M. now and he was still stirring. He had searched most of the house by now, but not as thoroughly as he intended to in the days to come. He even planned to rip out the plaster walls if necessary. Failing that, he’d go over the grounds with a metal detector. If he thought he stood a reasonable chance of getting to keep the house, he would have been considerably more careful about the property, but since the state seemed likely to step in and confiscate it at any moment, he decided that he had nothing to lose by taking drastic measures.

After all, the house had a very interesting and complex history. When the word Danville caught his eye in the newspaper ad, he began to investigate a hunch. Since then he had studied the house’s past in detail. He would have liked an opportunity to take a crowbar to the Summerlin House as well, but that was now a well-guarded local museum, so he had to pin his hopes on the Phillips house and pray that the temporary occupancy of Micajah Clark in April 1865 meant what he thought it did: several million dollars in Confederate gold concealed somewhere on the premises. If he could spirit that out of the state, he didn’t care who ended up with the house itself. If he still wanted to become a Virginia gentleman, he could build a dozen such houses with that kind of booty. John Huff’s hobby was treasure-hunting.

BETWEEN ATLANTA AND THE SEA…

AT HER ADVANCED age Flora Dabney felt that she was really too old to command an expedition of this sort, but there didn’t seem to be much choice in the matter. The state had forced them out of their rightful home-and really, what could you expect of those carpetbagging Northern Virginians? Not really Southern at all. So now they were fugitives. But Robert E. Lee had lost his citizenship, too. She kept reminding the others that it wasn’t what the government thought of you that mattered; it was whether you fought with honor for your Cause.