Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

“Geoffrey? He’s in Atlanta. Shall I give you the number he left?”

“Yes, please,” I said evenly. “I’m going to hang up now and call him. And I only wish it were midnight in Atlanta.” Not that the lateness of the hour would inconvenience my cousin. Midnight is the shank of his evening. I dialed his number with shaking fingers, because there was an excellent chance that he was out at dinner or partying. (Geoffrey’s last quiet evening at home was believed to have taken place in 1983 during a flu epidemic.) Sure enough, the phone rang about ten times and nobody picked it up. I figured I had about five hours to kill before Geoffrey tottered in from his revelries, so I hung up, and cast about for something else to keep me occupied.

I went over and inspected the bookcase. Bill didn’t keep any books or magazines worth reading in his office, and Edith’s crossword puzzle books didn’t interest me either. I was about to go up to Bill’s apartment to watch television, not a pleasant prospect, because he has a tiny black-and-white set with no vertical hold. Surely there must be something else I could do, I thought. Short of dusting the office.

Suddenly I noticed the manila folder that A. P. Hill had left with me: the autopsy report on her murder case. I settled back in Bill’s chair and began to sift through the report. It began, as they often do, with “the body of a well-nourished female.” I suppose that’s a holdover from earlier decades when well-nourished bodies were less commonplace. I wondered, though, if some of my yogurt-happy jogger friends would merit some other opening remark. This is the body of a downright scrawny yuppie … It was a pleasant fantasy, enlivening an otherwise unpleasant chronicle of a young life wasted.

Misti Hale had been twenty-four years old at the time of her death. The report went on to describe the lividity of the body, the coloration, the bruises on her neck. I read through the report and looked at the photographs of the girl who might have been pretty. In graduate school I’d had courses in forensic pathology, and all this looked sadly familiar. I kept thinking, though, that there was something else I should be looking for, but I couldn’t remember what it was. All my notes were back in Scotland anyhow. I was about to put the folder aside, thinking that the missing detail might come back to me later, when the phone rang. I hoped it was Bill. I hadn’t had dinner.

“Calvin Trowbridge here,” said a male voice laden with Southern money. “Is Bill there?”

“It’s nearly eight o’clock,” I said, glancing at my watch. “He’s not in the office. Is it urgent?”

“No, just a thought. See, I have Bill on retainer to-”

“Oh, you’re the one! Well, he’s terribly busy. Why don’t you go to law school if you’re so keen to know all this stuff?”

I hung up before he could reply. I had considered many careers during my four-year stint as a liberal arts major, but public relations was never one of them.

At ten o’clock I gave up on Bill and went back to my motel room. (I could have stayed with my brother, but lodging two people in his apartment would be like trying to live in a squirrel’s nest.) I was still thinking about A. P. Hill’s case and trying to come up with more ideas for tracing the old ladies. Washing my hair did not get me any further along on either problem.

I waited until nearly midnight before trying to return Geoffrey’s call. The chances of waking him up were slim, but I’d hope for the best. After two rings he picked up the phone, sounding as disgustingly bright and cheerful as ever.

“This is your cousin from Scotland,” I told him. “And don’t make any snide remarks about Queen Elizabeth I calling Mary Queen of Scots that, because I’m in no mood for Trivial Pursuit.”

“Actually, it was James I to whom she referred,” purred Geoffrey, “but I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time with intellectual banter. You haven’t the gift for it. I did just want to tell you a story that might interest you. Cameron hinted that there were family problems in the Old Dominion. Would you care to elaborate?”

“No. If you have anything useful to tell me, I’ll feed your hunger for gossip. Otherwise you will have to depend on supermarket tabloids for your weekly quota of sleaze. Now what’s so important that you called Scotland to talk to me about it?”

“Actually my main reason for phoning was to see if you knew anything about the Lime Kiln Theatre in Lexington. They have a wonderful repertory company and put on a series of plays-”

“Yes, I know about them, Geoffrey. I suppose you were thinking of auditioning?”

“Well, I thought I might enjoy the acting experience. And I’d much rather spend a summer in Virginia than in Manhattan. Besides, they do a play called Stonewall Country about the Civil War, and I thought I might try out for the role of Jeb Stuart.”

“Rubbish! He was a general. You’re too young to play a general.”

“Au contraire, my little Visigoth. Jeb Stuart became a general at the age of twenty-nine. And he was by all accounts colorful and handsome. I am perfectly suited to the role.”

“He was a braggart and a show-off,” I conceded. “So there might be some justification in casting you in the part. I’d like to see you engulfed in a red beard. But I’m sure you didn’t call me to discuss your acting career.”

“No. That was only to give you some background so you’d understand why I was at Stone Mountain wearing a Confederate uniform.”

I sighed. “No, Geoffrey. Even with the background you provided, I cannot make that leap. Why the devil were you trick-or-treating in a state park?”

“Have you ever been to Stone Mountain? On the side of it is a huge bas-relief of Lee and his generals. Quite inspiring. I’d driven down to Atlanta to visit all the historical sites and also to visit a wonderful costume shop in the Underground, where I found quite a fetching Confederate uniform, in which I look unutterably dashing.”

“Let me guess. You bought this Confederate uniform. Did it have a fringed gold sash and a plumed hat, by any chance? I thought so. And you just could not resist nipping down to Stone Mountain to prance around-”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Oh, all right. Go ahead.”

“That’s better. Where was I? Oh, yes. Stone Mountain. I was strolling in the parking lot, trying to get the feel of being a general, when a little old lady came up to me and admired my uniform. We started to chat, and when I told her about my hopes of going to do theatre in Lexington, she said that she and her friends were from Virginia, and of course I asked what town, and she said Danville, and then we played Southern chess: do you know my friend-so-and-so?”

“Old ladies?” I was suddenly interested. “Were there eight of them?”

“I only counted five,” said Geoffrey. “But the one I talked to knew Bill. After a moment she seemed to realize that admitting this had been a mistake. She became decidedly uneasy. And then her friend came along and hustled her off before I could find out what was going on. It seemed fairly strange to me, because usually little old ladies want to talk your ear off, and they’ll tell you their life stories without the least provocation, so I wondered why this lot was so evasive.”

“Well, the State Bureau of Investigation would like a word with them, for starters,” I said. “They seem to think that Bill murdered them.” I explained the simple little house sale to Geoffrey.

“And people wonder why chivalry is dead,” he murmured. “So they conned Virginia out of a million five and left Bill to talk to the authorities. That would explain why they seemed so fidgety.”