Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

“Where were they going?”

“By the time I asked that, the old lady’s bossy friend had turned up and was trying to elbow her toward their car. She said they were going to an island to meet friends.”

“Probably the other three fugitives,” I said.

“Well, I did ask who they were going to see, because they were acting as suspicious as all get-out, but I had to make my question charming and innocent-sounding, on account of their nervous states. As she walked away, the sweet old lady said, ‘We’ll be visiting Major Edward Anderson.’ I remember the name because he was a comedian that Captain Grandfather used to like, but it seemed odd to me that they’d be visiting an old-time comedian.”

“Maybe they knew him. Would he be about their age?”

“I’m sure he was much older. He played Rochester on the old Jack Benny show. And I never heard anybody call him major. I knew that the old dears were trying to be vague, but sometimes people tell bits of the truth when they’re trying to be misleading.”

“And some people are misleading when they’re trying to tell the truth.”

“Well, I thought it was worth looking into. If I could do it without expending any particular effort.”

“You’ve never been mistaken for Mother Teresa, have you?” I asked, but sarcasm is wasted on Geoffrey.

“Don’t be ungrateful. I called Mother to see if she knew an Edward Anderson, thinking he might be a politician or a social lion in Georgia, but she’d never heard of him. I suppose I could consult a library, if it’s a question of Cousin Bill going to prison.” Geoffrey yawned, not from the lateness of the hour, but at the prospect of exerting himself on someone else’s behalf.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” I told him. “But feel free to pursue the matter if the spirit moves you, Geoffrey.”

“There’s not a reward out for the old dears, is there?”

“No. Everyone else thinks Bill has murdered them. I suppose we could call you to testify if it comes to that.”

“I saw only five of them,” he pointed out. “He could have murdered the other three.”

“Thank you for that vote of family confidence, Geoffrey. I’ll take it from here.”

“Good. And if I’m cast as Jeb Stuart, you will come and see the show, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” I’ll be rooting for the Yankees.

After that I went to sleep, but I must still have been reviewing the events of the day because I kept dreaming about making phone calls and trying to find Misti Hale’s name in the phone book so I could call her up and ask her how she died. Something must have been percolating through my subconscious, though, because around six A.M. I sat bolt upright in bed, realizing that I had been mulling over that autopsy report and that there was something odd about it. It might have been a simple omission of a detail on the part of the coroner, but it wasn’t there. If A. P. Hill was any good at all at being a lawyer, she could take that fact and run with it. I wondered if I could catch her before she left the motel.

I drove back to Bill’s, marveling at how little traffic there was. Of course it was six forty-five in the morning, and I don’t suppose that rush hour in Danville starts until about five to eight. I had my pick of parking places.

I pounded on the door to Bill’s tiny apartment, knowing that he had to have heard me. No place in his apartment is all that far from the door. “Open up, Bill!” I called out. “It’s your sister. Without a search warrant.”

The door opened a fraction, and I could see rumpled blond hair and an unshaven face peering out at me. “What do you want?” he asked between yawns.

“The key to your office and a cup of tea,” I said sweetly. “I see that I woke you. No rush. Any time in the next minute or so will do.”

Bill glared. “Why do you want the key?”

“To call your law partner. I have some information that may help her case.”

“Her case?” he wailed. “What about me?”

“I’m still working on it.” I snatched the key and fled downstairs.

A few minutes later, I was talking to A. P. Hill, who was wide awake at this hour, as I suspected she would be. She probably alphabetizes her underwear drawer. “I looked over that coroner’s report, and I have some information for you,” I said after the initial civilities.

“I don’t see what you could have found without doing any lab work,” she said.

“They did the lab work. And either they forgot to record one significant finding or there’s something strange about Misti Hale’s death.”

“You mean she wasn’t strangled?”

“Sort of. There were bruises on her neck, all right, and her body had been in the car for a couple of days, so the lividity and coloration weren’t much help, but what I would expect to find noted on the report was evidence of petechial hemorrhaging.”

“Which is?”

“Red dots, especially noticeable in the eyes. They are actually small hemorrhages in the capillaries under the skin, and the condition is most evident in the whites of the eyes. The pressure put on the blood vessels during strangulation causes the tiny ruptures. But in the autopsy report on Misti Hale, no petechial hemorrhages were mentioned.”

“But you said there were bruises on her neck.”

“Right, but if there weren’t any hemorrhages, then she didn’t die from that. In grad school, we heard about a case like this. I have a hunch that Misti Hale was one of those rare and unlucky people whose blood pressure goes down under stress instead of up. You know, like a possum.”

“She passed out?”

“Way out. Someone took her by the throat, and she went into shock almost immediately. Her blood pressure plummeted and her heart stopped. So she didn’t die from strangulation, but from shock. It would have been very fast. Seconds.”

A. P. Hill was not impressed with my diagnosis. “Hmm,” she said. “But whoever had his hands around her throat still killed her.”

“Maybe not on purpose. Her assailant might have stopped in a couple of seconds. He may have been trying to shut her up. But she had this blood pressure trouble, and she passed out and died. It’s not conclusive proof, but you could argue that it was not an intentional homicide. You could get expert witnesses to back you for manslaughter.”

“He might get off with time served for that.” A. P. Hill sounded thoughtful. “And I could get expert witnesses to testify to this condition.”

“Sure. If I were you, I’d start calling the UVA med school and go from there.”

“Thanks. I’ll look into it. Unless you’d like to-”

“Sorry. I have to figure out what Major Edward Anderson is doing on a Georgia island.”

“Friend of yours?” The disinterest was back in her voice.

“No. Somebody mentioned it, and I got curious.” I was tempted to tell her about Bill’s problem, but he would have killed me for betraying his confidence.

“Major Edward Anderson. Well, there’s the famous one, of course.”

“The comedian. Rochester. I thought of that.”

“Comedian? Oh, on Jack Benny. No, that was Eddie Anderson. I was talking about the Confederate officer. Wasn’t he in charge of battery positions at the beginning of the war?”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. He was only a major. But in my office there are some reference books on the Civil War, and bound copies of Civil War Times Illustrated. You might check those. Of course it might be the wrong man.”

“It’s worth a try. Thanks.”

Twenty minutes later, I was reshelving all of Powell Hill’s reference books when Bill came in, holding two steaming mugs of tea.

“Took you long enough,” I said. “Unfortunately, I can’t drink it.”