Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

“Well, Amy,” he said genially, “have you embarked on a movie career? Is there a Civil War epic being produced in the vicinity?”

Powell Hill winced at the use of her first name, but she let it pass, saving her ammunition for bigger skirmishes. “No, sir,” she replied. “I’m still practicing law.”

“So I heard. I believe your mother said you had a tiny little practice in Danville. A low-rent affair. Have you tired of being stubborn already?” He rifled the papers on his desk, as if to indicate all the job openings he might be able to find for qualified young attorneys.

“No, I’m not tired of the practice,” said A.P. “I’ll stick it out, thanks. I came here to discuss two matters. One is my law partner, Bill MacPherson. Your state legal beagles are hassling him because he accidentally sold the Home for Confederate Women.”

“I’ve heard about that,” said Stinky with an ill-concealed grin. “Is that young fellow your law partner? Oh, my. There’s more than a million dollars unaccounted for, isn’t there? And isn’t he under some suspicion of having done away with the residents of the home?”

“I can clear that up.” A. P. Hill reached into her briefcase and pulled out a fax message. “Here is a copy of an affidavit signed by all of the former residents of the home, indicating that they are alive and well and they removed the paperwork regarding the lien from the courthouse before my partner did the title search. And here’s an agreement signed by John Huff, the present owner of the house, agreeing to sell the property back to the state for his purchase price plus ten percent.” She paused and looked thoughtful. “I hope the restoration people were planning to do some remodeling. Mr. Huff seems to have done a lot of damage to the house. Holes dug in the yard, plaster removed from the walls… I take it he didn’t find what he was looking for.”

“Can we sue him?” asked the attorney general, momentarily distracted from the case at hand.

“You don’t own the house, remember? I talked to a couple of my law professors about this. They agree with me that if no lien was present in the courthouse records, then the transaction was legal as it stood. Mr. Huff bought the house fair and square. Bill was within his rights as an attorney to handle the sale. He is not liable for the money. Which”-she tapped the fax document from Jekyll Island-“the former residents admit to having in a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. They will not be returning to testify, by the way.”

“This won’t look good for your lawyer friend when it hits the papers, Amy.”

“It won’t hit the papers. That’s where you come in. I want you to use all your influence to make this whole problem go away, because if you don’t-”

Cousin Stinky frowned. The seven minutes were surely up by now. Why didn’t his secretary buzz him? “If I don’t-what?”

A. P. Hill stood up and straightened her plumed hat. “Why, Cousin Stinky, if we have any trouble at all about this matter, my entire regiment of Confederate reenactors will come and camp on the lawn of this building, and we’ll give press conferences left and right telling people how the Commonwealth of Virginia evicted a bunch of senior citizens from their home because you were too cheap to pay their utilities! And I’ll make sure the reporters know that I’m related to you.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Sure I would,” grinned Powell. “And I’d be sure to mention how the old ladies outsmarted you by stealing the documents, so that you’ll have to spend nearly two million dollars of the taxpayers’ money to buy the house back.”

The attorney general’s face had gone from good-old-boy red to the delicate green of aged cheese. The buzzer on his intercom sounded insistently, but he made no move to communicate with the caller. Finally he said, “I suppose I could speak to a few people and see that this gets hushed up.” He had been considering running for a Senate seat in the next few months. A Confederate rally on his behalf would do nothing to help his chances at higher office.

“Good,” said A. P. Hill. “I’ll tell the boys to reschedule the rally for the other location.”

“Reschedule it? But you said-”

“Oh, I’ll leave you out of it,” his cousin promised. “No one will know we’re kin. But I’m going to stage a photogenic demonstration at the headquarters of the Park Service. That will give them one chance to back down before I sue them.”

“You’re suing the Park Service?”

A. P. Hill narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. “Damned straight. They told me that I couldn’t participate in reenactments because I was a woman.”

“So you’re going to give them a real war instead, eh, Amy?” He was smiling in spite of himself, possibly at the thought of the legal fees that such a battle would generate.

“Yes. I’ll fight them all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. And I hope I have to.”

The attorney general shook his head. “Legal battles like that can be both time-consuming and costly. I think you’d better drop this idea and get back to that struggling little practice of yours before you and your partner go broke.”

“That brings me to the other thing I wanted to ask you about,” said A. P. Hill. She reached into the pocket of her trousers and fished out a copper coin. “Do you know what this is? A Confederate penny piece. I had it verified at a coin shop before I came over here. Do you know how many there are in existence?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Eight. They were made in Philadelphia as samples for the new government, but metal became scarce in the Confederacy, so pennies were never minted. This one must have belonged to one of the members of Jefferson Davis’s cabinet. It’s worth over half a million dollars.”

“Where did you get it?”

“One of the Confederate ladies gave it to Bill. Her father acquired it after the fall of Richmond.”

“Shouldn’t you give it back, Amy?”

She shrugged. “Elizabeth MacPherson-that’s Bill’s sister-says that the women are leaving the country and they won’t tell anybody where they’re going. I guess they just don’t trust your government, Stinky. Speaking of the government, I thought I’d ask you if the Commonwealth of Virginia would like to make us an offer for the coin before I put it up for auction. It would be a wonderful addition to the museum.”

“I will consult with the appropriate officials,” said her cousin cautiously.

“Great! Well, I guess that’s it, then. Bill is off the hook-and I’m going to take on the Park Service.” She patted her cousin on the shoulder. “Take it easy, Stink!”

The attorney general winced. “Goodbye, Amy. And could you please exit by the back way in case any reporters are lurking in the hall?”

I-95 again. This time northbound. It’s even more boring this time because it’s a rerun of the previous days’ drive. Same old pine trees, same old sandy soil. End of adventure. I felt a certain sense of accomplishment. The Confederate Eight, as I’d come to think of them, had been kind enough to draw up a notarized document attesting to their well-being and taking the blame for the real estate scam. I’d even bought a disposable camera at the drug store and taken a snapshot of them standing by the post office sign that said JEKYLL ISLAND. One of them was holding up today’s newspaper, just in case anyone should doubt their affidavit. By now they would be packing to leave the Comfort Inn, heading for points unknown. I didn’t ask. They weren’t exactly the trusting type.

I will always remember them tramping through the sand in their crepe floral dresses, bickering about the directions in Gabriel Hawks’s letter. Was that the oak tree that he meant? Exactly how long is a pace? And we kept getting interrupted by cars full of sightseers or people wanting to ask silly questions-like when was the island settled. As if we’d been there that long! By one in the afternoon it was becoming oppressively hot. Even the sea breeze had little effect. They wouldn’t quit, though. Dolly Hawks Smith said that she for one wasn’t getting any younger, and she didn’t want to postpone the hunt for one more minute. The others agreed. I think, too, that they were afraid that since I had found them, other people might, too, and they were in a hurry to get moving again. We tried everybody’s interpretation of which tree it was and how long a pace should be and when to turn left. But we always reached the same conclusion: that is, we ran out of island before we ran out of instructions.