“Do you think that Mr. MacPherson can convince them I didn’t do it?”
“He believes in you,” said A. P. Hill, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “We’ll do everything we can. Starting with a bail hearing.” She glanced at her watch. “You may have to trust me to handle that for you. Bill’s plane is delayed.”
Donna Jean Morgan nodded politely. “I’m sure Mr. MacPherson has taught you everything he knows.”
Professional loyalty kept A. P. Hill solemn. “I guess he has,” she agreed. “Now let’s see if they feel like letting you out of here.”
10
“I SUPPOSE YOU’RE related to the general?” said Eleanor Royden, when her attorney joined her at the conference table. She nodded toward A. P. Hill’s navy-blue suit and tailored blouse. “You look like you’re in uniform, too.”
A. P. Hill sighed. “Leave it to you not to want to talk about your impending murder trial,” she said.
“Well, it isn’t as if it’s coming anytime soon,” Eleanor pointed out. “Besides, I just found out that there was a Confederate general called A. P. Hill. I’d heard of the Boy Scout camp by that name in northern Virginia. I suppose that’s named for him, too. He was no Boy Scout, though.” Eleanor chuckled. “Imagine catching syphilis while you’re a West Point cadet. I hope you didn’t inherit that, too.”
“I didn’t.” A. P. Hill scowled. “That was a few generations back. Where did all this historical trivia come from?”
“I have been reading,” said Eleanor triumphantly. “I never had much time for it before, but now that I am a lady of leisure, I have taken to cultivating my mind. Unfortunately, the jailhouse library consists of dog-eared Louis L’Amours, and a full collection of tomes about the Civil War, donated by the widow of the judge who collected them. That’s one way to clean house. Of course, it’s fairly tedious for me, having to sit around my cell day after day, reading about that tiresome war.”
“I expect it is,” said A. P. Hill. As a reenactor, Powell Hill’s idea of heaven would be to sit around all day with nothing to do but read books about the War. Maybe I should shoot someone, she thought. Time to get back to business. “Are you ready to talk about the battle in progress, Eleanor?”
“Not yet. I had a question. Are you, by any chance, a bastard?”
Powell blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, your last name is Hill, but I was reading a biography of the general, and it mentioned that all his children were daughters, which means that they should have ended up with different surnames, so, of course, I wondered-”
The attorney sighed. Everybody wondered. Sooner or later real war buffs always got around to delicately phrasing that question. “It’s like this,” she said. “I’m descended from the general’s youngest daughter, Ann Powell Hill, who was born June sixth in Culpeper, a few weeks after her father’s death. She married Randolph Junkin and, since there were no other descendants, the couple decided to preserve the general’s name by calling themselves Randolph and Ann Hill-Junkin. When the family moved to southwest Virginia in the 1930s, the male heir thought that the name was too pretentious sounding for a rural law practice, so he dropped the Junkin part. Personally, I’m glad they kept Hill, because of the historical connection, and because I like the sound of it. So I am descended from Confederate general A. P. Hill. Okay?”
“God,” said Eleanor. “You’re so straitlaced, you can’t even be a party to a scandal once removed. Enough about your ancestors! You’re almost as boring as the jail library.”
“How gratifying,” said her attorney. “Then you’ll be thrilled by a change of subject. Dr. Stanfield has given me his report.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Skippy, the Boy Shrink. That must have been fun reading. What’d he say about my little legal problem? That I should have reloaded and fired again?”
A. P. Hill frowned. “No. Remember that you want him to find psychological problems in your personality, because that’s what will keep you from being convicted for first-degree murder.” She opened her briefcase and withdrew a computer printout. “He says you’re narcissistic, overly dramatic, and… repressed.”
Eleanor Royden cackled. “Did you keep a straight face through that one?”
A. P. Hill did not smile back. “I admit it sounded a bit odd, but Dr. Stanfield explained what he meant by repressed. He says that you put on a show of being funny and charming so that people won’t know how you really feel.”
Eleanor nodded. “It’s called being Southern,” she said. “You paid him for this pronouncement?”
“He seems to think you put on such a show for people that you have lost touch with how you really do feel.”
“I was pretty clear on Jeb and the bimbo,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Yes, but that was in a private setting, and the people involved hardly had time to think harshly of you.” It was as close to sarcasm as A. P. Hill ever came. “In public, you make a great show of concern for others, and you seem obsessed with what they think of you. Like just now when you thanked the guard for holding the door open for you. He was just doing his job.”
“I was raised to be pleasant, Sunshine. It’s supposed to make life easier for all concerned.”
“You overdo politeness, Eleanor. You are perky on automatic pilot so that no one ever knows how you really feel about anything-including yourself.”
“Is that a defense?”
“Well, it does suggest someone who might not realize the depths of her rage. It means that people couldn’t tell how you really felt about anything, which would mean that their testimony regarding you was unreliable. We might be able to argue a sort of Dr. Jekyll syndrome-that you thought you were all right, but the carefully concealed rage inside you took over, and killed the Roydens without conscious effort on your part.” Powell Hill shrugged. “Diminished capacity due to an emotional disorder. It could work.”
“I still like unauthorized pest control,” said Eleanor. “Ha! You almost smiled. I knew I could make you laugh, Sunshine!”
“Yes,” said her lawyer sadly. “You can always make people laugh, can’t you?”
Elizabeth MacPherson had to slow down at every country intersection while Edith, her navigator for the expedition, strained to read the three-digit numbers on the county-road signs. Stretched out on Edith’s lap was a map of Pittsylvania County, with the route from Danville to the scene of Chevry Morgan’s death outlined in yellow Magic Marker.
“We’re in the wilds of Pittsylvania County now,” Edith remarked. “Some of these places are so remote, they’re only on the map two days a week.” Yet another blacktop proved not to be their turnoff.
“Don’t worry,” said Elizabeth. “I have a full tank of gas, and a compass in the glove compartment.”
“Sure,” said Edith. “And the hunters will find us, come fall. Oh, wait-there it is. Make a right. Well, if you’d stop driving so all-fired fast! This isn’t an interstate. Okay, back up and make a right; there’s nobody behind you. It should be about a mile down this road, and then a right turn. Bill and I came out here after dark, so I’m a little hazy on landmarks, but I think we’ll see Chevry’s church before we spot the house.”
It was a peaceful road, lined with cornfields, and patches of oak and maple woodlands. Later in the day the level farmland would become oppressively hot, but now it was pleasant, with a faint breeze ruffling the tall grass in the meadows. Black-and-white cows ambled along the fencerow, watching them solemnly. After an early-morning breakfast in Danville, Edith and Elizabeth had set off for the country. In the trunk of the car, Elizabeth had stashed her notes and references on the Morgan case and the Todhunter historical records so that after the expedition she could drive to the UVA library for research without losing any more time.