The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (17 page)

“Jimmy Stewart?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen the movies so often that I can just hear him talking, you know, in that voice of his that all the comedians used to imitate. And sometimes when I’m not sure what I should do, I close my eyes and listen to hear what he’ll say.”

Purdue smiled. “So—ask him now! What does he say about you being holed up in your room with a book on Saturday night?”

A. P. Hill took another swallow of her drink, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “He says … ‘Waal, Powell, it’s important to work hard, but you shouldn’t forget to be happy every once in a while along the way.’ ”

“Good advice,” said Purdue, emptying her cup. “Why don’t
we go out on the town and see if we can pick up a couple of … lawyers?”

They burst out laughing.

“Hey, it beats spending Saturday night in a dorm,” said Purdue.

A. P. Hill shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” she said.

They trooped off together a bit unsteadily, in the direction of town, but it began to rain, so instead of barhopping, they ended up in a movie. The pact had been made, though, and not very many Saturdays later, they did something a bit more daring, and something happened.

It was a memory that A. P. Hill had been walling out of her consciousness for nearly ten years. She shook off the memory and focused on the road ahead, glad that she had left Williamsburg behind, both past and present.

G
eoffrey Chandler, the self-appointed interior designer of the new headquarters of MacPherson & Hill, had dutifully followed Edith on a tour of the upstairs bedrooms of the Dolan mansion, springing ahead of her to open doors and listening to her room descriptions with rapt attention. He was chattier with his new guide than he had been on the downstairs leg of the tour, and he contrived to express polite interest in his surroundings, but privately he thought he had wasted enough time on questions of decorating schemes. The upstairs wasn’t particularly important anyway. The clients of MacPherson & Hill would see only the downstairs, and Geoffrey thought it would be presumptuous of him to try to decorate A. P. Hill’s rooms, and hopeless to try to decorate Cousin Bill’s. Still, he smiled and
nodded, and scribbled on his notepad as they walked from room to room.

When Edith showed signs of tiring of her role as guide, he said, “I thought that the original owner of the house was still in residence here. I haven’t seen him.”

Edith nodded. “Oh, Mr. Jack is around someplace. It worried me, too, for the first couple of days when he would disappear like that. I was afraid that he’d crawled off somewhere and died of old age. But he always turns up about four-thirty, when I put the teakettle on. I always have a brownie or an apple turnover set aside for him. He’s a sweet old fellow.”

“And quite old, I hear.”

“Past ninety. He’s like an old turtle these days, creeping about the house in slow motion, but he’s still as sharp as ever if you take the time to hear him out. He likes to talk about the old days.”

Geoffrey’s interest quickened. “How wonderful!” he said. “Quite an inspiration to us all. What does he talk about?”

“I don’t know,” said Edith. “Things that happened before I was born, I’ll tell you that. He tends to mumble a lot, so I just nod and smile.”

Geoffrey nodded sympathetically. “Does he ever drag out the old photo albums?” he asked.

“No, I can’t say I’ve been subjected to that.”

“It would be interesting to talk to him about the house,” said Geoffrey. “I’m sure I would find him quite fascinating. And I’d love to see old photographs. It would tell us how the house was originally furnished.”

“Well, you can ask him,” said Edith. “In fact, you’re
welcome to have him for a tour guide, if you can stand the pace, which is about one hundred yards an hour. I’m sure he could tell you more about this place than I can.”

Geoffrey smiled. “I shall be delighted to ask him.”

A
. P. Hill had made better time than she wanted to on the journey, which had been made longer by her mind’s refusal to concentrate on anything but the coming interview. Once in a while she would remember to glance in her rearview mirror to see if anyone was following her, but she never noticed any particular car trying to keep pace with her. Apparently, Lewis Paine was not concerned enough to have her watched, or else the city of Richmond had much more to worry about in the way of criminals than an evasive witness. Given the city’s high annual murder rate, this was the likeliest explanation.

A few miles north of Emporia, A. P. Hill left the interstate and followed a two-lane blacktop west into the rural area of Dinwiddie County. She had looked up the address in the alumni records at William & Mary, and then in Richmond she had consulted maps to determine the route. She had considered telephoning ahead to announce her visit and perhaps to receive more specific directions, but it was just as likely that she would be told not to come. A. P. Hill could think of too many reasons not to let them know she was coming, so in the end she had set out on what was probably a wild-goose chase.

She managed to get within a few miles of her destination before narrowing country lanes and a dearth of road signs forced her to stop at a country store and gas station to ask for directions.

She bought a sports drink in order to be a customer rather than a supplicant, and the weary-looking woman behind the counter told her which road to take, without even a question about why she was going there. Sometimes, thought A. P. Hill, it helps to be blonde and petite.

A few minutes later, she was headed up a long gravel driveway that was only marginally smaller than the road that led to it. The drive was bounded on both sides by horse pastures and freshly painted white board fences. Ahead of her, a white-columned house shone out from a grove of spreading oaks. This was the ancestral home of Patricia J. Purdue. It would be. With a flicker of annoyance A. P. Hill wondered why some rich kids seemed to be born arrogant. They seemed to feel that rules were only suggestions, or at best strictures that were a good idea for civilization in general, but that did not apply to them in particular. Maybe it’s because they’re working with a net, she thought. No matter what happens to them in life, Daddy’s money will make it all better. Did Purdue still think that?

A. P. Hill parked the car near the front porch and prepared to enter the lion’s den. She straightened her skirt when she got out of the car. Linen wrinkles the minute you put it on. After a two-hour drive, she looked as if she had slept in it. Still, she supposed she looked all right, by which she meant that she had dressed to be taken seriously. She was in lawyer mode: navy linen coat and skirt, low-heeled shoes, and slung over her shoulder was the strap of her white Coach bag for summer.

There was a leering gargoyle door knocker on the massive
front door. As A. P. Hill struck the ring against the sounding brass, she heard it echo through the hallway beyond and she closed her eyes to concentrate on her carefully rehearsed words of introduction. When she opened them again, she saw in the doorway a heavyset old woman with an apron over her faded housedress. She was peering out at A. P. Hill with an expression of deep suspicion. “We don’t want to buy your magazines or visit your heathen church,” she announced.

A. P. Hill said, “That’s not why I’m here. I’m a friend of P. J. Is the judge at home?”

The woman looked at her appraisingly. “I expect he would be for you,” she said with a harsh laugh. “But he tires mighty easy. Remember that.”

Without another word the woman turned and stalked down the hall toward the back of the house. A. P. Hill took this to be an invitation to follow her, and she hurried to catch up, with her sensible shoes beating a muffled tattoo on the marble tiles. She barely glanced at her surroundings, except to wonder briefly if the new headquarters of MacPherson & Hill would ever achieve this degree of staid elegance. She thought not. Even if they hired the most exclusive decorator in Richmond (which they could not for one minute afford), Bill would probably insist on dragging his mascot, that dreadful stuffed groundhog from the flea market, out into the foyer, or he would put up framed baseball cards instead of Stubbs horse prints on the oak-paneled walls. But she had neither the time nor the inclination to stop him. Their legal expertise would speak for itself, and perhaps Bill’s eccentric ideas of decoration would be taken as a sign of power and creativity—at least by people who hadn’t met the rest of his family.

The door to the study was ajar, and Powell Hill went in quietly, wondering if the old gentleman might be sleeping. The room smelled of tobacco, wood fires, and leather upholstery. In the dim light from the partially curtained French windows, she could see a wood-paneled room lined with bookcases. “Judge Purdue?” said A. P. Hill, walking toward the armchair by the dark fireplace.

“I’m not asleep, young woman.” The voice from the chair was reedy with age, but it had lost none of its ring of authority. “Do I know you?”

“No, sir. I went to law school with your granddaughter. My name is A. P. Hill.”

“Ha! She beat you out, though, didn’t she? Top of her class, she was. She’s a Purdue, through and through.”

“Yes, sir. Have you seen her lately, Judge?”

“Oh, some time back, I guess,” said the old man. “Why? Are you trying to get in touch with her? Job hunting, are you?”

“I would like to find her, sir,” said A. P. Hill. The conversation reminded her of a turn on the witness stand, and here, too, it seemed best not to elaborate on one’s answers.

“I suppose we have her address around somewhere. She’s practicing out of state, you know. Wanted to make her own way. Stubborn. All the Purdues are stubborn.”

“She hasn’t been to see you in the last couple of weeks?” asked A. P. Hill. She already knew the answer to that one. If the name A. P. Hill did not immediately register with the judge as his granddaughter’s most recently assumed alias, it meant that the police had not kept him apprised of Purdue’s latest escapades.

“We haven’t heard from P. J. for a good while,” the old man muttered. “I always keep meaning to give her a call.”

“Have you been to see her since she started her out-of-state practice?”

The judge considered this. “Can’t say I have. Health’s not what it was. Not up to much in the way of travel.”

Powell Hill’s eyes strayed to the end table beside the judge’s leather chair, where a stack of travel brochures heralded the charms of Paris and Amsterdam. She wondered if Purdue had planned to skip the country, and if the judge was part of her escape plan. She tapped the top brochure with her forefinger. “Paris,” she said. “I went there for a couple of weeks one summer.”

“Too hot in the summer,” said the judge. “Too many tourists. I always go in September when things have simmered down a bit. Go every year. The wine does wonders for my digestion.”

A. P. Hill nodded. “Did Patricia ever go with you?” she asked. “I don’t remember her ever mentioning it.”

“I go alone,” the old man said. “This year, though, I may take Mrs. Ramp ling with me.” He nodded toward the open doorway, where the housekeeper hovered, arms crossed, glaring at A. P. Hill. “She can keep me out of trouble. Make sure I take my pills, don’t you know?”

A. P. Hill thought she did know. So you’re too ill to visit your granddaughter three states away, but you go to Paris every fall. She thanked the judge and turned to go. She had learned something after all. Wherever P. J. Purdue decided to go, it would not be here.