Sharyn Mccrumb_Elizabeth MacPherson_07 (2 page)

The sailor stopped, wide-eyed, and whispered, “I overheard the admiral talking to his messenger. He says he's going to destroy the fleet!”

“Letter from my sister,” said Bill MacPherson to his new law partner, the aforementioned A. P. Hill. “I thought you might like to read it. I've already cashed the check, though.”

A. P. Hill scanned the letter without a trace of a smile.
“Dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years.
People always say that when they hear my name.”

“Surely not
always,”
murmured Bill. “There are probably scads of Yankees who don't recognize it at all. Anyway, if it bothers you, you could always use your first name. Amy Hill is a perfectly good name.”

“Amy Hill isn't auspicious enough for a practicing attorney,” she said, frowning.

“How about using your middle name? Powell is okay. And it's what your folks call you, isn't it?”

His partner shrugged. “Only because I refuse to let anyone call me Amy. I just think initials have a more aggressive and professional sound. Especially for someone as harmless looking as I am.”

Bill observed his partner appraisingly. She was just over five feet tall, with short straw-colored hair and the sort of angelic face that necessitated the showing of her ID card rather oftener than most people her age were required to do. “You do put one in mind of a high school cheerleader,” Bill conceded. “At first glance, I mean. For those who haven't seen your pit-bull tactics in trial class. But that gleam of blood lust in your green eyes ought to tip off anybody who's paying attention. I expect you come by it honestly, what with all those cavalry charges in your bloodlines.”

Bill was referring to the original A. P. Hill, one of Robert E. Lee's generals during the Civil War. The present bearer of that name was the warrior's great-great-granddaughter, who had chosen to fight her battles in court rather than at the head of an army. The family resemblance was there, though, in her no-nonsense manner and in the easy self-confidence that she displayed in legal combat. Her grades in law school had been better than Bill's, and he still
marveled at his good fortune that she had agreed to go into partnership with him. He was sure she could have snared a lucrative position in an established law firm if she'd wanted one. But she said that if she didn't strike out on her own, the family would make her practice law with her cousin Stinky. She wanted to make it through her own efforts, she said, without family influence.

Bill had never met his law partner's family, but he knew that she came from somewhere west of Roanoke, and, although she didn't speak of it, he could well imagine a rural law practice in southwest Virginia, replete with drunk drivers and bad-check cases. There would already be a couple of well-established attorneys there who would get all the business, leaving newcomers to scramble for the lowest-paying leftovers. Here in Danville there was at least a chance of some criminal cases, which were A.P.'s specialty, and a population of sufficient size to provide them with the more prosaic legal business of wills and no-fault divorces, which would generate most of the revenue for the firm of two.

Fortunately their rent was modest. The newly graduated lawyers had set up headquarters downtown in an old bank building which now housed a florist shop, a travel agency, and a number of small apartments on the two upper floors, one of which had also been rented by
Bill MacPherson, because it was the cheapest accommodation he could find. A.P., who preferred to see criminals in court rather than in the stairwell of her building, had moved into a more secure and luxurious high rise on the outskirts of town.

The law office consisted of three small rooms partitioned with wallboard out of one large one—on the landlord's theory that three rabbit hutches ought to rent for more than one decent-sized room. The frosted glass door opened into a reception area, containing as yet no secretary. On either side of this waiting room, doors led to the tiny offices of Bill MacPherson and A. P. Hill, each furnished with a secondhand desk and bookcase, law books, a typewriter, and very little else. The new attorneys had their independence, an optimism that might pass for recklessness in more conservative circles, and less than a thousand dollars to get on with. Business had better become brisk very soon.

“So, partner, how was your morning?” Bill asked.

“All right, I guess,” said A. P. Hill. “I went down to the courthouse and introduced myself around. I put my name on the list of attorneys who can be assigned to court-appointed cases. How did things go here?”

“Crowd control wasn't a problem. I called the business college to see if we could get a part-time
secretary that we could afford. They're sending over an applicant this afternoon.”

“Good,” said A.P. “I'll interview her. You'd fall for the first hard-luck story you heard, without bothering to find out if she could type.”

“Well, ask her if she suffers from claustrophobia.” He looked at the walls, little more than an arm's length away. “It could be a liability in this office.”

“This is what we can afford,” said A.P. “If we don't get some business soon, we may be operating out of a packing crate on the sidewalk.”

“Probably against city ordinances,” said Bill. “I would offer to go and chase an ambulance, but unless I get my car tuned up, I probably couldn't catch one.”

A.P. glanced again at Elizabeth's letter. “At least we got some more money. I hope you remember to thank your sister for this.”

“It's high on my list of things to do this afternoon,” Bill promised. He held up a cardboard box. “Speaking of that check, I also got a little something to brighten up the office. I went out to deposit the check from my sister, and as I was coming back, I happened to look into that flea-market place … I'll just put it on the table in the corner.” He took his newly purchased prize out of its wrappings of newspaper and set it on the white plastic table scrounged from Goodwill. “What do you think?”

“I think it's dead,” said A. P. Hill. “Did you actually pay money for that monstrosity?”

“Yes. Elizabeth suggested that I spend the money on office furniture, but when I saw this fellow here at the flea market, I just had to have him.”

“What flea market?”

“That store down on the corner. I think it used to be a grocery store, but now some antique dealers have set up stalls inside. So, anyhow, I went in, just out of curiosity—”

“Do they have any old weapons in there? Swords, things like that?”

“I didn't notice,” said Bill. “Probably. The place is full of junk. Why?”

“Oh, no reason. So you found this dead animal in drag—”

“The taxidermist says that he's an authentic Virginia groundhog. And he wasn't killed for display. He's a road kill,” Bill added happily. “And his little black robe is handmade by the taxidermist's wife. Isn't he marvelous?”

A. P. Hill frowned into the leering face of a large marmot, who was stuffed and mounted in a standing position. Moreover, it was dressed in a black satin gown that might have been judge's robes or graduation attire. “Hmm. I don't suppose it occurred to you to buy a filing cabinet or two instead? Maybe some office supplies?”

“Oh, there's enough money left over for that,”
Bill assured her. “Especially if we buy secondhand stuff. But this fellow was too wonderful to pass up. He's one of a kind. I thought we'd call him Flea Bailey. Get it? Like F. Lee—”

“Yes, well. Keep him in your office, okay, Bill?”

Bill remained cheerful and unoffended at this dismissal of his prize. “I thought I would,” he agreed. “After all, you've got a mascot of your own, haven't you?” He pointed to a Lucite paperweight on the otherwise empty desk. Embedded in the clear plastic was a round bit of bone, like the center shank in a slice of country ham.

“It's a present from my folks,” said A.P. “Family tradition. When the original A. P. Hill went off to join the Confederacy, his mother gave him a ham bone as a good-luck piece. He kept it with him all through the war.”

“And that's why he made it through safely, you think?”

“Well, no,” said the general's namesake. “Actually, he was shot by Union soldiers in 1865 and didn't survive the war. My great-grandmother was born a couple of months after he died. But he was a hell of a general, so I guess my folks figured it might inspire me to greatness in the law.”

“If they'd throw a little business our way, that wouldn't hurt either,” Bill pointed out.

His partner shrugged. “Cousin Stinky takes
care of most of the family's legal stuff. But maybe our newspaper ad will bring us clients.”

There was a knock at the door, and a well-dressed woman came in, carrying a beribboned potted plant.

“There!” said A. P. Hill triumphantly. “A client already! Unless you're here to interview for the secretary's job?”

“Neither, I'm afraid,” said Bill MacPherson. “Hello, Mom.”

As she set the housewarming gift on the secretary's desk, Margaret MacPherson managed a tight smile. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said, hugging her son. “Actually, I
am
a client. Bill, could I see you in private?”

   A. P. Hill spent the next couple of minutes profusely apologizing to her partner's mother, whom she had met briefly at graduation, but had not recognized in the present instance. Their exchange of pleasantries was cordial but strained. Margaret Chandler MacPherson looked anxious, as if she could hardly keep her mind on the conversation. Inventing urgent tasks to attend to, A.P. retired to her office, leaving Bill to confer with his distracted relative. In her clean but spartan office, A.P. sat in her swivel chair for all of one minute before restlessness overtook her. Then she dusted a spotless desk, adjusted books that were perfectly straight, and resharpened all her pencils. Pride
did not come cheap, she thought, looking around the shabby office with its threadbare green carpet and its battered old desk.

With her grades and family connections, she could have taken a job at any number of prestigious law firms in Richmond or northern Virginia. There the offices would have been considerably grander, but that would have meant working for the Silverbacks, as she liked to call them. She'd found
Silverback
in a
National Geographic
article on gorillas. It was the term used for the large, overbearing males who attempted to dominate the group, and right away she recognized the similarity between gorilla troops and law firms.