If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

eyeing the door with longing. “The doctor should be along presently.”

This time the gabbled cry was-distinctly- “Don’t leave me!”

Norville sat down again, trying not to fidget. Absently, for want of anything else to do, he picked up a copy of The Lady of the Lake, leafed through the pages, and began to read aloud: “‘Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er, Dream of fighting fields no more-’”

For three quarters of an hour Richard Norville read aloud Sir Walter Scott, while the sick man alternately drowsed and screamed. Then the retching began. Twice he filled the basin with the blood-streaked evidence of his distress.

It was nearly noon when Lucy Todhunter returned, ushering in Dr. Richard Humphreys. They entered during one of Philip’s somnolent periods, and he lay motionless with his back to them while Norville fidgeted in his eagerness to be relieved of duty.

“How is he?” asked Lucy, giving the invalid a tender glance.

Norville indicated the basin, spilling over onto a now stained carpet-evidence of the recent illness. “I have never known a man so stricken to live,” he said. “His suffering is piteous.”

The doctor edged past them and bent over the patient. “How long has he been like this?”

“The pains and vomiting began just this morning,” said Lucy. “But for a day or two he has been seedy.”

Humphreys held his fingers against Philip Todhunter’s wrist. “Seedy!” he said in a voice tinged with sarcasm. “What has he eaten, Mrs. Todhunter?”

“Only a little pastry. I brought beef tea, but-”

“Last night, then. Was there seafood in the house? Mushrooms? Did anything taste as if it had spoiled?”

“Nothing,” said Lucy Todhunter. “But Philip did not dine with us. He has refused his meals since Sunday. He said he could not bear the sight of food.”

The black-bearded doctor scowled at her and leaned down to feel the patient’s forehead. “Clammy,” he remarked to no one in particular. “So he has eaten nothing these two days, madam?” She nodded. “Then what has he taken?”

“But I told you,” she said, giving him a bewildered look. “Only some water now and again, and his beignet a little while ago. I brought him beef tea, but he spilled it without taking any.”

“Madam, I ask you again. What has your husband taken? If he had dined on a bit of questionable beef or the odd mushroom, I should put this down to gastric upset. But since he has not done so, I must regard this as a case of poisoning. Make no mistake about it.” He turned to Richard Norville. “Sir, I shall need some of the basin’s contents collected in a small container for analysis. And bring me the breakfast pastries as well.”

Norville, happy to be given an honorable excuse to flee, hurried from the room in search of a jar. Lucy Todhunter joined the doctor at her husband’s bedside. “Philip,” she called out. “Oh, my dear, can you hear me?”

Todhunter groaned, but his eyes remained closed.

“He will be all right, won’t he?” she whispered to the doctor.

Philip Todhunter opened his eyes, and groaned. A shudder of pain convulsed him, and when it was over, he lay back against the pillow, panting, and cold sweat beaded on his brow.

Dr. Humphreys leaned close to his patient’s ear. “Todhunter,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “You must tell me what you have taken, or you will surely die.”

Todhunter stared up with unseeing eyes, and one trembling hand flailed at nothing. “Lucy!” he cried. “Why did you do it?”

Bill MacPherson was still holding the photograph of the frowsy middle-aged couple and the smiling teenage girl. Funny how one bit of information can completely change what you see. Suddenly the dull but pleasant family group had changed into a leering tabloid peep show. Bill had often heard the phrase the mind boggled; this was the first time his had actually done so. In fact, it was boggling like mad.

“Your husband brought home this girl-this kid in the picture-and said she was his wife?”

Donna Morgan dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Yes.”

“Did you know her?” Bill looked back at the photo, half expecting to see a cringing kidnap victim with pleading eyes, but the grinning girl looked as saucy as before. He might even venture to say smug.

“Knew who she was. From church. Her name is Tanya Faith Reinhardt. Well, she goes by Tanya Faith Morgan now, and I-I guess I ought to-”

“How old is she?” asked Bill, forestalling another cloudburst.

“Sixteen.”

Bill glanced at the doorway. Surely this was a prank at his expense. Surely any second now Edith and A. P. Hill were going to leap out grinning, and shout, “Gotcha!” But the damp silence went on and on. Bill sighed and made a note on his legal pad: sixteen. “What do her parents think of this?”

“Oh, they won’t stand in the way of the Lord’s will. They’re stronger in the faith than I am. Though I do pray for the strength to accept this with a loving heart.”

Bill nodded. That was reassuring. Most of the women of his acquaintance would have prayed for the strength to lift a newly sharpened double-bladed ax. He was glad that violence was not an issue here, but he still couldn’t figure out how polygamy had arrived in Danville without his noticing. “The Lord’s will?” he said. “I still don’t follow you.”

“Chevry is a minister. He has a little white-frame church out in the country past Pumpkin Creek. There’s no steeple or anything. It used to be a Baptist church, but that closed years ago, so the congregation got it cheap. We fixed it up ourselves. The men made benches for pews, and Chevry laid the carpet.”

“Protestant?” asked Bill, for want of saying that Chevry seemed to lay a lot of things.

“Well, we’re not connected to any worldwide denominations. We’re just simple country people-”

From the planet Twilo, thought Bill, but he nodded sagely for her to continue.

“Not too well-off. Chevry preaches at night, but he has a day job laying carpet for the big discount carpet place here in Danville.”

Bill swallowed a quip about prayer rugs. She’s probably not kidding, he kept reminding himself. “I see. And when did your husband receive his-um- revelation?”

“It’s been three weeks now. He said the Lord spoke to him while he was in his truck driving up Highway 86. First he told Tanya Faith about it, and after she accepted him, they went and told her parents.”

“Who went ballistic?”

“I believe Dewey Reinhardt took it hard at first, but Chevry said it was a test of faith, like Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac and that they hadn’t ought to question it.”

“Wait,” said Bill, glancing around for the office Bible. “Hold it right there. Unless there has been a major rewrite since I went to Bible school, Abraham didn’t end up killing Isaac. When God saw that the old man was willing to go through with it, He allowed him to sacrifice a sheep instead.” He shuddered. “I don’t suppose your husband-”

“Oh, no,” said Donna Morgan. “He went ahead and consummated it all right. You should see them together. She’s all over him.”

“But they actually got married?” Bill tried to remember the legal age limit for marriage in Virginia. Of course, with parental consent, sixteen was probably old enough. Except for the spot of bother about bigamy.

“Well… it wasn’t a formal wedding, but he says they did solemnize their heavenly vows.”

“With a state marriage license? Justice of the peace?” Bill was scribbling furiously now.

“Neither one. Chevry said they didn’t need to fool with paperwork for a divine union.”

I’ll bet it was. Aloud and willing his lips not to twitch, Bill said: “They did this in your husband’s church? Before witnesses?” He wrote common law and a question mark.

“No, they didn’t have a church ceremony,” said the first Mrs. Morgan, her voice quavering again. “They just knelt in the back of Chevry’s carpet truck and promised to be man and wife.”

Bill pictured himself repeating his client’s story to A. P. Hill. He could sell tickets to that. To say that A. P. Hill would not be amused was a foolhardy understatement. She was practically the poster child for the humorously challenged anyhow; this little tale of lust and lunacy would