– GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST’S ADVICE ON WINNING BATTLES
CHAPTER 5
BILL MACPHERSON SLIPPED out of his office and helped himself to a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker in the reception area.
“I thought you hated coffee,” said Edith, waving a packet of NutraSweet, which he declined.
Bill glanced at his office door, which he had shut behind him. “I do hate it!” he hissed. “This was an excuse to come out here. I just wanted to tell you that if there are any calls, please interrupt me. Anybody at all. Even a wrong number.”
Edith raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were conferring with a client.”
“You mean, as opposed to having a family reunion? I am. I’m trying to fill out the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage with my mother, but it’s tough going. I found myself looking forward to a call from Mr. Trowbridge. So feel free to interrupt.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Edith.
Bill looked into the other office. The door was open and no one sat at the tidy oak desk. The sight did nothing to improve his disposition. “Where’s Powell? Isn’t she here yet?”
“She had a date with Harry Wooding,” said Edith solemnly.
“With who? Oh. You mean she’s at the courthouse.” Bill suddenly remembered that this was the name on the statue of a former mayor of Danville, situated on a landing of the courthouse steps. “Again? What do I have to do to see my own law partner?”
“You might try getting yourself arrested. Did you see her on the six o’clock news last night?”
“No. Was she discussing the murder case?”
“Yes. She looked real good. Had on that new linen blazer she bought at the mall, but they ran a piece on the crime before they interviewed her, and it sounded like the guy was guilty. But she’s working hard to defend him. I sure do hope they’re paying her by the hour for this case.”
“Well, maybe the publicity will generate some business. It isn’t as if we’re swamped around here.” He looked furtively at his office door. “I guess I’d better go back.” With a sigh of martyrdom, he went back to his conference. “Here I am, Mother!” he said with all the forced cheerfulness he could muster. “You’re sure you won’t have some coffee?”
Margaret MacPherson sighed. “Caffeine is bad for you,” she announced. “I never drink it anymore. You ought to get in some herbal tea instead.”
“I’ll look into it,” Bill promised. A month ago he might have argued the point, but now he thought his mother might need all the deference that he could muster. “Shall we get on with this form?” he said gently. “It’s just routine, you know, but as petitioner for the divorce, you and I have to fill in all the answers and file it with the County Circuit Court.”
On his desk was the green loose-leaf notebook entitled
“We established that your father and I have both been residents of the state for more than a hundred and eighty days.”
“ ‘… preceding the filing of this petition.’ ” Bill nodded. “And we had your age and county of residence. Number three is Dad’s age, place of employment, and county of residence. I’ll fill that in.” He scribbled more notes and consulted the form again. “Date and place of marriage?”
His mother twisted her hands in her lap and looked away. “August 23, 1961. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We eloped. My sister Amanda was furious with me. She had her heart set on a pastel-pink formal wedding, but I-well, it doesn’t matter now. Go on to the next one.”
Bill picked up the form and read aloud, “ ‘Parties ceased co-habiting as husband and wife as of (insert date here), and separated and ceased living together as husband and wife on (insert date here.)’ ” He was careful not to look up from the paper as he finished reading.
After a palpable silence, Bill’s mother said, “He moved out two weeks ago, wasn’t it? On a Saturday.”
“Uh-yes,” muttered Bill. “That’s the ceased-living-together part. I’ll need a date for the other one, too.”
“Could I have some of that coffee now?” asked Margaret MacPherson.
Nathan Kimball had spent most of the past two days boning up on Virginia real estate law and double-checking his client’s proposed purchase. While he was thus occupied with legal business, John Huff spent his time playing tourist, although what he could have found to view after the first hour was a mystery to his attorney.
Huff drove his rental car out to Lucktown, north of Danville, to look at a historical marker on the site of the old railroad depot. Rejecting Bill MacPherson’s suggestions of various local motels, he took rooms for himself and his attorney in an ornate Queen Anne-style bed and breakfast on the elegant section of Main Street known locally as Millionaire’s Row. He took long walks in the warm June sunshine, admiring the late Victorian houses that line Danville’s grandest old thoroughfare. In these graceful old mansions the city’s tobacco and textile barons had entertained each other-and even generated a bit of minor history. On the corner of Main and Broad streets was the birthplace of the Langhorne sisters; Nancy became Viscountess Astor, the first woman to sit in Britain’s House of Commons, and her sister Irene became the model for the Gibson Girl, created by her artist-husband, Charles Dana Gibson.
Huff spent a good bit of time in one of the oldest houses on Main Street, once the residence of William T. Sutherlin and now the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History. For a week in April 1865, the massive gray sandstone building topped with a glass cupola had been the last capitol of the Confederacy, sheltering Jefferson Davis and his cabinet after the fall of Richmond. Huff wandered around the rooms of restored Victorian furnishings, with plaster ceiling work and its elaborately carved furniture. He told the curator that he was thinking of buying an antebellum home, and that he needed ideas on how to decorate it. However, he spent a good bit of time reading Jefferson Davis’s last speech, penned in the drawing room. And he asked if there were any local memoirs dating from the Civil War in the library upstairs. He paid scant attention to the displays of quilts and local artwork in the basement of the museum, but he was most interested in finding out whether there had been any additions to the house in modern times-and where outbuildings had stood a century before.
When Nathan Kimball returned to the bed and breakfast at four o’clock, he found Mr. Huff sitting in the chair by the window reading local-history pamphlets with the air of someone studying for an exam. He looked up as the door opened. “Well?”
Kimball, who had long given up expecting courtesy from his client, ignored the brusqueness of the salutation. “Everything seems to check out,” he said, loosening his tie as he sat down on the bed. “Though, of course, if you were relying on bank financing, they’d want to do everything about three times, just to make sure. Still, I’ve looked over MacPherson’s paperwork-title search, the terms of the deed, and so on. The house was left as a trust for the widows and daughters of Confederate veterans, but there was a clause stating that the board-that is, the residents and their attorney-could dispose of the house if it was no longer needed for its original purpose. I think it’s safe to assume that there won’t be any more widows or daughters turning up at this late date.”
“Not after a hundred and thirty-odd years,” Huff agreed.
“I mentioned that we were thinking of offering a million two, and he said he’d talk to his clients, but that he thought that they’d wait for other offers in that case. Apparently they have received other responses to their ad.”
Huff narrowed his eyes. “On whose authority did you offer them less than the asking price?”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d mind,” stammered Kimball. “I thought I might save you some money, since the sellers seem to be in a hurry, and you once said you expected a discount for cash.”
“Tell MacPherson we’ll meet their price. But we want to close tomorrow.”
The walk from the law office to the police station took A. P. Hill up Loyal Street, past an old tobacco warehouse
