they’ll starve unless he dumps food into the tank. But since I feed them every morning, the food he adds is more than they need. I can always tell when he’s been in the house-even before I look to see what’s missing-because there’s a little bloated body floating on top of the water.”
“Okay,” sighed Bill. “So you want him to stay away from the house. Have you told him?”
“Yes. He always says it’s the last time. He says he just forgot one little thing. And then three days later he’s back. Sometimes he comes when I’m out, and I panic and think a burglar has broken in, but the dead fish give him away.”
“What does he say about killing the fish?”
“Natural causes. He suggests an autopsy.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
Margaret MacPherson hesitated. “Can I have him arrested for trespassing?”
“No, Mother, you cannot have him arrested. Why don’t you just change the locks?”
“Because I can’t remember who all has keys! Elizabeth does, and you do, and I think Robert and Amanda have one set. Oh, it would be too much trouble to change all the locks and redistribute keys. Besides, why should I have to go to all that trouble and expense? Can’t I just have your father arrested?”
Bill closed his eyes and thought about fields of cloudlike sheep. “Okay,” he said at last, “if you insist on indulging in legal carpet bombing, I will handle it. We will file a restraining order against Dad, specifying that he cannot come into the house to retrieve anything without your express permission, and that he cannot enter the premises unless you are present.” Bill was scribbling notes to himself on the yellow legal pad.
“Don’t forget the fish!”
“Right. The fish. The restraining order will absolutely prohibit Douglas W. MacPherson from feeding any and all fish at his former residence at 816 Mead Lane. I’ll get it typed up and formally present it to Dad’s lawyer. Will that do?”
Bill’s mother gave him a reproachful look. “You don’t have to take that tone with me, Bill. I’ll have you know that it’s very stressful to have an estranged husband popping in and out of your house like Banquo’s ghost, and besides, I happen to be very fond of those goldfish. We’d had the fantail moor for almost three years.”
“I’ll put that in the restraining order. Maybe it will mute the hilarity.”
“Will your father and I have to go to court over this?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Bill, who hadn’t filed a restraining order before. “His lawyer will have to appear, though. And I’ll be there.”
“But if he ignores the restraining order and barges in anyway,
“Well, theoretically. I think if it’s just a case of fish murder, the judge might let him go with a scolding. He might order Dad to replace the fish.”
“Impossible!” snapped Margaret MacPherson. “Doug can’t swim.”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was the first symptom of sanity Bill had seen in any of his family members in weeks.
John Huff stood on the front porch supervising the unloading of the moving van. “Be careful with that sofa!” he called out. “Don’t scrape the upholstery against the door frame.”
The movers swept past him without even pretending to heed his warning. “That goes in the room to the right!” he called after them. He got up and peered into the trunk to see how much furniture they had left to unload. The truck was still at least half full. They wouldn’t finish until after five o’clock. He was glad he wasn’t paying them by the hour.
The movers had just unloaded an antique walnut desk and were stumbling precariously up the steps with it when Huff’s attention was deflected by the arrival of a white sedan pulling into the winding driveway. Huff did not recognize the dark-haired young man behind the wheel; for a moment he had thought that it was the sellers’ attorney Bill MacPherson, coming to welcome him to town, and perhaps to hustle a little future legal business. But while this young man looked like a lawyer, in his Southern prep’s uniform of spotted tie and khaki slacks, he certainly didn’t look like a welcoming committee. He was staring open-mouthed at the moving van and flipping through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard as he approached the house.
He didn’t have long to wait. The young man looked at the moving van, jotted down its license plate, and said, “Well, my goodness, we’re busy this afternoon.” He waved his hand at the truck, the house, and John Huff. “And just what are we up to here?”
“Well, I’m moving into my new house, and you’re trespassing,” said Huff. He believed in asserting himself at the earliest possible moment.
The reply was an unconvincing imitation of a smile. “I beg your pardon? I am trespassing? Do you know who I am?”
“No, I can’t help you there. Are you lost?”
The young man drew himself up to his full height-about five seven-and announced, “Sir, I am Randolph Custis Byrd, and I have the honor to be the assistant director of art and antiquities for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Now please tell me what is transpiring here. I thought the elderly ladies were going to wait for
“They didn’t wait. I guess with a million dollars they didn’t need any help with moving expenses from the state.”
R. Custis Byrd stared in disbelief. “A million dollars? Are you serious? But where would they…” He peered into the back of the moving van. “They didn’t sell you the furniture, did they?”
“No,” said Huff. “I didn’t want it. I’d rather furnish the house to my own taste.”
“Furnish the house?” echoed Byrd. “What are you talking about?” Two movers in gray coveralls clumped past them up the ramp and into the truck, and emerged balancing a recliner between them. Byrd watched them go with an expression of horror that the recliner’s upholstery did not quite merit. “Why are you moving a lounge chair into the state art museum?”
Now it was John Huff’s turn to look stricken. “Art museum? You must have come to the wrong house. Why, I paid a fortune for this house not two weeks ago!”
“I hope not. This was the Home for Confederate Women. The state has decided to claim it for the people of Virginia because of its historic value. I have the paperwork right here if you’d like to see it. In return for the house, we were planning to move the eight current residents to a nursing home outside Danville, and to pay for their care for the rest of their lives. The poor old dears ought to be on their way to Bingo Heaven right now. Where are they, by the way?”
John Huff set his jaw. “I tell you I bought this house.”
“Well, you’ve been taken in by a fraud, sir,” said Custis Byrd in tones bordering on sympathy. “Who sold it to you?”
“A Danville attorney named Bill MacPherson.”
A. P. Hill had returned to the twentieth century, exchanging her gray infantry uniform for the navy-blue coat and skirt that was her legal uniform. Reenacting was an enjoyable hobby, and a way for her to feel closer to her great- great-grandfather the general, but the present-day A. P. Hill had no desire to live permanently in the past. The Springfield rifle, the brogans, and the rimless spectacles had all been put away until next weekend’s reenactment, a scripted skirmish to take place at a battlefield that was now a national park. Now she had to return to a more crucial battle: the trial of Tug Mosier.
Because of the local sentiment about the case and the fact that the victim came from a prominent family, Powell had succeeded in getting a change of venue. Now the trial was scheduled for the end of the month in Stuart, a small town in Patrick County, some fifty miles west of Danville. She hoped that the new location would filter some of the emotion out of the case. At least she would have jurors who weren’t former classmates of Misti Hale or friends of the victim’s parents.
Now she had to decide how best to proceed with the defense. She was consulting a possible expert witness, Dr. Arthur Timmons, a Richmond psychiatrist who had some experience in criminal cases. As Powell Hill sat in his waiting room, leafing through old copies of
