MacPherson's Lament

CHAPTER 8

MY BROTHER’S OFFICE is too small to accommodate visitors except on the most temporary basis, but since I needed access to a telephone, it seemed like a logical place from which to work. Bill did not seem to agree, even though I assured him that I would be completely unobtrusive and that he would soon forget my proximity, except when the phone was for me. Men are such territorial creatures; you would have thought there was another rooster on his dunghill the way he glowered at me, rattled his papers, and displayed exaggerated symptoms of claustrophobia.

Finally I pointed to the cloaked rodent on the bookcase. “Anyone who would consent to share an office with that,” I said, “has absolutely no business objecting to the presence of a charming relative who is merely trying to help.”

“I feel like I’m under house arrest,” muttered Bill, throwing open the window to let in a blast of steam from a Danville summer afternoon. “Why don’t you use A. P. Hill’s office? Or Edith’s desk? It’s her day off.”

“I’m a Ph.D.,” I reminded him. “I’m not going to masquerade as your receptionist. And as for using your partner’s office, I wouldn’t dream of intruding into her space because I haven’t met her,” I said in a voice of sweet reason. “Besides, she doesn’t need my help. You do.”

“You’re supposed to be finding the old ladies,” Bill replied. “And they’re not in here.”

The phone rang at that moment, forestalling my next remark, which would have been to explain that I was in the process of tracking the absconding Confederate women, but like any sensible person with management experience, I had delegated the task. First I went to all the local travel agents to see if any of them had assisted in the travel plans of eight elderly women. The initial answer had been negative, but they all agreed to check their records and get back to me. I had told them a pretty story about Great-Aunt Flora needing her prescription refill at once, which would no doubt inspire them to speedier efforts at locating my quarry.

I had told a similarly fanciful tale to a sympathetic young clerk at the local moving company. She in turn had promised to search through the last month’s paperwork for evidence of the vanishing old ladies.

Meanwhile, on a hunch, I’d obtained a list of all the hotels in the Cayman Islands, and was systematically calling them to see if Flora Dabney and her cohorts were in hiding there. I think it was extremely ungrateful of Bill to be churlish about my use of his phone line. Even when I told him I’d pay his miserable little long-distance bill, he wasn’t the least bit gracious about it.

Now, though, he looked as if he was regretting having put a stop to my phone inquiries. He was nodding into the phone with a decidedly agitated expression, and saying, “Yes, Mr. Trowbridge,” about six times a minute.

“Well, actually, I’m still looking into that last question of yours, Mr. Trowbridge,” Bill said, with the hollow laugh he uses when he’s lying. “I wanted to make sure I covered all the ramifications for you. But you can certainly give me another question now. Certainly. That’s what I’m here for. What would you like to know this week?” He began to scribble notes on his yellow legal pad, grimacing as he wrote.

After a few more minutes of sickening politeness, he hung up the phone and threw his pencil up in the air, making absolutely no attempt to catch it.

I retrieved the pencil for him, setting it carefully on his desk, and waiting to see if he would throw it again, at which point I planned to suggest that he purchase a dog.

“That was Mr. Trowbridge,” said Bill. “His wife put us on retainer to answer stupid legal questions for him. He has a very fertile mind-by which I mean that it is absolutely full of crap. He never seems to run out.”

“What is it this time?” I asked, to humor him. At least he was talking.

“He wants me to find out-get this: can an Indian tribe confiscate your property if they prove that their tribe once owned the land? If there’s an Indian burial or something on your property. He says that Israel seems to have used that logic to establish their nation, and he wants to know if it would work for the Shawnees.”

“How would he go about finding a Shawnee?” I asked. I knew that Cherokees were still around, but I thought that most of the other eastern Indian tribes had vanished.

“It may be hypothetical,” said Bill. “Or Mr. Trowbridge may be planning to declare himself the last of the tribe, and claim-who knows what? Monticello? Downtown Richmond?”

“I see. Good luck figuring out that answer,” I said. “Well, not the answer. It’s pretty clear that the answer is no. Nonpayment of taxes for a few centuries would disqualify them, if nothing else, but I suppose he wants the terms of some obscure treaty. It’s the whys and wherefores that will take time.”

“I haven’t got time,” said Bill. “I need to work on this house sale business before the bar association-”

The phone rang again, and Bill snatched it up with a hunted look on his face. “MacPherson and Hill!” he bleated. Then his face fell and he heaved a mighty sigh. “Oh, hello, Mother.”

I was poised to take the phone, thinking surely she must want to speak to me, her only daughter just back from Europe; but Bill ignored my presence, looking more miserable with every breath.

“Yes, Mother. I guess I was supposed to be in court today to see about that restraining order we filed against Dad about the goldfish, but something came up. What? Well, another case, actually. No, Mother, I don’t think your case is trivial at all. I do like goldfish, it’s just that-Well, I don’t care what your friend Frances told you, I… What? Fine! I hope you can afford him!”

“What was that all about?” I asked when the sound of a receiver being slammed down stopped ringing in my ears.

“I thought you were supposed to be unobtrusive!” Bill said with a snarl. “What are you? A backseat lawyer? If you must know, that was one of my clients. A Mrs. Margaret MacPherson, who shares many of your less attractive traits, such as a tendency to nag. And since you ask, she fired me from her divorce proceedings against my father. Our father. Are you happy now?”

“You haven’t told them about the mess you’re in, have you?”

Bill put his head in his hands. “No. I have not told my mommy and daddy that I am in imminent danger of going to jail for legal malpractice. I thought they might have enough to worry about as it is. A goldfish custody hearing, perhaps.”

I began to pace, which in Bill’s cubbyhole does not burn up too many calories. “I can’t believe Mother actually fired you, Bill. She always liked you best.”

“Yeah, right,” sneered my brother. “In her current mood, she considers Jack the Ripper just an average guy. She’ll probably hire a woman lawyer now. I wonder if Powell would take the case. At least she’s competent.”

“You’re all right,” I said. “You’re honest, anyhow. That’s a start.”

“It is if I can prove it. Right now I’m popularly supposed to have a million bucks salted away in the Cayman Islands.” He was out of his seat and through the door before I could protest.

“Where are you going?” I called after him.

“To the courthouse law library!” said Bill. “To check on Shawnee property laws.”

Doug MacPherson sagged against a park bench, listening to his heartbeat. He thought that if he took off his sweat-soaked T-shirt, he could watch his heart beat. A masochistic generation, these youngsters of the nineties. In his day, once you finished with boot camp, you tried not to exert yourself unduly and you certainly didn’t consider it recreation. But Caroline had insisted. Well, she hadn’t nagged; she had simply assumed that he would be as addicted to running as she was. And of course, physical exercise was so good for him. At the moment, though, all it seemed good for was ensuring that he would look fit and trim in his coffin!

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Caroline prancing back to see what was keeping him, little beads of sweat glistening on her golden forehead. He tried to subdue his breathing into a controlled wheeze so that she wouldn’t see his shoulders shaking with the effort.

“Hi, hon!” she said, handing him the towel from around her neck. “You didn’t get a leg cramp, did you?”

“Yes!” he gasped, thankfully seizing the excuse. It sounded better than the total collapse he was experiencing.