MacPherson's Lament

would have made a jury convict him on general principles. He looked guilty of something. A. P. Hill managed to smile at her scruffy client, hoping that she looked more confident than she felt. At least she had a shred of a defense now.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“I hate being cooped up,” said Tug. “Specially in summertime. And I sure as hell could use a drink.”

“I can’t help you there, but I do have some news about your case. First of all, I just had a meeting with the district attorney. He has offered you a deal, which is really beside the point because I have a new lead that may win this case for us.”

“The D.A. is talking a deal?” The scowl left Tug’s face and he leaned forward with the first sign of genuine interest he had shown since she arrived.

“Yes. He wants you to plead guilty to second-degree murder. He says he’ll ask for a ten-year sentence.”

“Yeah, but you don’t serve all the time they give you.”

“Well, you could, of course, if you tried to escape or didn’t behave. But usually a prison term is about a quarter of the sentence. Say two and a half years. That’s a long time to be behind bars, I’m sure. But listen: I have great news. I had a forensic expert study the autopsy report on Misti and she came up with a wonderful piece of evidence to help our case.”

Powell’s voice bubbled with enthusiasm as she explained Elizabeth’s theory about the absence of petechial hemorrhaging in Misti Hale. She had to repeat the part about low blood pressure-and still Tug looked unimpressed. “You see,” she said triumphantly, “if she died of shock, you didn’t kill her intentionally!”

Tug Mosier frowned and rubbed his stubble of beard. “You think a Patrick County jury is going to follow that?” he asked.

“I’ll call in a medical expert,” A.P. assured him. “We’ll go over the whole process. Maybe even have a chart to help the jurors focus on the technical part.”

“But if we do that, the district attorney won’t be going for second degree, will he? He’ll try to convict me of first-degree homicide. Maybe capital murder. They fry people in this state, you know.”

“We’d argue that Misti’s death was accidental.”

“That’s just it,” said Tug sadly. “We’d argue. But you can lose an argument. You can’t lose a negotiated deal. I don’t want to bet my life that this jury will understand a word you’re saying. I didn’t, much.”

A.P. looked down at her briefcase full of notes, the result of hours of work researching the case. Then she looked at Tug Mosier, stone-faced and flabby, with the stirrings of fear in his eyes. “You want to plead guilty, then?” she asked. “Accept the D.A.’s offer?”

“I reckon so,” said Tug. “It seems the best way. I can do two and a half years, no sweat. I got friends inside. And-no offense, ma’am-but this is pretty damn near your first case. I’m not anxious to risk my life on the skills of a baby lawyer. Really: no offense.”

“None taken,” murmured A. P. Hill. “I’ll go back and tell Mr. Hazelit that we’ll accept his offer.”

Her client settled back in his straight wooden chair with a happy smile. “I sure am glad you’re taking this so well, ma’am. I do hate a woman that argues and nags at a fellow. Misti was always a one for that. She used to bitch and moan till I’d itch to slam her through a wall. Anything to shut up that mouth of hers.”

A. P. Hill studied Tug Mosier’s close-set blue eyes and his expressionless face as he reminisced about his dead lover without a trace of sorrow or regret. “You did it, didn’t you?” she whispered.

“Yeah. Reckon I can own up now.”

“But why did you agree to the regression technique?”

“Well, I don’t really believe in hypnosis and all,” said Tug. “Figured if you’re strong enough, you can fight it. I thought I’d say I didn’t do it and then the doc would testify that I was innocent. Didn’t work like that. It scared hell out of me when I came to and you said I’d been talking about Red Dowdy.”

“Why? He was there, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. He saw the whole thing. The next day he told me what I did-but I didn’t believe him. I had sorta forgot about her being in the trunk.”

“But maybe he’s lying!” said A.P. eagerly. “Red would hardly admit to you that he had committed murder.”

“Why not? He’s always been straight with me before, about owning up to things. When we robbed that hiker at Hanging Rock, he-” Tug saw her eyes widen. He smiled a little and looked away. “Don’t reckon you want to hear about that, ma’am.”

She shivered, pondering how the case might have gone in court. She saw herself grandstanding in her best baby-lawyer tradition. Then she envisioned the slow-talking old D.A. getting up in his shiny blue suit and blowing her away without so much as raising his voice. “So there was a witness who could have testified that you were guilty. Do you remember what happened?”

He frowned with the effort of concentration. “I sort of remember her yelling and me trying to make her quit. But it was no more than second degree, honest. I just felt like shutting her up, and I was too drunk to care about the consequences. So if I can cut a deal for second degree, I’ll take it.”

“I’ll go tell the district attorney,” whispered A. P. Hill, fighting an impulse to run from the room.

“Yeah, tell him it’s a deal,” said Tug Mosier. “I can do two and a half, Miz Hill. Misti was worth that.”

Jekyll Island is now attached to the mainland of Georgia by an umbilical cord of highway, a manmade isthmus constructed of dirt dredged from the adjoining sound. I didn’t think the old ladies would be too hard to find. The island is only a couple of miles long and less than a mile wide. A tollbooth at the end of the ribbon of road charges a small fee for every car coming onto Jekyll.

I got there about ten in the morning after spending a restless night in Savannah. I called Bill to make sure he hadn’t been taken into custody-or jumped off a bridge. He sounded despondent (which showed a good grasp of reality, I thought), but at least things weren’t any worse than when I left. I told Bill to give me a couple of days to straighten things out. I also asked him to invite our parents to dinner at his apartment on Saturday night. I didn’t know whether we would be able to straighten them out, but I intended to try. I needed Bill for moral support-and to pitch in with whatever persuasive skills he had managed to glean from law school.

The matter at hand depended on luck-after all, the old ladies might not be on this island at all-but beyond that I didn’t foresee too many difficulties. Southern charm and grad student persistence ought to get me through this on my own. At the tollbooth I asked the attendant if he remembered a car full of elderly ladies coming on to the island. He said that he’d be hard-pressed to remember anything else. Apparently the temperate south Georgia islands are a great favorite of the over-sixty set.

Trying not to envision a house-to-house inquiry, I drove on, taking the road that encircles the island and getting the general lay of the land. The business district-one row of shops and a post office-was easy enough to find. I decided to complete the circuit of the island and then to center my search on this hundred yards of island. A postmaster could tell me if a new post office box had been rented; the Realtor would know if a gaggle of old ladies had been house hunting; and sooner or later they would have to turn up at the little grocery store or the restaurant across the road. I had one advantage, that of surprise. They didn’t know that anyone had come looking for them, although I was certain that they were shrewd enough to be cautious anyway. I would be, if I were absconding with more than a million dollars.

On the side of the island facing the mainland, I found a historical marker that confirmed my guess about this being the old ladies’ destination. I parked the car off the side of the road under a tree and went up to read the marker. According to the sign, Jekyll Island had been the site of Confederate battery positions in 1861, equipped with a 42-pound gun and 32-pound navy guns. The artillery, anchored into earthworks of palmetto logs, timber, sandbags, and railroad cross ties, had been placed there for the protection of Brunswick; but on February 10, 1862, the fortifications had been dismantled, and the guns were sent to Savannah-by a Major Edward Anderson. Apparently the runaway ladies had been reading up on their chosen hideaway.

I was climbing back into the car to head for the tiny business district when a car full of elderly women weaved past me. The silver-haired driver seemed inclined to take her half of the road out of the middle, so I resolved to let them get a good head start before I ventured out on the road. As I watched them go by, though, I realized that the white Chrysler had a Virginia license plate. Mrs. Jeb Stuart rides again, I thought, and gunned my car to pursue the fugitives. They were headed north, to the undeveloped marshland part of the island, a haunt of bird-watchers and seascape artists. It wasn’t going to be much of a chase, because you can circle Jekyll in