Read The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel Online
Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
Sally G. Klingenschmitt, as she had been known ever since the Sunday after graduation, had not changed much. She was still small and slender enough to pass at a distance for a teenager. Her silky dark hair showed only a trace of gray at the temples, and her earnest brown eyes were as warm and intense as ever. She hugged Powell Hill at the door and ushered her into a snug living room, replete with chintz and polished mahogany. It smelled of lemon polish and fresh-brewed coffee. Above the mantlepiece hung an oil painting of a radiant Sally, blue gowned, sitting formally erect in a leather wing chair while Jim hovered protectively behind her. It was, thought A. P. Hill, a good likeness of the couple spiritually as well as physically.
By the time Powell had been settled in on the rose-patterned sofa and plied with coffee and raisin cookies, she felt eighteen again, ready to put herself and her problems into the capable hands of the dorm president.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said, suddenly loath to come to the point. “How’s Jim?”
“He’s great!” said Sally, beaming. “He’s head coach this
year at the new junior high school, so I get a lot of chances to try out new cookie recipes. But it’s wonderful to see you, too, Powell. I teach kindergarten now, which is a joy, of course, but sometimes it’s so nice to talk to a grown woman for a change. And you’re a lawyer now! I always knew you would be, Powell. Never doubted it for a minute.”
A. P. Hill smiled her thanks. The fact that Sally G. had probably never for a minute doubted the Tooth Fairy, either, did not take the shine off her good wishes. “I came to talk to you about Purdue,” she said at last. “You’ve heard?”
Sally shook her head, her eyes wide with apprehension. “No. She’s not dead, is she?” Her voice was a horrified whisper. “Poor Purdue! She was always such a wild one. Brilliant, of course, but so wild. So doomed.”
“She’s still alive,” said A. P. Hill. “And I’m trying to see that she stays that way. I need to find her quickly.” She opened her purse and took out a tabloid clipping about the PMS Outlaws. The accompanying photo, unflattering but definitely P. J. Purdue, said it all.
Sally read the article, wide-eyed with astonishment. When she finished, she looked up at Powell Hill and shook her head. “I’d heard she became a lawyer, and so I thought surely she had outgrown her rebel phase.”
“Apparently not.”
“No,” Sally agreed. “Purdue always was like a terrier with a rat about her hates. She’d never let go of an insult or an injury.”
“I know. She may think this is about rescuing her client from prison, but I’m beginning to think that the fugitive part is just an excuse. Otherwise, they’d be keeping a lower profile on
the run. She called me to say that this was more fun than practicing law. Then a few days ago in Tennessee, she used my name as an alias.”
“So she’s determined to drag you into it.”
“It looks that way. I just wondered who else she’s contacted. You?”
“No. I wish she would. Maybe I could talk her into getting some help.”
“Think back. Is there anyone whom she was close to, or anyplace she might want to go to hide or to get help?”
Sally traced the rose pattern on the sofa with one slender forefinger as she considered the question. “Her parents are dead, aren’t they? And she lived somewhere in southside Virginia with her grandfather.”
“The judge. I spoke to him. He’s very old and frail, and he doesn’t seem to know about any of this. Since the crimes all happened outside Virginia, nobody in law enforcement has been to see him about it. I didn’t tell him. Anyhow, I don’t think she’ll go there.”
“Seeing his disappointment would be worse than jail for Purdue,” said Sally. “I remember thinking how much was expected of Purdue academically, and how little she ever achieved socially. Nobody seemed to care about that. As long as her grade point average was first rate, the judge seemed to think she was fine.”
“Well,” said Powell Hill, “she might have been fine if she were male. With women, though, academic achievement is never enough.”
“No. I suppose it isn’t.” Sally tapped the tabloid article. “I can just feel Purdue’s hostility bubbling through this. It’s rage—but directed at whom?”
A. P. Hill shrugged. “Men, I guess. That’s nothing new. Remember the blind-date rating chart beside the hall phone? The time she met the flasher in the quad and critiqued his performance?”
“Poor Pat Purdue. She was such an idealist. I know she sounded like a tough little cynic back in college, but think about it. She wouldn’t have been so angry at men if her expectations for them had not been so high. You know … ‘Someday my prince will come.’ ”
“Well, she didn’t find him,” said A. P. Hill, glancing again at the tabloid photo of P. J. Purdue and Carla Larkin. “Now she is him. And I need to find her, before she tries to change from Prince Charming into Steven Seagal and gets herself blown away by the police.”
Sally Gee nodded thoughtfully. “How can I help?”
“You haven’t heard from her, have you?”
“No. A couple of Christmas cards. Purdue manages to send out cards about every other year. Once we got one in March. But really I haven’t seen or spoken to her in years. I saw her a couple of times for lunch while I was working on my master’s and you two were in law school, but you were her classmate in law school. Surely there are more recent friends you could ask?”
“Not that I know of,” said Powell Hill. “She lived in an apartment. Alone. She antagonized most of the men in the class at one time or another, and she wasn’t attractive enough for them to forgive her for it. I guess I was her friend—or as close as she got to having one. She tolerated me because she considered me smart enough to be a worthy opponent.”
“That seems to be what you are now,” said Sally. “A worthy opponent. Catch me if you can.”
“I don’t know that I want to catch her. I’d like to keep her from throwing her life away, but it may already be too late for that. At least, I’d like a chance to talk to her. That’s why I’m trying to figure out where she’s headed. I thought you might remember something that would help me to find her.”
“It’s been a long time,” said Sally. “And if anyone else had come asking for a lead to Patricia Purdue, I’d have told them to go and find you.”
“We didn’t keep in touch.”
“How about her coworkers? Wasn’t she in a law firm before …” Sally tapped the page of the tabloid. “Before all this?”
“I called them first thing. Nobody’s talking. They’re afraid that they’ll be implicated in whatever lawsuits her victims manage to bring before the court.” A. P. Hill shrugged. “They’re right. I probably wouldn’t talk either, if my law partner went off the rails.”
“You said you’ve heard from her, though, since she became a fugitive?”
“She called my office. Yes.”
Sally Gee looked thoughtful. “Why?”
“To gloat, I guess. She claims she’s having fun. Why?”
“Well, I was just thinking that maybe you won’t have to find P. J. after all. Maybe she’s going to find you.”
A. P. Hill nodded, thinking, That’s what I’m afraid of.
“If I were you, Powell, I’d keep an open line, and I’d think very hard about what I was going to say to her.”
B
ill MacPherson put a plastic Realtor key chain on Edith’s desk. “Spoils of war,” he told her. “The paperwork is finally to the point that the sellers consider it a done deal. They mean that
they can sue me for all I’ve got plus a kidney if I suddenly come to my senses and try to back out of this deal.”
Edith looked up at him suspiciously. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”
“Can’t afford to. Besides, everyone keeps telling me what a brilliant investment I’m making. Anyhow, according to Holly the Realtor, it’s okay for us to start moving into the house now. I stopped by the liquor store for some cardboard boxes, and I thought we could start packing up the office today. If we can manage to be out by the end of the month, we’ll save on rent.”
He looked around at the shabby secondhand furniture, the battered file cabinets, and the threadbare area rug. “We’ll need all the paperwork, of course, but some of this furniture can go straight to the dump.”
“Right,” said Edith. “I’d say that decision was long overdue. Have you given notice to the building manager?”
Bill reddened. “I wish Powell Hill were here. She’d handle him without batting an eye. I’ll tell you what: You type it and I’ll sign it.”
“The man won’t bite you,” said Edith. “He looks like a pit bull, but he doesn’t bite. I will type the letter though. We want the departure to be legal. I’ll tell you what I won’t do, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell your mother. You’re on your own there.”
Bill smiled. “I’m not worried about her reaction. She’ll love it. She’ll probably try to hold her book-club meetings in the parlor. I just want to wait until we’re settled in, that’s all. Knowing my crazy relatives, more of them will descend on us to try to help us decorate.”
Edith’s gaze rested on the stuffed groundhog that graced the bookcase in Bill’s office. “Heaven forbid,” she murmured.
“I think we can haul everything in my car. It might take a few trips, but we can manage.”
“Are you paying me overtime for this?”
“Sure,” said Bill. “Just keep track of your hours.”
“In that case, I’ll get my cousin to bring over his pickup truck. We ought to be able to get the desks and file cabinets over there in two loads.”
“How much should I pay him?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Edith. “You’ve got house payments, remember? Just offer him gas money.”
MacPherson & Hill
Attorneys-at-Law
TO
: Elizabeth MacPherson, Patient
Cherry Hill Psychiatric Hospital
FROM
: Geoffrey Chandler, Interior Designer
Danville, Virginia
Dear Cousin Elizabeth:
Isn’t it a good thing that technology is so silent? I mention this because it is quite late at night—three
A.M
. to be exact—and here I am tapping away on the word processor in Bill’s unlit office. The computer keyboard is quiet enough not to call attention to my presence. On an old typewriter, people would be able to hear me crashing and dinging two floors away.
When I finish composing this, I shall fax a printout to you at Cherry Hill, and since it is the middle of the night, I am struck by how pleasant and convenient it is that fax machines, too, are relatively quiet devices. A ringing phone would certainly cause complaint at this hour on your end, but I can slip a few pages of text to you on little cat feet, as it were. It’s too bad that you don’t have e-mail, which is quieter still, and even less obtrusive, but I quite see why mental hospitals might frown upon their patients having quite so much access to the world at large.
I didn’t mean you, dear. I’m sure you wouldn’t send threatening letters to the vice president or try to tap into the country’s nuclear launch codes, but somewhere there is probably an undermedicated soul in custody who would. So, all right, I shall word process and fax: a small price to pay for the safety of the planet, I am sure.
I finally did have the pleasure of making Mr. Dolan’s acquaintance. As Edith suggested, I turned up in the kitchen for late-afternoon tea and pastry, and sure enough, there he was, tucking into a plate of brownies as if it were his first meal in weeks. I accepted a cup of tea, which, fortunately, I take without sugar, because there wasn’t any. I wisely decided against trying to reach for one of the brownies. As Mr. Dolan ate, I introduced myself and received a nod in return. It was evident that as a point of interest, I came a distant second to the works of Betty Crocker.
“What a lovely house this is!” I said to him
when the brownies began to disappear at a slower rate. “Have you lived here all your life?”
“Nope,” said Mr. Dolan between swigs of milk. “Born poor. Outran it, though.”
“Well done, sir! The American dream. The poor but honest youth makes his fortune.”
He grunted and reached for the milk jug. “That is a dream, son.”
Edith smiled at us. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” she said. “I have some office work to do. Tidy up the kitchen when you’re through, boys.”
I don’t know where Bill was. Gainfully employed in the practice of law, I hope. He’s going to need all the money he can bilk from clients before I’m through setting this house to rights. Anyhow, I told Mr. Dolan that I would be staying for a while because I was in charge of the renovations, and that I’d welcome information from him about the original state of the interior. Paint colors, light fixtures, and so on.”
He peered at me with interest. “You’re a carpenter?”
I nearly went over backward when he said that, but I managed to regain my wits in time to murmur, “Something of the sort. Do you have any old photographs of the house that I could see to give me an idea of how it ought to look?”
He gave me a canny leer. “There may be one or two around someplace,” he said. “You have a car, don’t you?”
I said I did, still trying to figure out where this was going.
“Good!” he said. “You can take me out to the grocery store.”
And off we went.
I suppose I ought to describe Jack Dolan for you, so that you can run the description past your fellow patient, though I do see that an interval of forty years or so would make a great difference in anyone’s appearance. Still, as it is best to be thorough, here goes: Jack Dolan is probably in pretty good shape for a man in his nineties. He walks unassisted. He can see where he’s going, and he still has reasonably good hearing. (Apparently he can hear a brownie fall on a plate from a hundred yards away.) His eyes are a watery blue, and his hair—what there is of it—is white, so that won’t be particularly helpful. Judging from his pale to pinkish skin tone, I’d say his hair would have been a brownish color in his salad days. He’s less than six feet tall, judging by my own height, but I’ve heard that people tend to lose an inch or two of height as they age. Still, he was never a lanky fellow, I’d say. Just average. He’s slender now. Fat people don’t tend to reach advanced old age, have you noticed? Let that be a lesson to us all. I am going to surmise that he was never obese. He seems to have the metabolism of a chipmunk, anyhow.
I hope this is helpful. The old fellow hasn’t told me very much about his past, but I’m reasonably certain that his mental faculties are quite intact. He managed
not only to get me to take him to the grocery store, but also to make me pay for his groceries and carry them for him! If I have to lug many more ten-pound bags of sugar across a two-acre parking lot, I’ll be the one needing a walker!
It is now so late that it’s early. More news when I have some.
Your man in Havana, er—Danville (with apologies to Graham Greene),
Geoffrey