Apart from his other interests in Danville, he thought that the house might make a very nice vacation home; perhaps even a place to retire to. He was bored with the usual vacation spots frequented by his acquaintances. He was getting a little old for skiing, and thoughts of skin cancer dimmed his enjoyment of the beach. He had been divorced for years, and there were no children to consider in his vacation preferences. He could please himself. Perhaps a graceful Victorian mansion was the perfect retreat for a gentleman of his age and income. He might even take up fox hunting. After the completion of his current project, that is.
He looked appraisingly at the silent rooms, with sunlight filtering through the curtainless windows making dust motes dance above the oak plank floors. There was no sensation of the lingering dead haunting the empty halls. Too bad, thought Huff with a wry smile; he would have welcomed a couple of ghosts. He would have had questions to pose to them.
After a last look around, while he mentally arranged his furniture in these graceful rooms, John Huff sat down on the stairs to wait for the moving van.
For perhaps the fiftieth time since he began his law practice, Bill MacPherson considered the idea of raising sheep. Sheep were so restful. So pleasantly bland. They just stood around all day not arguing with anybody, not asking silly questions, and not minding that a dozen ewes all had to share the same ram. You never heard of a sheep filing for divorce; no sirree bob. They just stood around in their fields, placidly content with whatever mate was provided for them. Sheep never went off to find themselves. Bill pictured himself out on a green hillside with a clever collie (sort of a canine A. P. Hill), communing with nature, soaking up sunshine, and counting his lamb chops.
He was jerked back to fluorescent reality by the sound of his mother’s voice, containing all the warmth of an injured timber wolf. “He’s driving me crazy!” she wailed.
Bill closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair, wondering whether he was supposed to respond as a son or as a lawyer. He opted for the second choice, thinking that the emotional distance of the attorney-client relationship might make for a calmer discussion. “All right, Mother,” he said gently. “Take it easy. What has Dad done now?”
“He keeps coming back to the house, saying he forgot something. Last week he took the road atlas, the flashlight, and the sea-shell ashtray you made at 4-H camp.”
“What did he want that for? I thought he quit smoking.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s too cheap to buy cereal bowls. What does it matter? I don’t want him wandering in and out of the house. And that’s not the worst of it! He’s killing the fish.”
“The fish?”
“The goldfish. Doug used to always accuse me of forgetting to feed the goldfish, and now he is convinced that 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, then we can have him arrested?”
“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. Local tax assessor, thought John Huff, bracing himself for the confrontation. These yokels would soon learn that they couldn’t push him around. Huff sat where he was and waited for Mr. Power Tie’s opening salvo.