Текст книги "Sycamore Row"
Автор книги: John Grisham
Соавторы: John Grisham
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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 35 страниц)
Tedium set in as Judge Atlee went through page after page of questions. By noon, twelve of the fifty had been dismissed, all of them white. Of the thirty-eight remaining, eleven were black, not a single one of whom had lifted a hand.
During the lunch recess, the lawyers met in tense groups and debated who was acceptable and who had to be cut. They ignored their cold sandwiches while they argued over body language and facial expressions. In Jake’s office, the mood was lighter because the panel was darker. In the main conference room over at the Sullivan firm, the mood was heavier because the blacks were sandbagging. Of the eleven remaining, not one admitted to knowing Lettie Lang. Impossible in such a small county! There was obviously a conspiracy of some nature at work. Their expert consultant, Myron Pankey, had watched several of them closely during the questioning and had no doubt that they were trying their best to get on the jury. But Myron was from Cleveland and knew little about southern blacks.
Wade Lanier, though, was unimpressed. He’d tried more cases in Mississippi than the rest of the lawyers combined, and he was not concerned about the remaining thirty-eight members of the pool. In almost every trial, he hired consultants to dig into the backgrounds of the jurors, but once he saw them in the flesh he knew he could read them. And though he did not say so, he liked what he had seen that morning.
Lanier still had two great secrets up his sleeve—the handwritten will of Irene Pickering, and the testimony of Julina Kidd. To his knowledge, Jake had no idea what was coming. If Lanier managed to successfully detonate these two bombs in open court, he might just walk away with a unanimous verdict. After considerable negotiating, Fritz Pickering had agreed to testify for $7,500. Julina Kidd had jumped at the offer of only $5,000. Neither Fritz nor Julina had spoken to anyone on the other side, so Lanier was confident his ambushes would work.
So far, his firm had either spent or committed to spending just over $85,000 in litigation expenses, moneys the clients were ultimately responsible for. The cost of the case was rarely discussed, though it was always in their thoughts. While the clients were troubled by rising expenses, Wade Lanier understood the economic realities of big-time litigation. Two years earlier, his firm had spent $200,000 on a product liability case, and lost.
You roll the dice and sometimes you lose. Wade Lanier, though, was not contemplating a loss in the Seth Hubbard case.
Nevin Dark settled into a booth at the Coffee Shop with three of his new friends and ordered iced tea from Dell. All four wore white lapel buttons with the word “Juror” in bold blue letters, as if they were now officially off-limits and beyond approach. Dell had seen the same buttons a hundred times, and knew she should listen hard but ask no questions and offer no opinions.
The thirty-eight remaining jurors had been warned by Judge Atlee not to discuss the case. Since none of the four at Nevin’s table had ever met, they chatted about themselves for a few minutes while looking over the menus. Fran Decker was a retired schoolteacher from Lake Village, ten miles south of Clanton. Charles Ozier sold farm tractors for a company out of Tupelo and lived near the lake. Debbie Lacker lived in downtown Palmyra, population 350, but had never met Seth Hubbard. Since they couldn’t talk about the case, they talked about the judge, the courtroom, and the lawyers. Dell listened hard but gleaned nothing from their lunch conversation, at least nothing she could report to Jake in the event he stopped by later for the gossip.
At 1:15, they paid their separate checks and returned to the courtroom. At 1:30, when all thirty-eight were accounted for, Judge Atlee appeared from the rear and said, “Good afternoon.” He went on to explain that he would now continue with the selection of the jury, and he planned to do so in a manner that was somewhat unusual. Each juror would be asked to step into his chambers to be quizzed by the lawyers in private.
Jake had made this request because he assumed the jurors, as a group, knew more about the case than they were willing to admit. By grilling them in private, he was confident he could elicit more thorough responses. Wade Lanier did not object.
Judge Atlee said, “Mr. Nevin Dark, would you join us in my chambers, please?”
A bailiff showed him the way, and Nevin nervously walked past the bench, through a door, down a short hallway, and into a rather small room where everyone was waiting. A court reporter sat ready to transcribe every word. Judge Atlee occupied one end of the table and the lawyers crowded around the rest of it.
“Please remember that you’re under oath, Mr. Dark,” Judge Atlee said.
“Of course.”
Jake Brigance flashed him an earnest smile and said, “Some of these questions might be kind of personal, Mr. Dark, and if you don’t want to answer them, that’s fine. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“Do you currently have a last will and testament?”
“I do.”
“Who prepared it?”
“Barney Suggs, a lawyer in Karaway.”
“And your wife?”
“Yes, we signed them at the same time, in Mr. Suggs’s office, about three years ago.”
Without asking the specifics of their wills, Jake nibbled around the edges of the will-making process. What prompted them to prepare their wills? Do their children know what’s in the wills? How often have they changed their wills? Did they name each other as executor of their wills? Have they ever inherited anything from another will? Did he, Nevin Dark, believe a person should have the right to leave his property to anyone? To a non–family member? To charity? To a friend or employee? To cut out family members who may have fallen out of favor? Had either Mr. Dark or his wife ever considered changing their wills to exclude a person currently named as a beneficiary?
And so on. When Jake finished, Wade Lanier asked a series of questions about drugs and painkillers. Nevin Dark said he’d used them only sparingly, but his wife was a breast cancer survivor and at one time had relied on some strong medications for pain. He could not remember their names. Lanier showed genuine concern for this woman he’d never met, and poked and prodded enough to convey the message that strong painkillers taken by very sick people often cause a lapse in rational thinking. The seed was skillfully planted.
Judge Atlee was watching the clock, and after ten minutes he called time. Nevin returned to the courtroom, where everyone stared at him. Juror Number Two, Tracy McMillen, was waiting in a chair by the bench, and was quickly led to the back room, where she faced the same questioning.
Boredom hit hard and many of the spectators left. Some of the jurors napped while others read and reread newspapers and magazines. Bailiffs yawned and gazed from the large plate-glass windows overlooking the courthouse lawn. One prospective juror replaced the next in a steady parade to Judge Atlee’s chambers. Most disappeared for the full ten minutes, but a few were finished in less time. When Juror Number Eleven emerged from her interrogation, she passed the benches and headed for the door, excused from service for reasons those sitting in the courtroom would never know.
Lettie and Phedra left for a long break. As they walked down the aisle toward the double doors, they were careful to avoid glancing at the Hubbard clan, bunched together on the back row.
It was almost 6:30 when Juror Number Thirty-eight left chambers and returned to the courtroom. Judge Atlee, showing remarkable energy, rubbed his hands together and said, “Gentlemen, let’s finish this job now so we can start fresh with the opening statements in the morning. Agreed?”
Jake said, “Judge, I’d like to renew my motion for a change of venue. Now that we’ve interviewed the first thirty-eight jurors, it is apparent that, as a whole, this panel knows far too much about this case. Almost every juror was willing to admit he or she had heard something about it. This is quite unusual in a civil case.”
“Quite the contrary, Jake,” Judge Atlee said. “I thought they answered the questions well. Sure they’ve heard about the case, but almost all of them claimed to be able to keep an open mind.”
“I agree, Judge,” Wade Lanier said. “With a few exceptions, I’m impressed with the panel.”
“Motion is overruled, Jake.”
“No surprise,” Jake mumbled, just loud enough to be heard.
“Now, can we pick our jury?”
“I’m ready,” Jake said.
“Let’s go,” replied Wade Lanier.
“Very well. I’m dismissing jurors number three, four, seven, nine, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty-four for cause. Any discussion?”
Slowly, Lanier said, “Yes, Your Honor, why number fifteen?”
“He said he knew the Roston family and was deeply saddened by the deaths of their two sons. I suspect he holds a grudge against anyone with the last name of Lang.”
“He said he did not, Your Honor,” Lanier argued.
“Of course that’s what he said. I just don’t believe him. He’s excused for cause. Anyone else?”
Jake shook his head no. Lanier was angry but said nothing. Judge Atlee pressed on, “Each side has four peremptory challenges. Mr. Brigance, you must present the first twelve.”
Jake nervously scanned his notes, then slowly said, “Okay, we’ll take numbers one, two, five, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, and twenty-two.” There was a long pause as everyone in the room looked at their charts and made notes. Finally, Judge Atlee said, “So you struck six, thirteen, twenty, and twenty-three, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you ready, Mr. Lanier?”
“Just a second, Judge,” Lanier said as he huddled with Lester Chilcott. They whispered for a while, obviously in disagreement. Jake listened hard but could not decipher anything. He kept his eyes on his notes, on his chosen twelve, knowing he could not keep them all.
“Gentlemen,” Judge Atlee said.
“Yes sir,” Lanier said slowly. “We’ll strike numbers five, sixteen, twenty-five, and twenty-seven.”
The air left the room again as every lawyer and the judge struck names from makeshift charts and moved the higher numbers up the ladder. Judge Atlee said, “So, it looks like our jury will consist of numbers one, two, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-six, and twenty-eight. Does everyone concur?”
The lawyers shook their heads in agreement without taking their eyes from their legal pads. Ten whites, two blacks. Eight women, four men. Half had wills, half did not. Three had college degrees; seven finished high school; two did not. Median age of forty-nine, with two women in their twenties, a pleasant surprise for Jake. Overall he was pleased. On the other side of the table, Wade Lanier was too. The truth was that Judge Atlee did a fine job of eliminating those who might possibly begin deliberations with preconceived notions or prejudices. On paper, it appeared as if the extremists were gone, and the trial was left in the hands of twelve people who appeared to be open-minded.
“Let’s pick a couple of alternates,” His Honor said.
At 7:00 p.m., the new jurors gathered in the jury room and got themselves organized, according to Judge Atlee’s instructions. Because he had been the first one selected, the first name called, the first to be seated, and because he gave every indication of being an amicable type with an easy smile and kind word to all, Mr. Nevin Dark was elected foreman of the jury.
It had been a very long day, but an exciting one. As he drove home, he found himself eager to chat with his wife over a late dinner and tell her everything. Judge Atlee had warned them against discussing the case with each other, but he didn’t say a word about spouses.
40
Lucien shuffled the deck and deftly dealt ten cards to Lonny and the same to himself. As usual now, Lonny slowly lifted his cards from the top of the folding table and took forever arranging them in his preferred order. His hands and words were slow, but his mind seemed to be clicking right along. He was up thirty points in this their fifth game of gin rummy; he’d won three of the first four. He was wearing a saggy hospital gown and an IV hung just over his head. A nicer nurse had given him permission to leave his bed and play cards in front of the window, but only after Lonny had raised his voice. He was sick and tired of the hospital and wanted to leave. But then, he really had no place to go. Only the city jail, where the food was even worse and the cops were waiting with questions. In fact, they were waiting just outside his door now. Thirty kilos of cocaine will always create problems. His new pal Lucien, who said he was a lawyer, had guaranteed him the evidence would be tossed on a motion to suppress. The cops had no probable cause to enter Lonny’s room at the flophouse. Just because a man gets hurt in a bar fight does not give the police the right to rummage through his locked living quarters. “It’s a slam dunk,” Lucien had promised. “Any half-assed criminal lawyer gets the coke thrown out. You’ll walk.”
They had talked about Seth Hubbard, with Lucien throwing in all the facts, gossip, fabrications, speculations, and rumors that had been roaring through Clanton during the past six months. Lonny claimed to be only mildly curious, but he seemed to enjoy listening. Lucien did not mention the handwritten will, nor the black housekeeper. Expansively, he recounted Seth’s amazing ten-year run from a man broken by his second nasty divorce to a high-flying risk taker who parlayed his own mortgaged property into a fortune. He described Seth’s zeal for secrecy, his offshore bank accounts and maze of corporations. He told the amazing historical anecdote of Seth’s father, Cleon, hiring Lucien’s grandfather Robert E. Lee Wilbanks to handle a land dispute in 1928. And they lost!
Lucien talked almost nonstop in an effort to gain Lonny’s trust, to convince him there was no harm in telling secrets from the past. If Lucien could open up so completely, then Lonny could too. On two occasions during the morning, Lucien had gently poked into the business of Lonny knowing anything about Ancil, but neither punch had landed. Lonny seemed to have no interest in that subject. They talked and played throughout the morning. By noon, Lonny was fatigued and needed rest. The nurse enjoyed telling Lucien to leave.
He did so but was back two hours later to check on his new friend. Lonny now wanted to play blackjack, at a dime a hand. After half an hour or so, Lucien said, “I called Jake Brigance, the lawyer I work for in Mississippi, and I asked him to check out this Sylvester Rinds guy you mentioned. He found something.”
Lonny put his cards down and gave Lucien a curious look. Deliberately, he said, “What?”
“Well, according to the land records in Ford County, Sylvester Rinds owned eighty acres of land in the northeast part of the county, land he had inherited from his father, a man named Solomon Rinds, who was born about the time the Civil War started. Though the records are not clear, there’s a good chance the Rinds family came to own the land just after the war, during Reconstruction, when freed slaves were able to obtain land with the help of carpetbaggers and federal governors and other scum that flooded our land back then. It looks as though this eighty acres was in dispute for some time. The Hubbard family owned another eighty acres that adjoined the Rinds property, and evidently they contested this property. The lawsuit I mentioned this morning, the one filed in 1928 by Cleon Hubbard, was a dispute over the Rinds property. My grandfather, who was the finest lawyer in the county and well connected, lost the case for Cleon. I gotta figure that if my grandfather lost the case then the Rinds family must have had a pretty strong claim to the land. So Sylvester managed to hang on to his property for a few more years, but then he died in 1930. After he died, Cleon Hubbard obtained the land from Sylvester’s widow.”
Lonny had picked up his cards and he studied them without seeing them. He was listening and recalling images from another lifetime.
“Pretty interesting, huh?” Lucien said.
“It was a long time ago,” Lonny said, grimacing as pain rippled through his skull.
Lucien plowed ahead. With nothing to lose, he was not about to relax. “The strangest part of this entire story is that there is no record of Sylvester’s death. There’s not a single Rinds now living in Ford County, and it appears as though they all left about the time Cleon Hubbard got his hands on the property. They all vanished; most fled to the North, to Chicago, where they found jobs, but this was not uncommon in the Depression. A lot of starving blacks fled the Deep South. According to Mr. Brigance, they found a distant relative over in Alabama, a man named Boaz Rinds, who claims that some white men took Sylvester and killed him.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Lonny asked.
Lucien stood and walked to the window where he gazed at a parking lot below. He debated telling the truth now, telling Lonny about the will and Lettie Lang and her ancestry: that she was almost certainly a Rinds instead of a Tayber; that her people were from Ford County and had once lived on the land owned by Sylvester; that it was highly probable Sylvester was in fact her grandfather.
But he sat back down and said, “Nothing really. Just some old history involving my kinfolks, Seth Hubbard’s, and maybe Sylvester Rinds’s.”
There was a moment of silence in which neither man touched his cards. Neither made eye contact. As Lonny seemed to drift away, Lucien jolted him with “You knew Ancil, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Lonny said.
“Tell me about him. I need to find him, and quick.”
“What do you want to know about him?”
“Is he alive?”
“He is, yes.”
“Where is he right now?”
“Don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?”
A nurse entered chattering away about checking his vitals. He said he was tired, and so she helped him into his bed, arranged his IV, glared at Lucien, then checked Lonny’s blood pressure and pulse. “He needs to rest,” she said.
Lonny closed his eyes and said, “Don’t go. Just turn down the lights.”
Lucien pulled a chair close to his bed and sat down. After the nurse left, he said, “Tell me about Ancil.”
With his eyes still closed and his voice almost a whisper, Lonny began, “Well, Ancil has always been a man on the run. He left home when he was young and never went back. He hated home, hated his father especially. He fought in the war, got wounded, almost died. A head injury, and most folks think Ancil’s always been a bit off upstairs. He loved the sea, said he’d been born so far away from it that it captivated him. He spent years on cargo ships and saw the world, all of it. You can’t find a spot on the map that Ancil hasn’t seen. Not a mountain, a port, a city, a famous site. Not a bar, a dance club, a whorehouse, you name it, and Ancil’s been there. He hung out with rough characters and from time to time fell into bad ways: petty crime, then some not so petty. He had some near misses, once spent a week in a hospital in Sri Lanka with a knife wound. The knife wound was nothing compared with the infection he got in the hospital. He had lots of women, some of whom had lots of children, but Ancil was never one to stay in one place. Last he knew, some of those women were still looking for him, with their children. Others might be looking for him too. Ancil has lived a crazy life and he’s always looked over his shoulder.”
When he said the word “life,” it came out wrong; or, perhaps it came out naturally. The long i was much flatter than before, much like the flattened i’s so common in north Mississippi. Lucien had deliberately fallen back into a twangier version of speech, in hopes that it might lure old Lonny here into the same habit. Lonny was from Mississippi, and they both knew it.
He closed his eyes and seemed to sleep. Lucien stared at him for a few minutes, waiting. His breathing became heavier as he drifted away. His right hand fell to his side. The monitors showed a normal blood pressure and heartbeat. To stay awake, Lucien paced around the darkened room, waiting for a nurse to appear and shoo him away. He eased next to the bed, squeezed Lonny’s right wrist firmly, and said, “Ancil! Ancil! Seth left behind a last will and testament that gives you a million bucks.”
The eyes came open and Lucien repeated himself.
The debate had raged for an hour, unabated, and tempers were on edge. In fact, the issue had been hotly discussed for a month with no shortage of opinions. It was almost 10:00 p.m. The conference table was littered with notes, files, books, and the remains of a bad take-out pizza they had devoured for dinner.
Should the jury be told the value of Seth’s estate? The only issue at trial was whether the handwritten will was valid. Nothing more, nothing less. Legally, technically, it didn’t matter how big or how small the estate was. On one side of the table, the side being occupied by Harry Rex, the strong feeling was that the jury should not be told because if the jurors knew that $24 million was in play and about to be given to Lettie Lang, they would balk. They would naturally take a dim view of such a transfer of wealth outside the family. Such a sum was so unheard-of, so shocking, that it was inconceivable that a lowly black housekeeper should walk away with it. Lucien, while absent, agreed with Harry Rex.
Jake, though, felt otherwise. His first point was that the jurors probably had a hunch that a lot of money was on the table, though virtually all had denied such knowledge during the selection process. Look at the size of the fight. Look at the number of lawyers on deck. Everything about the case and the trial was evidence of big money. His second point was that full disclosure was the best policy. If the jurors felt as though Jake was trying to hide something, he would start the trial with an immediate loss of credibility. Every person in the courtroom wants to know what the brawl is about. Tell them. Lay it out. Withhold nothing. If they concealed the size of the estate, then the size of the estate would become a festering and unspoken issue.
Portia went back and forth. Before the jury was seated, she was leaning in favor of a full disclosure. But after looking at the ten white faces, and only two black ones, she was struggling to believe they had any chance at all. After all the witnesses had testified, after all the lawyers had been silenced, after all the wise words had been uttered by Judge Atlee, could those ten white people reach deep and find the courage to uphold Seth’s last will? At the moment, fatigued and weary, she was doubtful.
The phone rang and she answered it. “It’s Lucien,” she said, handing it to Jake, who said, “Hello.”
From Alaska came the report: “Got him, Jake. Our pal here is Ancil Hubbard, one and the same.”
Jake exhaled and said, “Well, I guess that’s good news, Lucien.” He pulled the receiver away and said, “It’s Ancil.”
“What are you guys doing?” Lucien asked.
“Just prepping for tomorrow. Me, Portia, Harry Rex. You’re missing the party.”
“Do we have a jury?”
“Yes. Ten whites, two blacks, no real surprises. Tell me about Ancil.”
“Pretty sick puppy. His head wound is infected and the doctors are concerned. Tons of meds, antibiotics and painkillers. We played cards all day and talked about everything. He sort of comes and goes. I finally mentioned the will and told him his big brother left him a million bucks. Got his attention and he admitted who he is. Half an hour later he’d forgotten about it.”
“Should I tell Judge Atlee?” Harry Rex shook his head, no.
“I don’t think so,” Lucien said. “The trial has started and it won’t be stopped for this. Ancil has nothing to add. He damned sure can’t get there, what with a cracked skull and the cocaine thing waiting just outside his door. Poor guy’ll probably serve some time eventually. The cops seem determined.”
“Did you guys climb the family trees?”
“Yes, quite a bit, but long before he came clean. I laid out the history of the Hubbard and Rinds families, with emphasis on the mystery of Sylvester. But he had little interest. I’ll try again tomorrow. I’m thinking about leaving tomorrow afternoon. I really want to see some of the trial. I’m sure you’ll have it all screwed up by the time I get there.”
“No doubt, Lucien,” Jake said, and hung up a moment later. He relayed the conversation to Portia and Harry Rex, who, though intrigued by it, had other matters at hand. The fact that Ancil Hubbard was alive and living in Alaska would mean nothing in the courtroom.
The phone rang again and Jake grabbed it. Willie Traynor said, “Say, Jake, just for your information, there’s a guy on the jury who shouldn’t be there.”
“It’s probably too late, but I’m listening.”
“He’s on the back row, name’s Doley, Frank Doley.” Jake had seen Willie taking notes throughout the day. “Okay, so what’s Frank up to?” Jake asked.
“He has a distant cousin who lives in Memphis. Six or seven years ago, this cousin’s fifteen-year-old daughter was snatched by some black punks outside a mall in East Memphis. They kept her in a van for several hours. Terrible things happened. The girl survived but was too messed up to identify anyone. No one was ever arrested. Two years later the girl committed suicide. A real tragedy.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I didn’t catch the name until an hour ago. I was in Memphis at the time, and I remembered some Doleys from Ford County. You’d better get him bumped, Jake.”
“It’s not that easy. In fact, it’s impossible at this point. He was quizzed by the lawyers and the judge and gave all the right answers.” Frank Doley was forty-three years old and owned a roofing company out near the lake. He claimed to know nothing about the Seth Hubbard matter and seemed perfectly open-minded.
Thanks for nothing, Willie.
Willie said, “Sorry, Jake, but it didn’t register in court. I would have said something.”
“It’s okay. I’ll deal with it somehow.”
“Other than Doley, what do you think of your jury?”
Jake was talking to a journalist, so he played it safe. “A good panel,” he said. “Gotta run.”
Harry Rex’s response was, “I was worried about that guy. Something wasn’t right.”
To which Jake shot back, “Well, I don’t recall you saying anything at the time. It’s always easy to call plays on Monday morning.”
“Testy, testy.”
Portia said, “He seemed eager to serve. I gave him an eight.”
Jake said, “Well, we’re stuck with him. He gave all the right answers.”
“Maybe you didn’t ask the right questions,” Harry Rex said as he took another swig of Bud Light.
“Thank you so much, Harry Rex. For your own future reference, during the jury selection process lawyers are not normally allowed to ask questions like, ‘Say, Mr. Doley, is it true your distant cousin was gang-raped by a bunch of black thugs in Memphis?’ and the reason for this prohibition is that the lawyers generally don’t know about such horrible crimes.”
“I’m going home.” Another swig.
“Let’s all go home,” Portia said. “We’re not accomplishing much.”
It was almost 10:30 when they turned out the lights. Jake walked around the square to clear his head. At the Sullivan firm, lights were still on. Wade Lanier and his team were still in there, still working.
