Sycamore Row jb-2

by John Grisham

  “Are you sure?”

  “My job is to enforce the provisions of Mr. Hubbard’s last will, plain and simple. That will is under attack from his family, and that’s where the fight should be. When we go to trial, I want her to be sitting right there, at my table, with Mr. Quince Lundy, the administrator of the estate. He’s white and I’m white, and between us will be Lettie, looking pretty and happy. This is about money, Portia, but it’s also about race. We don’t need a courtroom that’s black on one side and white on the other. I’ll take the case all the way to the jury, and-”

  “And you’ll win?”

  “Only an idiot lawyer predicts what a jury might do. But I’ll swear that my chances of winning the case are far greater than Booker Sistrunk’s. Plus, I’m not getting a cut of Lettie’s inheritance.”

  “How do you get paid?”

  “You don’t mind asking questions, do you?”

  “Sorry. There’s just so much I don’t know.”

  “I’m working by the hour and my fees come from the estate. All reasonable and court approved.”

  She nodded as if she heard this all the time. She coughed and said, “My mouth is dry. Do you have a soft drink or something?”

  “Sure. Follow me.” They went downstairs to the small kitchen where Jake found a diet soda. To impress her, he took her into the small conference room and showed her where Quince Lundy was currently doing his work and digging through the Hubbard records. Lundy had not yet arrived for the day. “How much of the money is in cash?” she asked timidly, as if she might be out-of-bounds. She stared at the boxes of records as if they were filled with cash.

  “Most of it.”

  She admired the shelves packed with thick law books and treatises, few of which had been touched in years. “You have a nice office here, Jake,” she said.

  “It’s a hand-me-down. It belongs to a man named Lucien Wilbanks.”

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  “Most people have. Have a seat.”

  She eased into a thick, leather chair at the long table as Jake closed the door. Roxy, of course, was nearby and on full radar alert.

  Jake sat across from her and said, “So, tell me, Portia, how do you get rid of Sistrunk?”

  In the best military tradition, she instantly blurted, “Keep his big ass in jail.”

  Jake laughed and said, “That’s only temporary. Your mother has to fire him. Your father doesn’t matter; he’s not a party.”

  “But they owe him money.”

  “They can pay him later. If she’ll listen to me, I’ll walk her through it. But, first, she has to tell Sistrunk he’s fired. And Buckley too. In writing. I’ll draft a letter if she’ll sign it.”

  “Give me some time, okay?”

  “There’s not much time. The longer Sistrunk hangs around the more damage he does. He’s a publicity hound and loves the attention. Unfortunately, he’s getting the attention of all the white people in Ford County. Those will be our jurors, Portia.”

  “An all-white jury?”

  “No, but at least eight or nine of the twelve.”

  “Wasn’t the Hailey jury all white?”

  “Indeed it was, and it seemed to grow whiter each day. But that was a different trial.”

  She took a sip from the can and looked again at the rows of important books covering the walls. “It must be pretty cool being a lawyer,” she said in awe.

  “Cool” was not an adjective Jake would use. He was forced to admit to himself that it had been a long time since he viewed his profession as something other than tedious. The Hailey trial had been a great triumph, but for all the hard labor, harassment, physical threats, and raw emotions, he had been paid $900. For that, he’d lost his home and almost his family.

  “It has its moments,” he said.

  “Tell me, Jake, are there any black female lawyers in Clanton?”

  “No.”

  “How many black lawyers are there?”

  “Two.”

  “Where’s the nearest black woman with her own law office?”

  “There’s one over in Tupelo.”

  “Do you know her? I’d like to meet her.”

  “I’ll be happy to make the phone call. Her name is Barbara McNatt, a nice lady. She was a year ahead of me in law school. Does primarily family law but also mixes it up with the cops and prosecutors. She’s a good lawyer.”

  “That’d be great, Jake.”

  She took another sip as they waited through an uncomfortable gap in the conversation. Jake knew where he wanted to go but couldn’t be in a hurry. “You mentioned law school,” he said, and this grabbed her attention. They talked about it at length, with Jake careful not to make his description as dreadful as the three-year ordeal itself. Occasionally, like all lawyers, Jake was asked by students if he would recommend the law as a profession. He had never found an honest way to say no, though he had many reservations. There were too many lawyers and not enough good jobs. They were packed along Main Streets in countless small towns, and they were stacked on top of each other in the tall buildings downtown. Still, at least half of all Americans who need legal help can’t afford it, so more lawyers are needed. Not more corporate lawyers or insurance lawyers, and certainly not more small-town street lawyers like himself. He had a hunch that if Portia Lang became a lawyer, she would do it the right way. She would help her people.

  Quince Lundy arrived and broke up the conversation. Jake introduced Portia to him, and then walked her to the front door. Outside, under the terrace, he invited her to supper.

  The hearing on Kendrick Bost’s petition for habeas corpus relief was held on the second floor of the federal courthouse in Oxford, as scheduled at 1:00 that afternoon. By then, the Honorable Booker F. Sistrunk had been wearing the county-jail coveralls for over twenty-four hours. He was not present at the hearing, nor was his presence expected.

  A U.S. magistrate presided and did so with little interest. There was no precedent, at least not in the Fifth Circuit, for a federal court to get involved in a contempt ruling in state court. The magistrate asked repeatedly for some authority, from anywhere in the nation, but there was none.

  Bost was permitted to rant and pant for half an hour, but said almost nothing of substance. His ill-grounded claim was that Mr. Sistrunk was the victim of some vague plot by the authorities in Ford County to remove him from the will contest, and so on. What was not said was the obvious: Sistrunk expected to be released simply because he was black and felt mistreated by a white judge.

  The petition was denied. Bost immediately prepared an appeal to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. He and Buckley had also filed an appeal challenging the contempt order to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Sistrunk played checkers with his new cell mate, a hot-check artist.

  The maternal side of Carla’s family claimed some German roots, and for this reason she studied German in high school and for four years at Ole Miss. Clanton rarely provided the opportunity to practice the language, so she was delighted to welcome Portia to their modest rental home, even though Jake forgot to tell her about his invitation until almost 5:00 p.m. “Relax,” he’d said. “She’s a nice girl who might play a crucial role, plus she’s probably never been invited to a white person’s house for dinner.” As they had this discussion, a bit tense at first, they finally realized and admitted that they had never invited a black person to dinner.

  Their guest arrived promptly at 6:30, and she brought a bottle of wine, one with a cork. Though Jake had stressed that the evening was “as casual as possible,” Portia had changed and was wearing a long, loose, cotton dress. She greeted Carla in German, but quickly switched to English. She apologized for the bottle of wine-a cheap red from California-and they had a good laugh over the paltry selections in the local liquor stores. Jake explained that all wine and booze in the state were in fact purchased by the State, then doled out to privately owned liquor stores. This led to a lively discussion about the ridiculous liquor l
aws in Mississippi, where in some towns you can buy 180-proof rum but not a single can of beer.

  Jake, holding the bottle, said, “We don’t keep alcohol in the house.”

  “Sorry,” Portia said, embarrassed. “I’ll be happy to take it home.”

  “Why don’t we just drink it?” Carla asked. A great idea. As Jake rummaged for a corkscrew, the women moved to the stove and looked at dinner. Portia said she’d rather eat than cook, though she had learned a lot about food in Europe. She had also grown fond of Italian wines, bottles of which were scarce in Ford County. “You’ll have to go to Memphis,” Jake said, still searching. Carla had thrown together a pasta sauce with spicy sausage, and as it simmered she began practicing with a few elementary sentences in German. Portia responded slowly, sometimes repeating, often correcting. Hanna heard the strange words and came from the rear of the house. She was introduced to their guest, who greeted her with “Ciao.”

  “What does ‘ciao’ mean?” Hanna asked.

  “Among friends it means hello and good-bye in Italian, also in Portuguese, I think,” Portia said. “It’s a lot easier than ‘guten Tag’ or ‘bonjour.’ ”

  “I know some words in German,” Hanna said. “My mother taught me.”

  “We’ll practice later,” Carla said.

  Jake found an old corkscrew and managed to wrestle the bottle open. “We once had real wineglasses,” Carla said as she pulled out three cheap water goblets. “Like everything else, they went up in the fire.” Jake poured; they clinked glasses, said “Cheers,” and sat at the kitchen table. Hanna left them and went to her room.

  “Do you talk about the fire?” Portia asked.

  “Not much,” Jake said. Carla shook her head slightly and looked away. “However, if you’ve seen the paper, you know that one of the thugs is now back on the streets, or somewhere around here.”

  “I saw that,” Portia said. “Twenty-seven months.”

  “Yep. Granted, he didn’t light the match, but he was in on the planning.”

  “Does it worry you, now that he’s out?”

  “Of course it does,” Carla said. “We sleep with guns around here.”

  “Dennis Yawkey doesn’t bother me that much,” Jake said. “He’s just a stupid little punk who was trying to impress some other guys. Plus, Ozzie is watching him like a hawk. One bad move, and Yawkey goes back to Parchman. I’m more concerned with the bad boys out there who’ve never been nailed. There were a lot of men, some local, some not, who were involved. Only four have been prosecuted.”

  “Five if you count Blunt,” Carla said.

  “He hasn’t been prosecuted. Blunt was the Klucker who tried to blow up the house a week before they burned it. He currently resides at the state mental hospital where he’s doing a good job of acting crazy.”

  Carla stood and went to the stove where she stirred the sauce and turned on the burner to boil the water.

  “I’m sorry,” Portia said softly. “Didn’t mean to bring up an unpleasant subject.”

  “It’s okay,” Jake said. “Tell us about Italy. We’ve never been there.”

  Over dinner, she talked about her travels throughout Italy, Germany, France, and the rest of Europe. As a high school student, she had made the decision to see the world, and to get as far away from Mississippi as possible. The Army gave her the chance, and she took full advantage of it. After boot camp, her top three choices were Germany, Australia, and Japan. While stationed at Ansbach, she spent her money on railway passes and student hostels, often traveling alone as she saw every country from Sweden to Greece. She was stationed on Guam for a year, but missed the history and culture, and especially the food and wines, of Europe, and managed a transfer.

  Jake had been to Mexico and Carla had been to London. For their fifth anniversary, they saved and scraped together enough money for a low-budget trip to Paris, one they still talked about. Beyond those trips, they had been homebound. If they were lucky, they sprang for a week at the beach at Destin in the summer. Listening to Portia trot the globe made them envious. Hanna was mesmerized. “You’ve seen the pyramids?” she asked at one point.

  Indeed she had; in fact, it seemed as though Portia had seen everything. The bottle was empty after the salads, and they needed more wine. Instead, Carla poured iced tea and they managed to finish the meal. After Hanna was in bed, they sipped decaf coffee, ate cookies, and talked about worldly matters.

  Of Lettie and the will and its related issues, not one word was uttered.

  20

  Ancil Hubbard was no longer Ancil Hubbard. The old name and self had been discarded in a hurry years earlier when a pregnant woman found him and made allegations and demands. She wasn’t the first to cause him trouble, or a name change. There was an abandoned wife in Thailand, some jealous husbands here and there, the IRS, some type of police in at least three countries, and a cranky drug dealer in Costa Rica. And these were just the most memorable highlights of a chaotic and sloppily lived life, one he would have happily traded long ago for something more traditional. But traditional was not in the cards for Ancil Hubbard.

  He was working in a bar in Juneau, Alaska, in a seedy section of town where sailors and deckhands and roustabouts gathered to drink and shoot dice and blow off steam. A couple of ferocious bouncers kept the peace, but it was always fragile. He went by Lonny, a name he’d noticed in an obituary in a newspaper in Tacoma two years earlier. Lonny Clark. Lonny knew how to game the system, and if Lonny had so chosen he could have obtained a Social Security number, a driver’s license in any state he wanted, even a passport. But Lonny was playing it safe, and there were no records of his existence in any government file or computer. He did not exist, though he had some fake papers in the event he got cornered. He worked in bars because he was paid in cash. He rented a room in a flophouse down the street and paid cash. He rode bikes and buses, and if he needed to vanish, which was always a possibility, he would pay cash for a Greyhound ticket and flash a fake driver’s license. Or hitchhike, something he’d done for a million miles.

  He worked behind the bar and studied every person who came and went. Thirty years on the run and you learn how to watch, to look, to catch the prolonged glance, to spot someone who doesn’t fit. Because his misdeeds involved no bodily harm to others, nor did they, regretfully, involve huge sums of money, there was a good chance he wasn’t being chased at all. Lonny was a small-time operator whose principal weakness was an attraction to flawed women. No real crime there. There were some crimes-petty drug dealing, pettier gunrunning-but, hell, a man’s gotta make a living somehow. Perhaps a couple of his crimes were more serious. Nonetheless, after a lifetime of drifting, he had become accustomed to looking over his shoulder.

  The crimes were now behind him, as were the women, for the most part. At sixty-six, Lonny was accepting the fact that a fading libido might just be a good thing after all. It kept him out of trouble, kept him focused on other things. He dreamed of buying a fishing boat, though it would be impossible to save enough from his meager earnings. Because of his nature and habits, he often thought of pulling one last drug deal, one grand slam that would net him a bundle and set him free. Prison, though, terrified him. At his age, and caught with the quantity he was dreaming about, he would die behind bars. And, he hated to admit, his previous drug deals had not gone well.

  No thanks. He was happy tending bar, chatting up sailors and hookers and dispensing well-earned advice. He closed the bar each morning at 2:00 and walked, half-sober, to his cramped room where he lay on a dirty bed and recalled with great nostalgia his days on the open seas, first in the Navy and later on cruise ships, yachts, even tankers. When you have no future, you live in the past, and Lonny would be stuck there forever.

  He never thought about Mississippi, or his childhood there. As soon as he left, he somehow trained his mind to instantly negate any thoughts of the place. Like the click of a camera, he changed scenery and images effortlessly, and after decades he had convinced himself that he had never l
ived there at all. His life began when he was sixteen; nothing happened before then.

  Nothing at all.

  Early on his second morning of captivity, and not long after a breakfast of cold scrambled eggs and even colder white toast, Booker Sistrunk was fetched from his cell and led, without restraints, over to the office of the high sheriff. He went inside while a deputy waited at the door. Ozzie greeted him warmly and asked if he would like fresh coffee. Indeed he did. Ozzie also offered fresh doughnuts, and Sistrunk dove right in.

  “You can be out in two hours if you want to,” Ozzie said. Sistrunk listened. “All’s you gotta do is walk into court and apologize to Judge Atlee. You’ll be in Memphis long before lunch.”

  “I kinda like it here,” Sistrunk said with a mouth full.

  “No, Booker, what you like is this.” Ozzie slid across the Memphis paper. Front page, Metro, beneath the fold, a stock photo under a headline that read, SISTRUNK DENIED FEDERAL HABEAS RELIEF; REMAINS BEHIND BARS IN CLANTON. He read it slowly as he chomped on another doughnut. Ozzie noticed a slight grin.

  “Another day, another headline, huh Booker? Is that all you’re after here?”

  “I’m fighting for my client, Sheriff. Good versus evil. I’m surprised you can’t see that.”

  “I see everything, Booker, and this is what’s obvious. You’re not gonna handle this case in front of Judge Atlee. Period. You’ve ripped it with him and he’s tired of you and your foolishness. Your name’s on his shit list and it’s not comin’ off.”

  “No problem, Sheriff. I’m taking it to federal court.”

  “Sure, you can file some bullshit civil rights crap in federal court, but it won’t stick. I’ve talked to some lawyers, some guys who do federal work, and they say you’re full of shit. Look, Booker, you can’t bully these judges down here the way you can in Memphis. We got three federal judges here in the Northern District. One’s a former Chancellor, like Atlee. One’s an ex-district attorney, and one used to be a federal prosecutor. All white. All fairly conservative. And you think you can walk into federal court down here and start slingin’ all your racist shit, and somebody’s gonna buy it. You’re a fool.”