Sycamore Row (38 page)

Jake and Carla exchanged blank stares because there was nothing to say, not at that moment. Willie, ever the salesman, said, “Let’s look around. The others get here at six thirty.” He topped off their flutes and they headed for the front porch. Once the tour commenced, Jake knew there was no turning back.

According to Willie, the house was built around 1900 by Dr. Miles Hocutt, the town’s leading physician for decades. It was a classic Victorian, with two high-gabled roofs, a turret that ran up four levels, and wide covered porches that swept around the house on both sides.

The price was not outrageous, Jake had to admit. It was certainly out of his range, but it could have been much worse. Jake suspected Harry Rex had advised Willie to be reasonable, especially if he wanted the Brigances to own it. According to Harry Rex, one rumor had Willie making another bundle in the stock market, another had him losing badly in Memphis real estate, and yet another had him inheriting a fortune from his grandmother, BeBe. Who knew? The price, though, seemed to indicate a need for quick cash. Willie knew Jake and Carla needed a house. He knew they were bogged down in insurance litigation. He knew (probably through Harry Rex) that Jake was in line to collect a generous fee in the Hubbard matter. As Willie chatted nonstop and guided Carla across the beautifully stained heart-pine floors, through the modern kitchen, up the winding staircase, and all the way into the circular reading room on the fourth level of the turret, with a view of the church steeples just blocks away, Jake dutifully followed along, wondering how in the world they could possibly afford it, let alone furnish it.

25

For those contesting the handwritten will of Seth Hubbard, Christmas came late. January 16, to be exact.

An investigator working for Wade Lanier struck gold. His name was Randall Clapp, and he finally found a potential witness named Fritz Pickering, who was living near Shreveport, Louisiana. Clapp was Wade Lanier’s top investigator and had a well-trained nose for digging up information. Pickering was simply minding his own business and had no idea what Clapp wanted. But he was curious, so they agreed to meet at a delicatessen where Clapp said he’d buy lunch.

Clapp was in the process of interviewing Lettie Lang’s former employers, almost all of whom were fairly affluent white homeowners accustomed to using black domestic help. In her deposition, Lettie had given as many of these names as she could remember, or so she testified. She was clear that there might have been one or two others over the past thirty years; she didn’t keep records. Most housekeepers did not. She had failed, though, to mention working for Irene Pickering. The name surfaced when Clapp was interviewing another former boss.

Lettie had never worked for anyone longer than six years. There were various reasons for this, none of which had anything to do with incompetence. Indeed, almost all of her ex-employers gave her high marks. Pickering, though, would be different. Over soup and salad, he told his story.

About ten years earlier, either in 1978 or 1979, his mother, a widow named Irene Pickering, had hired Lettie Lang to clean and cook. Mrs. Pickering lived just outside the small town of Lake Village, in an old house that had been in the family forever. At the time, Fritz Pickering
lived in Tupelo and worked for an insurance company, the one that transferred him to Shreveport. He saw his mother at least once a month and came to know Lettie fairly well. Everyone was pleased with the relationship, especially Mrs. Pickering. In 1980, her health began a rapid decline and it became obvious that the end was near. Lettie worked longer hours and showed real compassion for the dying woman, but Fritz and his sister, the only other sibling, began to grow suspicious about their mother’s routine financial affairs. Gradually, Lettie had taken control of collecting the bills and writing the checks, though it appeared as if Mrs. Pickering always signed them. Lettie kept up with the bank statements, insurance forms, bills, and other paperwork.

Fritz got an urgent call one day from his sister, who had found an astonishing document. It was a will handwritten by their mother, and in it she left $50,000 in cash to Lettie Lang. Fritz took off from work, sped over to Lake Village, met his sister after hours, and took a look at the will. It had been dated two months prior and signed by Irene Pickering. There was no doubt about the handwriting, though it was a much feebler version of what they had always known. His sister had found the will in a plain envelope stuffed in an old family Bible on a shelf with the kitchen cookbooks. They confronted their mother, who claimed to be too weak to discuss the matter.

At the time, Mrs. Pickering had $110,000 in a certificate of deposit and $18,000 in a checking account. Lettie had access to the monthly statements for these accounts.

The following morning, Fritz and his sister confronted Lettie when she arrived for work. During a nasty row, they claimed she had convinced or even coerced their mother into making the will. She denied any knowledge of it and seemed genuinely surprised, even hurt. They fired her anyway and made her leave the house immediately. They loaded up their mother and drove her to a lawyer’s office in Oxford, where the sister lived. While they waited, the lawyer prepared a two-page will that made no mention of Lettie Lang and left everything to Fritz and his sister, in equal shares, just as they had discussed many times with their mother. She signed it on the spot, died a month later, and the probate went off without a hitch. Fritz and his sister sold the house and property and split the assets evenly without a cross word.

Before Irene died, they quizzed her several times about the handwritten will, but it always upset her and she wouldn’t discuss it. They quizzed her about Lettie Lang, and this made her cry too. Eventually,
they stopped these conversations. Truthfully, at the time she signed the will in the lawyer’s office she was not really thinking clearly, and things did not improve before she died.

Over coffee, Clapp listened with growing excitement. With Fritz’s permission, he was recording the conversation and couldn’t wait to play it back for Wade Lanier.

“Did you keep a copy of the handwritten will?”

Fritz shook his head and said, “I don’t recall doing that, and if we did keep it, it’s long gone. I sure don’t know where it would be.”

“Did the lawyer in Oxford keep it?”

“I think so. When we took Mother to see him, we gave him her prior will, one that was prepared by a lawyer in Lake Village, plus the handwritten will, and I’m sure he kept both of them. He said it was important to destroy prior wills because they sometimes show up and cause problems.”

“Do you remember the name of the lawyer in Oxford?”

“Hal Freeman, an old guy who’s since retired. My sister died five years ago and I was the executor of her estate. Freeman had retired by then but his son handled the probate.”

“Did you and the son ever talk about the handwritten will?”

“I don’t think so. I had very little contact with him, really. I try to avoid lawyers, Mr. Clapp. I’ve had some very unpleasant experiences with them.”

Clapp was savvy enough to know he had discovered dynamite, and he was experienced enough to know it was time to back off. Take it slow, share it all with Wade Lanier, and let the lawyer call the shots. Pickering began to inquire into Clapp’s reasons for pursuing Lettie, but was met with a wall of vagueness. They finished lunch and said good-bye.

Wade Lanier listened to the tape with his customary grim face and tight lips. But Lester Chilcott, his associate, could hardly suppress his enthusiasm. After Clapp was excused from Lanier’s office, Chilcott rubbed his hands together and said, “This ball game is over!” Wade eventually smiled.

Step one: No further contact with Pickering. His mother and sister were dead, so he was the only person who could possibly testify about the handwritten will, other than Hal Freeman. Two quick phone calls to Oxford verified that Freeman was retired, still alive, and that his
old office was run by his two sons, Todd and Hank. Ignore Pickering, for now. No contact between Lanier’s office and Pickering because it would be important, at a later date, for Pickering to testify he had never spoken to the attorneys.

Step two: Find the handwritten will, at all costs. If it exists, find it, get it. But do so without alerting Hal Freeman, if possible. Find it, before Jake or somebody else does.

Step three: Bury this now and save it for later. The most dramatic and effective use of the handwritten will of Irene Pickering would come at trial, with Lettie Lang on the witness stand and denying any knowledge of the will. Produce it then. Make her a liar. And prove to the jury that conniving her way into wills handwritten by her old and vulnerable bosses was a devious pattern.

Such a strategy was loaded with hazards. The first and most obvious was the basic rules of discovery. Jake had filed interrogatories requiring his adversaries to divulge the identities of all potential witnesses. Lanier and the other lawyers had done the same; it was standard procedure in the new days of wide-open discovery where everything was supposedly transparent. To hide a witness like Fritz Pickering was not only unethical, but also dangerous. Attempting to produce a surprise at trial was often futile. Lanier and Chilcott needed time to plot ways around this rule. There were exceptions, but they were narrow.

Just as troublesome was the plan to find Irene’s handwritten will. There was a chance it had been destroyed, along with a thousand other worthless old files in the Freeman archives. But lawyers generally kept their retired files for longer than ten years, so the odds were decent that the will was still around.

Ignoring Fritz was also problematic. What if another lawyer tracked him down and asked the same questions? If the other lawyer happened to be Jake, then the element of surprise would be lost. Jake would have plenty of time to coach Lettie into testimony that might appease the jury. He could certainly spin the story. And he would rage at the violated discovery rules. Judge Atlee would not be sympathetic.

Lanier and Chilcott debated the idea of contacting Freeman directly. If the will was filed away and gathering dust, Freeman could certainly produce it without someone being forced to steal it. And, he would be a respectable witness at trial. But speaking to Freeman would blow their great secret. As a potential witness, his name would be revealed. The element of surprise would be lost. It might become necessary to approach him later, but for now Wade Lanier and Lester
Chilcott were quite content to spin a web of silence and deceit. Cheating was often hard to cover and required meticulous planning, but they were skilled.

Two days later, Randall Clapp entered the Freeman Law Firm and informed the secretary he was there for a four o’clock appointment. The two-man shop was in a converted bungalow one block off the Oxford town square, next door to a savings and loan and just down the street from the federal courthouse. As Clapp waited in the reception area, he flipped through a magazine and took in the surroundings. No video cameras; no security sensors; a dead bolt on the front door; no chains; almost nothing to prevent even a half-witted cat burglar from sneaking in during the night and taking his time. And why would there be? Other than the usual mountain of paperwork, there was nothing of real value in the building.

It was a typical small-town law office, just like a hundred others Clapp had visited. He had already wandered through the rear alley and scoped out the back door. A dead bolt but nothing formidable. His man Erby could walk through either the front or the rear door faster than one of the employees using a key.

Clapp met with Todd Freeman and discussed some land he wanted to buy west of town, along the main highway. He used his real name, real job, and real business card, but lied when he said he and his brother wanted to put in an all-night truck stop. The legal work would be routine and Todd seemed sufficiently interested. Clapp asked to use the restroom and was sent down the narrow hall. Retractable staircase; at least two cluttered rooms chock-full of files; a small kitchen with a broken window, no lock. No security sensors anywhere. Piece of cake.

Erby entered the building just after midnight while Clapp sat low in his car across the street and watched for trouble. It was January 18, cold, a Wednesday, and the students were not out on the town. The square was dead, and Clapp’s biggest fear was getting noticed by a bored policeman. Once Erby was inside, he checked in by radio. All was quiet and still. Using his trusty jack-blade, he had picked the rear door dead bolt in seconds. With an infrared penlight, he eased through the offices; not a single interior door was locked. The retractable stairs were flimsy and squeaked, but he managed to pull them down with little racket. He stood in the front window, spoke to Clapp by radio, and Clapp could not see his shadow inside. Wearing gloves and disturbing nothing, Erby began in one of the storage rooms. It would take hours and he was in no hurry. He opened drawers, looked at files,
dates, names, and so on, and in doing so touched documents that had not been touched in weeks, months, maybe years. Clapp moved his car to a lot on the other side of the square and walked through the alleys. At 1:00 a.m., Erby opened the rear door and Clapp entered the building. Erby said, “Every room has file cabinets. Looks like the current files are kept in the lawyers’ offices, some by the secretaries.”