Sycamore Row (69 page)

After a few more pointless questions, Jake sat down. The two doctors had accomplished precisely what Wade Lanier had intended. At that moment, in the minds of the jurors, and practically everyone else in the courtroom, Seth had been disoriented, dizzy, drowsy, lightheaded, and unable to drive so he asked Lettie to do it.

In summary, he lacked testamentary capacity.

After a ten-minute recess, Lanier continued when he called Lewis McGwyre as a witness. Because the Rush firm had made such an ungraceful exit from the case, and was thus cut out of the fees, McGwyre at first refused to testify. So Wade Lanier did the unthinkable: he subpoenaed another lawyer. In short order, Lanier established that McGwyre had prepared a thick will for Seth in September 1987. That will was admitted into evidence, and McGwyre stepped down. As much as he wanted to hang around and watch the trial, his pride wouldn’t allow it. He and Stillman Rush hurried from the courtroom.

Duff McClennan took the stand, took the oath, and proceeded to explain to the jury that he was a tax lawyer with a three-hundred-man firm in Atlanta. For the past thirty years he had specialized in estate
planning. He drafted wills, thick ones, for wealthy people who wanted to avoid as much of the death taxes as possible. He had reviewed the inventory of assets filed by Quince Lundy, and he had reviewed the handwritten will signed by Seth Hubbard. Lanier then flashed onto a large screen a series of calculations, and McClennan launched into a windy explanation of how federal and state death taxes gobbled up the unprotected estate. He apologized for the intricacies, the contradictions, the mind-numbing banalities of “our dear tax code,” and apologized for its complexities. Twice he said, “I didn’t write this. Congress did.” Lanier knew perfectly well that the jury would be bored if not repulsed by this testimony, so he labored diligently to skip along, hitting the high points and leaving much of the code in the dust.

Jake was not about to object and prolong this agony. The jurors were already antsy.

When McClennan mercifully got to the bottom line, he said, “In my opinion, the total tax bill, state and federal, will be 51 percent.” On the screen, in bold letters, Lanier wrote, “$12,240,000 in taxes.”

But the fun was just starting. McClennan had analyzed the will prepared by Lewis McGwyre. It was primarily a collection of related and complicated trusts that gave $1 million outright to Herschel and Ramona each, then tied up the remainder for many years while doling it out to the family. He and Lanier had no choice but to discuss it in detail. Jake watched the jurors as they began to nod off. Even McClennan’s light version of what the will was intended to do was dense and, at times, comically impenetrable. Lanier, though, was on a mission. He plowed ahead and began running the numbers on the big screen. The bottom line was that the tax bill under the 1987 will would be, in McClennan’s expert opinion, only “$9,100,000, state and federal, give or take a few bucks.”

The difference of $3,140,000 was printed in bold numbers on the screen.

The point was well made. Seth’s hastily written holographic will cost his estate a lot of money; more proof he was not thinking clearly.

Jake had learned to avoid the IRS code in law school, and for the past ten years had readily stiff-armed any potential client looking for tax advice. He had none to offer because he knew so little about that area of the law. When Lanier tendered the witness, Jake passed. He knew the jurors were bored and ready for lunch.

“We’ll be in recess until one thirty,” Judge Atlee said. “Mr. Brigance.” Jake planned to grab Wade Lanier and ask if he had five minutes
to chat, but his plans were suddenly changed. He met Judge Atlee in his office down the hall. After His Honor removed his robe and lit his pipe, he sat down, stared at Jake, and calmly said, “You’re not pleased with my rulings.”

Jake snorted and said, “No, I am not. You’ve allowed Wade Lanier to hijack this trial with a couple of dirty tricks, a couple of surprise witnesses that I had no chance to prepare for.”

“But your client lied.”

“She’s not my client. The estate is my client. But, yes, Lettie was not truthful. She was caught off guard, Judge, ambushed. In her deposition she clearly stated she could not remember all the white families she’d worked for. The Pickering episode was so unpleasant I’m sure she tried to forget it. And the most important aspect of that little story is that Lettie never knew about the handwritten will. I could have prepared her, Judge. That’s my point. I could have softened the impact. You, though, allowed an ambush, and the trial flipped in a matter of seconds.”

Jake glared at the old man as he spoke, though he was well aware that Reuben V. Atlee was not one to be reprimanded. But this time the judge was wrong, and Jake was angry at the injustice. He had nothing to lose at this point, so why not lay it all on the table?

The judge puffed and seemed to eat the smoke, then it drifted out. “I disagree. Regardless, though, I expect you to maintain your dignity. Lawyers do not curse in my chambers.”

“My apologies. I sometimes curse in the heat of the battle, doubt if I’m the only one.”

“I’m not sure the jury has flipped, as you say.”

Jake hesitated. He almost reminded the judge that he knew almost nothing about juries. He so rarely saw them, which was part of the problem. In Chancery Court, he ruled supreme as judge and jury and had the luxury of admitting all evidence. He could sift through it, separate the good from the bad, and issue a ruling he deemed fair.

Jake was not about to argue. Instead, he said, “Judge, I have a lot of work to do.”

Judge Atlee waved at the door, and Jake left. Harry Rex caught him as he was leaving the courthouse and said, “Ozzie called the office, said they’re still at the jail in Memphis and trying to get him out. Right now they can’t get a bond set.”

Jake frowned and said, “A bond, for what?”

“He’s charged with public drunkenness and resisting arrest. It’s
Memphis. They throw in the resisting charge every time they haul someone in.”

“I thought Ozzie had contacts there.”

“I guess he’s lookin’ for them. I told you it was a mistake to send that drunk to Alaska.”

“Is this really helpful right now?”

“No. What are you doin’ for lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Let’s get a beer.”

“No, Harry Rex. Some juries get offended when the lawyer reeks of alcohol.”

“You’re not still worried about this jury, are you?”

“Knock it off, would you?”

“I gotta go to court in Smithfield this afternoon. Good luck. I’ll check in later.”

“Thanks.” As Jake crossed the street to his office, he realized that Harry Rex had not missed a word in the courtroom since Monday morning.

Dewayne Squire was the vice president of Berring Lumber Company. On the Thursday before the suicide, he and Seth had engaged in a disagreement over a large shipment of heart pine to a flooring company in Texas. Squire had negotiated the deal, and was surprised to learn that his boss then called the company and negotiated another deal at a lower price. Back and forth they went throughout that Thursday morning. Both men were upset, both convinced they were right, but at some point Squire realized that Seth was not himself. Arlene Trotter was out of the office and missed the conflict. At one point, Squire entered Seth’s office and found him with his head in his hands, claiming to be dizzy and nauseous. They spoke later and Seth had forgotten the details of the contract. He claimed Squire had negotiated a price that was too low, and they argued again. By the time Seth left around 3:00 p.m. the deal was done and Berring would eventually lose about $10,000. To Squire’s recollection, it was the largest loss on any customer contract Seth was ever involved in.

He described his boss as being disoriented and erratic. The following morning he sold the timberland in South Carolina for a substantial loss.

Jake was well aware that Wade Lanier was pushing hard now and
trying to get the case to the jury before the weekend. Jake needed to stall, so on cross-examination he pulled out the Berring financials and walked Squire through them. Nineteen eighty-eight was the most profitable year of the last five, though revenues dipped in the last quarter, after Seth’s death. As the jurors faded away, Jake and Squire talked about the company’s performance, its contracts, strategies, costs, labor problems, plant depreciation. Twice His Honor said, “Move along, Mr. Brigance,” but he didn’t push too hard. Mr. Brigance was already unhappy with him.

After Dewayne Squire, Lanier called to the stand a Mr. Dewberry, a land broker who specialized in farms and hunting clubs. He told the story of dealing with Seth in the days before he died. Seth had been interested in buying five hundred acres in Tyler County for a hunting club. He and Dewberry had been looking at land for the past five years, but Seth would never pull the trigger. He finally paid for a one-year option on the five hundred acres, then got sick and lost interest. As the option was about to expire, he called Dewberry several times. Dewberry did not know Seth was dying, nor did he have any idea he was on painkillers. One day Seth wanted to exercise the option; the next day he did not. Several times he could not remember the price per acre, and on one occasion forgot who he was talking to on the phone. His behavior became more and more erratic.

On cross, Jake managed to stall even more. By late Thursday afternoon, the trial had ground to a near halt, and Judge Atlee adjourned early.

46

After butting heads with the Memphis bureaucracy, Ozzie was about to quit when he remembered something he should have thought of sooner. He phoned Booker Sistrunk, whose office was four blocks from the city jail. After a rough beginning, the two had kept in touch, and over the months had visited on two occasions when Ozzie was in Memphis. Booker had not been back to Clanton and wasn’t keen to return. Both realized that two black men, living sixty minutes apart and with some measure of power in a white world, should find common ground. They should be friends. Of particular interest to Booker was the fact that he still had $55,000 on loan to the Langs, and he wanted to protect his money.

The Memphis police loathed Booker Sistrunk, but they were also afraid of him. Fifteen minutes after he arrived in his black Rolls, paperwork was hopping from one desk to another with Lucien Wilbanks a high priority. He walked out thirty minutes after Booker walked in. “We need to go to the airport,” Lucien said.

Ozzie thanked Booker and promised to catch up later.

As the story unfolded, Lucien had left his briefcase on the airplane. He thought it was under the seat, but it could have been in the overhead compartment. Regardless, the flight attendants were idiots for not finding it. They were much too concerned with dragging him off the airplane. Ozzie and Prather listened and fumed as they raced to the airport. Lucien looked and smelled like a skid row bum they’d picked up for vagrancy.

American’s lost and found had no record of a briefcase being turned in on the flight from Atlanta. Reluctantly, the lone clerk began the task
of trying to find it. Lucien found an airport lounge and ordered a pint of ale. Ozzie and Prather had a bad buffet lunch on a busy concourse, not far from the lounge. They were trying to keep an eye on their passenger. They called Jake’s office but there was no answer. It was almost 3:00 p.m., and he was obviously tied up in court.

The briefcase was located in Minneapolis. Because Ozzie and Prather were law enforcement officers, American was by then treating the briefcase as if it were valuable evidence and crucial to an important investigation, when in reality it was a battered old leather bag with a few notepads, some magazines, some cheap soap and matches taken from the Glacier Inn in Juneau, and one videocassette tape. After a lot of uncertainty and haggling, a plan was put into place to route it back to Memphis as soon as possible. If all went well, it would arrive around midnight.

Ozzie thanked the clerk and went to find Lucien. As they were leaving the airport, Lucien came to life and said, “Say, my car is here. I’ll just meet you guys in Clanton.”

Ozzie said, “No, Lucien, you’re drunk. You cannot drive.”

Lucien angrily replied, “Ozzie, we’re in Memphis and you got no jurisdiction here. Kiss my ass! I’ll do any damn thing I want to do.”

Ozzie threw up his hands and walked away with Prather. They tried to follow Lucien as they left Memphis at rush hour, but couldn’t keep up with the dirty little Porsche as he weaved dangerously through heavy traffic. They drove on to Clanton, to Jake’s office, and arrived there just before seven. Jake was waiting for the debriefing.

The only slightly good news in an otherwise dreadful and frustrating day was Lucien’s arrest for public drunkenness and resisting arrest. It would kill any talk of a possible reinstatement to the practice of law, but at the moment that was small satisfaction, something Jake could not even mention. Other than that, things were as grim as they could possibly be.

Two hours later, Jake drove to Lucien’s house. As he pulled in to the driveway, he noticed the Porsche wasn’t there. He spoke briefly to Sallie on the front porch and she promised to call as soon as he came home.