Sycamore Row

Page 56
“Beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. ”

“Didn’t know His Honor was in the real estate business. ”

“He thinks it might look bad, thinks the gossip will be that I’m clipping the estate for a chunk of money so I’m suddenly in the market for a fine old home. ”

“Tell Atlee to kiss your ass. Since when is he in charge of your personal affairs?”

“Oh he’s very much in charge. He’s approving my legal fees these days. ”

“Bullshit. Look, Jake, tell that old fart to take a hike, to mind his own business. You’re gonna screw around and lose this house and then for the rest of your life, and dear Carla’s too, ya’ll will kick yourselves for not buying it. ”

“We cannot afford it. ”

“You cannot afford not to buy it. They don’t build ’em like that anymore, Jake. Plus, Willie wants you to have it. ”

“Then tell him to cut the price. ”

“It’s already below market. ”

“Not enough. ”

“Look, Jake, here’s the deal. Willie needs the money. I don’t know what he’s up to, but evidently he’s stretched pretty thin. He’ll cut it from two fifty to two twenty-five. It’s a steal, Jake. Hell I’d buy it if my wife would move. ”

“Get another wife. ”

“I’m thinking about it. Look, dumbass, here’s what I’ll do for you. You got your arson case so screwed up it’ll never get settled. Why, because your client is yourself and they taught us in law school that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, right?”

“Something like that. ”

“So, I’ll take the case at no charge and get it settled. Who’s the insurance company?”

“Land Fire and Casualty. ”

“Crooked sonofabitches! Why’d you buy a policy from them?”

“Is that really helpful at this point?”

“No. What was their last offer?”

“It’s a replacement value policy, for one fifty. Since we paid only forty thousand for the house, Land is claiming it was worth a hundred grand when it burned. I kept the receipts, invoices, contractors’ bills, everything, and I can prove we put another fifty into the house. This was over a three-year period. That, plus market appreciation, and I’m claiming the house was worth a hundred and fifty when it burned. They won’t budge. And they totally discount the sweat Carla and I poured into the house. ”

“And that pisses you off?”

“Damned right it does. ”

“See! You’re too emotionally attached to the case to do any good. You have a fool for a client. ”

“Thanks. ”

“Don’t mention it. How much is the mortgage?”

“Mortgages, plural. I refinanced it when the renovation was complete. The first mortgage is eighty thousand, the second is just under fifteen. ”

“So Land is offering you just enough to pay off both mortgages. ”

“Basically, yes, and we’d walk away with nothing. ”

“Okay, I’ll make some phone calls. ”

“What kinda phone calls?”

“Settlement calls, Jake. It’s the art of negotiation, and you got a lot to learn. I’ll have them crooks on the run by five o’clock this afternoon. We’ll settle the case, walk away with some cash, for you, nothing for me, then we’ll put together a deal with Willie for the Hocutt House, and in the meantime you’ll tell the Honorable Reuben Atlee to kiss your ass. ”

“I will?”

“Damned right you will. ”

33

Instead, Jake uttered not a single word that could have been considered even remotely disrespectful. They gathered on the porch on a windy but warm March afternoon and spent the first half hour talking about Judge Atlee’s two sons. Ray was a law professor at the University of Virginia and had managed to live a peaceful, productive life, so far. Forrest, the younger, had not. Both had been shipped back east for boarding school, and thus were not well known in Clanton. Forrest was battling addictions and this weighed heavy on his father, who knocked back two whiskey sours in the first twenty minutes.

Jake paced himself. When the timing was right, he said, “I think our jury pool is contaminated, Judge. The Lang name is toxic around here and I don’t think Lettie can get a fair trial. ”

“That convict should’ve had his license yanked anyway, Jake. I hear you and Ozzie were stalling his DUI. I don’t like that at all. ”

Jake felt stung and took a deep breath. As a Chancellor, Reuben Atlee had absolutely no jurisdiction over drunk driving cases in the county, though, as always, he assumed they were his business.

Jake said, “That’s not true, Judge, but even if Simeon Lang had no license he would’ve been driving anyway. A valid license is not important to those people. Ozzie set up a roadblock three months ago on a Friday night. Sixty percent of the blacks had no driver’s license and 40 percent of the whites. ”

“I fail to see the relevance,” Judge Atlee replied, and Jake was not about to enlighten him. “He was caught driving drunk in October. If his case had been processed in an orderly manner through the courts, he would not have had a driver’s license. There’s a reasonable chance to believe he would not have been driving on Tuesday night of last week. ”

“I’m not his lawyer, Judge. Not now, not then. ”

Both rattled their ice cubes and let the moment pass. Judge Atlee took a sip and said, “File your motion to change venue if you wish. I can’t stop you. ”

“I’d like for the motion to be taken seriously. I get the impression you made up your mind some time ago. Things have changed. ”

“I take everything seriously. We’ll learn a lot when we start picking a jury. If it appears as though folks know too much about the case, then I’ll call time-out and we’ll deal with it. I thought I had explained this already. ”

“You have, yes sir. ”

“What happened to our pal Stillman Rush? He sent over a fax Monday and informed me he was no longer counsel of record for Herschel Hubbard. ”

“He got fired. Wade Lanier has been maneuvering for months, trying to consolidate the contestants into his camp. Looks like he scored big. ”

“Not much of a loss. Just one less lawyer to deal with. I found Stillman less than impressive. ”

Jake bit his tongue and managed to say nothing. If His Honor wanted to trash another lawyer, Jake was certainly willing to participate. But he had a hunch that nothing else would be said, not by the old guy.

“Have you met this fella Arthur Welch, from Clarksdale?” Judge Atlee asked.

“No sir. I just know he’s a friend of Harry Rex’s. ”

“We spoke by phone this morning and he says he’ll represent Mr. Lang in the divorce also, though there won’t be much to do. He says his client will agree to waive everything and get it over with. Not that it matters. With his bail, and the charges, he won’t be getting out anytime soon. ”

Jake nodded in agreement. Arthur Welch was doing exactly what Harry Rex told him to do, and Harry Rex was briefing Jake on all of it.

“Thanks for granting the restraining order,” Jake said. “That certainly read well in the newspaper. ”

“It seems rather foolish to tell a man who’s in jail and locked up for a while that he can’t get near his wife and family, but not everything I do makes sense. ”

True, Jake thought, but said nothing. They watched the grass bend with the wind and the leaves scatter. Judge Atlee sipped his drink and thought about what he’d just said. Changing the subject, he asked, “Any news on Ancil Hubbard?”

“Nothing, really. We’ve spent $30,000 so far and still don’t know if he’s alive. The pros suspect he is, though, primarily because they can find no evidence that he’s ever died. But they’re digging. ”

“Stay after it. I’m still cautious about proceeding to trial without something definite. ”

“We really should delay it for a few months, Judge, while we finish the search. ”

“And while the people around here get over the Roston tragedy. ”

“That too. ”

“Bring it up when we meet on March 20. I’ll consider it then. ”

Jake took a deep breath and said, “Judge, I need to hire a jury consultant for the trial. ”

“What’s a jury consultant?”

Jake was not surprised by the question. Jury consultants did not exist back in the judge’s heyday as a lawyer, nor did His Honor pay attention to trends. Jake said, “An expert who does several things. First, he will study the demographics of the county and analyze this in light of the case to compose the model juror. He will then do a telephone survey using generic names but similar facts to gauge the public’s reaction. Once we get the names in the pool, he’ll do background research on all of the prospective jurors, at a safe distance of course. When the selection process begins, he’ll actually be in the courtroom to observe the pool. These guys are quite good at reading body language and such. And once the trial starts he’ll be in the courtroom every day reading the jurors. He’ll know which witnesses are believed, which are not believed, and which way the jury is leaning. ”

“That’s a lot. How much does he cost?”

Jake gritted his teeth and said, “Fifty thousand dollars. ”

“The answer is no. ”

“Sir?”

“No. I will not authorize the expenditure of that kind of money from the estate. Sounds like a waste to me. ”

“It’s pretty standard these days in big jury trials, Judge. ”

“I find such a fee unconscionable. It’s the lawyer’s job to pick the jury, Jake, not some fancy consultant’s. Back in my day, I relished the challenge of reading the minds and body language of prospective jurors and picking just the right ones. I had a real talent for it, Jake, if I do say so myself. ”

Yes sir. Like the case of the One-Eyed Preacher.

Back in his day, some thirty years earlier, young Reuben Atlee was hired by the First United Methodist Church of Clanton to defend it in a lawsuit brought by a Pentecostal evangelist who was in town whipping up the devotees in the annual Fall Revival. Part of his routine was to visit other mainstream churches in town and exorcise evil spirits on their front steps. He and a handful of his rabid followers claimed that these older, more sedate congregations were corrupting the Word of God and placating backsliders and otherwise serving as havens for alleged Christians who were lukewarm at best. God had ordered him to call out these heretics on their own turf, and so each afternoon during Revival Week! he and his little gang huddled at the various churches for prayers and rants. For the most part, they were ignored by the Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians. At the Methodist church, the evangelist, while praying at full throttle and with his eyes fiercely closed, lost his balance and fell down eight marble steps. He was grievously wounded and suffered brain damage. He lost his right eye. A year later (1957) he filed suit, claiming negligence on the part of the church. He wanted $50,000.