Sycamore Row

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.

Reuben Atlee was incensed over the lawsuit and eagerly took on the defense of the church, and for no fee. He was a man of faith and considered it his Christian duty to defend a legitimate house of worship from such a worthless claim. During jury selection, he famously and arrogantly told the judge, “Give me the first twelve.”

The lawyer for the preacher wisely acceded, and the first twelve were sworn in and seated in the jury box. The lawyer proved the church’s front steps were in bad repair and had been neglected for years. There had been complaints, and so on. Reuben Atlee stomped around the courtroom, full of arrogance and bluster and indignation that the lawsuit had even been filed. After two days, the jury gave the preacher $40,000, a record for Ford County. It was a nasty rebuke to lawyer Atlee and he was ridiculed for years, until he got himself elected Chancellor.

Later, it was learned that five of the first twelve jurors were also Pentecostals, a notoriously clannish and sensitive bunch. A cursory probing by any lawyer would have revealed this. Thirty years on, “Give me the first twelve” was often mumbled in jest by lawyers as they surveyed the pool of prospects sitting expectantly in the main courtroom.

The One-Eyed Preacher was later elected to the state senate, brain damage and all.

Jake said, “I’m sure Wade Lanier will have a jury consultant. He uses them all the time. I’m just trying to level the playing field. That’s all.”

“Did you use one in the Hailey trial?” Judge Atlee asked.

“No sir. I got paid $900 for that trial, Judge. By the time it was over I couldn’t afford my telephone bill.”

“And you won anyway. I’m getting concerned over the costs of this administration and litigation.”

“The estate’s worth twenty-four million, Judge. We haven’t spent 1 percent of that.”

“Yes, but at the rate you’re going it won’t be long.”

“I’m not exactly padding the file.”

“I’m not questioning your fees, Jake. But we’ve paid accountants, appraisers, Quince Lundy, you, investigators, court reporters, and now we’re paying experts to testify at trial. I realize we’re doing this because Seth Hubbard was foolish enough to make such a will, and he knew there would be a nasty fight over it, but, nonetheless, we have a duty to protect his estate.” He made it sound as though the money was coming out of his own pocket. His tone was clearly unsympathetic, and Jake was reminded of Harry Rex’s warnings.

He took a deep breath and let it pass. With two strikes-no change of venue, no jury consultant-Jake decided to leave things alone; he would try again another day. Not that it mattered. Judge Atlee was suddenly snoring.

Boaz Rinds lived in a sad, run-down nursing home on the edge of the north-south highway leading to and from the small town of Pell City, Alabama. After a four-hour drive, with some detours, wrong turns and dead ends, Portia and Lettie found the place just after lunch on a Saturday. Talking to distant kinfolk in Chicago, Charley Pardue had been able to track down Boaz. Charley was working hard to keep in touch with his newest and favorite cousin. The profit outlook for the funeral home was looking stronger each week, and it would soon be time to strike.

Boaz was in poor health and could barely hear. He was in a wheelchair but unable to maneuver it himself. They rolled him outside onto a concrete deck and left him there for the two ladies to interrogate. Boaz was just happy to have a visitor. There appeared to be no others on that Saturday. He said he was born “around” 1920 to Rebecca and Monroe Rinds, somewhere near Tupelo. That would mean he was around sixty-eight years old, which they found shocking. He looked much older, with snow-white hair and layers of wrinkles around his glassy eyes. He said he had a bad heart and had once smoked heavily.

Portia explained that she and her mother were trying to put together their family tree and there was a chance they might be related to him. This made him smile, a jagged one with missing teeth. Portia knew there was no birth record of a Boaz Rinds in Ford County, but by then she knew perfectly well how spotty the record keeping had been. He said he had two sons, both dead, and his wife had died years earlier. If he had grandkids he didn’t know it. No one ever came to visit him. From the looks of the place, Boaz was not the only resident who’d been abandoned.

He spoke slowly, stopping occasionally to scratch his forehead while he tried to remember. After ten minutes, it was obvious he was suffering from some type of dementia. He’d had a harsh, almost brutal life. His parents were farmworkers who drifted throughout Mississippi and Alabama, dragging their large family-seven kids-from one cotton field to the next. He remembered picking cotton when he was five years old. He never went to school, and the family never stayed in one place. They lived in shacks and tents and hunger was not uncommon. His father died young and was buried behind a black church near Selma. His mother took up with a man who beat the kids. Boaz and a brother ran away and never went back.

Portia took notes as Lettie prodded with soft questions. Boaz loved the attention. An orderly brought them iced tea. He could not remember the names of his grandparents and did not remember anything about them. He thought they lived in Mississippi. Lettie asked about several names, all in the Rinds family. Boaz would grin, nod, then admit he didn’t know the person. But when she said “Sylvester Rinds,” he kept nodding, and nodding, and finally he said, “He was my uncle. Sylvester Rinds. He and my daddy were cousins.”

Sylvester was born in 1898 and died in 1930. He owned the eighty acres that was deeded by his wife to Cleon Hubbard, father of Seth.

If Monroe Rinds, father of Boaz, was a cousin to Sylvester, then he wasn’t really an uncle of Boaz’s. However, in light of the meandering nature of the Rinds tree, they were not about to correct him. They were too thrilled to get this information. Lettie had come to believe her birth mother was Lois Rinds, the daughter of Sylvester, and she was anxious to prove it. She asked, “Sylvester owned some land, didn’t he?”

The usual nod, then a smile. “Seem like he did. Believe so.”

“Did you and your family ever live on his land?”

He scratched his forehead. “Believe so. Yes, when I was a little boy. I remember it now, pickin’ cotton on my uncle’s land. Remember now. And there was a fight over payin’ us for the cotton.” He rubbed his lips and mumbled something.

“So there was a disagreement, and what happened?” Lettie asked gently.

“We left there and went to another farm, don’t know where. We worked so many.”

“Do you remember if Sylvester had any children?”

“Ever’body had kids.”

“Do you remember any of Sylvester’s?”

Boaz scratched and thought so hard he eventually nodded off. When they realized he was napping, Lettie gently shook his arm and said, “Boaz, do you remember any of Sylvester’s kids?”

“Push me over there, in the sun,” he said, pointing to a spot on the deck that wasn’t shaded. They rolled him over and rearranged their lawn chairs. He sat as straight as possible, looked up at the sun, and closed his eyes. They waited. Finally, he said, “Don’t know ’bout that. Benson.”

“Who was Benson?”

“The man who beat us.”

“Do you remember a little girl named Lois? Lois Rinds?”

He jerked his head toward Lettie and said, quickly and clearly, “I do. Now I remember her. She was Sylvester’s little girl, and they owned the land. Lois. Little Lois. It won’t common, you know, for colored folk to own land, but I remember now. At first it was good, then they had a fight.”

Lettie said, “I think Lois was my mother.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t. She died when I was three and somebody else adopted me. But I’m a Rinds.”

“Me too. Always have been,” he said, and they laughed. Then he looked sad and said, “Not much of a family now. Ever’body’s so scattered.”

“What happened to Sylvester?” Lettie asked.

He grimaced and shifted weight as if in great pain. He breathed heavily for a few minutes and seemed to forget the question. He looked at the two women as if he’d never seen them before, and wiped his nose on a sleeve. Then he returned to the moment and said, “We left. Don’t know. Heard later that somethin’ bad happened.”

“Any idea what?” Portia’s pen was not moving.

“They killed him.”

“Who killed him?”

“White men.”

“Why did they kill him?”

Another drifting away as if the question had not been heard. Then, “Don’t know. We were gone. I remember Lois now. A sweet little girl. Benson was the man who beat us.”

Portia was wondering if they could believe anything at this point. His eyes were closed and his ears were twitching as if gripped by a seizure. He repeated, “Benson, Benson.”

“And Benson married your mother?” Lettie asked gently.

“All we heard was some white men got him.”