He took her arm and led her up the steps, though Claudia was fit and could climb hills, in spite of the two packs a day. “I remember when he was fresh out of law school,” she said. “Didn’t know a plaintiff from a defendant. Reuben could’ve won that race, you know, if I’d been around.”

“Let’s sit here,” Ray said, pointing to two rockers.

“You’ve cleaned up the place,” she said, admiring the porch.

“It’s all Harry Rex. He’s hired painters, roofers, a cleaning service. They had to sandblast the dust off the furniture, but you can breathe now.”

“Mind if I smoke?” she said.

“No.” It didn’t matter. She was smoking regardless.

“I’m so happy you called,” she said again, then lit a cigarette.

“I have tea and coffee,” Ray said.

“Ice tea, please, lemon and sugar,” she said, and crossed her legs. She was perched in the rocker like a queen, waiting for her tea.

Ray recalled the tight dresses and long legs of many years ago as she sat just below the bench, scribbling elegantly away in her shorthand while every lawyer in the courtroom watched.

They talked about the weather, as folks do in the South when there’s a gap in the conversation, or when there’s nothing else to talk about. She smoked and smiled a lot, truly happy to be remembered by Ray. She was clinging. He was trying to solve a mystery.

They talked about Forrest and Harry Rex, two loaded topics, and when she’d been there for half an hour Ray finally got to the point. “We’ve found some money, Claudia,” he said, and let the words hang in the air. She absorbed them, analyzed them, and proceeded cautiously. “Where?”

It was an excellent question. Found where, as in the bank with records and such? Found where, as in stuffed in the mattress with no trail?

“In his study, cash. Left behind for some reason.”

“How much?” she asked, but not too quickly.

“A hundred thousand.” He watched her face and eyes closely. Surprise registered, but not shock. He had a script so he pressed on. “His records are meticulous, checks written, deposits, ledgers with every expense, and this money seems to have no source.”

“He never kept a lot of cash,” she said slowly.

“That’s what I remember too. I have no idea where it came from, do you?”

“None,” she said with no doubts whatsoever. “The Judge didn’t deal in cash. Period. Everything went through the First National Bank. He was on the board for a long time, remember?”

“Yes, very well. Did he have anything on the side?”

“Such as?”

“I’m asking you, Claudia, you knew him better than anyone. And you knew his business.”

“He was completely devoted to his work. To him, being a chancellor was a great calling, and he worked very hard at it. He had no time for anything else.” .

“Including his family,” Ray said, then immediately wished he had not.

“He loved his boys, Ray, but he was from a different generation.”

“Let’s stay away from that.”

“Let’s.”

They took a break and each regrouped. Neither wanted to dwell on the family. The money had their attention. A car eased down the street and seemed to pause just long enough for the occupants to see the For Sale sign and take a long look at the house. One look was enough because it sped away.

“Did you know he was gambling?” Ray asked.

“The Judge? No.”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? Harry Rex took him to the casinos once a week for a while. Seems as if the Judge had a knack for it and Harry Rex did not.”

“You hear rumors, especially about the lawyers. Several of them have gotten into trouble over there.”

“But you’ve heard nothing about the Judge?”

“No. I still don’t believe it.”

“The money came from somewhere, Claudia. And something tells me it was dirty, otherwise he would have included it with the rest of his assets.”

“And if he won at gambling he would have considered that dirty, don’t you think?” Indeed, she knew the Judge better than anyone.

“Yes, and you?”

“Sounds like Reuben Atlee to me.”

They finished that round of conversation and took a break, both rocking gently in the cool shade of the front porch, as if time had stopped, neither bothered by the silence. Porch-sitting allowed great lapses while thoughts were gathered, or while there was no thinking at all.

Finally Ray, still plodding through an unwritten script, mustered the courage to ask the toughest question of the day. “I need to know something, Claudia, and please be honest.”

“I’m always honest. It’s one of my faults.”

“I have never questioned my father’s integrity.”

“Nor should you now.”

“Help me out here, okay.”

“Go on.”

“Was there anything on the side—a little extra from a lawyer, a slice of the pie from a litigant, a nice backhander as the Brits like to say?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m throwing darts, Claudia, hoping to hit something. You don’t just find a hundred thousand dollars in nice crisp bills tucked away on a shelf. When he died he had six thousand dollars in the bank. Why keep a hundred buried?”

“He was the most ethical man in the world.”

“I believe that.”

“Then stop talking about bribes and such.”

“Gladly”

She lit another cigarette and he left to fill up the tea glasses. When he returned to the porch Claudia was deep in thought, her gaze stretching far beyond the street. They rocked for a while.

Finally, he said, “I think the Judge would want you to have some of it.”

“Oh you do?”

“Yes. We’ll need some of it now to finish fixing up the place, probably twenty-five thousand or so. What if you, me, and Forrest split the remainder?”

“Twenty-five each?”

“Yep. What do you think?”

“You’re not running it through the estate?” she asked. She knew the law better than Harry Rex.

“Why bother? It’s cash, nobody knows about it, and if we report it then half will go for taxes.”

“And how would you explain it?” she asked, as always, one step ahead. They used to say that Claudia would have the case decided before the lawyers began their opening statements.

And the woman loved money. Clothes, perfume, always a late-model car, and all these things from a poorly paid court reporter. If she was drawing a state pension, it couldn’t be much.

“It cannot be explained,” Ray said.

“If it’s from gambling, then you’ll have to go back and amend his tax returns for the past years,” she said, quickly on board. “What a mess.”

“A real mess.”

The mess was quietly put to rest. No one would ever know about her share of the money.

“We had a case once,” she said, gazing across the front lawn.

“Over in Tippah County, thirty years ago. A man named Childers owned a scrap yard. He died with no will.” A pause, a long drag on the cigarette. “Had a bunch of kids, and they found money hidden all over the place, in his office, in his attic, in a utility shed behind his house, in his fireplace. It was a regular Easter egg hunt. Once they’d scoured every inch of the place, they counted it up and it was about two hundred thousand dollars. This, from a man who wouldn’t pay his phone bill and wore the same pair of overalls for ten years.” Another pause, another long puff. She could tell these stories forever. “Half the kids wanted to split the money and run, the other half wanted to tell the lawyer and include the money in the probate. Word leaked out, the family got scared, and the money got added to the old man’s estate. The kids fought bitterly. Five years later all the money was gone—half to the government, half to the lawyers.”

She stopped, and Ray waited for the resolution. “What’s the point?” he asked.

“The Judge said it was a shame, said the kids should’ve kept the money quiet and split it. After all, it was the property of their father.”

“Sounds fair to me.”

“He hated inheritance taxes. Why should the government get a large portion of your wealth just because you die? I heard him grumble about it for years.”