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After ten minutes of mindless chatter, Jake vowed to eat lunch alone.

Back in the courtroom, he called Quince Lundy to the stand and led him through a series of bland but necessary questions about his involvement in the estate, his appointment as the administrator, and his substitution for Russell Amburgh, who wanted out. Lundy dryly explained the duties of the administrator and did a superb job of making it sound as dull as it really was. Jake handed him the original handwritten will and asked him to identify it.

Lundy said, “This is the holographic will that was admitted to probate on October 4 of last year. Signed by Mr. Seth Hubbard on the first day of October.”

“Let’s have a look,” Jake said, and once again projected the document onto the screen as he passed out copies to the jurors.

Judge Atlee said, “Again, ladies and gentlemen, take your time and read it carefully. You will be allowed to take all documents and exhibits back to the jury room when you begin your deliberations.”

Jake stood by the podium, held a copy of the will, and pretended to read it as he carefully watched the jurors. Most seemed to frown at one point or another, and he assumed the “perish in pain” phrase made them cringe. He had read the will a hundred times and still had the same two reactions. One, it was mean-spirited, harsh, cruel, and unreasonable. Two, it made him wonder what Lettie was doing to make the old boy so fond of her. But, as always, another reading convinced him Seth knew precisely what he was doing. If a person has testamentary capacity, then that person can make all the wild and unreasonable bequests he or she wants.

When the last juror finished and laid down her copy, Jake turned off the overhead projector. He and Quince Lundy then spent half an hour hitting the highlights of Seth Hubbard’s amazing ten-year journey from the ruins of his second divorce to wealth that no one in Ford County had ever seen.

At 12:30, Judge Atlee recessed until 2:00 p.m.

42

The detective was leaving the hospital as Lucien was entering it. They spoke briefly in the main lobby, just a few words about Lonny Clark, still up there on the third floor and not doing well. He’d had a rough night and his doctors said no visitors. Lucien got lost in the hospital and surfaced on the third floor an hour later. There was no cop by the door, no nurses tending to Lonny. Lucien sneaked into the room, gently shook Ancil’s arm, and said, “Ancil. Ancil, are you there?”

But Ancil wasn’t there.

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Within the tiny Brigance firm, there was a general agreement that the morning could not have gone better. The presentation of the suicide note, funeral and burial instructions, handwritten will, and the letter to Jake made it perfectly clear that Seth Hubbard planned everything and was in control until the very end. Jake’s opening statement had been persuasive. Lanier’s, though, was just as masterful. All in all, a good beginning.

Jake began the afternoon session by calling to the stand the Reverend Don McElwain, pastor of Irish Road Christian Church. The preacher told the jury he had spoken briefly to Seth after the worship hour on October 2, a few hours before he hung himself. He knew Seth was gravely ill, though he did not know the doctors had given him only weeks to live. On that morning, Seth seemed to be in good spirits, alert, even smiling, and told McElwain how much he enjoyed the sermon. Though he was sick and frail, he did not appear to be drugged or under the influence. He had been a member of the church for twenty years and usually showed up about once a month. Three weeks before he died, Seth had purchased for $350 a plot in the cemetery, the same plot he now occupied.

The church’s treasurer was next. Mr. Willis Stubbs testified that Seth dropped into the offering plate a check in the amount of $500, dated October 2. For the year, Seth contributed $2,600.

Mr. Everett Walker took the stand and shared a private moment in what was likely Seth’s last conversation. As the two walked to the parking lot after church, Mr. Walker asked how business was going. Seth made a crack about a slow hurricane season. More hurricanes meant more property damage and demand for lumber. Seth claimed to love hurricanes. According to Mr. Walker, his friend was sharp, witty, and did not seem to be in pain. Of course he was frail. When Mr. Walker later heard that Seth was dead, and that he’d killed himself not long after their conversation, he was stunned. The man seemed so at ease and relaxed, even content. He’d known Seth for many years and he was not the slightest bit gregarious. Rather, Seth was a quiet man who kept to himself and said little. He remembered Seth smiling as he drove away that Sunday, and remarked to his wife that it was rare to see him smile.

Mrs. Gilda Chatham told the jury she and her husband sat behind Seth during his final sermon, spoke to him briefly when the service was over, and picked up no clue whatsoever that he was on the verge of such a startling act. Mrs. Nettie Vinson testified that she said hello to Seth as they were leaving the church and that he seemed uncharacteristically friendly.

After a short recess, Seth’s oncologist, a Dr. Talbert from the regional medical center in Tupelo, was sworn in and quickly managed to bore the courtroom with a long and dry narrative about his patient’s lung cancer. He had treated Seth for almost a year, and, referring to his notes, went on and on about the surgery, then the chemotherapy and radiation and medications. There had been little hope initially, but Seth had fought hard. When the cancer metastasized to his spine and ribs, they knew the end was near. Dr. Talbert had seen Seth two weeks before he died, and was surprised at how determined he was to keep going. But the pain was intense. He increased the oral dosage of Demerol to a hundred milligrams every three to four hours. Seth preferred not to take the Demerol because the drug often made him drowsy; in fact, he said more than once that he tried to survive each day without pain meds. Dr. Talbert did not know how many tablets Seth actually took. In the past two months, he had prescribed two hundred.

Jake’s purpose in putting the doctor on the stand was twofold. First, he wanted to establish the fact that Seth was almost dead from lung cancer. Therefore, hopefully, the act of suicide might not seem so drastic and unreasonable. Jake planned to argue later that Seth was indeed thinking clearly in his last days, regardless of how he chose to die. The pain was unbearable, the end was near, he simply sped things along. Second, Jake wanted to confront head-on the issue of the side effects of Demerol. Lanier had some heavyweight testimony lined up, an expert who would say the powerful narcotic, taken in the quantities prescribed, seriously impaired Seth’s judgment.

An odd fact in the case was that the last prescription was never found. Seth had purchased it at a pharmacy in Tupelo six days before he died, then he apparently disposed of it; thus, there was no proof of how much or how little he’d actually consumed. At his specific instructions, he was buried without an autopsy. Months earlier, Wade Lanier had suggested, off the record, that the body be exhumed for toxicity tests. Judge Atlee said no; again, off the record. The level of opiates in Seth’s blood on Sunday when he died was not automatically relevant to the level the day before when he wrote his will. Judge Atlee seemed to be particularly offended by the notion of digging up a person after he had been properly laid to rest.

Jake was pleased with his direct examination of Dr. Talbert. They clearly established that Seth tried to avoid taking Demerol, and that there was simply no way to prove how much was in his system when he made his last will.