Portia arrived for her first day of work at five minutes before 9:00, her appointed hour. She had timidly asked Jake about the office dress code. He had quietly explained that he had no idea what interns wore, but he guessed things were casual. If they were going to court, she might want to step it up a little, but he really didn’t care. He was expecting jeans and running shoes, but instead Portia presented herself in an attractive blouse, skirt, and heels. The woman was ready for work, and within minutes Jake had the impression she was already thinking of herself as a lawyer. He showed her to her office, one of three empty ones upstairs. It had not been used in many years, not since the old Wilbanks firm was in its glory. Portia was wide-eyed as she took in the fine wooden desk and handsome but dusty furnishings. “Who was the last lawyer here?” she asked, looking at a faded portrait of an ancient Wilbanks.
“You’ll have to ask Lucien,” Jake replied. He had not spent five minutes in the room in the last ten years.
“This is awesome,” she said.
“Not bad for an intern. The phone guy is coming today to get you plugged in. After that, you’ll be in business.”
They spent half an hour going over the rules: phone use, lunch breaks, office protocol, overtime, et cetera. Her first task was to read a dozen Mississippi cases involving will contests that were tried before juries. It was important that she learn the law and the lingo, and to understand how her mother’s case would be handled. Read the cases, then read them again. Take notes. Absorb the law and become well versed in it so conversations with Lettie would be more meaningful. Lettie would be by far the most crucial witness at the trial, and it was important to begin laying the groundwork for her testimony. The truth was paramount, but as every trial lawyer knew, there were various ways of telling the truth.
As soon as Jake turned his back, Lucien barged into her office and made himself at home. They had met the day before; introductions were not necessary. He rambled on about how wise it was to ditch the Memphis lawyers and go with Jake, though in his opinion it would be a tough case to win. He remembered he’d represented one of her father’s cousins, a Lang, twenty years earlier in a criminal matter. Kept the boy out of prison. Great lawyering. That led to another story about a shooting that involved four men, none of them remotely related to Portia, as far as she could tell. By reputation, she knew Lucien, like everyone else, as the old drunk lawyer who’d been the first white person to join the local NAACP and who now lived with his maid in the big house on the hill. Part legend, part scoundrel, he was a man she never thought she would meet, and here he was chatting with her (in her office!) as if they were old friends. For a while, she listened respectfully, but after an hour began wondering how often these visits might occur.
While she listened, Jake was locked in his office with Quince Lundy, reviewing a filing that would be known as the First Inventory. After a month of digging, Lundy was convinced the First Inventory would greatly resemble the final one. There were no hidden assets. Seth Hubbard knew when and how he would die, and he made certain he left behind adequate records.
The real estate appraisals were complete. At the time of his death, Seth owned (1) his home and 200 acres around it, valued at $300,000; (2) 150 acres of timberland near Valdosta, Georgia, valued at $450,000; (3) 400 acres of timberland near Marshall, Texas, valued at $800,000; (4) a vacant bay-front lot north of Clearwater, Florida, valued at $100,000; (5) a cabin and 5 acres outside Boone, North Carolina, valued at $280,000; and (6) a fifth-floor condo on the beach at Destin, Florida, valued at $230,000.
The total appraised value of Seth’s real estate was $2,160,000. There were no mortgages.
A consulting firm from Atlanta valued the Berring Lumber Company at $400,000. Its report was attached to the inventory, along with the property appraisals.
Included also were statements listing the cash in the bank in Birmingham. Ticking along at 6 percent interest, the total was now $21,360,000 and change.
The small numbers were the most tedious. Quince Lundy listed as much of Seth’s personal property as he thought the court could stand, beginning with his late-model vehicles ($35,000), and going all the way down to his wardrobe ($1,000).
The big number, though, was still astonishing. The First Inventory valued Seth’s entire estate at $24,020,000. The cash, of course, was a hard number. Everything else would be subject to the market, and it would take months or even years to sell it all.
The inventory was an inch thick. Jake did not want anyone else in the office to see it, so he ran two copies himself. He left early for lunch, drove to the school, and had a plate of cafeteria spaghetti with his wife and daughter. He tried to visit once a week, especially on Wednesdays when Hanna preferred to buy rather than bring her lunch. She loved the spaghetti, but even more, she loved having her father there.
After she’d left for the playground, the Brigances walked back to Carla’s classroom. The bell rang and class was set to resume.
“Off to see Judge Atlee,” Jake said with a grin. “The first payday.”
“Good luck,” she said with a quick kiss. “Love you.”
“Love you.” Jake hustled away, wanting to clear the hall before the throng of little people came swarming in.
Judge Atlee was at his desk, finishing a bowl of potato soup, when Jake was escorted in by the secretary. Contrary to his doctor’s orders, the judge was still smoking his pipe—he could not quit—and he loaded one up with Sir Walter Raleigh and struck a match. After thirty years of heavy pipe smoking, the entire office was tinged with a brownish residue. A permanent fog clung to the ceiling. A slightly cracked window offered some relief. The aroma, though, was rich and pleasant. Jake had always loved the place, with its rows of thick treatises and faded portraits of dead judges and Confederate generals. Nothing had changed in the twenty years Reuben Atlee had occupied this part of the courthouse, and Jake had the sense that little had changed in the past fifty years. The judge loved history and kept his favorite books in perfect order on custom-made shelves in one corner. The desk was covered with clutter, and Jake could swear that the same battered file had been sitting on the right front corner of it for the past decade.
They had first met at the Presbyterian church ten years earlier, when Jake and Carla arrived in Clanton. The judge ran the church in the same way he ran all the other aspects of his life, and he soon embraced the young lawyer. They became friends, though always at a professional level. Reuben Atlee was from the old school. He was a judge; Jake was just a lawyer. Boundaries must always be respected. He had sternly corrected Jake in open court on two occasions, with everlasting impressions.
With the pipe stem screwed into the corner of his mouth, Judge Atlee retrieved his black suit jacket and put it on. Except when he was in court, under a robe, he wore nothing but black suits. The same black suit. No one knew if he owned twenty, or just one; they were identical. And he always wore navy-blue suspenders and white starched shirts, most with a collection of tiny cinder holes from airborne tobacco embers. He took his position at the end of the table as they talked about Lucien. When Jake finished unloading his briefcase, he handed over a copy of the inventory.
“Quince Lundy is very good,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t want him looking through my finances.”
“Probably wouldn’t take that long,” Judge Atlee observed wryly. To many he was a humorless man, but to those he liked he was occasionally a raging smart-ass.