Jake stopped by at least once a week when the café was empty and got the lowdown from Dell. Of particular interest was a regular named Tug Whitehurst, a state meat inspector. His brother was on the jury list, though she was certain Tug had not mentioned this. He wasn’t much of a talker, but during one conversation he did side with Kerry Hull when Hull declared it was no one’s business how he left his estate. Hull was notoriously broke and in debt and everyone knew his estate would be a disaster, but this was allowed to pass without comment. At any rate, Dell thought Tug Whitehurst would be okay with Jake, but who knew about his brother?
At this point in the case, Jake was desperate for any information about the chosen ninety-seven.
He sat at a table with a couple of farmers and waited on his grits and toast. Bass fishing dominated the conversation, so Jake had little to offer. For at least the last three years, a great debate had raged in certain circles over whether the large-mouth bass population in Lake Chatulla was declining or increasing. Opinions were strong and loud and there appeared to be no room for compromise. Experts were plentiful. Just as the tide shifted in favor of a dwindling population, someone would land a trophy and the debate would fire up again. Jake was weary of the topic but now thankful for it nonetheless; it kept attention away from the Hubbard case.
As he was eating, Andy Furr asked, “Say, Jake, is the trial still a go for Monday?”
“It is.”
“So no chance of a postponement or anything like that?”
“I don’t see one. The prospective jurors will be there at nine and we should get started soon after. You coming?”
“Naw, gotta work. Ya’ll expectin’ a crowd?”
“You never know. Civil trials tend to be fairly dull. We may start off with some spectators, but I suspect they’ll disappear quickly.”
Dell topped off his coffee and said, “The place’ll be packed and you know it. We haven’t had this much excitement since the Hailey trial.”
“Oh, I forgot about that one,” Jake said and got a few laughs.
Bill West said he’d heard the FBI had just raided the offices of two supervisors down in Polk County, a notoriously corrupt place, and this ignited a round of condemnation from almost everyone but Jake and Dell. It also changed the subject, and for that Jake was grateful. At that moment, facing a long weekend at the office, all he wanted was breakfast.
Portia arrived around 9:00, and they had a coffee together on the balcony as the town came to life around them. She reported that she’d had an early breakfast with Lettie, who was nervous, even fragile, and terrified of the trial. Lettie was exhausted from the strain of living in a house packed with relatives, and of trying to work part-time, and of trying to ignore the fact that her husband was in jail for killing two boys. Add a pending divorce and a gut-wrenching will contest, and Lettie was understandably a wreck.
Portia admitted she was exhausted too. She was working long hours at the office and sleeping little. Jake was sympathetic, but only to a point. Litigation often required eighteen-hour days and lost weekends, and if Portia was serious about becoming a lawyer she needed a good dose of the pressure. In the past two weeks, they had pushed each other into memorizing all ninety-seven names on the jury list. If Jake said “R,” then Portia responded, “Six. Rady, Rakestraw, Reece, Riley, Robbins, and Robard.” If Portia said “W,” then Jake responded, “Three. Wampler, Whitehurst, Whitten.” Back and forth, the mental contests raged throughout each day.
Jury selection in Mississippi was normally a one-day ordeal, at most. Jake was continually fascinated by trials in other states where it took two weeks or a month to pick a jury. He could not fathom such a system; neither could Mississippi judges. They were dead serious about selecting fair and impartial panels; they just didn’t waste time.
Speed would be crucial. Quick decisions would be required. The lawyers on both sides would not have much time to think about names or to look them up in some batch of research. It was imperative that they know the names and quickly put them with faces. Jake was determined to know every single juror, and their ages, addresses, jobs, education, churches, as much info as they could gather.
Once the ninety-seven names were filed away, Portia was given the task of wading through the courthouse records. She spent hours in the deed books and land records searching for transactions over the past ten years. She combed the court dockets, looking for plaintiffs and defendants, winners and losers. Of the ninety-seven, sixteen had gone through a divorce in the past ten years. She wasn’t sure what that meant in the course of a trial over a will, but she had the knowledge anyway. One gentleman, a Mr. Eli Rady, had filed four lawsuits and lost them all. She checked the lien books and found dozens of claims for unpaid taxes, unpaid supplies, unpaid subcontractors. A few of their prospective jurors owed the county money for property taxes. In the tax assessor’s office, she dug through property tax receipts and made a register of which jurors owned what make and model of vehicles. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of pickup trucks.
The work was tedious and often mind-numbing, but she never slowed down, never thought of quitting. After two weeks of living with these people, she was confident she knew them.
After coffee, they grudgingly went back to work. Jake began roughing out an outline for his opening statement. Portia returned to the conference room and to her ninety-seven new friends. At ten, Harry Rex finally rolled in with a sackful of greasy sausage biscuits straight from Claude’s. He handed one to Jake, insisted he take it, then slid across an envelope.
“It’s a check from your insurance company, Land Fire and Casualty, a bunch of crooked morons, so don’t ever buy another policy from them, understand? A hundred and thirty-five thousand bucks. Settlement in full. And not a dime of it siphoned off for attorney’s fees, so you owe me big-time, buddy.”
“Thanks. Since your fees are so cheap, get busy.”
“I’m really tired of this case, Jake. On Monday, I’m gonna help you pick the jury, then I’m outta there. I got my own cases to lose.”
“Fair enough. Just be there for the selection.” Jake knew Harry Rex would in fact miss little of the actual courtroom testimony, then he would park himself in the downstairs conference room each evening as they ate pizza and sandwiches and argued about what went wrong and what might happen the following day. He would second-guess every move Jake made; excoriate Wade Lanier with scathing criticism; curse the negative rulings made by Judge Atlee; offer unsolicited advice at every turn; maintain the constant gloom of losing an unwinnable case; and at times be so unbearable Jake would want to throw something at him. But he was seldom wrong. He knew the law and its intricacies. He read people like others read magazines. Without being obvious, he watched the jurors as they watched Jake. And his advice would be invaluable.
Despite Seth Hubbard’s rather explicit command that no other lawyer in Ford County profit from his estate, Jake was determined to find a way to channel some fees to Harry Rex. Seth wanted his last-minute, handwritten will to survive all challenges, and whether he liked it or not, Harry Rex Vonner was crucial to the effort.
The phone on Jake’s desk started a muted ringing. He ignored it. Harry Rex said, “Why have ya’ll stopped answering the phones around here? I’ve called ten times this week and nobody answered.”
“Portia’s been in the courthouse. I’ve been busy. Lucien doesn’t answer the phone.”
“Think of all the car wrecks and divorces and shoplifting cases you’re missing. All the human misery out there trying like hell to get through.”