Sycamore Row (49 page)

“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.”

34

Jake was in the middle of a fairly productive morning when he heard the unmistakable sound of Harry Rex’s size 13s clomping up his already battered wooden staircase. He took a deep breath, waited, then watched as the door burst open without the slightest trace of a polite knock. “Good morning, Harry Rex,” he said.

“You ever heard of the Whiteside clan from over by the lake?” he asked, huffing as he fell into a chair.

“Distantly. Why do—”

“Craziest bunch of lunatics I’ve ever run across. Last weekend Mr. Whiteside caught his wife in bed with one of their sons-in-law, so that makes two divorces all of a sudden. Before that, one of their daughters had filed and I got that one. So now I got—”

“Harry Rex, please, I really don’t care.” Jake knew the stories could go on forever.

“Well, excuse me. I’m here because they’re all in my office right now, kicking and scratching, and we just had to call the law. I’m so sick of my clients, all of them.” He wiped his forehead with a sleeve. “You got a Bud Light?”

“No. I have some coffee.”

“The last thing I need. I talked to the insurance company this morning and they’re offering one thirty-five. Take it, okay? Now.”

Jake thought he was joking and almost laughed. The insurance company had been stuck on $100,000 for two years. “You’re serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious dear client. Take the money. My secretary is typing the settlement agreement now. She’ll bring it over by noon. Take it
and get Carla to sign it and hustle the damned thing back to my office. Okay?”

“Okay. How’d you do it?”

“Jake, my boy, here’s where you screwed up. You filed the case in Circuit Court and demanded a jury because after the Hailey trial you let your ego get carried away and you figured any insurance company would be terrified of facing you, the great Jake Brigance, in front of a jury in Ford County. I saw it. Others saw it. You sued for punitive damages and you figured you’d get a big verdict, make some real money, and knock a home run on the civil side. I know you and I know that’s what you were thinking, deny it or not. When the insurance company didn’t blink, the two sides settled into the trenches, things got personal, and the years went by. The case needed a fresh set of eyes, and it also needed someone like me who knows how insurance companies think. Plus, I told them I’d non-suit the case in Circuit Court, dismiss it, and then refile in Chancery Court where I pretty much control the docket and everything else. The idea of facing me in Chancery Court, in this county, is not something other lawyers like to think about. So we pushed and shoved and bitched a little, and I finally got ’em up to one thirty-five. You’ll clear about forty, no fee for me because that was the deal, and you’re back on your feet. I’ll call Willie and tell him you and Carla will pay two twenty-five for the Hocutt place.”

“Not so fast, Harry Rex. I’m hardly rich with forty grand in my pocket.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jake. You’re clipping the estate for thirty thousand a month.”

“Not quite, and the rest of my practice is disappearing in the process. It’ll take me a year to get over this case. Same as Hailey.”

“But at least you’re getting paid on this one.”

“I am, and I appreciate you using your amazing skills to settle my fire claim. Thank you, Harry Rex. I’ll get the paperwork signed by this afternoon. And, I’d feel better if you would take a fee. A modest one.”

“Not for a friend, Jake, and not a modest one. If it were a fat fee I’d say screw the friendship. Besides, I can’t take any more income this quarter. Money’s piling up so fast I can’t stuff any more in the mattress. I don’t want the IRS becoming alarmed and sending in their goons again. It’s on me. What do I tell Willie?”

“Tell him to keep cutting the price.”

“He’s in town this weekend, throwing another gin-and-tonic party Saturday afternoon. He told me to invite you and Carla. Ya’ll in?”

“I’ll have to ask the boss.”

Harry Rex climbed to his feet and began stomping away. “See you Saturday.”

“Sure, and thanks again, Harry Rex.”

“Don’t mention it.” He slammed the door, and Jake chuckled to himself. What a relief to have the lawsuit settled. He could close a rather thick and depressing fish file, pay off the two mortgages, get the banks off his back, and pocket some cash. He and Carla could never replace their home, but wasn’t that the case in every major fire claim? They weren’t the only ones who’d lost everything in a disaster. Finally, they could move on and put the past behind them.

Five minutes later, Portia knocked on the door. She had something to show Jake, but they would need to take a short drive.

At noon, they left the office and crossed the tracks and drove through Lowtown, the colored section. Beyond it, at the far eastern edge of Clanton, was Burley, the old black elementary and middle school that had been abandoned in 1969 with desegregation. Not long afterward, it had been reclaimed by the county, spruced up, and put to good use as a facility for storage and maintenance. The school was a complex of four large, barnlike buildings of white wood and tin roofs. The parking lot was filled with the vehicles of county employees. Behind the school was a large maintenance shed with gravel trucks and machinery scattered around it. East, the black high school, was across the street.