Sycamore Row by John Grisham Page A

Seth’s handwriting from ten yards away.”
    She was crying, wiping tears. Herschel added, “I asked the sheriff about that, Mona, and he’s certain it was a suicide.”
    “I know, I know,” she mumbled between sobs.
    Ian said, “Your father was dying of cancer, in a lot of pain and such, and he took matters into his own hands. Looks like he was pretty thorough.”
    “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Why couldn’t he talk to us?”
    Because you people never talked to each other, Lettie said to herself in the shadows.
    Ian, the expert, said, “This is not unusual in a suicide. They never talk to anyone and they can go to great lengths to plan things. My uncle shot himself two years ago and—”
    “Your uncle was a drunk,” Ramona said as she dried up.
    “Yes he was, and he was drunk when he shot himself, but he still managed to plan it all.”
    “Let’s talk about something else, can we?” Herschel said. “No,Mona, there was no foul play. Seth did it himself and left notes behind. I say we go through the house and look for papers, bank statements, maybe the will, anything that we might need to find. We’re the family and we’re in charge now. Nothing wrong with that, right?”
    Ian and Ramona were nodding, yes.
    Lettie was actually smiling. Mr. Seth had taken all his papers to his office and locked them in a file cabinet. Over the last month, he had meticulously cleaned out his desk and drawers and taken away everything of interest. And, he’d said to her, “Lettie, if something happens to me, all the good stuff is in my office, locked up tight. The lawyers will deal with it, not my kids.”
    He’d also said, “And I’m leaving a little something for you.”

5
    By noon Monday the entire bar association of Ford County was buzzing with the news of the suicide and, much more important, with the curiosity of which firm might be chosen to handle the probate. Most deaths caused similar ripples; a fatal car wreck, more so for obvious reasons. However, a garden-variety murder did not. Most murderers were of the lower classes and thus unable to fork over meaningful fees. When the day began, Jake had nothing—no murders, no car wrecks, and no promising wills to probate. By lunch, though, he was mentally spending some money.
    He could always find something to do across the street in the courthouse. The land records were on the second floor, in a long wide room with lined shelves of thick plat books dating back two hundred years. In his younger days, when totally bored or hiding from Lucien, he spent hours poring over old deeds and grants as if some big deal was in the works. Now, though, at the age of thirty-five and with ten years under his belt, he avoided the room when possible. He fancied himself a trial lawyer, not a title checker; a courtroom brawler, not some timid little lawyer content to live in the archives and push papers around a desk. Even so, and regardless of his dreams, there were times each year when Jake, along with every other lawyer in town, found it necessary to get lost for an hour or so in the county’s records.
    The room was crowded. The more prosperous firms used paralegals to do the research, and there were several there, lugging the books back and forth and frowning at the pages. Jake spoke to a couple of lawyers who were doing the same—football talk mainly because no one wanted to get caught snooping for the dirt on Seth Hubbard. Tokill time, he looked through the Index of Wills to see if any Hubbard of note had handed down land or assets to Seth, but found nothing in the past twenty years. He walked down the hall to the Chancery Clerk’s office with the thought of perusing old divorce files but other lawyers were sniffing around.
    He left the courthouse in search of a better source.

    It was no surprise that Seth Hubbard hated the lawyers in Clanton. Most litigants, divorce or otherwise, who ran afoul of Harry Rex Vonner were miserable for the rest of their lives and loathed