Sycamore Row Read Online Free PDF Page B

his pants and reread the will. It covered two pages, and the handwriting was in near perfect lines, as though Seth had meticulously used a straightedge of some variety.
    A dozen questions clamored for attention, with the most obvious being—Who in the world is Lettie Lang? A close second was—What, exactly, did she do to deserve 90 percent? Then—How big is the estate? If it is indeed sizable, how much will be eaten up in death taxes? This question was quickly followed with—How much might the attorney’s fees run?
    But before he got greedy, Jake took another walk around the office, his head spinning and his adrenaline rising. What a wondrous legal brawl. With money on the line, there was little doubt Seth’s familywould lawyer up and attack the last will with a fury. Though Jake had never handled a full-blown will contest, he knew such cases were tried in Chancery Court and often before juries. It was rare for a dead person in Ford County to leave much behind, but occasionally someone with a measure of wealth would pass on without proper estate planning, or with a suspicious will. These occasions were a bonanza to the local bar as the lawyers raged in and out of court and the assets evaporated in legal fees.
    He gently placed the envelope and the three sheets of paper into a file, and carried it downstairs to Roxy’s desk. By now her looks had improved, somewhat, and she was opening the mail. “Read this,” he said. “And slowly.”
    She did as he instructed, and when she finished she said, “Wow. Great way to start the week.”
    “Not so for old Seth,” Jake said. “Please note that this arrived in the mail this morning, October 3.”
    “So noted. Why?”
    “The timing could be crucial one day in court. Saturday, Sunday, Monday.”
    “I’m going to be a witness?”
    “Maybe, maybe not, but we’re just taking precautions, okay?”
    “You’re the lawyer.”
    Jake ran four copies of the envelope, the letter, and the will. He gave Roxy a copy to enter into the firm’s newest case file, and he tucked two away in a locked drawer in his desk. He waited until 9:00 a.m. and left the office with the original and one copy. He told Roxy he was headed for the courthouse. He walked next door to Security Bank, where he placed the original in his firm’s lockbox.

    Ozzie Walls’s office was at the county jail, two blocks off the square in a low-slung concrete bunker built on the cheap a decade earlier. A tumorlike appendage had been added later to house the sheriff and his staff and deputies, and the place was crammed with cheap desks, folding chairs, and stained carpet fraying at the baseboards. Monday mornings were usually hectic as the weekend’s fun and games were tidied up. Angry wives arrived to bail their hungover husbands out of jail. Other wives stormed in to sign papers to get their husbands thrown into jail. Frightened parents waited for details of the drug bust that caught their kids. The phones rang more than usual and oftenwent unanswered. Deputies milled about choking down doughnuts and sipping strong coffee. Add to the usual frenzy the bizarre suicide of a mysterious man, and the cluttered outer office was especially busy that Monday morning.
    In the rear of the appendage, down a short hallway, there was a thick door covered in white hand-painted lettering that read: OZZIE WALLS, HIGH SHERIFF, FORD COUNTY . The door was closed; the sheriff was in early on Monday, and on the phone. The caller was an emotional woman from Memphis whose child had been caught driving a pickup truck that was hauling, among other things, a sizable quantity of marijuana. This had happened the previous Saturday night near Lake Chatulla, in an area of a state park where illicit behavior was known to be common. The child was innocent, of course, and the mother was eager to drive down and retrieve him from Ozzie’s jail.
    Not so fast, Ozzie cautioned. There was a knock at his door. He covered the receiver and said,