Sycamore Row - John Grisham

through the depositions with awful hangovers, and two of them entered rehab when the
ordeal was over.
No one had more stories than Wade Lanier. He was the senior lawyer and had spent
thirty years in courtrooms. The more Jake watched and listened, the more he respected
Lanier. He would be a formidable foe before the jury.
Ramona turned out to be as dull as her brother. From their depositions, it slowly
became apparent that Seth Hubbard was a neglectful father who viewed his children as
little more than nuisances. In hindsight, and with the money on the line, they tried
valiantly to prop up the old guy and make them all seem like a close, happy family, but
Seth simply could not be reinvented. Jake poked and prodded and trapped her here and
there, but he did so with a smile and tried not to offend her. Since she and Herschel
spent so little time with their father, their testimony would not be that crucial at trial.
They were not around him in the days before his death; thus, they had nothing to offer
on the subject of his mental capacity. They had no firsthand knowledge of his alleged
closeness to Lettie.
And these were only preliminary depositions. Jake and the other lawyers knew that in
all likelihood Lettie, Herschel, Ramona, and Ian Dafoe would be deposed again. When
the facts became clearer and the issues more narrowly defined, the lawyers would have
more questions.