Sycamore Row - John Grisham

39
Nevin Dark parked his truck facing the courthouse and checked his watch. He was early,
but that was the plan. He had never before been summoned for jury duty, and he could
grudgingly admit to being somewhat excited. He farmed two hundred acres west of
Karaway and rarely made it to Clanton; indeed, he could not remember his last trip to
the county seat. For the occasion he wore his newest pair of starched khakis and a
leather flight jacket handed down by his father, who’d flown in World War II. His wife
had firmly pressed his cotton shirt with buttons on the collar. Nevin was rarely this
dressed up. He paused and gazed around the courthouse, looking for others who might
be holding a summons.
Of the case, he knew little. His wife’s brother, a blowhard, had said he thought the
trial was over a will that was handwritten, but beyond that the details were scarce.
Neither Nevin nor his wife subscribed to the local newspapers. They had not been to
church in ten years, so that rich source of gossip had passed them by. The summons said
nothing about the type of jury service facing him. Nevin had never heard of Seth
Hubbard, nor Lettie Lang. He would recognize the name of Jake Brigance, but only
because Jake was from Karaway and the Hailey trial had been so notorious.
In short, Nevin was a model juror: reasonably smart, fair-minded, and uninformed.
The summons was folded in his coat pocket. He walked around the square to kill a few
minutes, then wandered over to the courthouse where things were getting busy. He
climbed the stairs and joined the crowd milling around the large oak doors of the main
courtroom. Two deputies in uniform were holding clipboards. Nevin was eventually
processed through, and as he entered the courtroom a clerk smiled and pointed to a seat
on the left side. He sat down next to an attractive lady in a short skirt, and within two
minutes she informed Nevin that she taught school with Carla Brigance and would
probably not make the cut. When he confessed he knew nothing about the case, she
found it hard to believe. All the jurors were whispering away as they watched the
lawyers move about with their important airs. The bench was empty. Half a dozen
clerks moved papers here and there, doing little really but trying to justify their
presence in the biggest will contest in the history of Ford County. Some of the lawyers
had no connections at all, no reason to be there, but a courtroom filled with prospective
jurors always attracted a few of the courthouse regulars.
For example, a lawyer named Chuck Rhea had no clients, no office, and no money.
He occasionally checked land titles; thus, he was always in the courthouse, killing
enormous amounts of time, sipping free coffee from whatever office had the freshest