Sycamore Row - John Grisham

and gentlemen, it’s not your job to distribute Seth Hubbard’s money. It’s your job to
determine if he knew what he was doing when he wrote his last will. Nothing more,
nothing less. Thank you.”
At Judge Atlee’s heavy-handed direction, the contestants had agreed to streamline
their opening and closing remarks by allowing Wade Lanier to handle them. He strode
to the podium in a wrinkled blazer, a tie too short, and a shirttail barely tucked in. The
few patches of hair around his ears shot out in all directions. He gave the impression of
a scatterbrained plodder who might forget to show up tomorrow. It was all an act to
disarm the jury. Jake knew better.
He began with “Thank you, Mr. Brigance. I’ve been trying lawsuits for thirty years,
and I’ve yet to meet a young lawyer with as much talent as Jake Brigance. You folks
here in Ford County are lucky to have such a fine young lawyer among you. It’s an
honor to be here doing battle with him, and also to be in this grand old courtroom.” He
paused to look at his notes as Jake stewed over all the fake praise. When he wasn’t in
front of a jury, Lanier was smooth and articulate. Now, though, onstage, he was folksy,
down-to-earth, and immensely likable.
“Now, this is just an opening statement and nothing I say or nothing Mr. Brigance just
said is evidence. The evidence comes from only one place, and that’s this witness chair
right here. Lawyers sometimes get carried away and say things they cannot later prove
at trial, and they also tend to leave out important facts the jury should know about. For
example, Mr. Brigance did not mention the fact that when Seth Hubbard wrote his last
will, the only person in the building with him was Lettie Lang. It was a Saturday
morning, and she never worked on Saturdays. She went to his house, and from there she
drove him in his nice new Cadillac over to his office. He unlocked it. They went in. She
says she was there to clean his office, but she had never done this before. They were
alone. For some two hours they were alone in the offices of the Berring Lumber
Company, Seth Hubbard’s main headquarters. When they arrived there on that Saturday
morning, Seth Hubbard had a last will and testament prepared a year earlier by a fine
firm of lawyers in Tupelo, lawyers he had trusted for years, and that will gave almost
everything to his two adult children and four grandchildren. A typical will. A standard
will. A sensible will. The kind of will virtually every American signs at one time or
another. Ninety percent of all property that passes through wills passes to the family of
the deceased. That’s the way it should be.”
Lanier was now pacing too, his stocky body lumbering back and forth, bowed
somewhat at the waist. “But after spending two hours in his office that morning, alone
with no one but Lettie Lang, when he left he had another will, one he’d written himself,
one cutting out his children and cutting out his grandchildren and leaving 90 percent of
his fortune to his housekeeper. Does that sound reasonable, folks? Let’s put things in
perspective. Seth Hubbard had been battling cancer for a year—a terrible struggle, a
fight he was losing and he knew it. The closest person in the world to Seth Hubbard
during his last days on this earth was Lettie Lang. On good days she cooked and cleaned
and took care of his house and things, and on bad days she fed him, bathed him, dressed
him, cleaned up after him. She knew he was dying—it was no secret. She also knew he