Sycamore Row - John Grisham

minutes of near silence, they lost interest and began their good-byes.
Five minutes after they left, the doorbell rang again. The driveway was being
watched. The three cars were attracting attention.
“Get that, Lettie,” Herschel yelled from the den. “We’re hiding in the kitchen.”
It was the neighbor across the road with a lemon cake. Lettie thanked her and
explained that Mr. Seth’s children were indeed there but “not taking company.” The
neighbor loitered for a while on the porch, desperate to get inside and stick her nose
into the family’s drama, but Lettie politely blocked the door. After she finally left, Lettie
took the cake to the kitchen where it sat untouched on the counter.
At the kitchen table, it didn’t take long to get down to business. “Have you seen the
will?” Ramona asked, her eyes remarkably clear now and glowing with intrigue and
suspicion.
“No,” Herschel said. “Have you?”
“No. I was here a couple of months ago—”
“It was July,” Ian interrupted.
“Okay, July, and I tried to talk to Daddy about his will. He said some lawyers in
Tupelo had written it and that we would be properly taken care of, but that was all. Did
you ever talk to him about it?”
“No,” Herschel admitted. “It just didn’t feel right, you know? The old guy was dying of
cancer and I’m asking about his will? I couldn’t do it.”
Lettie was lurking in the hallway, in the shadows, catching every word.
“What about his assets?” Ian asked, in cold blood. He had good reason to be curious
since most of his own assets were so heavily mortgaged. His company built low-end
shopping centers and strip malls, every deal loaded with debt. He worked frantically to
stay one step ahead of his lenders, but they were always howling.
Herschel glared at his brother-in-law, the leech, but kept his cool. All three suspected
trouble with Seth’s estate, so there was no sense in rushing things. They would be at war
soon enough. Herschel shrugged and said, “Don’t know. He was very secretive, as you’ve
seen. This house, the two hundred acres around it, the lumber yard up the road, but I
don’t know about his loans and such. We never talked business.”
“You never talked about anything,” Ramona shot across the table, then immediately
took it back. “I’m sorry, Herschel. Please.”
But such a cheap shot from a sibling can never be left alone. Herschel sneered and
said, “Didn’t realize you and the old man were so close.”
Ian quickly changed the subject with, “Does he have an office here, or a place he kept
his personal papers? Come on. Why can’t we look around here? There’s bound to be
bank statements and land deeds and contracts, hell, I’ll bet there’s even a copy of the
will, right here in the house.”
“Lettie should know,” Ramona said.
“Let’s not involve her,” Herschel said. “Did you know he was paying her five bucks an