Sycamore Row - John Grisham

To Jake, it was significant that Harry Rex was now using the word “we.” There was
no one more loyal, no one he’d rather have in the foxhole. Nor was there another legal
mind as cunning and devious. “Give me a day or two,” he said as he climbed to his feet.
“I need a beer.”
An hour later, Jake was still at his desk when the Booker Sistrunk matter took a turn
for the worse. “There’s a lawyer named Rufus Buckley on the phone,” Roxy announced
through the intercom.
Jake took a deep breath and said, “Okay.” He stared at the blinking light and racked
his brain for any idea as to why Buckley would be calling. They had not spoken since
the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, and if their paths never again crossed both would have been
content. A year earlier, during Buckley’s reelection, Jake had quietly supported his
opponent, as had most of the lawyers in Clanton, if not the entire Twenty-Second
Judicial District. Over a twelve-year career, Buckley had managed to alienate almost
every lawyer in the five-county district. The payback was sweet, and now the former
hard-charging DA with statewide ambitions was stuck at home in Smithfield, an hour
down the road, where he was rumored to be puttering around a small office on Main
Street doing wills and deeds and no-fault divorces.
“Hello Governor,” Jake said in a deliberate effort to resume hard feelings. Three years
had not diminished his low regard for the man.
“Well, hello, Jake,” Buckley said politely. “I was hoping we could forgo the cheap
shots.”
“Sorry, Rufus, didn’t mean anything by it.” But of course he did. At one point not too
long ago a lot of people called him Governor. “What are you up to these days?”
“Just practicing law and taking it easy. I do more oil and gas than anything else.”
Sure you do. Buckley had spent most of his adult life trying to convince folks that his
wife’s family’s natural gas leases were the source of immense wealth. They were not.
The Buckleys lived far below their pretensions.
“That’s nice. What’s on your mind?”
“Just got off the phone with a Memphis lawyer named Booker Sistrunk. I believe
you’ve met him. Seems to be a nice guy. Anyway, he’s associating me as Mississippi
counsel in the Seth Hubbard case.”
“Why would he pick you, Rufus?” Jake asked impulsively as his shoulders sagged.
“Reputation, I guess.”
No, Sistrunk had done his homework and found the one lawyer in the entire state who
hated Jake with a passion. Jake could only imagine the vile things Buckley had said
about him.
“I’m not sure where you fit, Rufus.”
“We’re working on that. Booker wants you off the case to begin with so he can take
over. He mentioned perhaps requesting a change of venue for the trial. He says Judge
Atlee has an obvious bias against him, so he’ll ask the judge to step aside. These are just