Sycamore Row

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The lawyers met with Judge Atlee in his chambers at 8:45 Wednesday morning and agreed there were no pending motions or issues to iron out before the trial proceeded. For the third day in a row, His Honor was spry, almost hyper, as if the excitement of a big trial had rejuvenated him. The lawyers had been up all night, either working or worrying, and looked as frayed as they felt. The old judge, though, was ready to go.
In the courtroom he welcomed everyone, thanked the spectators for their keen interest in our judicial system, and told the bailiff to bring in the jurors. When they were seated, he greeted them warmly and asked if there were any problems. Any unauthorized contact? Anything suspicious? Everyone feeling okay? Very well, Mr. Brigance, proceed.
Jake stood and said, “Your Honor, the proponents call Ms. Lettie Lang.”
Portia had told her not to wear anything fitting or tight or even remotely sexy. Early that morning, long before breakfast, they had argued about the dress. Portia won. It was a navy-blue cotton dress with a loose belt, a nice enough dress but one that a housekeeper might wear to work, nothing Lettie would wear to church. The shoes were low-heeled sandals. No jewelry. No watch. Nothing to indicate she had a spare dime or might be contemplating a haul of cash. In the past month she had stopped tinting her gray hair. It was natural now, and she looked all of her forty-seven years.
She was practically stuttering by the time she swore to tell the truth. She looked at Portia sitting behind Jake’s chair. Her daughter gave her a smile—a signal that she should smile too.
The packed courtroom was silent as Jake approached the podium. He asked her name, address, place of employment—softballs that she handled well. Names of children and grandchildren. Yes, Marvis, her oldest, was in prison. Her husband was Simeon Lang, now in jail, awaiting prosecution. She had filed for divorce a month earlier and expected it to become final in a few weeks. Some background—education, church, prior jobs. It was all scripted and at times her answers sounded stiff and rote, even memorized, which they were. She glanced at the jurors, but was rattled when she realized they were staring right back. As her handlers had discussed, when she felt nervous she was to look directly at Portia. At times, she couldn’t take her eyes off her daughter.
Jake eventually made it to the subject of Mr. Seth Hubbard. Or simply Mr. Hubbard, as she was to always call him in court. Never Seth. Never Mr. Seth. Mr. Hubbard hired her as a part-time housekeeper three years earlier. How did she hear about the job opening? She did not. He called her and said a friend knew she was out of work. He happened to be looking for a part-time maid. She went through her history with Mr. Hubbard, his rules, habits, routines, and, later, his preferences in food and cooking. Three days a week became four. He gave her a raise, then another. He traveled a lot and she was often in the house with little to do. Not once in three years did he entertain or have another person over for a meal. She met Herschel and Ramona, but rarely saw them. Ramona visited once a year, and for only a few hours, and Herschel’s drop-ins were not much more frequent. She had never met any of Mr. Hubbard’s four grandchildren.
“But I didn’t work on the weekends so I don’t know who came and went then,” she said. “Mr. Hubbard could’ve had all sorts of company.” She was trying to appear fair, but only to a point.
“But you worked every Monday, correct?” Jake asked from the script.
“I did.”
“And did you ever see evidence of weekend guests in the home?”
“No sir, never.”
Being nice to Herschel and Ramona was not part of the plan at this point. They had no plans to be nice to Lettie; indeed, based on their depositions, it was safe to expect them to lie considerably.
After an hour on the stand, Lettie felt more comfortable. Her answers were clearer, more spontaneous, and she occasionally smiled at the jurors. Jake eventually got around to Mr. Hubbard’s lung cancer. She described how her boss went through a string of unimpressive home-health-care nurses, and finally asked Lettie if she would work five days a week. She described the low points, when the chemo knocked him flat and almost killed him, when he couldn’t walk to the bathroom or feed himself.
Do not show emotion, Portia had lectured. Do not show any feelings whatsoever for Mr. Hubbard. The jurors cannot get the impression there was an emotional bond between the two of you. Of course there had been, the same as any dying person and his caregiver, but do not acknowledge it on the witness stand.
Jake hit the high points but did not spend much time on Mr. Hubbard’s cancer. Wade Lanier would certainly do so. Jake asked Lettie if she had ever signed a will. No, she had not.
“Have you ever seen a will?”
“No sir.”
“Did Mr. Hubbard ever discuss his will with you?”
She managed a chuckle, and sold it perfectly. She said, “Mr. Hubbard was extremely private. He never discussed business or anything like that with me. He never discussed his family or kids or anything. He just wasn’t like that.”
The truth was that Seth had twice promised Lettie he would leave something behind for her, but he had never mentioned his will. She and Portia had discussed it, and it was Portia’s opinion that Wade Lanier and the lawyers on the other side would blow this out of proportion if she admitted it. They would twist it, exaggerate it, and turn it into something lethal. “So you did discuss his last will with him!” Lanier would yell in front of the jury.
Some things are better left unsaid. No one would ever know. Seth was dead and Lettie wasn’t talking.
“Did he ever discuss his illness and the fact that he was dying?” Jake asked.
She took a deep breath and pondered the question. “Sure. There were times when he was in so much pain he said he wanted to die. I suppose that’s natural. In his last days, Mr. Hubbard knew the end was near. He asked me to pray with him.”
“You prayed with him?”
“I did. Mr. Hubbard had a deep faith in God. He wanted to make things right before he died.”
Jake paused for a little drama so the jurors could fully absorb the visual of Lettie and her boss praying, instead of doing what most folks thought they had been doing. Then he moved on to the morning of October 1 of last year, and Lettie told her story. They left his house around 9:00, with Lettie behind the wheel of his late-model Cadillac. She had never driven him before; he had never asked her to. It was the first and only time the two had been together in an automobile. When they were leaving the house, she had made some silly comment about never having driven a Cadillac, so he insisted. She was nervous and drove slowly. He sipped on coffee from a paper cup. He seemed to be relaxed and pain-free, and he seemed to enjoy the fact that Lettie was so uptight driving down a highway with virtually no other traffic.
Jake asked her what they talked about during the ten-minute drive. She thought for a moment, glanced at the jurors, who still had not missed a word, and said, “We talked about cars. He said a lot of white people don’t like Cadillacs anymore because nowadays so many black people drive them. He asked me why a Cadillac was so important to a black person, and I said don’t ask me. I never wanted one. I’ll never have one. My Pontiac’s twelve years old. But then I said it’s because it’s the nicest car and it’s a way of showin’ other folk that you’ve made it. You got a job, got a little money in your pocket, got some success in life. Something’s workin’ okay. That’s all. He said he’s always liked a Cadillac too, said he lost his first one in his first divorce, lost his second one in his second divorce, but since he gave up on marriage nobody’s bothered him or his Cadillacs. He was kinda funny about it.”
“So he was in a good mood, sort of joking?” Jake asked.
“A very good mood that mornin’, yes sir. He even laughed at me and my drivin’.”
“And his mind was clear?”
“Clear as a bell. He said I was drivin’ his seventh Cadillac and he remembered all of them. Said he trades every other year.”
“Do you know if he was taking medication for pain that morning?”
“No sir, I don’t know. He was funny about his pills. He didn’t like to take them and he kept them in his briefcase, away from me. The only time I saw them was when he was flat on his back, deathly sick, and he asked me to get them. But no, he didn’t appear to be on any pain medication that mornin’.”
Under Jake’s guidance, she continued her narrative. They arrived at Berring Lumber Company, the first and only time she’d ever been there, and while he spent the time in his office with the door locked, she cleaned. She vacuumed, dusted, scrubbed most of the windows, arranged magazines, even washed the dishes in the small kitchen. No, she did not empty the wastebaskets. From the moment they entered the offices until they left, she did not speak to nor see Mr. Hubbard. She had no idea what he was doing in his office; she never thought about asking. He walked in with a briefcase, and walked out holding the same one. She drove back to his house, then she returned home, around noon. Late Sunday night, Calvin Boggs called with the news that Mr. Hubbard had hung himself.
At 11:00 a.m., after almost two hours on the stand, Jake tendered the witness for cross-examination. During a quick recess, he told Lettie she did a fabulous job. Portia was thrilled and very proud; her mother had kept her composure and been convincing. Harry Rex, who’d been watching from the back row, said her testimony could not have been better.
By noon, their case was in shambles.
He was certain harboring a fugitive was against the law in every state, including Alaska, so jail time was a possibility, though Lucien wasn’t worried about that at the moment. He woke up at sunrise, stiff from sleeping off and on in a chair. Ancil had the bed, all of it. He had volunteered to sleep on the floor or in a chair, but Lucien was concerned about his head injuries and insisted he take the bed. A painkiller knocked him out, and for a long time Lucien sat in the dark, nursing his last Jack and Coke, listening to the old boy snore.
He dressed quietly and left the room. The lobby of the hotel was deserted. There were no cops poking around, searching for Ancil. Down the street he bought coffee and muffins and hauled them back to the room, where Ancil was awake now and watching the local news. “Not a word,” he reported.
“No surprise,” Lucien said. “I doubt if they’ve brought in the bloodhounds.”
They ate, took turns showering and dressing, and at 8:00 a.m. left the room. Ancil was wearing Lucien’s black suit, white shirt, paisley tie, and the same cap pulled low to hide his face. They hurriedly walked three blocks to the law office of Jared Wolkowicz, a lawyer referred by Bo Buck at the Glacier Inn bar. Lucien had visited Mr. Wolkowicz late the day before, retained him, and organized the deposition. A court reporter and a videographer were waiting in the conference room. At one end of the table, Mr. Wolkowicz stood, raised his right hand, repeated after the court reporter, and swore to tell the truth, then sat facing the camera. He said, “Good morning. My name is Jared Wolkowicz and I’m an attorney, duly licensed by the State of Alaska. Today is Wednesday, April 5, 1989, and I’m sitting here in my law office on Franklin Street in downtown Juneau, Alaska. Here with me is Lucien Wilbanks, of Clanton, Mississippi, and also a man by the name of Ancil F. Hubbard, who currently resides in Juneau. The purpose of the deposition is to record the testimony of Mr. Hubbard. I know nothing about the case that brings us here. My role is to simply vouch for the fact that this will be an accurate recording of what takes place here. If any of the lawyers or judges involved in this matter would like to speak to me, feel free to call.”