The estate of Reuben Vincent Atlee was opened for probate in the courtroom where he had presided for thirty-two years. High on the oak-paneled wall behind the bench, a grim-faced Judge Atlee looked down upon the proceedings from between the Stars and Stripes and the state flag of Mississippi. It was the same portrait they had placed near his coffin during the courthouse wake three weeks earlier. Now it was back where it belonged, in a place where it would undoubtedly hang forever.
The man who had ended his career, and sent him into exile and seclusion at Maple Run, was Mike Farr from Holly Springs. He'd been reelected once and according to Harry Rex was doing a credible job. Chancellor Farr reviewed the petition for letters of administration, and he studied the one-page will attached to the filings.
The courtroom was busy with lawyers and clerks milling about, filing papers and chatting with clients. It was a day set aside for uncontested matters and quick motions. Ray sat in the front row while Harry Rex was at the bench, Whispering back and forth with Chancellor Farr. Next to Ray was Forrest, who, other than the faded bruises under his eyes, looked as normal as possible. He had insisted that he would not be present when probate was opened, but a tongue-lashing from Harry Rex had persuaded him otherwise. - He'd finally come home to Ellie's, the usual return from the streets without a word to anyone about where he'd been or what he'd been up to. No one wanted to know. There was no mention of a job, so Ray was assuming his brief career as a medical screener for the Skinny Ben lawyers was over.
Every five minutes, a lawyer would crouch in the aisle, stick out a hand, and tell Ray what a fine man his father had been. Of course Ray was supposed to know all of them because they knew him. No one spoke to Forrest.
Harry Rex motioned for Ray to join them at the bench. Chancellor Farr greeted him warmly. "Your father was a fine man and a great judge," he said, leaning down.
"Thank you," Ray replied. Then why, during the campaign, did you say he was too old and out of touch? Ray wanted to ask. It had been nine years earlier and seemed like fifty. With the passing of his father, everything in Ford County was now decades older.
"You teach law?" Chancellor Farr asked. :
"Yes, at the University of Virginia."
He nodded his approval and asked, "All the heirs are present?"
"Yes sir," answered Ray. "It's just my brother, Forrest, and myself"
"And both of you have read this one-page document that purports to be the last will and testament of Reuben Atlee?"
"Yes sir."
"And there is no objection to this will being probated?"
"No sir"
"Very well. Pursuant to this will, I will appoint you as the executor of your late father's estate. Notice to creditors will be filed today and published in a local paper. I'll waive the bond. Inventory and accounting will be due pursuant to the statute."
Ray had heard his father utter those same instructions a hundred times. He glanced up at Judge Farr.
"Anything further, Mr. Vonner?"
"No, Your Honor."
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Atlee," he said.
"Thank you, Your Honor."
For lunch they went to Claude's and ordered fried catfish. Ray had been back for two days and he could already feel his arteries choking. Forrest had little to say. He was not clean and his system was polluted.
Ray's plans were vague. He wanted to visit some friends around the state, he said. There was no hurry to return to Virginia. Forrest left them after lunch, said he was going to back to Memphis.
"Will you be at Ellie's?" Ray asked.
"Maybe" was his only reply.
Ray was sitting on the porch, waiting for Claudia when she arrived promptly at 5 P.M. He met her beside her car where she stopped and looked at the Realtor's For Sale sign in the front yard, near the street.
"Do you have to sell it?" she asked.
"Either that or give it away. How are you?"
"I'm fine, Ray." They managed to hug with just the minimum of contact. She was dressed for the occasion in slacks, loafers, a checkered blouse, and a straw hat, as if she'd just stepped from the garden. The lips were red, the mascara perfect. Ray had never seen her when she wasn't properly turned out.
"I'm so glad you called," she said as they slowly walked up the drive to the house.
"We went to court today, opened the estate." •
"I'm sorry, must've been tough on you."
"It wasn't too bad. I met Judge Farr."
"Did you like him?"
"Nice enough, I guess, in spite of the history."
He took her arm and led her up the steps, though Claudia was fit and could climb hills, in spite of the two packs a day. "I remember when he was fresh out of law school," she said. "Didn't know a plaintiff from a defendant. Reuben could've won that race, you know, if I'd been around."
"Let's sit here," Ray said, pointing to two rockers.
"You've cleaned up the place," she said, admiring the porch.
"It's all Harry Rex. He's hired painters, roofers, a cleaning service. They had to sandblast the dust off the furniture, but you can breathe now."
"Mind if I smoke?" she said.
"No." It didn't matter. She was smoking regardless.
"I'm so happy you called," she said again, then lit a cigarette.
"I have tea and coffee," Ray said.
"Ice tea, please, lemon and sugar," she said, and crossed her legs. She was perched in the rocker like a queen, waiting for her tea.
Ray recalled the tight dresses and long legs of many years ago as she sat just below the bench, scribbling elegantly away in her shorthand while every lawyer in the courtroom watched.
They talked about the weather, as folks do in the South when there's a gap in the conversation, or when there's nothing else to talk about. She smoked and smiled a lot, truly happy to be remembered by Ray. She was clinging. He was trying to solve a mystery.
They talked about Forrest and Harry Rex, two loaded topics, and when she'd been there for half an hour Ray finally got to the point. "We've found some money, Claudia," he said, and let the words hang in the air. She absorbed them, analyzed them, and proceeded cautiously. "Where?"
It was an excellent question. Found where, as in the bank with records and such? Found where, as in stuffed in the mattress with no trail?
"In his study, cash. Left behind for some reason."
"How much?" she asked, but not too quickly.
"A hundred thousand." He watched her face and eyes closely. Surprise registered, but not shock. He had a script so he pressed on. "His records are meticulous, checks written, deposits, ledgers with every expense, and this money seems to have no source."
"He never kept a lot of cash," she said slowly.
"That's what I remember too. I have no idea where it came from, do you?"
"None," she said with no doubts whatsoever. "The Judge didn't deal in cash. Period. Everything went through the First National Bank. He was on the board for a long time, remember?"
"Yes, very well. Did he have anything on the side?"
"Such as?"
"I'm asking you, Claudia, you knew him better than anyone. And you knew his business."
"He was completely devoted to his work. To him, being a chancellor was a great calling, and he worked very hard at it. He had no time for anything else." .
"Including his family," Ray said, then immediately wished he had not.
"He loved his boys, Ray, but he was from a different generation."
"Let's stay away from that."
"Let's."
They took a break and each regrouped. Neither wanted to dwell on the family. The money had their attention. A car eased down the street and seemed to pause just long enough for the occupants to see the For Sale sign and take a long look at the house. One look was enough because it sped away.
"Did you know he was gambling?" Ray asked.
"The Judge? No."
"Hard to believe, isn't it? Harry Rex took him to the casinos once a week for a while. Seems as if the Judge had a knack for it and Harry Rex did not."
"You hear rumors, especially about the lawyers. Several of them have gotten into trouble over there."
"But you've heard nothing about the Judge?"
"No. I still don't believe it."
"The money came from somewhere, Claudia. And something tells me it was dirty, otherwise he would have included it with the rest of his assets."
"And if he won at gambling he would have considered that dirty, don't you think?" Indeed, she knew the Judge better than anyone.
"Yes, and you?"
"Sounds like Reuben Atlee to me."
They finished that round of conversation and took a break, both rocking gently in the cool shade of the front porch, as if time had stopped, neither bothered by the silence. Porch-sitting allowed great lapses while thoughts were gathered, or while there was no thinking at all.
Finally Ray, still plodding through an unwritten script, mustered the courage to ask the toughest question of the day. "I need to know something, Claudia, and please be honest."
"I'm always honest. It's one of my faults."
"I have never questioned my father's integrity."
"Nor should you now."
"Help me out here, okay."
"Go on."
"Was there anything on the side - a little extra from a lawyer, a slice of the pie from a litigant, a nice backhander as the Brits like to say?"
"Absolutely not."
"I'm throwing darts, Claudia, hoping to hit something. You don't just find a hundred thousand dollars in nice crisp bills tucked away on a shelf. When he died he had six thousand dollars in the bank. Why keep a hundred buried?"
"He was the most ethical man in the world."
"I believe that."
"Then stop talking about bribes and such."
"Gladly"
She lit another cigarette and he left to fill up the tea glasses. When he returned to the porch Claudia was deep in thought, her gaze stretching far beyond the street. They rocked for a while.
Finally, he said, "I think the Judge would want you to have some of it."
"Oh you do?"
"Yes. We'll need some of it now to finish fixing up the place, probably twenty-five thousand or so. What if you, me, and Forrest split the remainder?"
"Twenty-five each?"
"Yep. What do you think?"
"You're not running it through the estate?" she asked. She knew the law better than Harry Rex.
"Why bother? It's cash, nobody knows about it, and if we report it then half will go for taxes."
"And how would you explain it?" she asked, as always, one step ahead. They used to say that Claudia would have the case decided before the lawyers began their opening statements.
And the woman loved money. Clothes, perfume, always a late-model car, and all these things from a poorly paid court reporter. If she was drawing a state pension, it couldn't be much.
"It cannot be explained," Ray said.
"If it's from gambling, then you'll have to go back and amend his tax returns for the past years," she said, quickly on board. "What a mess."
"A real mess."
The mess was quietly put to rest. No one would ever know about her share of the money.
"We had a case once," she said, gazing across the front lawn.
"Over in Tippah County, thirty years ago. A man named Childers owned a scrap yard. He died with no will." A pause, a long drag on the cigarette. "Had a bunch of kids, and they found money hidden all over the place, in his office, in his attic, in a utility shed behind his house, in his fireplace. It was a regular Easter egg hunt. Once they'd scoured every inch of the place, they counted it up and it was about two hundred thousand dollars. This, from a man who wouldn't pay his phone bill and wore the same pair of overalls for ten years." Another pause, another long puff. She could tell these stories forever. "Half the kids wanted to split the money and run, the other half wanted to tell the lawyer and include the money in the probate. Word leaked out, the family got scared, and the money got added to the old man's estate. The kids fought bitterly. Five years later all the money was gone - half to the government, half to the lawyers."
She stopped, and Ray waited for the resolution. "What's the point?" he asked.
"The Judge said it was a shame, said the kids should've kept the money quiet and split it. After all, it was the property of their father."
"Sounds fair to me."
"He hated inheritance taxes. Why should the government get a large portion of your wealth just because you die? I heard him grumble about it for years."
Ray took an envelope from behind his rocker and handed it to her. "That's twenty-five thousand in cash."
She stared at it, then looked at him in disbelief.
"Take it," he said, inching it closer to her. "No one will ever know."
She took it and for a second was unable to speak. Her eyes watered, and for Claudia that meant serious emotions were at work. "Thank you," she whispered, and clutched the money even tighter.
Long after she left, Ray sat in the same chair, rocking in the darkness, quite pleased with himself for eliminating Claudia as a suspect. Her ready acceptance of twenty-five thousand dollars was convincing proof that she knew nothing of the much larger fortune. But there was no suspect to take her place on the list.
