Sycamore Row

Rinds?”
    Though terrified, Lonny remained frozen. He smelled whiskey and remembered it from the night before.
    “What happened to Sylvester Rinds? You were eight years old, Ancil. What happened to Sylvester Rinds?”
    Lonny closed his eyes and breathed deeply. For a second he was gone, then he jerked his hands and opened his eyes. The stranger was gone.
    He called the nurse.

38
    Before his wife died, Judge and Mrs. Atlee once went eight consecutive years without missing Sunday worship at the First Presbyterian Church. Fifty-two Sundays in a row, for eight years. A flu virus halted the streak. Then she passed on, and the judge lost some focus and actually missed once or twice a year. But not often. He was such a presence in the church that his absence was always noted. He wasn’t there the Sunday before the trial began, and when Jake realized it he allowed his mind to wander during the sermon. Could the old guy be sick? If so, might the trial be postponed? How would this affect his strategy? A dozen questions and no answers.
    After church, Jake and his girls returned to the Hocutt House where Willie was preparing a brunch on the back porch. He insisted on hosting the new owners, claiming he wanted to meet Hanna and show her around. All top secret of course. Jake and Carla would have preferred to keep their daughter out of it for the moment, but they could hardly suppress their excitement. Hanna promised to keep this rather significant secret. After a tour, which included Hanna’s tentative selection of her new bedroom, they settled around a plank farm table on the porch and had French toast and scrambled eggs.
    Willie moved the conversation away from the house and to the trial. Fluidly, he became a journalist again, probing and nibbling around the edges of sensitive material. Twice Carla shot warning glances at Jake, who realized what was happening. When Willie asked if they could expect any evidence that Seth Hubbard had been intimate with Lettie Lang, Jake politely said he couldn’t answer that question. The brunch became a little awkward as Jake grew quieter while his host kept chattingon about rumors he was chasing. Was it true Lettie had offered to split the money and settle the case? Jake replied firmly that he could not comment. There was so much gossip. When Willie pursued another question about “intimacy,” Carla said, “Please, Willie, there’s a seven-year-old present.”
    “Yes, sorry.”
    Hanna was not missing a word.
    After an hour, Jake looked at his watch and said he had to get to the office. It would be a long afternoon and night. Willie poured some more coffee as they thanked him and placed their napkins on the table. It took fifteen minutes to gracefully say good-bye. As they drove away, Hanna stared at the house through the car’s rear window and said, “I like our new house. When can we move in?”
    “Soon, honey,” Carla said.
    “Where’s Mr. Willie going to live?”
    “Oh, he has several houses,” Jake said. “Don’t worry about him.”
    “He’s such a nice man.”
    “Yes, he is,” Carla said.

    Lucien followed the detective into the room where Lonny sat waiting expectantly with a stout nurse at his side, sentry-like. She was not smiling and seemed irritated by this intrusion. One of the doctors had reluctantly acceded to the request for a few questions. Lonny’s condition had improved overnight and he was feeling better, but his team was still protective. They didn’t like lawyers anyway.
    “This is the guy I told you about, Lonny,” the detective said, without the slightest attempt at an introduction. Lucien, in his black suit, stood down by Lonny’s feet and offered a phony smile. “Mr. Clark, my name is Lucien Wilbanks, and I work for a lawyer in Clanton, Mississippi,” he said.
    Lonny had seen the face before, hadn’t he? In the middle of the night, the face had appeared and disappeared like a ghost. “A pleasure,” Lonny said, as if still groggy, though his mind had not been this clear since before the blow to his skull.
    Lucien said, “We’re involved in some litigation that makes it imperative that we locate a man named Ancil Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard was born in Ford County, Mississippi, on August 1, 1922. His father was Cleon Hubbard, his mother was Sarah Belle Hubbard, and he had one brother, Seth, who was five years older. We’ve been searching highand low for Ancil Hubbard, and it’s come to our attention that there’s a chance you might know him