Sycamore Row

it opened for business.
    The Coffee Shop, though, was bustling with blue collars, farmers, and deputies when Jake strolled in and began saying good morning. As always, he was the only one wearing a coat and tie. The white collars gathered an hour later across the square at the Tea Shoppe and discussed interest rates and world politics. At the Coffee Shop they talked football, local politics, and bass fishing. Jake was one of the very few professionals tolerated inside the Coffee Shop. There were several reasons for this: he was well liked, thick-skinned, and good-natured; and, he was always available for a quick legal tip at no charge when one of the mechanics or truck drivers was in a bind. He hung his jacket on the wall and found a seat at a table with Marshall Prather, a deputy. Two days earlier, Ole Miss had lost to Georgia by three touchdowns and this was the hot topic. A gum-smacking, sassy gal named Dell poured his coffee while managing to bump him with her ample ass—the same routine six mornings a week. Within minutes she delivered food he never ordered—wheat toast, grits, and strawberry jelly, the usual. As Jake was shaking Tabasco sauce on the grits, Prather asked, “Say, Jake, did you know Seth Hubbard?”
    “Never met him,” Jake said, catching a few glances. “I’ve heard his name once or twice. Had a place up near Palmyra, didn’t he?”
    “That’s it.” Prather chewed on a sausage as Jake sipped his coffee.
    Jake waited, then said, “I guess it’s safe to assume something bad happened to Seth Hubbard because you put him in the past tense.”
    “I did what?” Prather asked. The deputy had an annoying habit of dropping a loud, loaded question over breakfast and following it up with silence. He knew the details and the dirt, and he was always fishing to see if anyone else had something to add.
    “The past tense. You asked ‘Did I know him?’ not ‘Do I know him?’—which would of course indicate he’s still alive. Right?”
    “I suppose.”
    “So what happened?”
    Andy Furr, a mechanic at the Chevrolet place, said loudly, “Killed himself yesterday. Found him hangin’ from a tree.”
    “Left a note and everything,” added Dell as she swooped by with a coffeepot. The café had been open for an hour, so there was little doubt Dell knew as much about Seth Hubbard’s passing as anyone.
    “Okay, what did the note say?” Jake asked calmly.
    “Can’t tell you, sweetie,” she chirped. “That’s between me and Seth.”
    “You didn’t know Seth,” Prather said.
    Dell was an old tart with the quickest tongue in town. She said, “I loved Seth once, or maybe it was twice. Can’t always remember.”
    “There have been so many,” Prather said.
    “Yeah, but you’ll never get close old boy,” she said.
    “You really don’t remember, do you?” Prather shot back and got a few laughs.
    “Where was the note?” Jake asked, trying to reverse the conversation.
    Prather stuffed a load of pancakes in his mouth, chewed for a while, then replied, “On the kitchen table. Ozzie’s got it now, still investigatin’ but not much to it. Looks like Hubbard went to church, seemed fine, then drove back onto his property, took a stepladder and a rope and did the deed. One of his workers found him around two yesterday afternoon, swingin’ in the rain. All dressed up in his Sunday best.”
    Interesting, bizarre, tragic, but Jake found it difficult to have any concern for a man he’d never met. Andy Furr asked, “Did he have anything?”
    “Don’t know,” Prather said. “I think Ozzie knew him but he’s not sayin’ much.”
    Dell refilled their cups and stopped to talk. With a hand on one hip she said, “No, I never knew him. But my cousin knows his first wife, he had at least two, and accordin’ to the first one Seth had some land and money. She said he laid low, kept secrets, and didn’t trust anybody. Also said he was a nasty sonofabitch, but then they always say that after the divorce.”
    “You oughtta know,” Prather added.
    “I do know, old boy. I know so much more than you.”
    “Is there a last will and testament?” Jake asked. Probate work was not his favorite, but a sizable estate usually meant a decent fee for someone in town. It was all paper shuffling with a couple of court appearances, nothing difficult and not too tedious. Jake knew that by 9:00 a.m. the lawyers in town would be slinking around trying to find out who wrote Seth Hubbard’s last