Sycamore Row

chairman said, and Ozzie strutted to the lectern, his badge glistening over his coat pocket.
    “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m Ozzie Walls, sheriff of Ford County, and I don’t want this boy back home causin’ trouble. Frankly, he should be in a federal pen servin’ a much longer sentence, but we don’t have time to get into that. I have an ongoin’ investigation into what happened three years ago, as does the FBI over in Oxford. We ain’t through, okay? And it would be a mistake to release him. In my opinion, he’ll just pick up where he left off. Thank you.”
    Ozzie walked away, and walked as close to the Yawkey family as possible. He and Prather stood against the wall behind them, and when the next case was called, they eased out with a few other spectators. Jake and Carla met them outside the room and thanked them for making the trip. They had not expected the sheriff to appear. They chatted a few minutes before Ozzie and Deputy Prather left to check on an inmate who was headed back to Clanton.
    Floyd Green found Jake and Carla and seemed somewhat agitated. “I think it’ll work,” he said. “Follow me, and you owe me one.” They left one building and entered another. Beside the office of an assistant warden, two armed guards stood by a door. A man with a short-sleeve shirt and clip-on tie said gruffly, “You got ten minutes.”
    And a pleasure to meet you, Jake thought. One of the guards opened the door. “Wait here,” Jake said to Carla.
    “I’ll stay with her,” Floyd Green said.
    The room was tiny, windowless, more of a closet than an office. Handcuffed to a metal chair was Marvis Lang, age twenty-eight, wearing the standard prison whites with a faded blue stripe down each leg. He seemed quite relaxed, low in the chair, one leg crossed over the other. He had a bushy Afro and a goatee.
    “Marvis, I’m Jake Brigance, a lawyer from Clanton,” Jake said as he slid the other chair close and sat down.
    Marvis smiled politely and awkwardly offered his right hand, which was secured to the chair arm just like his left. They managed a firm handshake in spite of the restraints. Jake asked, “You remember your lawyer, Nick Norton?”
    “Sort of. Been a while. I ain’t had much reason to talk to him.”
    “I have a letter in my pocket signed by Nick giving me the authority to talk to you, if you want to see it.”
    “I’ll talk. Let’s talk. What you wanna talk about?”
    “Your mother, Lettie. Has she been to see you recently?”
    “She was here last Sunday.”
    “Did she tell you about her name being mentioned in the last will of a white man named Seth Hubbard?”
    Marvis looked away for a second, then nodded slightly. “She did. Why you wanna know?”
    “Because in that will Seth Hubbard named me as the attorney to handle his assets and property. He gave 90 percent of it to your mother and it’s my job to make sure she gets it. Follow?”
    “So you’re a good guy?”
    “Damned right. In fact, I’m the best guy in the entire fight right now, but your mother doesn’t think so. She’s hired some Memphis lawyers who are in the process of robbing her blind while they screw up the case.”
    Marvis sat up straight, tried to raise both hands, and said, “Okay, I’m officially confused. Slow down and talk to me.”
    Jake was still talking when someone knocked on the door. A guard stuck his head in and said, “Time’s up.”
    “Just finishing,” Jake said as he politely shoved the door closed. He leaned even closer to Marvis and said, “I want you to call Nick Norton, collect, he’ll take the call, and he’ll verify what I’m saying. Right now every lawyer in Ford County will tell you the same thing—Lettie is making a terrible mistake.”
    “And I’m supposed to fix things?”
    “You can help. Talk to her. We, she and I, have a tough fight to begin with. She’s making it much worse.”
    “Let me think about it.”
    “You do that, Marvis. And call me anytime, collect.”
    The guard was back.

17
    The usual white-collar crowd gathered at the Tea Shoppe for breakfast and coffee, never tea, not at such an early hour. At one round table there was a lawyer, a banker, a merchant, and an insurance agent, and at another there was a select group of older, retired gentlemen. Retired, but not dull, slow, or quiet. It was called the Geezer Table. The conversation was picking up steam as it rolled through the feeble efforts of the Ole Miss football team—last Saturday’s loss to