“No. She knew Vee could take care of herself. Vee always knew how to do that.”
For the first time, I hear resentment in Cora’s voice when she speaks of her sister. I can’t remember whether she or Viola was the younger sister, but I think it was Viola.
“Back to the seventy-two thousand dollars,” Quentin says with the persistence of a dripping faucet. “What happened to that money?”
Again Cora looks at Lincoln, but she finds no help there. He’s pretending to look out one of the tall courtroom windows. “It was divided up according to the will,” she says. “Viola’s will.”
“I see. And how was it divided?”
“Objection!” Shad says. “We’re far afield from the death of Viola Turner, Judge.”
“Are we?” Quentin asks, looking straight at Shad. “Judge, my client has been charged with murder. He is entitled to explore the possibility that someone else committed the crime.”
In that sentence, the entire dynamic of the courtroom changes. It’s as though Quentin has suddenly taken a croaker sack from his briefcase and released a rattlesnake under the chairs.
“Holy fuck,” whispers Rusty. “This is where Quentin was headed all along.”
“Let’s see.”
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Elder says. “But we’d better see how this fits pretty quickly, Mr. Avery.”
“Understood, Your Honor. So, how was the money divided, Ms. Revels?”
“Just like the will said. I got thirty thousand, six hundred dollars, Lincoln got the same, and the rest went to Junius Jelks.”
“Viola’s husband?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where does Mr. Jelks reside now?”
“In prison, in Illinois.”
“That’s right,” Quentin muses, as though he had forgotten. “Tell me, who drew up your sister’s will?”
“Mr. Alvin Dupuis. A Chicago attorney who had grown up in Natchez.”
I once met Alvin Dupuis, when he was in town for a reunion of some kind. He was old then, and a black police detective told me that Dupuis had worked in the gray margins of the legal profession for many decades.
“When was this?” asks Quentin.
“A long time back,” Cora answers. “Soon after Lincoln got out of law school, I think it was, him and Vee went down to Mr. Dupuis’s office and drew up the will. But he be dead now. Mr. Dupuis, I mean.”
“I see. Ms. Revels, when the will was probated, did anyone contest it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did anyone come forward with any other will that they claimed was your sister’s? Or did anyone claim that the will you’re talking about was invalid?”
Again Cora glances at Lincoln, who by now is looking everywhere but at his aunt.
“Well,” Cora says uncomfortably, “one lady did try to say that Viola had promised to give some money to that reporter, Mr. Sexton. But she didn’t have no proof, so the judge threw her out.”
“I see. Who was this woman you’re referring to?”
“I don’t remember her name. She was Mr. Sexton’s mama, I believe.”
“I see. How much did Mrs. Sexton claim that your sister had promised to give her son?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
More expressions of shock from the gallery.
“That’s more than sixty percent of your sister’s total estate. Why would she give that kind of money to Mr. Sexton?”
“She wouldn’t!” Cora blurts. Then she leans back as though embarrassed by her passion.
“What did Mrs. Sexton claim was the reason?”
“She said Viola had promised Mr. Henry that money to help finish some movie he was making.”
“What was this movie about?”
“I don’t know.”
Quentin’s skepticism is obvious to everyone in the room. “And Viola never spoke to you about willing Mr. Sexton some money?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even a small amount?”
“No.”
“Did Viola ever tell you that she was going to change the will that Mr. Dupuis had made long ago, and write a new one prior to her death?”
“No, sir. She never done that.”
“Never wrote a new will? Or never spoke about it?”
“Neither one!”
Quentin rolls his chair a little closer to the witness stand. “You seem upset, Miss Cora.”
“’Cause you trying to pull some kind of lawyer trick on me! Take my rightful inheritance.”
“I’m not trying to do any such thing, I assure you.”
“That’s all the money I got in the world!”
“Objection!” Shad breaks in. “Counsel is badgering the witness, and for no reason I can understand.”
“Mr. Avery?” Judge Elder asks.
“No further questions, Your Honor. I tender the witness.”
Shad seems to be of two minds about questioning Cora Revels. But after about twenty seconds, he rises and walks close to the witness box.
“Ms. Revels, your sister’s will was probated in Cook County, Illinois, was it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You filed that will with the clerk of court there?”
“My nephew did.”
“I see. And no one brought forward any other will to challenge the one that was probated, did they?”
“No, sir. That’s right.”
“Thank you. No further questions.”
Judge Elder gives Quentin a curious glance. “Redirect, Mr. Avery?”
“None, Your Honor.”
“The witness may step down.”
In all my years as a lawyer, I’ve rarely seen a witness more eager to leave the stand than Cora Revels. As she hurries back to her seat by Lincoln, Rusty whispers, “What you wanna bet the love child is up next?”
Just as Cora reaches her chair, Quentin says, “The defense recalls Lincoln Turner to the stand.”
Lincoln rises slowly, then walks up to the witness box with the same relaxed stride he did yesterday. But this self-possession must be a pose. Quentin would not be walking him down this road unless there was trouble at the end of it.
Easing out of my chair, I lean up toward Quentin’s table and whisper, “What’s all this stuff about the will?”
Quentin stuns me by actually leaning back and answering me. “Viola wrote a new will only a few days before she died.”
“Do you have a copy of it?”
“No.”
“Then what good can this do you?”
“Maybe none. But you can’t be choosy about what vine you grab when you’re sliding down a cliff. Get back in your seat.”
Quentin rolls forward to his place beside the podium. “Mr. Turner, did you write the will that was probated after your mother died?”
“I did not. An attorney may not draw up a will from which he benefits. I may not have gone to Harvard, but I know that much.”
“You and I share that distinction, Mr. Turner. Only Lawyer Johnson there graduated from Harvard Law School.”
Shad makes a sour face.
“But back to the will,” Quentin continues. “Were the bequests specified as your aunt named them?”
“No. Mama didn’t know how much money she would have when she died, so she used percentages to divide whatever she might have left.”
“I see. Were you surprised that she had that much money left when she died?”
Lincoln shrugs.
“The witness will give a verbal response,” Judge Elder says.