Sycamore Row
“Assuming there is an answer.”
“Yes. So to unravel this mystery, and to hopefully help you win this case, we have to answer that question.”
“And you’ve found it?”
“Not yet, but I’m on the trail.” Lucien waved at a pile of debris on the table—files, copies of old deeds, notes. “I have examined the land records of the two hundred acres Seth Hubbard owned in this county when he died. A lot of the records were destroyed when the courthouse burned after the second war, but I’ve been able to reconstruct much of what I’m looking for. I’ve dug through every deed book, all the way back to the early 1800s, and I’ve scoured every copy of the local newspapers from the day they started printing. I’ve also done a fair amount of genealogical research, into the Hubbard, Tayber, and Rinds families. As you know, it’s very difficult with these black folks. Lettie was raised by Cypress and Clyde Tayber, but she was never legally adopted. She didn’t know it until she was thirty years old, according to Portia. Portia also believes, as do I, that Lettie was really a Rinds, a family that no longer exists in Ford County.”
Jake took a sip of coffee and listened intently. Lucien propped up a large, hand-drawn map and began pointing. “This is the original Hubbard property, eighty acres, been in the family for a hundred years. Seth inherited it from his father, Cleon, who died thirty years ago. Cleon left a will giving everything to Seth, and Ancil was never mentioned. Next to it is another eighty-acre section, right here, at the bridge where they found Seth after he fell off his ladder. The other forty acres over here were purchased by Seth twenty years ago and are not important.” Lucien was tapping the second parcel upon which he had crudely drawn a creek, a bridge, and a hanging tree. “Here’s where it gets interesting. This second tract of eighty acres was purchased in 1930 by Cleon Hubbard. It was sold to him by Sylvester Rinds, or the wife of Sylvester Rinds. The land had been in the Rinds family for sixty years. What’s unusual about this is that Rinds was black, and it appears as though his father was the son of a freed slave who took possession of the eighty acres around 1870, during Reconstruction. It’s not clear how he managed to assume ownership, and I’m convinced we’ll never know. The records simply do not exist.”
“How did Cleon take ownership from Rinds?” Jake asked.
“By a simple quitclaim deed, signed by Esther Rinds, not by her husband.”
“Where was her husband?”
“Don’t know. I’m assuming he was either dead or gone because the land was in his name, not his wife’s. For her to be able to convey property, it would’ve been necessary for her to inherit the land. So, he was probably dead.”
“No record of his death?”
“None, yet, but I’m still digging. There’s more. There are no records of the Rinds family in Ford County after 1930. They disappeared and there’s not a single Rinds to be found today. I’ve checked phone books, voter registration records, tax rolls, you name it and I’ve been through it. Not a single Rinds anywhere. Pretty unusual.”
“So?”
“So, they vanished.”
“Maybe they all went to Chicago, like everybody else.”
“Perhaps. From Lettie’s deposition we learned that her mother was about sixteen when she was born, out of wedlock, and that she never knew her father. She says she was born near Caledonia, down in Monroe County. Her mother died a couple of years later—Lettie doesn’t remember her—and an aunt took her in. Then another aunt. Then she finally landed over in Alabama with the Tayber family. She took their last name and got on with life. You heard the rest of it in her deposition. She’s never had a birth certificate.”
“What’s the point here, Lucien?”
He opened another file and slid a copy of a single sheet of paper across the table. “A lot of Negro babies were born back then without birth certificates. They were born at home, with midwives and such, and nobody bothered with record keeping. But the health department in every county tried to at least record the births. That’s a copy from a page in the 1941 Register of Live Births. It shows one Letetia Delores Rinds being born on May 16 to a young woman named Lois Rinds, age sixteen, in Monroe County, Mississippi.”
“You went to Monroe County and dug this up?”
“I did, and I’m not finished. Looks like Lettie might be a Rinds.”
“But she said she doesn’t remember any of this, or at least she doesn’t remember anything before her childhood in Alabama.”
“Do you remember anything that happened before you were three years old?”
“Everything.”
“Then you’re a nutcase.”
“So, what if Lettie’s people came from Ford County?”
“Let’s assume they did, just for the hell of it. And let’s assume further that they once owned the same eighty acres that Cleon Hubbard took title to in 1930, the same that got handed down to Seth Hubbard. And the same he willed to Lettie. That closes the circle, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe, maybe not. There are still some huge gaps. You can’t assume that all black folks named Rinds in north Mississippi came from Ford County. That’s a stretch.”
“Granted. It’s only a theory, but we’re making progress.”
“We?”
“Portia and I. I’ve got her digging through her family tree. She’s been hounding Cypress for details, but she’s not too talkative. And, like most families, there’s a lot of crap back there that Portia wishes she’d never found.”
“For example?”
“Cypress and Clyde Tayber never married. They had six kids and lived together for forty years, but never tied the knot, legally anyway.”
“That was not that unusual. The common law protected them.”
“I know that. There’s a good chance that Cypress is not even blood kin. Portia thinks her mom might have been abandoned more than once before getting dumped on the Taybers’ front doorstep.”
“Does Lettie talk about it?”
“Not much, evidently. As you might guess, her family tree is not a pleasant subject.”
“Wouldn’t Lettie know if she was born a Rinds?”
“One would think so, but maybe not. She was thirty years old before Cypress told her the truth about being adopted; in fact, Cypress never met Lettie’s mother. Think about that, Jake. For the first thirty years of her life she assumed Cypress and Clyde were her biological parents and the other six kids were her brothers and sisters. Portia said she was upset when she finally learned the truth, but she’s never had any desire to dig into her past. The Taybers in Alabama are not even remotely related to the Rindses in Ford County, so I guess it’s possible Lettie doesn’t know where she came from.”
Jake thought about this for a few minutes as he sipped coffee slowly and tried to think of all the angles. He said, “Okay, let’s buy into your theory. Why, then, would Seth want to return the land to a Rinds?”
“My theory hasn’t gotten that far yet.”
“And why would he leave her everything—the eighty acres plus a helluva lot more—at the expense of his own family?”
“Still digging for that one.”
“I like it. Let’s keep digging.”
“This could be crucial, Jake, because it could prove motive. The big question is, Why? And if we can answer it, then you might just win at trial. Otherwise, you’re screwed.”
“That’s just your opinion, Lucien. As I recall, that was your general sentiment right before the Hailey trial.”
“The sooner you forget that trial, the sooner you’ll become a better lawyer.”
Jake smiled and stood. “Some things you can’t forget, Lucien. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shopping with my daughter. Merry Christmas to you.”
“Bah humbug.”
“Are you coming over for dinner?”
“Bah humbug.”
“That’s what I figured. See you Monday.”
Simeon Lang arrived home just after dark on Christmas Eve. He had been away for over two weeks, and his travels had taken him as far as Oregon, in an 18-wheeler packed with six tons of stolen appliances. He had a pocketful of cash, love in his heart, Christmas jingles on his tongue, and a nice bottle of bourbon hidden under the passenger’s seat. He was cold sober at the moment, and he was promising himself he would not let the booze disrupt the holidays. All in all, Simeon was in a cheerful mood, at least until he pulled to a stop in front of the old Sappington place. He counted seven cars parked haphazardly in the driveway and around the front lawn. Three he recognized; the others, he wasn’t so sure. He abruptly stopped “Jingle Bells” in mid-chorus and wanted to curse. All the lights were on in the house and it gave every impression of being filled with people.
One of the advantages of marrying Lettie was that her family lived far away, over in Alabama. She had no relatives in Ford County. On his side there were too many, and they caused trouble, but he took no flack from her people, at least not in the early years. He had secretly been delighted when she, at the age of thirty, learned that Cypress and Clyde Tayber were not her real parents and their six kids were not her siblings. This delight faded quickly, though, when Lettie carried on as if they were blood kin. Clyde died, the kids scattered, and Cypress needed a place to live. They took her in, temporarily, and five years later she was still there, bigger and needier than ever. The brothers and sisters were back, with their broods in tow and their hands out.
To be fair, there were some Langs in there too. A sister-in-law in particular had become a constant nuisance. She was out of work and needed a loan, preferably one accompanied by a verbal promise that could not be enforced. Simeon almost reached for the bottle, but he fought the urge and got out of his truck.
There were kids everywhere, a fire in the fireplace, and a kitchen full of women cooking and men tasting. Almost everyone was either happy to see him or good at pretending. Lettie smiled and they hugged. He had called the day before from Kansas and promised to be home in time for dinner. She pecked him on the cheek to see if he had been drinking, and when he passed that test she relaxed considerably. To her knowledge, there was not a drop of booze in the house, and she wanted desperately to keep it that way. In the den, Simeon hugged his kids—Portia, Phedra, Clarice, and Kirk, and his two grandchildren. From upstairs, a boom box was blasting “Rudolph” while three little boys pushed Cypress in her wheelchair up and down the hallway at a dangerous speed. Teenagers watched the television at full volume.
The old house almost shook with a chaotic energy, and after a few minutes Simeon was at peace again. The solitude of the open road had been dashed, but it was, after all, Christmas Eve, and he was surrounded by family. For sure, much of the love and warmth on display was being driven by greed and the desire to get closer to Lettie, but Simeon let it go. For a few hours anyway, just enjoy the moment.
If only Marvis could be there.