Chapter 28
CHAPTER
I wanted to burn the rubber off my tires. Tear the asphalt off those country roads. It required all the restraint I could claim, but I kept my foot from stomping on the accelerator and stayed within the speed limit.
Back in the city limits of Union Springs, I headed downtown and wheeled into a parking spot close to Arch Pearce’s law office. After I slammed my car door shut, I was disposed to break into a run. But I held back, as a matter of dignity. I was trying like hell to hold on to mine.
When I stepped up to the entrance of the office building, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. I paused, taking a longer look. Determined, yes. Intimidating? Sure. Just wanted to make sure that I didn’t appear to be crazy or wild-eyed.
A buzzer sounded when I opened the door and stepped inside. Fancy, I thought. Very twenty-first century. Moreover, alerting Arch Pearce to arrivals would be a practical necessity in that office. Odds were good that a person walking in was someone he had pissed off.
After all, he was in the business of taking advantage of people who were vulnerable. Bringing them to their knees. Taking what was rightly theirs.
Well. He’d picked the wrong woman to mess with.
It was getting close to five o’clock. The reception area was empty except for one lone employee, a young administrative assistant occupying a desk. As I marched up, she watched with some trepidation, shrinking back in her chair.
That might’ve been a result of my intense facial expression.
I stood in front of her desk, eyeing the closed door directly behind her, bearing a brass nameplate.
“I’m here to see Arch Pearce.”
The young woman gave me an apologetic grimace. “Judge Mary, do you have an appointment?”
Of course she knew who I was. Everyone in town knew me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t place her. So I cheated, peeked down at her desk and faux-wood nameplate: Crystal Corbett. Aw, hell. I knew her mother, from our school days.
I kept my voice level—for auld lang syne, you see. “Crystal, I don’t need an appointment. He contacted me. Tell him I’m here.”
She picked up the desk phone. Glancing away, she cleared her throat and whispered into the receiver.
“Judge Mary Stone here to see you, sir.”
If I hadn’t been so worked up, I probably would’ve felt sorry for the girl.
People shouldn’t work for a thief like Pearce.
But she was young, and I knew her background.
Nobody was packing up the car to send this girl off to college at eighteen.
She was probably just getting by, like most people in town.
But she was in bed with the devil. And probably wise to the scam. He’d probably made her print out the correspondence he’d sent to me. She may have folded the paper and licked the envelope.
“Yes, sir,” she said. Pinching her lips together with a pained expression, she put the receiver back in place on the desk phone. Handling it delicately, as if it were made of glass.
She knew why I was at the office. Addressing a point over my left shoulder, she said, “Mr. Pearce is busy right now.”
The fucking nerve? I almost laughed; it was so absurd. “He’s busy? Really?”
“Tied up. Mr. Pearce is tied up.”
She met my eye then, with a pleading look. The girl was terrified.
I didn’t jump on her. There was no cause for that. My argument was with her boss. As I moved on past her desk, I bent down to say, “When he asks, just tell him you tried. But there was nothing you could do to stop me.”
I twisted the knob of his office door and discovered that Pearce was underestimating the opposition. Apparently, he’d believed that little Crystal Corbett could shoo me away.
I swung the door wide and stepped right in. “Mr. Pearce! I understand you have some business with me.”
He hopped out of the chair. “Judge Stone! I wasn’t expecting you.”
I ignored his outstretched hand. “Is that right? But you sent this, didn’t you?”
I had the crumpled sticker in my pocket. I pulled it out, stuck it on his desk, smoothed it out. “That’s your name, your business address. When I saw the notice on the front door of my house, I came right on over. I’d like for you to produce a copy of the correspondence so that we can discuss it.”
He was wary. “You haven’t received the letter through the mail?”
“I wasn’t home. That’s why the postman left this.” I tapped it with an index finger. “But I’m very curious about the contents of your letter. Let’s see it.”
I dropped into the chair across from his desk. Sat back, crossed my legs. I was prepared to wait, if necessary.
He didn’t pretend to hunt for the file. It was within easy reach, sitting on the credenza behind his chair. He opened the file folder, pulled out a copy of the letter, and slid it across the desktop.
I picked it up. I was careful to keep a neutral face as I read. It was tough to do.
Dear Mary Stone,
This letter serves to advise you that our client, Mr. Caleb Wilton, recently acquired a common interest in the sixty-acre tract of land in Bullock County, Alabama, where you currently reside.
He acquired his interest through a certain Mr. Abraham Stone, who inherited his heir’s interest as a direct descendant of your late grandfather, Luke Stone.
It was a phony, a sham. Had to be. We knew our family tree. Even though the babies prior to my generation had been delivered at home and birth certificates didn’t exist. But they were recorded in the family Bible.
I kept reading. The next line jumped out at me. I should have anticipated it, but the words shook me, nonetheless.
Mr. Wilton desires that the subject real estate be sold at auction to monetize his duly acquired interests.
Alternatively, if you wish to acquire Mr. Wilton’s interests, the appraised value for his share is $190,000.
I had to read it twice. Just to be sure it wasn’t a typo. I was careful not to let my face betray me. Looking up, I deadpanned.
“One hundred ninety thousand. You kidding me, Arch?”
He shifted in his chair. “It’s valuable property. I shouldn’t have to convince you of that. You’ve lived on it all your life.”
“Yeah, it’s valuable to me. But no legitimate expert would appraise the value of a one-fourth share of the property at one hundred ninety thousand dollars. That’s astronomical.”
He sighed. Looked at his wristwatch—the guy still wore one, a real watch. It was a theatrical prop. Immediately after checking the time, he said, “I hate to rush this impromptu meeting, Judge Stone. But, like the saying goes, I got someplace I gotta be.”
“Is that right?” I gripped the arms of the chair. Wanted to show him I wasn’t going anywhere. “Business? Or pleasure?”
“Ummm.” He tapped an ink pen against his chin. Like he was thinking it over. “A combo, I guess? A political event. In Montgomery.”
“Ah.” The clouds disappeared, and I could see clearly. “Think you’ll run into the governor?”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “It’s likely. He’s the keynote speaker.”
“How lucky for you. To get to hear him speak.”
I stood, seized by a sudden urge to get the hell out of that office. Didn’t even want to breathe the air in there.
Felt like the atmosphere was toxic. Poisonous. Burning my lungs.
I leaned over the desk and peeled my yellow sticker off the surface. Held up Pearce’s letter and said, “I see you’ve given me thirty days from receipt of this letter to elect to purchase the interest.”
He looked guarded. “Yes. That’s standard.”
“Thirty whole days. I bet that demand typically cuts Black people off at the knees. They get confused, think they’re at your mercy. And then you buy them out. At a fraction of the property’s actual worth.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, I do. I know all about it.”
He didn’t respond. That was okay, I didn’t need for him to explain his game plan. “If I don’t buy the interest, you’re going to sue. That right, you want to sue me? Go ahead, do it. Waste your time and resources.”
“I don’t consider it a waste of my time.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “But you know I’m gonna win. You can’t claim adverse possession. I’ve occupied that property for over twenty years. Whereas I can successfully make a case of adverse possession under color of title. But you know that.”
“We don’t need to make an adverse possession claim. This property interest was obtained from a member of your family, a direct descendant of Luke Stone.”
“Bullshit!”
And suddenly I was ten-year-old Mary again in the face of Stanley the school bully who decided to single me out because my hair was kinky and my skin was too dark, and he couldn’t make sense of it.
He singled me out because he could. I was scared then but not now, and like an eight-hundred-pound bull being taken down by four lions… I roared.
“You want to bring me down? You think you have the balls, you cowardly piece of horseshit? You just woke up the lion!”
I fired a parting shot. “Get ready, Pearce. I’m going to disprove your claim, even if I have to dig my granddaddy up to do it. Don’t think I won’t. I know where the bones are buried.”