I had never heard of Everett Carter before. My wife and I had just moved back to Mississippi to be closer to her folks, and I hadn’t been an attorney at Sails & Associates all that long. But if I had known that my world would unravel overnight because of this man, I would have thought twice about representing him.
That Thursday wasn’t that different from any other day. I had settled two of my personal injury cases, so I was in pretty good spirits. Sipping on my afternoon Sprite, I perused a file that Grady Sails, the senior partner, had placed on my desk during lunch. With it already being 3:30 in the afternoon, I knew I would probably be better off getting started on it the next day.
“Mr. Rush,” my receptionist’s voice rang out over my phone intercom.
I picked up the phone resting beside my computer. “Yes, Brandi?”
“We have a walk-in. Do you have anyone with you right now?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re the only attorney available. Would you like to meet with him?”
“Do you know what it’s about?” I asked.
“He said that he just needed to get a will done.”
I paused, looking at the file on my desk. I considered the fact that I had to prepare a report for Grady the next day listing the cases I had settled this month, including chancery matters like wills and deeds, that I had handled. This walk-in was a will, and depending on its complexity, it was possibly something that I could add to my weekly report. “Okay,” I said. “Take him to the conference room.”
The first thing I noticed about Everett Carter, once he had introduced himself, was his appearance. He was a heavyset elderly white man, clean-shaven, wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of faded denim overalls. His eyes were sharp beneath his bushy eyebrows. While Sails & Associates was a firm of black lawyers, at least sixty percent of our clients were rural white people, so Mr. Carter’s presence in our office was hardly unique.
As he took a seat across the table from me, I inquired about what assets he wanted to dispose of in his will.
“I’ve figured that all out,” he said, his raspy voice tinged in a Southern drawl. “I want to leave everything to my son Tyrell Stewart.”
I picked up the legal pad situated in the center of the table and began making notes. “Do you have property? Personal effects that you’d like to list?”
“Nope. Everything I own in this world, land and personal effects included, I want to go to my son Tyrell.”
“Do you have any other family members?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, if Tyrell was your only surviving family member, you could easily deed the real property over to him now and maintain a life estate for yourself to avoid having it probated when you pass on.”
“A life estate?”
“Yes. That means you will continue to live there while he technically owns it. That way you can give it away and continue living there for the rest of your life, all in one document,” I responded.
“Oh,” he said, reflecting over my remark. “I still want to do a will.”
I nodded.
“Can you finish it today before the close of work?” Mr. Carter asked.
I looked up from my notepad. “Well, that’s not usually our policy, but because your will is very simple, I could try to get right to it. I just need to get a little more information from you and find another person to serve as a witness.”
“I’d really appreciate it,” he said.
I could see in his eyes that he really wanted to make sure that the will got done that day. I wanted to ask him if he was expecting to die, but I thought such a question would be in poor taste. Instead, I excused myself and took the notepad back to my office to pull up a template for a will on my computer. I typed in the information I had taken down from Mr. Carter and printed out a copy of the document to review. Everything looked good, so I walked back to the reception area. I asked Brandi if she would come in and serve as a witness. I figured since she was from the next town over, she would have no connection to the client, which it turned out she didn’t. She knew as much about Mr. Carter as I did, which was to say absolutely nothing.
As we entered the conference room, Mr. Carter was seated quietly in his chair, observing the generic artwork that adorned the cream colored walls.
“I need for you to read this and see if we need to make any changes before you sign it,” I said, pushing the document in front of him.
He eyed it carefully, nodding as he read each line. Once he finished, he smiled at me and said, “Very good! So I just sign right here?”
“Yes. And Brandi and I will sign where it says ‘Witnesses.’”
Mr. Carter made out a check for the amount I quoted him and asked me if I could take his copy of the will and have it placed in the vault at the chancery clerk’s office in the Humma County Courthouse. Although it was not uncommon for my clients to request that copies of their wills be placed in the chancery clerk’s vault for safekeeping, I had never experienced the request to take the original and have it locked away. I agreed though and gave him a receipt for his check. With only fifteen minutes left until five o’clock, I briskly walked the one and half block distance to the courthouse, arriving just as the deputy clerks were shutting down their computers.
As I approached the desk, Lance Tucker, the chancery clerk, approached me. “What can I do for you today, Attorney Rush?”
I handed him Mr. Carter’s will, and he took it in his hands, examining it. “I need for you to place this in your vault, if that’s not a problem.”
He continued examining the document, and I wondered if he had even heard me, so I repeated myself.
“Oh. Of course,” he responded, lifting the document in the air as if to signal that it would be in safe hands.
“Thanks,” I said, walking out of the office and back to my own.
I had no idea that my world would come unglued the next day.
I normally arrived at my office in the morning around eight, but that Friday morning, I arrived roughly fifteen minutes later. When I reached my desk, I noticed a message written in Brandi’s bubbly handwriting for me to call an attorney by the name of Gerald Gibbons. The note said that whatever the matter was about, it was “VERY IMPORTANT!!!” The problem with Brandi was that every call that came from an attorney was considered “very important,” and she had overused the exclamation marks to the point that they had little, if any, effect on how I read her messages. I left my office and fixed a cup of coffee before returning to my desk. Just as I sat down and eased my back into the softness of my chair, the phone rang.
“Yes?” I said, picking up the phone.
“Attorney Gibbons is on Line One for you, Mr. Rush.”
“Okay,” I responded, placing the phone down.
Quickly, I fanned through my mental Rolodex to try to figure out who this guy was. I didn’t recall sending any letters to a “Gibbons.” Maybe he was an associate working with one of the lawyers I had an ongoing case with. I hated when lawyers did this: trying to catch you off guard with phone calls from people you’d never spoken with. I had already decided to make the phone call brief due to a deposition or something. I’d figure out the exact nature of the lie once I got on the phone.
“Hello? Rush speaking.”
“Mr. Rush? This is Gerald Gibbons, attorney for the Carter family, and I just wanted to ask if you had a burning desire to get disbarred, because what you’re trying to pull off will not only get your license stripped, but you could see some serious jail time.”
“Whoa! Slow down,” I said, flustered. “Come again?”
“I’ve been asked by the family to look into the little stunt you pulled yesterday.”
I paused, still trying to figure everything out. “Carter? As in Everett Carter?”
“Don’t play games, Mr. Rush. The family is in bereavement, and your callous actions are only making them more and more upset.”
“Okay, Mr. Gibbons, you obviously know something that I don’t, so you’ll need to fill me in on what you’re talking about.”
“I take it that you haven’t watched the news this morning.”
“No. Can’t say that I have. This is normally the time when I read the paper.”
“Well, Mr. Carter passed away last night.”
I stared blankly at my computer screen. “Did he commit suicide?”
“Are you kidding me? He’s been in a coma for the last three months since his stroke!”
I stood up slowly, leaning over my desk with the phone pinned between my ear and shoulder.
“I just saw Mr. Carter yesterday.”
“No, you didn’t. Mr. Carter hasn’t been conscious in months. Needless to say, the family is very upset about you preparing that will, and they’re contemplating suing you, especially since you have it in there that he’s giving all of his property to some little black fella.”
I puzzled over everything Gibbons was telling me, and none of it made sense. Then I wondered how he had found out about the will in the first place. Clearly the chancery clerk had called him shortly after I had dropped off the will. Something seemed very strange, and I was eager to get to the bottom of it.
In the Sunday paper, there was a huge spread about Everett Carter, and for the first time it hit me just what a big deal this all was. The words literally leapt off the page: “Local Millionaire Succumbs.” There was a large picture of Mr. Carter, clad in a tuxedo, accepting some award from the local Chamber of Commerce. It was definitely the same man who had come into my office. The same bushy eyebrows and clean-shaven face. As far as I was concerned, Mr. Carter must have woken up from his coma, gotten dressed, and come down to my office to get the will done without anyone knowing. Maybe that’s why he was wearing overalls and flannel. And maybe that’s why he selected me, since I was not a native of Humma County and wouldn’t have known him from a hole in the wall.
The following day, I was subpoenaed for a hearing concerning issues with Mr. Carter’s will. On the day of the hearing, I took one of the office copies of Mr. Carter’s will, as well as a copy of the check that we kept on file. I even asked Brandi, who was equally clueless, to come with me, in the event that I needed to have her there.
After being sworn in, Gibbons lit into me as if I had stolen his child’s trust fund. He asked me if I was aware of Mr. Carter’s standing in the community. My ignorance of such a thing seemed tragically amplified in such a setting. He then inquired if I was aware that Mr. Carter had been comatose for nearly three months. After attempting to thoroughly embarrass me, I offered a copy of the will and the canceled check. I could have been handing him toilet paper for how little attention he paid these records. Looking at the faces of the four preppy white young adults identified as Mr. Carter’s children, I knew that all they wanted was blood.
After being publicly roasted, the judge, a thin redheaded man who appeared to be in his forties, called both Gibbons and me into his chamber.
“Mr. Rush, if I didn’t know better, I would think that you consciously created those documents to slander the good name of Everett Carter. Do you have any proof that Mr. Everett actually got up from his sick bed to come to your office?”
“Your honor, I have his check to my office, the signed will, and even the other witness whose signature is on the document. I’m pretty sure a handwriting analyst could verify the signature and settle this matter with ease. In all honesty, your Honor, that’s more than enough to prove my case.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he responded sternly.
“Your Honor,” Gibbons said. “I am the family attorney for the Carters. I prepared Everett’s will five years ago, and if he had wanted to make any changes, he would have surely called me. Also, lest I remind you, your Honor, I have sworn affidavits from the nurses and doctors at Humma County Hospital stating that Everett could not have gotten out of his bed. In fact, the medical records reflect that he never regained consciousness after his stroke and died peacefully. If we are to believe what Mr. Rush says, then Everett got out of his bed and went down to the office of some attorney he’d never dealt with to get a will done in which he left everything to some kid, whom I believe is African-American. It makes absolutely no sense at all, your Honor.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” the judge said. “Mr. Rush, I believe that this is a deliberate attempt to smear the name of an upstanding citizen of this great community. I am going to formally recommend charges be brought against you by the state bar and that you are prosecuted to the highest extent of the law.”
I stared at the both the judge and Gibbons, my jaw agape. At that moment, it dawned on me that I was the only face of color in the judge’s chamber. It all started to make sense to me, and I wanted to protest out of anger, but the thought of being held in contempt was not what I wanted. I figured I would just have to take my fight to the appellate level.
Apparently Gibbons or the judge had some pull with the ethics committee, and I was publicly reprimanded, where I had to go before the same judge in Humma County to have charges of my “dishonest behavior” read allowed and recorded for posterity. My disbarment followed closely on the heels of the reprimand. They never attempted to prosecute me though, maybe because they knew that my evidence would have held up if the thin light of justice had ever entered the courtroom.
A year later, while I was teaching a few courses at the Humma County Community College, I was combing through my roll on the first day of class. Right there, near the top of the roll, was the name “Tyrell Carter.” When I called his name, he said quietly, “Present.” His light complexion, sandy hair, and bushy eyebrows left me little reason to suspect he was anyone other than who I thought he was. He was dressed simply, a large white t-shirt and a pair of natty, worn jeans, his canvas Converse sneakers tearing around the soles.
I wanted to tell him what had happened with Everett and the Carter family battles in court, but it all seemed like a sour footnote for a history both of us had been written out of. Plus, I was pretty sure that he knew well the details that had scandalized the town only a year earlier.
Once the class ended, I approached him. “If you have any problems with this class, don’t hesitate to let me know. We are going to get through this together. Okay?”
“Okay,” he responded, nodding his head and disappearing into the thick throng of students roaming the halls.