The Last Juror Read Free

crazy, and that the newspaper was indeed in dire financial straits. But, she said, the Caudles have family money!
    It would be years before I understood this mystery.
    In Mississippi, family money was not to be confused with wealth. It had nothing to do with cash or other assets. Family money was a status, obtained by someone who was white, somewhat educated beyond high school, born in a large home with a front porch—preferably one surrounded by cotton or soybean fields, although this was not mandatory—and partially reared by a beloved black maid named Bessie or Pearl, partially reared by doting grandparents who once owned the ancestors of Bessie or Pearl, and lectured from birth on the stringent social graces of a privileged people. Acreage and trust funds helped somewhat, but Mississippi was full of insolvent blue bloods who inherited the status of family money. It could not be earned. It had to be handed down at birth.
    When I talked to the Caudle family lawyer, he explained, rather succinctly, the real value of their family money. “They’re as poor as Job’s turkey,” he said as I sat deep in a worn leather chair and looked up at him across his wide and ancient mahogany desk. His name was Walter Sullivan, of the prestigious Sullivan & O’Hara firm. Prestigious for Ford County—sevenlawyers. He studied the bankruptcy petition and rambled on about the Caudles and the money they used to have and how foolish they’d been in running a once profitable paper into the ground. He’d represented them for thirty years, and back when Miss Emma ran things the Times had five thousand subscribers and pages filled with advertisements. She kept a $500,000 certificate of deposit at Security Bank, just for a rainy day.
    Then her husband died, and she remarried a local alcoholic twenty years her junior. When sober, he was semiliterate and fancied himself as a tortured poet and essayist. Miss Emma loved him dearly and installed him as coeditor, a position he used to write long editorials blasting everything that moved in Ford County. It was the beginning of the end. Spot hated his new stepfather, the feelings were mutual, and their relationship finally climaxed with one of the more colorful fistfights in the history of downtown Clanton. It took place on the sidewalk in front of the Times office, on the downtown square, in front of a large and stunned crowd. The locals believed that Spot’s brain, already fragile, took additional damage that day. Shortly thereafter, he began writing nothing but those damned obituaries.
    The stepfather ran off with her money, and Miss Emma, heartbroken, became a recluse.
    “It was once a fine paper,” Mr. Sullivan said. “But look at it now. Less than twelve hundred subscriptions, heavily in debt. Bankrupt.”
    “What will the court do?” I asked.
    “Try and find a buyer.”
    “A buyer?”
    “Yes, someone will buy. The county has to have a newspaper.”
    I immediately thought of two people—Nick Diener and BeeBee. Nick’s family had become rich off their county weekly. BeeBee was already loaded and she had only one beloved grandchild. My heart began pounding as I smelled opportunity.
    Mr. Sullivan watched me intently, and it was obvious he knew what I was thinking. “It could be bought for a song,” he said.
    “How much?” I asked with all the confidence of a twenty-three-year-old cub reporter whose grandmother was as stout as lye soap.
    “Probably fifty thousand. Twenty-five for the paper, twenty-five to operate. Most of the debts can be bankrupted, then renegotiated with the creditors you need.” He paused and leaned forward, elbows on his desk, thick grayish eyebrows twitching as if his brain was working overtime. “It could be a real gold mine, you know.”
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    B eeBee had never invested in a gold mine, but after three days of priming the pump I left Memphis with a check for $50,000. I gave it to Mr. Sullivan, who put it in a trust account and petitioned the court for the