“Not at all, Mr. Brigance. The last twelve months have been a nightmare. Seth just got tired of the pain. He knew he was dying. We knew he was dying. So no, no real surprise.”

“Wait till you read the will.”

A waitress blew by, barely slowing long enough to top off both cups of coffee. Amburgh took a sip and said, “Tell me your story, Mr. Brigance. How did you know Seth?”

“Never met him,” Jake said. He rattled off the short version of why he was now sitting at the table. Amburgh listened intently. He had a small round head that was slick on top, and his nervous habit was to start above the eyebrows with his right hand and sweep back, as if the few thick strands of dark hair needed to be continually plastered down. He wore a golf shirt, old khakis, and a light windbreaker, and looked more like a retiree than the businessman from the funeral.

Jake was saying, “Is it safe to assume you’re his most trusted lieutenant?”

“No, not at all. In fact, I’m not sure why Seth wants me involved in this. I can think of others who were closer.” A long sip of coffee, then, “Seth and I didn’t always get along. Several times I thought about leaving. The more money he made, the more risks he took. More than once I became convinced Seth was determined to flame out in some glorious bankruptcy, with the loot hidden offshore, of course. He became fearless, and it was frightening.”

“Now that we’re on the subject, let’s talk about Seth’s money.”

“Sure. I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t know everything.”

“Okay,” Jake said calmly, as if they were back on the weather. For almost forty-eight hours he had been consumed with the burning question of what did Seth possess? Finally, he was about to hear it. He had no legal pad, no pen at the ready, just a cup of black coffee before him.

Amburgh glanced around again, but no one was listening. “What I’m about to tell you is not well known. It’s not confidential, but Seth did a good job of keeping things hidden.”

“It’s all about to come out, Mr. Amburgh.”

“I know.” He took a sip of coffee as if he needed fuel, then leaned in a bit lower. “Seth had a lot of money, and he made it all in the past ten years. After his second divorce, he was bitter, angry at the world, broke, and also determined to make some money. He really liked his second wife, and after she ditched him he wanted revenge. To Seth, revenge meant making more money than what she got in the divorce.”

“I know her lawyer very well.”

“The big fat guy, what’s his name?”

“Harry Rex Vonner.”

“Harry Rex. I’ve heard Seth cuss him a few times.”

“He’s not the only one.”

“That’s what I hear. Anyway, Seth got his house and land, and he borrowed heavily against them to buy a big lumber mill near Dothan, Alabama. I was working there, buying timber, and that’s how I came to know Seth. He got it cheap, good timing. This was late 1979, the price of plywood spiked, and we were doing pretty well. We had a good hurricane season, lots of damage, lots of demand for plywood and lumber. He borrowed against the mill and bought a furniture factory near Albany, Georgia. The place made these oversized rocking chairs you see on the front porches of Griddle restaurants, coast-to-coast. Seth negotiated a contract with the chain and overnight they couldn’t make the rocking chairs fast enough. He pledged the stock, borrowed some more, and bought another furniture factory near Troy, Alabama. About that time he found a banker in Birmingham who was trying to grow his small bank into something much bigger, and he was aggressive. He and Seth were on the same page, and the deals came one after the other. More factories, more lumber mills, more timber leases. Seth had a nose for sniffing out businesses that were undervalued or in trouble, and his banker rarely said no. I warned him against so much debt, but he was too reckless to listen. He had something to prove. He bought an airplane, kept it in Tupelo so no one around here would know, and stayed in the air.”

“Does this have a happy ending?”

“Oh yes. Over the past ten years or so, Seth bought about three dozen companies, primarily furniture plants in the South, some of which he moved to Mexico, but also lumber yards and sawmills, along with thousands of acres of timber. All with borrowed money. I mentioned the one banker in Birmingham, but there were others. The bigger he got the easier it became to borrow more. As I said, it was at times frightening, but the guy never got burned. He didn’t sell a single thing he bought, just held on, looking for the next deal. Deals and debts were like an addiction to Seth. Some men gamble, some drink, some chase women. Seth loved the smell of somebody else’s money as he bought another company. He also liked women.

“Then, sadly, he got sick. It was about a year ago when the doctors told him he had lung cancer. He was ripping along at full speed until he went to the doctor. They told him he had a year, max. Needless to say, he was devastated. Without consulting anyone, he decided to sell out. A few years ago, we found the Rush law firm in Tupelo, and Seth finally had some guys he could trust. He hated lawyers and fired them as fast as he hired them. But the Rush firm convinced him to consolidate everything into one holding company. Last November, he sold the holding company to a leveraged buyout group in Atlanta for $55 million. He happily repaid his debts, to the tune of $35 million.”

“He netted twenty?”

“He netted twenty, give or take. There were a few other loose ends, including me. I had some stock in the holding company and so I walked away in good shape. I retired at the end of last year. I don’t know what Seth has done with the money since then, probably buried it in the backyard. Plus, he accumulated other assets that he kept out of the holding company. There’s a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, and quite a few other assets. There’s probably an offshore bank account or two.”

“Probably?”

“I can’t say for certain, Mr. Brigance. Just things I’ve heard over the years. As I said, Seth Hubbard loved his secrets.”

“Well, Mr. Amburgh, you as his executor and I as his lawyer have the job of tracking down all assets.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll need access to his office.”

“And where is that?”

“At the lumber yard near Palmyra. That was his only office. There’s a secretary there, Arlene, who runs the show. I spoke to her Sunday night and suggested that she keep everything locked up until she hears from the lawyers.”

Jake took another sip of coffee and tried to digest it all. “Twenty million bucks, huh? I can’t think of anyone else in Ford County with that kinda money.”

“I can’t help you there, Mr. Brigance. I’ve never lived there. I assure you, though, there’s no one here in Milburn County worth even a fraction of that.”

“It’s the rural South.”

“Indeed it is. That’s the greatness of Seth’s story. He woke up one day at the age of sixty and said I’m broke, tired of being broke, and damned if I’m not gonna make something. He got lucky on his first two deals, then discovered the beauty of using other people’s money. He mortgaged his own house and land a dozen times. Talk about brass balls.”

The waitress delivered oatmeal for Mr. Amburgh and scrambled eggs for Jake. As they sprinkled salt and sugar, Amburgh asked, “Did he cut out his kids?”

“He did.”

A smile, a nod, no surprise.

“You expected this?” Jake asked.

“I expect nothing, Mr. Brigance, and nothing surprises me,” he replied smugly.

“I have a surprise for you,” Jake said. “He cut out both of his kids, both of his ex-wives, who, by the way, are not entitled to anything, and he cut out everybody else except for his long-lost brother, Ancil, who’s probably dead, but if not gets 5 percent, his church, also on board at 5, which leaves a grand total of 90 percent left to his black housekeeper of three years, one Lettie Lang.”