The Summons by John Grisham

he was getting what he wanted.
    Finally she put forth an ultimatum, which proved tobe a bad strategy. Ultimatums did not impress Reuben Atlee. The year before he got booted from office, Claudia married a man nine years younger. The Judge promptly fired her, and the coffee shops and knitting clubs talked of nothing else. After a few rocky years, her younger man died. She was lonely, so was the Judge. But she had betrayed him by remarrying, and he never forgave her.
    “Where’s Forrest?” she asked.
    “He should be here soon.”
    “How is he?”
    “He’s Forrest.”
    “Do you want me to leave?”
    “It’s up to you.”
    “I’d rather talk to you, Ray. I need to talk to someone.”
    “Don’t you have friends?”
    “No. Reuben was my only friend.”
    He cringed when she called him Reuben. She stuck the cigarette between her gluey red lips, a pale red for mourning, not the bright red she was once known for. She was at least seventy, but wearing it well. Still straight and slim, and wearing a tight dress that no other seventy-year-old woman in Ford County would attempt. She had diamonds in her ears and one on her finger, though he couldn’t tell if they were real. She was also wearing a pretty gold pendant and two gold bracelets.
    She was an aging tart, but still an active volcano. He would ask Harry Rex whom she was seeing these days.
    He poured more coffee and said, “What would you like to talk about?”
    “Reuben.”
    “My father is dead. I don’t like history.”
    “Can’t we be friends?”
    “No. We’ve always despised each other. We’re not going to kiss and hug now, over the casket. Why would we do that?”
    “I’m an old woman, Ray.”
    “And I live in Virginia. We’ll get through the funeral today, then we’ll never see each other again. How’s that?”
    She lit another one and cried some more. Ray was thinking about the mess in the study, and what he would say to Forrest if he barged in now and saw the footprints and scattered boxes. And if Forrest saw Claudia sitting at the table, he might go for her neck.
    Though they had no proof, Ray and Forrest had long suspected that the Judge had paid her more than the going rate for court reporters. Something extra, in exchange for the extras she was providing. It was not difficult holding a grudge.
    “I want something to remember, that’s all,” she said.
    “You want to remember me?”
    “You are your father, Ray. I’m clinging here.”
    “Are you looking for money?”
    “No.”
    “Are you broke?”
    “I’m not set for life, no.”
    “There’s nothing here for you.”
    “Do you have his will?”
    “Yes, and your name is not mentioned.”
    She cried again, and Ray began a slow burn. She got the money twenty years ago when he was waiting tables and living on peanut butter and trying to survive another month of law school without getting evicted from his cheap apartment. She always had a new Cadillac when he and Forrest were driving wrecks. They were expected to live like impoverished gentry while she had the wardrobe and the jewelry.
    “He always promised to take care of me,” she said.
    “He broke it off years ago, Claudia. Give it up.”
    “I can’t. I loved him too much.”
    “It was sex and money, not love. I’d rather not talk about it.”
    “What’s in the estate?”
    “Nothing. He gave it all away.”
    “He what?”
    “You heard me. You know how he loved to write checks. It got worse after you left the picture.”
    “What about his retirement?” She wasn’t crying now, this was business. Her green eyes were dry and glowing.
    “He cashed in the year after he left office. It was a terrible financial blunder, but he did it without my knowledge. He was mad and half-crazy. He took the money, lived on some of it, and gave the rest to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Lions Club, Sons of the Confederacy, Committee to Preserve Historic Battlefields, you name it.”
    If his father had been a crooked judge, somethingRay was not