returned to its gloominess. Every day the patients yelled at Pete and asked when Liza was coming back.
She returned in mid-March and brought the family with her. Joel and Stella were on spring break and eager to see their father. For three days, they camped around his bed and in general turned the ward upside down. When they were gone, Pete slept for two days, aided by sedatives.
On May 4, he was taken by ambulance to the train station and loaded onto an army hospital ward car for a ride across the country. It stopped many times as men were carried away to other hospitals closer to home. On May 10, it arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, and Liza, Stella, and Florry were waiting. They followed the ambulance across town to the Foster General Hospital, where Pete spent the next three months convalescing.
Part Three
The Betrayal
Chapter 36
Two weeks after his execution, the last will and testament of Pete Banning was probated in the Chancery Court of Ford County. John Wilbanks had prepared the will not long after the trial. It was straightforward and left the bulk of Pete’s assets in a trust for Liza, with Wilbanks serving as the trustee, or controller. Pete’s most valuable asset, his land, had already been deeded to Joel and Stella in equal shares, and this included their fine home. Pete had insisted on a stipulation that Liza be allowed to live in the home for the rest of her life, provided she did not remarry, and provided that she was one day released from Whitfield. John had cautioned him that such a clause might be hard to enforce if the children, as owners, for some reason wanted to prevent their mother from living there. The will had other problems, all carefully pointed out by the lawyer and all stubbornly ignored by the client.
At the time of his death Pete owned his farm equipment, vehicles, and bank accounts, from which Liza’s name had been removed after her commitment. Before then, the accounts had been held jointly, but Pete did not want her to have access to the money. His personal checking account had a balance of $1,800. His farm account, $5,300. And he had $7,100 in a savings account. A week before his execution he transferred $2,200 to Florry’s account to cover the expenses of Joel’s and Stella’s education. He also gave her a small metal safe containing just over $6,000 in cash and gold coins, money that could never be traced. He had no loans and no debts, save for the usual ongoing expenses of running the farm.
He instructed John Wilbanks to probate his estate as soon as possible and file tax returns. He appointed Florry his executrix, and, in writing, told her to pay the Wilbanks firm whatever was owed, and left her a list of other matters to attend to.
In 1947, good farmland in Ford County was worth approximately $100 an acre. In broad strokes, Pete left to his children real estate worth around $100,000, including the home. To his wife, he left about one-fourth of that amount, all tied up in a trust, and, as John Wilbanks pointed out over and over, all subject to trouble should Liza decide to challenge the will.
Pete was certain that she would not.
Upon opening the estate, Wilbanks followed the statutory requirement of posting a notice in the county newspaper on three consecutive weeks to alert potential creditors that all claims against the estate must be filed within ninety days. No other information about the estate was given, none was required.
Over in Rome, Georgia, Errol McLeish received through the mail his weekly copy of The Ford County Times. He scoured it every week to monitor the news, and he was waiting on the notice to creditors.
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Soon after the burial, Joel and Stella left the pink cottage. It had been a pleasant place to come home to from college, with hot food on the stove, a fire in the winter, music on the phonograph, and Florry with all of her eccentricities and animals, but she was such a large presence that the walls closed in quickly.
They settled into their old bedrooms, and went about the impossible task of trying to breathe some life into their home. They opened the doors and windows in an effort to circulate fresh air; it was summer and the heat and humidity suffocated the land. The phone rang constantly as all manner of strangers and friends called with kind words,