Prologue
2004
The wizened jurist watched his courtroom filling with vultures, all buzzing and flapping their gums. Will Turner had been a federal judge in Grand Junction, Colorado for the past five years and the sight made him nauseous. Many were surprised, especially the attorneys, to discover the hearing to contest a will had come to a federal court. Judge Turner was certain his request to conduct the proceedings—actually a mock trial that no judge would allow in real life—had been kept secret. No attorney worth spit would allow a judge to preside over a legal proceeding involving one of his best friends, a man whose ill-fated relatives had been investigated in earlier years by that same judge as a United States Attorney. He’d also ordered his clerk, Madge Hopkins, to schedule it for a hot Saturday morning that was inconvenient to the plaintiffs. Why there was a hearing was no mystery. The trail led straight to West Slope Energy, and their bevy of three-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyers. WSE and the handful of scavenging relatives, potential heirs of their wealthy family patriarch, had partnered to request this debacle in Judge Turner’s court. The scent of greed was palpable.
He had come into the room early just to witness the circus, Madge told him about. “Will, you won’t believe the sight. Go see for yourself. Why, good gracious Miss Agnes, those people will start eating their young soon if you don’t get out there and restore decorum.”
Madge frequently exaggerated, but this time she’d nailed it. Will’s audience was a roiling mélange of competing interests: relatives claiming shares of a man’s legacy before he was deceased. Will shook his head. These were the same folks who’d spurned Jim Montgomery and never visited him once since his illness. But they’d showed up quickly after Jim’s family trust had been revealed. Drooling relatives were packed shoulder to shoulder with slicked-back, corporate executives from WSE. And up front at the table reserved for lawyers for the plaintiffs, whose number seemed to multiply akin to jack rabbits, were six attorneys.
This day alone would result in forty billable hours and a $14,400 tab for WSE. High stakes for anyone’s pocket. And all because of the hard work of one man, Jim Montgomery. Jim was a legend and an enigma. Judge Turner’s personal friendship with Jim would be his secret in this surreal hearing until the coup de gras he planned for the conclusion. As a World War II combat vet, Jim had returned to run the family ranch. He’d done well without help from his brother and sister who were the main instigators for today’s hearing. Jim had chosen the tough life of raising cattle and his hard-earned wealth was now being fought over by unscrupulous siblings.
Fools, thought Judge Turner as he scanned the “score card” Madge had typed up for him. It listed the descendants from Massey and Samantha Montgomery, Jim’s brother and sister. Plus a batch of their offspring, a smattering of nieces and nephews. And only one family had opted out of the mêlée taking place in this hearing: the California Montgomerys, Wallace and Jane, from Rialto, a suburb of Los Angeles.
