Chapter 3 Summary

Jake Brigance, a thirty-two-year-old attorney, follows his own rules meticulously, arising at 5:30, arriving at the coffee shop by 6:00 a.m. and entering his office no later than 7:00. After kissing his wife, he briefly thinks of the occasional mornings when he does more than kiss her. He kisses the cheek of his sleeping daughter, four-year-old Hanna, and makes coffee for his wife, Carla. It is May 15, and Jake feels summer approaching.

Jake and Carla own one of the two homes in Ford County that appear on the National Register of Historic Places, a lovely Victorian with an expensive paint job and many unique architectural features. They borrowed heavily to buy the home, which had been vacant for twenty years.

Jake enters his red Saab, the only Saab in Ford County, and drives to the north side of the well-manicured Clanton Square, which features the...