By midnight, he understood the case better than Bobby ever would. By 2:00 in the morning, he understood something else.
This wasn't a normal property dispute. The paper said Belmont had just discovered a 22-year-old mistake. That was the part that didn't sit right. You can't sue somebody about a thing that happened 22 years ago; there's a clock that runs out unless you can convince a judge you only just found out. Which means a judge has to let you. Which means somebody somewhere was already counting on a particular judge.
Kendrick wrote three words in the notebook, underlined them twice: Find the judge.
Over the next eight days, Bobby tried three lawyers.
The first was Garrett Whaley. Glass desk, leather chairs, a photograph of himself shaking hands with a state senator on the wall. Whaley flipped through the lawsuit for 90 seconds, maybe less. He slid it back across the desk like it was contagious.
"Mr. Jackson, let me save us both some time. You're going up against Belmont in Judge Blackwood's courtroom. That's not a trial. That's a foregone conclusion with extra steps."
Bobby asked what it would cost to try anyway.
Whaley glanced at Kendrick, still in the chair beside his father, still writing in that blue notebook, taking notes on the meeting itself, and gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "More than your truck out there is worth, sir. A lot more."
Kendrick wrote Whaley: gatekeeper in the notebook, drew a circle around it, and drew an arrow pointing out of the office.
The second lawyer wanted $15,000 just to look at the file. Bobby laughed when he heard the number. Not a happy laugh, but the kind of laugh you make when there's nothing else in the room that fits the situation.
"Sir, I don't have fifteen hundred."
The lawyer shrugged. He had another appointment. Bobby stood up, thanked him for his time, and closed the door very gently on the way out.
The third was Devon Marsh. Devon's office was in the next county over, in a strip mall between a tax preparer and a dollar store. Small, one room. The brass nameplate by the door read: Devon Marsh, Attorney at Law.
He was the only Black attorney in the entire region. He was also the only one who'd ever filed an ethics complaint against Judge Blackwood. He'd been audited by the IRS three times the year after. His landlord had doubled his rent. His biggest client, a Black-owned trucking company he'd represented for eight years, had switched firms one Tuesday with no explanation. By the end of that year, Devon's practice had shrunk to almost nothing. He was still standing, but just barely.
He listened to Bobby's whole story without interrupting. He didn't take a single note, just listened, hands folded on his desk, eyes never leaving Bobby's face. When Bobby finished, Devon turned and looked at Kendrick for the first time.
"How old are you, son?"