I did not intend to lose control of the courtroom. I’d be damned if I’d let Erskine drag his pulpit up to my bench. “Sustained. Reverend Erskine, if you wish to remain in court, you’ll need to be seated. And you’ll hush your mouth. Unless—does the prosecution intend to put the pastor on the stand in this hearing?”

  The pastor did not sit his ass down. Erskine’s voice boomed, drowning mine out. “Judge! I can fix this problem. My church made it, it’s my responsibility to correct it.” He gazed around the courtroom, staring at Dr. Gaines before turning back to me. “If Victory Baptist has offended the law by providing food and clothing and rent money to the Jones family, we’ll cut it off. Immediately.”

  Well, shit.

  It made me sick. I was forcibly reminded of the passel of small children eating breakfast on my farm. Starla Jones had so many, I couldn’t keep all the names straight.

  My job is tough. And some days are worse than others. I kept my tone flat when I addressed the defense attorney.

  “Mr. Meyers? Is that what you want? Will the reverend’s proposal satisfy the defense?”

  I could catch her whisper when from the counsel table Bria Gaines said, “No!” Benjamin Meyers heard it, too. They consulted, a hushed exchange.

  He stepped back to the bench. “The defense doesn’t control the actions or decisions of the leadership at Victory Baptist Church. But the prosecution has permitted a coercive situation to develop, under which the State’s witnesses are rewarded for their participation in this criminal case against my client. On that basis, their testimony should not be admitted.”

  I was torn, shredded. I didn’t want to make the order that would dry up the Jones family’s grocery supplies. Starla and her kids needed whatever support the church could provide.

  But Bria deserved a fair trial. Her life was at risk.

  I almost chickened out. Almost said, “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  But that wouldn’t resolve anything. So I made my decision. Announced it from the bench. Just like the judgment of King Solomon. In the Book of Kings, the Old Testament story of the two women who claimed the same baby.

  “Defendant’s motion in limine is overruled. The receipt of donations from the members of Victory Baptist is not a basis to exclude Starla Jones and Nova Jones from testifying in this case.”

  I stole a look at Dr. Gaines. She was staring at a blank legal pad. Seemed like she’d lost all hope. So I split the baby. Like King Solomon offered to do.

  “But the defense raises a viable possibility that witnesses might be affected. The donations may continue, but the defense can use the facts regarding compensation in cross-examination at trial.”

  At that, the courtroom burst into a chorus of voices, all the lawyers talking at once.

  “Objection!”

  “This won’t work, Judge, you need to rethink it—”

  “This is an unreasonable ruling—”

  “What’s the church supposed to do? We need a firm decision!”

  I pounded that gavel. “Order!”

  Kept bringing the hammer down until the voices fell silent. I looked over at Marlena. “Did you get that ruling down?”

  Marlena nodded as her hands flew over the keyboard, recording the ruling.

  “Court is adjourned,” I said. In my no-bullshit judge voice.

  At the counsel tables, briefcases were slammed shut. Angry murmurs were just barely audible.

  No surprise. I could read the room. If King Solomon was still around, he could’ve warned me.

  When you split the baby—you make everybody mad.

  CHAPTER

  44

  I was late to meet my sisters. Not my fault, there was no help for it. The discovery hearing in a personal injury case ran long. The lawyers put on a show for their clients, objecting to everything, making long, stuffy speeches.

  So by the time I reached Coley’s, a restaurant on the other side of town, my sisters were already there. I spotted them in a booth against the far wall. Jordan raised her hand and waved.

  Coley’s was busier than usual. I shouldered my way through the crush, trying to avoid stepping on feet. I slid into the red vinyl booth, next to Nellie.

  They were dressed all in black, down to the toes of their church shoes.

  “Nice service?” I asked.

  They both nodded. I could tell Jordan had been crying.

  “Well attended, I expect?”

  Nellie put her napkin on her lap. “People were asking after you.”

  “Well, I hope you told them I had a full schedule at the courthouse. I had cases set. If I could’ve been there, I’d have gone. I feel terrible about Cocheta. Always liked her. I kept track of her after her divorce.”

  Jordan leaned forward. “He showed up. The husband.”

  I clapped my hand to my chest. “Oh, no, he did not.”

  Jordan lowered her voice to a whisper. “He threw himself on the casket. Carrying on and crying like a baby.”

  Nellie nodded. “Nobody believed it was for real. All for show. Pastor pulled him off.”

  I could picture the scene playing out. I’d seen Karl Bass’s theatrics in my courtroom. “The son of a bitch.”

  “The man ought to be in jail,” said Nellie.

  I felt the same way. If not for murder, at least for decades of mistreatment and abuse.

  To my sisters, I said, “I keep thinking about Cocheta’s body. I can’t put the sight out of my mind.”

  The three of us fell silent, experiencing a shared pain.

  “What happened to Daddy that night on the way to Birmingham”—I stammered, then fell silent again until I could conquer my fears—“that ain’t gonna happen to me.”

  Nellie said, “We never even said anything after what happened to Daddy. He just got back in the car and we went home.”

  I shivered at the memory.

  “Jordan,” I said. “You weren’t born yet, so you never had to see Daddy getting beaten by that deputy who said he was driving too fast.”

  “I always hated that story,” Jordan said. “Especially the part about how scared Mama was for our whole family.”

  The brass bell over the entrance jingled. I looked over as three white men entered the restaurant. My gut turned. The man in the lead was Mason Phelps, a notorious town troublemaker. He’d caused plenty of problems over the years. DWIs. Bar fights. Disturbing the peace. He’d been in my courtroom more than once.

  Phelps and his buddies all had the same basic wardrobe. Torn denim jeans, mesh snapback caps, gray T-shirts.

  Phelps’s tee bore the words SAVE OUR HERITAGE under the image of the Confederate flag. His companions’ shirts had a different logo. GOD BLESS THE SOUTH was screened under a design of the rebel flag draped over the cross.

  Wait. I’d seen that same design before. At the march in town. On the man who rescued me.

  It was a hard image to forget.

  Nellie nudged me. Nodded in Phelps’s direction. “I swear I’d heard that Phelps had finally given up. Some folks at school were saying his Neo-Confederate Club disbanded.”

  Jordan gave a nervous glance over her shoulder as Phelps started putting up posters of the same Confederate flag he wore on his shirt.

  “That’s what Trayvone said. He heard the same thing. Folks were saying the white supremacists lost their nerve after Charlottesville.”

  I couldn’t believe how naïve my sisters sounded, considering they’d both lived their whole lives in the Black Belt of Alabama.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “They didn’t disband. Just went underground for a while. Like hot coals under a layer of ash. People think the fire’s out, but sooner or later it’ll come back to life and burn the whole house down.”

  Phelps and his men chose a table with a clear view of us. They settled in and stared with an intensity in their gaze that sent fresh shivers down my spine.

  “I don’t like the way they’re staring at us,” Jordan remarked in a hushed tone.

  “I don’t like it, either,” replied Nellie. “Best not to start something. They want to get a rise out of us. They want a confrontation. It’s not worth it.”

  My sisters tried their best to carry on our conversation and ignore the men.

  I could still hear Phelps, though. Every word.

  He was talking about Alabama’s abortion law. It was a common topic these days. Everybody had an opinion. Sometimes I wondered whether folks ever talked about anything else.

  I caught Mason Phelps staring directly at me. I slipped out of the booth and stepped into the aisle. Had a rage burning deep inside me. I wanted to smack the smirk off his ugly face. The fearsome image of Cocheta swinging from that tree stopped me.

  Phelps stood. To make sure he had everybody’s attention, he raised his arms, revealing a mark burned into his forearm. A symbol that looked like the letter K.

  Apparently, he had one more announcement to make. He called it out in a booming voice.

  “There’s a protest coming up, folks! Biggest one anybody around here’s ever seen! A mess of warriors are coming, they gonna open people’s eyes in this town. Things are changing!”

  Then he looked straight at me. “Shit’s going back to how it used to be. God bless Alabama!”

  We girls sat frozen at our table until Nellie rose and broke the silence. “Let’s all walk out together.”

  I was taking care of the check when I heard Nellie emphatically whispering, “Jordan, no!”

  Jordan was standing frozen at the doorway. Staring down the men who represented everything that was taken from her with no repercussions. Staring… almost daring them to be men, to stand up and fight.

  Phelps took notice. He stopped his posturing. He stared back and took a bold step forward. His friends swayed as if slightly tipsy, though aware enough to see something big silently brewing.

  Nellie walked slowly to Jordan and put her hand on our baby sister’s shoulder. “Jordan, you don’t want this to be your story… not this part… not for your babies. Come on, now. Come on,” she whispered.

  I grabbed her hand that had twisted into a tight fist. She loosened it as Phelps slowly turned to her… ready to justify his hate, ready to show the subject of his hate the wrath of his anger.

  “Whatchu got, li’l nigra?” said Phelps with a chuckle.

  “That’s your problem, Phelps. You don’t know what I got,” said Jordan quietly… her voice steady with the strength of David before bringing Goliath down.

  She pulled her hand away from mine and walked out the door. I held it open for a few seconds, staring at them for emphasis, and walked out behind her.

  I kept waiting for them to follow us… to light a firestorm… but the parking lot was clear. We hugged goodbye in silence.

  I was sure the firestorm would come later. I was sure of it.

  CHAPTER

  45

  Benjamin Meyers

  BULLOCK COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA

  Benjamin Meyers parked directly across from the sign—BULLOCK COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL—with its image of the school mascot, a hornet. A big one, with human fists and a prominent stinger and a scowl on its face.

  Meyers checked the time on his car clock. 3:29. Almost time for the bell.

  While he waited, Meyers studied the exterior of the building. The one-story structure was in a state of disrepair. Student body was small—less than one hundred per class—and enrollment was declining. He’d done some research. The school had a demographic mix of races. Achievement test scores were nothing to brag about. Occasionally, BCHS lucked into a winning athletic team. They’d won a state championship a while back, got a new gymnasium built in the flush of that achievement. It was the only construction update the building could boast.

  Meyers heard the bell ringing inside. He stepped out of his car. The students were coming out, walking in clusters. He looked for groups of boys. Didn’t want to approach any girls. Ben wasn’t inclined to land himself in a jail cell.

  Meyers knew that BCHS students were required to wear uniform polos, in class colors. White for freshmen, gray for sophomores, black for juniors, gold for seniors.

  The color-coding made his prospecting a little easier.

  Meyers let the clusters of tall guys in gold pass him by. He had a feeling they wouldn’t engage. At seventeen or eighteen, males weren’t likely to confess to activity that would constitute a crime. Especially a sex crime. Especially a sex crime involving a minor.

  Meyers let the freshmen pass, too. They wouldn’t be at the top of the information pyramid.

  He aimed for the middle.

  There!

  He spotted a small group of boys, some in gray shirts, some in black. They were walking fast, jostling and shoving one another. Meyers had to jog a bit to catch up. When he got within hailing distance, he called out, “Hey! Can I talk with y’all a minute?”

  The guys kept moving, kept talking. But one turned around, checked Ben out. “Yeah? What do you want?”

  “Wanna ask you about a girl.”

  That got everybody’s attention. The whole group stopped and turned around. Meyers pulled out his cell phone and pulled up an image from Instagram. It was Nova Jones’s eighth-grade school picture. No telling who’d originally posted it.

  He held up his screen. “Y’all know this girl?”

  They all leaned in. One kid—short, with a high-pitched, prepubescent voice—spoke up. “Aw, shit, man—that’s Nova Jones!”

  His friends groaned, made weird faces and guttural animal sounds. Ben had to speak up to be heard. “Any of you ever hang out with her?”

  “Hell, no.” A Black dude in sophomore gray, the tallest in the group. Rail thin, wearing a pair of high-water khaki pants he’d outgrown. “I wouldn’t screw that girl with somebody else’s dick.”

  Meyers kept a poker face. Interesting that “hanging out” went right to sex. “Who do you see her hanging out with? Partying with?”

  Meyers saw another kid sizing him up. White guy, a junior in a black shirt. Blond hair, athletic build. Had a suspicious air.

  The kid narrowed his eyes. “You a cop or something?”

  “No, I’m the opposite of a cop. I’m a lawyer. I’m just trying to find out about Nova.”

  The blond kid had a swagger. “If you’re not a cop, maybe you shouldn’t be hanging around a school. Asking weird questions.”

  The blond kid had a sidekick. Shaggy-haired, squirrelly, with a case of cystic acne. “Yeah, why you hanging around here?”

  The tall Black guy looked around, like he was checking for a camera. “You on TikTok? Is this for a podcast? I don’t hang out with Nova, she too young. Too thicc, got that big back. Not hot enough for me. But she’ll do it with anybody. That’s what I hear.”

  Again with sex, Meyers thought. These guys seemed to have a one-track mind, at least where Nova Jones was concerned. “Okay, but who’s she with? Specifically?”

  “Everybody!” The short kid stepped close to Ben. His face was lit up. “Go ahead, dude! Put me on the podcast. Nova Jones sleeping with everybody! She don’t care if she even knows their name!”

  “Ever seen her at a party?” Meyers asked.

  A bunch of the kids chimed in all at once. “What party?” “Where’s the party?” “I wanna go!”

  Meyers was getting nowhere. He needed to pin something down. Anything. “Okay. Let me get specific. Do any of you know of anyone who says he had sex with Nova Jones last year?”

  The blond kid in the black shirt started smirking. “I heard she went down on the whole basketball team.”

  Another kid scoffed. “That’s a lie, that some crazy bullshit. Nova Jones always babysitting, dragging these brothers and sisters around. How she gonna hook up with everybody on the basketball team?”

  Blond kid said, “I heard it! I swear!” He raised his right hand, like he was taking an oath. Meyers caught a brief glimpse of a symbol burned into his forearm but couldn’t make it out. Looked like a letter.

  “I heard that, too,” added another kid. “Nova Jones, she’s the biggest whore in town.”

  “Thanks, guys.” Meyers turned back toward his car.

  Thanks for nothing.

  He was halfway down the sidewalk when one of the boys shouted after him.

  “Hey, dude! You want Nova’s number? Just call 4-1-7-I-M-A-H-O!”

  Meyers unlocked his car, slid into the driver’s seat, and started it up.

  The boys were still shouting. A couple of catcalls reached him. Suggestions of what Nova would do for a price.

  “Shit,” Meyers muttered. He put the car in gear and pulled out. He was relieved to have the BCHS hornet in his rearview mirror.

  He wished he’d never visited the school. It left him with a bad feeling. Like a storm was rolling in. The kind that turned the sky green and made even Alabama gators run for cover.

  CHAPTER

  46

  Mary Stone

  UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA

  By Saturday, it seemed like Mason Phelps had invited the whole damn town to his rally.

  And I couldn’t stay away.

  I know my decision to show up was foolhardy. Hotheaded. And injudicious—a troubling quality for a judge.

  But I had to stand up, see it for myself.

  I begged off from cleanup after breakfast on the farm, left it to my sisters to wash pots and pans and clear away the trash. Nellie wasn’t happy. She demanded to know why I was cutting out.

  So I lied. I came up with some bullshit excuse about a meeting of the area bar association and just took off.

  I needed to do this alone. I didn’t want my sisters with me in Union Springs that day. I had a feeling. A bad one.

  When I turned onto Prairie Street, it was already crowded. Vehicles lined the road, taking up every available parking space. I turned into my designated spot behind the courthouse.

  At least the sign RESERVED FOR CIRCUIT JUDGE MARY STONE still counted for something.

  As I opened my car door, I could see the crowd pouring in from the side streets and moving toward the main drag. The sheer volume amazed me. Made me nervous.