Bria nodded. The outside doors would open soon, and an elevator was not a good place to get stuck with a bunch of haters.

  Together, they headed for the back staircase and wound their way to the second floor. When they approached the courtroom, it was still dark. Bria peeked through the narrow glass panes on the double doors. No lights on inside, and she couldn’t see a soul. When Ben pulled on the brass handle, she knew the door wouldn’t open. No surprise. Just more bad luck.

  Meyers looked down the hall. “The bailiff will be here any minute. You need a place to sit?”

  Bria shook her head. She felt safer near the courtroom, even though it was the place where her adversaries intended to convict her. Maybe it was Judge Stone’s aura. For some reason, Bria really trusted her.

  As much as she trusted anyone right now.

  Meyers took his place alongside her against the marble wall as they waited. Bria stood quietly, trying to distract herself—until she couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Ben,” she said. “I need to use the restroom. And no, you can’t come with me.”

  She stepped away from the wall and turned left down a corridor. The ladies’ room was about halfway down, behind a thick oak door with gilt lettering.

  Bria pushed the door open. An automatic sensor turned the lights on. The restroom was empty. She had the whole place to herself. A rare luxury.

  Bria opened the first stall and closed the door. She lifted her skirt and slip and pulled down her underwear. As soon as she sat down, she heard the clatter of an elevator door from the hallway, and then the sound of rushing feet and voices.

  Shit! They’d let the spectators in!

  A few seconds later, she heard the ladies’ room door swing open as a pack of women surged in. Bria could hear the other stalls opening and then slamming shut. She could hear faucets turning on. She could smell perfume and hair spray. She could hear snippets of conversation beneath the sound of industrial-strength hand dryers. Some of it was about her.

  When she was done, Bria adjusted her clothes, opened the stall door, and moved quickly to the last sink in the row. She didn’t look left or right, trying to keep from making eye contact. She kept her head down, not even looking into the mirror. In her peripheral vision, she could see four women reapplying lipstick and touching up their hair.

  As Bria soaped her hands, someone shoved her hard, knocking her into the sink. She looked to the right, over her shoulder. In that instant, she felt someone grab her left arm. She saw a white woman’s hand holding a red marker. In a flash, the woman made a scrawl on Bria’s wrist. Bria jerked away. “Don’t touch me!” But the stranger was already gone, the door closing behind her.

  Bria didn’t take the time to blow her hands dry. She just shook them over the sink, then walked out of the restroom without looking back. As she left, she glanced down at the red scribble on her skin. It looked like an H drawn by a child. She pulled her blouse cuff down over it.

  Ben Meyers was waiting on the other side of the hall. He briskly walked over to meet her. “Bria, what’s wrong? What happened?” Clearly, he could see it in her face.

  She pulled him into an alcove and held up her wrist. “Somebody did this to me in there!” She nodded toward the restroom. “They wrote an H on me. Like a brand.”

  Meyers lifted her hand and stared at the mark, his face creased with concern. He looked up. “That’s not an H, Bria. It’s a K.”

  CHAPTER

  60

  By now the courtroom was open. Spectators were pouring in. Bria held on to Meyers’s arm as he led her through the huge double doors and down the center aisle to the defense table.

  As soon as they sat down, Meyers shifted in his seat, looking around the gallery. “Is she in here? The nutjob who wrote on you?”

  Bria scanned the room. “I don’t know.” She couldn’t tell. She had barely caught a look at her as she disappeared. “Don’t make a big thing out of it. I’ll just keep my sleeve rolled down.”

  “I want to pick a fight over it,” said Meyers. “Nobody gets away with assaulting my client in the damned bathroom.”

  He wasn’t listening to her, she thought. He didn’t understand. Bria wanted to let it pass. She had to pick her battles. Her reserve of energy was sorely depleted.

  But the conversation would have to wait. The door to Judge Stone’s chambers opened, and the court bailiff called, “All rise! Circuit Court of Bullock County, Alabama, is in session, Judge Stone presiding.”

  As Bria pushed back her chair and stood up next to Meyers, she slipped her hands into the pockets of her skirt.

  Judge Stone took the bench, carrying a small wicker basket with her. She set it beside her laptop. “Be seated,” the judge said.

  Bria sat down and put her hands in her lap.

  Judge Stone turned to the fourteen people in the jury box. “Good morning! Hope y’all are rested. Are the accommodations okay? Everyone have enough hot water? Beds pretty comfortable?”

  The jurors nodded—without enthusiasm. They weren’t being lodged in luxury accommodations.

  The judge launched into a recitation of the jury’s obligations. Meyers bent his head and murmured to Bria. “Put your hands out where the jurors can see them.”

  Her arm jerked, as if he’d startled her. She bent her head toward his to whisper, “What if they notice the red ink?”

  “They have to see your hands. Don’t want to leave an impression that you’re hiding something.”

  She didn’t counter his advice. Bria knew he was the expert about the courtroom. With a swift move, her hands appeared on the table, folded, as if in prayer.

  Judge Stone wrapped up her jury instructions. Bria watched the judge rise from the bench with the wicker basket, descend the steps, and walk over to the jury box.

  “I have a tradition in jury trials. As long as I’ve been on the bench, I like to have a hard candy while I’m listening to the court proceedings. I think it helps me pay attention. Stay focused. Plus, I like candy. Always have, since I was a kid. And if I get to have it, my jury does, too.”

  Bria tried to smooth the fabric of her sleeve while the judge commanded the jury’s attention.

  The judge held up a red-and-white-striped peppermint for the jurors to see. “They’re individually wrapped. We’re not sharing germs, just sharing hard candies! Don’t worry about me doing anything that will make my jurors get sick. You’re important to me. No way I’d risk your health.”

  That got a chuckle. The wicker basket was passed from hand to hand, and most of the jurors took a piece. When a heavyset woman passed it along, she said, “I’d love to eat the whole basket, Your Honor, but my doctor won’t let me.”

  The judge slapped her forehead. “What am I thinking? Tomorrow I’ll bring in some sugar-free.”

  More laughter. Bria could tell that the jury was relaxing. And she’d begun to ease up, too. Her hands weren’t so tense, the tendons were less prominent. Ben glanced over at Bria. When he caught her eye, she gave him a slight smile.

  He scribbled a note on his yellow legal pad. Judge is warming them up. A laughing jury is good for the defense.

  That made sense to Bria. Sending people to prison was a serious business. No joking around about that.

  When Judge Stone returned to her seat, she turned to the prosecution table.

  “Is the State ready to make an opening statement?”

  Robert Reeves, the DA, stood and buttoned his jacket. “If it please the court.”

  “Proceed.”

  Reeves strutted over to the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is what the evidence will show.”

  Bria felt Ben give her a gentle nudge, to remind her: Don’t flinch.

  The DA made the very move that Benjamin had warned her to expect. Raising his voice, he said, “The State of Alabama will present evidence that the defendant, this woman—”

  He jabbed his index finger in her direction. And repeated himself, lest there be doubt. “This woman, Bria Gaines, sitting in the courtroom today, committed the Class A felony of performing an abortion on Nova Jones in Bullock County, Alabama.”

  Bria was prepared. She knew that the DA was likely to kick off his opening statement by pointing a literal finger of accusation at her. She lifted her chin, with a shade of defiance, and calmly returned the stare.

  Reeves glanced down at a note card he held. “The State will prove that Nova Jones got pregnant in the back seat of a car when she had intercourse with an unknown teenage boy. She’ll testify that she joined a party of other kids—older kids—in Union Springs. Nova will testify that she doesn’t recall a lot of the details about that night. There was drinking involved, and marijuana—those gummies that look like candy. She didn’t know the boy, doesn’t remember who it was.”

  The DA cleared his throat. He looked uncomfortable. “And she’ll probably tell you she didn’t consent to sexual relations. Well, not that she recalls, anyway. That fact, though? It doesn’t matter, not in the case we’re bringing before you, ladies and gentlemen. In this case, her consent to relations, or lack of it, is irrelevant to the charge. Has no bearing on abortion law in Alabama.”

  He paused, moving to the right and looking out at the roomful of spectators, like he was playing to the whole audience.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, in the great State of Alabama, the law regarding abortion is clear. It’s simple. We don’t penalize the pregnant women who get an abortion. Our law focuses on the people who perform abortions, the ones who actually take the life of an innocent unborn child.”

  Reeves swung back to the jury. “Under our criminal code, all abortions are illegal unless necessary to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother. The defendant in this case acted in complete disregard of the Alabama Human Life Protection Act. And the girl, Miss Nova Jones, that the defendant performed the felonious, illegal procedure upon? She was thirteen, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Thirteen! That abortion, it could have killed her.”

  She saw Ben Meyers scribble on his legal pad. 13 y/o! PG could’ve killed her

  He wrote two more words and underlined them.

  Reasonable Doubt

  CHAPTER

  61

  Mary Stone

  BULLOCK COUNTY COURTHOUSE UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA

  We hadn’t made it through the first morning of testimony, and I’d already grown uneasy about the unrest I sensed in my courtroom.

  The spectators were reactionary, volatile. I’d never presided over a courtroom with so much emotional energy. Had never seen it as charged up like that, as a lawyer or a judge. It worried me. I could not—must not—permit the courtroom to spin out of control.

  When I broke for a short recess following opening statements, Benjamin Meyers informed me that a woman went after Bria Gaines in the restroom, took a red marker to her wrist while Bria was washing her hands. Well, I wasn’t putting up with that. I talked to my clerk; Luna would have to accompany the defendant into the restroom during recess. I’d called the sheriff’s office first and told Owens about it, but the sheriff said he didn’t have a woman to spare, that his staffing was already stretched from the demands of the trial.

  The prosecution had started off with medical evidence. The DA was questioning the ER doctor who’d treated Nova Jones. “Dr. Thompson, what did you observe regarding Miss Jones’s condition?”

  The witness tugged at his collar, which was too tight for his neck. I could hardly believe that the DA had managed to convince Ron Thompson to wear a suit and tie. He was almost seventy, counting down to retirement, and unapologetically committed to comfort waistbands in his king-size attire.

  Dr. Thompson had worked at our shabby hospital for decades. When Bria Gaines came to town, it had felt like progress in our community. People had the option to seek care from a young Black woman rather than an elderly white man. A sizable number of his patients left Thompson for Dr. Gaines’s clinic, and he’d cut his hours back as a result, leaving the community with less care. He wasn’t a bad doctor, but his passion for the profession had fizzled decades prior.

  Thompson said, “The patient was in distress, exhibiting signs of extreme discomfort. She had heavy bleeding from the uterus and blood clots. The attending ER nurse had told me that the girl was miscarrying a pregnancy, but—”

  Benjamin Meyers was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay.”

  “Sustained.” If the DA wanted the jury to hear what the ER nurse thought or said, they would need to swear her in and put her on the witness stand.

  I heard sounds of disapproval from the spectators. My eyes scanned the gallery as I cut them a sharp look. It silenced them.

  Reeves said, “Doctor, based upon your education, training, and experience, do you have an opinion as to the cause of Nova Jones’s condition on that date?”

  “I do.”

  “What is that opinion?”

  “She’d had an abortion. Suction curettage—also known as vacuum aspiration. Probably at the end of her first trimester. There are medical risks with the procedure. The bleeding and clots were related to that. And she’d developed a pelvic bacterial infection—not severe, at that point. I treated it with oral antibiotics.”

  Reeves had strolled over to the jury box. He was leaning against the wooden railing on the far corner of the enclosure. “In your opinion, Doctor, was Nova Jones’s pelvic infection caused by the abortion that had been performed by the defendant?”

  Meyers on his feet again. “Objection, Your Honor! Calls for speculation, assumes facts not in evidence.”

  Meyers was right. They hadn’t yet put on a witness to testify that Nova’s abortion was performed by Bria Gaines.

  Reeves waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll tie it up later, Judge.”

  He would, I knew that. But the DA had to play by the rules in my court. “Objection sustained.”

  An unpopular ruling. The heated murmurs circulated again, rising like a stench in the spectators’ section. I tapped the gavel. Shook my head at the gallery, giving them a baleful look, one they couldn’t mistake.

  The DA knew he had a cheering section out there. He glanced over at them before asking his next direct examination question. “Doctor, what are the medical risks and possible complications of abortion?”

  “Objection! Irrelevant, prejudicial—”

  He didn’t need to continue. Abortion itself was not on trial, not in my courtroom. “Sustained.”

  “Crooked judge! Let him answer!”

  It was a woman’s voice, coming from somewhere in the back of the room. I wheeled around to face the spectators. “Who’s speaking out? Interfering with this trial?”

  The room went dead quiet. I launched out of my chair, was marching down the center aisle of the room, without making a conscious decision to leave the bench.

  My voice bounced off the walls. “Y’all think I can’t hear you when I’m sitting up there? Think I can’t see?”

  I stopped midway, to scrutinize the faces in the rows. Hunting for the guilty or hostile expression that would give her away.

  It’s harder than you think, finding a wrongdoer that way, with the naked eye. I thought about the old saying, a needle in a haystack.

  Out of the blue, someone came to my rescue. “It was her! I heard her!”

  The finger of accusation was pointed at a woman in her forties, wearing an LSU shirt. Shit, I thought, some outsider from Baton Rouge. No surprise—another out-of-towner, coming into my town to kick up trouble.

  “Out,” I said. “I’m removing you from this courtroom.”

  I threw some dramatic flair into it, lifting my arm and pointing toward the exit, letting the full sleeves of my voluminous robe double my actual size. To handle this crowd, I needed to be larger than life.

  Ross Carr was coming down the aisle, ready to back me up. But she didn’t put up a fight, maybe because I appeared formidable—I sure as hell hoped so. I watched in silence as she shouldered her purse and departed.

  When the door shut behind her, I walked back to the front of the courtroom at a fast clip. Turned to face them all and said, “I don’t know where y’all are from, but it seems that there are some people who don’t know me. Because folks are acting out. Let’s start over, okay? I am Judge Mary Stone, and this is my courtroom.”

  I paused for a beat. Giving them a moment to see the fire in my eyes. “I have the duty to preside over this trial, and I take that responsibility very seriously. I will not permit these proceedings to go sideways, slip out of control. I understand that court proceedings are a matter of public record. But the right to sit in here and observe can be taken away—by me. I swear, I will clear this courtroom with a new broom if I have any more trouble in here. Y’all understand me?”

  My voice grew louder as I spoke. When I was done, I stood there for a minute, to let them know I meant it. Then I returned to the bench.

  “Mr. Reeves, you may continue.”

  “Dr. Thompson, in your opinion, did you see any evidence that Nova Jones had a health emergency or serious health risk? One that might have caused her life to be in danger prior to the abortion?”

  “I did not. Aside from her infection, bleeding, and pain, her general health was good.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  I nodded at the defense table. “Mr. Meyers, you may cross-examine.”

  He was ready, damn near jumping from his chair, he was so enthused. “Dr. Thompson, how many years did you say you’ve been in the practice of medicine?”

  “Forty-three years.”

  “In your education, training, and experience, what are the risks and dangers of adolescent pregnancies in young girls who are under fifteen years of age?”

  “Objection!” Reeves was out of his chair, no surprise. “Irrelevant!”

  “Overruled,” I said. The doctor shifted in his chair. I gave him a verbal nudge. “The witness may answer.”

  He was uncomfortable, I could tell. But he didn’t violate his oath to tell the truth. “Young adolescents have worse perinatal outcomes than older teens or pregnant adults. That’s always been true.”