Fowler stalked away, heading back to the bar. Before he ducked inside, he shouted a warning.
“You can’t be no Christian, Dr. Gaines. Probably don’t believe in God. Do you believe in omens? Well, there’s your omen!”
CHAPTER
36
Mary Stone
BULLOCK COUNTY COURTHOUSE UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
I hadn’t set a trial date yet. Too damn early, I opined. Dr. Bria Gaines had hired a new attorney: Benjamin Meyers, from Atlanta, Georgia. He’d only entered his appearance in court a couple months prior. It was a major case. He needed time to prepare.
Especially since he was traveling to Union Springs from Atlanta. That’s a long-ass round trip. It was a first for me, having an out-of-state lawyer throw his hat in the ring for one of my small-town Alabama trials. Had to wonder. What exactly was the motivation?
I’d done some investigation, just to satisfy my curiosity. Meyers was a native of Georgia, a graduate of Duke Law School. Went into a silk-stocking Atlanta firm after passing the bar but didn’t stay long. Made his name taking on high-profile cases—and winning them.
A high-stepping white boy tearing down the highway to Union Springs, to defend a young Black woman? Maybe he was kindhearted, compassionate. A supporter of feminist causes.
Or it might be, he was ambitious. Trying to enhance his reputation as a high-powered litigator.
Could be something else. There was that, too.
I intended to keep a sharp eye out.
Because I knew that a case like the Gaines trial wouldn’t die down or fade from public attention. Even though we had no hearings scheduled, no motions being heard, no jury panel scheduled.State v. Bria Gaineswas top of mind. The public imagination had been kindled, with emotions running high.
It was an uneasy balance I had to strike. Needed to give the defense and the State adequate time to get their ducks in a row. But not too much time, lest public reaction spin out of control.
That was the goal. I thought my balancing act was working reasonably well.
I was wrong.
I heard Luna knock. “Judge?” she called.
“Yeah? Come on in.”
She opened the door, stepped inside my office. She was holding her cell phone in her right hand. “Judge Mary, you got a minute? I need to show you something.”
Luna came over beside the desk with her arm extended. Holding her phone so close to my face my eyes couldn’t focus on the screen. But I did hear the scrambled sound of people fussing with one another.
I pushed back from my desk, wheeling my chair away from her. Didn’t mask my disapproval as I asked, “Is that social media? You know I don’t hold with that.”
“Yes, it’s Twitter. X, I mean. Judge, I know you don’t usually follow it—”
“Luna, I never look at it. No ‘usually’ to it. I pay no attention to that, don’t have the time or the patience to watch other people acting the fool.”
She still had that damn phone aimed straight at me. “Really, Judge, you ought to—”
“Girl, you know me better than this. Haven’t you heard me preach on the evils of TikTok and Twitter and Instagram? That stuff they post on there is toxic. It’s a time waster. People get all worked up, watching fights between folks they’ve never met, happening a thousand miles away.”
She wouldn’t back off. “Judge Mary, it’s not miles away. This video on X, it was shot right here. In Union Springs.”
That shook me. “What have you got there? What are you looking at?”
She handed her cell phone to me, and this time, I took it. Looked down at a frozen image. I tapped the arrow with my thumb and the action started. Two people were having an argument, people I’d never seen before. A middle-aged white man held a big poster:ABORTION IS MURDER. A young white woman—college-age, maybe—was trying to grab the poster, pull it out of his hands. They struggled over the rectangle of poster board. After about half a minute, the girl shoved the protester, and he pushed back. They screamed at each other. I couldn’t make out every word that they were saying. But the subject of the argument wasn’t a mystery.
The controversy over abortion rights had never been hotter, not in my lifetime. That dispute captured by the video might be playing out in any city in the United States. But the video hadn’t been filmed in some faraway place.
