She’d driven a quarter mile when she saw it. A truck pulled off the side of the road, idling.
After she passed, its brights came on and it pulled onto the road behind her.
Cocheta hit the gas, picked up speed.
The truck stayed right on her tail.
CHAPTER
39
Benjamin Meyers
MAGNOLIA APARTMENTS UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
Benjamin Meyers knew the ropes.
Over the past decade, he’d taken countless witness statements. Scores of depositions. He knew how to talk to people. All kinds of people. Old, young. Friendly, neutral, hostile. He had a skill for turning hostile witnesses around. One of his superpowers, some said.
He stood at the door of a fourplex—an old house chopped into four apartment units. Ancient layers of lead paint cracked like crocodile hide, sloughing off the door’s brass number. A makeshift label—masking tape and black marker—readAPT. #3.
Nobody answered when he knocked, but he could hear people inside, a babel of high-pitched voices, children shouting, arguing, making demands. He knocked again, louder.
This time, he heard a woman’s voice, her tone shrill: “Nova! You deaf? Get the door!”
Meyers waited. He heard footsteps, and a second later, thethunkwhen the dead bolt disengaged.
The door opened. A tall, Black teenage girl stood there in jeans and a T-shirt.
It was Meyers’s first face-to-face meeting with the State’s complaining witness. As the door creaked open, he wondered how he would be received.
One look gave Meyers his answer.Hostile.The girl clearly didn’t want him there.
Meyers gave her his trademark grin. “Hey, it’s Nova, right? I’m Benjamin Meyers. Pretty sure y’all are expecting me today.”
The girl cracked the door just wide enough for Meyers to squeeze through. He stepped into the tiny living room—a hive of crawling, rassling, squalling young creatures. He counted four, plus Nova.
Meyers raised his voice above the din. “Is your mother around?”
At that moment, Nova’s mom emerged from a bedroom, striking a pose in the doorway. Meyers did a quick assessment. Mom had taken pains with her appearance. Elaborate hairdo. Full makeup. Starla Jones was a remarkably attractive woman, and in admirable shape, especially considering she had birthed all the kids in the room.
With every witness, Meyers strove to be scrupulously polite, appropriate. “Good afternoon, Ms. Jones. I’m Benjamin Meyers. Counsel for Dr. Gaines.”
Nova’s mom was showing cleavage, and her jeans were tight. And she was barefoot, with toenails painted bright red.
She walked over and stuck out her hand. “Call me Starla.”
Maintain eye contact,thought Meyers.Don’t look down.
Don’t. Look. It was a challenge. Starla Jones was built like a brick shithouse.
“Ma’am, I appreciate you letting me come by your home to visit with y’all today. Hope it’s not an inconvenience.”
“You coming here? No inconvenience at all. You understand why I couldn’t come to your office with Nova. No way I could leave these other ones at home. They’d burn the house down.”
“Mama, look!” Meyers turned toward the kitchen. One of the kids had clambered up onto the kitchen counter and was crawling across the stovetop. Proudly.
Starla smacked her hands together. “Tre! You get off that stove right this minute. You could burn your damn hide off! Nova, get that child down from there!”
