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 Jonessleeping 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.
