Judge Stone by James Patterson - 15

I didn’t break my neck on the staircase, not that day. And I managed to lose the DA when he paused on the stairway to speak to a local lawyer. At the bottom of the stairs, I made a dash down the central lobby and pushed through the back door. Straight to the parking lot.

I had my key fob in hand, my car unlocked. Pulled the driver’s door open just as an older-model SUV with a rattle in the engine roared into the lot, blocking me.

Nellie. My sister rolled down the car window. “Get in,” she said.

Nellie is not the boss of me. I’m the firstborn child, the one who had to babysit two little sisters so Mama could work the farm. But the expression she wore that day made me climb into the passenger seat without argument.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“For a drive. Maybe get a Coke at the McDonald’s.”

She gripped the wheel so hard that I could see the tendons stand out on her hands. Her voice was grim. “The sheriff came to school today. Mick Owens waltzed into the office like he owns the building. Didn’t even take off his shades.”

I’ve known Mick Owens since high school. He was my date to senior prom, in fact.

Mick drove us to the gym in his daddy’s pickup. Mama sewed my prom dress herself. We cut out early from the dance, for the usual teenage reasons, and went to the local make-out spot by the river, where we engaged in what the health teacher would have described as “heavy petting.”

Back at school on Monday, Mick implied to everybody that we’d done a lot more. He was generally believed. I’m still pissed off about that. Maybe I’ll get over it after another thirty-four years.

The image of the sheriff shaking up the school troubled me. “He’s pulling Nova Jones out of class, in front of her peers? That’s a clumsy way to investigate. Seems like he’d want to approach her at home, to respect her privacy. He needs to be careful with a child witness.”

“Not Nova. He came for the school nurse. Cocheta Bass. You know her?”

Sure, I knew everybody. In a town of three thousand, you do. “Our paths cross. At the Piggly Wiggly or the Dollar General.”

“He took her out of the building in handcuffs. She was crying, begging the office to call her son, let him know what’s happening.”

I was speechless. What the hell kind of role did the school nurse play in the scenario? The case was becoming more outlandish with each additional detail.

Nellie pulled up to the speaker in the McDonald’s drive-through lane and ordered a large Diet Coke. Glanced my way. “You want something?”

I shook my head. We didn’t speak again until Nellie had her drink in hand and rolled the window up.

“I guess everyone at school is freaking out,” I said.

She took a pull on the straw before she set her drink in the cupholder. “It’s wild. They’re already picking sides.”

“What?”

“Dividing into camps. For and against.” Nellie took her eyes off the road to give me a look. “Sure, there’s some people who are loyal to Cocheta and Dr. Gaines. But there’s other people saying they committed cold-blooded murder. That they killed a baby. A baby in the womb of a girl too young to know her own mind. A lot of people are saying it.”

“Damn.” My throat had gone dry. Wished I had ordered a big Diet Coke. I needed that cold carbonation to burn the ache away.

Nellie’s voice was flat. “You’re gonna have to pass on this one, Mary.”

“Oh, stop.” I picked up her drink. Lifted the lid and took a gulp from the side of the cup. Made me feel better, to tell the truth.

She grabbed the cup away from me, just like we were squabbling kids again. “Damn it, Mary! Why didn’t you order one for yourself? I don’t want your germs.”

“You never did like to share, Nellie.”

She scoffed at me. “Mary, you listen to me. I’m serious. Let some other judge handle this. Someone who doesn’t live right here in Bullock County. We’re going to see people all eaten up by this case, totally obsessed. The crazies will come out. Mark my words, Mary. This case will destroy you.”

“You’re being dramatic.” I turned away from her, looked out the window at the buildings as we passed. Our town was dwindling. People kept moving out, businesses shut down. But we still had a church on every street corner.

Nellie raised her voice, determined to be heard. “This is a losing proposition. Call it abortion, pro-life, pro-choice, women’s reproductive health. Doesn’t matter how you label it, there is no middle ground. None. Not here in Alabama. The issue fires people up, makes them unhinged. Whatever the outcome in that criminal case, a whole lot of people will be mad. You know who they’re gonna blame?”

Silence in the car. It wasn’t until she elbowed me that I realized. She expected an answer.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good. You tell me. Who are they going to blame? Who will people be mad at?”

I sighed. She was right on that one. “The judge.”

She repeated it. “The judge! That’s what I’m saying!”

She picked up her big cup of Diet Coke again. Our eyes met while she drank more down. I was shocked to see tears welling up in her eyes.

Quickly, I reassured her. “Nellie, I hear you. Consider your words marked.”

A tear ran down her face, and she wiped her nose. Her voice shook as she said, “I’m scared for you, Mary. I keep thinking about what happened to Daddy that time. You know what I’m talking about.”

My chest tightened. I did know what Nellie meant. And I didn’t like being reminded. Nellie and I had been grade-school age, Jordan wasn’t born yet. We’d been driving to Birmingham when our car was pulled over and Daddy had to get out of the car. The deputy didn’t like it when Daddy argued and insisted he hadn’t been driving too fast, hadn’t veered out of his lane. I won’t ever forget the sight of Daddy’s head getting split open while Nellie and I screamed and cried in the back seat. Mama was scared for us, said we had to quit making so much noise. She crawled halfway over the seat, trying to cover our mouths with her hands while the deputy beat my daddy by the side of the road.

But that was almost half a century ago. Times had changed since then. I squeezed Nellie’s shoulder. “Don’t be upset, Nellie. It’s going to be okay.”

She whispered, “I hope you’re right. Because I’ve got this bad feeling. Like everything is about to change.”

I wished she hadn’t confided that. I was starting to get that feeling, too.