“Basis?”
“Authentication.”
The prosecutor responded.
The judge listened to both sides.
No sarcasm.
No insult.
No assumptions.
Then the judge ruled.
“Objection sustained.”
Harper sat down.
Her client whispered, “How did you know?”
Harper looked at the young woman.
“Because somebody taught me to check everything.”
“Who?”
Harper thought about the answer.
Morris.
Judge Cross.
Her mother.
Malik.
Even Brenner.
Even Hensley.
Even Pike, though never in the way he intended.
“A lot of people.”
After the hearing, Harper remained in the empty courtroom for a moment.
Sunlight entered through the high windows.
She looked toward the bench.
She could still remember seventeen-year-old Harper standing there with papers trembling only slightly in her hands.
She remembered the laughter.
She remembered Brenner asking whether she knew what an objection meant.
She remembered saying yes.
Back then, she thought she had entered the courtroom prepared to rewrite the rules.
She knew better now.
The best rules had already been written.
Due process.
Equal protection.
Presumption of innocence.
Disclosure.
Fair hearing.
Accountability.
The problem had never been that justice lacked rules.
The problem was that people sometimes decided those rules mattered less when the person standing in front of them seemed young, poor, frightened, unpopular, inexperienced, or easy to dismiss.
Harper picked up her briefcase.
Someone opened the courtroom door behind her.
She turned.
A teenage girl stood there with her father.
The girl looked nervous.
“Ms. Freeman?”
“Yes?”
“My civics teacher said you had your own case here once.”
Harper smiled.
“A long time ago.”
“Is it true everybody laughed at you?”
Harper looked toward the bench.
“Some people did.”
“What did you do?”
Harper thought about giving the girl the dramatic answer.
She could have said she destroyed the prosecution.