Aunt Lorraine was quiet for a while.
“Your grandmama would’ve done the same thing,” she finally said. “She’d have finished her catfish first, too.”
I finally laughed.
Then my personal phone buzzed. It was a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
“Judge Whitlock, this is Caleb Miller. I’m sorry for everything. I should have spoken up a long time ago. I was scared. I’m still scared. But I’m glad I didn’t burn that notebook. Mrs. Greene deserved better. — Caleb.”
I wrote back.
“Caleb, you did the hardest thing a person in uniform can do. You told the truth about someone with power over you. Get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”
By morning, the story had spread nationwide.
Somebody in the Magnolia Diner had recorded the whole arrest on a phone. It was a fifty-three-second video: Voss slamming the cuffs on my wrist, my water glass spilling, me sitting perfectly still and chewing my catfish while he twisted my arm behind my back. By breakfast, it had two million views. By lunch, it was on every cable news channel in the country.
