“I noticed a new vibe at the breakfast table this morning.”

“What kind of vibe?”

Mia lowers her chin and looks at me over the sunglasses. “Between you and our houseguest?”

The blood rushes to my cheeks as I finally grasp her meaning.

“Do you think Annie noticed?” I whisper, looking quickly at the staircase. Annie and Mom are halfway down already.

“I don’t think sex is on her radar quite yet. But if you keep it up, she’ll sense the connection.”

Mia pushes the glasses back up on the bridge of her pert little nose, covering her eyes once more. As Mom’s feet reach the ground floor, I find I’m still looking at Mia. “What did you mean by southern—”

“Tim’s coming back up,” Mia says, and sure enough, the front door opens behind her as if at her command. “Time to go, everybody!”

I’m inside the Yukon and halfway to the courthouse before I understand what she meant by her “southern gentleman” comment. I first heard that saying back in high school. They probably started saying it in these parts about 1805, and apparently they’re still saying it two hundred years later.

You ain’t a southern gentleman till you’ve dipped your pen in ink.

For a twenty-year-old, Mia Burke sure knows how to stick the knife in. I guess she has learned some things up at Harvard.

Judge Joe Elder’s courtroom isn’t large by urban standards, but it’s spacious for Mississippi. The walls are cream, the curtains and chairs blue, the wood stained oak and pine. Once the judge enters and takes his throne, he will sit high above everyone except the spectators in the balcony. The witness stand isn’t really a stand at all, but an enclosed box raised a single step above the floor. The people in the second row of the jury box sit higher than the witnesses. A large balcony hangs over the gallery, with a staircase in the left rear of the courtroom leading up to it. Portraits of past circuit judges adorn the walls between high windows streaming spring sunshine, and all but one of those judges are white. Above the judge’s bench hangs the state seal, but the most iconic—and ironic—artifact in the courtroom is the Mississippi state flag, which, despite hanging in the court of an African-American judge, still bears the Confederate battle flag in its upper left quadrant.

I tried nearly a thousand criminal cases during my legal career, and I spent countless hours doing just what I’m doing now: waiting for a judge. At most of those trials, I was sitting at the prosecution table, representing the State of Texas. Today I’m sitting in Mississippi, and I am only a spectator. Today the man who sits in my customary place is one of my mortal enemies: Shadrach Johnson.