“I want you to think about something,” Charlie said. “The way the police arrested you, the SWAT team and all the cops, I’m assuming that was to scare you. And you should be scared, but you don’t have to be stupid. They’re obviously trying to intimidate you into turning on whoever sold you the drugs in exchange for your freedom. It’s why they handcuffed you behind your back instead of in front. It’s why they took you down in front of your friends, behind the place where you work.”
Flora chewed her lip.
“You can give them the name of the van driver and make all of this go away.”
“Miss Quinn, those are bad people. They’ll kill me.”
Charlie had suspected she’d say as much. “Then you can give them the name of the person who sent you out to buy the drugs in the first place. The person who skimmed some off the top and sold it on.”
Flora looked shocked. “I can’t do that. Turn on my own blood. She took me in when my mama died. She’s all I got, except for Leroy.”
Charlie tucked the girl’s hair back behind her ear. It broke her heart that she was protecting her own abuser. “Flora, I know that you love your Meemaw, and I know that you want to do the right thing, but you have to ask yourself if your loyalty is worth the next five or ten years of your life.” She added, “And for that matter, what does it say if your Meemaw lets you go to prison so that she doesn’t have to?”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Flora defended. “She loves me too much.”
“She’s beating you.”
“She gets mad sometimes, is all.” Flora added, “I hit her back sometimes, too.”
“Is she afraid of you when you hit back? Afraid like you’re afraid of her?”
Flora thought about it. The answer was clear enough on her face. “She doesn’t mean it when it happens. She’s real sorry after. She cries and gets upset and she stops for a while.”
“Only for a while?”
“Like I told you, I put up with it this long. I can put up with it another two years.” She sniffed. “It only happens once or twice a month. That’s forty-eight more times, tops, before I go to college. And most of them aren’t that bad. Maybe three or four really bad ones, that’s all I’m looking at and—”
“Flora—”
“You know what it’s like to not have a mama.” The girl was crying openly now. “You know what it’s like to not have nobody who loves you, who cares about you, more than anybody else in the world.” Her voice cracked on the last part. “She ain’t perfect, but that’s what Meemaw is to me. She’s more of a mother than anybody else I got. You can’t take that away from me. Not again.”
Charlie felt tears in her own eyes. How many times had she wanted over the years to just one more time put her head in her mother’s lap and listen to her say that everything was going to be okay?
“Please,” Flora begged. “I can’t lose her. You gotta get us out of this.”
“Flora—” Charlie cut off the rest of her response when the door opened.
Ken Coin swaggered into the room; inasmuch as a man built like a miniature praying mantis can swagger. He slapped a thick file folder down on the table. He adjusted his too-loose pants. His dyed black hair was slicked back. His suit was so shiny that the fluorescent light turned the houndstooth pattern into a strobe.
Coin had started out his professional life as a sheriff’s deputy, then gotten his degree from a law school that was housed in a strip mall. None of the imbeciles who had voted him into office seemed to mind that he knew as much about the law as Flora probably did, or that he was so cozy with the police force that the Constitutionally mandated independence of the judicial system was a running joke at the courthouse.
“Charlotte.” Coin gave her a terse nod. He waited for Roland Hawley, a senior detective on the city’s police force, to enter.
Roland was a tall guy. He had to tilt down his head as he passed under the door frame. There wasn’t much space left in the room once he closed the door.
Coin sat across from Charlie. He tapped his fingers on the file folder like untold mysteries were soon to be revealed. Roland took the chair across from Flora. His football-sized hands went flat on the table. His knees were probably touching Flora’s.
Charlie grabbed the girl’s chair and pulled her back half a foot.
Roland smiled. They had played these games before. He took a small micro-tape recorder out of his pocket. “Mind if we keep this aboveboard?”
Charlie grimaced. “Don’t you always?”
Roland laughed at the sarcasm. Still he waited for Charlie’s nod before he turned on the tape recorder.
Charlie said, “Do you want to tell me why we’re here?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Roland winked at Flora. “Come on, gal, let’s get this story told so I can go home to my wife.”
Flora opened her mouth, but Charlie grabbed her hand underneath the table, willing her into silence. She told Coin, “Please tell the detective not to speak directly to my client.”
Coin gave a heavy, put-upon sigh. Instead of instructing Roland, he said, “Florabama Lee Faulkner, you’re gonna be charged with the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine, an illegal substance, in quantities in excess of five hundred grams.”
Charlie’s chin almost hit the table. The quantity triggered a mandatory twenty-five-year sentence. “Drug trafficking?”
“Yes indeed.” The smile on Coin’s face was somewhere between delighted and smug.
“She’s fifteen years old,” Charlie said. “You have to prove that she was knowingly involved in—”
“The sale, delivery or possession,” Coin finished. “Yes, Charlotte, I am aware of the law.”
Charlie bit back a cutting remark about his dime-store degree. “What evidence do you have?”
“We’ll leave that for the courtroom.”
“You’re taking this to court?” Charlie was aware that her voice was registering too high. She tried to get control of her tone before Coin said something about hysterics. She told him, “Flora didn’t have any drugs on her, let alone over a pound meth. I watched them search her.”
“She had constructive possession,” Coin said. “We found the drugs in the trunk of her car.”
“She’s still got her learner’s permit. She can’t legally own a car.”
Coin fiddled with his paperwork. “A 2004 Porsche Boxter, sapphire blue. Not much of a trunk, but that’s where we found it.” He slid the deed across the table. “That car is owned in full by the Florabama Faulkner Trust.”
Charlie couldn’t believe he was truly this ignorant. Even a mail-in law school covered the basics of trusts. “Her grandparents control the money. She can’t access it until she’s of legal age.”
Coin said, “According to the car salesman?
?s sworn affidavit, Flora picked out all the features on the car. Couldn’t decide between the Boxter or the 911.”
Roland said, “I would’ve gone with the 911 myself.”
Flora’s mouth opened to respond.
“No,” Charlie warned. “Let me answer the questions.”
Roland asked Flora, “That’s how you wanna play it? Let your lawyer do all the talking? I thought you were tougher than that.”
Flora’s mouth opened again.
Charlie stuck out her arm, like she needed to physically block any and all responses. To Coin, she said, “Flora is not a drug kingpin. She’s an honor student. She’s a Girl Scout, for Chrissakes. She’s working for tips at the diner, not running a meth operation.”
Roland asked, “Tell her that you can do both, Flora.”
Flora looked at Charlie, desperate. “I thought you said they wanted a name.”
“We’ve got a name,” Roland said. “Florabama Faulkner.”
Charlie shook her head. This had to be one of Ken Coin’s legendarily stupid power plays. “You know the word of a car salesman doesn’t matter. Flora can’t access that money.”
“She manipulated her grandpappy into doing it for her.” Coin made a weird spider-movement with his hand. “Like a marionette pulling the strings.”
“That’s crazy, Ken. Even for you.”
“You think that’s crazy?” He pulled a stack of photographs from the file and started tossing them on the table. “Flora driving the Porsche to work. Flora in the Porsche by the lake. Flora driving through the McDonald’s off Fifteen. Clearly, this is her automobile.”
Charlie scanned the photos and instantly saw the flaw in Coin’s reasoning. “Per the restrictions on her learner’s permit, she has an adult with her in every picture. That’s Leroy Faulkner, her grandfather, in the passenger’s seat.”
Coin said, “She forced him to go with her. Look at this.” He flung over another photograph. Flora was still behind the wheel, but Leroy was passing something out the window to a shifty-looking thug in sunglasses. Charlie immediately recognized the customer: Dexter Black.