By Public Consent
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 4
Math class on Wednesday morning was fractions.
Camika liked fractions. They were honest in a way that a lot of things weren’t. A fraction said exactly what it was. Part of a whole. Numerator over denominator. No ambiguity. No room for interpretation. Just the relationship between two numbers stated plainly.
She wished the law worked the same way.
She was in the third row from the front because that’s where she always sat. Close enough to see the board clearly. Far enough back that Mrs. Albright didn’t call on her constantly which happened when she sat in the front row because Mrs. Albright had learned that Camika always had the answer and calling on her too often made the other kids stop trying.
Camika had figured that out in first grade and moved herself to the third row without being asked.
She copied the problem from the board into her notebook.
Her math notebook. Not the other one.
The other one was in her backpack under her chair and she was not going to look at it until three thirty because there was nothing she could do about what was happening in that courtroom right now and looking at the notebook would not change that and Mrs. Albright deserved her full attention because Mrs. Albright was a good teacher who worked hard and fractions mattered.
She solved the problem.
Wrote the answer.
Thought about the fourth phone call.
Diana Reeves had been a criminal defense attorney for nineteen years.
She had walked into courtrooms in every condition the law could produce. Prepared and underprepared. Confident and uncertain. With strong cases and weak ones and everything in between. She had learned in year three that the courtroom rewarded the lawyer who controlled the narrative and punished the one who let the other side control it first.
She controlled narratives for a living.
She walked into the arraignment at eight fifty seven with her briefcase and her specific quality of unhurried certainty and took her place beside Jamal Wilkes who was sitting in his chair in his street clothes because Diana Reeves had made a call the night before about that too. No jumpsuit. No orange. He was seventeen years old and he was not going to sit in front of a judge looking like he’d already been convicted.
Jamal looked at her when she sat down.
He was seventeen and scared and had spent the night in a holding cell and was trying very hard not to show any of it.
“How are you doing?” Diana said quietly.
“Okay,” he said. Not convincingly.
“You don’t have to be okay,” she said. “You just have to be quiet. I do the talking today. You understand?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” She opened her briefcase. “I’m going to get you out of here on bail. That’s the first thing. Once you’re out we talk properly. But today I talk and you sit straight and you look at the judge and not at the gallery. Understood?”
“Yes ma’am.”
She looked at him for a moment. At this seventeen year old kid with his hands folded on the table and his jaw set and his eyes doing what scared kids’ eyes do when they’re trying to look brave.
She had seen a lot of clients in that chair.
She believed this one.
The prosecutor’s name was Warren Ellis.
Mid forties. Competent. The kind of attorney who had handled enough cases in enough courtrooms that he moved through them with the efficiency of someone who had stopped being surprised by anything. He looked at Diana Reeves across the aisle with the professional acknowledgment of two people who had been on opposite sides of enough cases to have developed a working respect.
“Diana,” he said.
“Warren,” she said.
That was the extent of the pleasantries.
Judge Patricia McDermott entered at nine oh two. Sixty years old. Silver locs. Twenty three years on the bench and the specific quality of attention that comes from having seen every version of every argument and developed a very accurate internal detector for which ones were worth listening to carefully.
She looked at the charge sheet.
Then at Jamal.
Then at Diana.
“Ms. Reeves,” she said. “I see you’ve entered appearance for the defendant.”
“As of nine forty one last evening Your Honor,” Diana said. “I’d like the record to reflect that my client has not been questioned since my entry of appearance and has made no statements to law enforcement since his initial arrest.”
Ellis looked up from his papers.
Judge McDermott it. “So reflected. Mr. Ellis. The People on the matter of bail.”
Ellis rose. “Your Honor the People request remand. The defendant is charged with first degree murder. The victim is sixteen year old Tyrone Jamison shot once in the chest on the evening of Tuesday April 1st. The defendant was apprehended at the scene. We believe he presents a flight risk and a danger to the community.”
Judge McDermott looked at Diana.
Diana rose.
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