Trial preparation began with a fact Camille found unexpectedly difficult: she was not the prosecutor in the room. She was the person being asked to describe what she saw, heard, said, and felt. West’s team needed her memory without the legal argument she knew how to build around it.
“If you don’t remember a detail, say so,” the prosecutor reminded her.
Camille almost answered that she gave the same instruction to witnesses. Instead, she nodded. Familiar advice did not become unnecessary because receiving it made her uncomfortable.
They reviewed her early notes before the public footage and discussed where later viewing might have sharpened a recollection or supplied a detail she had not personally noticed. Her account needed to distinguish those sources honestly. She had not seen the dispatch screen. She had heard some radio traffic, not the complete response. She saw Harlan look at registration, but what he understood from it would also require other evidence.
The limits did not destroy the story. They made the story hers rather than an argument assembled from everything the investigation found.
Ruth attended the meetings appropriate to her role and reminded Camille she could ask for breaks. Camille found that reminder harder to accept than almost any legal question. She had spent years assuming other people’s needs were responsibilities and her own were scheduling problems.
The night before the first anticipated testimony date, she ironed a dark suit and placed her shoes beside the bedroom door. Naomi watched from the hallway.
“Are you dressing for court or an exam?”
“Both, apparently.”
“You don’t have to pass as a believable owner of your own car.”
Camille sat on the edge of the bed. “I know. I also know how people look at witnesses.”
Naomi came inside and sat beside her. They did not try to argue the knowledge away.
She also chose the flatter shoes for court. It was a practical decision, free of any promise that the right appearance would guarantee belief. Naomi placed them beside the door and brought a glass of water. Care, Camille noticed, did not need to arrive as another set of instructions she might fail to follow.
Across town, Helen reviewed the process with the investigator assigned to witness logistics. She was not coached to sound certain about gaps. She was told what to expect, where to wait, and how to say when she could not remember. She found those practical details calming.
Owen worried that his initial assumptions would make him look racist. His wife asked whether that concern was more important than explaining them accurately. He said no, then asked the investigator how to distinguish what he saw from what he concluded. It was the right question, even late.
The court arranged the proceedings with appropriate safeguards for Camille’s public role and the need for an impartial case. Harlan had counsel, disclosure rights, and the ability to challenge the evidence. The judge would apply the requirements to the actual charges, not allow the proceeding to become a referendum on every unequal encounter in Ravenport.
Camille supported that boundary. She did not want an enlarged accusation to make the facts of her own detention harder to assess fairly.
Evelyn continued running relevant office matters outside Camille’s influence. On the calendar, the personal trial dates were marked as unavailable time without an explanation broadcast to every person scheduling a meeting. Staff learned to ask what could be moved rather than whether she was ready to get back to normal.
The evening before court, Camille drove to Naomi’s for dinner. She parked, locked the SUV, and felt the familiar moment of vigilance as somebody walked through the row behind her. The person continued to another car without looking up.
She noticed her shoulders lowering after they passed.
Progress, she was learning, sometimes looked like recognizing fear sooner and allowing it to leave without treating its arrival as defeat.
At the table, Naomi served soup too hot to eat immediately. Camille complained. Her sister told her patience was an admirable professional quality.
“I’m taking the evening off from professional qualities,” Camille said.
They laughed, and the sound made tomorrow seem smaller for a minute.
Before bed, she placed the completed birthday card beside Naomi’s keys. The message thanked her sister for coming without first asking whether the trouble was serious enough.
She did not write that Naomi saved her. She wrote that she had needed somebody to arrive on her side of the door.
Then she turned off the light and let the next day remain unfinished until morning.