He asked whether Maya had deliberately placed herself in the neighborhood to collect evidence against the police. She explained again that she had been returning from a meeting and had not orchestrated a traffic stop. He asked whether her professional experience made her more likely to interpret officer conduct suspiciously. She answered that it made her careful to separate observation, documentation, and inference, but did not erase the injuries or change what the cameras recorded.
"So you want the jury to trust you because you work for the Justice Department?" Brennan asked.
"No," Maya said. "I want them to examine the evidence because it can be examined. My title isn't evidence that the officer was wrong. His actions are."
The answer left Brennan with nowhere useful to go. He ended his questions, and the judge dismissed the witness. Maya returned to her seat while reporters scribbled furiously and Callahan stared at the polished surface of the defense table.
James leaned toward her. "You okay?"
"I hate that this changes how people are looking at me."
"It doesn't change what happened."
"I know," she whispered. "That's why it matters."
Outside the courtroom, the revelation spread almost immediately. Television anchors repeated her title as though it were the central fact of the case, and online commenters rushed to celebrate the idea that Callahan had chosen the wrong woman to bully. Maya disliked the phrase. A person with no credentials should not have been the right woman to humiliate, and the suggestion that Callahan's mistake was failing to recognize somebody powerful risked missing the entire purpose of the lawsuit.
That evening, she explained this to Zoe while they sat together on the back porch. "I'm glad people believe you," Zoe said. "But now they keep saying he picked the wrong person."
"He did pick the wrong person," Maya answered, then shook her head. "But not because of my job. He was wrong about everyone he treated that way."
Zoe looked toward the garden. "Like Jasmine."
"Especially Jasmine. And Dorothy. And Tyrell. And people whose names we may never know."
Her daughter reached for Maya's hand. "Then tell them that tomorrow."
The following morning, James asked the court to recall Callahan for limited questioning about the records that had been admitted and the explanations he had offered earlier. Judge Coleman permitted the examination within the boundaries of the civil claims, warning both lawyers against argument disguised as questions. Maya remained at counsel table, her briefcase closed and her hands resting beside a neat stack of notes. She was grateful that James, not she, would conduct the questioning; the case had already attracted enough attention to her professional role without creating confusion about who represented whom.