House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

  --Then why don't you show it?||

  --Why should I?|| I ask, sitting up. --If I know I feel it, that's what counts. Don't you ever look at someone who's hysterical in public and wonder if it's because they really feel miserable or because they want others to know they're miserable? It kind of dilutes the emotion if you display it for the whole world to see. Makes it less pure.||

  --Well, that's not how the majority of people think. Most people, confronted with photographic evidence of the autopsy of someone they loved, would get upset. Maybe even cry.||

  --Cry? Are you kidding?|| I mimic a phrase I've heard kids say at school. --I would have killed to be at that autopsy.||

  Oliver turns away. I'm pretty sure I hear him wrong.

  Did you?

  Rich

  The running joke among those of us sequestered for the trial involves the sensory break room. If the defendant can get some special accommodation, why not the witnesses? Me, I want a Chinese food take-out room. I tell this to Helen Sharp when she comes to let me know that I'm testifying next.

  --Dumplings,|| I say, --have been scientifically proven to enhance witness focus. And General Tso's chicken clogs the arteries just enough to increase blood flow to the brain--||

  --And here all this time I thought your disability was your short--||

  --Hey!||

  ----attention span,|| Helen says. She smiles at me. --You have five minutes.||

  I'm only half kidding. I mean, if the court was willing to bend over backward for Jacob Hunt's Asperger's syndrome, how long will it be before this is used as a precedent by some career criminal who insists that going to jail will inflame his claustrophobia? I'm all for equality, but not when it erodes the system.

  I decide to take a leak before court reconvenes and have just turned the corner toward the hallway where the restrooms are located when I smack directly into a woman who's walking in the opposite direction. --Whoa,|| I say, steadying her. --I'm sorry.||

  Emma Hunt looks up at me with those incredible eyes of hers. --I bet,|| she says.

  In another lifetime--if I had another job, and she had a different kid--maybe we would have been talking over a bottle of wine, maybe she would be smiling at me, instead of looking like she'd just been confronted by her worst nightmare. --How are you holding up?||

  --You have no right to ask me that.||

  She tries to push past me, but I block her with an outstretched arm. --I was just doing my job, Emma.||

  --I have to get back to Jacob--||

  --Look, I'm sorry this happened to you, because you've already had to go through a lot. But the day Jess died, a mother lost her child.||

  --And now,|| she says, --you are going to make me lose mine.||

  She pushes at my arm. This time, I let her go.

  It takes ten minutes for Helen to walk me through my credentials--my rank as captain, my training as detective in Townsend, the fact that I've been doing this since before Jesus was born, yada yada, all the stuff a jury wants to hear to know they are in good hands. --How did you become involved in the investigation into Jess Ogilvy's death?|| Helen begins.

  --Her boyfriend, Mark Maguire, came to the police station and reported her missing on January thirteenth. He hadn't seen her since the morning of the twelfth and had been unable to make contact with her. She had no planned trips, and her friends and parents did not know where she was, either. Her purse and coat were at her house, but other personal items were missing.||

  --Such as?||

  --Her toothbrush, her cell phone.|| I glance at Jacob, who raises his brows expectantly. --And some clothes in a backpack,|| I finish, and he smiles and ducks his head, nodding.

  --What did you do?||

  --I went with Mr. Maguire to the house and listed the items that were missing. I also took a typed note found in the mailbox, asking for the mail to be held, and sent it to the lab for fingerprints. Then I told Mr. Maguire that we'd have to wait and see if Ms. Ogilvy returned.||

  --Why did you send the note to the lab?|| Helen asks.

  --Because it seemed strange to type a note to your mailman.||

  --Did you get results back from the laboratory?||

  --Yes. They were inconclusive; no fingerprints were found on the paper. That led me to believe that it was possibly a note typed by someone smart enough to wear gloves when placing it. A red herring, to make us think Jess had run away on her own.||

  --What happened next?||

  --I received a call from Mr. Maguire a day later, saying that a rack of CDs had been knocked over and then alphabetized. It didn't seem to be a clear sign of foul play--after all, this was something that Jess might have done, and in my experience, felons don't tend to be neat freaks. However, we formally opened an investigation into Ms. Ogilvy's disappearance. A CSI team was dispatched to her residence to gather evidence. I took her date book from her purse, which was found in the kitchen, and began to follow up on the meetings she had prior to her disappearance and was scheduled to have afterward.||

  --Did you attempt to contact Jess Ogilvy during this investigation?||

  --Numerous times. We called her cell phone, but it went right into voice mail, until even that was full. With the help of the FBI, we attempted to ping her cell phone.||

  --What does that mean?||

  --Using a GPS locator built into the device, the FBI has a software program which can find coordinates within a meter of actual physical location anywhere in the world, but in this case, the results were inconclusive. The phone has to be powered up in order for that software to work, and apparently, Jess Ogilvy's was not,|| I say. --We also screened the messages that came into her residence. One was from Mr. Maguire. One was from a vendor, one from the defendant's mother, and three were missed calls that originated from Jess Ogilvy's own cell phone number. Based on the time stamps of the answering machine, it suggested that Ms. Ogilvy was still alive somewhere at the time the calls were placed--or that we were being led to believe this by whoever had her cell phone.||

  --Detective, when did you first meet the defendant?||

  --On January fifteenth.||

  --Had you seen him before?||

  --Yes--at a crime scene a week earlier. He crashed an investigation.||

  --Where did you meet Mr. Hunt on January fifteenth?||

  --At his house.||

  --Who else was present?||

  --His mother.||

  --Did you take the defendant into custody at that time?||

  --No, he wasn't a suspect. I asked him questions about his appointment with Jess. He said that he had gone to her house for the two thirty-five appointment but did not meet with her. He indicated that he walked home. He also revealed that Mark Maguire was not present when he arrived at Ms. Ogilvy's place. When I asked him whether he had ever seen Jess fight with her boyfriend, he said, Hasta la vista, baby. '||

  --Did you recognize that statement?||

  --I believe it's attributed to the former governor of California,|| I say. --Before he entered politics.||

  --Did you ask the defendant anything else at that meeting?||

  --No, I was ... dismissed. It was four-thirty, and at four-thirty he watches a television show.||

  --Did you see the defendant again?||

  --Yes. I received a call from Emma Hunt, his mother, indicating that Jacob had something else to tell me.||

  --What did Jacob say during that second conversation?||

  --He presented me with Jess Ogilvy's missing backpack, and some of her clothing.

  He admitted that he had gone to her house and found signs of a struggle, which he cleaned up.||

  --Cleaned up?||

  --Yes. He righted stools and picked up the mail, which had been thrown on the floor, and restacked the CDs and alphabetized them. He took the backpack, because he thought she might need it. He then proceeded to show me the backpack and the items inside.||

  --Did you take Jacob into custody at that time?||

  --I did not.||

  --Did
you take the clothes and backpack with you?||

  --Yes. We tested them, and the results were negative. There were no prints, no blood, no DNA.||

  --Then what happened?|| Helen asks.

  --I met the CSI team at Jess Ogilvy's home. They had found trace evidence of blood in the bathroom, and a cut screen in the kitchen window, as well as a broken window sash.

  They also found a boot print outside the house that seemed to match the boots worn by Mark Maguire.||

  --What happened after that?||

  I face the jury. --Early Monday morning, January eighteenth, shortly after three A.M., Townsend Dispatch received a 911 call. All 911 calls are traced through GPS

  technology so responders can reach whoever is making the call. This call originated from a culvert approximately three hundred yards from the home where Jess Ogilvy was residing. I responded to the call. The victim's body--and her phone--were found there, and she was wrapped in a blanket. There's a video clip from the midday news that aired on WCAX--|| I hesitate, waiting for Helen to take the tape and enter it as evidence, to pull the television monitor closer to the jury so that they can see it.

  There is utter silence as the reporter's face fills the screen, her eyes watering in the cold, while crime scene investigators move along behind her. The reporter shifts her feet, and Helen freezes the image.

  --Do you recognize that blanket, Detective?|| she asks.

  It is a multicolored quilt, definitely hand-sewn. --Yes. It was wrapped around Jess Ogilvy's body.||

  --Is this the same blanket?||

  She holds up the quilt, with its bloodstains ruining the pattern here and there.

  --That's it,|| I say.

  --What happened after that?||

  --With the discovery of the body, I had several officers arrest Mark Maguire for the murder of Jess Ogilvy. I was interrogating him when I received another call.||

  --Did the caller identify him-or herself?||

  --Yes. It was Jacob Hunt's mother, Emma.||

  --What was her demeanor?|| Helen asks.

  --She was frantic. Extremely upset.||

  --What did she tell you?||

  The other lawyer, the one who looks like he's still in high school, objects. --That's hearsay, Your Honor,|| he says.

  --Counsel, approach,|| the judge says.

  Helen speaks quietly. --Judge, I would make an offer of proof that the mother called because she had just seen the news clip with that quilt on the screen and was able to link it to her son. Therefore, Your Honor, it's an excited utterance.||

  --The objection's overruled,|| the judge says, and Helen approaches me again.

  --What did the defendant's mother tell you?|| she repeats.

  I don't want to look at Emma. I can already feel the heat of her gaze, the accusations. --She told me that the quilt belonged to her son.||

  --Based on the results of your conversation, what did you do?||

  --I asked Ms. Hunt to bring Jacob down to the station, so that we could speak further.||

  --Did you place Jacob Hunt under arrest for the murder of Jess Ogilvy?||

  --Yes.||

  --Then what happened?||

  --I dismissed all charges against Mr. Maguire. I also executed a search warrant for the defendant's house.||

  --What did you find there?||

  --We found Jacob Hunt's police scanner, a self-constructed fuming chamber for fingerprinting, and hundreds of black-and-white composition notebooks.||

  --What was in those notebooks?||

  --Jacob used them to record information about CrimeBusters episodes he watched.

  He'd write down the date the episode aired, and the evidence, and then whether or not he solved the crime before the television detectives did. I saw him writing in one the first time I came to his house to speak to him.||

  --How many did you find?||

  --A hundred and sixteen.||

  The prosecutor enters one into evidence. --Do you recognize this, Detective Matson?||

  --It's one of those notebooks. The one with the most recent entries.||

  --Can you turn to the fourteenth page of this notebook and tell us what you find there?||

  I read aloud the subject heading.

  At Her House. 1/12/10.

  Situation: Girl reported missing by her boyfriend.

  Evidence:

  Clothes in pile on bed

  Toothbrush missing, lip gloss missing

  Victim's purse and coat remain

  Cell phone missing

  Luminol bathroom--blood detected

  Knapsack taken with clothing & mailbox note--red herring for kidnapping Cut screen--boot prints outside match up with boyfriend's footwear Cell phone traced by 911 call to location of body in culvert

  --Is there anything intriguing about this entry in particular?||

  --I don't know if it's a CrimeBusters episode, but it's the exact crime scene we found at Jess Ogilvy's residence. It's the exact way we found Jess Ogilvy's body. And all this information is information nobody should have had,|| I say. --Except for the police ... and the killer.||

  Oliver

  I knew that Jacob was going to have trouble when those journals were presented as evidence. I wouldn't want the equivalent of my diary being read to a jury. Not that I keep a diary, or not that I would recount the evidence at a murder scene in one. So I am expecting it when he starts rocking a little bit as Helen enters the journal into evidence. I can feel the stiffening of his spine, the way he is breathing hard, the fact that he barely blinks.

  When Jacob leans toward the table, I meet Emma's gaze over his head. Now, she mouths, and sure enough, Jacob shoves a piece of paper into my hands.

  F#, it reads.

  It takes me a moment to realize that he's passed me a note, just like I told him to do if he needed a sensory break.

  --Your Honor,|| I say, standing up. --Could we take a short recess?||

  --We just had a recess, Mr. Bond,|| Judge Cuttings says, and then he looks at Jacob, whose face is bright red. --Five minutes,|| he announces.

  With me on one side and Emma locked on the other, we hustle Jacob up the aisle to the sensory break room. --Just hold it together for another thirty seconds,|| Emma soothes.

  --Ten more steps. Nine ... eight ...||

  Jacob ducks inside and spins around to face us. --Oh my God!|| he shrieks, a smile splitting his face. --Wasn't that awesome?||

  I just stare at him.

  --I mean, that was the whole point. They finally got it. I set up a crime scene and the cops figured the whole thing out, even the red herrings.|| He pokes me in the chest with his finger. --You,|| Jacob says, --are doing a great job.||

  Behind me, Emma bursts into tears.

  I don't look at her. I can't. --I'll fix it,|| I say.

  There is a moment when I stand up to do the cross-examination of Detective Matson that I think we might have a pissing contest instead. He takes a look at Emma--her eyes still red, her face still puffy--and narrows his gaze at me, as if her condition is my fault instead of his. And that only makes me want to sink him even more.

  --The first time you met with Jacob at his house, Detective,|| I begin, --he quoted the movie Terminator to you, correct?||

  --Yes.||

  --And the second time you met with Jacob ... he recommended a variety of tests for you to run on the backpack?||

  --Yes.||

  --How many?||

  --Several.||

  I grab the legal pad that's in front of Jacob. --Did he recommend a DNA test on the straps of the backpack?||

  --Yes.||

  --And an AP test on the underwear inside.||

  --I guess.||

  --Luminol?||

  --That sounds about right.||

  --And what about ninhydrin on the card inside?||

  --Look, I don't remember them all, but that's probably true.||

  --In fact, Detective,|| I say, --Jacob seemed to know your job better than you do.||

  He narrows his
eyes. --He certainly knew the crime scene better than I did.||

  --Those composition notebooks that you found. Did you read them all?||

  --Yes.||

  --What did the other hundred and fifteen notebooks contain?||

  --Synopses,|| he says. --Of episodes of CrimeBusters. ||

  --Do you know what CrimeBusters is, Detective?||

  --I think you'd have to be living under a rock to not know,|| he says. --It's a police procedural television show that's probably syndicated on Mars by now.||

  --You ever watch it?||

  He laughs. --I try not to. It's not exactly realistic.||

  --So the cases aren't true crime.||

  --No.||

  --Then is it fair to say that the hundred and sixteen journals you seized from Jacob's room are full of descriptions of fictional crime scenes?||

  --Well, yes,|| Matson says, --but I don't think the one he wrote in the hundred and sixteenth journal was fictional at all.||

  --How do you know?|| I take a few steps toward him. --In fact, Detective, there was media coverage of Jess Ogilvy's disappearance before you got hold of this notebook, wasn't there?||

  --Yes.||

  --Her name was on the news, her parents were asking for help solving the crime?||

  --Yes.||

  --You testified that Jacob would show up at crime scenes looking to help, correct?||

  --Yes, but--||

  --Did he ever offer up information that was surprising to you?||

  Matson hesitates. --Yes.||

  --So isn't it possible, especially given that he knew this particular victim, that he wasn't using the notebook to brag about a murder ... but rather, like he did with every CrimeBusters episode, using it to help solve the case?||

  I turn to the jury before he can even answer. --Nothing further,|| I say.

  Helen stands up at the prosecutor's table. --Detective Matson,|| she says, --can you read the notation at the bottom of the first page of the notebook?||

  --It says SOLVED: ME, twenty-four minutes.||

  --What about the notation at the bottom of the entry on page six?||

  --SOLVED: THEM, fifty-five minutes ... Good one!||

  She walks toward Matson. --Do you have any idea what that notation indicates?||

  --Jacob told me, when I first saw him writing in the journals. He marks down whether he solved the crime before the TV detectives did, and how long it took.||

  --Detective,|| Helen says, --can you read the notation at the bottom of page fourteen, the entry entitled At Her House' that you read for us earlier?||