Salem Falls

by Jodie Picoult

  “I didn’t touch your daughter.”

  “Bullshit. I saw you kiss her, right through the keyhole.”

  “You watched? What are you, some kind of peeping Tom?”

  “Well, what are you? Some kind of gigolo? You get yourself hired and boink the business owner, so that you can steal her money in the middle of the night and run?”

  “First off, she hired me. And second, even if I was stupid enough to do something like that, don’t you think I would have targeted the jewelry store owner or a banker?”

  “Addie’s better looking than any of them.”

  Jack unzipped his coat and threw it angrily on a chair. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Addie kissed me.”

  “She . . . she did?”

  “Is it so hard to believe?”

  The old man stood up, a smile playing over his face as he started back toward his bedroom. “Actually,” he mused, “it is.”

  Jordan strolled through the doors of the Carroll County Superior Court, his eyes falling into the familiar routine of scanning rooms to see which ones were involved in hearings and skimming over the sorry souls awaiting their fifteen minutes of testimonial fame. He felt naked in his Oxford cloth shirt and pullover sweater-he who used to wear Armani to try cases.

  It was not that he’d ever planned on leaving the law permanently; he had just wanted to get away from it for a little while, and Salem Falls was as good a place as any to lose oneself. He had the money to rest on his laurels for a year or two, after those last few cases he’d tried down near Bainbridge, which had been particularly enervating. Each direct examination and cross-examination grew harder and harder to force from his throat, until Jordan realized that his job had become a noose, notching tighter with each client he defended.

  Maybe it hadn’t been his job, though. Maybe it had been his relationship with his private investigator.

  If anyone had told Jordan ten years ago that he’d want to get married again, he would have chuckled. If anyone had told him that the woman he chose would turn him down, he’d have laughed himself into a hernia. Yet that was exactly what Selena had done. Turned out her best investigative work had targeted Jordan himself-revealing human weaknesses he would rather never have learned.

  He made his way to Bernie Davidson’s office. The clerk of the court was always a useful person to know. He was responsible for scheduling cases, and access to that came in handy when you really wanted to take a trip to Bermuda in March. But more than that, he had the ear of every district judge, which meant that things could get done much more quickly than through the normal channels-a motion slipped right into a judge’s hands, an emergency bail hearing stuffed into a jammed calendar. Jordan knocked once, then let himself inside, grinning widely when Bernie nearly fell out of his chair.

  “Holy Christ-if it isn’t the ghost of Jordan McAfee!”

  Jordan shook the other man’s hand. “How you doing, Bernie?”

  “Better than you,” he said, taking in Jordan’s worn clothes and ragged haircut. “I heard a rumor you moved to Hawaii.”

  Jordan slipped into a chair across from Bernie’s desk. “How come those are the ones that are never true?”

  “Where are you living now?”

  “Salem Falls.”

  “Quiet there, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Guess that’s what I was looking for.”

  Bernie was too sharp to miss the hollowness of Jordan’s voice. “And now?”

  Jordan concentrated on scraping a piece of lint off his sweater. After a moment, he lifted his head. “Now?” he said. “I think I’m starting to crave a little bit of noise.”

  Addie stuck her head in through the back door of the kitchen. “Hey, Jack, can you give me a hand?”

  He looked up through a haze of steam from the open dishwasher door. “Sure.”

  It was cold outside, and the mud sucked at the soles of his sneakers. Addie disappeared behind a high fence that enclosed the garbage bins. “I’m having a little trouble with the latch,” she said. Once Jack had followed her inside to check the mechanism, she snaked her arms around him. “Hi,” she said into the weave of his shirt.

  He smiled. “Hi.”

  “How are you?”

  “Great. You?”

  Addie smiled wider. “Greater.”

  “Well, see you,” Jack teased, grinning as Addie hung onto him for all she was worth. Bubbles rose inside him, the carbonation of happiness. When was the last time someone had so badly wanted him to stay put? “Is there really a problem with the latch?”

  “Absolutely,” Addie confessed. “I’m unhinged.”

  She kissed him, then, pulling his arms around her waist to hold her. They were wrapped tight as a monkey’s paw, secluded from public view by the walls of the fence. The stench of refuse rose around them like a dank jungle, but all Jack could smell was the vanilla that seemed to come from the curve of Addie’s neck. He closed his eyes and thought if he could hold onto one moment for the next fifty years, this might be it.

  Addie burrowed closer, and the movement set her off balance. They went tumbling backward, knocking over a row of metal garbage cans. The racket scattered the few birds who were whispering like old gossips about the two of them. They swooped over Jack and Addie, picking at spilled chicken bones and vegetable peels curled into tiny tornadoes, cawing disapproval.

  Jack took the brunt of the fall. “This gives a whole new meaning to the term trashy romance.”

  Addie was laughing, but at his words, she stopped. “Is that what this is?” she asked, a child standing in the presence of a rainbow and afraid to blink even once, for fear that it might be gone when she opened her eyes. “Are you my romance?”

  Before Jack could answer, the door to the fence-unlatched-burst open, and he found himself staring into the single black eye of a revolver.

  “Jesus, Wes, put that thing away!” Addie pushed herself off Jack and got to her feet, dusting off her uniform.

  “I was walking by for a cup of coffee, and I heard the bins fall. I figured it might be a robber.”

  “A robber? In the trash bins? Honestly, Wes. This is Salem Falls, not the set of Law and Order.”

  Wes scowled, annoyed because Addie didn’t appreciate his daring rescue attempt. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Nothing deodorant soap won’t cure. I knocked over the trash can, that’s all. Last time I checked, that wasn’t even a misdemeanor.”

  But Wes wasn’t listening. He was staring at Jack, who’d been pulled upright by Addie and was still grasping her hand. Neither one seemed inclined to let go, and even more strange, neither one seemed to realize they were holding onto each other.

  “Oh,” Wes said, his voice very soft. “It’s like that.”

  “He works in a diner,” Whitney said, drawing on her straw until it made a slurping noise. “What would your father think if he knew you were hot for a guy nearly his own age who washes glasses for a living?”

  Gillian drew a fat J in the grease on her plate. “Money isn’t everything, Whit.”

  “Easy to say when you’ve got it.”

  Gilly did not hear her. She scowled, wondering why Addie had been the only employee to come into the restaurant part of the diner. If she didn’t even see Jack, her spell would never work. Gillian lifted her elbow and deliberately knocked over a milkshake. “We need some napkins over here!”

  Addie sighed at the mess but hurried over with a packet of napkins and a Wet-Wipe. “Let me get someone to mop the floor.”

  Jack came out then, all six-foot-two inches of him. When he bent to swab beneath the table, Gilly saw the crooked part in his golden hair, a spot she had a sudden, urgent desire to kiss. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can clean it up.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Well, at least let me help.” Gilly reached for the napkins and this time knocked over Meg’s Coke. Jack jumped backward, the crotch of his pants soaked.

  “Oh my gosh.” Gilly pressed the wad
of napkins high against Jack’s thigh, until he stiffly removed her hand.

  “I’ve got it,” he said, and left for the men’s room.

  The minute he was gone, the girls began to whisper: “Jesus, Gilly, did you have to give him a hand job right in the middle of the diner?”

  “You knocked my drink over on purpose . . . You’d better pay for a new one!”

  “He does look a little like Brad Pitt . . .”

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” Gilly announced. As she reached the restrooms, Jack came out of the one on the right. “Sorry about that again,” she said cheerfully, but he didn’t even answer. He sidled past her, trying hard not to touch her in any way. Well, that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her once she cast her spell.

  Gilly crept into the men’s room, fascinated at the site of the urinal with its smelly little cake in the bottom. The sink was still dripping water. Gilly shut the nozzle more tightly, then shed from the trash can the top-most piece of paper toweling. Surely this was the one that Jack had used; it was still damp. She tore off a square from the part she imagined had touched his skin. Then she opened up her little purse.

  Inside was a scroll of paper on which she’d written JACK ST. BRIDE, a red rose, a white rose, and a piece of pink ribbon. She tucked the piece of toweling inside the scroll and rolled it up again. Then she took a Swiss army knife her father had given her the year she was ten and sliced each rose in half lengthwise. She placed together a white half and a red half, sandwiching the scroll in between, and wrapped them tightly with the ribbon.

  “One to seek him,” Gilly whispered. “One to find him. One to bring him, one to bind him. Whoever keeps these roses two, the sweetest love will come to you.”

  She turned on the tap-it really should have been a stream, but this was all the running water she could find-and held the head of the combined rose beneath it, then tossed the remaining petals into the trash.

  “What are you doing?”

  Gilly almost jumped a foot to find Addie Peabody there. “Washing my hands,” she said, trying to hide the posy.

  “In the men’s room?”

  “Is it? I didn’t look at the sign.” She could tell Addie wasn’t buying a single word, so she decided to go on the defensive. “What are you doing in the men’s bathroom?”

  “I own it. And I clean it hourly.” Addie narrowed her eyes. “Whatever you were doing in here, just finish up and leave. . . . What’s that?”

  Gilly quickly tucked her hand behind her back. “Nothing.”

  “If it’s nothing, why are you trying to hide it from me?” Addie grabbed Gilly’s arm and pried open her fingers. “I suggest you and your friends pay your bill and leave.” Without even glancing at it, she absently slipped the posy into the wide pocket of her apron and left Gillian standing alone.

  * * *

  Wes had returned from the Do-Or-Diner that day on a mission. The reason Jack St. Bride looked so familiar was because Wes had seen him at the station. Now, a man could come to the police station for a hundred things-but the memory stuck in Wes’s mind like a thorn. He knew better than to run a records check without reason, and he’d probably have to answer to Charlie Saxton about it when the detective checked the NCIC log-but he told himself that he was doing this for Addie’s safety.

  It had nothing to do with the fact that, in a heartbeat, he’d want her for himself.

  In a town like Salem Falls, Wes had plenty of free time on his hands between 911 calls. He dispatched an ambulance to the old folk’s home, and then typed St. Bride’s name into the SPOTS terminal, which had the capability to run records throughout the country.

  Wes lifted his gaze to the screen, eyes widening. “Oh, Addie,” he murmured.

  “Turn around,” Amos Duncan commanded.

  Gillian pivoted in a slow circle, her black skirt flaring around her thighs, the rhinestone clips winking in her hair.

  “That’s a better outfit. But the skirt’s too short.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Daddy, you say that even when I wear ankle length.”

  “I just don’t want any of those football players getting ideas.”

  “As if,” Gilly said under her breath, thinking that the very last person in the world she’d ever let touch her was a Salem Falls jock. “Meg’s dad is chaperoning, anyway.”

  “That’s good. There’s something comforting about knowing your daughter’s best friend has relatives in law enforcement.”

  The teakettle began to whistle in the kitchen. “I’ll get it,” Gillian said.

  “I can make my own cup of tea.”

  “But I want to.” She tossed a smile back over her shoulder. “It’s the least I can do, considering I’m leaving you here all alone to mope around.”

  Amos laughed. “Maybe I can find something to do to pass the time. Like count the number of tiles in the shower stall.”

  “But you did that the last time I went out at night,” Gilly joked. She went into the kitchen, took a mug from a cherry cabinet, then placed a strainer filled with leaves of her father’s favorite blend of Darjeeling. Before she closed the little silver hatch, she reached into her blouse and added several of the pills from her father’s factory.

  Ten minutes later, when she opened the strainer, there was nothing left of them. She carried the mug to the library, where her father was waiting.

  “That’s what you’re wearing?” Jordan said, looking up from the paper.

  Thomas took a swig of milk from the carton in the refrigerator, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, nothing, I guess, given the fact that you’re acting like a total slob, too.” Jordan frowned at his son’s backward baseball hat and faded jersey, at the pants riding so low on his hips they seemed in danger of sliding down. “When I was your age, a guy would dress up for a dance.”

  “Yeah, and then you’d hook your team up to the buckboard to drive over to the little red schoolhouse.”

  “Very funny. I’m talking about a nice shirt. A tie, maybe.”

  “A tie? Christ, if I walked in wearing one they’d lynch me with it. They’d think I was one of those Jesus freaks who go around handing out pamphlets in the cafeteria.”

  “They do?” Jordan asked. “During school hours?”

  “Careful, Dad, your civil liberties are showing.”

  Jordan folded the newspaper and stood up. “Who’s driving tonight?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got a ride.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jordan smiled. “Did Chelsea Abrams fall under your considerable McAfee charm and decide to take you?”

  “No, I got someone else to go with me.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Thomas wished them back. The gleam in his father’s eye was too strong.

  “Details?” When Thomas shrugged, Jordan raised a brow. “You might as well give up now. I weasel information out of people for a living.”

  Thomas was saved by the doorbell. “See you, Dad. Don’t wait up.”

  “Now hang on.” Jordan dogged his heels. “I want to see her face. If I can’t live vicariously through you, what’s the point of having a teenage son?” He grinned at Thomas’s abject humiliation. “So? Is she hot?”

  The door opened before Thomas could answer. Standing there was a six-foot black woman with a model’s body and anger swimming in her eyes. “You certainly used to think so, Jordan,” said Selena Damascus, and she pushed her way inside.

  The first thing that happened: Words began to swim on the page in front of Amos Duncan. About then, he noticed that the room was warmer and that every time he lifted his eyes toward his daughter, who sat waiting for her ride to the school dance, he felt queasy. A moment later, he barely reached the bathroom before vomiting all over the floor.

  “Daddy!” Gillian cried, standing in the doorway.

  He was kneeling in his own puke, his eyes and nose running the way they did after a violent heave, and the only thought caught in his mind w
as that he was going to do it again. This time, he retched over the bowl, then rested his head against the porcelain.

  He felt Gilly come up behind him; then place a cool, damp hand towel on the back of his neck. Amos vomited again, his belly a great, aching Möbius strip. In the distance, he heard the doorbell. “You . . . go. I’ll be fine,” he rasped.

  “No,” Gilly answered firmly. “There’s no way I’m leaving you like this.”

  Amos was vaguely aware of her moving away, of the murmur of voices. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back in his bed, wearing a clean T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Gillian sat on a chair beside the bed, dressed in jeans and a sweater. “How are you doing?”

  “The . . . dance.”

  “I told Chelsea to go without me.” She squeezed his hand. “Who else was going to take care of you?”

  “Who else?” Amos said, stroking her wrist, as he drifted back to sleep.

  “You’re telling me you invited Selena to the school dance?” Jordan was yelling by now, an ugly vein pounding in the center of his forehead. His son, and his former private investigator. His former lover.

  He and Selena had always worked well together-when the situation in question was a professional one. Their minds ran on the same track; their blood heated to a boil at the thought of a challenging case. But all that had changed a year ago in Bainbridge, New Hampshire, when Jordan had defended a boy accused of murdering his teenage girlfriend. He’d done the unprecedented-had let his job get under his skin. And the moment that line had blurred, so had the one between him and Selena. That case had almost killed him; Selena had been the one who nearly struck the final blow.

  “I didn’t have anything to do tonight,” Selena said, grinning at Thomas. “I always promised him I’d go to the prom, but then I heard about this Chelsea girl and realized desperate measures need to be taken. We’re gonna show them, aren’t we, Thomas? Can’t be too many freshmen who’ll show up with seventy-two inches of mouth-watering dark chocolate on their arm!”

  “Can we back up? Can someone tell me how after months of no communication whatsoever, you managed to waltz back into our lives?”