Salem Falls

by Jodie Picoult

  The ER had drawn blood.

  The memory hit her; the doctor drawing vial after vial. Chewing on her bottom lip, Gillian stared at the folder on Houlihan’s desk.

  It took her less than a second to decide to open it. The front page gave the lab results from the rape kit. She skimmed the odd numbers and phrases until she came to the typing for VICTIM, KNOWN SAMPLE. And all the drugs for which she had tested negative.

  Atropine wasn’t on the list . . . but it hadn’t been flagged in her system, either.

  She slid the folder back on the edge of the leather blotter just as Houlihan came in. “I didn’t drink anything,” Gilly said.

  “You’re absolutely certain?”

  “Yes. Meg borrowed my thermos, but she brought iced tea. I hate iced tea.”

  The lawyer studied her, then nodded, satisfied. He opened a drawer of his butt-ugly metal desk and began to unravel a silver ribbon. “You have any idea what this is?”

  “No,” she said, letting it slide through her fingers. “Where did you find it?”

  “With the thermos and cups.”

  “Well,” Gillian shrugged. “Then it must be Meg’s, too.”

  Addie came into the diner after the dinner rush to find Darla playing chess with her father in the kitchen. “You’re back,” Roy said.

  An apron-her father was wearing an apron. Before she could get past this startling fact, Darla was in her face. “I had to work double shifts, on account of Delilah getting sick, and don’t think I’m not expecting time and a half.” Turning to Roy, she said, “Check,” and then sashayed into the front room.

  “Look at you,” Addie said, swallowing past the sadness in her throat.

  “Yeah.” Her father laughed, twirling like a beauty queen. “Go figure.”

  “First time I up and leave, you go . . . you go . . .” That was as far as she got, and then the tears came. Exhausted, tired from putting on a brave face for Jack, she moved into her father’s embrace, which had always been the softest spot in the world.

  “Ah, Addie,” he said. “I’m sorry about him.”

  Addie drew back. “He’s innocent, Daddy.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “Because,” Addie said, “I’m the only one who thinks so.”

  Roy walked to the stove, then poured her a bowl of potato leek soup. This he set down in front of his daughter with a spoon. “Eat,” he ordered.

  “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”

  He lifted the spoon to her mouth, made the soup trickle down the constriction of her throat. “Isn’t that fine?”

  Addie nodded and lifted the spoon herself. Meanwhile, Roy moved around his kitchen, heaping potatoes and steamed carrots, breads and stuffings and gravies, all onto a tremendous platter. He piled it high with starches and placed it in front of Addie.

  This time, she didn’t even hesitate. She tucked into the meal with a hunger she had not even known she’d had, until her belly swelled. “Better?” he asked.

  Addie realized she no longer hurt inside. She imagined all these soft foods, rices and puddings and couscous, forming an extra barrier within. Her father had filled her, because he knew better than anyone that the best way to prevent a heartache was to cushion the coming blow.

  * * *

  “Relax,” Gillian said, looking at each of her friends. “They don’t know anything.”

  They were sitting in a small garden behind the Duncan household, one hidden from public view by a thicket of roses. “My dad is gonna kill me,” Chelsea said. “If he finds out there were drugs there-”

  “Why were there drugs there?” Whitney demanded. “I’m a little curious, Gill, since you were the one responsible for bringing the refreshments.” The others looked at Gillian, too. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t have tried it . . . but I would have liked to have had the choice.”

  “Whit, don’t be such a priss. It was a pinch of stuff, so little that it wouldn’t even affect you. God, you’d have gotten more of a buzz from a wine cooler.” Gillian stared intently at the others. “Think hard. Do any of you remember getting high that night?”

  “I was dancing around without a shirt on,” Whitney hissed.

  “Before you drank a damn thing,” Gilly pointed out.

  Meg’s eyes were dark, striped with betrayal. “My dad says it screws up the case.”

  “Matt Houlihan doesn’t think so,” Gillian said.

  “Only because you told him that the drugs were mine. If a jury hears that you were stoned, they’re not going to believe anything you say.”

  “I wasn’t stoned, Meg. No more than you were.”

  “Then how come I have to be the fall guy?”

  Gillian narrowed her eyes. “Because if you don’t, it’s going to hurt all of us.”

  “Says who?”

  The other girls shrank back at Meg’s response. You didn’t cross Gilly. Everyone knew that.

  “Look, Meg, this isn’t about you or me; it’s about sticking together so that our stories match. The minute that starts to fall apart, so does everything else.” Gillian swallowed, her throat working.

  “You aren’t the only one who can’t forget that night. But the difference between us is that you don’t want to.” Meg’s hands closed into fists. “You are so fucking full of it, Gillian. If I tell my father I never saw the thermos before, you think he’ll assume we’re witches? No, he’ll believe exactly what I tell him . . . that you brought it so we could get high.”

  Gillian went white. “You wouldn’t, Meg.”

  “Why not?” Meg said, pushing her way out of the rose arbor. “You did it to me.”

  “That,” Matt sighed, “is heaven. Do it again.”

  In her stocking feet, Sydney Houlihan gingerly stepped on the small of her husband’s back. He grunted, his face ground into the carpet. Beside them, in her baby seat, Molly clapped. “I don’t think this is the smartest thing for her to see,” Sydney said.

  “What? Mommy walking all over Daddy? She’s a little young for metaphors.” Matt grunted as Sydney hit a particularly sore spot. “You know why I married you?”

  “Because I was the only woman who agreed to this kinky stuff?”

  “Because you weigh exactly the right amount.”

  Sydney carefully stepped onto the carpet and sat down cross-legged. “So what was it this time?”

  “What was what?”

  “Your back always gets pretzeled when you’re stressed out about a case.”

  Matt rolled over. “Married you for your ESP, too.” He drew his knees up, stretching muscles along his spine. “Gillian’s friends were taking drugs the night of the rape.”

  “And Gillian?”

  “Said she wasn’t.”

  Sydney shrugged. “So?”

  “Well, no matter what, it’s exculpatory. I have to turn it over to the defense.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that she was raped, does it?”

  “No,” Matt said slowly.

  Sydney raised her brows. “You think she’s lying to you.”

  “Ah, hell.” Matt got to his feet and started pacing. “I don’t know. She said it was her thermos but that Charlie’s daughter brought the stuff. And that she didn’t drink anything that night because she wasn’t thirsty. I can probably get Meg to admit to procuring the drugs when I put her on the stand. But still . . . there were five cups there with residue in them-one for each of the girls and one for St. Bride. McAfee is going to be all over this.”

  “Maybe it was poured for her but she didn’t drink it.”

  “Maybe.”

  Sydney was quiet for a moment. “Do you think she was lying about the rape, too?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got too much evidence. The blood on her shirt, the scratches on his face, the semen.”

  She wrapped her arms around Matt’s waist. “You never liked sharing your toys.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re growling because you have to turn over
something that hurts your case.”

  “But it doesn’t,” Matt argued. “Sure, it doesn’t make Gillian look like an angel . . . but I can still get St. Bride convicted.”

  Sydney leaned up and kissed his chin. “Don’t you feel better now?”

  To his surprise, Matt realized he did. His back wasn’t aching, and for the first time all day, he was itching to just get this case to trial already. “That’s the third reason I married you,” he said, and stamped a kiss on her mouth.

  “Five cups don’t mean squat, Jordan,” Selena argued.

  “Reasonable doubt. All I have to do is plant the seed.”

  “I don’t care if you plant a whole frigging tree. You can’t say that just because a cup was there that a kid drank out of it. Your car’s in the garage. Does that mean I drive it?”

  Thomas looked up from the kitchen table, where he was struggling through a trigonometry proof. “Could you two take this somewhere else?”

  But neither Jordan nor Selena paid him any attention. “If I say that Gillian lied about taking drugs, it suggests that she lied about a number of things. Including this rape.”

  “Jordan, listen to yourself! Matt Houlihan could drive a freight train through the holes in that argument.”

  “You got anything better?” Jordan snapped. “Because I don’t. I have a client who says the victim came onto him, but he can’t offer us any more details. I have proof that the victim is into some pretty strange shit, but discrediting her isn’t going to acquit Jack. Which means, for God’s sake, that if all I have to throw at Goliath is a fucking pebble, I’m going to wind up my arm as best I can.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Thomas muttered. He started gathering his books and papers together, intent on moving to a quieter area. Like maybe a blasting zone.

  Suddenly, all the fire went out of Jordan. He sank into a chair across from Thomas and rested his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m being an idiot.”

  “No argument here,” Selena said.

  “It’s just that I only have four days, Selena, and then we’re standing up in front of the judge. And everything you’ve turned up in the past week-well, God, it’s fantastic. But I went into this assuming that I was trying a simple case-girl says guy raped her, guy has a previous conviction. Indictment, arraignment, trial. And suddenly, every time I turn around, there’s something new-this witch stuff, and the drugs, and evidence that doesn’t match up. This isn’t the case I thought I had.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger deep into the sockets of his eyes. “I want a year to prepare. Then the next second, I don’t, because at the rate we’re going we’ll probably find out that Gillian’s got connections to the Sicilian mob.”

  “Nah. Although I did turn up something about her being a presidential intern.”

  “Not funny,” Jordan muttered. “I have no idea what to say happened that night.”

  “Jack was beaten up badly hours before. You could say he was in too sorry a physical state to commit the crime.”

  “But not so sorry a physical state that he couldn’t manage to get to a bar and drink himself sick.” Jordan shook his head. “I can defuse what the girl says, but I can’t refute it. The only pieces of that night Jack can recall are laughable. Ribbons and bonfires and naked teenagers-”

  “Naked?” Thomas squeaked. “Chelsea was naked?”

  “How am I supposed to get a jury to buy that? And then to vote for an acquittal?”

  “That’s why you need proof, Jordan,” Selena said gently. “Reasonable doubt works most of the time . . . but like you said, the alternative you’re proposing is so strange that it’s still going to be hard to swallow. You need to hand the jury your own evidence, so that they know Gillian was playing witch in the forest that night. And a cup doesn’t cut it.”

  Thomas stacked his books and headed down the hall. “See you,” he muttered. “I’m sure you’ll really miss me being in here.”

  “I know,” Jordan sighed. “But if she took the atropine, it was nearly two months ago. The half-life of the drug is about six hours. It’s not like we can get a sample of her blood tonight and still find it swimming around in there.”

  “We should have had her blood screened by a private lab right after Jack’s arrest. What were we thinking?”

  Jordan met her gaze. “That she was telling the truth.”

  Thomas’s voice floated down the hall. “You did have her screened,” he called out. “In the ER.”

  “Routine drug tests don’t show atropine.”

  “So . . . why couldn’t you try it again with some fancy test? What did they do with the blood when they were done?”

  “It went off to the state lab with the rest of the rape kit,” Jordan explained, and suddenly his jaw dropped. “Holy shit, the rape kit. The known samples they used to type DNA came from blood that was taken that night.”

  “And they save that stuff.” Selena was already out of her seat. “How fast can you get the judge to sign off on a motion for independent testing?”

  Jordan reached for the briefcase that held his laptop. “Watch me,” he said.

  Roman Chu had started Twin States Forensic Testing in a clean room partitioned off in his parents’ garage. Having cultivated a reputation for getting things done in a fraction of the time it took the state lab to do them, he generated enough work to pay for his own building, and to hire ten employees who worked miracles for attorneys at the eleventh hour.

  “I appreciate this,” Jordan said for the twentieth time.

  After the judge had granted the motion, Selena had secured Gillian’s blood sample from the state lab. The prep work had been done during DNA analysis: The blood had been spun down and separated from the cells, the serum frozen. All Roman had to do was run the mass spectrometry. Now, they both stared at the computer, waiting for the results. “I want Cuban cigars,” Roman muttered. “Not that crap from Florida you got me last year.”

  “You got it.”

  “And I’m still charging you for overtime.”

  The screen blinked green, and suddenly a stream of numbers came up. Roman grabbed a reference text and compared it to what was on the computer, then whistled softly.

  “Translate,” Jordan demanded.

  Roman pointed a finger at the percentiles. “The blood’s got atropine in it.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Oh, yeah. The drug concentration’s so high I’m surprised it didn’t put her into a coma.”

  Jordan crossed his arms. “So what do you think the physical effect was?”

  Roman laughed. “Buddy,” he said, “she was tripping.”

  For the first time in nearly a decade, Addie took a lunch break during lunch hours. With Delilah and her father sharing the kitchen and Darla waiting tables, Addie had found herself wandering around useless. She would have gone to see Jack, but visiting hours were not until tomorrow-the night before the trial started. So instead, she went to see Chloe.

  “This,” Addie said, “was your favorite kind of day.” She set a small nosegay of Queen Anne’s lace in front of Chloe’s gravestone. “Do you remember when we used to pretend it was summer, in the middle of January? With a beach blanket picnic, and the heat turned up, and you and me in our bathing suits in the bathtub.” She touched the granite slab. It was warm from the sun, nearly as warm as a child’s skin. “Is it summer all the time up there, Chlo?” she whispered.

  What she wished, more than anything, was that she had a store of memories like those. Losing Chloe had been like reading a wonderful book only to realize that all the pages past a certain point were blank. Addie had been cheated out of watching her daughter get her first training bra, helping her choose a prom dress, seeing her eyes darken the first time she spoke of a boy she loved. She missed driving her to the high school, and getting ice cream cones and swapping halfway through to try the other flavor. She missed talking, and hearing an answer back.

  “Miz Peabody?”

  The sound of a girl’s voice startled Add
ie so much she whirled around to find its source. Meg Saxton stood a few feet away, looking just as surprised as Addie.

  “Meg . . . I didn’t know you were here.”

  There was a wall between them, invisible but thick. The last time Addie had spoken privately to Meg was at Chloe’s funeral. Meg and Chloe had played together on the swing set in her yard. But here Meg was, all grown up, and Chloe was dead.

  “How . . . have you been?” Addie asked politely.

  “Fine,” Meg answered. Silence sprouted. “Did you come to visit her?”

  They both turned toward the gravestone, as if expecting Chloe to appear. “I wish I’d known her,” Meg confessed. “I mean, she was older than me, but I think . . . I think if things had been different, we could have been friends.”

  “I think Chloe would have liked that,” Addie said softly. Tears filled the young girl’s eyes, and she turned away, trying to hide. “Meg? Are you all right?”

  “No!” Meg cried, a sob hitching the word in half. “Oh, God.”

  Instinctively, Addie reached for her, and the contact was electric. Meg smelled of shampoo and cheap cosmetics and childhood, and Addie was overwhelmed by the shape and feel of a girl roughly the same age as Chloe. So this is what it would have been like, she thought, her eyes drifting closed.

  Meg whispered so quietly that Addie didn’t believe she had heard correctly. “She’s so lucky.”

  “Who is?”

  “Chloe.”

  Addie’s hands stilled. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.” Meg wiped at her face with the bottom of her T-shirt. “I wish I were dead.”

  It hit Addie then, what Meg had been doing at the cemetery. She had come back to the spot where the alleged assault had occurred. Jack hadn’t done it-she knew this as surely as she knew that Chloe was buried close by-but something had rattled Meg that night, all the same.

  Addie squeezed Meg’s shoulders. “I think we should go. This place has bad memories for both of us.”

  Meg reluctantly glanced in the direction of the clearing. “Ms. Peabody,” she whispered, miserable. “I think . . . I think he touched me, too.”

  “Touched . . . you?” Addie said, the words round, with no sound behind them.