“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The atropine, Gillian. It was found in your blood.”
She looked positively stunned. “But . . . but the test at the ER-”
“Wasn’t conclusive,” Matt finished. “A more refined test was done on your blood by the defense’s toxicologist. And right now, that jury knows you lied about taking drugs-and is wondering what else you might have been lying about.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t lie about being raped. I didn’t. It was just that everyone already thinks I’m some kind of a slut, because this happened to me. I didn’t want them thinking I was a drug addict, too. It was only that once. I swear.” Raising a ravaged face to Matt, she asked, “Is he going to get off now? Because I was so stupid?”
Matt felt the fight draining out of him, but he wasn’t going to give her false hope. “I don’t know, Gillian.”
“He won’t be acquitted.”
At the sound of a third voice, both Matt and Gillian turned. Amos Duncan stood in the doorway, stiff and uncomfortable. “Mr. Houlihan wouldn’t let that happen.” Gillian’s father walked closer, until he stood with his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “This may be a setback, but it’s not a devastation. Isn’t that right, Mr. Houlihan?”
Matt thought of the twelve jurors and what they’d just heard. “You’re preaching to the choir,” he said, and stormed out of the room.
“Isn’t it true, Doctor, that hallucinogens produce a wide range of effects?” Matt asked.
Chu laughed. “That’s what I hear, but I may have to plead the fifth if you want me to get more specific.”
“It’s possible that one person might have a great trip on a drug and another person could . . . as you said . . . scratch his skin off?”
“Yes. It depends on dosage, potency, personality of the user, and the environment in which the drug is taken.”
“So if you take this drug, you’re not even guaranteed to have hallucinations?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Did you see Gillian Duncan in the early hours of May first?”
“No,” Chu said. “I’ve never met her.”
“Then you don’t know what her personality is like.”
“No.”
“You don’t know the environment she was in at the time.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know the potency of this particular drug, do you?”
“No.”
“Did you see her after she was brought to the ER to be examined because of a sexual assault?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know if she was having hallucinations, do you?”
“No.”
Matt advanced on the witness. “You said that the drug stays in the bloodstream only a few hours, is that correct?”
Chu nodded. “Yes.”
“And when was the sample you examined drawn?”
“At approximately two A.M.,” the toxicologist said.
“Ms. Duncan arrived at the woods with her friends at approximately eleven P.M. that night. Do you have any way of knowing whether Ms. Duncan took the drug before she went to the woods that night?”
“No . . . but based on the levels in her blood at one-thirty A.M., if that was the case, she’d be dead now.”
“Still, given that two- to six-hour time frame, the drug could have been taken after the rape, isn’t that right?”
“I guess so.”
“And that would affect your calculation of the dosage amount, right?”
“Yes.”
Matt nodded. “You don’t know who provided the atropine that evening, do you?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it possible that Mr. St. Bride arrived in the woods and suggested they take it?”
“It’s possible.”
Matt crossed to the jury box. “Can you smell atropine, if it’s placed in a drink?”
“Usually not.”
“Can you taste it?” he asked.
“No.”
“So if Mr. St. Bride handed Ms. Duncan an open soda can with this drug already mixed into the beverage, she might drink it and not even know she was ingesting an illegal substance?”
“I suppose.”
Matt nodded thoughtfully. “Dr. Chu, have you ever heard of Rohypnol?”
“Yes.”
“Can you explain what it is, for those of us who don’t know?”
“It’s called the date-rape drug,” Chu explained. “In recent years, there have been cases where men slip the substance into a woman’s drink, render her unconscious, and then proceed to sexually assault her.”
“Why is Rohypnol so frighteningly effective?”
“Because it’s odorless, tasteless. The victim usually doesn’t even realize she’s ingested it, until it’s too late. And it doesn’t show up on a routine hospital tox screen.”
“Aren’t every single one of those properties something that could be said about atropine?”
“As a matter of fact,” Chu said. “Yes.”
Fighting the Haldol she’d been prescribed was a losing battle. The moment her eyes closed, Meg was back there: The woods were swimming, as if they’d all been dunked underwater, and bright pink flashes of light kept spinning at her like creatures from a video game. Meg’s head felt light as a balloon, and every time she opened her mouth, the stupidest sounds came out . . . not words or her voice at all.
“Come, come,” Gilly was saying, waving them over to congratulate the happy couple. Whitney staggered over, but Chelsea was too busy plucking the stars from thin air. “Meggie, you, too,” Gilly ordered, and Meg’s own traitor legs carried her there.
Matt Houlihan had blown a cannon right through the best argument Jack’s lawyer had offered so far. Addie couldn’t get past that, and as a result, her hand was shaking so badly by the time the coffee poured out of the little vending machine in the basement of the courthouse that she spilled it all over her skirt and the floor. “Oh,” she cried, bending down to clean up the mess before she realized she didn’t even have a napkin.
“I’ve got it.”
A pair of spit-polished black boots stepped into her field of vision. Then Wes Courtemanche knelt and began to mop up the spill with his own handkerchief.
Addie’s cheeks burned. She had no reason to be embarrassed, but there it was, all the same. “Thank you,” she said stiffly, taking the handkerchief from his hand to finish.
“Addie,” he said, and touched the back of her wrist.
It took her a few seconds to get the courage to look up. “I’m sorry,” Wes murmured. “I didn’t know it would all come to this. And . . . well, I never meant to drag you into it.”
“You didn’t, Wes. I did that all by myself.” Flustered, she fisted the handkerchief into a ball. “I’ll wash this and get it back to you.”
“No.” He plucked it from her hand. “Time was, I would have died twice over to hear you offer just that, but the truth is, Addie, you were never meant to do my wash.”
Addie took in his earnest eyes, his strong body, his steadfast loyalty. “Wes, you’re going to find a woman one day who can’t wait to mix her whites with yours.” Biting her lip, she added, “I’m sorry it wasn’t me.”
Wes shook his head, then slipped her a smile edged in regret. “Not as sorry as I am,” he said, and gently helped her to her feet.
Jack stood at the window of the small conference room. “You ever hear of a guy named Boris Yetzemeloff?” he asked Jordan.
“No.”
“Guy who raped eighteen women in the forties, in Mexico. He was convicted, sentenced to a life term. Twenty years into it, he had a heart attack and was pronounced dead for twenty minutes before paramedics resuscitated him.” Jack turned to face his attorney. “They let him go after that. Said he’d served his life sentence.”
Jordan pinched the bridge of his nose. “The only decent piece of trivia I know is that it’s against the law to cross the state boundaries of Iowa with a duck on your
head.”
Jack didn’t crack a smile. “Good to know.”
“So what are you trying to tell me, Jack?” Jordan asked. “That you’ve got yourself tried and hung already, before you even get on the stand?”
“Can you honestly tell me that my testimony is going to make a difference?” Jack answered softly. “It’s not even a testimony, for God’s sake. It’s a big gaping blank.”
“I explained to you what Dr. Chu said. If you drank any of the tea that night, your memory of the evening might never come back.”
Annoyed, Jack kicked a chair out of the way. “I want it all here,” he said, holding out his hands. “Right at my fingertips. I want to remember what happened, Jordan, if only so that when I’m rotting away in prison I can pull it out every now and then and remind myself that I was innocent.”
“You’ve got a gut feeling, Jack,” Jordan sighed. “That’s going to have to be enough.”
The men fell silent, tangled in their own thoughts. Overhead, a fluorescent bulb hummed like an insect. Then Jack sat down across from his lawyer. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you believe I’m innocent?”
Jordan let his eyes slide away from Jack. “It has no bearing on my role as your attorney, you know, if I-”
“I asked you a question. Not as attorney and client. As one man to another.” Jack stared directly at Jordan. “Please.”
Jordan knew what Jack needed; knew that it was his responsibility as an attorney to keep his key witness calm, no matter how slender a testimony he had to offer. “Of course I believe you,” he said. “So does Selena. And Addie.” Jordan forced a smile. “See, you have all kinds of disciples.”
Just none of them, he thought, on the jury.
Dr. Flora Dubonnet had the face of a sparrow, the body of a stork, and the voice of Minnie Mouse on helium. It was all Jordan could do to keep from wincing every time she answered one of his questions, and he kept sending murderous looks toward Selena, who’d found this pediatric forensic shrink on the Internet . . . clearly not over the phone.
“Did you review some documents in this case?” Jordan asked.
The answer was a high-pitched squeal.
Jordan watched the jury cringe. Fingernails on a chalkboard, that’s what it was.
“Doctor,” Judge Justice said, “I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to speak up.” She hesitated, then added, “Very sorry.”
“I said yes,” Dr. Dubonnet repeated.
“What did you review?” Jordan asked.
“The psychiatric records of Gillian Duncan, from the year she was nine years old.”
“In your expert opinion, what do they reveal?”
She turned to the gallery and chirped, “The girl showed tendencies of being a pathological liar.”
Somehow, in that voice, it didn’t pack quite the same punch. “Can you give some specific examples that led you to this diagnosis?”
“Yes. Collateral sources contradicted her accounts on a number of occasions, and sometimes her statements were completely implausible. For example, she flatly denied shoplifting although she was found holding the items in her hand. She was mutilating herself, cutting up her arms, and refuting this even when the evidence was presented to a doctor. On another occasion, she ostracized a neighborhood girl by spreading rumors, then denied it, although numerous fingers were pointed at her as the originator.”
“Why would a child do these things, Doctor?” Jordan asked.
“In Ms. Duncan’s case, it probably had to do with getting noticed. Her mother’s death was an event that generated pity and attention for Gillian, and in her mind, the best way to continue that focus on herself was to keep creating fiascoes of some sort.”
“In your opinion, Doctor, when a child is diagnosed as a pathological liar, what happens by the time he or she grows up?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Matt said. “This expert’s projection on children in general has absolutely no bearing on what did happen with Gillian Duncan.”
“Overruled,” the judge murmured.
“The rule of thumb in psychiatry,” Dr. Dubonnet replied, “is that boys who lie have conduct disorders and become sociopaths . . . whereas girls who lie have personality disorders and become manipulative in interpersonal ways.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said. “Nothing further.”
Matt stood immediately. “Doctor, you’ve never talked to Gillian Duncan, have you?”
“No.”
“All you’ve done is read records that took place almost half her lifetime ago?”
“Yes.”
“Your rule of thumb. . . you can’t really say that every boy or girl follows this path, can you? You’re just making a broad assumption about what often happens?”
“That’s correct.”
“And you have no way of knowing if that’s what happened to Gillian, do you?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it true that Gillian had just lost her mother at age nine?”
“So I understand.”
“And that was the reason she began therapy, correct? Not because she had been lying compulsively.”
“Yes.”
“You said that the reason you believed Gillian was a pathological liar was because as a kid, she started some rumors about a younger woman and then denied them?”
“Among other things.”
Matt smiled. “Forgive me, Doctor, but when I was a kid, we just called that being a girl.”
“Objection!”
“Withdrawn,” Matt said. “Isn’t it true, though, that this is what girls do all the time? Boys punch each other; girls start rumors?”
“Objection,” Jordan called again. “I want to know when Mr. Houlihan got his clinical psychology degree.”
“Withdrawn. Doctor, you also mentioned a shoplifting incident that Ms. Duncan denied?”
“That’s right.”
Matt turned and stared directly into Jack’s eyes. “Well, isn’t it fairly common for a person who commits a crime to deny that he’s done it?”
“Ah . . . oftentimes . . .”
“Isn’t it fairly common for a person who commits a crime to deny that he’s done it, even when there’s physical evidence linking him to the crime?”
“I-I suppose so.”
“So it isn’t all that unusual, is it, Doctor, to lie to get out of trouble?”
“No.”
“Does that make someone a pathological liar?”
Dr. Dubonnet sighed. “Not necessarily.”
Matt glanced at the witness. “Nothing further.”
He smelled like sweat and blood. His smile was sweet, too, and Meg would have bet he had no idea what he’d just gotten into. Dutifully, she pressed her lips to his cheek and almost immediately lost her balance. She fell into his lap, heard his grunt as her full body hit. “You okay?” he asked, only trying to help her up, his hands sliding awkwardly over her chest and wide bottom before he got the leverage to do it.
What you want and what you get are two very different countries; sometimes imagination builds a bridge before you have the chance to realize it won’t hold weight. He hadn’t been fondling her; he’d been breaking her fall. But oh, had Meg wished otherwise.
And in that moment she realized that she hadn’t been the only one.
This time, Roy brought sandwiches. Roast beef piled high on a crusty roll, tuna salad on wheat, even veggie pitas for the meatless crowd. The judge and the jury and even Jack gratefully dug into this treat, but Matt sat with his back stiff, his untouched turkey sub resting on the corner of the prosecution’s table.
“It’s the chives,” Roy confessed to the clerk, who’d asked a question about the ingredients in the chicken salad. “You don’t expect them, which is why they come right back and bite you.”
Head leaning against his hand, Matt drawled, “Your Honor, does this witness have anything to contribute to the defense’s case besides a large dose of ch
olesterol?”
“Getting around to it,” Roy muttered, taking his seat. He straightened his tie, cleared his throat, and scowled at Matt. “Skinny folk always have an attitude.”
With his roast beef sub in one hand and his notes in the other, Jordan stood. “Can you state your name and address for the record?”
“Roy J. Peabody. I live above the Do-Or-Diner, in Salem Falls.”
“Where were you the afternoon of April thirtieth, Mr. Peabody?”
“Working,” Roy said.
“Do you know who Gillian Duncan is?”
“Ayuh.”
“Did you see her that day?”
“Ayuh.”
Jordan took another bite of his sandwich. “Where?” he asked, then swallowed.
“She came into the diner ’bout three-thirty.”
“Was Jack working at that time?”
“Sure was.”
“Did you ever see the two of them together?” Jordan asked.
“Ayuh.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
Roy shrugged. “She came in and ordered a milk shake. Then she changed her mind, said she wasn’t hungry, and walked out. I saw her go ’round back, to where Jack was putting the trash into the Dumpster.”
“You saw this?”
“My cash register sits next to a window,” Roy said.
“What exactly did you see?”
“She must have said something to him, because he looked up after a minute and they started talking.”
For taciturn Roy, that pretty much said it all, too. Jordan hid a smile. “How long did they talk?”
“Had to have been ten minutes, because I changed the cash drawer then. Takes some time to count up all those bills and coins.”
“Thank you, Roy.” Jordan lifted the sandwich. “For everything.”
As soon as Matt stood up for his cross-examination, Roy turned to the judge. “Can I ask him a question?”
She seemed surprised, but nodded. “All right, Mr. Peabody.”
“What the heck was wrong with my muffin?” Roy barked.
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t eat it, did you? Just like you didn’t eat my sandwich today.”
“It wasn’t a personal affront, Mr. Peabody. I was making a statement,” Matt said.
“’Bout what? That my food isn’t good enough for you?”
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