by Jodi Picoult
He waited for the secretary to buzz Matt Houlihan, an assistant county attorney Jordan disliked just on general principles. The fucker was too cocky, and if Jordan felt that, it was really saying something. Jordan wasn’t sure what pissed him off more—the young county attorney’s persistence or the fact that his hairline wasn’t receding even the tiniest bit.
Matt appeared around the corner of a cubicle, grinning. “He has risen!”
Smiling just as widely, Jordan held out his hand to shake. “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Matt gestured down the hall, toward his office. “Where have you been, Jordan? After the Harte case, you dropped off the face of the earth.”
“No . . . just into Salem Falls.” Jordan’s mouth twitched. “So you may have been right in the first place.” He took a seat across from Matt. “I’ve been appointed as counsel for Jack St. Bride,” he said without preamble.
“Thought he was getting someone from the PD’s office.”
“Apparently, there was a conflict. What you see is what you get.”
Matt’s eyes sparked. “I like a good challenge.”
There wasn’t much Jordan could say to that without the words getting stuck in his throat. Defending a guy who seemed to be a two-time loser against Matt Houlihan ranked just about at the bottom of things Jordan enjoyed doing. “I don’t see any reason to contest your bail request,” Jordan said confidently, although no attorney in his right mind would think there was any chance in hell St. Bride might be released. “Assuming you can give me the police reports you have up to this point.”
Matt tossed him a file. “There’s the charge, and the victim’s statement.”
It was a gift, Jordan knew. Without it, the victim would be a complete cipher and it would be nearly impossible to prepare a case. He opened the file, and the name of the victim leaped out. Jordan kept his face poker straight. “Well,” he said, getting to his feet. “We’ll talk again.”
“About what?” Matt steepled his fingers, his casual pose completely at odds with the grim determination in his eyes. “I’ve got a young girl saying some jerk raped her, a jerk who was just in jail for doing the same thing. There’s nothing to talk about, Jordan. I’m gonna lock your client up for twenty long years.”
The moment Jordan McAfee walked into the celled corridor of the sheriff’s department beneath the county court building, Jack got to his feet. Jordan met his gaze immediately, something the deputies tried not to do. “Hi, Jack,” he said smoothly. “I know we’ve met, but I’m not sure you realize why I’m here. I’ve been practicing law for nearly twenty years, and occasionally I help out when the court needs someone because the public defender’s office has a conflict. I’ve been asked to stand up in your case.”
Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Jordan held up his hand. “There’s not much we can accomplish this morning, so we’re just going to keep our powder dry. We’re not going to say anything about the case, and we’re not going to ask the judge for anything.”
“You have to get me released on bail.”
“Jack, you have a prior conviction. You have about as much chance of walking out of here today as a groom at a shotgun wedding. You’re going to have to trust me on—”
“Trust you? Trust you?” Jack’s eyes were wild. “I don’t even know you.”
Jordan was quiet for a moment. “You know I take my coffee light and that I read the New York Times and not the Globe. You know I leave a twenty percent tip, every time. That’s more than most defendants know about their attorneys. Now, I wasn’t the one who landed you in this cell. . . . Apparently, you were able to do that all by yourself.”
“I don’t want to go back to jail,” Jack said desperately. “I didn’t do what they said.”
Jordan looked at Jack’s disheveled clothing, his wild eyes, the long scrape on his cheek, and let the words roll right off his back. If he’d had a nickel for every time he’d heard that, he’d have been living the high life in Belize. “I understand you’re upset right now. Let’s just get through the arraignment, and then we’ll start to look at our options.”
“The last time a lawyer told me we’d look at my options,” Jack said, “I spent eight months in jail.”
Jordan shrugged, silent. But he was thinking: This time, it’s going to be much worse.
“If this isn’t déjà vu,” said Judge Freeley, opening the file on his desk again. “Mr. St. Bride, I see you’re now being represented by Mr. McAfee.”
Jordan stood and neatly buttoned his suit jacket. Immediately, he could feel the eyes of the cameras in the back of the courtroom blinking to life. “Yes, Your Honor. I’ve explained the complaint to my client, and he’s read it and he understands it. If I could ask the court to enter a not-guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf?”
“Fine,” the judge said. “Is there an issue about bail?”
Matt Houlihan unfolded his lanky body and glanced at Jack. “This was an extremely violent crime, Judge. Moreover, the defendant already has a prior conviction and has virtually no ties to the community—he just moved here, has no family nearby, owns no property—all these facts indicate that he’s a flight risk. Finally, Your Honor, this community would not be safe if he were to be released. This man has been charged with violently sexually assaulting a young girl, and he has already been convicted once of doing the exact same thing. The court could expect that on release, he’d only go out and find yet another victim. For these reasons, Your Honor, the state requests that bail be denied.”
The judge turned toward the defense table. “Mr. McAfee?”
“I don’t have a problem with that at this point, Your Honor.”
Judge Freeley nodded. “All right then—”
“The reason,” Jordan interrupted, “that I don’t feel a need to contest the state’s request for denying bail is because frankly, it’s the safest place for my client. You see before you a man whose first amendment rights have been stripped away by the force of rumor and conjecture—a man who has committed no crime but in reality has been victimized. Your Honor, the town of Salem Falls has been out for Jack St. Bride’s blood since the moment he arrived.”
The judge gestured at the cameras. “I’m sure the academy is enjoying your Oscar-worthy performance, Mr. McAfee,” he said dryly. “Let’s pity the justice who draws your trial. Next?”
As the clerk called the following case, Jordan turned to his client, who was speechless. “What?” he demanded.
“I . . . I didn’t expect you to stick up for me,” Jack admitted.
Jordan stuffed the manila file from the county attorney’s office in with his other papers. “Well, if I can give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you can find it in yourself to do the same.” He watched the bailiff approach to take his client away to the jail next door.
“Wait,” Jack called over his shoulder. “When am I going to talk to you again?”
“Not today. I’ve got a really busy schedule.” Jordan tucked his briefcase beneath his arm and walked out of the courtroom, wondering what Jack St. Bride would think if he knew that for the rest of the day, Jordan had absolutely nothing else to do.
November 1998
Loyal,
New Hampshire
Sometimes, when Jack watched his girls fly down the field, time stopped. He would hear only the beat of his own heart and see the small dark stitches sewn by their cleats as they ran from goal to goal, and he would think: It does not get any better than this.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” he called out, clapping. “Arielle’s open!”
He watched his strikers scuffle against the opposing team, a hurricane of feet and mud obliterating the play for a moment. Then his right wing sent the ball spinning toward Arielle, his center. The senior captain of the team, Arielle was the best striker he had. She was on the field continuously, with the second- and third-string centers coming in only briefly to give her a chance to catch her breath . . . and even then, only when Jack felt that they were winning
by a decent margin. Jack watched with pride as she sped toward the net with her eye on the ball, intent on heading it in. But just as the crown of her head connected, she slammed her left shoulder into the post. The ball skimmed off the top of the net, rolling offside, as Arielle crumpled to the ground at the goalie’s feet.
A hush fell over the field. Players from both teams stood restless as colts, pawing at the ground in an effort to stay loose while they waited for Arielle to get up.
But she didn’t. Jack’s breath caught as the ref blew his whistle. He ran out across the field to where Arielle lay flat on her back, staring at the sky.
“I misjudged the goal,” she moaned, cradling her arm against her belly. Jack watched her hold the limb tight against her, rounding her shoulders against the pain. He’d bet anything it was her collarbone. Christ, he’d smashed his own three times when he was playing in college.
Sliding an arm around her waist, Jack helped Arielle off the field. There were cheers from the fans of both teams. “Maybe if I rest a minute, I can go back in,” Arielle suggested.
He loved her for that. “I think we’d better play it by ear,” Jack said. The ref held up his hands, looking to Jack for a replacement so that play could be resumed.
The second- and third-string centers on the bench stared up at him like wallflowers at a dance, praying with all their hearts that this time, they might be chosen. Jack’s eyes flickered from one to the next, settling on Catherine Marsh, the daughter of the school chaplain. Her teammates seemed to like her; Jack had never really paid enough attention to form an opinion. Now, she stared up at him, full of hope. It seemed to light her from the inside.
“All right,” Jack said. “You’re in.”
Ohmygod, Catherine thought. Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
She stood in the spot usually handled by Arielle, who had been taken to the hospital. Catherine’s eye was so focused on the ball that any minute she expected it to burst into flames. Coming in at the goal kick, the very play where the ball had gone out of bounds, gave her no time to ease into this.
Shaking out her arms and legs, she loosened her body and instructed herself to relax. Not that it did any good.
Settle down, she ordered, but it only made her heart beat harder. She imagined her blood raging like a river. Her eyes followed the trajectory of the ball as the wing attempted a shot. The goalie, a bulk of a girl if Catherine had ever seen one, deflected it with one massive hand . . . but the ball spiraled up and over the metal rim of the net, thudding down beyond the boundaries of the field.
“Corner kick,” the ref yelled from somewhere behind her. Catherine knew her position. As the wing stood at the squared edge of the field behind the goal, Catherine moved closer to the net. Her right fingertips brushed the goal, a sensory print of where she was standing. A hundred thoughts raced through her mind: If she arcs it, I can head it in. The rim of the goal is warm to the touch. The sun’s in my eyes. God, what if I miss? Fingertips grazing again, she fought to see around the goalie, who was a full head taller than she was. Eye on the ball. Wait. Head it square in. Don’t look like an idiot.
The wing’s foot shot out, but she whiffed the ball—Catherine craned her neck to see it arch, heading away from the goal. Oh, God, I’ll never get to it, thought Catherine, and an enormous pressure lifted from her chest, because she was no longer obligated to perform. Catherine watched the ball hang like a second sun in the air . . . and then it outpaced her, a spinning sphere angling over her right shoulder in a sweet, true arc.
Without conscious thought, Catherine leaped. As her shoulders dropped down, her legs came up, and she scissored her legs in a bicycle kick, so that her right foot rocketed the ball back in the direction from which it had come.
Catherine didn’t see the ball speed over her shoulder, to stretch the upper left corner of the net. She didn’t know at first why all her teammates were screaming and piling on top of her, so that she couldn’t have gotten up even if she’d wanted to. Instead, she lay flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her.
A teammate offered her a hand up. Catherine searched the sea of faces on the sidelines, all cheering for her . . . for her! She finally stopped when she found the one she was looking for. Coach St. Bride stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed. “Thank you,” he mouthed silently.
Catherine smiled so wide she was sure all her happiness would simply spill out at her feet. “My pleasure,” she whispered back, and turned to the field to play.
Muddy and spent, but buzzing with the euphoria that comes on a victory, the girls gathered their water bottles and jackets and headed into the locker room. Fans drifted from the sidelines like milkweed blowing from a pod, wandering to the white buildings of Westonbrook or the parking lot, where they could wait for the players they had come to cheer on.
The school nurse had passed along the news that Arielle’s collarbone had snapped; she’d be out of commission for six weeks. But where this news would have sent Jack into a tailspin just that morning, he was now remarkably calm. And all because of Catherine Marsh, a little wren he’d never even noticed simply because he’d been too busy admiring the peacock.
She was straggling behind. Her blond hair had managed to untangle itself from a ponytail and swung in front of her face like a veil as she bent to pick up her belongings. “Hey, Pelé,” Jack called out.
She glanced up blankly.
“God, you’re making me feel old. Forget Pelé. Mia, then. Or Brandi.”
“Not quite.” Ruefully, Catherine tugged at her jersey. “See, I still have my shirt on.” After a moment, she added, “Thanks for giving me a chance today.”
“A smarter move,” Jack said soberly, “would have been to let the wing trap the ball and bring it back into play. I could just as easily be standing here asking you what the hell you were doing, instead of holding you up as MVP.”
“I know.”
“If you’re going to do such a low percentage kick, I’d better teach you how to do it without hurting yourself in the process.”
Catherine’s head snapped up. “For real?”
“Yeah. Come here.” He tossed her a ball and ushered her toward the flag so that she could do a corner kick. In the meantime, he assumed the position she’d been in, by the goal. “Go on.”
She tried, but the first shot landed in the goal. “Sorry.”
Jack laughed. “Don’t ever apologize to your coach when you score.”
Smiling, Catherine tried again. The ball curved toward the midfield, and Jack started running. His blond hair caught on the wind, and he could feel every cell of his body straining with the pure joy of play as he kicked his feet up and pedaled them to change position, catching the ball and firing it back over his dropped right shoulder. As he fell, he braced his palms, landing on the flat of his upper back and rocking forward.
“Wow,” Catherine said. “You make it look so easy.”
“I make it look less painful.” Jack got up, then put his hands on Catherine’s shoulders. She smelled of powder, and there was mud caked on the tip of her ponytail. “You land here,” he said, skimming his palm over her upper back. He slid his arms down over hers, flexing the palms out. “You’re going to roll down your spine, so that you hit your shoulders and your elbows and your forearms and then your butt makes contact.”
They switched places, so that Jack could lob the ball over her shoulder from behind. With each try, Jack offered a new piece of advice; with each try, the sun sank a little deeper in the sky. On the seventh attempt, Catherine landed perfectly. “I did it. I did it!” She leaped to her feet and threw her arms around Jack’s neck. “This is so cool!”
Laughing, Jack set her away from him. If he could bottle the enthusiasm of the average fifteen-year-old, he’d be a very rich man. He tossed Catherine her water bottle and jacket. “Go on home, Pelé.”
“That’s Brandi, if you don’t mind.”
He grinned as she bounced her way across the darkening playing fields. And he wondered how
, in the three months she’d been on his team, he ever could have underestimated Catherine Marsh.
“You’re shitting me.” Jay Kavanaugh stared at the television set over the bar, his bottle of Bud arrested halfway to his lips. “She’s not sixteen.”
“She is,” Jack insisted. “I kid you not.”
They both watched the teen pop princess jiggle her way through an MTV music video. “But . . . but . . . Jesus, look at her face.”
“It’s all makeup.”
“Guess she keeps the cotton balls to apply it stuffed in her bra, then?”
Jack took a pull of his drink. “Early bloomer.”
“That’s no bloom,” Jay muttered. “That’s a whole fucking tropical rainforest.” He grabbed the remote control off the bar counter and turned the channel to a movie in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was pummeling a man bloody. “There. Something less inflammatory.” Jay slid his empty bottle across the counter and gestured for another one. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Stick yourself smack in the middle of sin every day.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Jeez, you’re surrounded by . . . by sixteen-year-old pop princesses all day long.”
“Jessica Simpson is not enrolled at Westonbrook.”
Jay shrugged. “You know what I mean. I know DAs who won’t drive home their teenage baby-sitters. How can you look at them day in and day out and not . . . notice?”
“Because I’m their teacher and that would make me as moral as a slug.” Jack grinned. “You don’t interview felons and suddenly decide to turn over a new leaf of crime, do you?”
Jay twisted the top off the bottle that the bartender set in front of him. “No . . . but sometimes I look at a drug dealer all decked out in Armani and before I can stop myself, I think: ‘It’s got to be a nice life, long as you don’t get caught.’”
Jack lifted the beer to his lips. “Well,” he admitted, laughing, “sometimes I think that, too.”
