Nineteen Minutes

by Jodie Picoult

  There was a shifting, and the sheets fell away from Josie’s face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face swollen. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I was never a big fan of thunderstorms.”

  “How come I never woke up and found you here?”

  “I always went back to my own bed. I was supposed to be the tough one…. I didn’t want you to think I was scared of anything.”

  “Supermom,” Josie whispered.

  “But I’m scared of losing you,” Alex said. “I’m scared it’s already happened.”

  Josie stared at her for a moment. “I’m scared of losing me, too.”

  Alex sat up and tucked Josie’s hair behind her ear. “Let’s get out of here,” she suggested.

  Josie froze. “I don’t want to go out.”

  “Sweetheart, it would be good for you. It’s like physical therapy, but for the brain. Go through the motions, the pattern of your everyday life, and eventually you remember how to do it naturally.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “If you don’t try, Jo,” she said, “then that means he wins.”

  Josie’s head snapped up. Alex didn’t have to tell her who he was. “Did you guess?” Alex heard herself asking.

  “Guess what?”

  “That he might do this?”

  “Mom, I don’t want to-”

  “I keep thinking about him as a little boy,” Alex said.

  Josie shook her head. “That was a really long time ago,” she murmured. “People change.”

  “I know. But sometimes I can still see him handing you that rifle-”

  “We were little,” Josie interrupted, her eyes filling with tears. “We were stupid.” She pushed back the covers, in a sudden hurry. “I thought you wanted to go somewhere.”

  Alex looked at her. A lawyer would press the point. A mother, though, might not.

  Minutes later, Josie was sitting in the passenger seat of the car beside Alex. She buckled the seat belt, then unlatched it, then secured it again. Alex watched her tug on the belt to make sure it would lock up.

  She pointed out the obvious as they drove-that the first daffodils had pushed their brave heads through the snow on the median strip of Main Street; that the Sterling College crew team was training on the Connecticut River, the bows of their boats breaking through the residual ice. That the temperature gauge in the car said it was more than fifty degrees. Alex intentionally took the long route-the one that did not go past the school. Only once did Josie’s head turn to look at the scenery, and that was when they passed the police station.

  Alex pulled into a parking spot in front of the diner. The street was filled with lunchtime shoppers and busy pedestrians, carrying boxes to be mailed and talking on cell phones and glancing into store windows. To anyone who didn’t know better, it was business as usual in Sterling. “So,” Alex said, turning to Josie. “How are we doing?”

  Josie looked down at her hands in her lap. “Okay.”

  “It’s not as bad as you thought, is it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “My daughter the optimist.” Alex smiled at her. “You want to split a BLT and a salad?”

  “You haven’t even looked at a menu yet,” Josie said, and they both got out of the car.

  Suddenly a rusted Dodge Dart ran the light at the head of Main Street, backfiring as it sped away. “Idiot,” Alex muttered, “I should get his plate number…” She broke off when she realized that Josie had vanished. “Josie!”

  Then Alex saw her daughter, pressed against the sidewalk, where she’d flattened herself. Her face was white, her body trembling.

  Alex knelt beside her. “It was a car. Just a car.” She helped Josie to her knees. All around them, people were watching and pretending not to.

  Alex shielded Josie from their view. She had failed again. For someone renowned for her good judgment, she suddenly seemed to be lacking any. She thought of something she’d read on the Internet-how sometimes, when it came to grief, you could take one step forward and then three steps back. She wondered why the Internet did not add that when someone you loved was hurting, it cut you right to the bone, too. “All right,” Alex said, her arm anchored tight around Josie’s shoulders. “Let’s get you back home.”

  Patrick had taken to living, eating, and sleeping his case. At the station, he acted cool and in command-he was the point man, after all, for all those investigators-but at home, he questioned every move he made. On his refrigerator were the pictures of the dead; on his bathroom mirror he’d created a dry-erase marker timeline of Peter’s day. He sat awake in the middle of the night, writing lists of questions: What was Peter doing at home before leaving for school? What else was on his computer? Where did he learn to shoot? How did he get guns? Where did the anger come from?

  During the day, however, he plowed through the massive amount of information to be processed, and the even more massive amount of information to be gleaned. Now, Joan McCabe sat across from him. She had cried her way through the last box of Kleenex at the station, and was now wadding paper towels up in her fist. “I’m sorry,” she said to Patrick. “I thought this would get easier the more I do it.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said gently. “I do appreciate you taking the time to speak to me about your brother.”

  Ed McCabe had been the only teacher killed in the shooting. His classroom had been at the top of the stairs, en route to the gymnasium; he’d had the bad fortune to come out and try to stop what was happening. According to school records, Peter had had McCabe as a math teacher in tenth grade. He’d gotten B’s. No one else could remember his not getting along with McCabe that year; most of the other students hadn’t even recalled Peter being in the class.

  “There’s really nothing else I can tell you,” Joan said. “Maybe Philip remembers something.”

  “Your husband?”

  Joan looked up at him. “No. That’s Ed’s partner.”

  Patrick leaned back in his chair. “Partner. As in-”

  “Ed was gay,” Joan said.

  It might be something, but then again, it might not. For all Patrick knew, Ed McCabe-who’d been just a hapless victim a half hour ago-could have been the reason Peter started shooting.

  “No one at the school knew,” Joan said. “I think he was afraid of backlash. He told people in town that Philip was his old college roommate.”

  Another victim-one who was still alive-was Natalie Zlenko. She’d been shot in the side and had to have her liver resected. Patrick thought he remembered seeing her name listed as president of the GLAAD club at Sterling High. She’d been one of the first people shot; McCabe had been one of the last.

  Maybe Peter Houghton was homophobic.

  Patrick handed Joan his card. “I’d really like to talk to Philip,” he said.

  Lacy Houghton set a teapot and a plate of celery in front of Selena. “I don’t have any milk. I went to buy some, but…” Her voice trailed off, and Selena tried to fill in the blanks.

  “I really appreciate you talking to me,” Selena said. “Whatever you can tell me, we’ll use to help Peter.”

  Lacy nodded. “Anything,” she said. “Anything you want to know.”

  “Well, let’s start with the easy stuff. Where was he born?”

  “Right at Dartmouth-Hitchcock,” Lacy said.

  “Normal delivery?”

  “Totally. No complications.” She smiled a little. “I used to walk three miles every day when I was pregnant. Lewis thought I’d wind up delivering in someone’s driveway.”

  “Did you nurse him? Was he a good eater?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t see why…”

  “Because we have to see if there might be a brain disorder,” Selena said matter-of-factly. “An organic problem.”

  “Oh,” Lacy said faintly. “Yes. I nursed him. He’s always been healthy. A little smaller than other kids his age, but neither Lewis nor I are very big people.”

  “How was his social developm
ent as a child?”

  “He didn’t have a lot of friends,” Lacy said. “Not like Joey.”

  “Joey?”

  “Peter’s older brother. Peter is a year younger, and much quieter. He got teased because of his size, and because he wasn’t as good an athlete as Joey….”

  “What kind of relationship does Peter have with Joey?”

  Lacy looked down at her knotted hands. “Joey died a year ago. He was killed in a car accident, by a drunk driver.”

  Selena stopped writing. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes,” Lacy said. “Me, too.”

  Selena leaned back slightly in her chair. It was crazy, she knew, but just in case misfortune was contagious, she did not want to get too close. She thought of Sam, how she’d left him sleeping this morning in his crib. During the night he’d kicked off a sock; his toes were plump as early peas; it was all she could do not to taste his caramel skin. So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was sustenance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream.

  She turned back to Lacy. “Did Peter get along with Joey?”

  “Oh, Peter adored his big brother.”

  “He told you that?”

  Lacy shrugged. “He didn’t have to. He’d be at all of Joey’s football games, and cheering just as loud as the rest of us. When he got to the high school, everyone expected great things of him, because he was Joey’s little brother.”

  Which could be, Selena knew, just as much a source of frustration as it was of pride. “How did Peter react to Joey’s death?”

  “He was devastated, just like we were. He cried a lot. Spent time in his room.”

  “Did your relationship with Peter change after Joey died?”

  “I think it got stronger,” Lacy said. “I was so overwhelmed. Peter…he let us lean on him.”

  “Did he lean on anyone else? Have any intimate relationships?”

  “You mean with girls?”

  “Or boys,” Selena said.

  “He was still at that awkward age. I know he’d asked a few girls out, but I don’t think anything ever came of it.”

  “How were Peter’s grades?”

  “He wasn’t a straight-A student like his brother,” Lacy said, “but he’d get B’s and the occasional C. We always told him to just do the best he could.”

  “Did he have any learning disabilities?”

  “No.”

  “What about outside of school? What did he like to do?” Selena asked.

  “He’d listen to music. Play video games. Like any other teenager.”

  “Did you ever listen to his music, or play those games?”

  Lacy let a smile ghost over her face. “I actively tried not to.”

  “Did you monitor his Internet use?”

  “He was only supposed to be using it for school projects. We had long talks about chat rooms and how unsafe the Internet can be, but Peter had a good head on his shoulders. We-” She broke off, looking away. “We trusted him.”

  “Did you know what he was downloading?”

  “No.”

  “What about weapons? Do you know where he got them from?”

  Lacy took a deep breath. “Lewis hunts. He took Peter out with him once, but Peter didn’t like it very much. The shotguns are always locked in a gun case-”

  “And Peter knew where the key was.”

  “Yes,” Lacy murmured.

  “What about the pistols?”

  “We’ve never had those in our house. I have no idea where they came from.”

  “Did you ever check his room? Under the bed, in the closets, that kind of thing?”

  Lacy met her gaze. “We’ve always respected his privacy. I think it’s important for a child to have his own space, and-” She pressed her lips shut.

  “And?”

  “And sometimes when you start looking,” Lacy said softly, “you find things you don’t really want to see.”

  Selena leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “When did that happen, Lacy?”

  Lacy walked to the window, drawing aside the curtain. “You would have had to know Joey to understand. He was a senior, an honors student, an athlete. And then, a week before graduation, he was killed.” She let her hand trail the edge of the fabric. “Someone had to go through his room-pack it up, get rid of the things we didn’t want to keep. It took me a while, but finally, I did it. I was going through his drawers when I found the drugs. Just a little powder, in a gum wrapper, and a spoon and a needle. I didn’t know it was heroin until I looked it up on the Internet. I flushed it down the toilet and threw the hypodermic out at work.” She turned toward Selena, her face red. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone, not even Lewis. I didn’t want him-or anyone-to think anything bad about Joey.”

  Lacy sat down on the couch again. “I didn’t go into Peter’s room on purpose, because I was afraid of what I’d find,” she confessed. “I didn’t know that it could be even worse.”

  “Did you ever interrupt him when he was in his room? Knock on the door, pop your head inside?”

  “Sure. I’d come in to say good night.”

  “What was he usually doing?”

  “He was on his computer,” Lacy said. “Almost always.”

  “Didn’t you see what was on the screen?”

  “I don’t know. He’d close the file.”

  “How did he act when you interrupted him unexpectedly? Did he seem upset? Annoyed? Guilty?”

  “Why does it feel like you’re judging him?” Lacy said. “Aren’t you supposed to be on our side?”

  Selena met her gaze steadily. “The only way I can thoroughly investigate this case is to ask you the facts, Mrs. Houghton. That’s all I’m doing.”

  “He was like any other teenager,” Lacy said. “He’d suffer while I kissed him good night. He didn’t seem embarrassed. He didn’t act like he was hiding anything from me. Is that what you want to know?”

  Selena put down her pen. When the subject started getting defensive, it was time to end the interview. But Lacy was still talking, unprompted.

  “I never thought there was any problem,” she admitted. “I didn’t know Peter was upset. I didn’t know he wanted to kill himself. I didn’t know any of those things.” She began to cry. “All those families out there, I don’t know what to say to them. I wish I could tell them that I lost someone, too. I just lost him a long time ago.”

  Selena folded her arms around the smaller woman. “It’s not your fault,” she said, words she knew Lacy Houghton needed to hear.

  In a fit of high school irony, the principal of Sterling High had placed the Bible Study Club next door to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance. They met Tuesdays, at three-thirty, in Rooms 233 and 234 of the high school. Room 233 was, during the day, Ed McCabe’s classroom. One member of the Bible Study Club was the daughter of a local minister, named Grace Murtaugh. She’d been killed in the hallway leading to the gymnasium, shot in front of a water fountain. The leader of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance was still in the hospital: Natalie Zlenko, a yearbook photographer, had come out as a lesbian after her freshman year, when she’d wandered into the GLAAD meeting in Room 233 to see if there was anyone else on this planet like herself.

  “We’re not supposed to give out names.” Natalie’s voice was so faint that Patrick had to lean over the hospital bed to hear her. Natalie’s mother hovered at his shoulder. When he’d come in to ask Natalie a few questions, she said that he’d better leave or else she’d call the police. He reminded her that he was the police.

  “I’m not asking for names,” Patrick said. “I’m just asking you to help me help a jury understand why this happened.”

  Natalie nodded. She closed her eyes.

  “Peter Houghton,” Patrick said. “Did he ever attend a meeting?”

  “Once,” Natalie said.

  “Did he say or do anything that sticks in your mind?
”

  “He didn’t say or do anything, period. He showed up the one time, and he never came back.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Sometimes,” Natalie said. “People wouldn’t be ready to come out. And sometimes we got jerks who just wanted to know who was gay so that they could make life hell for us in school.”

  “In your opinion, did Peter fit into either one of these categories?”

  She was silent for a long time, her eyes still closed. Patrick drew away, thinking that she’d fallen asleep. “Thanks,” he said to her mother, just as Natalie spoke again.

  “Peter was getting ragged on long before he ever showed up at that meeting,” she said.

  Jordan was on diaper detail while Selena interviewed Lacy Houghton, and Sam was appallingly bad at going to sleep on his own. However, a ten-minute ride in the car could knock the kid out like a prizefighter, so Jordan bundled the baby up and strapped him into the car seat. It wasn’t until he put the Saab into reverse that he realized his wheel rims were grinding against the driveway; all four of his tires had been slashed.

  “Fuck,” Jordan said, as Sam started to wail again in the backseat. He plucked the baby out, carried him back inside, and tethered him into the Snugli that Selena wore around the house. Then he called the police to report the vandalism.

  Jordan knew he was in trouble when the dispatch officer didn’t ask him to spell his last name-he already knew it. “We’ll get to it,” the officer said. “But first we’ve got a squirrel up a tree that needs a hand climbing down.” The line went dead.

  Could you sue the cops for being unsympathetic bastards?

  Through some miracle-pheromones of stress, probably-Sam fell asleep, but startled, bawling, when the doorbell rang. Jordan yanked the door open to find Selena outside. “You woke up the baby,” he accused as she lifted Sam out of the carrier.

  “Then you shouldn’t have locked the door. Oh, hi, you sweet man,” Selena cooed. “Has Daddy been a monster the whole time I’ve been gone?”