Nineteen Minutes

by Jodie Picoult

  She startled at the sound of someone opening the door. Lewis stood on the threshold, wearing the suit that he kept for conferences and college graduations. He was holding a blue silk tie in his hand and did not speak.

  Lacy took the tie out of Lewis’s hand and walked behind him. She noosed it around his neck, gently pulled the knot into place, and flipped down the collar. As she did, Lewis reached for her hand and didn’t let go.

  There weren’t words, really, for moments like this-when you realized that you’d lost one child and the other was slipping out of your reach. Still holding Lacy’s hand, Lewis led her out of Peter’s room. He closed the door behind them.

  At 6:00 a.m., when Jordan crept downstairs to read through his notes in preparation for the trial, he found a single place setting at the table: a bowl, a spoon, and a box of Cocoa Krispies-the meal he always used to kick off a battle. Grinning-Selena must have gotten up in the middle of the night to do this, since they’d headed up to bed together last night-he sat down and poured himself a healthy serving, then went into the fridge for the milk.

  A Post-it note had been stuck to the carton. GOOD LUCK.

  Just as Jordan sat down to eat, the telephone rang. He grabbed it-Selena and the baby were still asleep. “Hello?”

  “Dad?”

  “Thomas,” he said. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

  “Well, um, I sort of didn’t go to bed yet.”

  Jordan smiled. “Ah, to be young and collegiate again.”

  “Anyway, I just called to wish you luck. It starts today, right?”

  He looked down at his cereal and suddenly remembered the footage taken by the cafeteria video camera at Sterling High: Peter sitting down, just like this, to have a bowl of cereal, dead students flanking him. Jordan pushed the bowl away. “Yes,” he said. “It does.”

  The correctional officer opened up Peter’s cell and handed him a stack of folded clothes. “Time for the ball, Cinderella,” he said.

  Peter waited until he left. He knew his mother had bought these for him; she’d even left the tags on so that he could see they hadn’t come from Joey’s closet. They were preppy, the kind of clothes he imagined were worn to polo matches-not that he’d ever actually been to one to see.

  Peter stripped out of his jumpsuit and pulled on the boxer shorts, the socks. He sat down on his bunk to pull up his trousers, which were a little tight at the waist. He buttoned the shirt wrong the first time and had to do it over. He didn’t know how to do his tie right. He rolled it up and stuffed it into his pocket so that Jordan could help him.

  There wasn’t a mirror in his cell, but Peter imagined he looked ordinary now. If you beamed him from this jail into a crowded New York street or into the stands of a football game, people probably wouldn’t glance twice at him; wouldn’t realize that underneath all that washed wool and Egyptian cotton was someone they’d never imagine. Or in other words, after all this, nothing had changed.

  He was about to leave the cell when he realized he had not been given a bulletproof vest, as he had for the arraignment. It probably wasn’t because he was any less hated now; more likely, it had been an oversight. He started to ask the guard about it, but then snapped his mouth shut.

  Maybe, for the first time in his life, Peter had gotten lucky.

  Alex dressed like she was going to work, which she was, except not as a judge. She wondered what it would be like to sit in court in the role of civilian. She wondered if the grieving mother from the arraignment would be there.

  She knew it was going to be hard to listen to this trial, and to understand all over again how close she had come to losing Josie. Alex was through pretending that she was listening only because it was her job; she was listening because she had to. One day Josie would remember and would need someone to hold her upright; and since Alex hadn’t been there the first time to protect Josie, she’d bear witness now.

  She hurried downstairs and found Josie sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in a skirt and blouse. “I’m going,” she announced.

  It was déjà vu-this was exactly what had happened the day of Peter’s arraignment, except that seemed so long ago, and she and Josie had both been very different people back then. Today, she was on the defense’s witness list, but she hadn’t been served with a subpoena, which meant that she didn’t actually have to be in the courthouse at all during the trial.

  “I know I can’t go in, but Patrick’s sequestered, too, isn’t he?”

  The last time Josie had asked to go to court, Alex had flatly refused. This time, though, she sat down across from Josie. “Do you have any idea what it’s going to be like? There are going to be cameras, lots of them. And kids in wheelchairs. And angry parents. And Peter.”

  Josie’s gaze fell into her lap like a stone. “You’re trying to keep me from going again.”

  “No, I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt.”

  “I didn’t get hurt,” Josie said. “That’s why I have to go.”

  Five months ago, Alex had made this decision for her daughter. Now she knew that Josie deserved to speak for herself. “I’ll meet you in the car,” she said calmly. She held this mask until Josie closed the door behind herself, and then bolted upstairs to the bathroom and got sick.

  She was afraid that reliving the shooting, even from a distance, would rattle Josie past the point of recovery. But mostly she worried that for the second time, she would be powerless to keep her daughter from being hurt.

  Alex rested her forehead against the cool porcelain lip of the bathtub. Then, standing, she brushed her teeth and splashed her face with water. She hurried to the car, where her daughter was already waiting.

  Because the sitter was late, Jordan and Selena found themselves fighting the crowd on the courtroom steps. Selena had been expecting it-and still wasn’t entirely prepared for the hordes of reporters, the television vans, the spectators holding up their camera phones to capture a snapshot of the melee.

  Jordan was playing the villain today-the vast majority of the onlookers were from Sterling, and since Peter would be transported to the court via underground tunnel, Jordan was their fall guy. “How do you sleep at night?” a woman shouted as Jordan hurried up the steps past her. Another held up a sign: There’s still a death penalty in NH.

  “Ooh boy,” Jordan said under his breath. “This is gonna be a fun one.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Selena replied.

  But he had stopped moving. There was a man standing on the steps holding up a piece of posterboard with two large mounted photos-one of a girl, one of a pretty woman. Kaitlyn Harvey, Selena realized, recognizing the face. And her mother. At the top of the display were two words: NINETEEN MINUTES.

  Jordan met the man’s gaze. Selena knew what he was thinking-that this could be him, that he had just as much to lose. “I’m sorry,” Jordan murmured, and Selena looped her arm through his and pulled him up the stairs again.

  There was a different crowd up here, though. They wore startling yellow shirts with BVA printed across the chest, and they were chanting: “Peter, you are not alone. Peter, you are not alone.”

  Jordan leaned closer to her. “What the fuck is this?”

  “The Bullied Victims of America.”

  “You must be joking,” Jordan said. “They exist?”

  “You better believe it,” Selena said.

  Jordan started to smile for the first time since they’d started driving to court. “And you found them for us?”

  Selena squeezed his arm. “You can thank me later,” she said.

  His client looked like he was going to faint. Jordan nodded at the deputy who let him into the holding cell where Peter was being kept at the courthouse, and then sat down. “Breathe,” he commanded.

  Peter nodded and filled up his lungs. He was shaking. Jordan had expected this, had seen it at the start of every trial he’d ever been a part of. Even the most hardened criminal suddenly panicked when he realized that this was the day his life was on the line.
“I’ve got something for you,” Jordan said, and he took a pair of glasses out of his pocket.

  They were thick and tortoiseshell, Coke-bottle glasses, very different from the thin wire ones Peter usually wore. “I don’t,” Peter said, and then his voice cracked. “I don’t need new ones.”

  “Well, take them anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everyone will notice these on your face,” Jordan said. “I want you to look like someone who could never in a million years see well enough to shoot ten people.”

  Peter’s hands curled around the metal edge of the bench. “Jordan? What’s going to happen to me?”

  There were some clients you had to lie to, just so that they’d get through the trial. But at this point, Jordan thought he owed Peter the truth. “I don’t know, Peter. You haven’t got a great case, because of all the evidence against you. The likelihood of you being acquitted is slim, but I’m still going to do whatever I can for you. Okay?” Peter nodded. “All I want you to do is try to be quiet out there. Look pathetic.”

  Peter bowed his head, his face contorting. Yes, just like that, Jordan thought, and then he realized that Peter had started to cry.

  Jordan walked toward the front of the cell. This, too, was a familiar moment for him as a defense attorney. Jordan usually allowed his client to have this final breakdown in private before they went into the courtroom. It was none of his business, and to be honest, Jordan was all about business. But he could hear Peter sobbing behind him; and in that sad song was one note that reached right down into Jordan. Before he could think better of it, he had turned around and was sitting on the bench again. He wrapped an arm around Peter, felt the boy relax against him. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, and he hoped he was not lying.

  Diana Leven surveyed the packed gallery, then asked a bailiff to turn off the lights. She pushed the button on her laptop, beginning her PowerPoint presentation.

  The screen beside Judge Wagner filled with an image of Sterling High School. There was a blue sky in the background and some cotton-candy clouds. A flag snapped in the wind. Three school buses were lined up like a caravan in the front circle. Diana let this picture stand alone, in silence, for fifteen seconds.

  The courtroom grew so quiet you could hear the hum of the transcriptionist’s laptop.

  Oh, God, Jordan thought. I have to sit through this for the next three weeks.

  “This is what Sterling High School looked like on March 6, 2007. It was 7:50 a.m., and school had just started. Courtney Ignatio was in chemistry class, taking a quiz. Whit Obermeyer was in the main office getting a late pass, because he’d had car trouble that morning. Grace Murtaugh was leaving the nurse’s office, where she’d taken some Tylenol for a headache. Matt Royston was in history class with his best friend, Drew Girard. Ed McCabe was writing homework on the blackboard for the math classes he taught. There was nothing to suggest to any of these people or any other members of the Sterling High School community at 7:50 a.m. on March sixth that this was anything other than a typical school day.”

  Diana clicked a button, and a new photo appeared: Ed McCabe, lying on the floor with his intestines spilling out of his stomach as a sobbing student pressed both hands against the gaping wound. “This is what Sterling High School looked like at 10:19 a.m. on March 6, 2007. Ed McCabe never got to give his homework assignment to his math class, because nineteen minutes earlier, Peter Houghton, a seventeen-year-old junior at Sterling High School, burst through the doors with a knapsack that contained four guns-two sawed-off shotguns, as well as two fully loaded, semiautomatic 9-millimeter pistols.”

  Jordan felt a tug on his arm. “Jordan,” Peter whispered.

  “Not now.”

  “But I’m going to be sick…”

  “Swallow it,” Jordan ordered.

  Diana flicked back to the previous slide, the picture-perfect image of Sterling High. “I told you, ladies and gentlemen, that none of the people in Sterling High School had any inclination this would be something other than a typical school day. But one person did know that it was going to be different.” She walked toward the defense table and pointed directly at Peter, who stared steadfastly down at his lap. “On the morning of March 6, 2007, Peter Houghton started his day by loading a blue knapsack with four guns and the makings of a bomb, plus enough ammunition to potentially kill one hundred and ninety-eight people. The evidence will show that when he arrived at the school, he set up this bomb in Matt Royston’s car to divert attention away from himself. While it exploded, he walked up the front steps of the school and shot Zoe Patterson. Then, in the hallway, he shot Alyssa Carr. He made his way to the cafeteria and shot Angela Phlug and Maddie Shaw-his first casualty-and Courtney Ignatio. As students started running away, he shot Haley Weaver and Brady Pryce, Natalie Zlenko, Emma Alexis, Jada Knight, and Richard Hicks. Then, as the wounded were sobbing and dying all around him, do you know what Peter Houghton did? He sat down in the cafeteria and he had a bowl of Rice Krispies.”

  Diana let this information sink in. “When he finished, he picked up his gun and left the cafeteria, shooting Jared Weiner, Whit Obermeyer, and Grace Murtaugh in the hall, and Lucia Ritolli-a French teacher trying to shepherd her students to safety. He stopped off in the boys’ bathroom and shot Steven Babourias, Min Horuka, and Topher McPhee; and then went into the girls’ bathroom and shot Kaitlyn Harvey. He continued upstairs and shot Ed McCabe, the math teacher, John Eberhard, and Trey MacKenzie before reaching the gym and firing at Austin Prokiov, Coach Dusty Spears, Noah James, Justin Friedman, and Drew Girard. Finally, in the locker room, the defendant shot Matthew Royston twice-once in the stomach, and again in the head. You might remember that name-it’s the owner of the car that Peter Houghton bombed at the very beginning of his rampage.”

  Diana faced the jury. “This entire spree lasted nineteen minutes in the life of Peter Houghton, but the evidence will show that its effects will last forever. And there’s a lot of evidence, ladies and gentlemen. There are a lot of witnesses, and there’s a lot of testimony to come…but by the end of this trial, you will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Peter Houghton purposefully and knowingly, with premeditation, caused the deaths of ten people and attempted to cause the deaths of nineteen others at Sterling High School.”

  She walked toward Peter. “In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. You can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist. You can fold laundry for a family of five. Or, as Peter Houghton knows…in nineteen minutes, you can bring the world to a screeching halt.”

  Jordan walked toward the jury, his hands in his pockets. “Ms. Leven told you that on the morning of March 6, 2007, Peter Houghton walked into Sterling High School with a knapsack full of loaded weapons, and he shot a lot of people. Well, she’s right. The evidence is going to show that, and we don’t dispute it. We know that it’s a tragedy for both the people who died and those who will live with the aftermath. But here’s what Ms. Leven didn’t tell you: when Peter walked into Sterling High School that morning, he had no intention of becoming a mass murderer. He walked in intending to defend himself from the abuse he’d suffered for twelve straight years.

  “On Peter’s first day of school,” Jordan continued, “his mother put him on the kindergarten bus with a brand-new Superman lunch box. By the end of the ride to the school, that lunch box had been thrown out the window. Now, all of us have childhood memories of other kids teasing us or being cruel, and most of us are able to shake that off, but Peter Houghton’s life wasn’t one where these things happened occasionally. From that very first day in kindergarten, Peter experienced a daily barrage of taunting, tormenting, threatening, and bullying. This child has been stuffed into lockers, had his head shoved into toilets, been tripped and punched and kicked. He has had a private email spammed out to an entire school. He’s had his pants pulled down in the middle of the cafeteria. Peter’s reality was a world where, no matter what he did-no matter
how small and insignificant he made himself-he was still always the victim. And as a result, he started to turn to an alternate world: one created by himself in the safety of HTML code. Peter set up his own website, created video games, and filled them with the kind of people he wished were surrounding him.”

  Jordan ran his hand along the railing of the jury box. “One of the witnesses you’re going to hear from is Dr. King Wah. He’s a forensic psychiatrist who’s examined Peter and has spoken with him. He’s going to explain to you that Peter was suffering from an illness called post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a complicated medical diagnosis, but it’s a real one-and children who have it can’t distinguish between an immediate threat and a distant threat. Even though you and I might be able to walk down the hall and spy a bully who’s paying no attention to us, Peter would see that same person and his heart rate would speed up…his body would sidle a little closer to the wall…because Peter was sure he’d be noticed, threatened, beaten, and hurt. Dr. Wah will not only tell you about studies that have been done on children like Peter, he’ll tell you how Peter was directly affected by the years and years of torment at the hands of the Sterling High School community.”

  Jordan faced the jurors again. “Do you remember earlier this week, when we were talking to you about whether you’d be an appropriate juror to sit on this case? One of the things I asked each and every one of you during that process was whether you understood that you needed to listen to the evidence in the courtroom and apply the law as the judge instructs you. As much as we learned from civics class in eighth grade or Law & Order on Wednesday-night TV…until you’re here listening to the evidence and hearing the instructions of the court, you don’t know what the rules really are.”

  He held the gaze of each juror in turn. “For example, when most people hear the term self-defense, they assume it means that someone is holding up a gun, or a knife to the throat-that there’s an immediate physical threat. But in this case, self-defense may not mean what you think. And what the evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, is that the person who walked into Sterling High and fired all those shots was not a premeditated, cold-blooded killer, as the prosecution wants you to believe.” Jordan walked behind the defense table and put his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “He was a very scared boy who had asked for protection…and had never received it.”