by Jodi Picoult
“Yes, Your Honor . . . but that particular attorney isn’t handling this case.”
The judge stared at her, calm. “Are you calling my daughter as a witness, Ms. Leven?”
Diana hesitated. “No, Your Honor.”
“Well, I’ve read my daughter’s statement, Counselor, and I don’t see any reason that we can’t proceed.”
Jordan ran through what he knew so far:
Peter had asked about Josie’s welfare.
Josie was present during the shooting.
Josie’s yearbook photo, in the discovery, was the only one that had been marked with the words LET LIVE.
But according to her mother, whatever she told the police wouldn’t affect the case. According to Diana, nothing Josie knew was important enough to make her a witness for the prosecution.
He dropped his gaze, his mind replaying these facts over and over like a loop of videotape.
One that just didn’t make sense.
* * *
The former elementary school that was serving as the physical location for Sterling High did not have a cafeteria—little kids ate in their classrooms, at their desks. But somehow this was considered unhealthy for teenagers, so the library had been turned into a makeshift cafeteria. There were no books or shelves there anymore, but the carpet still had ABC’s sprinkled into its weave, and a poster of the Cat in the Hat still hung beside the double doors.
Josie no longer sat with her friends in the cafeteria. It just didn’t feel right—as if some critical mass were missing, and they were likely to be split apart like an atom under pressure. Instead, she sequestered herself in a corner of the library where there were carpeted risers, where she liked to imagine a teacher reading aloud to her kindergartners.
Today, when they’d arrived at school, the television cameras were already waiting. You had to walk right through them to get to the front door. They’d dribbled away over the past week—no doubt there was some tragedy somewhere else for these reporters to cover—but returned in full force to report on the arraignment. Josie had wondered how they were going to hightail it from the school all the way north to the courthouse in time. She wondered how many times in the course of her high school career they would come back. On the last day of school? At the anniversary of the shooting? At graduation? She imagined the People magazine article that would be written in a decade about the survivors of the Sterling High massacre—“Where Are They Now?” Would John Eberhard be playing hockey again, or even walking? Would Courtney’s parents have moved out of Sterling? Where would Josie be?
And Peter?
Her mother was the judge at his trial. Even if she didn’t talk about it with Josie—legally, she couldn’t—it wasn’t as if Josie didn’t know. Josie was caught somewhere between utter relief, knowing her mom would be sitting on the case, and absolute terror. On the one hand, she knew her mother would start piecing together the events of that day, and that meant Josie wouldn’t have to talk about it herself. On the other hand, once her mother did start piecing together the events of that day, what else would she figure out?
Drew walked into the library, tossing an orange up in the air and catching it repeatedly in his fist. He glanced around at the pods of students, settled in small groups on the carpet with their hot lunch trays balanced on their knees like the bows of crickets, and then spotted Josie. “What’s up?” he asked, sitting down beside her.
“Not much.”
“Did the jackals get you?”
He was talking about the television reporters. “I sort of ran past them.”
“I wish they’d all just go fuck themselves,” Drew said.
Josie leaned her head against the wall. “I wish it would all just go back to normal.”
“Maybe after the trial.” Drew turned to her. “Is it weird, you know, with your mom and all?”
“We don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about anything, really.” She picked up her bottled water and took a sip, so that Drew wouldn’t realize that her hand was shaking.
“He’s not crazy.”
“Who?”
“Peter Houghton. I saw his eyes that day. He knew exactly what the hell he was doing.”
“Drew, shut up,” Josie sighed.
“Well, it’s true. Doesn’t matter what some hotshot fucking lawyer says to try to get him off the hook.”
“I think that’s something the jury gets to decide, not you.”
“Jesus Christ, Josie,” he said. “Of all people, I wouldn’t think you’d want to defend him.”
“I’m not defending him. I’m just telling you how the legal system works.”
“Well, thanks, Marcia Clark. But somehow you give less of a damn about that when you’re the one with a slug being pulled out of your shoulder. Or when your best friend—or your boyfriend—is bleeding to death in front of—” He broke off abruptly as Josie fumbled her bottle of water, soaking herself and Drew.
“Sorry,” she said, mopping up the mess with a napkin.
Drew sighed. “Me, too. I guess I’m a little freaked out, with the cameras and everything.” He tore off a piece of the damp napkin and stuck it in his mouth, then tossed the spitball at the back of an overweight boy who carried the tuba in the school marching band.
Oh my God, Josie thought. Nothing’s changed at all. Drew tore off another piece of napkin and rolled it in his palm. “Stop it,” Josie said.
“What?” Drew shrugged. “You’re the one who wanted to go back to normal.”
* * *
There were four television cameras in the courtroom: ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN; plus reporters from Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Associated Press. The media had met with Alex last week in chambers, so that she could decide who would be represented in the courtroom while the others waited outside on the steps of the courthouse. She was aware of the tiny red lights on the cameras that indicated they were recording; of the scratch of pens on paper as the reporters wrote down her words verbatim. Peter Houghton had become infamous, and as a result of that, Alex would now have her fifteen minutes of fame. Maybe sixty, Alex thought. It would take her that long to simply read through all the charges.
“Mr. Houghton,” Alex said, “you are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Courtney Ignatio. You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit . . .” She glanced down at the name. “Matthew Royston.”
The words were routine, something Alex could do in her sleep. But she focused on them, on keeping her voice measured and even, on giving weight to the name of each dead child. The gallery was packed full, and Alex could recognize the parents of these students, and some students themselves. One mother, a woman Alex did not know by sight or name, sat in the front row behind the defense table, clutching an 8 x 10 photo of a smiling girl.
Jordan McAfee sat beside his client, who was wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and shackles, and was doing everything he could to avoid looking at Alex as she read the charges.
“You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Justin Friedman. . . .
“You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Christopher McPhee. . . .
“You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Grace Murtaugh. . . .”
The woman with the photo stood up as Alex was reciting the charges. She leaned over the bar, between Peter Houghton and his attorney, and smacked the photograph down so hard that the glass cracked. “Do you remember her?” the woman cried, her voice raw. “Do you remember Grace?”
McAfee whipped around. Peter ducked his head
, keeping his eyes trained on the table in front of him.
Alex had had disruptive people in her courtroom before, but she could not remember them stealing her breath away. This mother’s pain seemed to take up all the empty space in the gallery; heat the emotions of the other spectators to a boiling point.
Her hands began to tremble; she slipped them underneath the bench so that nobody could see. “Ma’am,” Alex said. “I’m going to have to ask you to sit down . . .”
“Did you look her in the face when you shot her, you bastard?”
Did you? Alex thought.
“Your Honor,” McAfee called.
Alex’s ability to judge this case impartially had already been challenged by the prosecution. While she didn’t have to justify her decisions to anyone, she’d just told the attorneys that she could easily separate her personal and her professional involvement in this case. She’d thought it would be a matter of seeing Josie not as her daughter, specifically, but as one of hundreds present during the shooting. She had not realized that it would actually come down to seeing herself not as a judge, but as another mother.
You can do this, she told herself. Just remember why you’re here. “Bailiffs,” Alex murmured, and the two beefy courtroom attendants grabbed the woman by the arms to escort her out of the courtroom.
“You’ll burn in hell,” the woman shouted as the television cameras followed her progress down the aisle.
Alex didn’t. She kept her eyes on Peter Houghton, while his attorney’s attention was distracted. “Mr. McAfee,” she said.
“Yes, Your Honor?”
“Please ask your client to hold out his hand.”
“I’m sorry, Judge, but I think there’s already been enough prejudicial—”
“Do it, Counselor.”
McAfee nodded at Peter, who lifted his shackled wrists and opened his fists. Winking in Peter’s palm was a shard of broken glass from the picture frame. Blanching, the attorney reached for the glass. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he muttered.
“Any time.” Alex looked at the gallery and cleared her throat. “I trust there will be no more outbursts like that, or I’ll be forced to close these proceedings to the public.”
She continued reading the charges in a courtroom so quiet you could hear hearts break; you could hear hope fluttering to the rafters on the ceiling. “You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Madeleine Shaw. You are charged with, on March 6, 2007, a count of first-degree murder, contrary to 631:1-A, in that you purposely caused the death of another, to wit, Edward McCabe.
“You are charged with attempted first-degree murder, contrary to 630:1-A and 629:1, in that you did commit an act in furtherance of the offense of first-degree murder, to wit, shooting at Emma Alexis.
“You are charged with possession of firearms on school grounds.
“Possession of explosive devices.
“Unlawful use of an explosive device.
“Receiving stolen goods, to wit, firearms.”
By the time Alex had finished, her voice was hoarse. “Mr. McAfee,” she said, “how does your client plead?”
“Not guilty to all counts, Your Honor.”
A murmur spread virally through the courtroom, something that always happened in the wake of hearing that not-guilty plea, and that always seemed ridiculous to Alex—what was the defendant supposed to do? Say he was guilty?
“Given the nature of the charges, you are not entitled to bail as a matter of law. You are remanded to the custody of the sheriff.”
Alex dismissed court and headed into chambers. Inside, with the door closed, she paced like an athlete coming off a brutal race. If there was anything she was sure of, it was her ability to judge fairly. But if it had been this hard at the arraignment, how would she function when the prosecution began to actually outline the events of that day?
“Eleanor,” Alex said, pressing the intercom button for her clerk, “clear my schedule for two hours.”
“But you—”
“Clear it,” she snapped. She could still see the faces of those parents in the gallery. What they’d lost was written across their faces, a collective scar.
Alex stripped off her robe and headed down the back stairs to the parking lot. Instead of stopping for a cigarette, though, she got into her car. She drove straight to the elementary school and parked in the fire lane. There was one news van still in the teachers’ parking lot, and Alex panicked, until she realized that the license plates were from New York; that the chance of someone recognizing her without her judicial robes on was unlikely.
The only person who had a right to ask Alex to recuse herself was Josie, but Alex knew that ultimately her daughter would understand. It was Alex’s first big case in superior court. It was modeling healthy behavior for Josie herself, to get on with her life again. Alex tried to ignore the last reason she was fighting to stay on this case—the one that pricked like a thorn, like a splinter, rubbing raw no matter which way she came at it: she had a better chance of learning from the prosecution and the defense what her daughter had endured than she ever would from Josie herself.
She walked into the main office. “I need to pick up my daughter,” Alex said, and the school secretary pushed a clipboard toward her, with information to be filled out. STUDENT, Alex read. TIME OUT. REASON. TIME IN.
Josie Cormier, she wrote. 10:45 a.m. Orthodontist.
She could feel the secretary’s eyes on her—clearly the woman wanted to know why Judge Cormier was standing in front of her desk instead of at the courthouse presiding over the arraignment that they were all waiting to hear about. “If you could just send Josie out to the car,” Alex said, and she walked out of the office.
Within five minutes, Josie opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. “I don’t have braces.”
“I needed to think of an excuse fast,” Alex answered. “It was the first one to pop into my head.”
“So why are you really here?”
Alex watched Josie turn up the volume of the vent. “Do I need a reason to have lunch with my daughter?”
“It’s, like, ten-thirty.”
“Then we’re playing hooky.”
“Whatever,” Josie said.
Alex pulled away from the curb. Josie was two feet away from her, but they might as well have been on different continents. Her daughter stared firmly out the window, watching the world go by.
“Is it over?” Josie asked.
“The arraignment? Yes.”
“Is that why you came here?”
How could Alex describe what it had felt like, seeing all of those nameless mothers and fathers in the gallery, without a child between them? If you lost your child, could you still even call yourself a parent?
What if you’d just been stupid enough to let her slip away?
Alex drove to the end of a road that overlooked the river. It was racing, the way it always did in the spring. If you didn’t know better, if you were looking at a still photo, you might wish you could take a dip. You wouldn’t realize, just by glancing, that the water would rob you of your breath; that you might be swept away.
“I wanted to see you,” Alex confessed. “There were people in my courtroom today . . . people who probably wake up every day now wishing that they’d done this—left in the middle of the day to have lunch with their daughters, instead of telling themselves they could do it some other day.” She turned to Josie. “Those people, they didn’t get to have any other days.”
Josie picked at a loose white thread, silent long enough for Alex to start mentally kicking herself. So much for her spontaneous foray into primal motherhood. Alex had been rattled by her own emotions during the arraignment; instead of telling herself she was being ridiculous, she’d acted on them. But this was exactly what happened, wasn’t it, when you started to sift through the shifting sands of feelings, instead of just feeding facts hand over fist? The hell
with putting your heart on your sleeve; it was likely to get ripped off.
“Hooky,” Josie said quietly. “Not lunch.”
Alex sat back, relieved. “Whatever,” she joked. She waited until Josie met her gaze. “I want to talk to you about the case.”
“I thought you couldn’t.”
“That’s sort of what I wanted to talk about. Even if this was the biggest career opportunity in the world, I’d step down if I believed it was going to make things harder for you. You can still come to me anytime and ask me anything you want.”
They both pretended, for a moment, that Josie did this on a regular basis, when in fact it had been years since she’d shared anything in confidence with Alex.
Josie’s glance slanted toward her. “Even about the arraignment?”
“Even about the arraignment.”
“What did Peter say in court?” Josie asked.
“Nothing. The lawyer does all the talking.”
“What did he look like?”
Alex thought for a moment. She had, upon first seeing Peter in his jail jumpsuit, been amazed at how much he’d grown. Although she had seen him over the years—in the back of the classroom during school events, at the copy store where he and Josie had worked together briefly, even driving down Main Street—she still somehow had expected him to be the same little boy who’d played in kindergarten with Josie. Alex considered his orange scrubs, his rubber flip-flops, his shackles. “He looked like a defendant,” she said.
“If he’s convicted,” Josie asked, “he’ll never get out of prison, will he?”
Alex felt her heart squeeze. Josie was trying not to show it, but how could she not be afraid that something like this would happen again? Then again, how could Alex—as a judge—make a promise to convict Peter before he’d even been tried? Alex felt herself walking the high wire between personal responsibility and professional ethics, trying her damnedest not to fall. “You don’t have to worry about that . . .”
“That’s not an answer,” Josie said.
“He’ll most likely spend his life there, yes.”
“If he was in prison, would people be allowed to talk to him?”
