by Jodi Picoult
Jamie shook his head. "Let's just say I'm not quite the optimist you are."
Graham cleared his throat, then fixed a smile on his face. "The preliminary hearing is next Wednesday," he said brightly, as if this were good news.
Allie glanced at Jamie, but he was staring out the window at the dull traffic of Main Street, his face closed and inscrutable. She licked her lips and leaned forward, crossing her legs. "Which means?"
Graham shrugged, making a trickle of water from his hair run over the collar of his olive herringbone suit. "It's a formality. We go back to court and the DA tells a judge they've got a body, and then they'll make Cam get up on the stand and connect Jamie's confession to the evidence, and the judge decides there's probable cause and we all go home."
Allie shook her head. "What about Jamie? Why can't he give his side of the story?"
Graham turned to look at his client, who was still staring out the window. "It's traditional that at a preliminary hearing, the defense doesn't present evidence. We save that for the big shebang. Don't want Jamie to have to go through a prosecution's cross-examination twice."
Jamie surprised everyone by walking across the room to the window and banging the flat of his hand against the glass. "How long?"
"How long till what?" Graham said.
"How long till this is over?" Jamie asked, turning to face him. "How long till I'm just locked away?"
Graham stood, but still had to crane his neck to look up into Jamie's face. "Hopefully never. That's the point."
"But assuming we don't win," Jamie said slowly, "then I just spent a precious half hour waiting for you to get your ass off the Stairmaster at the gym."
Graham flushed all the way to his hairline. "It won't happen again." Flustered, he sat heavily in one of the swivel chairs at the table and began leafing through the manila file. "Speaking of which, we ought to discuss your defense. I'm going to need a list from you of people who can testify to Maggie's illness, and neighbors or friends or relatives who knew the two of you--"
"Relatives," Jamie snorted.
Graham darted a glance at Allie and began to draw tiny circles at the corner of the page he had before him. "Well, we're going to have to find someone to swear to your character."
"I will," Allie said.
Graham grinned at her. "I need someone who knew him before he showed up at the station. But you might be helpful in collecting witnesses, since they're likely to cooperate with a police chief's wife." He thrummed the pen against the edge of the table and turned to Jamie. "We need other people. We need a parade of witnesses who look appropriately shocked that you'd be brought up on charges of murder."
Jamie lowered himself to the swivel chair beside Allies. He swung from side to side, pushing off the balls of his feet and almost letting a smile ghost its way across his face. "And who is going to break the news to these paragons that I'm pending trial?"
Graham blinked. "I will, of course." He nervously fingered his tie as he felt Jamie's gaze slide from his Adam's apple to the notch of his belt buckle and back up to his face.
"No," Jamie said, and leaned back in the chair, crossing his ankles on the mahogany conference table.
"No?"
"No." Jamie smiled pleasantly, a neat baring of his teeth. "I want Allie to go." Allie started at the sound of her name, which seemed like a lullaby on Jamie's tongue. He sat up and rested his elbows on the table. "Who's going to sway a prospective witness more? A wet-behind-the-ears lawyer or the proverbial police chief's wife?"
Allie turned to him, knowing he understood that she did not like being credited for her role rather than for herself. She put her hand over Jamie's, slipping her fingers between the cracks of his own. "I'd be happy to go," she said, surprising herself. "I'll talk to people in Cummington, and I can walk through the house and pick out photos and the marriage license and things like that."
"You can't," Graham said, although he couldn't think exactly why not.
"Can't you deputize her or something? Give her a warrant to break into my house. I don't care."
"That's not the issue here--" Graham began.
"The issue," Jamie interrupted, "is that I trust Allie. I do not trust you."
Jamie had raised his voice, and he rose from the table, his palms pressed flat, to stare Graham down. At that moment, Duncan MacPhee, the elder lawyer in the practice, stuck his head through the cracked door to see his son cowering before a client who was charged with murder.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"No," Allie said, at the same time that Graham did. Jamie sat down in a single movement, the wind gone from his sails.
Graham nodded. "We're just arranging the best way for Mrs. MacDonald to feel out the citizens of Cummington." He stood up, excusing himself for a minute, and walked to the door, wondering if Jamie MacDonald could see that his knees were shaking.
As soon as Graham disappeared down the hall, Allie rounded on Jamie. "You were very hard on him," she scolded. "He's only trying to help you."
Jamie grinned and pulled a sheet of yellow paper off the pad in the manila folder. "Don't you know, Allie, that you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped?"
Allie swallowed and stared out the window. Her eyes naturally fell to the police station, where someone was walking out the front door. He moved too quickly and Allie was too far away to see who it was, but she pretended that she had gotten a glimpse of Cam, and this made her feel better.
Jamie had picked up a pen beside her and was neatly printing a list of names. "I don't have all the addresses," he said. "You can get them from a phone book."
Allie nodded. She wondered how she was going to tell Cam what she'd spontaneously agreed to do. She wondered if Mia would be able to handle the flower shop all by herself, having been an employee for less than a week.
"You can stay at the house. I've got the keys at Angus's." He hesitated only a second. "Feel free to look through whatever you want. Take whatever you think I'll need." He finished scribbling a name and tossed the pen down. "There." He smoothed the paper with his palms, and let his hand linger when he passed the paper over to her. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I know you don't want to leave him to do this."
There was no question in her mind as to whom Jamie was referring. "It's only a few days," she reasoned aloud. "Cam'll be here when I get back."
Jamie kissed her forehead and stood up. He paced a few times in front of the chalkboard behind the table, then crossed to stand at the window again. He glanced up at the sky, looking.
He imagined himself locked up in one of the maximum-security prisons in Massachusetts--maybe Concord, where he would hear the traffic screaming around the rotary all night--cut off from Wheelock and Cummington forever. He thought of Maggie, dancing through the streets of these towns on translucent feet, peering through windows and cracking thick doors in an effort to find him'. He considered heaven, empty and aching without her, as she soundlessly searched for someone who'd left without a trace.
"You need to do me another favor," Jamie said, resting his forehead against the cool glass. "When she comes, when Maggie comes . . ."
"I'll tell her," Allie replied, standing so close behind him he could feel her breath against his shoulder. "I'll tell her where to find you."
Unlike other New Age believers, Ellen MacDonald didn't much care who she had been in her past life, unless it had something to do with her late husband.
Eight years ago, when Ian was still alive, if someone had mentioned the word "crystal" to her, she would have asked if it was Waterford or Baccarat. Now, she wore a small dagger-shaped pendant about her neck made of quartz that had been dug out of a holy cave in Arizona. She wore clothes made of recycled cotton, she believed in thought projection and chakras, and she was getting a degree in naturopathic medicine through a correspondence course with the Mothers of Light New Age Community School, run out of a farm in northern Vermont.
Most of the people in Wheelock thought she'd lost it a little when Ian
had died, her son Cameron included. If she was not a subject of ridicule, it was only because she'd been the clan chief's wife for so many years--it was a measure of respect that allowed for eccentricities, sort of like being a dowager duchess or the Queen Mother.
They would have all been surprised to learn that she didn't give a damn about bamboo panpipes and personal flower essences and barbecued tofu and all the other things she discussed with people, instead of holding genuine conversations. They would have all been shocked to learn that the only reason Ellen MacDonald believed in New Age phenomena was because the day after Ian was buried, she had received a brochure by mistake from a commune whose bold black headline read: A Soul Mate Stays with You Forever.
It had been a mishap in the post office, which was not extraordinary in a town with a plethora of MacDonalds, a simple flier of junk mail from a New Age network that supposedly hooked up singles by means of their birth charts and karma. But for someone who had just lost the love of her life, it seemed too true to simply throw in the trash.
For a week, Ellen had left the flier tacked to her refrigerator. This same week, Cameron's wife had moved in with her, making sure she ate and took the sleeping pills prescribed for her at night. Ellen grieved for ten days, and then asked Allie to take her to the library; she had some things she wanted to look up. Three months later, she had become a different person.
It was not that she believed in channeling or reincarnation. There was just something about involving yourself in a network of people who truly thought that love lasted through generations and centuries. It seemed healthier to steady your body for an inner peace and to accept that she'd see Ian again in a matter of lifetimes than to pine away with one foot in the grave. You never know, she told herself, over and over.
Allie was the only person Ellen knew who seemed truly happy for her new path in life. At least once a week, she brought over fresh and dried flowers and they'd practice making poultices and decoctions and infusions to cure minor maladies. The best success they'd had yet was with feverfew, which did wonders for Allies menstrual cramps. Once, they'd made up an infusion of elder and Allie had slipped it into Cam's orange juice in the morning; she said that by noon his cough had disappeared.
She was in Ellen's kitchen now, plucking the heads off calendula. Ellen walked through the hall and set down the mail on the kitchen table. "Get anything good?" Allie asked over her shoulder.
"Bills," Ellen said. "Coupons for things I don't use."
Allie laughed. "Give them to Angus. He still hasn't gotten over American supermarkets. If he gets a coupon, he buys it, no matter what it is." She looked at her mother-in-law. "I actually saw him buy Tampax once."
Ellen smiled and moved to Allies side. "You think this is going to work?"
Allie bit her bottom lip. "I don't know. Creams are tricky. I've never made one." She glanced at the beeswax and lanolin, sitting in unmarked containers on the counter. "We've got to make the infusion first, in any case." She filled Ellen's teapot with a pint of water and set it to boil. "You think we've got an ounce yet?" she asked, running her fingertips lightly over the crushed flower heads.
Ellen nodded. "At least." She crossed the kitchen and sat down in a chair, resting her elbows on the table. "You know, I think you and I would have made rather good witches."
Allie grinned. "Imagine. I'd get to ride a broom instead of using it to clean up the shop floor twenty times a day."
The teakettle began to whistle. Allie scooped up the calendula and dropped it into the boiling water, firmly setting the lid back in place. "Twenty minutes," she said, marking the time on her watch.
Ellen liked her daughter-in-law. She was sweet and dedicated; she was crazy about Cam. A bit of a pushover, sometimes, but Ellen knew better than anyone how hard it could be to live day to day with someone who had as much force and fever as a hurricane. "Is Cam speaking to me yet?" she asked.
Allie blew a strand of hair off her forehead. "I don't think so," she said good-naturedly. "He's still pretty angry about the plot."
Ellen had offered Jamie MacDonald a piece of the family cemetery in which to bury Maggie. Jamie MacDonald was no different than she was. No matter how Maggie's life had ended, Jamie would have been twice as happy to go with her rather than be left picking up the pieces on this earth, which was something Ellen had been dealing with for eight years. So she had immediately written off for a gift subscription for him to a New Age magazine, while offering him Che spot in the rear of the MacDonald family plot. And Cam had nearly taken her head off over it.
"I like to think that Maggie and Ian will watch over each other," Ellen said.
Allie had taken a double boiler out of the cabinet and was heating almond oil, beeswax, and lanolin to a melting point. "But who'll watch after Jamie?"
"Why, you."
Allie was not about to say anything to Cam's mother about her son's obstinacy when it came to Jamie MacDonald, so she strained the tincture and poured it into the double boiler. In silence the two women waited for the water to bubble off, and then removed the mixture from the heat to cool.
"Well," Allie said, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Too bad we can't test it."
Ellen dipped a finger into the lukewarm cream. "What's it supposed to do, again?"
Allie frowned at her. "You're the one who's taking the holistic medicine course," she scolded. "It's supposed to take care of minor burns, sunburn, eczema." She glanced down at her hands. "None of which we have."
Ellen smiled and turned away. "Give me a minute," she said. She walked to the sliding glass door which led into the backyard. She unbuttoned her caftan and pulled free Che ties, uncovering her bra. She slipped the strap free, revealing smooth white skin, and held her palms crossed over her chest. Then she pictured Ian's face. With Allie watching, she lowered her hands to expose her left breast, which was now marked with a new and painful burn just over her heart.
Allie covered her hand with her mouth. Ellen reached for the calendula cream, which was supposed to ease such scars and inflammations, and gently rubbed it in a circle over the red welt. "Ah," she said, smiling for Allies sake. "Much better." The redness faded a bit, and Ellen admitted that the cream helped a little with the smarting of the skin. But it did nothing at all for the deeper sting and ache, since any fool could tell you that neither calendula nor any other potion known to man could possibly soothe right through to the soul.
Cam was late to the funeral because Miss Emily Kerr, who was eighty if she was a day, wanted to purchase a gun permit. "Why?" he had asked, the standard routine question before the permit was issued.
Emily had drawn herself up to her full five-foot height. "Well," she'd said, "to protect myself from the likes of you."
She left the police station abruptly. It was the second time that day someone had come in for a pistol permit. Donald Burns wanted a gun, he said, because he had season tickets to the Bruins, and Boston was a dangerous place.
Cam knew better. Pistol permits were rare in Wheelock. The sudden interest had more to do with Jamie MacDonalds arrival in town than anything else.
Jamie MacDonald. At the thought, his eyes flew to the clock on the wall. Swearing under his breath, Cam pulled his coat from the hook on the back of the office door and ran out of the station to his unmarked cruiser. The funeral had started a half hour ago.
As it was, Cam missed the service entirely. Father Gillivray had already reconvened the tiny group in front of the gaping raw mouth of the newly dug hole at the Wheelock cemetery. To his surprise, a good number of townspeople were gathered around the coffin. Allie stood on one side of Jamie, holding his arm. On his other side was Cam's mother, Ellen.
She was wearing one of her long purple caftans and was fingering the ankh she wore about her neck. She must have sensed Cam the moment he stepped on the hallowed ground, his hat in his hands. Glancing up, she caught his eye and stared him down, the same way she'd done when she caught him hiding Playboy magazines between his mattress and box spring.
He looked up and found Allie tugging at his sleeve. She gave him a hesitant smile, and led him over toward Jamie. She laced one arm through Cam's, and then she laced the other through Jamie's again, and at that second Cam could feel an uncontrollable flow of grief, as if skin-to-skin contact had opened the lines of current.
Maggie MacDonald was being buried, at Ellen's request, in the MacDonald family plot. The grave was a little distance from Ian's, farther still from Cam's grandparents and great-grandparents and heroic Uncle Jamie. Cam had yelled at his mother for over an hour when he heard she'd offered the plot for Maggie's burial. It meant that one day, he'd be buried in the same piece of ground as Jamie MacDonald, and he did not think he could stand that for eternity.
As Father Gillivray droned on, Cam could feel himself swaying on his feet--a by-product of having the midnight-to-eight shift the night before. He stared at the baskets of flowers surrounding the casket. They were flawless and pure and ivory, marred only by the teardrop shape of a blood-red rose. He let his eyes drift shut, imagining the skirl of bagpipes that had sounded the departure of his father's soul from Wheelock. He heard the creak of the coffin being lowered into the ground.
Allies fingers tightened on Cam's arm as he realized that the sound he had imagined as the mourn of bagpipes was coming from Jamie MacDonald. He had heard of the Chinese practice where wealthy families hired professional women to keen for the dead during the burial procession. It was supposed to be a sign of honor to have so many grieving for you. Maggie MacDonald might have had only one, but this made it no less powerful.
Jamie crumpled before Cam's eyes. Tearing free of Allies and Ellen's arms, he slipped to his knees in the soft earth, covering his face as the casket sank by inches. Behind Cam, the townspeople began to shift, uncomfortable and itchy. Father Gillivray looked up from his Bible. "My son," he said softly.
