The Pact

by Jodi Picoult

  Chris felt his stomach muscles jerk.

  "I probably shouldn't be here," Michael said. He shrugged out of his coat and began to wring it in his hands. "In fact, I know I shouldn't be here." He laid the coat on the edge of a chair and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. "You know, Em was buried today."

  "I heard that," Chris said. He was pleased at how steady he sounded. "I wanted to come."

  Michael nodded. "She would have liked that."

  "They wouldn't let me," Chris said, and his voice cracked. He tried to duck his head so that Michael wouldn't see the tears, instinctively assuming that Em's father, like his own, would see them as a weakness.

  "I'm not sure it was so important to be there today," Michael said slowly. "I think you were with Em when it mattered the most." He looked at Chris until the boy glanced up. "Tell me," Michael whispered. "Tell me what happened Friday night."

  Chris stared at Michael, caught not by the power of his question but by the way Emily played over her father's face--her eyes the same marble blue; her chin as determined; her smile hiding just behind the lines of strain at his mouth. It was easy for him to picture Emily asking, not Michael. Tell me, she begged, her mouth still wet from his own, blood running down her temple. Tell me what happened.

  His gaze slid away. "I don't know."

  "You must know," Michael said. He grasped Chris's chin, the remarkable radiant heat of adolescence burning his fingertips so quickly he let go almost immediately. He spent five minutes trying to get Chris to speak to him again, to spit out a detail or a piece of information that he could carry with him in his breast pocket the way one might tuck the note of a lover or a lucky charm. But when Michael left the room, the only thing he knew for certain was that Chris had not been able to look him in the eye.

  ANNE-MARIE MARRONE CLOSED the door to her office, kicked off her shoes, and sat down with the faxed autopsy report for Emily Gold. She curled her feet up beneath her on the chair and closed her eyes, intentionally clearing her mind so that she would not prejudge what she was about to read. Then she raked her fingers through her hair and stared until the words began to swim on the page.

  The patient was a seventeen-year-old white female, admitted unconscious after a gunshot wound to the head. Within minutes of admission patient's blood pressure dropped to fifty-seventy/palpable. Patient was pronounced dead at 11:31 P.M.

  Gross examination revealed powder burns surrounding the entrance wound at the right temple. The bullet had not cut a clean path across the head, but had crossed the temporal and the occipital lobes of the brain and nicked the cerebellum to exit somewhere right of center in the rear of the skull. A fragment matching a .45 caliber bullet had been found in the occipital lobe. Wounds were consistent with a. 45 caliber bullet fired directly against the skull.

  All in all, a death that suggested the suicide Christopher Harte had related.

  Anne-Marie felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck as she read through the second page of the autopsy report. The external examination had revealed bruising on the right wrist. The medical examiner had found flakes of skin beneath Emily's fingernails.

  Signs of a struggle.

  She stood up, thinking of Chris Harte. She had not yet received a report from Forensics on the Colt, but that didn't matter. It had been procured from his house, his fingerprints would be all over it. It remained to be seen whether Emily's would as well.

  Something niggled at her mind, and she looked back at the first page of the report. The medical examiner had only roughly explained the entry and exit wounds, but they did not seem quite right to Anne-Marie. She took her right hand, pointed the finger like it was a gun, and held it to her temple. She cocked her thumb, pretended to shoot. The bullet should have come out near Emily's left ear. Instead, it exited in the back of her head, a few inches behind her right ear.

  Anne-Marie twisted her wrist so that her imaginary gun would point in a similar path. It involved lifting her elbow and angling it in an odd fashion, so that the gun was almost parallel to the temple--a highly uncomfortable and unnatural position from which to shoot oneself in the head.

  Yet the bullet trajectory made perfect sense if the person who shot the gun was standing in front of you.

  But why?

  She flipped to the last page of the autopsy to read about the gross examination of the gallbladder, the gastrointestinal tract, the reproductive system. Suddenly, she caught her breath. Slipping back into her shoes, Anne-Marie lifted the telephone, and dialed the attorney general's office.

  "MRS. GOLD," the detective had said on the phone, "I have the autopsy results on your daughter. I'd like to come over at your convenience and show them to you."

  Melanie had played the words over in her mind. Something about Detective Marrone's request had stuck in her craw, and she turned the sentences around, wondering what it was that seemed odd, studying them through different filters as if her mind were a kaleidoscope. Perhaps it was the detective's politeness, so diametrically opposed to the last few times she'd barreled into their grief. Perhaps it was simply hearing the words autopsy and your daughter in the same short breath.

  Melanie and Michael sat on the couch, wide-eyed and clutching each other's hands like refugees. Detective Marrone sat across from them on a tufted chair. Spread out on the coffee table were the facts and statements of Emily's body, the last information she had to give.

  "Let me get right to the point," the detective said. "I have reason to believe that your daughter's death was not a suicide."

  Melanie felt her whole body soften like butter left out in the sun. Wasn't this what she had been hoping for? This absolution by a law enforcement expert who was now saying, It wasn't your fault; you didn't see signs of your daughter's impending suicide because there was nothing there to see.

  "The State of New Hampshire believes there is sufficient evidence to take this case to a grand jury and have them hand down an indictment for murder," the detective was saying. "Whether or not you, as Emily's parents, choose to be involved, the case will still proceed. But we hope that you'll comply with requests from the attorney general's office if need be."

  "I don't understand," Michael said. "You're suggesting ... "

  "That your daughter was killed," Detective Marrone said, unblinking. "Most likely by Christopher Harte."

  Michael shook his head. "But he said that Emily shot herself. That they'd planned to kill themselves together."

  "I know what he said," the detective replied more gently. "But your daughter said something different." She lifted the first page of the autopsy-report, covered with foreign markings and measurements. "In a nutshell, the medical examiner confirmed that Emily was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. However ... " She gestured further down the page, outlining bodily evidence of violence, of Emily fighting back.

  Melanie stopped listening. She folded her hands in her lap and pretended that Chris Harte was minuscule and hidden within them. She crushed her palms together, flattened them, until he would have no room to breathe.

  "Wait," Michael said, shaking his head. "I don't believe this. Chris Harte wouldn't have killed Emily. There's not a malicious bone in his body. For Christ's sake, they grew up together."

  "Shut up, Michael," Melanie gritted out.

  He turned to her. "You know I'm right," he said.

  "Shut up."

  Michael glanced at the detective again. "Look, I watch the legal shows on TV. I know that mistakes can be made. And I know that every piece of evidence you've found in that autopsy probably has a perfectly logical explanation that has nothing to do with murder." He exhaled slowly. "I know Chris," he said quietly. "If he said that he and Em were going to kill themselves, well, then I don't understand why, and I'm shocked to find out, but I believe that that's what they were going to do. He wouldn't lie about something so painful."

  "He might," Anne-Marie said, "if his own life depended on it."

  "Detective Marrone," Michael replied, "I mean no disrespec
t. But you met these kids three days ago. I've known them all their lives."

  Michael had the distinct impression that Anne-Marie Marrone was sizing him up. What kind of father vouched for the boy who might have murdered his daughter? "You're saying you know Chris Harte well," she stated.

  "As well as I knew my own daughter."

  The detective nodded. "Then it should come as no surprise," she said evenly, flipping to the final page of the autopsy, "when I tell you that Emily was pregnant."

  "ELEVEN WEEKS," Melanie said dully. "She knew for two months. I should have known. Tampons never made it to the shopping list." She twisted the sheets between her hands. "I never even knew they were sleeping together."

  Neither had Michael. Since Detective Marrone had left, that was what he'd been imagining. Not that tiny peanut of life inside Emily's body, but what had brought it there: the strokes and caresses that peeled away the layers of girl to reveal a woman no one else had wanted to admit existed.

  "That's probably what they were fighting about," Melanie murmured.

  Michael rolled over and faced his wife. Her profile, ribboned against the edge of the pillow, kept shifting and realigning, so that he could not see her clearly. "Who?"

  "Chris and Em," Melanie said. "He would have wanted her to get rid of it."

  Michael stared at her. "And you wouldn't? A year before she was set to go off to college?"

  Melanie sniffed. "I would have wanted her to do whatever she felt she had to do."

  "You're lying," Michael said. "You're only saying that now because it doesn't matter." He levered himself up on an elbow. "You don't even know if she told Chris."

  Melanie sat up in bed. "What is the matter with you?" she hissed. "Your daughter is dead. The police believe that Chris killed her. And you're defending him at every turn."

  Michael glanced away. The bottom sheet was wrinkled, as if time took its toll on a marriage bed as surely as it would on a face. He tried in vain to smooth it. "You told me at the funeral home that fancy trappings weren't going to bring Em back. Well, neither's crucifying Chris. The way I see it, he's all we have left of her. I don't want to see him buried too."

  Melanie stared at him. "I don't understand you," she said, and picking up her pillow, she fled from the bedroom.

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, when the sun first slitted its eyes, James was already awake and dressed. He stood on the porch, his breath coming in small circles, clutching a stack of yellow posters in one hand. Rifle season for deer was almost over, but James had been determined. He'd finally located some signs that he'd purchased years ago and had forgotten in the attic. Slipping a hammer through the loop of his belt, he struck off toward the perimeter of his property, listening to the jangle of nails in his pocket.

  At the first tree beside the driveway, he yanked loose the hammer and pounded a nail through the first sign. Then he moved to the second tree, just a few feet away, and he put up another. SAFETY ZONE, they read. More urgent than a traditional POSTED sign, they let hunters know they were within three hundred feet of a residence. That a stray bullet could have dire consequences.

  James moved to the third tree, and the fourth. The last time he had done this, when Chris was just a child, he'd hung the signs every twenty feet or so. This time, he hung a sign on every single tree. They rustled in the light wind, a hundred yellow warnings, garish and obscenely festive against the dark trunks.

  James stepped out on the road to look at his handiwork. He stared at his signs, thinking of amulets carried, of red worn to ward off the Evil Eye, of Hebrews painting lamb's blood on doorposts, and he wondered what, exactly, he was trying to keep away.

  THEN

  1989

  Chris huddled beside Emily, their hands twined together around the telephone receiver. "You're chicken," he murmured, as the dial tone swam in his ear.

  "Am not," Em whispered.

  There was a pickup on the other end. Chris felt Emily's fingers flutter above his wrist. "Hello?"

  Em lowered her voice. "I'm looking for Mr. Longwanger."

  "I'm sorry," the woman said. "He's not available right now. Can I take a message?"

  Em cleared her throat. "Does he really have one?"

  "Have what?" the woman asked.

  "A long wanger?"

  Then Em slammed down the receiver, rolling to her side in a fit of giggles and a flurry of phone book pages.

  It took Chris a while to stop laughing. "I didn't think you'd do it," he said.

  "That's because you're a dork."

  Chris grinned at her. "At least my last name isn't Longwanger." He skimmed his hand over the page where the phone book had fallen open. "What should we do next?" he asked. "Here's a Richard Ressler. We could ask if there's a Dick in the house."

  Emily flopped onto her belly. "I know," she said. "Call your mom and tell her you're Mr. Chambers and Chris is in trouble."

  "Like she's going to believe I'm the principal."

  Em smiled slowly. "Here, chicky chicky chicky," she crooned.

  "You do it," Chris challenged. "She won't recognize the school secretary."

  "What will you give me?" Emily asked.

  Chris dug in his pockets. "Five bucks." Em held out her hand; he shook it, and handed her the telephone.

  She dialed, pinched her nose. "Yesss," she drawled out. "I'm looking for Mrs. Harte? This is Phyllis Ray at the principal's office. Your son is in trouble." Emily looked wildly at Chris. "What kind of trouble? Uh, well, we'd like you to come down here and get him." She quickly hung up the phone.

  "What did you do that for?" Chris groaned. "She's going to drive all the way down there and find out I left an hour ago! I'm going to be grounded for the rest of my life." He ran his hands through his hair and then fell onto his side on Emily's bed.

  She spooned behind him, her chin hooked over his shoulder. "If you are," she murmured, "I'll stay with you."

  CHRIS SAT WITH HIS HEAD BOWED, his parents standing over him like sequoias. He wondered if this was what marriage was all about: one of them picking up to yell when the other one's voice trailed off, as if they were really one giant with two separate heads. "Well?" his mother huffed, finishing the tirade. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

  "I'm sorry," Chris automatically returned.

  "Sorry doesn't make up for stupidity," his father said. "Sorry doesn't bring back the appointment your mother had to cancel when she went to get you at school."

  Chris opened his mouth to say that if she'd reasoned logically, she would have realized no kids were at school that late in the afternoon--but thought better of it. He ducked his head again, staring at the weave of the carpet, wishing that while he and Em were making prank calls he hadn't forgotten that his mother was in the middle of starting up her own business. But it was so soon into it, how was he supposed to remember? And what kind of job was hanging around in lines nobody else wanted to waste time on?

  "I had expected better of you and Emily," his mother said.

  Well, that wasn't a surprise. Everyone always expected better of him and Emily, as if they all knew some grand plan that Emily and Chris did not. Sometimes Chris wished he could sneak a peek at the back of the book, so to speak, and see how it was all going to turn out, so that he wouldn't have to bother going through the motions.

  "Except for school, you are to stay in this room for three days," his father said. "Let's see if that gives you enough time to think about how many people you've inconvenienced with your little jokes." Then, one giant monster, both of his parents stepped out of his bedroom.

  Chris flopped back on the bed and threw his forearm over his eyes. God, they were such pills. So what if his mother had demanded to speak to Mr. Chambers, who of course knew nothing about Chris getting into trouble? No one was going to remember a month from now.

  He opened the curtains at one of his bedroom windows. Facing dead east, it stared directly at Em's bedroom. They couldn't really see each other from that distance, but they'd realized that at least the
small square of light in the window was visible. Chris knew that Emily was being read the riot act, too; he wasn't sure if her parents disciplined in her bedroom or in the kitchen or whatever. He sat down beside the lamp near his bed and flicked off the switch, blackening the room. Then he flicked it back on. And off, and on. And off, and on.

  Four long bleats of darkness, then three short ones.

  He stood up and waited by the window. Emily's room, a small yellow square cut by the limbs of trees, went black. Then bright again.

  They had learned Morse code at camp last summer. Emily's room kept flickering. H ... I.

  Chris flicked his thumb over the lamp's base again. H ... O ... W ... B ... A ... D.

  Emily's room darkened twice.

  Chris signaled out three.

  He smiled and leaned back on his bedspread, watching Emily's words to him light up the night.

  OUTSIDE IN THE HALLWAY, Gus and James collapsed against the wall and tried not to laugh. "Can you believe," Gus gasped, "they called a man named Longwanger?"

  James grinned. "I don't know that I would have been able to restrain myself, either."

  "I feel like such an old fart shouting at him," Gus said. "I'm thirty-eight, and I might as well be Jesse Helms."

  "We had to ground him, Gus. Or else he'll be dialing around and asking for Prince Albert in a can."

  "What is Prince Albert in a can?"

  James groaned and tugged her down the hall. "You're never going to be the old fart, since I'll be holding that title."

  Gus walked into their bedroom. "Fine. You can be the curmudgeon. I'll be the crazy lady who barges into the principal's office and insists that her son's done something wrong."

  James laughed. "They did get you, didn't they?"

  She threw a pillow at him.

  James grabbed her ankle, making her squeal and roll away from him. "You shouldn't have done that," he said. "I may be old, but I'm not dead." He pressed her body beneath his, feeling her go soft, tracing the undercurves of her breasts and the cords of her throat. His mouth came over hers.

  Gus let herself remember what it had been like over a decade ago when the house still smelled of planed wood and fresh paint, and time was a gift given from the hospital scheduler. She thought back to how she and James would make love on the kitchen table, in the mud room, after breakfast--as if the pressure of being a resident had knocked all those Mayflower sensibilities from his mind.