Plain Truth Read online

  PRAISE FOR JODI PICOULT

  '[Plain Truth] reads like a cross between the Harrison Ford movie Witness and Scott Turow's novel Presumed Innocent, with a dose of television's The Practice thrown in.'

  --Arizona Republic

  'Picoult is a writer of high energy and conviction ... she forges a finely honed, commanding and cathartic drama.'

  --Booklist

  'Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail, and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships.'

  --The Boston Globe

  'The novelist displays an almost uncanny ability to enter the skins of her troubled young protagonists.'

  --New York Times

  'Picoult has the true storyteller's ability to evoke a world on the page and pull the reader into it.'

  --The Women's Review of Books 'Engrossing ... The Pact is compelling reading, right up to the stunning courtroom conclusion.'

  --People

  ' [Keeping Faith ] makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction.'

  --USA Today

  'Part thriller, part courtroom drama and part family portrait, Perfect Match is an intriguing "what if".'

  --Sydney Morning Herald

  Books by Jodi Picoult

  Songs of the Humpback Whale

  Harvesting the Heart

  Picture Perfect

  Mercy

  The Pact

  Keeping Faith

  Plain Truth

  Sale m Falls

  Perfect Match

  Second Glance

  My Sister's Keeper

  Vanishing Ac ts

  The Tenth Circle

  Nineteen Minutes

  Change of Heart

  Handle with Care

  JODI PICOULT

  Plain Truth

  This edition first published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2009

  First published in Australia in 2000

  First published in the United States in 2000 by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Copyright (c) Jodi Picoult 2000

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74175 801 6

  Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my dad, Myron Picoult, who taught me to be an original.

  There are not many men in the world who can sneeze like a duck, spy hales of bay, make very bad puns ... and cherish their daughters so completely.

  I love you.

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I

  ONE

  TWO

  Elite

  THREE

  FOUR

  Ellie

  FIVE

  SIX

  Elite

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  Elite

  NINE

  TEN

  Ellie

  II

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  Ellie

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  Elite

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  Elite

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  Ellie

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  Elite

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again, I find myself indebted to so many people: Dr. Joel Umlas, Dr. James Umlas, and Dr. David Toub for their medical expertise; Dr. Tia Horner and Dr. Stuart Anfang for their explanations of forensic psychiatry and clinical interviews; Dr. Catherine Lewis and Dr. Neil Kaye, for helping me understand neonaticide; my father-in-law, Karl van Leer, who never once blinked when I called and asked about inseminating cows; Kyle van Leer, who saw a "cookie moon" and let me borrow it; Teresa Farina for the fast transcriptions; Dr. Eli2abeth Martin, for finding listeria and leading me through autopsies; Steve Marshall, who took me ghost hunting; Brian Laird, for the troll story; Allegra Lubrano, for finding obscure legal statutes whenever I called frantically to ask "a quick question"; Kiki Keating, attorney extraordinaire, for making the time to come with me to Lancaster and spending all those nights hunched over the tape recorder, brainstorming testimony; and Tim van Leer, for everything. Thanks also to Jane Picoult, who wanted her own sentence this time, for her insight and guiding comments. Thanks to Laura Gross for the same, and for possibly being the only person in the publishing business who wants me to write faster. To Emily Bestler and Kip Hakala--here's to the start of a beautiful relationship. And to Camille McDuffie--the third time's a charm. I am indebted to the works of John Hostetler and Donald Kraybill, and to the people I met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, without whom this book could not have been written: Maribel Kraybill, Lt. Renee Schuler, and especially Louise Stoltzfus, a wonderful writer herself, whose contributions here were invaluable. Finally, many thanks to the Amish men, women, and children I met, who graciously opened their homes and their hearts and let me into their world for a little while.

  I.

  I must be a Christian child

  Gentle, patient, meek and mild;

  Must be honest, simple, true

  In my words and actions too ...

  Must remember, God can view

  All I think, and all I do.

  --Amish school verse

  ONE

  She had often dreamed of her little sister floating dead beneath the surface of the ice, but tonight, for the first time, she envisioned Hannah clawing to get out. She could see Hannah's eyes, wide and milky; could feel Hannah's nails scraping. Then, with a start, she woke. It was not winter--it was July. There was no ice beneath her palms, just the tangled sheets of her bed. But once again, there was someone on the other side, fighting to be free.

  As the fist in her belly pulled tighter, she bit her bottom lip. Ignoring the pain that rippled and receded, she tiptoed barefoot into the night.

  The barn cat yowled when she stepped inside. She was panting by now, her legs shaking like willow twigs. Lowering herself to the hay in the far corner of the calving pen, she drew up her knees. The swollen cows rolled their blue moon eyes in her direction, then turned away quickly, as if they knew better than to bear witness.

  She concentrated on the hides of the Holsteins until their black spots shimmied and swam. She sank her teeth into the rolled hem of her nightgown. There was a funnel of pressure, as if she were being turned inside out; and she remembered how she and Hannah used to squeeze through the hole in the barbed wire fence by the creek's edge, pushing and angled, all knees and grunts and elbows, until by some miracle they'd tumble through.

  It was over as suddenly as it had begun. And lying on the matted, stained hay between her legs was a baby.

  Aaron Fisher rolled over beneath the bright quilt to stare at the clock beside the bed. There had been nothing, no sound to wake him, but after fort