Nineteen Minutes Read online

  "What? To give up without even trying? You said--"

  "I said I'd give you the best defense I can," Jordan interrupted. "There's already probable cause to believe that you committed a crime, since there are hundreds of witnesses claiming to have seen you shooting in the school that day. The issue isn't whether or not you did it, Peter, it's why you did it. Having a probable cause hearing today means they score a lot of points, and we score none--it would just be a way for the prosecution to release evidence to the media and the public before they get a chance to hear our side of the story." He thrust the paper at Peter again. "Sign it."

  Peter met his gaze, fuming. Then he took the paper from Jordan, and a pen. "This sucks," he said as he scrawled his signature.

  "It would suck more if we did the probable cause hearing." Jordan took the paper and left the cell, heading out of the sheriff's office to give the waiver to the clerk. "I'll see you in there."

  By the time he reached the courtroom, it was packed to the rafters. The media that had been allowed in stood in the back row, their cameras ready. Jordan sought out Selena--she was juggling Sam in the middle of the third row behind the prosecution's table. So? she asked, a shorthand lift of her brows.

  Jordan nodded the slightest bit. Done.

  The judge presiding was inconsequential to him: someone who would rubber-stamp this process and turn it over to the court where Jordan would have to put on his dog-and-pony show. The Honorable David Iannucci: what Jordan remembered about him was that he had hair plugs, and when you appeared before him you had to do your absolute best to keep your eyes trained on his ferret-face instead of on the seeded line of his scalp.

  The clerk called Peter's case, and two bailiffs led him through a doorway. The gallery, which had been buzzing with quiet conversation, fell silent. Peter didn't look up as he entered; he continued to stare at the ground even as he was shuttled into place beside Jordan.

  Judge Iannucci scanned the paper that had been set in front of him. "I see, Mr. Houghton, that you wish to waive your probable cause hearing."

  At this news--as Jordan had expected--there was a collective sigh from the media, all of whom had been hoping for a spectacle.

  "Do you understand that I would have had the obligation today to find whether or not there was probable cause to believe that you committed the acts for which you are charged, and that by waiving the probable cause hearing, you are not requiring me to find that probable cause; you will now be bound over to the grand jury, and I will bind this case over to the superior court?"

  Peter turned to Jordan. "Was that English?"

  "Say yes," Jordan answered.

  "Yes," Peter repeated.

  Judge Iannucci stared at him. "Yes, Your Honor," he corrected.

  "Yes, Your Honor." Peter turned to Jordan again and, under his breath, muttered, "This still sucks."

  "You're excused," the judge said, and the bailiffs hefted Peter out of his seat again.

  Jordan stood, giving way to the next defense attorney for the next case. He approached Diana Leven at the prosecutor's table, still organizing the files she never had a chance to use. "Well," she said, not bothering to look up at him. "I can't say that was a surprise."

  "When are you going to send me discovery?" Jordan asked.

  "I don't remember getting your letter requesting it yet." She pushed past him, hurrying up the aisle. Jordan made a mental note to get Selena to type something up and send it off to the prosecutor's office, a formality, but one that he knew Diana would uphold. In a case this big, the DA followed every rule to the letter, so that if the case ever went up on appeal, procedure would not be the downfall of the original verdict.

  Just outside the double doors of the courtroom, he was waylaid by the Houghtons. "What the hell was that?" Lewis demanded. "Aren't we paying you to work in court?"

  Jordan counted to five under his breath. "I spoke about this with my client, Peter. He gave me permission to waive the hearing."

  "But you didn't say anything," Lacy argued. "You didn't even give him a chance."

  "Today's hearing wouldn't have benefited Peter. It would, however, have put your family under the microscope of every camera outside the courthouse today. That's going to happen anyway. Did you really want it to be sooner rather than later?" He looked from Lacy Houghton to her husband, and then back again. "I did you a favor," Jordan said, and he left them holding the truth between them, a stone that got heavier with every passing moment.

  *

  Patrick had been heading to the probable cause hearing for Peter Houghton when he received a cell phone call that sent him screaming in the opposite direction, to Smyth's Gun Shop in Plainfield. The owner of the store, a round little man with a tobacco-stained beard, was sitting outside on the curb, sobbing, when Patrick arrived. Beside him was a patrol officer, who jerked his chin in the direction of the open door.

  Patrick sat down beside the owner. "I'm Detective Ducharme," he said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

  The man shook his head. "It was so fast. She asked to see a pistol, a Smith and Wesson. Said she wanted to keep it in the house, for protection. She asked if I had any literature on that model, and when I turned my back to find some . . . she . . ." He shook his head and went silent.

  "Where did she get the bullets?" Patrick asked.

  "I didn't sell them to her," the owner said. "She must have had them in her purse."

  Patrick nodded. "You stay here with Officer Rodriguez. I might have some more questions."

  Inside the gun shop, there was a spray of blood and brain matter on the right-hand wall. The medical examiner, Guenther Frankenstein, was already bent over the body, lying sideways on the floor. "How the hell did you get here so fast?" Patrick asked.

  Guenther shrugged. "I was in town at a baseball card collectors' show."

  Patrick squatted beside him. "You collect baseball cards?"

  "Well, I can't very well collect livers, can I?" He glanced at Patrick. "We really have to stop meeting like this."

  "I wish."

  "Pretty self-explanatory," Guenther said. "She stuck the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger."

  Patrick noticed the purse on the glass counter. He rifled through it, finding a box of ammunition and the Wal-Mart receipt for them. Then he opened the woman's wallet to find her ID, just at the same time Guenther rolled the body over.

  Even with the gunshot residue blackening her features, Patrick recognized her before he saw her name. He'd spoken to Yvette Harvey; he'd been the one to tell her that her only child--a daughter with Down syndrome--had not survived the shooting at Sterling High.

  Indirectly, Patrick realized, Peter Houghton's casualty count was still rising.

  *

  "Just because someone collects guns doesn't mean they intend to use them," Peter said, scowling.

  It was unseasonably warm for late March--a freakish eighty-five degrees--and the air-conditioning at the jail was broken. The inmates were walking around in their boxers; the guards were all on edge. The HVAC patrol, which had been called in on the pretense of humane incarceration, was working so slowly that Jordan figured they'd master their trade just in time for the snow to start falling again outside. He'd been sitting in a sweatbox of a conference room with Peter for over two hours now, and felt as if he'd soaked through every last fiber of his suit.

  He wanted to quit. He wanted to go home and tell Selena that he never should have taken this case, and then he wanted to drive with his family to the eighteen stingy miles of beach that New Hampshire was blessed with and jump fully clothed into the frigid Atlantic. Dying of hypothermia couldn't be any worse than the slow kill Diana Leven and the DA's office had in store for him in court.

  Whatever small hope Jordan had kindled by discovering a valid defense--albeit one that had never been used before a judge--had been steadily eroded in the weeks following the hearing by the discovery that had arrived from the DA's office: stacks of paperwork, photos, and evidence. Given all this informatio