The Jodi Picoult Collection #2 Read online

It falls in a great, clattering heap.

  Monica looks so sad that for just the slightest moment, Nathaniel feels awful. “Oh,” she sighs. “Why’d you do that?”

  Satisfaction curls the corners of his mouth, blooming from a root inside. But Nathaniel doesn’t tell her what he’s thinking: Because I could.

  • • •

  Joseph Toro looks nervous to be in a courtroom, and I can’t blame him. The last time I saw the man he was cowering beside the bench, covered with his own client’s blood and brain matter.

  “Had you met with Glen Szyszynski before you came to court that day?” Quentin asks.

  “Yes,” the attorney says timidly. “In jail, pending the arraignment.”

  “What did he say about the alleged crime?”

  “He categorically denied it.”

  “Objection,” Fisher calls out. “Relevance?”

  “Sustained.”

  Quentin reconsiders. “What was Father Szyszynski’s demeanor the morning of October thirtieth?”

  “Objection.” Fisher stands this time. “Same grounds.”

  Judge Neal looks at the witness. “I’d like to hear this.”

  “He was scared to death,” Toro murmurs. “He was resigned. Praying. He read to me aloud, from the book of Matthew. The part where Christ keeps saying ‘My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’”

  “What happened when they brought your client in?” Quentin asks.

  “They walked him to the defense table where I was sitting.”

  “And where was Mrs. Frost at the time?”

  “Sitting behind us, and to the left.”

  “Had you spoken with Mrs. Frost that morning?”

  “No,” Toro answers. “I’d never even met her.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about her?”

  “Objection,” Fisher says. “He didn’t know her, so how could he judge what was and wasn’t customary?”

  “Overruled,” the judge answers.

  Toro looks at me, a bird gathering courage to dart a glance at the cat sitting a few feet away. “There was something unusual. I was waiting for her to come in . . . because she was the mother of the alleged victim, of course . . . but she was late. Her husband was there, waiting . . . but Mrs. Frost almost missed the beginning of the arraignment. I thought of all days, it seemed very strange that on this one, she wouldn’t be on time.”

  I listen to his testimony, but I am watching Quentin Brown. To a prosecutor, a defendant is nothing but a victory or a loss. They are not real people; they do not have lives that interest you beyond the crime that brought them into court. As I stare at him, Brown suddenly turns. His expression is cool, dispassionate—one I have cultivated in my repertoire as well. In fact I have had all the same training as him, but there is a gulf between us. This case is only his job, after all. But it is my future.

  • • •

  The Alfred courthouse is old, and the bathrooms are no exception. Caleb finishes up at the long trough of the urinal just as someone comes to stand beside him. He averts his eyes as the other man unzips, then steps back to wash his hands, and realizes it is Patrick.

  When Patrick turns, he does a double-take. “Caleb?”

  The bathroom is empty, save the two of them. Caleb folds his arms, waits for Patrick to soap his hands and dry them with a paper towel. He is waiting, and he doesn’t know why. He just understands that at this moment, he can’t leave yet, either.

  “How is she today?” Patrick asks.

  Caleb finds that he cannot answer, cannot force a single word out.

  “It must be hell for her, sitting in there.”

  “I know.” Caleb forces himself to look directly at Patrick, to make him understand this is not a casual reply, is not even a sequitur. “I know,” he repeats.

  Patrick looks away, swallows. “Did she . . . did she tell you?”

  “She didn’t have to.”

  The only sound is the rush of water in the long urinal. “You want to hit me?” Patrick says after a moment. He splays his arms wide. “Go ahead. Hit me.”

  Slowly, Caleb shakes his head. “I want to. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much. But I’m not going to, because it’s too fucking sad.” He takes a step toward Patrick, pointing his finger at the other man’s chest. “You moved back here to be near Nina. You’ve lived your whole life for a woman who doesn’t live hers for you. You waited until she was skating over a weak spot, and then you made sure you were the first thing she could grab onto.” He turns away. “I don’t have to hit you, Patrick. You’re already pathetic.”

  Caleb walks toward the bathroom door but is stopped by Patrick’s voice. “Nina used to write me every other day. I was overseas, in the service, and that was the only thing I looked forward to.” He smiles faintly. “She told me when she met you. Told me where you took her on dates. But the time she told me that she’d climbed some mountain with you . . . that was when I knew I’d lost her.”

  “Mount Katahdin? Nothing happened that day.”

  “No. You just climbed it, and came down,” Patrick says. “Thing is, Nina’s terrified of heights. She gets so sick, sometimes, that she faints. But she loved you so much, she was willing to follow you anywhere. Even three thousand feet up.” He pushes away from the wall, approaching Caleb. “You know what’s pathetic? That you get to live with this . . . this goddess. That out of all the guys in the world, she picked you. You were handed this incredible gift, and you don’t even know it’s in front of you.”

  Then Patrick pushes past Caleb, knocking him against the wall. He needs to get out of that bathroom, before he is foolish enough to reveal the whole of his heart.

  • • •

  Frankie Martine is a prosecutor’s witness—that is to say, she answers questions clearly and concisely, making science accessible to even the high school dropout on a jury. Quentin spends nearly an hour walking her through the mechanics of bone marrow transplants, and she manages to keep the jury’s interest. Then she segues into the mechanics of her day job—spinning out DNA. I once spent three days at the state lab with Frankie, in fact, getting her to show me how she does it. I wanted to know, so that I’d fully grasp the results that were sent to me.

  Apparently, I didn’t learn enough.

  “Your DNA is the same in every cell in your body,” Frankie explains. “That means if you take a blood sample from someone, the DNA in those blood cells will match the DNA in their skin cells, tissue cells, and bodily fluids like saliva and semen. That’s why Mr. Brown asked me to take DNA from Father Szyszynski’s blood sample and use it to see if it matched the DNA found in the semen on the underpants.”

  “And did you do that?” Quentin asks.

  “Yes, I did.”

  He hands Frankie the lab report—the original one, which was left anonymously in my mailbox. “What were your findings?”

  Unlike some of the other witnesses the prosecutor’s put on the stand, Frankie meets my eye. I don’t read sympathy there, but I don’t read disgust either. Then again, this is a woman who is faced daily with the forensic proof of what people are capable of doing to others in the name of love. “I determined that the chance of randomly selecting an unrelated individual from the population other than the suspect, whose DNA matched the semen DNA at all the locations we tested, was one in six billion.”

  Quentin looks at the jury. “Six billion? Isn’t that the approximate population of the whole earth?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Well, what does all this have to do with bone marrow?”

  Frankie shifts on her seat. “After I’d issued these results, the attorney general’s office asked me to research the findings in light of Father Szyszynski’s medical records. Seven years ago, he’d had a bone marrow transplant, which means, basically, that his blood was on long-term loan . . . borrowed from a donor. It also means that the DNA we got from that blood—the DNA that was typed to match the semen in the underwear—was not Father Szyszynski’s DNA, but rather h