Nineteen Minutes Read online

  Peter tossed his mother's letter onto the floor again and stared at the address on the second envelope. He didn't recognize it; it wasn't from Sterling, or even New Hampshire, for that matter. Elena Battista, he read. Elena from Ridgewood, New Jersey.

  He ripped open the envelope and scanned her note.

  Peter,

  I feel like I already know you, because I've been following what happened at the high school. I'm in college now, but I think I know what it was like for you . . . because it was like that for me. In fact, I'm writing my thesis now on the effects of being bullied at school. I know it's presumptuous to think that you'd want to talk to someone like me . . . but I think if I'd known someone like you when I was in high school, my life would have been different, and maybe it's never too late????

  Sincerely,

  Elena Battista

  Peter tapped the ragged envelope against his thigh. Jordan had specifically told him he was to talk to nobody--that is, except his parents, and Jordan himself. But his parents were useless, and to be honest, it wasn't like Jordan had been holding up his end of the bargain, which involved being physically present often enough for Peter to get whatever was bugging him off his chest.

  Besides. She was a college girl. It was kind of cool to think that a college girl wanted to talk to him; and it wasn't like he was going to tell her anything she didn't already know.

  Peter reached for his commissary form again and checked off the box for a generic greeting card.

  *

  A trial could be split into halves: what happened the day of the event, which was the prosecution's baby; and everything that led up to it, which was what the defense had to present. To that end, Selena busied herself interviewing everyone who had come in contact with their client during the past seventeen years of his life. Two days after Peter's arraignment in superior court, Selena sat down with the principal of Sterling High in his modified elementary school office. Arthur McAllister had a sandy beard and a round belly and teeth that he didn't show when he smiled. He reminded Selena of one of those freaky talking bears that had come onto the market when she was a kid--Teddy Ruxpin--which made it all the more strange when he started answering her questions about anti-bullying policies at the high school. "It's not tolerated," McAllister said, although Selena had expected that party line. "We're completely on top of it."

  "So, if a kid comes to you to complain about being picked on, what are the repercussions for the bully?"

  "One of the things we've found, Selena--can I call you Selena?--is that if the administration intervenes, it makes it worse for the kid who's being bullied." He hesitated. "I know what people are saying about the shooting. How they're comparing it to Columbine and Paducah and the ones that came before them. But I truly believe that it wasn't bullying, per se, that led Peter to do what he did."

  "What he allegedly did," Selena automatically corrected. "Do you keep records of bullying incidents?"

  "If it escalates, and the kids are brought in to me, then yes."

  "Was anyone ever brought to you for bullying Peter Houghton?"

  McAllister stood up and pulled a file out of a cabinet. He began to leaf through it, and then stopped at a page. "Actually, Peter was brought in to see me twice this year. He was put into detention for fighting in the halls."

  "Fighting?" Selena said. "Or fighting back?"

  *

  When Katie Riccobono had plunged a knife into her husband's chest while he was fast asleep--forty-six times--Jordan had called upon Dr. King Wah, a forensic psychiatrist who specialized in battered woman syndrome. It was a specific tangent of post-traumatic stress disorder, one that suggested a woman who'd been repeatedly victimized both mentally and physically might so constantly fear for her life that the line between reality and fantasy blurred, to the point where she felt threatened even when the threat was dormant, or in Joe Riccobono's case, as he lay sleeping off a three-day drinking spree.

  King had won the case for them. In the years that had passed, he'd become one of the foremost experts on battered woman syndrome, and appeared routinely as a witness for the defense all over the country. His fees had skyrocketed; his time now came at a premium.

  Jordan headed to King's Boston office without an appointment, figuring his charm could get him past whatever secretarial gatekeeper the good doctor employed, but he hadn't counted on a near-retirement-age dragon named Ruth. "The doctor's booking six months out," she said, not even bothering to look up at Jordan.

  "But this is a personal call, not a professional one."

  "And I care," Ruth said, in a tone that clearly suggested she didn't.

  Jordan figured it wouldn't do any good to tell Ruth she was looking lovely today, or to grace her with a dumb-blonde joke, or even to play up his successful track record as a defense attorney. "It's a family emergency," he said.

  "Your family is having a psychological emergency," Ruth repeated flatly.

  "Our family," Jordan improvised. "I'm Dr. Wah's brother." When Ruth just stared at him, Jordan added, "Dr. Wah's adopted brother."

  She raised one sharp eyebrow and pressed a button on her phone. A moment later, it rang. "Doctor," she said. "A man who claims to be your brother is here to see you." She hung up the receiver. "He says you can go right in."

  Jordan opened the heavy mahogany door to find King eating a sandwich, his feet crossed on top of his desk. "Jordan McAfee," he said, smiling. "I should have known. So tell me . . . how's Mom doing?"

  "How the hell should I know, she always loved you best," Jordan joked, and he came forward to shake King's hand. "Thanks for seeing me."

  "I had to find out who had enough chutzpah to say he was my brother."

  "'Chutzpah,'" Jordan repeated. "You learn that in Chinese school?"

  "Yeah, Yiddish came right after Abacus 101." He gestured for Jordan to take a seat. "So how's it going?"

  "Good," Jordan said. "I mean, maybe not as good as it's going for you. I can't turn on Court TV without seeing your face on the screen."

  "It's been busy, that's for sure. I've only got ten minutes, in fact, before my next appointment."

  "I know. That's why I took a chance that you'd see me--I want you to evaluate my client."

  "Jordan, man, you know I would, but I'm booking nearly six months out for trial work."

  "This one's different, King. It's multiple murder charges."

  "Murders?" King said. "How many husbands did she kill?"

  "None, and it's not a she. It's a boy. A kid. He was bullied for years, and then turned around and shot up Sterling High School."

  King handed half of his tuna sandwich to Jordan. "All right, little brother," he said. "Let's talk over lunch."

  *

  Josie glanced from the serviceable gray tile floor to the cinder-block walls, from the iron bars that isolated Dispatch from the sitting area to the heavy door with its automatic lock. It was kind of like a jail, and she wondered if the policemen inside ever thought about that irony. But then, as soon as the image of jail popped into her head, Josie thought of Peter and began to panic again. "I don't want to be here," she said, turning to her mother.

  "I know."

  "Why does he even want to talk to me again? I already told him I can't remember anything."

  They had received the letter in the mail; Detective Ducharme had "a few more questions" to ask her. To Josie, that meant he must know something now that he hadn't known the first time he questioned her. Her mother had explained that a second interview was just a way of making sure the prosecution had dotted their i's and crossed their t's; that it really didn't mean anything at all, but that she had to go to the station, all the same. God forbid Josie be the one to screw up the investigation.

  "All you have to do is tell him, again, that you don't remember anything . . . and you'll be all done," her mother said, and she gently put her hand on Josie's knee, which had begun shaking.

  What Josie wanted to do was stand up, burst through the double doors of the police station,