The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “Imagine that. I got the head honcho himself. Where’s your secretary?”

  George laughed, recognizing her voice. “I don’t know, Lizzie. Taking a powder, I guess. You want to come take over her job?”

  “Can’t. I’m too busy busting people for the DA to prosecute.”

  “Ah, I have you to thank for that. My own little feeder source for job security.”

  “Well, consider yourself secure: we found a dead baby in an Amish barn here, and things aren’t adding up. I’m on my way to the hospital to check out a possible suspect—but I wanted to let you know there may be an arraignment in your near future.”

  “How old and where was it found?” George asked, all business now.

  “Hours old, a newborn. It was underneath a pile of blankets,” Lizzie said. “And according to everyone we interviewed at the scene, no one had given birth recently.”

  “Was the baby stillborn?”

  “The ME doesn’t think so.”

  “Then I’m assuming the mother dropped the kid and left,” George deduced. “You said you have a lead?”

  Lizzie hesitated. “This is going to sound crazy, George, but the eighteen-year-old Amish girl who lives on the farm, who swore up one side and down another that she wasn’t pregnant, is in the hospital right now bleeding out vaginally.”

  There was a stunned silence. “Lizzie, when was the last time you booked an Amish person for a crime?”

  “I know, but the physical evidence points to her.”

  “So you have proof?”

  “Well, I haven’t—”

  “Get some,” George said flatly. “And then call me back.”

  * * *

  The physician stood near the triage desk, explaining to the newly arrived OB/GYN what she was likely to find in the ER.

  “Sounds like uterine atony, and retained products of conception,” the obstetrician said, glancing at the patient’s chart. “I’ll do an exam, and we’ll get her up to the OR for a D&C. What’s the status of the baby?”

  The ER doctor lowered his voice. “According to the paramedics who brought her in, it didn’t survive.”

  The obstetrician nodded, then disappeared behind the curtain where Katie Fisher still lay.

  From her vantage point in a bank of lackluster plastic chairs, Lizzie came to her feet. If George wanted proof, then she’d get it. She thanked God for plainclothes detectives—no uniformed officer had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting confidential information out of a doctor without a subpoena—and approached the physician. “Excuse me,” she said, worrying her hands in the folds of her shirt. “Do you know how Katie Fisher’s doing?”

  The doctor glanced up. “And you are?”

  “I was at the house when she started bleeding.” It wasn’t a lie, really. “I just wanted to know if she’s going to be all right.”

  The physician nodded, frowning. “I imagine she’ll be just fine—but it would have been considerably safer for her if she’d come to the hospital to have her baby.”

  “Doctor,” Lizzie said, smiling, “I can’t tell you what it means to hear you say that.”

  * * *

  Leda pushed open the door to her niece’s hospital room. Katie lay still and sleeping on the raised bed. In the corner, motionless and quiet, sat Sarah. As she saw her sister enter the room, Sarah ran into Leda’s arms. “Thank goodness you came,” she cried, hugging Leda tightly.

  Leda glanced down at the top of Sarah’s head. Years of parting her hair in the middle, pulling it tight, and securing her kapp with a straight pin had left a part that widened like a sea with each passing year, a furrow as pink and vulnerable as the scalp of a newborn. Leda kissed the little bald spot, then drew back from Sarah.

  Sarah spoke quickly, as if the words had been rising inside her like steam. “The doctors think that Katie had a baby. She needed medicine to help stop the bleeding. They took her up to operate.”

  Leda covered her hand with her mouth. “Just like you, after you had Hannah.”

  “Ja, but Katie was wonderful lucky. She’ll still be able to have children, not like me.”

  “Did you tell the doctor about your hysterectomy?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I did not like this doctor. She wouldn’t believe Katie when she said she didn’t have a baby.”

  “Sarah, these English doctors . . . they have scientific tests for pregnancy. Scientific tests don’t lie—but Katie might have.” Leda hesitated, treading gingerly. “You never noticed her figure changing?”

  “No!”

  But, Leda knew, that did not mean much. Some women, especially tall ones like Katie, carried in such a way that it could be months before you noticed a pregnancy. Katie would have had her privacy undressing, and underneath the bell of her apron, a swelling stomach would be hard to see. Any thickening of a waistline would go undetected, since the women’s garments of the Old Order Amish were held together with straight pins that could easily be adjusted.

  “If she got into trouble, she would have told me,” Sarah insisted.

  “And what do you think would have happened the minute she did?”

  Sarah looked away. “It would have killed Aaron.”

  “Trust me, Aaron’s not going to blow over in a strong wind. And he better start dealing with it, because this is only the beginning.”

  Sarah sighed. “Once Katie gets home, she’ll have the bishop coming around, that’s for sure.” Glancing up at Leda, she added, “Maybe you could talk to her. About the Meidung.”

  Dumbfounded, Leda sank down onto a chair beside the hospital bed. “Shunning? Sarah, I’m not talking about punishment within the church. The police found a dead baby this morning, a dead baby that Katie already lied about having. They’re going to think that she’s lied about other things, too.”

  “It’s a crime, to these English, to have a baby out of wedlock?” Sarah asked indignantly.

  “It is if you leave it to die. If the police prove that the baby was born alive, Katie is going to be in a lot of trouble.”

  Sarah stiffened her spine. “The Lord will make this work out. And if He doesn’t, then we will accept His will.”

  “Are you talking about God’s will, or Aaron’s? If Katie is arrested, if you listen to Aaron and turn the other cheek and don’t get someone to stick up for her in court, then they’re going to put her in jail. For years. Maybe forever.” Leda touched her sister’s arm. “How many children are you going to let the world take away from you?”

  Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed. She laced Katie’s lax fingers through her own and squeezed. Like this, in her hospital gown with her hair loose about her shoulders, Katie did not look Plain. Like this, she looked just like any other young girl.

  “Leda,” Sarah whispered, “I don’t know how to move in this world.”

  Leda put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I do.”

  * * *

  “Detective Munro, you got a minute?”

  She didn’t, but she nodded at the policeman from the Major Crimes Unit of the state police, which had been scouring the property all afternoon. Once Lizzie had determined that Katie Fisher was going to be hospitalized at least overnight, she had gone to the district judge to secure warrants to search the house and grounds, as well as to get blood from Katie for a DNA match. Her mind buzzing with the million and one things she had left to do, Lizzie tried to turn her attention to the state trooper. “What have you got?”

  “Actually, the scene’s fairly clean,” he said.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Lizzie said dryly. “We may be town cops, but we all graduated from high school.” She hadn’t been thrilled about calling in the MCU, because they tended to look down their noses at local law enforcement and had a nasty habit of wresting control of the investigation from the detective in charge. However, the state police’s investigative skills were far more advanced than those of the East Paradise police, simply because they’d done it more often. “Has the father given you any trou