Salem Falls Read online

  July 5, 2000

  Carroll County Courthouse

  The air in the courtroom was thick the next morning, so heavy with anticipation it beaded on the foreheads of the reporters and misted the lenses of the camera crews. Judge Justice strode to the bench with the air of a magistrate whose mind is already turned toward her next case. "I believe we're starting the day with closing arguments," she said. "Mr. McAfee, are you ready to begin?"

  Jordan stood. "Actually, Your Honor, I need to reopen my case."

  A moment later, he and Houlihan were standing at the bench. "I have another witness," Jordan explained. "An unexpected one, whose testimony is crucial to the defense."

  "Perhaps you'd like to tell me why you didn't know about her before?" the judge asked. "Does the state know this witness and what they're going to testify to?"

  "No, I don't," Matt said, irritated. "The defense already rested. You didn't see me dancing a parade of new witnesses in front of the court after the prosecution finished."

  "Judge," Jordan explained, "it's the victim from my client's previous conviction. She's recanting."

  "Which is totally irrelevant. It's too late," Matt insisted.

  The judge stared at each lawyer in turn, then addressed the jury. "Ladies and gentlemen, you may recall that yesterday the defense rested. However, the court is going to allow Mr. McAfee to reopen his case to call one final witness."

  Jordan smoothed down his tie and glanced toward the rear of the courtroom. "The defense calls Catherine Marsh."

  She was small and shaken, and Jordan had his doubts about whether she would even make it to the stand without assistance. But at the steps, Catherine rallied, repeating the words to swear herself in in a true, ringing voice.

  "How old are you, Ms. Marsh?"

  "I'm sixteen."

  Jordan glanced at his client. "Do you know Jack St. Bride?"

  It was the first chance Catherine had to see her former teacher. She met Jack's eyes, and a story hung between them, one torn into a spotty snowflake pattern by contrition. "Yes, I do," she murmured.

  "How?"

  Catherine took a deep breath. "I'm the one he was convicted of sexually assaulting last year."

  A gasp rolled through the courtroom like a tide. "Why are you here today, Ms. Marsh?"

  "Because." Catherine looked at her knotted hands. "I let it happen the first time, and I'm not going to be responsible for letting it happen a second time."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jack St. Bride never sexually assaulted me. He never touched me inappropriately. He never did anything wrong at all. He was the best teacher I ever had and ... and maybe I thought of him that way and wished he would be attracted to me ... but it never happened."

  "Why did you let him get convicted, then?" Jordan asked.

  A single tear rolled down Catherine's cheek as she took a deep breath. "Coach believed in me and was kind to me. When I had a boyfriend and wanted to have sex for the first time, Coach took me to a clinic to get birth control pills. He didn't want to, but he did it, because it was so important to me. And when the same guy broke up with me, all I could think was that I wished he'd been more like Coach--more mature, more into me, more ... Jack." She looked at the jury. "I started to write about him ... about us ... in my diary. I made it up, the way I wanted it to be. And when my father found my birth control pills and read my diary--God, for a moment, I just wanted it to be true. I wanted to believe what my father believed ... that I was someone Coach was attracted to, instead of just the other way around.

  "By the time I tried to take back what I'd said, it was so big and so ugly, I couldn't swallow it down. I was a little girl playing with dolls who turned out to have real feelings and real lives that could get ruined." She looked into her lap. "My father and the prosecutor and the judge--they all thought I was protecting a man I loved." Catherine turned, addressing the jury. "The last time I told the truth in court, nobody believed me. I need you all to believe me now."

  "Thank you, Ms. Marsh," Jordan said. "Your witness."

  Matt leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on knees, hands clasped. "All right," he said slowly, getting to his feet. "Where were you on the night of April thirtieth?"

  "In Goffeysboro," Catherine said.

  "You weren't in the clearing behind the cemetery here in Salem Falls, were you?"

  "No."

  "So you don't know whether something happened to Gillian Duncan that night?"

  "No."

  "In fact," Matt accused, "all you know is that a year ago, you made a terrible mistake."

  "Yes."

  "And a year ago, you were so in love with this man you didn't want him to get hurt, correct?"

  "Yes," Catherine murmured.

  He softened quite suddenly, his face rounding into a friendly smile. "You wish things with Coach St. Bride had ended differently, don't you, Ms. Marsh?"

  "Like you can't imagine."

  "Even now, you don't want to see him get hurt, do you?"

  Borne along on his questions, Catherine shook her head vehemently. "Of course not. That's why I came today."

  "What a surprise," Matt said. "Nothing further."

  Jordan watched Catherine leave the witness stand. "Once again, Your Honor," he said, "the defense rests."

  "This," Jordan said to the jury, "is going to be hard."

  He walked to the box, where they sat in anticipation of his closing argument. "When you hear a young girl like Gillian Duncan say she was raped, you want to believe her. You don't want to find out that she's making things up, or that there are inconsistencies in her story. You want to think a girl like that would come in and tell you what really happened ... but the fact is, you can't just assume that what Gillian Duncan said is the truth.

  "Gillian Duncan had specifically been told by her father not to go out at night. That there was a dangerous man running loose. So what did she do? She tried to see what she could get away with. She just didn't realize that it was going to get away from her ... and that's why we're here today."

  Jordan set his hands on the railing, leaning into the jury box. "The judge has instructed you, and will instruct you again, that you need to listen to all of the evidence ... not just Gillian's testimony. And the evidence in this case shows there are too many inconsistencies for you to find Jack St. Bride guilty of aggravated felonious sexual assault."

  Jordan began to tick off a list on his fingers. "Gillian told you that she was going to the woods to hang out with her friends, but in reality she went into an occult bookstore and spoke to the proprietor about celebrating Beltane. Jack told you he saw ribbons and candles and an altar ... something strange and difficult to believe, to be sure. Yet silver ribbons were found later at the scene of the crime, and in Meg Saxton's bedroom closet."

  Ticking off another point, Jordan continued. "Gillian said that her friends left, and that she headed home in the other direction. But she'd arrived in the company of friends specifically because she believed that Jack St. Bride was dangerous. After meeting him face to face, why would she leave by herself and run the risk of meeting up with him?"

  Then Jordan gestured down the central aisle. "And Gillian said that after the rape, she counted to one hundred and ran as fast as she could to catch up to her friends. Ladies and gentlemen, the distance she had to go from that clearing to where her friends were is approximately half a football field in length. It takes a high school linebacker about six seconds to cover that distance. Now, Gillian isn't a high school linebacker ... but according to her testimony, it took her five minutes to travel that path. Five minutes, plus the length of time it took her to count to a hundred. Does it seem likely that a young girl who was scared, hysterical, and running as fast as possible would move that slowly? Does it seem likely that from only half a football field away, her friends would never have heard her struggles?"

  Jordan walked to the evidence table and held up the picture of Jack's scraped cheek. "You heard evidence that Mr. St. Bride's D