Nineteen Minutes Read online

  King Wah shook his head. "No, but any other psychiatrist would have done the same."

  Diana just raised a brow. "Any psychiatrist who stood to make two thousand bucks a day," she said, and even before Jordan objected she withdrew her remark. "You said that Peter was suffering from suicide ideation."

  "Yes."

  "So he wanted to kill himself?"

  "Yes. That's very common for patients with PTSD."

  "Detective Ducharme has testified that there were one hundred sixteen bullet casings found in the high school that morning. Another thirty unspent rounds were found on Peter's person, and another fifty-two unspent rounds were found in the backpack he was carrying, along with two guns he didn't use. So, do the math for me, Doctor. How many bullets are we talking about?"

  "One hundred and ninety-eight."

  Diana faced him. "In a span of nineteen minutes, Peter had two hundred chances to kill himself, instead of every other student he encountered at Sterling High. Is that right, Doctor?"

  "Yes. But there is an extremely fine line between a suicide and a homicide. Many depressed people who have made the decision to shoot themselves choose, at the last moment, to shoot someone else instead."

  Diana frowned. "I thought Peter was in a dissociated state," she said. "I thought he was incapable of making choices."

  "He was. He was pulling the trigger without any thought of consequence or knowledge of what he was doing."

  "Either that, or it was a tissue-paper line he felt like crossing, right?"

  Jordan stood up. "Objection. She's bullying my witness."

  "Oh, for God's sake, Jordan," Diana snapped, "you can't use your defense on me."

  "Counselors," the judge warned.

  "You also testified, Doctor, that this dissociative state of Peter's ended when Detective Ducharme began to ask him questions at the police station, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Would it be fair to say that you based this assumption on the fact that at that moment, Peter started to respond in an appropriate manner, given the situation he was in?"

  "Yes."

  "Then how do you explain how, hours earlier, when three officers pointed a gun at Peter and told him to drop his weapon, he was able to do what they asked?"

  Dr. Wah hesitated. "Well."

  "Isn't that an appropriate response, when three policemen have their weapons drawn and pointed at you?"

  "He put the gun down," the psychiatrist said, "because even on a subliminal level, he understood that otherwise, he was going to be shot."

  "But Doctor," Diana said. "I thought you told us that Peter wanted to die."

  She sat back down, satisfied that Jordan could do nothing on redirect that would damage the headway she'd made. "Dr. Wah," he said, "you spent a lot of time with Peter, didn't you?"

  "Unlike some doctors in my field," he said pointedly, "I actually believe in meeting the client you're going to be talking about in court."

  "Why is this important?"

  "To build a rapport," the psychiatrist said. "To foster a relationship between doctor and patient."

  "Would you take everything a patient told you at face value?"

  "Certainly not, especially under these circumstances."

  "In fact, there are many ways to corroborate a client's story, aren't there?"

  "Of course. In Peter's case, I spoke with his parents. There were instances in the school records where bullying was mentioned--although there was no response from the administration. The police package I received supported Peter's statement about his email being sent out to several hundred members of the school community."

  "Did you find any corroborative points that helped you diagnose the dissociative state Peter went into on March sixth?" Jordan asked.

  "Yes. Although the police investigation stated that Peter had created a list of target victims, there were far more people shot who were not on the list . . . who were, in fact, students he didn't even know by name."

  "Why is that important?"

  "Because it tells me that at the time he was shooting, he wasn't targeting individual students. He was merely going through the motions."

  "Thank you, Doctor," Jordan said, and he nodded to Diana.

  She looked at the psychiatrist. "Peter told you he had been humiliated in the cafeteria," she said. "Did he mention any other specific places?"

  "The playground. The school bus. The boys' bathroom and the locker room."

  "When Peter started shooting at Sterling High, did he go into the principal's office?"

  "Not that I'm aware of."

  "How about the library?"

  "No."

  "The staff lounge?"

  Dr. Wah shook his head. "No."

  "The art studio?"

  "I don't believe so."

  "In fact, Peter went from the cafeteria, to the bathrooms, to the gym, to the locker room. He went methodically from one venue where he'd been bullied to the next, right?"

  "It seems so."

  "You said he was going through the motions, Doctor," Diana said. "But wouldn't you call that a plan?"

  *

  When Peter got back to the jail that night, the detention officer who took him to his cell handed him a letter. "You missed mail call," he said, and Peter couldn't speak, so unaccustomed was he to that concentrated a dose of kindness.

  He sat down with his back to the wall on the lower bunk and surveyed the envelope. He was a little nervous, now, about mail--he had been since Jordan reamed him for talking to that reporter. But this envelope wasn't typed, like that one had been. This letter was handwritten, with little puffy circles floating over the i's like clouds.

  He ripped it open and unfolded the letter inside. It smelled like oranges.

  Dear Peter,

  You don't know me by name, but I was number 9. That's how I left the school, with a big magic marker label on my forehead. You tried to kill me.

  I am not at your trial, so don't try to find me in the crowd. I couldn't stand being in that town anymore, so my parents moved a month ago. I start school in a week here in Minnesota, and already people have heard about me. They only know me as a victim from Sterling High. I don't have interests, I don't have a personality, I don't even have a history, except the one you gave me.

  I had a 4.0 average but I don't care very much about grades anymore. What's the point. I used to have all these dreams, but now I don't know if I'll go to college, since I still can't sleep through the night. I can't deal with people who sneak up behind me either, or doors that slam really loud, or fireworks. I've been in therapy long enough to tell you one thing: I'm never going to set foot in Sterling again.

  You shot me in the back. The doctors said I was lucky--that if I'd sneezed or turned to look at you I would be in a wheelchair now. Instead, I just have to deal with the people who stare when I forget and put on a tank top--anyone can see the scars from the bullet and the chest tubes and the stitches. I don't care--they used to stare at the zits on my face; now they just have another place to focus their attention.

  I've thought about you a lot. I think you should go to jail. It's fair, and this wasn't, and there's a kind of balance in that.

  I was in your French class, did you know that? I sat in the row by the window, second from the back. You always seemed sort of mysterious, and I liked your smile.

  I would have liked to be your friend.

  Sincerely,

  Angela Phlug

  Peter folded the letter and slipped it inside his pillowcase. Ten minutes later, he took it out again. He read it all night long, over and over, until the sun rose; until he did not need to see the words to recite it by heart.

  *

  Lacy had dressed for her son. Although it was nearly eighty-five degrees outside, she was wearing a sweater she had dug out of a box in the attic, a pink angora one that Peter had liked to stroke like a kitten when he was tiny. Around her wrist was a bracelet Peter had made her in fourth grade by rolling up tiny bits of magazines into splas