Nineteen Minutes Read online

  "I can't go to court," Josie murmured.

  Her mother shook her head. "You have a signed affidavit from Josie stating that she doesn't remember anything--"

  "I know you're upset. But the reality is, Jordan's calling Josie on Monday, and we'd rather talk to her about her testimony beforehand than have her come in cold. It's better for us, and it's better for Josie." She hesitated. "You can do it the hard way, Judge, or you can do it this way."

  Josie's mother clenched her jaw. "Two o'clock," she gritted out, and she slammed the door in Selena's face.

  "You promised," Josie cried. "You promised me I didn't have to get up there and testify. You said I wouldn't have to do this!"

  Her mother grabbed her by the shoulders. "Honey, I know this is scary. I know you don't want to be there. But nothing you say is going to help him. It's going to be very short and painless." She glanced at Patrick. "Why the hell is he doing this?"

  "Because his case is in the toilet," Patrick said. "He wants Josie to save it."

  That was all it took: Josie burst into tears.

  *

  Jordan opened the door of his office, carrying Sam like a football in his arms. It was two o'clock on the dot, and Josie Cormier and her mother had arrived. Judge Cormier looked about as inviting as a sheer cliff wall; by contrast, her daughter was shaking like a leaf. "Thanks for coming," he said, pasting an enormous, friendly smile on his face. Above all else, he wanted Josie to feel at ease.

  Neither of the women said a word.

  "I'm sorry about this," Jordan said, gesturing toward Sam. "My wife was supposed to be here by now to get the baby so that we could talk, but a logging truck overturned on Route 10." He stretched his smile wider. "It should only be a minute."

  He gestured toward the couch and chairs in his office, offering a seat. There were cookies on the table, and a pitcher of water. "Please have something to eat, or drink."

  "No," the judge said.

  Jordan sat down, bouncing the baby on his knee. "Right."

  He stared at the clock, amazed at how very long sixty seconds could be when you wanted them to pass quickly, and then suddenly the door flew open and Selena ran inside. "Sorry, sorry," she said, flustered, reaching for the baby. As she did, the diaper bag fell off her shoulder, skittering across the floor to land in front of Josie.

  Josie stood up, staring at Selena's fallen backpack. She backed away, stumbling over her mother's legs and the side of the couch. "No," she whimpered, and she curled into a ball in the corner, covering her head with her hands as she started to cry. The noise set Sam off shrieking, and Selena pressed him up against her shoulder as Jordan watched, speechless.

  Judge Cormier crouched beside her daughter. "Josie, what's the matter. Josie? What's going on?"

  The girl rocked back and forth, sobbing. She glanced up at her mother. "I remember," she whispered. "More than I said I did."

  The judge's mouth dropped open, and Jordan used her shock to seize the moment. "What do you remember?" he asked, kneeling beside Josie.

  Judge Cormier pushed him out of the way and helped Josie to her feet. She sat her down on the couch and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. "It's okay," the judge murmured.

  Josie took a shuddering breath. "The backpack," she said, jerking her chin toward the one on the floor. "It fell off Peter's shoulder, like that one did. The zipper was open, and . . . and a gun fell out. Matt grabbed it." Her face contorted. "He fired at Peter, but he missed. And Peter . . . and he . . ." She closed her eyes. "That's when Peter shot him."

  Jordan caught Selena's eye. Peter's defense hinged on PTSD--how one event might trigger another; how a person who was traumatized might be unable to recall anything about the event at all. How someone like Josie might watch a diaper bag fall and instead see what had happened in the locker room months earlier: Peter, with a gun pointing at him--a real and present threat, a bully about to kill him.

  Or, in other words, what Jordan had been saying all along.

  *

  "It's a mess," Jordan said to Selena after the Cormiers had gone home. "And that works for me."

  Selena hadn't left with the baby; Sam was now asleep in an empty filing cabinet drawer. She and Jordan sat at the table where, less than an hour ago, Josie had confessed that she'd recently started to remember bits and pieces of the shooting but hadn't told anyone, out of fear of having to go to court and talk about it. That when the diaper bag had fallen, it had all come flooding back, full-force.

  "If I'd found this out before the trial started, I would have taken it to Diana and used it tactically," Jordan said. "But since the jury's already sitting, maybe I can do something even better."

  "Nothing like an eleventh-hour Hail Mary pass," Selena said.

  "Let's assume we put Josie on the stand to say all this in court. All of a sudden, those ten deaths aren't what they seemed to be. No one knew the real story behind this one, and that calls into question everything else the prosecution's told the jury about the shootings. In other words, if the state didn't know this, what else don't they know?"

  "And," Selena pointed out, "it highlights what King Wah said. Here was one of the kids who'd tormented Peter, holding a gun on him, just like he'd figured all along would happen." She hesitated. "Granted, Peter was the one who brought in the gun . . ."

  "That's irrelevant," Jordan said. "I don't have to have all the answers." He kissed Selena square on the mouth. "I just need to make sure that the state doesn't either."

  *

  Alex sat on the bench, watching a ragged crew of college students playing Ultimate Frisbee as if they had no idea that the world had split at its seams. Beside her, Josie hugged her knees to her chest. "Why didn't you tell me?" Alex asked.

  Josie lifted her face. "I couldn't. You were the judge on the case."

  Alex felt a stab beneath her breastbone. "But even after I recused myself, Josie . . . when we went to see Jordan, and you said you didn't remember anything . . . That's why I had you swear the affidavit."

  "I thought that's what you wanted me to do," Josie said. "You told me if I signed it, I wouldn't have to be a witness . . . and I didn't want to go to court. I didn't want to see Peter again."

  One of the college players leaped and missed the Frisbee. It sailed toward Alex, landing in a scuffle of dust at her feet. "Sorry," the boy called, waving.

  Alex picked it up and sent it soaring. The wind lifted the Frisbee and carried it higher, a stain against a perfectly blue sky.

  "Mommy," Josie said, although she had not called Alex that for years. "What's going to happen to me?"

  She didn't know. Not as a judge, not as a lawyer, not as a mother. The only thing she could do was offer good counsel and hope it withstood what was yet to come. "From here on out," Alex told Josie, "all you have to do is tell the truth."

  *

  Patrick had been called into a domestic-violence hostage negotiation down in Cornish and did not reach Sterling until it was nearly midnight. Instead of heading to his own house, he went to Alex's--it felt more like home, anyway. He'd tried to call her several times today to see what had happened with Jordan McAfee, but he couldn't get cell phone service where he was.

  He found her sitting in the dark on the living room sofa, and sank down beside her. For a moment, he stared at the wall, just like Alex. "What are we doing?" he whispered.

  She faced him, and that's when he realized she had been crying. He blamed himself--You should have tried harder to call, you should have come home earlier. "What's wrong?"

  "I screwed up, Patrick," Alex said. "I thought I was helping her. I thought I knew what I was doing. As it turned out, I didn't know anything at all."

  "Josie?" he asked, trying to fit together the pieces. "Where is she?"

  "Asleep. I gave her a sleeping pill."

  "You want to talk about it?"

  "We saw Jordan McAfee today, and Josie told him . . . she told him that she remembered something about the shooting. In fact, she remembe