The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  “Sir,” the bailiff says, “please face front.”

  I can feel sweat breaking out on my forehead. I have been in court before, but not for a case of this magnitude. Not for a case where I have a personal stake in the outcome.

  Beside me, Andrew touches my arm. “Make them take the chains off. I don’t want her to see me like this.”

  “It’s inmate policy in the courtroom,” I answer. “I can’t do anything about it.”

  The judge is a woman relatively new to the bench. She comes from a public defender’s background, which is a plus for Andrew, but she is also the mother of three small children. “I have before me a complaint alleging that you are a fugitive from justice with kidnapping contrary to the laws of Arizona. I see that you have an attorney with you, so I’ll address my remarks to him. You have two options today. One is to waive extradition and go to Arizona to meet the charge. The other option is to contest extradition and require the State to seek a Governor’s Warrant.”

  “My client chooses to waive extradition, Your Honor,” I say. “He’s looking forward to dealing with this charge quickly.”

  The judge nods. “Then bail won’t be an issue. I assume you’re going to allow us to incarcerate Mr. Hopkins until he can be transferred to Arizona.”

  “Actually, Judge, we’d like bail to be set,” I say.

  The prosecutor is out of his seat like a shot. “Absolutely not, Your Honor!”

  The judge turns toward him. “Mr. Floritz? Is there something you’d like to add?”

  “Your Honor, the two primary considerations for bail are the safety of the community and risk of flight. The defendant is just about the biggest flight risk you could ask for—look at what already happened.”

  “Allegedly happened,” I interject. “Mr. Hopkins is a valuable member of the Wexton community. He has served for five years as a town councilman. He’s almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of the current senior center, and he has been nothing less than an exemplary parent and grandparent. This isn’t a man who’s a menace to society, Your Honor. I urge the Court to consider the admirable citizen he has been before rushing to any hasty judgment.”

  Too late, I realize what I’ve done wrong. You never, never, ever imply that a judge might be hasty in his or her decision-making; it is like pointing out to a wolf that it has bad breath while it is considering ripping out your carotid. The judge looks coolly at me. “I believe that I have more than adequate information to make a legitimate ruling here . . . swift though it may be, Counselor. I’m setting a one-million-dollar cash-only bail.” She bangs her gavel. “Next case?”

  The bailiffs haul Andrew out of the courtroom before he even has a chance to ask me what happens next. The seniors erupt in a slow-motion flurry of activity, crying foul and then being shuffled by another bailiff into the hallway. The prosecutor gets up from his seat and walks toward me. “Eric,” he says, “you sure you’re ready to get involved in something like this?”

  He isn’t questioning my legal abilities but my tolerance for stress. Although he’s been dry for twenty years, I’m a neophyte. I give him a tight smile. “I’ve got it under control,” I lie. Recovering alcoholics are good at that, too.

  I relinquish my table to a public defender who is getting ready for the next arraignment. I’m not looking forward to Delia’s disappointment, now that she knows Andrew will have to stay overnight in jail again, that I have already failed. Resigned, I turn to the spot where we were sitting, but she’s disappeared.

  * * *

  Six years ago I drove my car off the road while I was trying to open a bottle of Stoli and steer with my knees. By some miracle the only casualty was a sugar maple. I walked to a bar, where I had to consume a few drinks before I felt calm enough to call Delia and tell her what had happened. The next week, I found myself waking up in places I had no recollection of going to: the living room of a fraternity on the Dartmouth campus; the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant; the cement divider of the Wilder Dam. It was after one of these benders that I found myself in the backyard at Delia and Andrew’s house, asleep in their hammock. What woke me was the sound of crying; Delia was sitting on the ground beside me, shredding pieces of grass with her hands. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  My head was swimming underwater, my tongue was as thick as a mossy field, but immediately, I thought: She’s mine, now. I stumbled out of the hammock and onto one knee. I tugged the ponytail elastic out of Delia’s hair and doubled it up, then reached for her hand. “Delia Hopkins,” I said, “will you marry me?” I slid the makeshift ring onto her finger, and turned up the wattage on my smile.

  When she didn’t answer—just curled up her knees and buried her head against them—I began to feel the butterfly beat of panic in the pit of my stomach. “Delia,” I said, swallowing. “Is it the baby? Do you want to . . . to get rid of it?” The thought of a part of me taking root in her was miraculous to me, like finding an orchid growing in the cracks of a broken tenement sidewalk. But I was willing to give that up in return for Delia. I would do anything for her.

  When she looked at me, there was nothing in her eyes, as if she’d pulled free from her life the strand that was me. “I want the baby, Eric,” she said. “But I don’t want you.”

  Delia had complained about my drinking before, but since she hardly drank herself, it seemed impossible for her to be able to know what exactly constituted too much. She claimed she didn’t like the smell of alcohol, but I thought it was loss of control she couldn’t handle; and that seemed to be her hang-up, not mine. Sometimes she got angry enough to take a real stand, but it was a vicious cycle: Every time she swore she’d leave me, it would only send me spiraling down into a bottle, and eventually she’d come help me crawl back out to consciousness, swearing up one side and down another that it would never happen again, when we both knew that it would.

  This time, though, she wasn’t leaving on her own behalf, but someone else’s.

  For a long time after she walked away, I sat on the lawn in her backyard, balancing the truth between my shoulders like Atlas’s weight. When I finally headed home, I looked up the information for Alcoholics Anonymous, and went to a meeting that night. It took me some time, but eventually I realized why Delia said no to my proposal. I had asked her to spend the wrong life with me, but at any moment, a person might start over from scratch.

  * * *

  I would like to take the time to find Delia, but right now I can’t. I make one phone call: to the prosecutors in Arizona. The canned voice I reach informs me that the Maricopa County Attorney’s office hours are from nine A.M. to five P.M. I glance at my watch, and realize that in Arizona it’s only seven in the morning. I leave a message, informing whoever needs to know that I am representing Andrew Hopkins, that he has waived extradition here in New Hampshire district court in return, we hope, for a speedy transport.

  Then I head downstairs to the sheriff’s office, where Andrew is temporarily occupying a six-foot-square space. “I need to see Delia,” he says.

  “That’s not an option right now.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “You know, Andrew, as the parent of a five-year-old . . . I honestly don’t.”

  This brings back yesterday’s conversation, and his confession. Andrew, wisely, changes the subject. “When do we leave for Arizona?”

  “It’s their call. It could be tomorrow; it could be a month from now.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “You get luxurious accommodations provided by the State of New Hampshire. And you get to meet with me, so we can figure out what we’re going to do in Phoenix. Right now, I have no idea what evidence the prosecution has. Until I can put together the pieces, we’ll just enter a not guilty plea and figure out the rest later.”

  “But,” Andrew says, “what if I want to plead guilty?”

  In the history of my career, I have met only one defendant who didn’t at least want to tell his side of the story. The man was sev