The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  Daniel had just put the finishing touches on the devil’s face when he heard a car pull into the driveway. From the window of his office, he watched Detective Bartholemew get out of his Taurus. He had known it was coming to this, hadn’t he? He had known it the minute he’d walked into that parking lot and found Jason Underhill with Trixie.

  Daniel opened up the front door before the detective could knock. “Well,” Bartholemew said. “That’s what I call service.”

  Daniel tried to channel the easy repartee of social intercourse, but it was like he was fresh out of the village again, bombarded by sensations he didn’t understand: colors and sights and speech he’d never seen or heard before. “What can I do for you?” he asked finally.

  “I was wondering if we could talk for a minute,” Bartholemew said.

  No, Daniel thought. But he led the detective inside to the living room and offered him a seat.

  “Where’s the rest of the family?”

  “Laura’s teaching,” Daniel said. “Trixie’s upstairs with a friend.”

  “How’d she take the news about Jason Underhill?”

  Was there a right answer to that question? Daniel found himself replaying possible responses in his head before he balanced them on his tongue. “She was pretty upset. I think she feels partially responsible.”

  “What about you, Mr. Stone?” the detective asked.

  He thought about the conversation he’d had with Laura just that morning. “I wanted him to be punished for what he did,” Daniel said. “But I never wished him dead.”

  The detective stared at him for a long minute. “Is that so?”

  There was a thump overhead; Daniel glanced up. Trixie and Zephyr had been upstairs for about an hour. When Daniel had last checked on them, they were reading magazines and eating Goldfish crackers.

  “Did you see Jason Friday night?” Detective Bartholemew asked.

  “Why?”

  “We’re just trying to piece together the approximate time of the suicide.”

  Daniel’s mind spiraled backward. Had Jason said something to the cops about the incident in the woods? Had the guy who’d driven by the parking lot during their fistfight gotten a good look at Daniel? Had there been other witnesses?

  “No, I didn’t see Jason,” Daniel lied.

  “Huh. I could have sworn I saw you in town.”

  “Maybe you did. I took Trixie to the minimart to get some cheese. We were making a pizza for dinner.”

  “About when was that?”

  The detective pulled a pad and pencil out of his pocket; it momentarily stopped Daniel cold. “Seven,” he said. “Maybe seven-thirty. We just drove to the store and then we left.”

  “What about your wife?”

  “Laura? She was working at the college, and then she came home.”

  Bartholemew made a note on his pad. “So none of you ran into Jason?”

  Daniel shook his head.

  Bartholemew put his pad back into his breast pocket. “Well,” he said, “then that’s that.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t help you,” Daniel answered, standing up.

  The detective stood too. “You must be relieved. Obviously your daughter won’t have to testify as a witness now.”

  Daniel didn’t know how to respond. Just because the rape case wouldn’t proceed didn’t mean that Trixie’s slate would be wiped clean as well. Maybe she wouldn’t testify, but she wouldn’t get back to who she used to be, either.

  Bartholemew headed toward the front door. “It was pretty crazy in town Friday night, with the Winterfest and all,” he said. “Did you get what you wanted?”

  Daniel went still. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The cheese. For your pizza.”

  He forced a smile. “It turned out perfect,” Daniel said.

  • • •

  When Zephyr left a little while later, Trixie offered to walk her out. She stood on the driveway, shivering, not having bothered with a coat. The sound of Zephyr’s heels faded, and then Trixie couldn’t even see her anymore. She was about to head back inside when a voice spoke from behind. “It’s good to have someone watching over you, isn’t it?”

  Trixie whirled around to find Detective Bartholemew standing in the front yard. He looked like he was freezing, like he’d been waiting for a while. “You scared me,” she said.

  The detective nodded down the block. “I see you and your friend are on speaking terms again.”

  “Yeah. It’s nice.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Did you, um, come to talk to my dad?”

  “I already did that. I was sort of hoping to talk to you.”

  Trixie glanced at the window upstairs, glowing yellow, where she knew her father was still working. She wished he was here with her right now. He’d know what to say. And what not to.

  You had to talk to a policeman if he wanted to talk to you, didn’t you? If you said no, he’d immediately know there was something wrong.

  “Okay,” Trixie said, “but could we go inside?”

  It was weird, leading the detective into their mudroom. She felt like he was boring holes in the back of her shirt with his eyes, like he knew something about Trixie she didn’t know about herself yet.

  “How are you feeling?” Detective Bartholemew asked.

  Trixie instinctively pulled her sleeves lower, concealing the fresh cuts she’d made in the shower. “I’m okay.”

  Detective Bartholemew sat down on a teak bench. “What happened to Jason . . . don’t blame yourself.”

  Tears sprang into her throat, dark and bitter.

  “You know, you remind me a little of my daughter,” the detective said. He smiled at Trixie, then shook his head. “Being here . . . it didn’t come easy to her, either.”

  Trixie ducked her head. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  She pictured Jason’s ghost: blued by the moon, bloody and distant. “Did it hurt? How he died?”

  “No. It was fast.”

  He was lying—Trixie knew it. She hadn’t realized that a policeman might lie. He didn’t say anything else for such a long time that Trixie looked up at him, and that’s when she realized he was waiting for her to do just that. “Is there something you want to tell me, Trixie? About Friday night?”

  Once, Trixie had been in the car when her father ran over a squirrel. It came out of nowhere, and the instant before impact Trixie had seen the animal look at them with the understanding that there was nowhere left to go. “What about Friday night?”

  “Something happened between your father and Jason, didn’t it.”

  “No.”

  The detective sighed. “Trixie, we already know about the fight.”

  Had her father told him? Trixie glanced up at the ceiling, wishing she were Superman, with X-ray vision, or able to communicate telepathically like Professor Xavier from the X-Men. She wanted to know what her father had said; she wanted to know what she should say. “Jason started it,” she explained, and once she began, the words tumbled out of her. “He grabbed me. My father pulled him away. They fought with each other.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “Jason ran away . . . and we went home.” She hesitated. “Were we the last people to see him . . . you know . . . alive?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  It was possible that this was why Jason kept coming back to her now. Because if Trixie could still see him, then maybe he wouldn’t be gone. She looked up at Bartholemew. “My father was just protecting me. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” the detective said. “Yeah, I do.”

  Trixie waited for him to say something else, but Bartholemew seemed to be in a different place, staring at the bricks on the floor of the mudroom. “Are we . . . done?”

  Detective Bartholemew nodded. “Yes. Thanks, Trixie. I’ll let myself out.”

  Trixie didn’t know what else there was to say, so she opened the door that led into the house and closed it behi