The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  Bono led her to a table, where several slides were waiting. “Basically, we’re trying to identify the organism Owen found by using an immunoperoxidase stain. I cut more sections of the paraffin block of tissue, and incubated them with an antibody that will react with listeria—that’s the bacteria we’re trying to ID. Over here are our positive and negative controls: bona fide samples of listeria, courtesy of the veterinary school; and diphtheroids. And now, lady and gentleman, the moment of truth.”

  Ellie drew in her breath as Bono set a few drops of solution onto the first specimen.

  “This is horseradish peroxidase, an enzyme bound to an antibody,” Bono explained. “Theoretically, this enzyme’s only gonna go where the listeria are.”

  Ellie watched him attend to all the slides on the table. Finally, he brandished a small vial. “Iodine?” she guessed.

  “Close. It’s just a dye.” He added drops to each sample and then anchored the first slide beneath a microscope. “If that’s not listeria,” Bono murmured, “bite me.”

  Ellie looked from one man to the other. “What’s going on?”

  Owen squinted into the microscope. “You remember I told you that the necrosis in the liver was probably due to an infection? This is the bacteria that caused it.”

  Ellie peered into the scope herself, but all she could see were things that looked like tiny bits of fat rice, edged in brown.

  “The infant had listeriosis,” Owen said.

  “So he didn’t die of asphyxia?”

  “Actually, he did. But it was a chain of events. The asphyxia was due to premature delivery, which was caused by chorioamnionitis—which was caused by listeriosis. The baby contracted the infection from the mother. It’s fatal nearly thirty percent of the time in unborn fetuses, but can go undetected in the mothers.”

  “Death by natural causes, then.”

  “Correct.”

  Ellie grinned. “Owen, that’s fabulous. That’s just the sort of information I was hoping for. And where did the mother pick up the infection?”

  Owen looked at Bono. “This is the part that you’re not going to like, Ellie. Listeriosis isn’t like strep throat—you don’t go around contracting it on a daily basis. The odds of infection are roughly one in twenty thousand pregnant women. Maternal infection usually occurs after consumption of contaminated food, and with today’s technology, the specific contaminants are pretty well negated by the time the food’s available for consumption.”

  Ellie crossed her arms, impatient. “Food like what?”

  The pathologist hunched his shoulders. “What’s the chance that your client drank unpasteurized milk while she was pregnant?”

  TWELVE

  Ellie

  The little library at the superior court was directly above Judge Ledbetter’s chambers. Although I was supposed to be researching recent case law concerning judgments on murders of children under the age of five, I had spent considerably more time these past two hours staring at the warped wooden floor, as if I might will through the slats a softness of heart.

  “I can hear you thinking out loud,” said a deep voice, and I turned in my seat to find George Callahan standing behind me. He pulled up a chair and straddled it. “You’re sending vibes to Phil, right?”

  I searched his face for signs of rivalry, but he only looked sympathetic. “Just some light voodoo.”

  “Yeah, I do it too. Fifty percent of the time, it even works.” George smiled, and, relaxing, I smiled back. “I’ve been looking for you. I’ve got to tell you—I don’t feel like a million bucks sending some little Amish girl to jail for life, Ellie. But murder’s murder, and I’ve been trying to come up with a solution that might work for all of us.”

  “What’s your offer?”

  “You know she’s looking at life, here. I can give you ten years if she pleads guilty to manslaughter. Look, with good behavior, she’ll be out in five or six years.”

  “She won’t survive in prison for five or six years, George,” I said quietly.

  He looked down at his clasped hands. “She’s got a better chance of making it through five years than fifty.”

  I stared, hard, at the floor above Judge Ledbetter’s chambers. “I’ll let you know.”

  * * *

  Ethically, I had to bring a plea offered by the prosecution to my client. I’d been in this position before, where I had to relate an offer that I didn’t think was in our best interests, but this time I was nervous about my client’s response. Usually, I could convince someone that taking our chances at trial would be in his or her best interests, but Katie was a whole different story. She’d been brought up to believe that you gave an apology and then accepted whatever punishment was meted out. George’s plea would allow Katie to bring this fiasco to an end, in a way that made perfect sense to her.

  I found her doing the ironing in the kitchen. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay.”

  She smoothed the arm of one of her father’s shirts—lavender—and pressed it flat with an iron that had been heated on the stove. Not for the first time, I realized that Katie would make the perfect wife—in fact, she’d been groomed for just that. If she was sentenced to life in prison, she’d never get that opportunity. “The county attorney offered you a plea bargain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a deal, basically. He reduces the charge and sentence, and in return you have to say you were wrong.”

  Katie flipped the shirt over and frowned. “And then we still go to trial?”

  “No. Then it’s over.”

  Katie’s face lit up. “That would be wonderful!”

  “You haven’t heard his terms,” I said dryly. “If you plead guilty to manslaughter, instead of Murder One, you’ll get a sentence of ten years in prison, instead of life. But with parole you’ll probably only have to be in jail half that time.”

  Katie set the iron on its edge on the stove. “I would still go to jail, then.”

  I nodded. “The risk in accepting the offer is that if you go to trial and get acquitted, you don’t go to jail at all. It’s like settling for something, when you haven’t seen what’s out there.” But even as I said it, I knew it was the wrong explanation. An Amishman took what he was given—he didn’t hold out for the best, because that would only come at someone else’s expense, someone who didn’t get the best.

  “Will you get me acquitted, then?”

  It always came down to this, with clients who were offered a plea. Before they ceded to my advice, they wanted the assurance that things were going to come out in our favor. In most cases of my career, I’d been able to say yes with fervor, with conviction—and I then went on to prove myself right.

  But this was not “most cases.” And Katie was no ordinary client.

  “I don’t know. I believe I could have gotten you off with temporary insanity. But with the abbreviated length of time I’ve had to prepare this new defense, I just can’t say. I think I can get you acquitted. I hope I can get you acquitted. But Katie . . . I can’t give you my word.”

  “All I have to do is say I was wrong?” Katie asked. “And then it’s over?”

  “Then you go to jail,” I clarified.

  Katie lifted the iron and pressed it so hard against the shoulder of her father’s shirt that the fabric hissed. “I think I will take this offer,” she said.

  I watched her run the iron over and between the buttonholes, this girl who had just decided to go to prison for a decade. “Katie, can I tell you something as your friend, instead of your lawyer?” She glanced up. “You don’t know what prison is like. It’s not only full of English people—it’s full of bad people. I don’t think this is the way to go.”

  “You don’t think like me,” Katie said quietly.

  I swallowed my reply and counted to ten before I let myself speak again. “You want me to accept the plea? I will. But first I’d like you to do something for me.”

  * * *

  I’d been to the State