The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  He wished he had a winter coat, but you wore out of jail the same outfit you’d worn in. What he did have was the forty-three dollars that had been in his wallet on the hot afternoon he was incarcerated, a ring of keys that opened doors to places where Jack no longer was welcome, and a piece of gum.

  Other inmates who were released from jail had family to pick them up. Or they arranged for transportation. But Jack had no one waiting for him, and he hadn’t thought about getting a ride. When the door closed behind him, a jaw being snapped shut, he had simply started walking.

  The snow seeped into his dress shoes, and passing trucks splattered his trousers with slush and mud. A taxi pulled onto the side of the road and the driver unrolled the window, but Jack kept struggling forward, certain that the cab had stopped for someone else.

  “Car trouble?” the driver called out.

  Jack looked, but there was no one behind him. “Just walking.”

  “Pretty miserable weather for that,” the man replied, and Jack stared. He could count on one hand the number of casual conversations he’d had in the past year. It had been better, easier, to keep to himself. “Where you headed?”

  The truth was, he had no idea. There were countless problems he hadn’t considered, most of them practical: What would he do for work? For transportation? Where would he live? He didn’t want to return to Loyal, New Hampshire, not even to pick up his belongings. What good was the evidence of a career he no longer had, of a person he would never be?

  The cabdriver frowned. “Look, buddy,” he said, “why don’t you just get in?”

  Jack nodded and stood there, waiting. But there was no bright buzz, no click of the latch. And then he remembered that in the outside world, no one had to unlock a door before he entered.

  I

  Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.

  Jack fell down and broke his crown,

  And Jill came tumbling after.

  Then up Jack got and home did trot as fast as he could caper,

  To old Dame Dob, who patched his nob,

  With vinegar and brown paper.

  Is there no good penitence but it be public?

  —THE CRUCIBLE

  March 2000

  Salem Falls,

  New Hampshire

  On the second worst day of Addie Peabody’s life, her refrigerator and dishwasher both died, like long-term lovers who could not conceive of existing without each other. This would have been a trial for anyone, but as she was the owner of the Do-Or-Diner, it blossomed into a catastrophe of enormous proportions. Addie stood with her hands pressed to the stainless steel door of the Sub-Zero walk-in, as if she might jump-start its heart by faith healing.

  It was hard to decide what was more devastating: the health violations or the loss of potential income. Twenty pounds of dry ice, the most the medical supply store had to offer, wasn’t doing the job. Within hours, Addie would have to throw away the gallon buckets of gravy, stew, and chicken soup made that morning. “I think,” she said after a moment, “I’m going to build a snowman.”

  “Now?” asked Delilah, the cook, her crossed arms as thick as a blacksmith’s. She frowned. “You know, Addie, I never believed it when folks around here called you crazy, but—”

  “I’ll stick it in the fridge. Maybe it’ll save the food until the repairman gets here.”

  “Snowmen melt,” Delilah said, but Addie could tell that she was turning the idea over in her mind.

  “Then we’ll mop up and make more.”

  “And I suppose you’re just gonna let the customers fend for themselves?”

  “No,” Addie said. “I’m going to get them to help. Will you get Chloe’s boots?”

  The diner was not crowded for 10 A.M. Of the six booths, two were occupied: one by a mother and her toddler, the other by a businessman brushing muffin crumbs off his laptop. A couple of elderly regulars, Stuart and Wallace, slouched at the counter drinking coffee while they argued over the local paper’s headlines.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Addie proclaimed. “I’m pleased to announce the start of the Do-or-Diner’s winter carnival. The first event is going to be a snow-sculpture contest, and if you’d all just come out back for a moment, we can get started—”

  “It’s freezing out there!” cried Wallace.

  “Well, of course it is. Otherwise we’d be having a summer carnival. Winner of the contest gets . . . a month of breakfast on the house.”

  Stuart and Wallace shrugged, a good sign. The toddler bounced on the banquette like popcorn in a skillet. Only the businessman seemed unconvinced. As the others shuffled through the door, Addie approached his table. “Look,” the businessman said. “I don’t want to build a snowman, all right? All I came here for was some breakfast.”

  “Well, we’re not serving now. We’re sculpting.” She gave him her brightest smile.

  The man seemed nonplussed. He tossed a handful of change on the table, gathered his coat and computer, and stood up to leave. “You’re nuts.”

  Addie watched him leave. “Yes,” she murmured. “That’s what they say.”

  Outside, Stuart and Wallace were huffing through their scarves, crafting a respectable armadillo. Delilah had fashioned a snow chicken, a leg of lamb, pole beans. The toddler, stuffed into a snowsuit the color of a storm, lay on her back making angels.

  Once Chloe had asked: Is Heaven above or below the place where snow comes from?

  “You got the Devil’s own luck,” Delilah told Addie. “What if there was no snow?”

  “Since when has there been no snow here in March? And besides, this isn’t luck. Luck is finding out the repairman could come a day early.”

  As if Addie had conjured it, a man’s voice called out. “Anybody home?”

  “We’re back here.” Addie was faintly disappointed to see a young cop, instead of an appliance repairman, rounding the corner. “Hi, Orren. You here for a cup of coffee?”

  “Uh, no, Addie. I’m here on official business.”

  Her head swam. Could the accountant have reported them to the board of health so quickly? Did a law enforcement officer have the power to make her close her doors? But before she could voice her doubts, the policeman spoke again.

  “It’s your father,” Orren explained, blushing. “He’s been arrested.”

  Addie stormed into the police department with such force that the double doors slammed back on their hinges, letting in a gust of cold wind. “Jeez Louise,” said the dispatch sergeant. “Hope Courtemanche found himself a good hiding place.”

  “Where is he?” Addie demanded.

  “My best guess? Maybe in the men’s room, in a stall. Or squeezed into one of the empty lockers in the squad room.” The officer scratched his jaw. “Come to think of it, I once hid in the trunk of a cruiser when my wife was on the warpath.”

  “I’m not talking about Officer Courtemanche,” Addie said through clenched teeth. “I meant my father.”

  “Oh, Roy’s in the lockup.” He winced, remembering something. “But if you’re here to spring him, you’re gonna have to talk to Wes anyway, since it was his arrest.” He picked up the phone. “You can take a seat, Addie. I’ll let you know when Wes is free.”

  Addie scowled. “I’m sure I’ll know. You always smell a skunk before you see it.”

  “Why, Addie, is that any way to speak to the man who saved your father’s life?”

  In his blue uniform, his badge glinting like a third eye, Wes Courtemanche was handsome enough to make women in Salem Falls dream about committing crimes. Addie, however, took one look at him and thought—not for the first time—that some men ought to come with an expiration date.

  “Arresting a sixty-five-year-old man isn’t my idea of saving his life,” she huffed.

  Wes took her elbow and led her gently down the hall, away from the dispatch sergeant’s eyes and ears. “Your father was driving under the influence again, Addie.”

  Heat rose to her cheeks. Roy Peabody’s dri