Small Great Things

by Jodi Picoult

  Micah laughs. "Rain check."

  "I'm trying really hard not to vomit on you."

  "I can't tell you how much I appreciate that," he says gravely, and he crosses his arms. "Would you like to have a fight now about how you're not going into the office? Or do you want to finish your ginger ale first?"

  "You're using my tactics against me. That's the kind of either-or I offer Violet--"

  "See, and you think I never listen."

  "I'm going to work," I say, and I try to get on my feet, but I black out. When I blink a moment later, Micah's face is inches from mine. "I'm not going to work," I whisper.

  "Good answer. I already called Ava. She's going to come over and play nurse."

  I groan. "Can't you just kill me instead? I don't think I can handle my mother. She thinks a shot of bourbon cures everything."

  "I'll lock the liquor cabinet. You need anything else?"

  "My briefcase?" I beg.

  Micah knows better than to say no to that. As he goes downstairs to retrieve it, I prop myself up on pillows. I have too much to do to not be working, but my body doesn't seem to be cooperating.

  I drift off in the few minutes it takes Micah to come back into the bedroom. He's trying to gently put the briefcase on the floor so he doesn't disturb me, but I reach for it, overestimating my strength. The contents of the leather folio spill all over the bed and onto the floor, and Micah crouches to pick them up. "Huh," he says, holding up a piece of paper. "What are you doing with a lab report?"

  It's wrinkled, having slipped between files to get wedged at the bottom of my bag. I have to squint, and then a run of graphs comes into focus. It's the newborn screening results that I subpoenaed from the Mercy-West Haven Hospital, the ones that had been missing from Davis Bauer's file. They came in this week, and given my lack of understanding of chemistry, I barely glanced at the charts, figuring I'd show them to Ruth sometime after her mother's funeral. "It's just some routine test," I say.

  "Apparently not," Micah replies. "There's abnormality in the blood work."

  I grab it out of his hand. "How do you know that?"

  "Because," Micah says, pointing to the cover letter I didn't bother to read, "it says here there's abnormality in the blood work."

  I scour the letter, addressed to Dr. Marlise Atkins. "Could it be fatal?"

  "I have no idea."

  "You're a doctor."

  "I study eyes, not enzymes."

  I look up at him. "What did you get me for our anniversary?"

  "I was going to take you out to dinner," Micah admits.

  "Well," I suggest, "take me to see a neonatologist instead."

  --

  WHEN WE SAY, in America, that you have a right to be tried by a jury of your peers, we're not exactly telling the truth. The pool of jurors is not as random as you'd think, thanks to careful scrutiny by the defense and the prosecution to eliminate both ends of the bell curve--the people most likely to vote against our clients' best interests. We weed out the folks who believe that people are guilty until proven innocent, or who tell us they see dead people, or who hold grudges against the legal system because they were once arrested. But we also prune on a case-by-case basis. If my client is a draft dodger, I try to limit jurors who have proudly served. If my client is a drug addict, I don't want a juror who lost a family member to an overdose. Everyone has prejudices. It's my job to make sure that they work in favor of the person I'm representing.

  So although I would never play the race card once the trial starts--as I've spent months explaining to Ruth--I'm damn well going to stack the odds before it begins.

  Which is why, before we begin voir dire to choose jurors, I march into my boss's office and tell him I was wrong. "I'm feeling a little overwhelmed after all," I say to Harry. "I was thinking I might need a cochair."

  He takes a lollipop out of a jar he keeps on his desk. "Ed's got a shaken-baby trial starting this week--"

  "I wasn't talking about Ed. I was thinking of Howard."

  "Howard." He looks at me, baffled. "The kid who still brings his meals in a lunchbox?"

  It's true that Howard is fresh out of law school and that so far, in the few months he's been at the office, has only done misdemeanors--domestics and a few disorderlies. I offer my smoothest grin. "Yeah. You know, he'll just be an extra pair of hands for me. A runner. And in the meantime, it would be good for him to get trial experience."

  Harry unwraps the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. "Whatever," he says, his teeth gripped on the stem.

  With his blessing, or the closest I'm going to get to one, I head back to my cubicle and poke my head over the divider that separates me from Howard. "Guess what," I tell him. "You're going to second-chair the Jefferson case. Voir dire's this week."

  He glances up. "Wait. What? Really?"

  It's a big deal for a rookie who is still doing scut work in the office. "We're leaving," I announce, and I grab my coat, knowing he will follow.

  I do need an extra pair of hands.

  I also need them to be black.

  --

  HOWARD SCRAMBLES AT my side as we walk through the halls of the courthouse. "You don't speak to the judge unless I've told you to," I instruct. "Don't show any emotions, no matter what theatrical display Odette Lawton puts on--prosecutors do that to make themselves feel like they're Gregory Peck in Mockingbird."

  "Who?"

  "God. Never mind." I glance at him. "How old are you, anyway?"

  "Twenty-four."

  "I have sweaters older than you," I mutter. "I'll give you the discovery to read over tonight. This afternoon I'm going to need you to do some fieldwork."

  "Fieldwork?"

  "Yeah, you have a car, right?"

  He nods.

  "And then, once we actually get the jurors inside, you're going to be my human video camera. You're going to record every tic and twitch and comment that each potential juror makes in response to my questions, so that we can go over it and figure out which candidates are going to fuck us over. It's not about who's on the jury...it's about who's not on it. Do you have any questions?"

  Howard hesitates. "Is it true that you once offered Judge Thunder a blow job?"

  I stop walking and face him, my hands on my hips. "You don't even know how to clean out the coffee machine yet, but you know that?"

  Howard pushes his glasses up his nose. "I plead the Fifth."

  "Well, whatever you heard, it was taken out of context and it was prednisone-induced. Now shut up and look older than twelve, for God's sake." I push open the door to Judge Thunder's chambers to find him sitting behind his desk, with the prosecutor already in the room. "Your Honor. Hello."

  He glances at Howard. "Who's this?"

  "My co-counsel," I reply.

  Odette folds her arms. "As of when?"

  "About a half hour ago."

  We all stare at Howard, waiting for him to introduce himself. He looks at me, his lips pressed firmly together. You don't speak to the judge unless I've told you to. "Speak," I mutter.

  He holds out a hand. "Howard Moore. It's an honor, Your...um...Honor."

  I roll my eyes.

  Judge Thunder produces a huge stack of completed questionnaires, which are sent out to people who are called for jury duty. They are full of practical information, like where the recipient lives and where he or she works. But they also include pointed questions: Do you have any problems with the presumption of innocence? If a defendant doesn't testify, do you assume he is hiding something? Do you understand that the Constitution gives the defendant the right to not say anything? If the State proves this case beyond reasonable doubt, would you have any moral qualms about convicting the defendant?

  He splits the pile in half. "Ms. Lawton, you take this bunch for four hours; and Ms. McQuarrie, you take these. We'll reconvene at one P.M., switch piles, and then voir dire begins in two days."

  As I drive Howard back to our office, I explain what we are looking for. "A solid defense juror is an olde
r woman. They have the most empathy, the most experience, and they're less judgmental, and they're really hard on young punks like Turk Bauer. And beware of Millennials."

  "Why?" Howard asks, surprised. "Aren't young people less likely to be racist?"

  "You mean like Turk?" I point out. "The Millennials are the me generation. They usually think everything revolves around them, and make decisions based on what's going on in their lives and how it will affect their lives. In other words, they're minefields of egocentrism."

  "Got it."

  "Ideally we want a juror who has a high social status, because those people tend to influence other jurors when it comes to deliberations."

  "So we're looking for a unicorn," Howard says. "A supersensitive, racially conscious, straight white male."

  "He could be gay," I reply, serious. "Gay, Jewish, female--anything that can help them identify with discrimination in any form is going to be a bonus for Ruth."

  "But we don't know any of these candidates. How do we become psychic overnight?"

  "We don't become psychic. We become detectives," I say. "You're going to take half the surveys and drive to the addresses that are listed on them. You want to find out whatever you can. Are they religious? Are they rich? Poor? Do they have political campaign signs on the lawn? Do they live above where they work? Do they have a flagpole in the front yard?"

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "More often than not that's someone who's extremely conservative," I explain.

  "Where are you going to be?" he asks.

  "Doing the same thing."

  I watch Howard leave, plugging the first address into his phone GPS. Then I wander the halls of the office asking other public defenders if they've had any of these folks on their panels--a lot of the jurors get recycled. Ed is about to head out the door to court, but he glances at the sheaf of papers. "I remember this guy," he says, pulling one survey free. "He was part of my jury on Monday--grand larceny case. He raised his hand during my opening statement and asked if I had a business card."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "Sadly," Ed says, "no. Good luck, kiddo."

  Ten minutes later, I've plugged an address into my GPS and find myself driving through Newhallville. I lock the doors for safety's sake. Presidential Gardens, the apartment building between Shelton and Dixwell Avenues, is a lower-income pocket of the city, with a quarter of the residents living below the poverty line, and the streets that bracket the residences are rife with drug traffic. Nevaeh Jones lives in this building, somewhere. I watch a little boy run out the door of one building, not wearing a coat, and start jogging when the cold hits him. He wipes his nose on his sleeve in midstride.

  Will a woman from this area see Ruth and think she's being railroaded? Or will she see the socioeconomic difference between them and be resentful?

  It's a hard call. In Ruth's unique case, the best juror may not be one with the same color skin.

  I put a question mark at the top of the survey--this is one I'll have to consider further. Driving slowly out of the neighborhood, I wait until I see children playing outside and then pull over to the curb and call Howard's cell. "So?" I ask when he picks up. "How's it going?"

  "Um," he says. "I'm sort of stuck."

  "Where?"

  "East Shore."

  "What's the problem?"

  "It's a gated community. There's a low fence and I could look over it, but I'd have to get out of the car," Howard says.

  "Then get out of the car."

  "I can't. See, back when I was in college, I kind of made a rule for myself--don't get out of the car unless there's a happy, living black person in sight." He exhales. "I've been waiting for forty-five minutes, but the only people in this part of New Haven are white."

  That's not necessarily a bad thing for Ruth. "Can't you just go peek over the wall? Make sure she doesn't have a Trump sign on her lawn?"

  "Kennedy--there are neighborhood watch signs all over the place. What do you think is going to happen if they see a black man trying to peek over a wall?"

  "Oh," I say, embarrassed. "I get it." I look out the window to where three kids are jumping into piles of leaves; I think of the little black boy I saw streaking away from Presidential Gardens. Ed told me last week that he defended a twelve-year-old involved in a gang shooting with two seventeen-year-olds, and that the prosecution was gunning to have all three tried as adults. "Give me an hour and then meet me at 560 Theodore Street in East End. And, Howard? When you arrive, it's safe to get out of the car," I say. "I live there."

  --

  I LIGHTLY DROP the bag of Chinese food onto the desk of my home office. "I have goodies," I say, taking out the lo mein and laying claim to it.

  "So do I," Howard says, and he points to a stack of papers he's printed out.

  It's 10:00 P.M., and we've set up camp at my home. I left Howard there all afternoon to do online research while Odette and I swapped stacks of surveys. For hours, I've battled traffic, sussed out more jurors by neighborhood, and scanned the plaintiff and defendant lists at the courthouse to see if any of the potential jurors have been criminally prosecuted or have relatives that were criminally prosecuted.

  "I found three guys who were charged with domestics, a woman whose mother got convicted of arson, and a lovely little old lady whose grandson's meth lab was busted last year," Howard announces.

  The screen reflects, glowing green around Howard's face as he scans the page. "Okay," he says, opening a plastic container of soup and drinking from the side without a spoon. "God, I'm starving. So here's the thing: you can get some good dirt on Facebook, but it depends on privacy settings."

  "Did you try LinkedIn?"

  "Yeah," he says. "It's a gold mine."

  He beckons me to the floor, where he's spread out the surveys and has paper-clipped printouts to each one. "This guy? We love him," Howard says. "He's a social justice educator at Yale. And even better--his mother is a nurse." I hold up my hand, he high-fives. "This is my second favorite."

  He passes me the survey. Candace White. She's forty-eight years old, African American, a librarian, mother of three. She looks like someone who could be friends with Ruth, not just rule in favor of the defense.

  Her favorite TV show is Wallace Mercy.

  I may not want Reverend Mercy messed up in Ruth's case, but the people who watch him are definitely going to have sympathy for my client.

  Howard is still listing his finds. "I've got three ACLU memberships. And this girl ran a whole tribute to Eric Garner on her blog. A series called I Can't Breathe Either."

  "Nice."

  "On the other end of the spectrum," Howard says, "this lovely gentleman is the deacon of his church and also supports Rand Paul and advocates the repeal of all civil rights laws."

  I take the survey from his hand and put a red X through the name at the top.

  "Two people who posted about reducing funding for welfare," Howard says. "I'm not sure what you want to do about that."

  "Put them in the middle pile," I reply.

  "This girl updated her status three hours ago: Jesus Christ some chink just sideswiped my car."

  I place her survey on top of the Rand Paul advocate's, as well as someone whose profile pic on Twitter is Glenn Beck. There are two candidates Howard has nixed because they liked Facebook pages for Skullhead and Day of the Sword. "Is that some Game of Thrones thing?" I ask, baffled.

  "They're white power bands," Howard says, and I am pretty sure he blushes. "I found a group called Vaginal Jesus too. But none of our potential jurors listen to them."

  "Thank God for small mercies. What's the big pile in the middle?"

  "Indeterminate," Howard explains. "I have a few pictures of people making gun gang signs, a handful of stoners, one idiot who took a video of himself shooting up heroin, and thirty selfies of people who are rocked-off-their-gourd drunk."

  "Doesn't it just warm the cockles of your heart to know that we entrust the legal system to these
folks?"

  I'm joking, but Howard looks at me soberly. "To tell you the truth, today's been a little shocking. I mean, I had no idea how people live their lives, and what they do when they think no one's looking--" He glances at a photo of a woman brandishing a red Solo cup. "Or even when they are."

  I spear a Peking ravioli with my chopstick. "When you start to see the seedy underbelly of America," I say, "it makes you want to live in Canada."

  "Oh, and there's this," Howard says, pointing to the computer screen. "Do with it what you will." He reaches across me for a Peking ravioli.

  I frown at the Twitter handle: @WhiteMight. "Which juror is it?"

  "It's not a juror," he says. "And I'm pretty sure Miles Standup is a fake name." He clicks twice on the profile picture: a newborn infant.

  "Why have I seen that photo before...?"

  "Because it's the same picture of Davis Bauer that people were holding up outside the courthouse before the arraignment. I checked the news footage. I think that's Turk Bauer's account."

  "The Internet is a beautiful thing." I look at Howard with pride. "Well done."

  He looks at me, hopeful, over the white lip of the paper carton. "So we're finished for the night?"

  "Oh, Howard." I laugh. "We've only just begun."

  --

  ODETTE AND I meet the next morning at a diner to cross-check the survey numbers of the potential jurors that we each want to decline. In the rare occasion when our numbers match (the twenty-five-year-old who just got out of a psychiatric hospital; the man who was arrested last week) we agree to let them go.

  I don't know Odette very well. She is tough, no-nonsense. At legal conferences, when everyone else is getting drunk and doing karaoke, she is the one sitting in the corner drinking club soda with lime and filing away memories she can use to exploit us later. I've always thought of her as an uptight piece of work. But now I'm wondering: when she goes shopping, is she, like Ruth, asked to show her receipts before exiting the store? Does she mutely hand them over? Or does she ever snap and say she is the one who puts shoplifters on trial?

  So, in an attempt to offer an olive branch, I smile at her. "It's going to be quite a trial, huh?"

  She stuffs her folder of surveys into her briefcase. "They're all big trials."

  "But this one...I mean..." I stumble, trying to find the words.

  Odette meets my gaze. Her eyes are like chips of flint. "My interest in this case is the same as your interest in this case. I am prosecuting it because everyone else in my office is overworked and maxed out, and it landed on my desk. And I do not care if your client is black, white, or polka-dotted. Murder is remarkably monochromatic." With that she stands up. "I'll see you tomorrow," Odette says, and she walks away.