Salem Falls

by Jodie Picoult

  “And then?”

  “And then . . . then. . .” She shrank back in the seat, her voice striped with pain. “And then he raped me.”

  Matt let that statement stand for a moment. “How long did it last?”

  “Forever,” Gillian murmured.

  “Did he insert his penis into your vagina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ejaculate?”

  “I . . . I guess,” Gilly said. “He stopped, anyway.”

  “Was he saying anything while this was happening?” Matt asked.

  “No.”

  “Were you?”

  “I was crying. I couldn’t look at him.”

  “Did you try to move at all?”

  Gilly shook her head. “He was holding me down. Tight. And every time I tried to roll away, he just shoved me harder into the ground.”

  The jury was staring intently at Gillian. “What happened after he was done?”

  Her answer came softly, from a place deep inside her. “He got up and zipped his pants,” Gilly said, wrapping her arms around herself. “He told me if I talked to anyone, he’d come back for me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I watched him go, and then counted to a hundred and started running.”

  “Which direction did he leave in?”

  “The path that went closest to my house,” Gillian said. “So I ran in the other direction. Toward the cemetery. Where my friends had gone.”

  “How long did it take you to catch up to the others?”

  “I don’t know. A few minutes, I guess.”

  “What happened when you found your friends?” Matt asked.

  “I couldn’t stop crying. And my legs . . . they just collapsed. I felt so dirty, and I just couldn’t get out what had happened.”

  Matt walked toward the defense table. “Had you ever seen Jack St. Bride before?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  She let her gaze slide over Jack, then fall to her lap like a stone. “He worked in this diner in town. Every now and then, my friends and I went there.”

  “Had you ever talked to him before?”

  “Sometimes he’d come over to our table and start a conversation.”

  Matt nodded. “Did you ever indicate to him that you were interested in having a relationship with him?”

  Gillian shook her head vehemently. “No.”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind, Gillian, that the defendant is the man who sexually assaulted you shortly after midnight on May first?”

  The muscles in Gillian’s jaw clenched. “I can still feel his body on top of me. I smell him, sometimes, in empty rooms. And I wake up suffocating, sure that it’s happening again.” Her eyes roamed the gallery until they clung tight to her father’s. “I don’t have any doubts,” Gilly whispered. “It was him.”

  “Nothing further,” Matt said, and sat down.

  The moment Jordan stood up, he could feel the tightrope beneath his feet. He needed to discredit Gillian carefully. Matt had spent a half hour here getting the whole courtroom to feel sorry for her; if Jordan was too harsh, the jury would turn against him rather than Gillian.

  He gave her a moment to compose herself and approached her slowly, having learned from experience that even the most pitiful-looking stray puppies sometimes turned around and snapped. “Ms. Duncan, when you were in the woods with your friends and Mr. St. Bride came up to you, did you feel scared around him?”

  “Yes. I’d been told for weeks that I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.”

  “Yet you also said that the reason you went to the woods that night was to be brave. To defy your parents, who were making a ‘big deal’ about staying away from Mr. St. Bride. So being close to him was the ultimate defiance, wasn’t it?”

  Gillian shook her head. “I would never have done that.”

  “Did you leave the minute he came up to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “By your own statement, though, Ms. Duncan, he asked you a question about roasting marshmallows and sat down with you all, isn’t that true?”

  A light glinted in Gillian’s eyes. “But then I told him we were all leaving, because it was the quickest way to get rid of him.”

  “Get rid of him? Because you were still scared?”

  She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

  “Yet you said that once he left, you weren’t scared.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You never thought Mr. St. Bride was going to attack you?”

  Gilly shook her head. “If I had, I would have stuck with my friends.”

  “You never thought he would attack you, although everything you’d heard about him from your parents and friends indicated that he was waiting for the opportunity to assault young women?”

  She was between a rock and a hard place-and knew it. Jordan waited patiently for her answer. “N-no,” Gillian said.

  “All right. You started to walk home and then turned around to make sure the fire was out?”

  “Yes.”

  “How far had you gone at that point?”

  “Not far. Only a few seconds.”

  “And Mr. St. Bride allegedly attacked you when you returned to the clearing?”

  “That’s right,” she said quietly.

  “Had you seen him hiding there before you and your friends left?”

  “No. He walked off down a path.”

  “And how long after he left did you all depart?”

  “A few minutes, maybe. Not long.”

  Jordan nodded. “If he expected you to be leaving the clearing, Ms. Duncan, then why would he have circled back to it to attack you? Why not lay in wait along one of the paths, where he had a better chance of intercepting you?”

  Gillian stared at Jordan. “I don’t know.”

  “If you hadn’t decided to check on the ashes, you wouldn’t even have come back to the clearing, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mr. St. Bride take off your clothes?”

  “He pulled down my jeans and my underwear,” Gillian whispered.

  “And your sweater? Did he take that off?”

  “No.”

  “Unbutton it?”

  “No,” Gillian said.

  “How about his own clothes?”

  “His pants.”

  “Did he pull down his pants before or after he pulled down yours?”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she shook her head. “Ms. Duncan,” the judge said kindly, “I’m going to need you to answer the question.”

  “I can’t remember,” Gilly murmured.

  “Did he pull down his pants before or after he asked you to put on the condom?”

  “Before.”

  “Was he still holding your hands over your head when he took off his jeans?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “He kept one hand on my wrists,” Gillian said. “He used the other one to pull down his pants.”

  “So even though you were struggling against him, and he was using his lower body to pin you down and one hand to hold your wrists, he managed to unfasten his jeans and work them down over his hips?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about how you scratched Mr. St. Bride that night.”

  “It was after he threw me on the ground,” Gillian said. “When he let go of my hands and told me to put on the condom, I went for his eyes, but I missed and got his cheek.”

  “Which cheek?”

  “His right.”

  “Did you use one finger?”

  “I used my whole hand.” Gillian made a claw. “Like this.”

  “Did you scratch him with four fingers?”

  “I don’t know. I just raked my hand down his face, trying to get away. Then he grabbed my hand and slammed me down really hard.”

  “You said after Mr. St. Bride raped you, you counted to a hundred, then ran after your friends. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”


  “How did you count?”

  Gillian looked up, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, how quickly? Was it one-two-three . . . or one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi . . .”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you could count to ten for us, today, like you did that night.”

  She glanced at Matt Houlihan, who shrugged imperceptibly. “One,” Gillian said slowly, “two . . . three . . .”

  When she reached ten, Jordan looked up from his watch and did some quick math. “So you waited about eighty seconds before leaving the clearing?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Did you walk to your friends? Crawl? Tiptoe?”

  “I ran. As fast as I could.”

  “And it took several minutes to reach your friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re certain about that?”

  Gillian nodded. “It was about five minutes.”

  Jordan pointed to the path on the oversize map that led toward the cemetery. “This is the route you took?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you have any idea how long a distance this path is, Ms. Duncan?”

  “No.”

  “It’s fifty-two yards. One hundred fifty-six feet,” Jordan said. “Can you show me where, along this path, your friends were when you caught up with them?”

  She pointed to the edge of the cemetery. “Right here. Outside the woods.”

  “And Detective Saxton found you, right at the spot where you stopped?”

  “Yes.”

  “While you and your friends were together in the woods, you had no alcohol and no drugs, is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing to eat or drink for the entire hour you were there?”

  “I had a snack. Cookies. That’s it.”

  “Did your friends have anything to drink that night?”

  “Yes,” Gilly said. “Iced tea.”

  “Have you ever heard of the drug atropine?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “It’s something my father’s made in his lab,” Gillian said.

  “Do you know how atropine is taken?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have any atropine that night in the woods?”

  “No!” Gillian insisted.

  “Are you aware that traces of atropine were found in the thermos containing the iced tea your friends had brought?”

  “Yes. Mr. Houlihan told me.”

  “Yet you are testifying under oath today that you didn’t have any?”

  “I didn’t. I don’t do drugs.”

  Jordan approached the witness stand. “Is it possible you could have been given some by accident?”

  “I didn’t drink the iced tea.”

  “Could the drug have been slipped into something else you drank that night?”

  “No,” Gillian said firmly. “The only thing I had to drink was a soda, before I left my house. I didn’t have any of that stuff, I swear it.”

  Jordan turned away from her. “You know, Ms. Duncan, you’ve told us all quite a lot about what happened that night . . . but you don’t always tell the truth, do you?”

  Gillian’s brows drew together. “Yes, I do.”

  “Isn’t it a fact that you have a long history of misrepresenting what really occurred? That shortly after your mother’s death, you were taken to a psychiatrist because of repeated episodes of lying to your father?”

  “I was nine,” Gillian said. “And I was really confused at the time. I’m a totally different person now, and my father and I are really close. I tell him everything.”

  “Everything?” Jordan repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell him where you were really going that night?”

  Gillian’s cheeks colored brightly. “I . . . I . . .”

  “That’s all right, Ms. Duncan,” Jordan said, sliding into place beside Jack. “We already know the answer.”

  As soon as Judge Justice called for a fifteen-minute recess, Jack turned to his attorney. “I need to take a leak,” he said. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, where reporters were streaming out of the courtroom to call in information about Gillian’s testimony to the papers.

  Jordan called over the deputy. “Can you take my client down to-”

  “Nope,” the man said. “It’s backed up in the holding cell. Plumber’s down there now.”

  Jordan grimaced. He didn’t want to take Jack out of the plastic bubble of the courtroom, where he would be a moving target for the media or anyone else who wanted a piece of him. But hell, a leak was a leak. “Come on,” he muttered. “I’ll take you.”

  The moment they stepped outside, cameras exploded like a meteor shower, blinding Jordan temporarily. “No comment,” he said, dragging Jack toward the men’s room and shoving him inside. “Hey, guys, a little privacy?” he begged of the reporters, and held the door closed.

  Jack stepped up to the urinal. “How do you think it’s going?”

  “I think it’s early,” Jordan said.

  Suddenly, a toilet flushed, and the door to one of the stalls swung open. “Mr. Duncan,” Jordan said, anxious to avoid an incident before it started.

  But the man held up a hand. He stopped just inches away from Jack, who was furiously working to zip up his pants.

  “They should have cut it off,” Duncan said, then walked out of the bathroom, leaving Jack to stare after him.

  “Dr. Paulson, did you have occasion to treat a patient by the name of Gillian Duncan on May first?” Matt asked.

  The ER doctor was comfortable on the stand. “Yes, I did.”

  “At what time?”

  “Approximately one-thirty A.M.”

  “Did you have any medical information about her when you approached her?”

  “Yes. An ER nurse had taken a history and physical. She had a BP of one twenty over eighty, and a rapid heart rate. She was alert and oriented and in no acute distress, although she was frightened. She’d come in alleging a forcible vaginal sexual assault.”

  “How did you examine Gillian?”

  “First I had her undress over a sheet,” Dr. Paulson said. “Then I did a basic general exam. Chest and cardiac exams were unremarkable. The abdomen was soft, nontender, and nondistended with normal bowel sounds. There was no rebound tenderness. Some significant bruising was present on the patient’s right wrist; I took pictures of these.”

  Matt asked permission to approach the witness, then handed Dr. Paulson the pictures. “Do you recognize these?”

  “Yes. They’re the photographs I took of the patient.”

  “Do they fairly and accurately represent the bruises on Gillian Duncan that night?”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “I’d like to move them in as State’s Exhibits Two and Three,” Matt said. “Doctor, what other examinations did you perform that night?”

  “A pelvic exam. The external genitalia were unremarkable, and there were no visible signs of forced penetration. I used a colposcope, which is basically a large magnifying glass with a light on it, to see inside the vaginal canal.”

  “What did you find?”

  “The vaginal vault was unremarkable, without lesions or semen. The cervix was closed and without cervical motion tenderness. The uterus was small, anteflexed and anteverted, and nontender, and the adnexa were nonpalpable and nontender. The patient didn’t report anal penetration, so the rectovaginal exam was deferred.” The doctor smiled at the jury. “It’s a lot of medical jargon, but basically, she looked normal on the inside.”

  “Is it unusual to find no lesions or bruising or abnormalities inside a patient who has reported a violent sexual assault?”

  “No,” the doctor said. “Sometimes you get bruising; sometimes you don’t. The vagina is made for sexual intercourse and, quite frankly, can withstand an awful lot. Often traumatic intercourse can occur without leaving behind any visible vaginal proof.”

  “So how c
an you tell if someone’s had intercourse?”

  “Only by the presence of semen. However, its absence doesn’t rule out intercourse, either. A condom could have been involved. A man might have had a vasectomy.”

  “Did you examine any other area, Doctor?”

  “Yes. I examined the patient’s thighs and groin.”

  “What did you find?”

  “With an ultraviolet lamp, I detected the presence of what appeared to be semen.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took a sterile swab from a sexual assault evidence recovery kit and swabbed the area.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I put the swab in the paper envelope included in the kit. I wrote my name and the date and the patient’s name on it, then sealed it and put my initials over the seal.”

  “Did you take any other physical evidence from Gillian that night?”

  “Yes. I did a pubic hair combing and put the evidence in the kit. I clipped her fingernails and collected each one in a separate, sterile white paper envelope, which was also included in the kit. Finally, I drew blood from the patient for a known sample, marked it, and put it in the kit.”

  “After you marked and sealed all these envelopes and swabs and vials, what did you do with the kit?”

  “I handed it to Detective Saxton, who had brought the patient in.”

  “Between the time you collected all of this evidence and the time you turned it over to the detective, did anyone else have access to it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you treat Gillian?”

  “Yes. We gave her a heavy dose of antibiotics to protect against venereal disease, and a pill to prevent pregnancy.”

  Matt crossed to stand in front of the jury. “Dr. Paulson, when you first walked into the ER cubicle . . . when you first saw Gillian . . . what did she look like?”

  For the first time during her testimony, the doctor’s professional demeanor slipped. “Very pale, and quiet. Lethargic. She was skittish, too, about having me touch her.”

  “Is that behavior you’ve seen before in your line of work?”

  “Unfortunately, it is,” Dr. Paulson admitted. “In victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault.”

  “If there’s no semen in the vagina, Doctor, you can’t tell from a pelvic exam if someone has recently had intercourse . . . right?”