by Jodi Picoult
I gingerly test my jaw where he’s decked me. “Yeah, well, I don’t like to be punched,” I mutter, and I twist Jacob’s arms behind his back and handcuff him. “I need to type up some paperwork for your son. Then we’ll drive him down to the courthouse for his arraignment.”
“He can’t handle all this,” Emma argues. “At least let me stay with him, so that he knows it’s going to be all right—”
“You can’t,” I say flatly.
“You wouldn’t interrogate someone deaf without an interpreter!”
“With all due respect, ma’am, your son isn’t deaf.” I meet her gaze. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to arrest you as well.”
“Emma,” the lawyer murmurs, taking her arm.
“Let go of me,” she says, shaking him off. She takes a step toward her flailing son, but one of the other officers stops her.
“Get them out of here,” I order as I start to drag Jacob down the hall to the processing room.
It’s like trying to wrestle a bull into the backseat of a car. “Look,” I say, “you just have to relax.” But he is still struggling against my hold when I finally shove him into the small space. There’s a fingerprinting machine in there, plus the camera we use for mug shots, expensive equipment that in my mind’s eye I’m seeing shattered by Jacob’s tantrum. “Stand here,” I say, pointing to a white line on the floor. “Look at the camera.”
Jacob lifts up his face and closes his eyes.
“Open them,” I say.
He does—and rolls them toward the ceiling. After a minute, I take the damn picture anyway, and then his profile shots.
It’s when he’s turned to his right that he notices the fingerprint machine and goes very still. “Is that a LiveScan?” Jacob murmurs, the first coherent words he’s said since I placed him under arrest.
“Yup.” I stand at the keypad and suddenly realize that there is a much easier way to go about processing Jacob. “You want to see how it works?”
It’s like a switch has been flipped; the crazed tornado has morphed into a curious kid. He takes a step closer. “They’re digital files, right?”
“Yeah.” I type Jacob’s name onto the keypad. “What’s your middle initial?”
“B.”
“Date of birth?”
“December twenty-first, 1991,” he says.
“You wouldn’t happen to know your social security—”
He rattles off a string of numbers, looking over my shoulder at the next entry. “Weight: 185 pounds,” Jacob says, growing more animated. “Occupation: Student. Place of Birth: Burlington, Vermont.”
I reach for a bottle of Corn Huskers lotion that we use to make sure the ridges are slightly damp and all friction skin is captured and realize Jacob’s hands are still cuffed behind him. “I’d like to show you how this machine operates,” I say slowly, “but I can’t do it if you’re in handcuffs.”
“Right. I understand,” Jacob says, but he’s staring at the screen on the LiveScan machine, and I think if I’d told him that he’d have to give up one of his limbs in return for seeing the scan in action, he would have eagerly agreed. I unlock the cuffs and wipe his fingertips down with the lotion before taking his right hand in mine.
“First we do the thumb flats,” I say, pressing Jacob’s down one at a time. “Then we do flats of the fingers.” It’s a simultaneous impression, the four fingers of each hand pressed on the glass surface at once. “Once the computer’s got these loaded, the other images are matched up against them. You roll side to side, thumbs inward, fingers outward,” I say, illustrating with the first of his fingers and following through with the rest.
When the machine rejects one of the rolled fingers, Jacob’s eyebrows shoot up. “That is remarkable,” he says. “It won’t enter a shoddy print?”
“Nope. It lets me know when I’ve lifted the finger too soon or if the print is too dark, so I can redo the scan.” When I finish with his fingers, I press his palm flat on the surface—it’s the type of print we find most often on windows, if a criminal’s been peeking inside—and then I scan a writer’s palm print, the curved edge of the hand along the pinkie finger down to the wrist. By the time I switch to Jacob’s left hand, he’s practically doing it himself. “It’s that easy,” I say, as the images line up on the screen.
“So you’ll send out searches to AFIS right from here?” Jacob asks.
“That’s the plan.” Having a digital LiveScan that connects to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System is a godsend; I am old enough to remember when it was far more complicated than it is now. The prints are sent to the state central depository, which documents the arrest and sends it along to the FBI. After I lock Jacob up, I will come back to see if there are any other crimes in his past for which he has a record.
I’m guessing there will not be any other hits, but that doesn’t mean this is the first time Jacob’s acted out. It only means it’s the first time he’s been caught.
The printer spits out a card that I’ll put in his arrest folder, along with his mug shots. At the top, all of Jacob’s biographical information is listed. Below are ten small squares, each with a rolled print. Under those are the ten fingertip digits, lined up like an army of soldiers.
In that instant, I happen to notice Jacob’s face. His eyes are shining; his mouth is bent into a smile. He’s been arrested for murder, yet he’s on cloud nine, because he’s gotten to see a LiveScan system up close and personal.
I hit a button, and a second card is printed. “Here.” I hand it to him.
He starts to bounce on the balls of his feet. “You mean … I can
keep it?”
“Why the hell not,” I say. While he’s entranced by the printout, I grasp his elbow to lead him to the lockup. This time, he doesn’t go ballistic when I touch him. He doesn’t even notice.
* * *
Once, I was called in to a suicide. The guy had OD’d on sleeping pills when he was supposed to be babysitting for his sister’s twins. The kids were ten-year-old boys, holy terrors. When they couldn’t wake up their uncle, they decided to horse around with him. They covered his face with whipped cream and put a cherry on his nose, which is the first thing I saw when I took a look at the body stretched out on the living room couch.
Those kids never realized the guy was dead.
Eventually, of course, they would have been told. And even though my work was done at that point, I thought about the twins a lot. You just know that after they found out, they were never quite the same. I was probably one of the last people to see those boys when they were still just two kids, when death was the farthest thing from their minds.
That’s what haunts me at night. Not the dead bodies I find, but the live ones I leave in my wake.
When I lock Jacob inside our holding cell, he doesn’t react—and that scares me more than his earlier outburst. “I’m coming back for you,” I say. “I just have to finish doing a little paperwork, and then we’ll go to the courthouse. Okay?”
He doesn’t answer. In his right hand, he clutches the fingerprint card. His left hand is flapping against his thigh.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I say.
Instead of taking a seat on the bunk, Jacob immediately sinks down onto the concrete floor.
We have a video camera pointed into the cell, so that someone is always watching over a perp. I should be going through the paperwork, which takes forever, but instead, I swing into dispatch to stare at the monitor. For ten whole minutes, Jacob Hunt doesn’t move, unless you count the way his hand is fluttering. Then, very slowly, he scoots backward until he is leaning against the wall, pressed against the corner of the cell. His mouth is moving.
“What the hell is he saying?” I ask the dispatcher.
“Beats me.”
I walk out of dispatch and crack the door that leads to the holding cell. Jacob’s voice is faint:
All around in my hometown,
They’re trying to track me down.
They say they want to bring me in guilty
For the killing of a deputy.
I swing open the door and walk up to the cell. Jacob is still singing, his voice rising and falling. My footsteps echo on the concrete, but he doesn’t stop, not even when I am standing on the other side of the bars, directly in front of him, with my arms crossed.
He sings through the chorus two more times before he stops. He doesn’t look at me, but I can tell from the way his shoulders square that he knows I’m here.
With a sigh, I realize that I’m not going to leave this kid alone again. And I’m not going to get my paperwork done unless I can convince him it’s another lesson in police procedure. “So,” I say, unlocking the cell door, “have you ever filled out an intake form?”
Oliver
As soon as I hear the detective say that he’ll arrest Emma Hunt if she doesn’t shut up, I snap out of the panic I am in, a panic induced by the sentence he spoke just slightly before that: Then we’ll drive him down to the courthouse for his arraignment.
What the hell do I know about arraignments?
I have won a couple of civil suits. But a criminal arraignment is a whole different animal.
We are in Emma’s car, driving to the courthouse, but that was a struggle. She didn’t want to leave the police station without Jacob; the only way I managed to convince her to leave was by pointing her in the direction of where her son would be heading. “I ought to be with him,” she says, running a red light. “I’m his mother, for God’s sake.” As if that triggers something else in her mind, she grimaces. “Theo. Oh my God, Theo … He doesn’t even know we’re here …”
I don’t know who Theo is, and to be honest, I don’t have time to care. I am busy wondering where I am supposed to stand in the courtroom.
What do I say?
Do I speak first, or does the prosecutor?
“This is a total misunderstanding,” Emma insists. “Jacob’s never hurt anyone. This couldn’t be his fault.”
Actually, I don’t even know which courtroom to go to.
“Are you even listening?” Emma asks, and I realize at that moment she must have asked me a question.
“Yes,” I say, figuring I have a 50 percent chance of being right.
She narrows her eyes. “Left or right,” she repeats.
We are sitting at a stop sign. “Left,” I murmur.
“What happens at the arraignment?” she asks. “Jacob won’t have to talk,
will he?”
“No. The lawyer does. I mean, I do. The whole point of an arraignment is just to read the charges and set bail.” This much I remember from law school, anyway.
But it’s not the right thing to say to Emma. “Bail?” she repeats. “They’re going to lock Jacob up?”
“I don’t know,” I say, totally honest. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come
to it.”
Emma parks in the courthouse lot. “When will he get here?”
I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that it’s nearly the end of the business day, and if Detective Matson doesn’t get his ass in gear, Jacob’s going to be spending the night at the county jail—but there’s no way I’m going to tell Emma that.
It’s quiet inside the courthouse; most of the cases are through for the day. However, mine is just beginning, and I need a crash course in criminal law before my client figures out I’m a total fraud. “Why don’t you wait here?” I suggest, pointing to a chair in the lobby.
“Where are you going?”
“To do, um, some paperwork that needs to be filed before Jacob arrives,” I say, trying to look as confident as possible, and then I make a beeline for the office of the clerk.
It’s just like nurses in a hospital tend to know more than the doctors most of the time; if you really want to get the answer to a question about court, you should spend more time buttering up the clerks than the judges. “Hello,” I say to the small, dark-haired woman peering into a computer screen. “I’m here for a criminal arraignment.”
She flicks a glance upward. “How nice for you,” she says flatly.
My gaze falls on a nameplate on her desk. “I wonder, Dorothy, if you could tell me in which courtroom that might take place?”
“The criminal courtroom would be a safe bet …”
“Right.” I smile, as if I knew this all along. “And the judge … ?”
“If it’s Monday, it’s Judge Cuttings,” she says.
“Thanks. Thanks very much,” I reply. “Really nice to meet you.”
“The highlight of my day,” Dorothy intones.
I am about to walk out the door when I turn back at the last moment. “One more thing …”
“Yes?”
“Am I, um, supposed to say anything?”
She looks up from her computer. “The judge will ask you whether your client pleads guilty or not guilty,” Dorothy answers.
“Great,” I say. “I really appreciate that.”
In the lobby, I find Emma hanging up her cell phone. “So?” she asks.
I sink into the empty seat beside her. “Piece of cake,” I tell her, and I hope I can convince myself.
Emma and I sit through three drug possession charges, one B and E, and an indecent exposure charge before Jacob is brought into the courtroom. From my vantage point in the gallery, I can tell the moment Emma notices he’s here: she sits up a little straighter, and her breath catches in her throat.
If you have spent any time in a courtroom, you’ll know that high school football players—the mean ones with no necks—grow up and become bailiffs. Two of these behemoths are manhandling Jacob, who’s doing his damnedest to get the hell away from them. He keeps craning his neck, looking at the people in the courtroom, and as soon as he spots Emma, his entire body sags with relief.
I stand up, heading down from the gallery, because it’s showtime, and realize too late that Emma’s following me. “You have to stay here,” I whisper over my shoulder as I take my place at the defendant’s table beside my client.
“Hi,” I say to Jacob under my breath. “My name’s Oliver. Your mom hired me to be your lawyer, and I’ve got it all under control. Don’t say anything to the judge. Just let me do the talking.”
The whole time I’m speaking, Jacob is looking at his lap. The minute I finish, he twists in his seat. “Mom,” he calls out, “what’s going on?”
“Counselor,” the bigger bailiff says, “either shut your client up or he’s going back in the holding cell.”
“I just told you not to talk to anybody,” I tell Jacob.
“You told me not to say anything to the judge.”
“You can’t talk to anybody,” I clarify. “Do you understand?”
Jacob glances down at the table.
“Jacob? Hello?”
“You told me not to talk to anybody,” he mutters. “Will you make up your mind already?”
Judge Cuttings is a hard-boiled New Englander who, in his time off, runs a llama farm and who, in my opinion, looks a little like a llama himself. He has just announced Jacob’s name when Dorothy the clerk enters through a side door and passes him a note. Looking down his long nose at it, he sighs. “I have two arraignments for Mr. Robichaud that need to be done in another courtroom. Since he’s currently here with his clients, I’ll do those first, and then we’ll take the prisoner’s case.”
The minute he says the word prisoner, Jacob jumps to his feet. “I need a sensory break,” he announces.
“Shut up,” I murmur.
“I need a sensory break!”
Dozens of thoughts are running through my mind: How do I get the kid to stop talking? How do I get the judge to forget everything that’s unfolding before his eyes? How would a seasoned lawyer handle a situation like this, when a client becomes a loose cannon? How long before I am seasoned enough to stop second-guessing myself?
The minute Jacob takes a step, the two bailiffs are on top of him. He starts screaming, a high, keening s
ound. “Let go of him!” Emma shrieks behind me. “He doesn’t understand! He’s allowed to get up in school when things are overwhelming—”
“This isn’t school,” the judge thunders. “This is my courtroom, and you, madam, will be leaving it.”
The second bailiff releases Jacob and steps into the gallery to pull Emma outside. “I can explain,” she cries, but her voice gets fainter as she’s forced down the aisle.
I look from her to my client, who has gone boneless and is being dragged out a different door. “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” Jacob yells.
The judge narrows his eyes at me.
“It’s from Planet of the Apes,” I mutter.
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore,” he replies. “That’s from Network. I highly recommend you watch the movie after you get your client under control.”
I duck my head and hurry down the aisle. Emma stands outside the courtroom door, flushed and angry, her eyes shooting daggers at the bailiff. “Your kid can wait till the courtroom’s empty,” he says to me. “That’s when we’ll arraign him. And the mother can’t come back inside until then.”
He enters the courtroom again; the door opens with a gasp. That leaves me standing alone in the hallway with Emma, who grabs my hand and pulls me toward the staircase. “What … what are you doing?”
“He’s down there, isn’t he? Come on.”
“Hold it.” I dig in my heels and fold my arms. “What was that all about?”
“I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. That’s Asperger’s. Sometimes Jacob seems totally normal—brilliant, even—and sometimes the tiniest thing can set him off into a full-fledged fit.”
“Well, he can’t behave like that in a courtroom. I thought he knew all about crime scenes and cops and the law. He has to be respectful and quiet or this will be disastrous.”