Plain Truth

by Jodie Picoult

  Adam had once interviewed an entire bus of tourists who’d seen a battlefield at Gettysburg erupt with a battalion of soldiers who were not there. He’d recorded on infrared cameras the colder pockets of energy that surrounded a ghost. He had heard ghosts move crates in attics, slam doors, ring phones. Yet for all the years he had been doing his doctoral research, he’d had to fight for credibility.

  Humbled, Adam reached for Katie’s hand. He squeezed it gently, and then raised it to his lips to kiss the inside of her wrist. “You are not a ghost,” he said.

  George Callahan frowned at Lizzie’s plate. “Don’t you ever eat anything? You’re gonna blow over in a wind.”

  The detective took a bite of the bagel in front of her. “How come you’re only happy when everyone around you is devouring something?”

  “Must have something to do with being a lawyer.” He blotted his mouth with his napkin, then leaned back in his chair. “You’re going to need your energy today. You ever tried to get unsolicited information from the Amish?”

  Lizzie let her mind spiral back. “Once,” she said. “That case with Crazy Charlie Lapp.”

  “Oh, yeah-the schizophrenic kid who went off his meds and drove a stolen car down to Georgia. Well, take that case, and multiply the degree of difficulty by about a hundred.”

  “George, why don’t you let me do my job? I don’t tell you how to try cases.”

  “Sure you do. I just don’t listen.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Most neonaticides don’t even make it to trial-they get plea-bargained. If the mother does get convicted, it’s on a minimal charge. You know why that is?”

  “Because no one on a jury wants to believe a mother’s capable of killing her baby?”

  “In part. But more often because the prosecution can’t pin a motive on the crime, which makes it seem less like murder.”

  Lizzie stirred her coffee. “Ellie Hathaway might notice up an insanity defense.”

  “She hasn’t yet.” George shrugged. “Look. I think this case is going to blow big, because of the Amish angle. It’s a chance to make the county attorney’s office shine.”

  “It doesn’t hurt, of course, that this is an upcoming election year for you,” Lizzie said.

  George narrowed his eyes. “It has nothing to do with me. This wasn’t Mary coming into the barn to deliver the infant Jesus. Katie Fisher went there intending to have a baby, kill it, and hide it.” He smiled at the detective. “Go prove me right.”

  Ellie, Sarah, and Katie were in the kitchen pickling cucumbers when the car drove into the front yard. “Oh,” Sarah said, moving the curtains aside for a better look. “It’s that detective coming around again.”

  Ellie’s hands froze in the middle of skinning a cucumber. “She’s here to question you all. Katie, go up to your room and don’t come back until I tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s the enemy, okay?” As Katie hurried upstairs, Ellie turned to Sarah. “You have to talk to her. Just tell her what you feel comfortable saying.”

  “You won’t be here?”

  “I’ll be keeping her away from Katie. That’s more important.”

  Sarah nodded just as there was a knock from outside. Waiting for Ellie to leave the room, she crossed the kitchen and opened the door.

  “Hello, Mrs. Fisher. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m-”

  “I remember you,” Sarah said. “Would you like to come in?”

  Lizzie nodded. “I’d like that very much. I’d also like to ask you a few questions.” She surveyed the kitchen, with the bottles sealing on the stove and the piles of cucumbers heaped upon the table. “Would that be all right?” When Sarah nodded stiffly, Lizzie took her notebook from her coat pocket. “Can you tell me a little about your daughter?”

  “Katie’s a good girl. She is humble and giving and kind and she serves the Lord.”

  Lizzie tapped her pencil against the paper, writing nothing at all. “She sounds like an angel, Mrs. Fisher.”

  “No, just a good, Plain girl.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  Sarah twisted her hands beneath her apron. “There have been a few, since Katie came into her running-around years. But the most serious has been Samuel. He works the farm with my husband.”

  “Yes, we’ve met. How serious is serious?”

  “It’s not for me to say,” Sarah ventured, smiling shyly. “That would be Katie’s private business. And if they were thinking of marriage, it would be up to Samuel to go to the Schtecklimann, the go-between who’d come and ask Katie what her wishes are.”

  Lizzie leaned forward. “So Katie doesn’t tell you everything about her personal life.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Did she tell you she was pregnant?”

  Sarah looked down at the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “At the risk of being rude, Mrs. Fisher, either she told you, or she didn’t.”

  “She didn’t tell me right out, but she wouldn’t have volunteered that information, either. It’s a very personal thing.”

  Lizzie bit back her retort. “You never noticed that her dresses were getting bigger? That she wasn’t menstruating?”

  “I have had babies, Detective. I know the signs of pregnancy.”

  “But would you have recognized them if they were intentionally being hidden?”

  “I guess the answer is no,” Sarah softly conceded. “Still, it is possible that Katie didn’t know what was happening herself.”

  “She grew up on a farm. And she watched you through your other pregnancy, right?” As Sarah bent her head, nodding, something sparked in Lizzie’s mind. “Has Katie ever exhibited a violent streak?”

  “No. If anything, she was the opposite-always bringing in stray squirrels and birds, and feeding the calves whose mothers died birthing. Taking care of whoever needed caring.”

  “Did she watch her little sister often?”

  “Yes. Hannah was her shadow.”

  “How did your youngest die, again?”

  Sarah’s eyes shuttered as she stepped back from herself. “She drowned in a skating accident when she was seven.”

  “I’m so sorry. Were you there at the time?”

  “No, she and Katie were out at the pond by themselves.” When Lizzie did not ask another question, Sarah looked up at the detective, at the conclusion written across her face. “You cannot be thinking that Katie had anything to do with her own sister’s death!”

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows. “Mrs. Fisher,” she murmured, “I never said I did.”

  In a perfect world, Lizzie thought, Samuel Stoltzfus would be gracing the pages of magazines dressed in nothing but Calvin Klein underwear. Tall, strong, and blond, he was so classically lovely that a woman of any faith would have had trouble turning him away-but Lizzie had been questioning the young man for twenty minutes, and knew that even if he looked like a Greek god, he sure as hell didn’t have the smarts of Socrates. So far, although she’d verbally held up every single piece of medical evidence of his girlfriend’s pregnancy, Samuel wouldn’t budge from saying Katie hadn’t had a baby.

  Maybe denial was catching, like the flu.

  Exhaling heavily, Lizzie backed off. “Let’s try another tack. Tell me about your boss.”

  “Aaron?” Samuel seemed surprised, and with good reason; all the other questions had been about his relationship with Katie. “He’s a good man. A very simple man.”

  “He seemed sort of stubborn to me.”

  Samuel shrugged. “He is used to doing things his way,” he said, then hastened to add, “but of course he should, since this is his farm.”

  “And after you’re a member of the family? Won’t it be your farm, then, too?”

  Samuel ducked his head, clearly uncomfortable. “That would be his decision.”

  “Who else is going to take over the farm, especially once Katie marries? Unless he’s got a son waiting in the wings that no one’s mentioned.�
��

  Without meeting her eye, Samuel said, “He has no sons anymore.”

  Lizzie turned. “Was there another child that died? I was under the impression it was a little girl.”

  “Yes, Hannah.” Samuel swallowed. “No one else died. I meant that he has no sons. Sometimes, with the English, I forget how to say it.”

  Lizzie eyed the blond man. Samuel stood to inherit the farm-as long as he managed to claim Katie Fisher. Having Aaron Fisher’s grandchild would cement that deal. Had Katie killed the infant because she didn’t want to be tied to Samuel? Because she didn’t want him to inherit?

  “Before the baby was found,” Lizzie asked, “were you and Katie having any fights?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t think I have to tell you this.”

  “Actually, Samuel, you do. Because your girlfriend’s on trial for murder here, and if you had any part in it you could be charged as an accessory. So-the fights?”

  Samuel blushed. It made Lizzie stare; she’d never seen shame sprawled across the face of such a large man. “Just small things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Sometimes she didn’t want to kiss me good night.”

  Lizzie grinned. “That’s a little like locking the barn door after the horse has run out.”

  Samuel blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

  Now it was Lizzie’s turn to blush. “I just meant that a kiss seems fairly inconsequential once you’ve gotten her pregnant.”

  His cheeks flamed brighter. “Katie did not have a baby.”

  Back to square one. “Samuel, we’ve been over this. She had a baby. There’s medical proof.”

  “I don’t know these English doctors, but I know my Katie,” he said. “She says she didn’t have that baby, and it’s true; she couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” Samuel turned away.

  “Because isn’t good enough, Samuel,” Lizzie said.

  He turned around, his voice rising. “Because we have never made love!”

  Lizzie was silent for a moment. “Just because she’s never slept with you,” the detective gently pointed out, “doesn’t mean she hasn’t slept with someone else.”

  She waited for the words to sink in, the awful battering ram that knocked down the last of Samuel’s defenses. The big man curled into himself, the brim of his hat touching his knees, his arms folded tight around his middle.

  Lizzie remembered a case she’d worked on years ago, where the girlfriend of a jewelry store manager had cheated on her boyfriend and gotten pregnant. Rather than admitting to it, she saved face by claiming the guy had raped her and going to court. This newborn’s murder might not hinge on an argument between Katie and Samuel, but the very opposite. Instead of admitting that she had slept with another man, going against her religious principles, hurting her family, and ruining her prospects with Samuel, Katie had simply gotten rid of the evidence of her transgression. Literally.

  Lizzie watched Samuel’s shoulders shake with emotion. Patting him once on the back, she left him to come to terms with the truth: It was not that he didn’t believe Katie had had a baby; it was that he didn’t want to.

  “Would she do that?” Samuel whispered, holding onto Ellie’s hands like a lifeline. “Would she do that to me?”

  She had never believed that you could see a heart break, yet here she was watching it. And it was much like the time she’d watched a skyscraper demolished in Philly, floor crumbling into floor until there was nothing but a memory hanging in the air. “Samuel, I’m sorry. I barely know her well enough to make that judgment.”

  “But did she say anything to you? Did she tell you his name?”

  “We don’t know there was another ‘he,’” Ellie said. “The detective wants you to jump to conclusions, in the hope that you’ll slip up and tell her something the prosecution can use.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Samuel insisted.

  “Of course not,” Ellie said dryly. “I’m sure they have plenty to work with right now.” In fact, just the thought of it sent her head spinning: in a nutshell, here was the prosecution’s motive-Katie committed murder to cover up an indiscretion.

  Samuel looked at Ellie seriously. “I would do anything for Katie.”

  “I know.” And Ellie did. The question was, just how far did Samuel’s promise extend? Could he simply be a very good actor, and have known all along about his girlfriend’s pregnancy? Even if Sarah hadn’t noticed, Samuel would have easily discovered physical differences in Katie during a simple embrace-and would naturally have known if he wasn’t the father. Without any Fisher sons, Samuel stood to inherit the farm-as long as he managed to claim Katie. A Lancaster County farm was a tremendous boon, the real estate value of some of these properties reaching into the millions. If Katie had given birth and then married the father of the child, Samuel would be left out in the cold. It was a clear motive for murder-but pointed at a very different suspect.

  “I think you need to speak to Katie,” Ellie said gently. “I’m not the one who’s going to be able to give you the answers.”

  “We were going to be together. She told me so.” Samuel’s voice was shaking; although no tears had fallen, they were shining in his eyes. Another thing about heartbreaks-you could not watch one without feeling your own heart suffer a hairline fracture as well. Samuel turned away from Ellie, his shoulders rounded. “I know that it’s the Lord’s way to forgive her, but I can’t do that right now. Right now, all I want to know is who she was with.”

  Ellie nodded, and silently thought, You’re not the only one.

  • • •

  Vines twined around the footing of the railroad bridge, stretching toward the high water mark and the rivets that anchored steel to concrete. Katie rolled up the legs of her jeans and took off her shoes and socks, following Adam into the shallow water. Pebbles bit at the arches of her feet; on the slick, smoother stones, her heels slipped. As she reached for the pillar to steady herself, she felt Adam’s hands grasp her shoulders. “It’s December, 1878,” he whispered. “An ice storm. The Pennsylvania Line’s carrying two hundred and three passengers headed toward New York City for Christmas. The train derails there, just at the edge of the bridge, and the cars tumble over into the icy water. One hundred and eighty-six people die.”

  His breath fanned against the side of her neck, and then just as suddenly, he stepped away from her. “Why aren’t there a hundred and eighty-six ghosts, then?” Katie asked.

  “For all we know, there are. But the only one that’s been seen by a number of different people has been Edye Fitzgerald.” Adam walked back to the bank of the river and sat down to fiddle with a long, flat mahogany box. “Edye and John Fitzgerald were newlyweds, on their way to New York City for their honeymoon. John survived the crash, and supposedly kept going into the wreckage with the relief workers, calling out for his wife. After identifying her body, he went to New York City alone, took the honeymoon suite in some fancy hotel, and killed himself.”

  “That’s a sin,” Katie said flatly.

  “Is it? Maybe he was just trying to get back to Edye again.” Adam smiled faintly. “I’d like to check out that suite, though, and see if he’s haunting it.” He opened the cover of the wooden case. “Anyway, there are over twenty accounts of people who’ve seen Edye walking around in the water here, people who’ve heard her calling John’s name.”

  He withdrew two long L-shaped rods from the box and twirled them in his hands like a sharpshooter. Katie watched, wide-eyed. “What can you do with those?”

  “Catch a ghost.” At her shocked expression, he grinned. “You ever use dowsing rods? I guess not. People play around with these to find water, or even gold. But they’ll pick up on energy, too. Instead of pointing down, you’ll see them start to quiver.”

  He began to walk around the cement pylon so soundlessly that the water barely whispered over his legs. His hands curved around the rods, his head bowed to his task.

  She co
uld not imagine her parents doing what John and Edye had done in the extremes of love. No, if a spouse died, that was the natural course of things, and the widow or widower went on with his business. Come to think of it, she’d never seen her Dat even give her Mam a quick kiss. But she could remember the way he kept his arm around her the whole day of Hannah’s funeral; the way he’d some times finish his meal and beam at Mam like she’d just hung the moon. Katie had always been taught that it was similar values and a simple life that kept a hus band and wife together-and after that, passion came privately. But who was to say it didn’t come before? That sigh pressing up from the inside of your chest; the ball of fire in the pit of your stomach when he brushed your arm; the sound of his voice curling around your heart-couldn’t those things bind a man and a woman forever, too?

  Suddenly Adam stilled. His hands were shaking slightly as the rods jumped up and down. “There’s something . . . right here.”

  Katie smiled. “A cement pillar.”

  A dark shadow of disappointment passed over Adam’s face so quickly she wondered if she had imagined it. The rods began to jerk more forcefully. Adam wrenched away from the spot. “You think I’m making this up.”

  “I don’t-”

  “You don’t have to lie to me. I can see it on your face.”

  “You don’t understand,” Katie began.

  Adam thrust the rods at her. “Take these,” he challenged. “Feel it.”

  Katie curled her hands over the warm spots his own hands had left. She stepped gingerly toward the place where Adam had been standing.

  At first it was a shiver that ran up her spine. Then came an unspeakable sor row, falling over her like a fisherman’s net. Katie felt the rods tugging, as if some one was standing at the other end and grabbing onto them like a lifeline. She bit her lower lip, fighting to hold on, understanding that this restlessness, this unseen energy, this pain-this was a ghost.

  Adam touched her shoulder, and Katie burst into tears. It was too much-the knowledge that the dead might still be here on earth; that all those years, all those times she’d seen Hannah, Katie hadn’t been losing her mind. She felt Adam’s arms close around her, and she tried to hold herself at a distance, embarrassed to find herself sobbing into his shirt. “Ssh,” he said, the way one would approach a wild, wary animal. “It’s all right.”