Plain Truth

by Jodie Picoult

  “The Amish might entertain these thoughts, sir, but rarely. And they’d never act on them. It just goes against their nature.”

  “A rabbit will chew off its leg if it’s caught in a hunting trap, Mr. Fisher, although no one would call it carnivorous. And although you were raised Amish, lying came quite naturally to you when you decided to continue your studies, right?”

  “I hid my studies from my parents because I had no choice,” Jacob said tightly.

  “You always have a choice. You could have remained Amish, and not gone to college. You chose to take what your father left you with-no family-in return for following your own selfish desires. This is true, isn’t it, Mr. Fisher?”

  Jacob looked into his lap. He felt, rolling over him, the same wave of doubt that he’d struggled with for months after leaving East Paradise; the wave that he once thought he’d drown beneath. “It’s true,” he answered softly.

  He could feel Ellie Hathaway’s eyes on him, could hear her voice silently reminding him that whatever the prosecutor did, it was about Katie and not himself. With determination, he raised his chin and stared George Callahan down.

  “Katie’s been lying to your father for six years now?”

  “She hasn’t been lying.”

  “Has she told your father she’s been visiting you?”

  “No.”

  “Has she told your father that she’s staying with your aunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has she indeed been staying with your aunt?”

  “No.”

  “And that’s not a lie?”

  “It’s . . . misinformation.”

  George snorted. “Misinformation? That’s a new one. Call it what you will, Mr. Fisher. So the defendant misinformed your father. I assume she misinformed you too?”

  “Never.”

  “No? Did she tell you she was involved in a sexual relationship?”

  “That wasn’t something she-”

  “Did she tell you she was pregnant?”

  “I never asked. I’m not sure she admitted it to herself.”

  George raised his brows. “You’re an expert psychiatrist now?”

  “I’m an expert on my sister.”

  The attorney shrugged, making it clear what he thought of that. “Let’s talk about these destructive Amish gangs. Your sister belonged to one of the faster gangs?”

  Jacob laughed. “Look, this isn’t the Sharks and the Jets, with rumbles and territories. Just like English teenagers, most Amish kids are good kids. An Amish gang is simply a term for a group of friends. Katie belonged to the Sparkies.”

  “The Sparkies?”

  “Yes. They’re not the most straitlaced gang in Lancaster County-that would be the Kirkwooders-but they’re probably second or third.” He smiled at the prosecutor. “The Ammies, the Shotguns, the Happy Jacks-those are the gangs that are, as you put it, more destructive. They tend to attract kids who get a lot of attention for acting out. But I don’t think Katie even fraternizes with young people from any of those groups.”

  “Is your sister still in a gang?”

  “Technically, she could participate in their get-togethers until she’s married. But most young people stop attending after they’re baptized into the church.”

  “Because then they can’t drink alcohol or dance or go to movies?”

  “That’s right. Before baptism, the rules are bent, and that’s okay. After baptism, you’ve chosen your path, and you’d better stick to it.”

  “Katie tried beer for the first time when she came to visit you?”

  Jacob nodded. “Yes. At a frat party, where I was with her. But it wasn’t substantially different from an experience she might have had with her gang.”

  “It was perfectly okay under Amish rules?”

  “Yes, because she wasn’t baptized yet.”

  “She went to some movies with you, too?” George asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Which, again, was something she might have even done with her gang?”

  “That’s right,” Jacob answered.

  “And it was perfectly okay under church rules.”

  “Yes, because she wasn’t baptized.”

  “How about dancing? Did you ever take her out dancing?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “But some gangs might have done a little dancing too.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was perfectly okay under church rules.”

  “Yes. Again, she wasn’t baptized yet.”

  “Sounds like you can test a lot of waters before you take the final plunge,” George said.

  “That’s the point.”

  “So when did your sister get baptized?” George asked.

  “September of last year.”

  The prosecutor nodded thoughtfully. “Then she got pregnant after she was baptized. Is sexual intercourse outside of marriage and having an illegitimate baby perfectly okay under church rules?”

  Jacob, silent, turned red.

  “I’d like an answer.”

  “No, that wouldn’t be all right.”

  “Ah, yes. Because she was already baptized?”

  “Among other things,” Jacob said.

  “So let me sum up here,” George concluded. “The defendant lied to your father, she lied to you, she got pregnant out of wedlock after taking baptismal vows-is this the truth about your sister you wanted the jury to understand?”

  “No!”

  “This is the ‘sweet, kind, good’ girl you described in your testimony? We’re talking about a real Girl Scout here, aren’t we, Mr. Fisher?”

  “We are,” Jacob stiffly answered. “You don’t understand.”

  “Sure I do. You explained it yourself far more eloquently than I ever could.” George crossed to the court reporter and pointed to a spot in the long loop of the trial’s transcript. “Could you read this back for me?”

  The woman nodded. “When you’re Amish,” she read, “family is everything.”

  George smiled. “Nothing further.”

  • • •

  Judge Ledbetter called for a coffee break after Jacob’s testimony. The jury filed out, clutching their pads and pencils and studiously avoiding Ellie’s gaze. Jacob, sprung from the witness chair, walked to Katie and took her hands into his. He bent his forehead against hers and whispered in Dietsch, saying something that made her laugh softly.

  Then he stood up and turned to Ellie. “Well?”

  “You did fine,” she said, a smile pasted to her face.

  This seemed to relax him. “Does the jury think so, too?”

  “Jacob, I stopped trying to figure out American juries around the same time Adam Sandler movies started raking in millions at the box office-people just don’t act predictably. The woman with the blue hair, she didn’t take her eyes off you the entire time. But the guy with the bad toupee was trying to pull a stray thread off his blazer cuff, and I doubt he heard a thing you said.”

  “Still . . . it went well?”

  “You’re the first witness,” Ellie said gently. “How about we just wait and see?”

  He nodded. “Can I take Katie to get a cup of coffee downstairs?”

  “No. The cameras are no-holds-barred the minute she leaves this courtroom. If she wants coffee, bring it back here to her.”

  The moment he left, Ellie turned to Katie. “Did you see what George Callahan did to Jacob on the stand?”

  “He tried to trip him up a little, but-”

  “Do you have any idea how much worse it’s going to be for you?”

  Katie set her jaw. “I’m going to make my things right, no matter what it takes.”

  “I have a stronger case if I don’t put you on the stand, Katie.”

  “How? After all that talk about the truth, shouldn’t they hear it from me?”

  Ellie sighed. “No one said I was going to tell them the truth!”

  “You did, during that opening part-”

  “It’s an act, Katie.
Seventy-five percent of being an attorney is being an Oscar-worthy performer. I’m going to tell them a story, that’s all, and with any luck they’ll like it better than the one George tells them.”

  “You said that you would let me tell the truth.”

  “I said that I wouldn’t use an insanity defense. You said that you’d tell the truth. And if you recall, I basically said that we’d see.” She looked into Katie’s eyes. “If you step out there, George is going to cut you to ribbons. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t destroy the thread of the defense while he’s doing it. This is an English world, an English court, an English murder charge. You can’t win if you play by Amish rules.”

  “You have an Amish client, with an Amish upbringing, and Amish thoughts. The English rules don’t apply,” Katie said quietly. “So where does that leave us?”

  “Just listen to what the prosecutor does and says, Katie. Right up till the minute you’re supposed to get on the stand, you can change your mind.” Ellie gazed at her client. “Even if you never speak a word in court, I can win.”

  “If I never speak a word in court, Ellie, I’ll be the liar that Mr. Callahan says I am.”

  Frustrated, Ellie turned away. What a catch-22: Katie wanting her to sacrifice this case on the altar of religious honesty; Ellie knowing that the last place honesty belonged was in court. It was like navigating a car in an ice storm-even if she’d been entirely sure of her own abilities, there were other parties on the road speeding by her, crossing lines, crashing.

  Then again, Katie had never driven a car.

  “You’re not feeling well, are you?”

  At the sound of Coop’s voice, Ellie raised her face. “I’m just fine, thanks.”

  “You look awful.”

  She smirked. “Gee, I bet you have to beat girls off with a stick.”

  He hunkered down beside her. “I’m serious, Ellie,” he said, lowering his voice. “I have a personal stake in your welfare, now. And if this trial is too much for you-”

  “For God’s sake, Coop, women used to give birth in the fields and then keep on picking corn after-”

  “Cotton.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “They were picking cotton.”

  Ellie blinked at him. “Were you there?”

  “I was just making a point.”

  “Yeah. A point. The point is that I’m fine. A-OK. Perfect and one hundred percent. I can win this trial; I can have this baby; I can do anything.” With horror, Ellie realized that tears were pricking the backs of her eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to end the war in Bosnia and stop hunger in a few Third World countries before court reconvenes.” Pushing to her feet, she shoved past Coop.

  He stared after Ellie, then sank into the chair she’d vacated. Katie was rubbing her thumbnail over the top sheet of a legal pad. “It’s the baby,” she said. “It can make you all ferhoodled.”

  “Well.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m worried about her.”

  Pressing deeper with her nail, she left a mark on the paper. “I’m worried, too.”

  Ellie slipped into the seat beside Katie just as the judge was coming back into the courtroom. Ellie’s face was flushed and a little damp, as if she’d been splashing water on it. She would not look at Katie, not even when Katie touched her lightly on the hand beneath the defense table, just to make sure everything was all right.

  Ellie murmured something then, something that sounded like “Don’t worry,” or “I’m sorry,” although the latter didn’t make any sense. Then she rose in one fluid stream, in the sleek, dramatic way that made Katie think of smoke curling from a chimney. “The defense,” Ellie said, “calls Adam Sinclair.”

  Katie had heard wrong, surely. She sucked in her breath.

  “Objection,” the prosecutor called out. “This witness wasn’t on my list.”

  “Your Honor, he was out of the country. I discovered his whereabouts only days ago,” Ellie explained.

  “That still doesn’t tell me why Mr. Sinclair didn’t make it to your witness list,” Judge Ledbetter said.

  Ellie hesitated. “He represents some last-minute information I’ve found.”

  “Your Honor, this is unconscionable. Ms. Hathaway is twisting legal procedure to suit her own needs.”

  “I beg your pardon, Judge,” Ellie countered, “and I apologize to Mr. Callahan for the short notice. This witness isn’t going to win my case for me, but he will be able to provide an important piece of background that’s been missing.”

  “I want time to depose him first,” George said.

  Katie did not hear the rest. All she knew was within moments, Adam was in the same room as her. She began to take short, shallow breaths; each one rustling, as if she might unwrap it to find the candy of his name. Adam placed his palm over the Bible and Katie pictured it, instead, pressed against the flat of her own belly.

  And then he looked at her. There was a sorrow in his gaze that made Katie think anguish had risen within him like a sea, leaving a watermark that cut right across the blue of his eyes. He stared at her, kept staring at her, until the air went solid and her heart thudded in her chest, hard enough for there to be a recoil.

  Katie bit her lip, pulling shame tight as a shawl. She had done this, she had brought them to this point. I’m sorry.

  Don’t worry.

  She lifted shaking hands to cover her face, thinking like a child now: if she could not see Adam, surely she would be invisible.

  “Ms. Hathaway,” the judge said. “Would you like to take a moment?”

  “No,” Ellie answered. “My client is fine.”

  But Katie wasn’t fine. She couldn’t stop trembling, and the tears were coming harder, and for the life of her she couldn’t look up and see Adam again. She could feel the stares of the jury members like so many tiny pinpricks, and she wondered why Ellie wouldn’t do this one thing for her-let her run out of here, and never look back.

  “Please,” she whispered to Ellie.

  “Shh. Trust me.”

  “Are you sure, counselor?” Judge Ledbetter asked.

  Ellie glanced at the jury, at their open-mouthed expressions. “Positive.”

  At that moment, Katie thought she truly hated Ellie.

  “Your Honor,” came his voice; oh, Lord, his sweet, deep voice, like the hum of a buggy running over the pavement. “May I?” He picked up the box of tissues on the stand, and nodded in Katie’s general direction.

  “No, Mr. Sinclair. You will stay where you are,” the judge ordered.

  “I have to object to this, Your Honor,” the prosecutor insisted. “Ms. Hathaway put this witness on for purely dramatic value, and nothing of true import.”

  “I haven’t even questioned him yet, George,” Ellie said.

  “Counsel-approach,” Judge Ledbetter said. She began to whisper angrily to Ellie and the county attorney, their voices rising in small spurts. Adam looked from the bench to Katie, who was still weeping. He picked up the box of tissues and opened the gate to the witness stand.

  The bailiff stepped forward. “Sir, I’m sorry, but-”

  Adam pushed past him, his footsteps growing louder as he approached the defense table. Judge Ledbetter looked up and called out his name. When he kept walking, she banged her gavel. “Mr. Sinclair! You will stop now, or I’ll hold you in contempt of court!”

  But Adam did not stop. As the prosecutor’s voice rose in outrage, wrapped around the angry warnings of the judge, Adam knelt beside Katie. She could smell him, could feel the heat coming off his body, and she thought: This is my Armageddon.

  She felt the soft stroke of a tissue along her cheek.

  The voices of the judge and lawyers faded, but Katie did not notice. Adam’s thumb grazed her skin, and she closed her eyes.

  In the background, George Callahan threw up his hands and began to argue again.

  “Thank you,” Katie whispered, taking the tissue from Adam’s hand.

  He nodded, silent. The b
ailiff, following orders, grasped Adam’s arm and wrenched him to his feet. Katie watched him being led back to the witness stand, every slow step a mile between them.

  “I’m a ghost hunter,” Adam said, responding to Ellie’s question. “I search for and record paranormal phenomena.”

  “Can you tell us what that entails?”

  “Staying overnight in places that are assumed to be haunted; trying to detect some change in the energy field either by dowsing or by a specialized type of photography.”

  “Besides your Ph.D. from Penn State in parapsychology, do you hold any other degrees?”

  “Yes. A bachelor’s of science and a master’s degree from MIT.”

  “In what field, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “Physics.”

  “Would you consider yourself a man of science, then?”

  “Absolutely. It’s why I know paranormal phenomena have to exist-any physicist will tell you that energy can’t be lost, but only transformed.”

  “How did you get to know Jacob Fisher?” Ellie asked.

  “We met in a class at Penn State-I was a teaching assistant, he was an undergraduate. I was immediately attracted to his focus as a student.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “Well, obviously, given the field I’m in, I can’t afford to make light of my work. I’ve found that the best way to go about my business is to put my nose to the grindstone and just do my research and not worry about what everyone else thinks. Jacob reminded me of myself, in that. For an undergraduate, he was far less interested in the social scene on campus than the academic side. When it came time to sublet my house, since I’d be traveling to do research, I approached him as a potential tenant.”

  “When did you meet Jacob’s sister?”

  Adam’s gaze moved from Ellie to Katie and softened. “The first time was the day I got my Ph.D. Her brother introduced us.”

  “Can you tell us about that?”

  “She was beautiful and wide-eyed and shy. I knew she was Amish-I had learned that from Jacob some time back-but she wasn’t dressed that way.” He hesitated, then lifted his palm. “We shook hands. Perfectly ordinary. But I remember thinking that I didn’t want to let go.”

  “Did you have the opportunity to meet Katie again?”

  “Yes, she visited her brother once a month. Jacob moved into my house a few months before I officially moved out, so I got to see Katie when she made her trips to State College.”