Salem Falls

by Jodi Picoult

  Gillian unbuttoned her shirt. "My socks," she begged in a whisper. "Can't I leave them on?"

  The doctor nodded. She glanced at the bloodstain on the blouse and carefully placed it into a paper bag marked for forensic testing. Gillian's underwear--a yellow bikini marked FRIDAY, although it wasn't--went into a separate paper bag. Finally, she folded the piece of paper beneath Gilly's feet and put it in an evidence bag.

  While Gilly stood like a horse on the auction block, the doctor walked in a slow circle around her. "I'm just looking for cuts and bruises," she explained, bending down to get a closer look at a mark on Gillian's thigh. "Where'd this come from?"

  "Shaving," Gilly murmured.

  "And this?" the doctor pointed to a bruise on the bottom of her wrist.

  "I don't know."

  A camera was removed from a drawer; a photo was taken. Gilly thought of the carvings on the bottoms of her feet, the scars they could not see. Then the doctor asked Gilly to climb onto the examination table. She swallowed hard and clamped her thighs together as the doctor came closer. "Are you going to ... "

  "Not yet." After the doctor turned off the lights in the room, a bright purple bulb flared to life. "This is just a Wood's lamp." She held it an inch above Gilly's arms and breasts as she moved it over the surface of her skin.

  It was pretty, the violet glow over her shoulders and belly and hips. With prompting, she relaxed the muscles in her legs so that they parted. The lamp swooped over and up. "Bingo."

  On her inner thigh, a small paisley-shaped spot gleamed alien green beneath the lamp. "What is it?" Gilly said.

  The doctor looked up. "Dried semen, most likely."

  Amos Duncan roared into the hospital, wild-eyed and terrified. He stalked right to the nurse's station in the ER. "My daughter. Where's my daughter?"

  Before the nurse could answer, Charlie Saxton slid an arm around his old friend's shoulders. "Amos, it's all right. She's here, and she's being taken care of."

  At that, the big man blanched, his face contorting. "I need to see her," he said, heading in the direction of the swinging ER doors.

  "Not now, Amos. God, think of what she's been through. The last thing she needs is you barging in while the doctor is doing the physical exam."

  "A physical exam? You mean someone else is in there poking and prodding her?"

  "DNA evidence. If you want me to catch the son of a bitch, I need to have something to work with."

  Slowly, Amos turned. "You're right," he said hoarsely, although he didn't like the idea at all. "You're right."

  He let Charlie lead him to a bank of chairs that faced the door Gilly would exit. Clasping his hands between his knees, he rocked back and forth. "I'm going to castrate him," Amos said softly, his tone completely at odds with his expression.

  Then Gillian walked out beside a young female doctor carrying a stack of evidence bags. Amos looked at his daughter and felt his insides constrict. Anxiety rose inside him, until it fairly pushed him off his chair. "Daddy," Gillian whispered.

  For a long moment they simply stared at each other, exchanging an entire conversation in silence. Gillian flew into his arms, burying her sobs against his shirt. "I'm here now," Amos said soothingly. "I'm here, Gilly."

  She lifted a tear-stained face. "D-Daddy, I--I--"

  Amos touched his fingers to her lips and smiled tenderly. "Don't you say anything, sweetheart. Don't say a word."

  Ed Abrams and Tom O'Neill had driven their own hysterical daughters home and had returned to the hospital to keep a support vigil for Amos Duncan. Now that Gillian had been treated, Charlie would begin an investigation. There was nothing left for them to do now but return to their families.

  They walked through the lobby of the ER. "God, it's a shame," Ed said gruffly.

  "Amos'll make sure the motherfucker hangs. He's got the resources to make it happen."

  The men stepped into a night as warm and rich as silk. As if by unspoken agreement, they stopped at the curb. "You don't think ... " Tom began, then shook his head.

  "That he saw us?" Ed finished. "Jesus, Tom, I've been thinking that from the moment Charlie told us what had happened."

  "It was dark, though. And we all were wearing black."

  Ed shrugged. "Who knows what he focused on when we were beating him to a pulp? Maybe this ... this was his way of getting back at us."

  "It worked." Tom rocked back on his heels. "Think we ought to tell Charlie?"

  "It's not going to change anything now." Ed let his gaze slide away. "I think ... I think it's best kept between us. That's what Amos would say."

  "If I knew that something I'd done had hurt my own daughter, I'd want to shoot myself," Tom murmured. "This must be killing him."

  Ed nodded. "That's why he'll kill Jack St. Bride instead."

  Charlie knocked on the door of the hospital lounge before entering. Amos had requested a moment alone with his daughter, and he wasn't about to refuse the man. They sat huddled in plastic seats, their fingers knit together tightly. "Gillian. How are you doing?"

  Her eyes, when they met Charlie's, were absolutely blank. "Okay," she whispered.

  Charlie sat down. "I need you to tell me everything," he said gently. Glancing quickly at Amos, he added, "It can wait until tomorrow morning, if you feel that's better."

  "She wants to get it over with," Amos answered.

  "I'm going to have to ask you to leave us alone for a minute."

  "No!" Gillian cried, clutching at her father's arm. "Can't he stay with me?"

  Charlie stared at her, seeing not the bedraggled teenager sitting across from him but a ten-year-old playing Capture the Flag in his backyard. "Of course," he said, although he knew this would not be pleasant for Amos. Hell, if he'd been in the man's position, he wouldn't want to hear in graphic detail what had transpired.

  He removed a tape recorder from his pocket and set it on the table between them. "Gillian," Charlie said. "Tell me what happened tonight."

  Jack let himself into the diner with the key that Addie had given him weeks before, wondering how he could have been so stupid. To deliberately head toward those girls, instead of running in the other direction ... well, maybe he could lay the blame on the fact that in his thirty-one years he could not remember ever feeling this awful. He reeked of alcohol. His head pounded; the scrape on his cheek throbbed. His eye, the one that had been punched, had nearly swollen shut. His mouth felt as if fur were growing on its roof; add to that the unwelcome realization that he was currently homeless, and Jack wanted nothing more than to turn the clock back twenty-four hours and rethink all his choices.

  Jack was drawn toward the seating area of the diner, instead of the old man's empty apartment. He moved cautiously in the darkness past the sleeping iron giant of an oven, past the warming table and the rows of canned goods. As soon as he pushed through the swinging saloon doors, he saw Addie, asleep in one of the booths.

  He knelt before her with reverence. Her eyelashes cast a spider shadow, her mouth tugged down in a frown. She was so beautiful, although she never would have believed him if he'd said so. At his touch, she startled and cracked her skull against the edge of the Formica table. "God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Addie."

  As the sharp smack of pain dulled, she realized that Jack was there with her. "No," she said slowly, her voice husky with sleep. "I am." She kissed her fingers, then skimmed them over the purple knot of his eye. "You were right, Jack. You're not my daughter."

  "No."

  "But you remind me so much of her."

  "I--I do?"

  "Yes." Addie gifted him with a smile. "Because I love you both."

  In that moment, Jack felt something inside him crack at its seams. He swallowed hard; he breathed deeply. And Jack, who knew when the first weather map had been created and where the sardine got its name and the only country in the world that began with the letter Q, did not know what to say.

  He pulled Addie close and kissed her, hoping that his touch could communicate what h
is words could not. That he loved her, too. That she'd given him back his life. That when he was with her, he could remember the man he used to be.

  She rested her face against his neck. "I think we deserve a happilyever-after."

  "If anyone ever did, it's us."

  Addie wrinkled her nose. "I also think you need to take a shower. It's hard to tell over the whiskey, but it smells like you've been rolling in decaying leaves."

  "It's been ... a pretty bad night."

  "My thoughts exactly. Why don't we just go home?"

  "Home," Jack said. He could not keep the grin off his face. "I'd like that."

  Meg inched past her parents' room, pausing when her mother rolled over in her sleep. Downstairs, silent as a whisper ... and then out the kitchen door, because the click of the lock in that room was less likely to register.

  It took her fifteen minutes to jog to the woods at the edge of the cemetery, the small canvas ballet bag she'd last used when she was six tucked under her armpit. By then, she was gasping for air, sweating.

  You could not grow up as the daughter of a detective without absorbing, through osmosis, a rudimentary understanding of police procedure. There would be officers crawling through the woods within a matter of hours, searching for any evidence they could unearth that would give credence to what Gillian had said. And the first thing they would find was the fire, the maypole, the sachets--all the remnants of their Beltane celebration.

  It couldn't happen.

  Part of the reason she had wanted to try being a witch was because of the mystery and the secrecy, the feeling that she knew something about herself no one else would ever guess. She shuddered, imagining what her parents would say if they found out; what the other kids at school would think of her. It was hard enough fitting in when you were thirty pounds heavier than every other seventeen-year-old; she could only guess at the sneers that would be directed her way when this became common knowledge.

  Her head still hurt from last night's celebration; it throbbed with every footfall. It was only because of the flowering dogwood that she managed to find her way back to the spot where they'd all been, and for a moment she had a vision of Gillian's swollen, wet face as she sobbed onto Meg's father's shoulder.

  It fortified her.

  Spilled across the ground were the paper cups left over from last night's feast, and Gillian's thermos. Meg shoved these into the ballet bag, then plucked the sachets from the dogwood tree and stuffed them in as well.

  The maypole ribbons had unwound themselves and now danced like ghosts. Chelsea was taller than Meg; she felt like a troll staring up at the high branches where the ribbons had been tied. Biting her lower lip, she tugged at one, and to her delight it unwrapped itself easily. She bunched it up and tugged on the next, and the next, rolling the ribbons like volunteers had once rolled bandages during wartime. Finally, she tugged on the last ribbon, a silver one. It had been tied slightly higher than the other three. Meg yanked, but this one was more stubborn.

  Frustrated, she glared up at the tree. With determination, she wrapped the free end of the ribbon around her wrist and jerked hard. It snapped so suddenly that Meg fell backward, sprawling on the forest floor. In the tree, Meg could still see a tiny flag of silver. Well, who would think to look up there, anyway? Resolved, she stuffed the last ribbon into the ballet bag.

  She glanced around at the small clearing the same way she'd seen her mother look through hotel rooms at the end of a vacation, to make sure no one had left a teddy bear or bathing suit behind. And with their secret tucked firmly beneath her arm, Meg hurried home.

  Chief Homer Rudlow was a figurehead in Salem Falls, a former high school football coach for whom Charlie had once played. Their everyday dealings were not much different from high school, actually: Charlie would bust his butt on a regular basis while Homer stood on the sidelines and occasionally offered a different page from the playbook.

  Charlie sat in Homer's living room. The chief wore a tartan robe over his pajamas, and his long-suffering wife had made fresh coffee and set out a plate of doughnuts. "The rape kit is all bagged," Charlie said. "I'm going to take it down to the lab in Concord tomorrow."

  "Any chance of DNA evidence?"

  "The bastard used a condom," Charlie said. "But there was blood on the victim's shirt, hopefully his."

  "Oh, that would be delightful," Homer said wistfully. He took a long sip of his coffee and cradled the mug between his big hands. "I don't have to tell you, Charlie, what kind of heat there's gonna be on this. Amos Duncan's not going to let us fuck up."

  "I wasn't planning to."

  "Didn't mean it that way," the chief said.

  "I know, I know. I've heard for years how Amos saved the town with his goddamned factory." Charlie's brows drew together. "I'm gonna catch this asshole, Homer, but not because Amos is breathing down my neck. I'm gonna do it because it could just as well have been Meg."

  Homer regarded him for a long moment. "Try Judge Idlinger. She's less likely to jump down your throat when you wake her up to get an arrest warrant." The detective nodded but remained seated, his head bowed. "What now?"

  "It's just ... when I was in Miami ..." Charlie lifted his gaze to the chief's. "Things like this don't happen in Salem Falls."

  Homer's mouth flattened. "They just did."

  The police car pulled up to the curb of Addie Peabody's home. In the passenger seat, Wes Courtemanche began to open the door and get out. He was champing at the bit, but Charlie shook his head, rested his wrist on the steering wheel. "Just wait a sec," he said.

  "I don't want to wait a sec. I want to cuff the son of a bitch."

  "Cool down, Wes."

  The officer turned, his heart in his eyes. "He's in there with her, Charlie. With Addie."

  Charlie knew Addie Peabody, of course--anyone who lived in town did. He'd known her before that, too, when they were both kids growing up in Salem Falls. But since he'd moved back, he'd had little contact with her.

  Wes had told Charlie about Addie and Jack's relationship ... and he didn't fault Addie one bit. People misjudged other people all the time--Charlie ought to know. And now he was going to have to walk in there and arrest Jack St. Bride in front of her.

  He thought of the way her face would crumble the moment she opened the door and saw him holding his badge. It made him remember the way she had looked in high school, too: all pinched and quiet and curled up into herself.

  Charlie sighed. "Let's go," he said, and turned off the ignition.

  *

  Over a bowl of cereal, Addie realized she could quite comfortably spend her life with Jack St. Bride. His hair still damp from a shower, he was bent slightly over his Lucky Charms--a brand that had made his face light up ("When did they start doing blue stars?"). As Addie poured him a glass of juice, he slipped his arm around her hips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And when she sat down across from him to eat, too, the space between them was stuffed with the easy quiet of people who are sure of each other and will be for years.

  Suddenly, he looked up, his mouth stretching into a lazy grin. "What?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing, with a blush?" Jack laughed. "You look like I'm the next course."

  Addie raised one brow. "Not the worst idea you've ever had."

  "We have to get to the diner. There are hungry people out there." But as he spoke, Jack tugged Addie into his arms. "Then again, there are hungry people in here."

  He began to nibble at her neck and kiss the freckle behind her ear, and Addie heard music. Tiny, tinkling silver chimes, the kind tied to the wings of angels. It took her a moment to realize that the noise was real and was coming from the doorbell.

  On the threshold of the front door stood Charlie Saxton, with Wes slightly behind him. Addie stared at the policemen and felt all the life draining out of her, an island town evacuated before a storm. "Charlie," she said stiffly. "What can I do for you?"

  His face was red, and he couldn't make eye conta
ct with her. "Actually, I'm looking for Jack St. Bride."

  Addie felt a soft touch on her upper arm as Jack came to stand beside her. "Yes?"

  Charlie waved a piece of paper, then stuffed it into his coat pocket. "Mr. St. Bride, I have a warrant for your arrest. You've been charged with committing the offense of aggravated felonious sexual assault against Gillian Duncan last night."

  Addie felt her entire body start to shiver from the inside out.

  "What?" Jack cried. "I was nowhere near Gillian Duncan last night! This is crazy!" He gazed wildly around, his eyes seizing on Addie. "Tell them," he said. "Tell them I didn't do it."

  He didn't do it, Addie thought. And on the heels of that: He was not with me last night. He was drunk. We'd had a fight.

  He might have done to Gillian Duncan what once was done to me.

  Jack must have seen it, the what-if that flickered over her face before she managed to get her mouth to move. "He didn't do it," she whispered, but by then Jack had already turned away.

  "We're just gonna take a little trip to the station," Charlie said. He stood back as Wes slid handcuffs over Jack's wrists, then tugged him none-too-gently out the front door and into the waiting police car.

  Addie wanted to throw up, to crawl into bed and die. She did not want to see Jack St. Bride, never again. She wanted to hold him close and tell him she believed in him.

  She was so upset, in fact, that it took her a moment to realize Charlie remained on the steps outside the front door. "You all right?" he asked softly.

  Her face came up, eyes hard and dark. "How dare you ask me that?"

  Chagrined, Charlie reached forward to close the door, then hesitated. "It would be a big help if we could get the clothes he was wearing last night."

  "Do whatever you want," she answered, crying. She remained in this small shell during the five minutes she could hear Charlie moving through her home. And she did not bother to glance up when he left with Jack's muddy boots, his dirty clothing, and a handful of condoms from the nightstand beside her bed.

  When Charlie led Jack to the booking room to take his mug shot and his prints, St. Bride moved through the routine easily, as if it were a complicated dance to which he had long ago learned the steps. Charlie photographed the cuts on his brow, his swollen eye, all without St. Bride saying a single word or giving him any trouble. He paid careful attention to a long scratch on the man's cheek--a scratch Gillian Duncan had said she'd given him while trying to fight the guy off.