Salem Falls

by Jodi Picoult

  July 5, 2000

  Carroll County Courthouse

  The air in the courtroom was thick the next morning, so heavy with anticipation it beaded on the foreheads of the reporters and misted the lenses of the camera crews. Judge Justice strode to the bench with the air of a magistrate whose mind is already turned toward her next case. "I believe we're starting the day with closing arguments," she said. "Mr. McAfee, are you ready to begin?"

  Jordan stood. "Actually, Your Honor, I need to reopen my case."

  A moment later, he and Houlihan were standing at the bench. "I have another witness," Jordan explained. "An unexpected one, whose testimony is crucial to the defense."

  "Perhaps you'd like to tell me why you didn't know about her before?" the judge asked. "Does the state know this witness and what they're going to testify to?"

  "No, I don't," Matt said, irritated. "The defense already rested. You didn't see me dancing a parade of new witnesses in front of the court after the prosecution finished."

  "Judge," Jordan explained, "it's the victim from my client's previous conviction. She's recanting."

  "Which is totally irrelevant. It's too late," Matt insisted.

  The judge stared at each lawyer in turn, then addressed the jury. "Ladies and gentlemen, you may recall that yesterday the defense rested. However, the court is going to allow Mr. McAfee to reopen his case to call one final witness."

  Jordan smoothed down his tie and glanced toward the rear of the courtroom. "The defense calls Catherine Marsh."

  She was small and shaken, and Jordan had his doubts about whether she would even make it to the stand without assistance. But at the steps, Catherine rallied, repeating the words to swear herself in in a true, ringing voice.

  "How old are you, Ms. Marsh?"

  "I'm sixteen."

  Jordan glanced at his client. "Do you know Jack St. Bride?"

  It was the first chance Catherine had to see her former teacher. She met Jack's eyes, and a story hung between them, one torn into a spotty snowflake pattern by contrition. "Yes, I do," she murmured.

  "How?"

  Catherine took a deep breath. "I'm the one he was convicted of sexually assaulting last year."

  A gasp rolled through the courtroom like a tide. "Why are you here today, Ms. Marsh?"

  "Because." Catherine looked at her knotted hands. "I let it happen the first time, and I'm not going to be responsible for letting it happen a second time."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jack St. Bride never sexually assaulted me. He never touched me inappropriately. He never did anything wrong at all. He was the best teacher I ever had and ... and maybe I thought of him that way and wished he would be attracted to me ... but it never happened."

  "Why did you let him get convicted, then?" Jordan asked.

  A single tear rolled down Catherine's cheek as she took a deep breath. "Coach believed in me and was kind to me. When I had a boyfriend and wanted to have sex for the first time, Coach took me to a clinic to get birth control pills. He didn't want to, but he did it, because it was so important to me. And when the same guy broke up with me, all I could think was that I wished he'd been more like Coach--more mature, more into me, more ... Jack." She looked at the jury. "I started to write about him ... about us ... in my diary. I made it up, the way I wanted it to be. And when my father found my birth control pills and read my diary--God, for a moment, I just wanted it to be true. I wanted to believe what my father believed ... that I was someone Coach was attracted to, instead of just the other way around.

  "By the time I tried to take back what I'd said, it was so big and so ugly, I couldn't swallow it down. I was a little girl playing with dolls who turned out to have real feelings and real lives that could get ruined." She looked into her lap. "My father and the prosecutor and the judge--they all thought I was protecting a man I loved." Catherine turned, addressing the jury. "The last time I told the truth in court, nobody believed me. I need you all to believe me now."

  "Thank you, Ms. Marsh," Jordan said. "Your witness."

  Matt leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on knees, hands clasped. "All right," he said slowly, getting to his feet. "Where were you on the night of April thirtieth?"

  "In Goffeysboro," Catherine said.

  "You weren't in the clearing behind the cemetery here in Salem Falls, were you?"

  "No."

  "So you don't know whether something happened to Gillian Duncan that night?"

  "No."

  "In fact," Matt accused, "all you know is that a year ago, you made a terrible mistake."

  "Yes."

  "And a year ago, you were so in love with this man you didn't want him to get hurt, correct?"

  "Yes," Catherine murmured.

  He softened quite suddenly, his face rounding into a friendly smile. "You wish things with Coach St. Bride had ended differently, don't you, Ms. Marsh?"

  "Like you can't imagine."

  "Even now, you don't want to see him get hurt, do you?"

  Borne along on his questions, Catherine shook her head vehemently. "Of course not. That's why I came today."

  "What a surprise," Matt said. "Nothing further."

  Jordan watched Catherine leave the witness stand. "Once again, Your Honor," he said, "the defense rests."

  "This," Jordan said to the jury, "is going to be hard."

  He walked to the box, where they sat in anticipation of his closing argument. "When you hear a young girl like Gillian Duncan say she was raped, you want to believe her. You don't want to find out that she's making things up, or that there are inconsistencies in her story. You want to think a girl like that would come in and tell you what really happened ... but the fact is, you can't just assume that what Gillian Duncan said is the truth.

  "Gillian Duncan had specifically been told by her father not to go out at night. That there was a dangerous man running loose. So what did she do? She tried to see what she could get away with. She just didn't realize that it was going to get away from her ... and that's why we're here today."

  Jordan set his hands on the railing, leaning into the jury box. "The judge has instructed you, and will instruct you again, that you need to listen to all of the evidence ... not just Gillian's testimony. And the evidence in this case shows there are too many inconsistencies for you to find Jack St. Bride guilty of aggravated felonious sexual assault."

  Jordan began to tick off a list on his fingers. "Gillian told you that she was going to the woods to hang out with her friends, but in reality she went into an occult bookstore and spoke to the proprietor about celebrating Beltane. Jack told you he saw ribbons and candles and an altar ... something strange and difficult to believe, to be sure. Yet silver ribbons were found later at the scene of the crime, and in Meg Saxton's bedroom closet."

  Ticking off another point, Jordan continued. "Gillian said that her friends left, and that she headed home in the other direction. But she'd arrived in the company of friends specifically because she believed that Jack St. Bride was dangerous. After meeting him face to face, why would she leave by herself and run the risk of meeting up with him?"

  Then Jordan gestured down the central aisle. "And Gillian said that after the rape, she counted to one hundred and ran as fast as she could to catch up to her friends. Ladies and gentlemen, the distance she had to go from that clearing to where her friends were is approximately half a football field in length. It takes a high school linebacker about six seconds to cover that distance. Now, Gillian isn't a high school linebacker ... but according to her testimony, it took her five minutes to travel that path. Five minutes, plus the length of time it took her to count to a hundred. Does it seem likely that a young girl who was scared, hysterical, and running as fast as possible would move that slowly? Does it seem likely that from only half a football field away, her friends would never have heard her struggles?"

  Jordan walked to the evidence table and held up the picture of Jack's scraped cheek. "You heard evidence that Mr. St. Bride's D
NA was found beneath Gillian's fingernails. We don't contest that ... but he told you she was grabbing his arm in an effort to keep him there. He said the lone scratch on his cheek came from a branch ... consistent with a single twig raking the skin, rather than five long red fingernails.

  "You also heard that these girls were taking drugs that night. What kind of drugs? The kind that don't show up in a tox screen at the hospital. The kind that Gillian didn't mention to the police when she made her statement. The kind that obliterate your short-term memory of an event and cause hallucinations."

  Jordan shook his head. "It doesn't add up. And the reason it doesn't is either because Gillian doesn't remember it clearly or because she doesn't want us to. Afraid of her father's reaction to discovering her drug use and her commitment to witchcraft, Gillian Duncan pointed a finger in blame at the man who stumbled unexpectedly on her secrets. She told a lie about Jack St. Bride before he had a chance to tell the truth about her.

  "The only crime Jack St. Bride committed was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happened once before with a girl this age--a gross miscarriage of justice. Jack came to Salem Falls, expecting to turn over a new leaf ... but was seen as a stain on the community. People waited for him to make a mistake that might lead to his exile ... and Gillian's accusation became just the match to start a conflagration.

  "There's been a witch hunt here in Salem Falls," Jordan said, turning toward his client. "But the victim, all along, has been Jack St. Bride."

  Matt smiled at the jury. "We've heard about witches," he said. "We've heard about Beltane. The only element that's been missing in this court is the Devil ... unless, of course, you happen to include Jack St. Bride.

  "What matters at this trial isn't whether Gillian is a witch, or whether she crawled to her friends on her belly, or even whether she was experimenting with an illegal substance. What this comes down to is evidence--hard facts that prove Jack St. Bride committed rape. Evidence like the defendant's DNA, found beneath Gillian Duncan's fingernails. Evidence like his blood, found on her shirt. Let Mr. McAfee explain that away, if he'd like. But he can't account for that drop of semen on Gillian's thigh. It's not something you tend to leave behind without having intimate contact. According to the expert who testified, the chance of randomly selecting an unrelated individual other than the defendant whose DNA matches the crime scene DNA at the locations tested is one in seven hundred forty thousand. That's a big number, ladies and gentlemen. Realistically, where did this semen come from, if not Mr. St. Bride?"

  Matt turned toward the jury. "Evidence," he repeated. "You heard Gillian Duncan speak of the most brutal and intimate event of her life, although it clearly pained her to do so in front of strangers, with cameras in her face and a judge hanging on her words. You heard her describe the gathering of evidence for a sexual assault kit--one of the most invasive exams a young girl can undergo. And you heard the testimonies of two girls, a police detective, and an ER doctor, who all agree that Gillian was hysterical when she was found."

  Matt raised his brows. "On the other hand, nothing in Mr. St. Bride's testimony matches anything else you've heard from eyewitnesses that night. He's got a convenient explanation for the bruises and the scratch on his face. He's got a convenient explanation for why he was at the bar drinking. He's got a convenient explanation for why he was in the woods. But he doesn't have any proof, ladies and gentlemen. All he has is his story ... which, to use Mr. McAfee's terms, doesn't add up." Matt stared hard at the jury. "Jack St. Bride has more incentive than anybody in this entire courtroom to lie to you, because he has more at stake. Having been in jail before, he knows he doesn't want to go back."

  The prosecutor started back. "The defendant chose to go out and get drunk. Is that what impaired his judgment enough to rape a girl? Maybe. Is his violent nature what caused him to rape a girl? Maybe. It doesn't matter. What matters is that he did it. And that the state has proved he did it, beyond a reasonable doubt.

  "Mr. McAfee has offered you a lot of mumbo jumbo about Gillian's actions and behavior ... because he can't offer you the truth." Matt leaned over the counsel table, his finger two inches from Jack's face. "But the truth is that this man went into the woods on April thirtieth, 2000. This man jumped Gillian Duncan and ripped her clothes off and forced her to have sex with him. This man," Matt said, "is the one I'm asking you to convict today."

  Jack was brought back to the sheriff's holding cell pending the jury's verdict. The deputy who was on the front desk was an older man with a white handlebar mustache and a tendency to whistle "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." He nodded as Jack passed, en route to a six-by-six space that was beginning to feel frighteningly comfortable.

  Jack stripped off his jacket and tie and lay down on the metal bunk, pressing his fists against his eyes. How big a difference could Catherine Marsh make? Jordan said it would depend on whether the jury wanted to hang its hat on her testimony, although to Jack, one young girl with a case of puppy love seemed an awfully meager reason for acquittal.

  Once the jury handed back a conviction, he would be taken directly to the state penitentiary in Concord. If he were sentenced for the maximum term, he would be fifty-one years old when he was released. His hair would have gone gray, his stomach soft, his skin lined. He would have age spots on the backs of his hands, markers for all the empty years gone by.

  He would miss the feel of snow on his face. And the taste of Irish whiskey. He would miss the pattern of his mother's china and the luxurious width of a double bed and the thin orange line where dawn bled into day.

  He would miss Addie.

  In the distance, Jack could hear the muted conversation of the deputy in the front office. Maybe Jordan had come to tell him the verdict was in. Or maybe some other prisoner had been brought here, to purgatory, to wait.

  The thick-soled shoes of the deputy squeaked on the linoleum, stopping in front of Jack's cell. "I'm going to take a whiz," he announced.

  "Good for you."

  "I'm telling you this," the deputy said slowly, "because I have no control over who comes through that door when I'm gone, if you understand what I'm saying."

  Jack didn't. "Believe me, if some nut comes in here and shoots me in cold blood, I'd probably thank him for it."

  The deputy laughed, already halfway down the corridor. Jack lay back down, covering his eyes with his forearm.

  "Jack."

  It wasn't real--it couldn't be. Addie stood on the other side of the bars, close enough to touch.

  Without a word, Jack lunged forward, sticking his arms through the slatted steel and working them around her as best as he could. Her face came up to the cold metal, her nose and mouth jutting forward enough to meet his. She was pushing so hard to get closer that Jack could see red lines forming on her cheekbones and jaw, a cell of their own making.

  His hands cupped her face, tilted her forehead against his. "I didn't think I would get to see you," he confessed.

  "I traded the deputy a chocolate cream pie," Addie said. "For five minutes."

  Bringing his lips up, he kissed her brow. "What would he have done for a whole meal?" Jack held her back when she would have burrowed closer, tracing his hands over the delicate bones in her face and the bridge of her nose, lighting slight as a butterfly on her eyelids and trailing her lips like a whisper, over and over.

  "W-what are you doing?"

  He stroked her brows, her widow's peak. "Taking you with me," Jack said.

  In that moment, an incredible peace fell inside him. He would not be like the other prisoners in the state pen. He would never be like them, because he'd been exposed to something truly beautiful, and it had gotten into his system. For the rest of his life, he would carry it around, hot as a secret under his skin, and just as jealously guarded.

  "I will never forget you, Addie Peabody," Jack said softly, covering her mouth once more.

  He tasted of grief. She swallowed his sorrow like a seed, and breathed hope to the center of him. "You won't have to,
" Addie promised. "I'll be here waiting."

  The sound of the deputy hurrying down the hall made Addie step back, although her hands still rested loosely in Jack's. "Sorry to break this up," the man said, "but you have to go."

  "I understand," Addie said, her throat closing like a bud.

  "Not you, ma'am." The deputy turned to Jack. "Verdict's in already."

  Some of the jury looked at him; some didn't. "It's normal," Jordan assured him. "It doesn't mean a thing."

  "Mr. Foreman," Judge Justice said, "have you reached a verdict?"

  The cameras buzzed behind Jack's shoulder, and he concentrated very hard on making the muscles of his legs work. If he were being recorded for posterity, he wanted to be sure he could stand on his own two feet.

  "We have, Your Honor," the foreman said.

  "Will the defendant please rise?"

  Jordan locked his arm through Jack's, to draw him to his feet. Weak-kneed, Jack managed to remain upright and breathing.

  "Mr. Foreman, how do you find the defendant on the charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault?"

  Jack glanced at the jury, still poker-faced. The foreman looked at the paper he held in his hands. A thousand years later, he read, "Not guilty."

  The cry of outrage from Amos Duncan was drowned out by the immediate whoop of delight behind Jack, as Selena Damascus hopped the barricade and threw herself into Jordan's arms. And then Addie was in his own, and Jordan was shaking his hand, telling him he'd known it would turn out this way all along.

  The world revolved, a haze of glances and jurors and camera lenses. "The defendant is free to go," the judge called over the melee, and that one word fixed in Jack's consciousness and bloomed, obliterating all the noise and joy and surprise of the moment. Free.Free to go home. Free to shout out his innocence in the middle of the town green. Free to pick up the yarn of his life and see how it would knit together.

  A liberated man, Jack turned around with a grin on his face--and found himself staring at the people of Salem Falls, who now had even more reason to hate him.

  Amos Duncan wanted to take the prosecutor apart, piece by piece. "You said he'd be locked up for years," the man growled. "And now I have to see him on the streets of the town where my daughter and I live?"