Salem Falls (54 page)

Please, God, she prayed, as she was sworn in. Just a small earthquake. A fire. Anything that will just stop this whole nightmare, right now, before I have to become a contributing party.

At that moment, the doors of the courtroom burst open, and her father pushed his way inside. “Dad!” He was carrying a huge basket, from which came the most delicious smell. Steam rose from beneath a blue checkerboard cloth that was tucked over the contents. He hurried down the aisle toward the bench and winked at his daughter. “You knock ’em dead, honey,” Roy said. “I gotta give these out while they’re still hot.”

Setting the basket beside the court stenographer’s machine, he opened up the napkin, filling the room with the aroma of freshly baked muffins. “Here, Your Honor. You’re the head honcho, so you get the first bite.”

By that time, Althea Justice had recovered her voice. “Mr . . .”

“Peabody, at your service. You can call me Roy.”

“Mr. Peabody,” the judge said, “you cannot come barging into the middle of a trial.”

“Oh, I’m not barging.” Roy began to place muffins on the defense table, in front of the prosecutor, into the outstretched hands of the jury. “Consider me the chuck wagon.”

“Be that as it may . . . is that peanut butter?”

“Good nose, ma’am. PB & J muffins. What makes mine different, though, is that the peanut butter is mixed right into the batter, instead of set in the center like the jelly. Comfort food, which I figured you all could use about now.” He hefted the basket and turned to the gallery. “The rest are for you all,” Roy said. “Except I wasn’t counting on there being quite so many. So maybe you could all just share with your neighbor.”

“Your Honor,” Matt said, incensed, “this man has no right to be here. He’s a sequestered witness, for God’s sake.”

Jordan swallowed a bite of the muffin. “Ah, come on, Houlihan, don’t get your knickers in a knot. He’s just bringing us a treat.”

“He’s blatantly trying to influence the jury,” Matt snapped. “Look at them.”

Every juror was either in the throes of peeling back the cupcake liner at the base of the muffin or stuffing a bite into his or her mouth. “Mr. Peabody,” the judge said, her mouth full, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave until you’re called by the defense.”

“I understand, Your Honor.”

“You didn’t happen to bring any milk, did you?” she asked.

Roy grinned. “Next time. I promise.”

“There will not be a next time,” Matt thundered. “I want the record to reflect that I object to this . . . this shenanigan McAfee’s dreamed up.”

“Me?” Jordan cried. “I didn’t tell him to play Betty Crocker!”

“Mr. Houlihan, your objection will be so noted, after the court reporter has finished her snack,” the judge said. “Now, really. This was nothing more than a lovely surprise, I’m sure. You go on and eat, and then we’ll resume with your witness.”

“I will not eat that muffin,” Matt vowed.

The judge raised her brows. “Well, Mr. Houlihan, it’s a free country.”

Roy waved off thank-yous and exited.

“Your Honor,” Jordan said. “Approach?”

The attorneys walked toward the bench. “Yes, Mr. McAfee?” prompted the judge.

“If the county attorney isn’t going to eat his, can I have it?”

Judge Justice shook her head. “I’m afraid that isn’t for me to say.”

“I hope you’re enjoying this,” Matt snarled to Jordan. “I hope you can sleep nights, knowing you’ve turned a rape trial into a farce.” He stalked back to his table and provocatively set his untouched muffin on the corner closest to the defense. “The state calls Addie Peabody,” he said.

* * *

For over ten minutes, Addie had not let herself make eye contact with Jack. You can get through this, she told herself. Just answer the questions. “You’re not here today voluntarily, are you, Ms. Peabody?” Houlihan asked.

“No,” she admitted.

“You’re still involved in a relationship with Jack St. Bride.”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us what happened after you found him outside, unconscious?”

Addie twisted her hands in her lap. “When he came to, I got him up to the bedroom. I cleaned him up with a washcloth, and we both fell asleep.”

“Did you get a good look at his face, Ms. Peabody?”

“Yes. His face had cuts all over it, and his eye was swelling shut.”

“Where was he scratched?”

“Over his eye, on his forehead.”

“Were there any scratches on his cheek?” the prosecutor asked.

“No.”

“How long did you sleep?”

“A couple of hours.”

“What woke you up?”

“I don’t know. I think the fact that he wasn’t sleeping beside me anymore.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to go look for him . . . and heard a noise coming from my daughter’s room.”

“Was that unusual?”

Addie took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “My daughter died seven years ago.”

“Did you go in?”

Addie began to pull at a thread on the hem of her skirt. She thought of how life could happen that way-one slipped stitch, and suddenly the most solid binding could fall apart. “He was boxing up her things,” she said softly. “Stripping the bed.”

The county attorney nodded sympathetically. “Did you argue?”

“Yes, for a few minutes.”

“Did the fight become physical?”

“No.”

“How did it end?”

She’d been sworn in and had known it would come to this moment-the point where her words might as well have been arrows, aimed right at Jack’s heart. “I told him I wanted him to leave.”

“Did he?”

“Yes.”

And if she hadn’t forced him out, he wouldn’t have been in the woods that night. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near Gillian Duncan. It was what she’d wondered a thousand times . . . how could the blame have come to rest heavily on Jack, when she herself was so clearly at fault?

“What time was it when Mr. St. Bride left?”

“About nine forty-five.”

“When did you next see the defendant?”

“About one-thirty in the morning,” Addie whispered. “At the diner.”

“Can you describe his physical appearance?”

Every word ripped into her. “His cuts, they were bleeding again. He had a scratch on his cheek, and dirt on his clothes, and he reeked of liquor.”

“What did he say to you?”

Addie took a deep breath. “That it had been a tough night.”

“Ms. Peabody,” Matt asked, “was Mr. St. Bride with you between the hours of nine forty-five P.M. and one-thirty A.M.?”

She exhaled heavily but didn’t reply.

“Ms. Peabody?”

The judge leaned toward her. “You’re going to have to give a response.”

She wanted to answer, but she wanted the answer to be the right one. She wanted to look the prosecutor in the eye and tell him that he had collared the wrong man, that the Jack she knew was not the person who had committed this horrible crime.

She wanted to save him, like he had saved her.

Lifting her face, Addie said, “Yes, he was.”

The county attorney turned, shock written all over his face. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes,” Addie repeated, her voice stronger. “He was with me that whole night.”

Houlihan narrowed his gaze. “You’re aware you’re under oath, Ms. Peabody. Perjury is a criminal act.”

Her eyes were shining, damp. “He was with me.”

“Really,” the prosecutor said. “Where?”

Addie’s hands stole over her heart, as if that might be enough to keep it from breaking. “Right here.”

“When the police came to arrest Jack, what were you thinking?”

At Jordan’s question, Addie looked up. “I really didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t my finest hour.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was in shock. There had been rumors around town . . .”

“Rumors?”

“That Jack had done time in jail.”

“Did he ever tell you that he’d been convicted for sexual assault?”

“He told me that a girl had wrongly accused him of carrying on an intimate relationship. One of his students. And that he plea-bargained the case on the advice of his lawyer, because it was the way to serve the least time and put the whole thing behind him.”

Jordan frowned. “But he specifically said he wasn’t guilty?”

“Over and over,” Addie answered.

“And you believed him?”

“One hundred percent,” she vowed. “But so many people in town were . . . well, they were like vultures, waiting to strike. And I guess I got so used to hearing people expect the worst of Jack that when the police came, at first, I . . . I did too.” She frowned. “It wasn’t until I sat down later and really thought, This is Jack they took. Jack. Then I knew that he couldn’t ever have done what they said.”

“Ms. Peabody, you saw Jack being beaten up by five men that night?”

“Yes.”

“Was he fighting back?”

She shook her head. “He passed out.”

“Did you call the police?” Jordan asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Addie looked at Matt Houlihan, then at the judge. She leaned toward the bench and whispered something to Althea Justice, who nodded.

“I didn’t call the police,” Addie said, “because I thought they might have been involved.”

* * *

When court adjourned for the day, Jordan handed his briefcase over the railing of the gallery to Selena. “Try to get some rest,” he told Jack. A deputy cuffed him and led him silently through the tunnels that wound beneath the courthouse parking lot to the jail. Once they’d been buzzed inside, a guard took over Jack’s transformation back to prisoner, leading him into the room near the jail entrance to strip. “We’ll take these right down to the dry cleaner and have ’em pressed,” the CO joked, folding Jack’s trousers over his arm. Because Jack had left the premises, the guard waited until he was naked and then checked Jack’s mouth, nostrils, ears, and anus for contraband.

This Jack St. Bride was a different man than the one who had come through the door two months ago in protective custody. His face was a blank wash of expression, like every other prisoner rotting in his cell. He shrugged out of his civilian clothes like a snake giving up its skin, as if he knew that it wouldn’t fit him in this next stage of his life. Through the violation of the cavity search, Jack closed his eyes and did what he was told.

It didn’t matter anymore, none of it. He’d seen the faces of the men and women on that jury-the way they’d cried along with Gillian Duncan, the slanted looks they knifed at him that they thought he surely could not feel. He’d watched his own attorney leave the courtroom, headed home to his own life-one that didn’t factor in the innocence or guilt of Jack St. Bride and that wouldn’t change, no matter what verdict was handed down.

Jack fell into step beside the guard and walked, docile as a fawn, toward his cell. Get used to this, he thought.

He might not yet have been sentenced, but it was only a matter of time.

“Oh my God,” Gillian said, sitting up on her bed the minute Meg opened the door of the bedroom. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” The door cracked open a little wider, and Gillian saw her father standing behind her Meg. “Daddy,” she said, startled.

His eyes were dark, hooded. “I didn’t know if you were up to a visit.”

“I am,” Gillian said quickly. “Really.” She grabbed Meg’s hand and yanked her inside, then waited for her father to close the door and leave them in privacy.

It was, Meg thought, as if their fight about the drugs in the thermos had never happened. Gillian fluttered around her like a gypsy moth, buzzing about the trial and the witnesses and who had said what. “You have no idea how much I want to talk to Whit and Chelsea,” she chattered. “But I’m sequestered, in case I need to be recalled by one of the lawyers later. Still, I heard that Whit was peeing in her pants. And that Thomas’s father was a total prick to Chelsea.”

“That’s his job,” Meg said, her mouth dry.

Gillian stepped in front of her. “What’s been said about me?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, right. You haven’t been on the stand yet. Do you think you’ll be called tomorrow? It’s not so bad, really. One of the jurors has the most disgusting mole on the side of her neck. I swear I couldn’t stop looking at it the whole time-”

“I’m not testifying,” Meg mumbled.