Mercy (40 page)

^""raham sat on the floor in a pair of rumpled khaki pants, his vJ7" shirt w rinkled and buttoned incorrectly so that one flap hung longer than the other

. He dipped a doughnut into the sludge he'd made that was passing for coffee and stared at the dry-erase board in front of him.

He'd appropriated it from the MacPhee and MacPhee conference room. It was s et up like a grid. On the left-hand side, in green ink, were the days: Sept ember 15, 16, 17, 18, 19-At the top,

Jodi Picoult

under the fifteenth, Graham had written: APPOINTMENT, 4:45 P.M., DR. DASCOMB WHARTON. At the bottom, underneath the nineteenth, he'd written: MAGGIE, ESTIMATED TIME OF DEATH, 7 A.M.--10 A.M., HUGO HUNTLEY.

In the middle, the chart looked like a crossword puzzle. He'd tried to re-c reate the days as Jamie had described them during their walk a few weeks ea rlier, and with Allie diligently working on the jury survey, he'd taken tim e to prepare his witnesses and to corroborate Jamie's story. In many cases, to his astonishment, there had been someone to witness Jamie and Maggie as they celebrated their last weekend alone. Bud Spitlick remembered seeing t hem up on the roof of the house eating something or other; he said he'd yel led at them to be careful up there. And an usher at the Loew's multiplex ci nema remembered Jamie and Maggie from that Saturday night; he blushed when he told Graham he'd had to shine his flashlight on them as they were making out and tell them to keep it down a little.

American Express had a credit card receipt with Jamie's signature at The Rooster's Comb, the swanky restaurant where they'd had dinnet Saturday ni ght. The manager of the Red Lion Inn directed Graham to the newlywed coup le whose wedding Maggie and Jamie had crashed, who of course remembered t hem, and were surprised to hear that the couple who could jitterbug like professionals were not friends of either of the families. Graham had had a difficult time finding eyewitnesses for Sunday, the day Jamie had taken his wife out to memorize the world. A hot dog vendor who had a spot at the park near the mountains where Jamie said they had been might have seen them, but he couldn't truly remember. Bud Spitlick had be en mowing his lawn when the MacDonalds returned to their house at about f ive o'clock that night.

On Monday, a gas station attendant in Cummington had filled up the tank with unleaded and had chatted with Jamie as he wiped the windshield. He remembered Mr. MacDonald saying they were taking an impromptu vacation-remembered, in particular, the word "impromptu" because he hadn't known what it meant. The Wheelock Inn register had Maggie's signature, on beha lf of Mr. And Mrs., entered at 11:15 a.m. The bartender in the lounge broke 281

down when Graham asked if he remembered selling Jamie the champagne, sayi ng he couldn't help but wonder if he'd sort of aided things along in the murder by getting Jamie drunk.

The owner of the pizzeria did not remember seeing Jamie Mac-Donald that Monday night, but then again he did not speak much English, so he might not have understood Graham's question.

On Tuesday afternoon Jamie had driven to the police station, as the police chief and Allie and any number of town eyewitnesses could verify. But from Monday night to Tuesday afternoon, Graham's board was a blank. He stuffed the remainder of the doughnut into his mouth and traced his fi nger over those gaping white holes on the dry-erase board. There was no t elling what exactly had gone on in the room at the Wheelock Inn between e ight-thirty Monday night and one p.m. Tuesday afternoon. Jamie and Maggie could have had a vicious, sniping fight. Jamie's mind could have snapped

. Or Jamie might have simply been saying goodbye.

Graham hung his head and rubbed his hand over his hair, making it stand up i n unruly tufts. He knew that, like his own, the jury's collective eye would be drawn not to the tangle of proof scribbled all over the board, but to tho se glaring white spaces. More than any tale he could weave as a defense, tho se blank spots invited interpretation. Everyone loved a mystery; everyone lo ved to be involved in the process of writing the story.

He pictured the unknown faces of the jurors, inventing their own versions o f the last night of Maggie's life, and he wondered if even one of them woul d approximate the truth.

Cam had had every intention of taking his time at the card store to find some thing just right for Allie, but the DUI Zandy brought in for booking started throwing things off the counters and shoving Zandy and the other officer on d uty, until it took all three men to physically restrain the asshole and get h im into a lockup.

"I can't fucking believe this," Cam said to Zandy. "How come the crazy ones get arrested on the weekends when we can't ship them out for a bail hearin g?"

Jodi Picoult

The other officer, Maclver, was a middle-aged, part-time cop who'd worked fo r years with Cam's father. "Same reason your kids get sick when the doctor's office is closed," he said. "Just to piss you off." The prisoner began to hurl his body hard against the door of the cell. "He y!" Cam yelled. "You want to take it easy?" He glanced at the custody repo rt and turned to Zandy and Maclver. "You two okay here, or do you want me to call in a backup?"

"The National Guard would be nice," Zandy muttered as a gob of spit hit the inside surface of the Flexon. "Or a few sacrificial natives to feed him for dinner."

The prisoner was as tall as Cam himself and twice as meaty. Cam wasn't worri ed about the man getting out of the cell, but he'd certainly be a pain in th e ass. "I can call the courthouse," he suggested. "Maybe we can get someone out here to set bail and ask the sheriff to ship him to the county lockup." Zandy shot Cam an appreciative look. "Whatever. Just make sure you leave in time to get down to New Braintree."

Cam had told Hannah and the other officers that he was attending a trainin g seminar. He knew no one would doubt his word if he said there was a spec ial weekend meeting for police chiefs on gun safety. With a nod, he went t o his office and sat down.

He called the courthouse and got a court clerk to round up a bail officer; then he set the phone back in its receiver. He had meant to call Mia to fin alize plans, but time had gotten away from him this morning, and by now she

'd be at the flower shop--or even on her way. With a sigh, he stood up and walked out of his office and locked the door behind him. "They say they'll send someone out by the end of the day," Cam said to Zandy. "You want me to call from the road?"

Zandy shook his head. "Contrary to what you believe, Chief, we can functi on without you here." He grinned and nodded toward the door. "Go on." Cam almost drove to Allies shop, until he remembered her Valentine's Day g ift. Making a U-turn in the middle of Main, he headed for the card store o n the other side of town. He turned on the radio and sang along with Van M

orrison. As he pulled into the parking lot, the midday news was coming on in the announcer's nasal drone.

Cam glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Noon. Shit.

He ran into the card store, grabbed a box of candy, pulled the first card with a heart off the shelf, and drove fifteen miles over the speed limit back to G

lory in the Flower.

Allie was bent over her bonsai tree, carefully rewrapping the painstakingly t wisted limbs. "Hi," she said, her eyes fixed right on the bag in his hands.

"Where's Mia?" he asked, the way he had practiced a hundred times that mo rning.

Allie shrugged, wiping her hands on her jeans and moving closer to Cam, he r hands hovering about the paper bag like honeybees. "She asked for some t ime off. Her aunt's sick again."

Cam nodded in sympathy. "That means you'll be all alone this weekend. Yo u gonna be okay?"

She smiled. "I can function quite well without you, thank you very much," sh e said, and she reached into the bag.

Cam sat down on one of the work stools. "That's the second time someone's s aid that to me today."

Allie ran her thumb beneath the sealed edge of the envelope. "And what does that tell you?" She pulled the card out of the envelope, red wit h a big pink heart on the front. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, DAD, she read. She opened the card. / MAY BE DIFFICULT, BUT AT LEAST I'M CUTE. He had signed it Love, Cam. Thinking she must have been mistaken, Allie closed the card again. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, DAD. "Is this a joke?" s he asked, smiling tentatively.

Cam stared at her. "What are you talking about?" She waved the card beneath his nose. "Happy Valentine's Day, Dad?" Cam snatched the card from her hand. He scowled at the front and passed a h and down his face, rubbing his eyes. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." Allie blinked at him. He wasn't thinking? He couldn't even read a stupid card to see what it said before he bought it for her?

She looked down at her hands, still stained with soil and scratched by sharp ends of copper wire. She didn't want him to leave in the middle of an argum ent. She bent over the bonsai tree so that Cam would not be able to see the thoughts skittering across

Jodi Picoult

her features. Maybe she was making too much of this. Maybe he had other t hings on his mind.

She just wished she were one of those things.

"Well." She set the card and candy on the worktable beside the bonsai tree. She picked up a pair of wire cutters. "You probably want to get going."

"Yeah," Cam agreed, coming to his feet. "You never know what kind of traffi c you'll hit."

They both came toward each other, awkwardly hugging around Cam's gun belt and Allies wire cutters. Cam kissed the top of her head. "Happy Valentin e's Day," she said brightly.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he murmured. His chin was tucked over Allies sho ulder, and he could see out the big picture window in front of the store. He knew it faced north. He wondered how many miles it was to New Hampshi re.

7k /Tia watched the smooth slide of snow run by, curved and L VJ. white lik e the lines of a woman. She sat in the passenger seat, her legs tucked bene ath her, her back turned to Cam. He was driving with one hand; the other wa s laced with her own fingers on the inches of seat between them. They were in Braebury, New Hampshire, a town that ran over the Connecticut River and into Vermont when you least expected it. It was close enough to the ski areas to be renowned, but distant enough to keep the crowds at ba y.

Cam pulled the dark blue Ford sedan into the driveway of a gingerbread Vic torian, riddled with cornices and turrets and painted the slightest hue of pink, so that it stood against the snow as if it were ashamed. Stuck into the piles of snow in the front yard was a sign, BRAEBURY HOUSE B & B, and a carved wooden gull whose wings spun in the wind.

"Oh," Mia exclaimed, staring at the winding, circular porch. "It's terrific." Cam laughed. "It could have been a cave, and it would have been terrific." H

e squeezed her hand. "Let's go in."

He carried her knapsack for her--complete with Kafka and tins of Fancy Feas t dinners--and his own duffel bag. Mia walked in the path he cut through th e snow, and thought that this, more than

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anything else, signified their relationship. Her bag and his bag, unmatched, clasped by the same unrelenting hand.

The innkeepers, Alice and Horvath Kingsley, were waiting at the front door.

"Come in, come in," Horvath said, his voice heavily accented. Alice fussed over the snow that had caught on the edges of Mia's big jacke t. "You made good time getting up here?"

Cam smiled. "Not a soul on the roads."

Mia stamped the slush from her boots. "I should take these off," she said, bending down to untie the laces. She tucked down her chin, oddly self-consc ious around this old man and his wife, who did not know her or Cam, yet aro und whom she felt like a horrible imposter. She was wriggling her toes in t heir thick ragg socks when she felt Cam's hand on the back of her neck, hea vy as a yoke.

"You've come to ski?" Horvath asked. His belly hung over the lip of his susp endered pants in odd juxtaposition to his wife--thin as a stick, all angles and elbows.

"Among other things," Cam said easily. "We're newlyweds." Mia's mouth dropped open, and she forced herself to close it and smile as s he turned to Cam.

Alice Kingsley beamed at her, looking rather like a hawk. "How wonderful!

" she cried, and touched Mia's arm. "How long has it been?" Mia's mouth felt full of stones. "Three--" she said, her voice cracking on t he single word. "Three weeks," she repeated, at the same time Cam interrupte d and said, "Three months."

Cam looked at Mia and laughed. "It feels like three months." Over the icy white acres came the soft moan of a cello, joined by the dance of a piccolo and a lively violin. Mia turned her head to the breezeway door, thinking this was something she must have imagined. "Is that what I think i t is?" she asked.

Alice nodded. "We're a mile away from a musician's colony," she explained.

"Members of the BSO come for a couple of weeks at a time, and when the wind

's blowing right, well, you can hear it all. Of course, it's much more plea sant when the strings come than, say, the percussion. But it's lovely in th e summertime. They do little quartets sometimes, right on the front lawn." Jodi Picoult

She slipped an arm around Mia's shoulders and pulled her into the main roo m of the house, a den with a cavernous ceiling and a fireplace that could seat six. "Come, dear," she urged. "You'll have to sign our register." She glanced at Horvath, who was talking with Cam about the bird feeders dotti ng the snowy back lawn like tiny telephone booths. "Why don't you show Mr. MacDonald to his room?"

Mia picked up the pencil and looked at the neat loops and curves of the name s of the people registered before her. Her hand started trembling. It wasn't right, she knew it wasn't right, but then again, Cam had said they were mar ried.

Mr. and Mrs. Cameron MacDonald, she scrawled unsteadily. Wheelock, Ma ss.

She stared at it for a moment, feeling better and better as the sloppy, scratc hy words came into focus. It was her weekend after all, her present, and didn'

t she have a right to pretend?

Cam came up behind Mia and pulled her against him, the pad of his thumb jus t brushing her breast. He looked at what she'd written in the register, his name in Mia's shaky handwriting.