Mercy (55 page)

, except rerun his witness testimonies and cross-examinations in his mind an d find every possibly flaw. In Jamie's case, they had won some battles, and lost others. But the outcome of the war was still in question. He looked at Jamie, wishing there was something to say, and Jodi Picoult

knowing that there was nothing right now his client wanted or needed to he ar. Jamie was staring out a yellowed window into the parking lot. Graham s tepped up behind him and watched the attendant lean into someone's car win dow and point down the block, offering directions.

"If I forget to tell you, Counselor," Jamie said, still staring outside, "you di d good."

Graham shook his head. "I haven't done anything yet."

"Still."

"Can I get you something?" Graham said. "Coffee? Food?" Jamie turned around and dug his hand into his trouser pockets. "If they take me away, who gets the suit?"

Graham was silent, shocked speechless. "They hold it for you. With your wa tch and money and things like that."

Jamie glanced out the window again. "I just wondered."

"IT/V"hen Graham left him, ostensibly to go to the bathroom al-Vr though Jamie knew it was because he was lousy company, Jamie wandered off down t he hall of the third floor of the superior court. Most of the doors had a smoky glass pane in the center, which made you want to see inside but ob scured everything from view. A good number of the rooms were dark, and mo st were locked tight. It made Jamie smile. At a courthouse, God only knew what kind of criminals prowled the office floors.

He started absently trying the doors. Not because he wanted to get in, but be cause he could think of nothing else to do, and there was a rhythm to it: two steps, wrist out, twist; two steps, wrist out, twist. When doors opened, he peeked his head in and gave his best good-citizen smile. "Sorry," he'd say to the startled secretaries. "Wrong number."

He wondered if there was a difference between being locked in and being lo cked out.

The last room on the left-hand side was a copy room. He could see the neonblue flashes underneath the edge of the door. Someone was in there, Xeroxin g something. He thought he might go in, act like a lawyer, wait until they were finished, and then photocopy his hands or his face. He had done that o nce in graduate school--his cheek and lips pressed against the glass while the

393

flash went off behind his eyes like a rocket. He had done it over and over, t rying for the perfect reproduction; but no matter how he shifted position, in black and white he had always looked as if he was in pain. He opened the door and saw nobody at first, just the copy machine itself, e mitting blue rays as if it had gone haywire. He reached over to the green b utton and shut the machine off, and then he glanced up and saw Maggie. She was sitting on top of the copier, wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck and jeans, and he did not understand how she wasn't freezing to death like that in January. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, and he wa s vaguely aware of the door to the room closing, sealing him inside. A mill ion questions bubbled up in his throat: Do you miss me? Did it hurt? Are yo u healthy now? Do you love me? But he found himself silent, choked by his o wn curiosity.

So instead, he watched her smile. He drank in the tilt of her lips and the sorrow in her eyes like a man who has never before known beauty. He thoug ht, Is she an angel? And when she nodded slightly, he grinned. Nothing had changed between them. She could still read his mind.

He understood then that heaven was what you made of it, that it differed fo r everyone, and that you could find it in the most unexpected places. He ha d been looking so hard for Maggie he had not bothered to notice her when sh e appeared, thinking that without a requisite halo and a star in the palm o f her hand, she was nothing more than a memory. But Maggie, his Maggie, wit h a rip in her jeans and a smudge of powdered doughnut on her cheek, well, he had been seeing her like this for weeks: in the reflection of a dinner p late at Ellen's house, or staring back from behind the bathroom mirror when he was trying to shave.

"You found me," he whispered, and he slid down the wall to a sitting positio n.

Allie and Cam were two floors below Jamie, sitting at the end of the hall o n a bench and waiting for the jury to return a verdict. Allie was hunched o ver, her mind running through all the dramatic court scenes she'd seen on T

V. The scenario that stuck with her showed a big, burly guard dragging Jami e from the defense bench--Jodi Picoult

to where, Attica?--with his hands cuffed behind him, while he raised his fac e to the ceiling and yelled out Maggie's name.

Cam had been rattling away about Angus's estate--as if that was what she w anted to discuss just then--for the better part of three hours. Something about the house, which Cam had rented for Angus when he came from Scotland

, and the lease that was coming up. She listened to Cam ask himself questi ons about security deposits and rental agencies and realtors. "Can I ask y ou something?" she said finally. "Why are you talking about this now?" Cam didn't skip a beat. "Because it'll keep you from thinking about what the jury's doing. You're wound so tight I'm afraid to sit next to you." Allie smiled a little. "1 don't really care about leases. I just want to brood." She looked up at him. "But it was nice of you to try."

"I learned from a master," Cam said quietly, and Allie thought of all the ti mes he had come home from the station, thinking of the one who got away, or of sexual abuse worming its way into a gold-plated Wheelock family you'd nev er suspect. She used to sit beside him and chatter like a squirrel, about fl ower shows or local sales or gossip she'd read on the supermarket checkout l ine--things Cam didn't give a damn about, but that drew his mind away from t he heavier side of his life, if not by interest then by irritation.

"What I was going to run by you about Angus's place," Cam said, "was takin g out another lease. Maybe month by month. I thought that when we get out of here today, if Jamie doesn't feel much up to going back home yet, maybe he'd like to stay on in Wheelock. I don't think he knows we rented the ho use for Angus." He turned the brim of his uniform cap in his hands like a wheel. "And he deserves a break for a while."

Allie's jaw dropped. "I think it's a great idea," she said, recovering. She looked at him, seeing not the handsome features she had always been able to catalog in her sleep, but the more subtle things: the kindness at the co rners of his eyes, the way his mouth was bracketed by regret, the hope he he ld fast with the blunt strength of his hands. Compared to the line of his ja w and the rich-395

ness of his hair and the other physical qualities she had always admired, thes e attributes were far more attractive.

She leaned slightly toward him. Cam stared into her eyes, trying to read the signals. Kiss me, she thought. Do this one thing right.

He leaned forward.

A bailiff walked down the hall, bellowing to the spectators that had spilled from the courtroom hours before. "Five minutes," he yelled, shocking Allie ba ck to the time and the place. "Jury's ready to return a verdict." n Jamie slipped into his seat beside Graham, he glanced at the prosecutor's table. Audra Campbell was stacking her legal pads and folders. The courtroom was crowded. The two armed guards, the ones who would take Jamie away, were posted like sentries at the back door. There were even m ore reporters than during the summations. Jamie did not know most of the people who had come to hear the verdict. He thought briefly of old Englan d, where hanging criminals had been a form of public entertainment.

"All rise." Jamie pushed himself to his feet as the judge lumbered to the be nch, but the only way he could keep himself upright was by bracing his palms against the defense table and leaning slightly against Graham's side. The jury was called in. Three of the people looked at Jamie and then glance d away. Graham told himself this did not mean a thing.

It seemed that Jamie had only just sunk into his chair again when Judge Roa rke looked at him. "Will the defendant please rise?" He felt Graham's hand on his arm, pulling him to a standing position. Why do they do this? So I'm more of a spectacle? So they can see my knees sh ake? So they can watch me fall down when I hear the words?

Judge Roarke turned to the foreman, the retired career army man whom Graha m hadn't wanted on the jury in the first place. "Have you reached a verdic t?" he asked.

The foreman nodded. He handed the ballot he'd been given earlier to the cler k, who passed it to Judge Roarke. The judge glanced at it, gave it back to t he clerk, and nodded. "In the matter

Jodi Picoult

of the State versus James MacDonald, on the first count, murder in the first degree, how do you find?"

"Not guilty."

Jamie felt something burst free in his chest, something fuzzy and bubbling t hat broke through his skin in a sweat.

"On the second count, manslaughter in the first degree, how do you find?"

"Not guilty."

There was a collective murmur behind him, a rush of surprise that sounded l ike wind through a forest of aspens. The judge continued. "Is your decision based on the defendant's insanity at the time the crime was committed?"

"Yes," the foreman said.

Graham gripped Jamie's arm more tightly.

"Does this insanity still continue?"

"No."

No. Jamie turned to Graham, a stupid, silly grin spreading across his face, and he hugged the lawyer so tightly Graham's feet came off the ground. The c ourtroom erupted into a volley of noise. Jamie could feel Allie's hands, smo oth and cool, patting at the back of his jacket.

The judge banged his gavel. "Thank you for your time and effort," he said, s peaking to the jury. Then he turned to Jamie. "The defendant is free to go." A throng of reporters descended on the defense table, held back only by the rail that divided the spectators. They held microphones in front of Jamie'

s face and blinded him with lights and flashbulbs and tossed questions to h im that he fielded with one hand and crumpled in his fist: How do you feel?

Do you think this will affect other euthanasia cases? What are you going t o do now?

Audra pushed through the media to stick a hand out to Graham. "Nice work," she conceded. Her face was pinched tight, her features receding into each other.

Graham shook her hand and watched her get engulfed by the crowd. Then he s aw his father. Duncan MacPhee did not come any closer, but he climbed up o n one of the wooden spectator benches so that Graham could clearly see him

. He stood very tall, his loafers neatly breaking the creases of an Italia n suit. He held out his hand, a thumbs-up, and he smiled. Jamie did not pay attention to most of the questions the reporters asked. He kept thinking of the day he'd been set free on bail, months before, when he

'd driven up to Angus's house and had seen the balloons floating in Darby Ma c's cornfield. Congratulations, one had said, and he'd believed it. He leaned toward Graham. "I need a ride home," he said, laughing. "I'll pay you extra." He clapped his attorney on the shoulder and told him he'd meet him outside. Then he walked down the aisle of the courtroom and out the do or of the superior court, making a beeline to a small, bare fruit tree behi nd the dumpsters out back where Maggie was already waiting. A Hie and Cam had not been able to speak to Jamie alone after the verdict was handed down, but Cam told her that he'd be overwhelmed anyway and she could give him a call or drive over later. He took the car keys out of his pocket--they'd driven over in his beat-up unmarked Ford--but Allie plucke d them out of his hand. "I'm too wound up. Let me drive." So he came to be sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, which he rolle d back to a more comfortable position. "I'm just going to close my eyes," he said, but it was less than ten minutes before he had fallen asleep. He dreamed of Mia. He was standing in the front doorway of his house, and she was on the driveway waving. It was winter and she was wearing a deep p urple wool coat that matched the color of her eyes and it was so lovely th at Cam could not tear his gaze away. He tightened his hand on the doorknob just to keep from running outside to her.

Then Allie was standing next to him, wearing a sweater he had bought her for her last birthday, her arms folded across her chest. "You're letting out al l the heat," she complained, and she went to shut the door. Cam could feel his heart pounding. She was close enough to see Mia, but she h adn't even thought to look. She kept pushing at the edge of the door. "I'll d o it," he said, and with one last glance he shut Mia out of sight. He realized, when the door was closed, that it was not the heavy oak slab tha t he himself had picked out for the house. It was new, insulated, with a cent ral grid of nine panes of bull's-eye glass. You

could see through the glass, but everything was slightly thick and distorted. Cam stared, making out an edge of what he knew was Mia, and he understood that this was enough.

In his dream, Allie smiled at him. "Are you coming?" He did not know where, but he nodded. And followed her out of the room.

The adrenaline wore off with every mile she tagged in Cam's car, until by th e time Allie pulled into their driveway she did not see how she was going to swing her legs out of the Ford, much less make her way into the house. She was still smiling, but that was for Jamie.

She didn't know what she and Cam were going to do now that the trial was o ver. It had served as a buffer between them and then as a fragile connecti on. Now Jamie wasn't an issue. Cam wouldn't be able to win points by sitti ng beside her in the courtroom, by politely shaking Jamie's hand when he a rrived for the day. Now, all Allie and Cam had left were themselves. She remembered how terrified she had been on their wedding night. It wasn't t he sex; they had gotten that out of the way. It was the fact that once they l eft the reception and got back to the Whee-lock Inn, it hit her that she was really going to spend the rest of her life with Cam. Her fingers had been tre mbling as she unbuckled his kilt and freed the buttons from his crisp white s hirt, and Cam had tried to tease her out of it, but her fear was not for that particular evening. She was scared of the next evening and the next and the one after that; of the faith they would have to put in each other, of the ove rwhelming fact that they were at the bare beginning, and they had so very far to go.