The Sparrow Sisters (30 page)

Henry cleared his throat again. “Sometimes,” he murmured.

“You take medication for this pain. Vicodin, an opiate, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Does it help?”

“Sometimes,” Henry said again.

“But not much.” Hutchins moved closer to the stand.

“No, not always.”

“Do you consider yourself an addict, Dr. Carlyle?”

“Objection,” Simon Mayo snapped.

“Rephrase,” Hutchins said. “Your prescriptions are filled regularly. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you considered other methods to deal with your pain?”

“Yes, of course,” Henry said. “I have spent months in physical therapy. I still work at it.”

“You've been seen rowing, something that sounds painful for your wound.”

“Rowing stretches both the semimembranosus and gastrocnemius muscles, and yes, that is painful.” Henry liked the confused look on Hutchins's face and nearly smiled.

“Did you seek help from Patience Sparrow?” Hutchins turned to look at the courtroom even before the audience broke into whispers. Then he almost smiled.
These people are so predictable,
he thought, and he felt his nerves lie still completely, replaced by the thrill of the chase. He knew where he was going; the witness couldn't. He turned back to Henry.

“Dr. Carlyle?” Hutchins pressed.

“I did not go to Patience for help,” Henry answered.

“You are under oath, sir.”

Simon had been half out of his chair before the judge spoke and now he stood, uncertain what he wanted to say.

“Mr. Mayo?” Judge Adams said.

“I object,” Simon said. “Asked and answered.”

“Sustained.”

“Fine,” Hutchins said. “Did you receive treatment from Patience Sparrow?”

Henry stared at Simon, willing him to stop the prosecutor, to stop Henry himself. But Simon refused to meet his eye. Patience looked at Henry and nodded.

“Yes,” he said. The room erupted, and this time Judge Adams rapped his gavel so hard his papers jumped. Hutchins had to raise his voice.

“And did this treatment work?” Silence replaced the babble as every person in the room looked at Henry and waited. “Did Patience Sparrow relieve your pain?”

Henry never took his eyes off Patience. “Yes,” he answered and smiled.

“So, as a medical doctor you are saying you found Patience Sparrow's remedies to have real power?”

Henry's smile faded as he saw the trap too late. The very same logic he'd used when he shouted at the Sisters now twisted his words into something very close to a conviction.

“No, that's . . .” he stuttered. “Patience has done only good in this town. Her gift is for healing.” He looked around. “How many of you have been to her?” he asked. “How many of you have begged her for help, for a remedy to soothe you, to mend a broken heart, ease your baby's colic, soften hands roughened by nets?”

Hutchins let him talk.

“For God's sake, it could be the placebo effect. They're just herbal remedies, the very same you could buy in any . . .” Henry stopped. What was done was done, and Patience had dropped her head nearly to the tabletop.

“Not really, not Patience Sparrow's concoctions, those are not available in any shop but hers,” Hutchins said with a triumphant look around the room. “Real remedies, the ones you
can
buy in a drugstore, are made in large licensed facilities, to professional standards. These elixirs were made by an untrained amateur in a broken-down shed on Calumet Landing. These potions were stirred up in the very same place poisonous plants are grown.”

“Objection!” Simon was up.

“Withdrawn,” Hutchins said. “Dr. Carlyle, is it true that you were wounded while carrying out a vaccination program in an Iraqi school?”

Henry could hardly speak, but he managed a yes as he tried to guess how badly he'd hurt Patience's chances.

“And you and your fellow soldiers were able to save the children?”

Again Henry said yes. He couldn't care less what Hutchins asked him now.

“But not all of the them. You couldn't save one nine-year-old girl.” Hutchins stepped back and looked at the eager audience again. Not only the parents in the room were shaken by his words. Judge Adams was inches from telling the prosecutor to knock it off, but he was curious to hear his point.

This time, when Henry nodded, Hutchins didn't have to remind him to speak up.

“She was hit by shrapnel from the bomb. Her injuries were too extensive. I couldn't do anything for her.”

“You were hit by shrapnel, too, Dr. Carlyle. Yet you went into the school and dragged children to safety. You and your men saved nearly twenty children.”

Henry didn't bother to answer. He kept his eyes on his hands. He didn't hear the murmurs of admiration that ran through the courtroom.

Paul Hutchins kept talking. His voice became a buzz in Henry's ears.

“You fought against the medics who were trying to save you. You fought so hard that you nearly bled to death. You had to be physically pulled from the girl. You gave no thought to yourself, and now you are crippled.”

Henry didn't need any reminder of that day. He dragged his failure around with him just as he pulled his injured leg behind him. Or had, until he found Patience. The word “crippled” did remind him that he hadn't been man enough to save Matty or Patience. And that's all Paul Hutchins needed.

“Your point, counselor?” Judge Adams asked.

“My point is this.” The prosecutor warmed to his performance, his voice filling the courtroom, one arm spread toward Henry, the other to Patience. “Dr. Carlyle acknowledges that Patience Sparrow's remedies work. Why, he considers himself proof! He must know that they are as capable of harm as they
are of good. Is it any wonder that Dr. Carlyle refuses to believe that Patience Sparrow's careless hobby killed Matthew Short? If he does, if he accepts her guilt, then he will be the witness to another child's death. Matty died because Henry Carlyle couldn't stop his lover from poisoning him.”

“Objection!” Simon was frantic. Sweat flew off his face as he whipped around to look at the gabbling crowd behind him.

“Your language is a bit inflammatory, Mr. Hutchins,” Judge Adams said.

“I am trying to establish that Dr. Carlyle's judgment may be impaired by the tragedy he suffered in Iraq. What he saw there”—Hutchins pointed at Henry—“has blinded him to what he saw here.” He pointed to Patience. “This medical doctor should have recognized the danger when he saw her with another child, also destined to die.”

“Henry Carlyle is not under investigation here, Mr. Hutchins,” Judge Adams said. “Still, as he is Matty Short's physician of record, I will have this record show that he did not act in the best interest of his patient.”

Oh fuck, Henry thought, it's over. I've done what no amount of blood or stroke of a scalpel could. I've condemned Patience. He refused to let his face show anything more than it already had. He slowed his breathing until he was sure his hand wouldn't shake when he brought it up to push his hair away. Simon and the prosecutor were standing in front of the judge. Their fierce whispers weren't loud enough for him to understand, and there was nothing for him to do but sit and
stare at the top of Patience's head. She was looking at her own hands; Henry knew they were shaking because all of her was shaking. Her hair had slipped from its knot and fell over her shoulders, tangled, dull in the fluorescent light. Finally she raised her eyes. She had given up; it was clear from the way she smiled at him. It wasn't the smile he saw when she showed him the Nursery or the one when he slipped her dress from her shoulders. It was forgiveness, and Henry knew he didn't deserve it.

J
UDGE
A
DAMS CALLED
a recess, and Ben saw one woman race out of the courtroom before anyone else. As soon as he steered the Sisters into the hall, he ran to the steps. The woman was on her phone, one hand over her free ear. Ben couldn't hear the words, but something told him to wait. She stopped talking and turned, her eyes lighting up as soon as she saw him.

“You're with the Sparrows, aren't you?” she asked.

Ben didn't respond. Instead he walked toward her and watched as her bright interest changed to suspicion, and she backed away until he had to grab her arm to keep her from toppling down the stairs.

“Hey,” she said and tried to shake him off.

“You would have fallen,” Ben said.

“I'm fine.” The woman shifted her heavy bag. “So?”

“You're a reporter.” It wasn't a question.

“This is an interesting story,” she said and stuck her hand out. “I'm Emily Winston. ‘Emily's Evidence'?” She waited, her
head tipped back so she could see Ben's face as recognition dawned. Nothing.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Ben asked.

“Oh, come on,” Emily said. “This is too good: seaside village in the grip of hysteria, lovers torn apart by a murder. It's great stuff.”

“There was no murder,” Ben growled, and Emily Winston, star reporter, got a little nervous.
This guy is huge,
she thought as her hand strayed to her phone. If she called 911, would police come pouring out of the police station down the road, or were they closer, still milling around the courtroom?

“Listen,” she said, “this is news. There hasn't been a witch hunt like this since . . .”

“Eliza Howard,” Ben said.

“Who?”

Great,
Ben thought,
I've just made everything more interesting.

“Patience is no witch,” he said. “Leave us alone. Now.” He turned and left Emily standing in the heat, the sweat on her back cooling as she realized just how serious the man was.

Of course there was no way she'd leave this town or the Sparrow Sisters alone, and by the next morning her new piece ran on her blog and was then plastered all over the Internet by religious nutbars, feminist supporters, and gossip sites. The attention earned spots for two more satellite vans in front of the Granite Point Town Hall.

It hadn't taken Emily more than an hour to get what she needed out of the library after the salty guy confronted her, less
than that to rough out a great piece connecting Eliza Howard and Patience Sparrow. As she stood at the copier, organizing the story of the first witch hunt and building up the story of the second, a woman came over.

“Did Ben Avellar send you?” she asked.

“Who's that?” Emily asked and shoved the papers into her bag.

“He's a friend of the Sisters, a lobsterman, but no one's doing much fishing these days.” The woman shrugged. “Ben did a bit of digging around just before the hearing. I thought maybe he was helping you.”

So that's who Cap'n Birdseye is,
Emily thought. She talked with the woman for a few more minutes before swinging her bag over her shoulder. She walked out into the heat and decided she'd have to hunt down this Ben Avellar, even if he scared her with his burly brawn and grump. Obviously, he had the inside track on the Sparrows.

Emily had already spent two days in Granite Point dividing her time between the courtroom and the town, walking its narrow streets, listening to conversations in the little bakery that even she could not resist. She was tired of the ever-changing weather (none of it good), the heat that sapped her of her characteristic drive and the wall of cold fog that crawled in at night, sending her back to her motel room near the high school. The rain soaked everything into soup and made everyone touchy and itchy under their damp clothes.

She was unnerved by the foxes that wandered into the
streets, tongues hanging, making cars spin to a stop, horns blaring. At the docks she saw fishermen reduced to sitting on empty lobster traps, playing cards, smoking, and, lately, drinking. She'd watched a family pack up, boogie boards and beach towels thrown hastily over suitcases in the back of their SUV. They were leaving early, the father said. There was no reason to stay with the weather so bad. The persistent red tide had closed most of the restaurants that depended on lobsters, scallops, and clams. The greenhead flies, usually gone by the first full moon of July, were bolder than usual, their bites becoming infected within hours. What was there to stay for, the mother had said as she loaded her children into the car. Might as well go back to the city. Emily wanted to go back too. She wanted to drink cold white wine and sit in front of her air conditioner. But, drawn to the story of the Sparrows, determined to see where it took her, she didn't leave.

Emily drove out to the Sparrow Sisters Nursery and stared at the locked gate and closely woven willow fences in frustration. Police tape was loosely strewn across the entrance, hardly enough to keep anyone out but enough to send Emily off. She went to Ivy House and knocked on the door as dusk was falling. The door was answered not by a Sparrow but by the doctor. Emily thought for a moment that someone was ill, but then she remembered his appearance that morning and wondered if Patience Sparrow had forgiven him his damning testimony. Henry stood, his whole body filling the doorway as if he thought she was going to rush him. As soon as Emily
identified herself, she saw his jaw pop, and a muscle began to tic next to his eye.

“Go away,” he snarled and slammed the door.

And she did, but only as far as the Nursery again. This time, she looked both ways before she ducked under the tape, climbed over the gate, and skidded down the sandy drive. What she saw was as chilling as any of the angry whispers she'd heard from the men milling around in the back of the courthouse. Everything was dead, some plants were ripped out, others were furry with mold, drooping under the weight of it. She walked between the rows, careful not to touch anything. She batted away insects and spat at the gnats that flew at her lips. She put her hand against the orchid house glass and peered in. The downy moss that had once cradled Patience and Henry was dry and cracked, yellow in the last of the light.