Jodi Picoult - House Rules

The whole time I am watching this, Jacob is scribbling away in his notebooks. He has shelves full of them, all filled with crime scenarios that aired on this TV show. “What do you write down in there?” I ask.

Jacob shrugs. “The evidence. Then I try to deduce what will happen.”

“But you’ve seen this one thirty-eight times,” I say. “You already know how it’s going to turn out.”

Jacob’s pen keeps scratching across the page. “But maybe it’ll end differently this time,” he says. “Maybe today, the kid won’t get caught.”

On Thursday morning my phone rings. “Matson,” I say, answering.

“The CDs are in alphabetical order.”

I frown at the unfamiliar voice. Sounds like some kind of speakeasy password. The CDs are in alphabetical order. And the bluebird wears fishnet stockings. And just like that, you get entry to the inner sanctum.

“I beg your pardon?” I say.

“Whoever took Jess hung around long enough to alphabetize the CDs.”

Now I recognize the voice-Mark Maguire. “I assume your girlfriend hasn’t returned yet,” I say.

“Would I be calling you if she had?”

I clear my throat. “Tell me what you noticed.”

“I dropped a handful of change on the carpet this morning, and when I picked it up, I realized that the tower that holds the CDs had been moved. There was a little sunken spot in the carpet, you know?”

“Right,” I say.

“So these professors-they’ve got hundreds of CDs. And they keep them in this four-sided tower that spins. Anyway, I noticed that all the W s were organized together. Richard Wagner, Dionne Warwick, Dinah Washington, the Who, John Williams, Mary Lou Williams. And then Lester Young, Johann Zumsteeg-”

“They listen to the Who?”

“I looked on all four sides-and every single CD is in order.”

“Is it possible they always were, and you didn’t notice?” I ask.

“No, because last weekend, when Jess and I were looking for some decent music to listen to, they sure as hell didn’t look that way.”

“Mr. Maguire,” I say. “Let me call you right back.”

“Wait-it’s been two days now-”

I hang up and pinch the bridge of my nose. Then I dial the state lab and talk to Iris, a grandmother type who has a little crush on me, which I milk when I need my evidence processed fast. “Iris,” I say, “how’s the prettiest girl in the lab?”

“I’m the only girl in the lab.” She laughs. “You calling about your mailbox note?”

“Yeah.”

“Came up clean. No prints at all.”

I thank her and hang up the phone. It figures that a perp who alphabetizes CDs is smart enough to wear gloves while leaving a note. We probably won’t get any prints off the computer keyboard, either.

On the other hand, the spices might be organized by indigenous regions.

If Mark Maguire is involved with his girlfriend’s disappearance, and wants to lead us on a very different profiling track, he might conceivably alphabetize CDs-the least likely thing I’d ever expect of Mark Maguire.

Which could also explain why it took him twenty-four more hours to do it.

In any case, I am going to take a look at those CDs myself. And the contents of Jess Ogilvy’s purse. And anything else that might indicate where she is, and why she’s there.

I stand up and grab my jacket, heading past dispatch to tell them where I am going, when one of the desk sergeants pulls at my sleeve. “This here’s Detective Matson,” he says.

“Good,” another man barks. “Now I know who to get the chief to fire.”

Behind him, a woman in tears twists the leather straps of her handbag.

“I’m sorry,” I say, smiling politely. “I didn’t catch your name?”

“Claude Ogilvy,” he replies. “ State Senator Claude Ogilvy.”

“Senator, we’re doing everything we can to find your daughter.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he says, “when you haven’t even had anyone in this department investigating it.”

“As a matter of fact, Senator, I was just on my way to your daughter’s residence.”

“I assume, of course, that you’re meeting the rest of the police force there. Because I certainly wouldn’t want to find out that two whole days had gone by without this police department taking my daughter’s disappearance seriously-”

I cut him off midsentence by taking his arm and propelling him toward my office. “With all due respect, Senator, I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell me how to do my own job-”

“I damn well will tell you whatever I want whenever I want until my daughter is brought back safe and sound!”

I ignore him and offer a chair to his wife. “Mrs. Ogilvy,” I say, “has Jess tried to contact you at all?”

She shakes her head. “And I can’t call her. Her voice-mail box is full.”

The senator shakes his head. “That’s because that idiot Maguire kept leaving messages-”

“Has she ever run away before?” I ask.

“No, she’d never do that.”

“Has she been upset lately? Worried about anything?”

Mrs. Ogilvy shakes her head. “She was so excited about moving into that house. Said it beat out the dorms any day…”

“How about her relationship with her boyfriend?”

At that, Senator Ogilvy stays blissfully, stonily silent. His wife spares him a quick glance. “There’s no accounting for love,” she says.

“If he hurt her,” Ogilvy mutters. “If he laid a finger on her-”

“Then we will find out about it, and we will take care of it,” I smoothly interject. “The first priority, though, is locating Jess.”

Mrs. Ogilvy leans forward. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “Do you have a daughter, Detective?” she asks.

Once, at a fairground, Sasha and I were walking through the midway when a rowdy group of teenagers barreled between us, breaking the bond between our hands. I tried to keep my eye on her, but she was tiny, and when the group was gone, so was Sasha. I found myself standing in the middle of the fairground, turning in circles and screaming her name, while all around me rides spun in circles and wisps of cotton candy flew from their metal wheels onto a spool and the roar of chain saws spitting through wood announced the lumberjack contest. When I finally found her, petting the nose of a Jersey calf in a 4-H barn, I was so relieved that my legs gave out; I literally fell to my knees.

I haven’t even responded, but Mrs. Ogilvy puts her hand on her husband’s arm. “See, I told you, Claude,” she murmurs. “He understands.”

The sensory break room at school has a swing hanging from the ceiling. It’s made of rope and stretchy blue material, and when you sit inside it, it wraps you like a cocoon. You can pull the sides close so that you can’t see out and no one can see in, and spin in circles. There are also mats with different textures, wind chimes, a fan. There’s a fiber-optic lamp that has hundreds of points of light that change from green to purple to pink. There are sponges and Koosh balls and brushes and Bubble Wrap and weighted blankets. There’s a noise machine that only an aide is allowed to turn on, and you can choose to listen to waves or rain or white noise or a jungle. There’s a bubble tube, about three feet tall, with plastic fish that move in lazy circles.

In school, part of my IEP is a cool-off pass-a COP. If I need to, at any time, even during an exam, my teachers will allow me to leave the classroom. Sometimes, the outside world gets a little too tight for me, and I need a place to relax. I can come to the sensory break room, but the truth is, I hardly ever do. The only kids who use the sensory break room are special needs, and walking through the door, I might as well just slap a big fat label on myself that says I’m not normal.