Jodie Picoult - Salem Falls

“You can do it,” Charlie suggested. “Besides, you aren’t the one whose face she remembers every time she thinks back to the moment her boyfriend was arrested. She’ll probably be more forthcoming with you.”

Matt knew Addie Peabody would talk to him. Hell, everyone talked to him. Even after they said they didn’t want to, he’d ask a question, and they’d start spilling their guts. The issue here was what would happen if she told Matt one thing and then said another thing on the stand. “She’s not a sure thing, Charlie. If she changes her story between now and the trial, I can’t call myself as a witness to impeach her.”

“She won’t lie.”

“You don’t know that,” Matt said. “So what if she was shocked at the arrest? Who wouldn’t be? By now, she may have decided that she’ll stay on St. Bride’s ship until it sinks. Or that she can play Mata Hari with the prosecution and somehow secure his acquittal. She’s exactly the kind of witness who’ll keep me up nights before the trial.”

“Look, I know Addie. I’ve known her my whole life.” Charlie sounded as if the words were being tugged out of him, all angles and cramps. “She’s the kind of person who takes a shitty situation and deals with it, instead of pretending it never happened. If it makes you feel better, take Wes Courtemanche along during the interview; he can take the stand for you if it comes to impeaching Addie. Now, are you finished? Or do I have to let your physical evidence sit in the fridge during another lecture?”

“I hope you hit traffic,” Matt growled, and slammed down the receiver.

She’d been all thumbs since the moment she set foot in the diner that morning-breaking three glasses, letting a platter of pancakes tumble over the front of her apron, spilling coffee on a customer’s paper. “Addie,” her father said, putting his hand on her shoulder, and that was enough to nearly make her topple the entire tray of table six’s food. “I think maybe you ought to call in Darla.”

Ignoring him, she swung into the kitchen, Roy following. “Thank the holy Lord,” Delilah said. “I hope you’re here to wash.” She nodded toward the stack of filthy china piled high.

Addie tucked an order into Delilah’s rotating file. “Sorry. Too swamped.”

The cook lifted the slip of paper and frowned. “Well, honey, I’ll make you your frittata, but I’m gonna have to serve it up on a dirty plate.”

“Frankly, Delilah, I don’t care if you bring it out in one of your shoes.”

Addie held tight to the last thread of her self-control. She had gone to work in the hopes that staying busy would keep her from dwelling on what had happened. After all, it had helped after Chloe. But it seemed that everywhere she went in the diner, all she could concentrate on was the fact that Jack wasn’t there, too.

“Addie,” her father said, “you’re a mess. No one’s going to think any less of you if you go up and lie down for a little while.”

“Some of us might even think a little more of you if you found us a new dishwasher,” Delilah muttered.

It was the last straw. Tears sprang to Addie’s eyes as she ripped off her apron and flung it onto the kitchen floor. “Do you think I don’t know that I haven’t slept in three nights? Or that we don’t have enough kitchen staff? A man that I . . . that I thought I could love was arrested right in front of me for rape. And I can’t tell you if he did it or not. That’s what I’m thinking about, not whether the goddamned dishes get washed or if I’ve dropped an order all over the floor. I am trying to make everyone happy. For God’s sake, what do all you people want from me?!”

The voice that answered was unexpected, quiet, and cool. “Well,” said Matt Houlihan, standing behind her with Wes. “For starters, how about a little talk?”

Houlihan seemed like a perfectly nice man, even if he was aiming to lock Jack away for twenty years. When he smiled, there was a gap between his front teeth, and to Addie’s surprise, his eyes seemed to reflect an understanding she never would have expected to find. “This must be very difficult for you, Ms. Peabody,” Matt said. In the corner of Roy’s living room, Wes snorted, then covered it with a cough.

“Do I have to talk to you?”

“No, of course not. But I’d like to talk to you, so that you’ll know what I’m going to be asking you in court, instead of just subpoenaing you cold turkey.” He smiled sympathetically. “I understand you were intimately involved with Mr. St. Bride.”

Addie nodded, certain that she wouldn’t be able to force a single word of explanation out of her narrow throat.

“Can you tell me about him?”

She picked up her father’s television remote control in her hands and thought of Jack watching Jeopardy! “He’s very smart,” Addie said softly. “A trivia buff.”

“How long have you been involved with him?”

“I hired him two months ago, in March. He started working as a dishwasher.”

“Did you know at the time that he had a criminal record?”

Addie’s cheeks burned. “I thought . . . he was down on his luck.”

She could feel Wes’s eyes on her, and studiously ignored them. “Did St. Bride ever say anything to you about Gillian Duncan?” Matt asked.

“No.”

“Did you ever see them together?”

“Only when she and her friends came to the diner and Jack had to clean their table.” As she spoke, her mind fishtailed back, trying to remember if she’d ever seen Jack smiling at the girls, flirting, staying a moment too long after clearing their plates. What had she missed? What had she wanted to miss?

“Did he ever read pornography?”

Addie’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Pornography,” the county attorney repeated. “Playboy magazines, maybe a video . . . Internet sites of nude children?”

“No!”

“Was your own relationship with him sexually deviant?”

“Excuse me?”

That wide, gap-toothed smile again. “Ms. Peabody, I realize these questions are rude and personal. But I’m sure you see why it’s information we need to have.”

“No,” she said.

“No, you don’t see . . . ?”

“No,” Addie interrupted, “he was not sexually deviant.” In the background, there was a snap as Wes broke the arm off a little clay figurine of a fisherman that sat on her father’s bookshelves. He hastily balanced it and turned away, muttering an apology.

“Was St. Bride ever violent toward you?”

Addie raised her chin. “He was the gentlest man I’ve ever met.”

“Did he drink?”

Her lips formed a thin line. She knew what the prosecutor was getting at; and God help her, even if Jack was guilty, she didn’t want to contribute to his downfall any more than she already had.

“Ms. Peabody?”

Then again, a girl was out there. A girl who had been raped.

“He was drinking that night,” Addie admitted. “With my father.”

“I see,” Matt said. “Were you together that night?”

“He left my house about nine-thirty P.M. My father was with him until eleven-thirty P.M. I didn’t see him again until one-thirty in the morning.”

“Did he tell you where he’d been?”

Addie closed her eyes. “No. And I . . . I never asked.”

The dimpled ball sailed over the wide, green sea of the driving range, landing somewhere in the vicinity of a sand trap. Without missing a beat, Jordan bent down and took another one out of the bucket to balance on the tee. He lifted his club, readying for the swing . . . and jerked at Selena’s voice.

“Whose face are you seeing on that little thing? Houlihan’s . . . or St. Bride’s?”

Jordan swung and carried through, shading his eyes against the sun to see the ball fall way off the mark. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to interrupt a golfer?”