Jodie Picoult - Salem Falls

Whitney started to rise, intent on getting off the witness stand as quickly as possible. But before she could, Matt rose, furious. “Redirect, Your Honor,” he barked. “Ms. O’Neill, did you just hear Mr. McAfee call out to you from fifty-two yards away?”

“Um, yes.”

Matt pointed to the rear of the courtroom. “If Mr. McAfee had been fifty-two yards away but pinned to the ground with someone else’s hand over his mouth and fighting for his life against a rapist, do you think you would have been able to hear him call out?”

“N-no,” Whitney said.

Matt turned on his heel. “Nothing further.”

At the breakfast table that morning, Thomas had asked if Jordan was going to cross-examine Chelsea Abrams. “Don’t know for sure,” he’d answered. “It depends on what she says on direct.”

Thomas’s shoulders had rounded so much his face had nearly dipped into his cereal bowl. “Just do me one favor,” Thomas had said. “Try not to be a dick.”

That, in a nutshell, was why Jordan was going to blast Chelsea Abrams’s testimony to pieces. Because the pretty girl looking up at him with a tiny smile was seeing him as Thomas’s dad when she should have been considering him an adversary.

“Ms. Abrams,” Jordan said, standing up to do his cross, “tell me again who was there that night in the woods.”

Confusion clouded Chelsea’s eyes as she realized Jordan meant business. “Meg, Whitney, Gilly, and me.”

“And Jack, my client?”

“Yeah.”

“And Jack left first.”

“Yes.”

“The rest of you, though, were standing together for a minute before you went home?”

“Yes.”

“So if anyone said something before you left, the four of you would have heard it?”

“Sure.”

“You testified that before you left, you asked Gillian whether she wanted you to walk her home.”

“Yes.”

“Where was Whitney standing when you asked this?”

“Right next to me.”

“After you and Whitney and Meg left, did anyone say anything?”

“No,” Chelsea said. “We just walked down the path single file.”

He looked at the jurors, hoping to hell that every single one of them remembered that Whitney had said something different. “Isn’t it true that April thirtieth, the night you all met in the woods, was Beltane?”

He had to give her credit: Chelsea looked blankly at him. “What?”

“Isn’t Beltane a sabbat, according to the earth-based Wiccan religion?”

“I haven’t got a clue.”

“Objection,” Matt said. “The witness obviously can’t answer this line of questioning.”

“Your Honor, if you’d just give me a moment-”

“So this time you can measure your way to Kentucky?” Matt said under his breath.

Jordan scowled. “This goes toward my argument, Your Honor.”

“I’m giving you one more question, Mr. McAfee,” the judge warned.

“Isn’t it true, Ms. Abrams, that you and your friends had gone to the clearing that night to celebrate Beltane, just as witches all over the world were doing at that time?”

At the prosecutor’s table, Matt Houlihan was choking on something. Or maybe just trying to keep from laughing out loud. “Objection!”

But before the judge could respond, Chelsea did. Her cheeks were bright with anger, and her expression was one only a teenager could manage, putting Jordan in a mental place she reserved for slugs and sewer refuse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, or what all this Bel-whatever stuff is. My friends and I went to chill. Period.”

“Mr. McAfee,” the judge said, “you will move on. Now.”

The jury was looking at Jordan with nearly the same scorn as Chelsea. Okay, so maybe he’d pushed a little hard . . . and what he was driving at was, admittedly, nuts. He’d dismiss the witness. With luck, it would all work out in the end and Thomas would still be speaking to him.

Thomas.

Jordan silently winged an apology to his son. “Ms. Abrams, do you wear jewelry?”

Again, that look. God, was it something they were teaching in public schools these days? “No,” she said.

“No earrings?”

“Sometimes, I guess.”

“No bracelet or necklace or ring?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it true that you’re actually wearing a necklace right now?”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

“And isn’t it true that you never take that necklace off your body?”

“Well, I-”

“Could you show it to us?”

Chelsea looked to the prosecutor for permission. Then she slowly tugged a long chain from the neckline of her blouse, to reveal the five-pointed star.

“What is that symbol, Ms. Abrams?”

“I don’t know. I just think it’s pretty.”

“Are you aware that a five-pointed star is called a pentagram?”

“No.”

“And that the pentagram is a symbol of pagan religions . . . the same groups that would have been celebrating Beltane the night of April thirtieth?”

Chelsea slipped the necklace beneath her collar again. “It’s just a necklace.”

“Of course . . . and you and your friends were just chilling that night.”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn,” Jordan said. “Nothing further.”

Later that day

Carroll County Courthouse

Oh, God, it hurt to see him here.

The moment Addie had been escorted into the courtroom as a witness, her eyes had zeroed in on Jack. Her heart hurt so badly she had to slide her hand inside her jacket, just to press down against the ache. When he smiled at her and nodded, as if to say she could get through this, Addie thought she was going to burst into tears.

Please, God, she prayed, as she was sworn in. Just a small earthquake. A fire. Anything that will just stop this whole nightmare, right now, before I have to become a contributing party.

At that moment, the doors of the courtroom burst open, and her father pushed his way inside. “Dad!” He was carrying a huge basket, from which came the most delicious smell. Steam rose from beneath a blue checkerboard cloth that was tucked over the contents. He hurried down the aisle toward the bench and winked at his daughter. “You knock ’em dead, honey,” Roy said. “I gotta give these out while they’re still hot.”

Setting the basket beside the court stenographer’s machine, he opened up the napkin, filling the room with the aroma of freshly baked muffins. “Here, Your Honor. You’re the head honcho, so you get the first bite.”

By that time, Althea Justice had recovered her voice. “Mr . . .”

“Peabody, at your service. You can call me Roy.”

“Mr. Peabody,” the judge said, “you cannot come barging into the middle of a trial.”

“Oh, I’m not barging.” Roy began to place muffins on the defense table, in front of the prosecutor, into the outstretched hands of the jury. “Consider me the chuck wagon.”

“Be that as it may . . . is that peanut butter?”

“Good nose, ma’am. PB & J muffins. What makes mine different, though, is that the peanut butter is mixed right into the batter, instead of set in the center like the jelly. Comfort food, which I figured you all could use about now.” He hefted the basket and turned to the gallery. “The rest are for you all,” Roy said. “Except I wasn’t counting on there being quite so many. So maybe you could all just share with your neighbor.”

“Your Honor,” Matt said, incensed, “this man has no right to be here. He’s a sequestered witness, for God’s sake.”

Jordan swallowed a bite of the muffin. “Ah, come on, Houlihan, don’t get your knickers in a knot. He’s just bringing us a treat.”

“He’s blatantly trying to influence the jury,” Matt snapped. “Look at them.”