Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

George waved away her concern. “At the first sign of arrhythmia I’ll ask God for a continuance.”

Breaking off a small piece of her muffin, Lizzie looked down at her notes. “We’ve got a bloody nightgown, a footprint her size, a doctor’s statement saying she was primiparous, an ME saying the baby took a breath-plus her blood matches the blood found on the baby’s skin.” She popped a bite into her mouth. “I’ll put five hundred bucks down saying that when the DNA test comes back, it links her to the baby, too.”

George blotted his mouth with a napkin. “That’s substantial stuff, Lizzie, but I don’t know if it adds up to involuntary manslaughter.”

“I didn’t get to the clincher yet,” Lizzie said. “The ME found bruising on the baby’s lips and fibers on the gums and in the throat.”

“Fibers from what?”

“They matched the shirt it was wrapped in. He thinks that the two, together, suggest smothering.”

“Smothering? This isn’t some Jersey girl giving birth in the toilet at the Paramus Mall and then going off to finish shopping, Lizzie. The Amish don’t even kill flies, I’ll bet.”

“We made national headlines last year when two Amish kids were peddling cocaine,” Lizzie countered. “What’s 60 Minutes going to say to a murder?” She watched a spark come to George’s eyes as he weighed his personal feelings about charging an Amish girl against the promise of a high-profile murder case. “There’s a dead baby in an Amish barn, and an Amish kid who gave birth,” she said softly. “You do the math, George. I wasn’t the one who asked for this to happen, but even I can see that we’ve got to charge her, and we’ve got to do it soon. She’s being released today.”

He meticulously cut his sunny-side-up eggs into bite-size squares, then placed his knife and fork down on the edge of his plate without eating a single one. “If we can prove smothering, we might be able to charge Murder One. It’s willful, premeditated, and deliberate. She hid the pregnancy, had the baby, and did away with it.” George glanced up. “Did you question her?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Lizzie grimaced. “She still doesn’t think she had a baby.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“She’s sticking to her story.”

George frowned. “Did she look crazy to you?”

There was a big difference between legally crazy and colloquially crazy, but in this case, Lizzie didn’t think George was making the distinction. “She looks like the girl next door. One who happens to read the Bible instead of V. C. Andrews.”

“Oh, yeah,” George sighed. “This one’s gonna go to trial.”

Sarah Fisher pinned her daughter’s kapp into place. “There. Now you’re ready.”

Katie sank down on the bed, waiting for the candy-striper to appear with a wheelchair and take her down to the lobby. The doctor had discharged her minutes before, giving her mother some pills in case Katie had any more pain. She shifted, folding her arms across her stomach.

Aunt Leda put an arm around her. “You can stay with me if you’re not ready to be at home yet.”

Katie shook her head. “Denke. But I ought to get back. I want to get back.” She smiled softly. “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

Leda squeezed her shoulders. “It makes more sense to me, probably, than to anyone else.”

As the door swung open, Katie jumped to her feet, eager to be on her way. But instead of the young volunteer she’d been expecting, two uniformed policemen entered. Sarah stepped back, falling into place beside Leda and Katie; a united, frightened front. “Katie Fisher?”

She could feel her knees shaking beneath her skirts. “That’s me.”

One policeman took her gently by the arm. “We have a warrant for your arrest. You’ve been charged with the murder of the baby found in your father’s barn.”

The second policeman came up beside her. Katie looked frantically over his shoulder, trying to reach her mother’s eyes. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be represented by an attorney-”

“No!” Sarah screamed, reaching for her daughter as the policemen began to lead Katie through the doorway. She ran after them, ignoring the curious glances of the medical personnel and the cries of her own sister.

Leda finally caught up with Sarah at the entrance of the hospital. Katie was crying, arms stretched toward her mother as the policeman set a hand on her kapp and ducked her inside the squad car. “You can meet us at the district court, ma’am,” he said politely to Sarah, then got into the front seat.

As the car drove away, Leda put her arms around her sister. “They took my baby,” Sarah sobbed. “They took my baby.”

Leda knew how uncomfortable Sarah was riding in her car, but pressing circumstances called for compromises. Driving with someone under the bann was considerably less threatening than standing in court while one’s daughter was arraigned for murder, which Sarah was going to have to face next.

“You wait right here,” she said, pulling into her driveway. “Let me get Frank.” She left Sarah sitting in the passenger seat and ran into the house.

Frank was in the living room, watching a sitcom rerun. One look at his wife’s face had him out of his chair, running his hands over her arms. “You all right?”

“It’s Katie. She’s being taken to the district court. They’ve charged her with murder.” Leda could just manage the last before breaking down, letting go in her husband’s embrace as she hadn’t let herself go in front of Sarah. “Ephram Stoltzfus raised twenty thousand dollars from Amish businessmen for Katie’s legal defense, but Aaron won’t take a penny.”

“She’ll get a public defender, honey.”

“No-Aaron expects her to turn the other cheek. And after what he did to Jacob, Katie’s not going to disagree with him.” She buried her face in her husband’s shirt. “She can’t win this. She didn’t do it, and she’s going to be put in jail anyway.”

“Think of David and Goliath,” Frank said. With his thumb, he wiped away Leda’s tears. “Where’s Sarah?”

“In the car. Waiting.”

He slid an arm around her waist. “Let’s go, then.”

A moment after they left, Ellie walked into the living room, wearing her jogging shorts and tank top. She’d been in the adjoining mud room, lacing up her sneakers for a run, when Leda had come home-and she’d heard every word. Her face impassive, Ellie stepped up to the picture window and watched Leda’s car until it disappeared from view.

Katie had to hide her hands beneath the table so that no one would see how much they were trembling. Somehow she had lost the pin to her kapp in the police car, and it perched uneasily on her head, slipping whenever she shifted. But she would not take it off-not now, especially-since she was supposed to have her head covered whenever she prayed, and she’d been doing that constantly since the moment the car pulled away from the hospital’s entrance.

A man sat at a table just like hers, a little distance away. He looked at her, frowning, although Katie had no idea what she might have done to make him so upset. Another man sat in front of her behind a high desk. He wore a black cape and held a wooden hammer in his hand, which he banged at the moment Katie saw her mother and aunt and uncle slip into the courtroom.

The man with the hammer narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you speak English?”

“Ja,” Katie said, then blushed. “Yes.”

“You have been charged in the state of Pennsylvania with murder in the first degree, whereby you, Katie Fisher, on the eleventh of July 1998, against the arms and force of the State of Pennsylvania, did willfully, deliberately, and premeditatedly cause the death of Baby Fisher on the Fisher farm in the East Paradise Township of Lancaster County. You are also charged with the lesser included offense of murder in the third degree, whereby you . . .”