Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

“Before the baby was found,” Lizzie asked, “were you and Katie having any fights?”

He hesitated. “I don’t think I have to tell you this.”

“Actually, Samuel, you do. Because your girlfriend’s on trial for murder here, and if you had any part in it you could be charged as an accessory. So-the fights?”

Samuel blushed. It made Lizzie stare; she’d never seen shame sprawled across the face of such a large man. “Just small things.”

“Such as?”

“Sometimes she didn’t want to kiss me good night.”

Lizzie grinned. “That’s a little like locking the barn door after the horse has run out.”

Samuel blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

Now it was Lizzie’s turn to blush. “I just meant that a kiss seems fairly inconsequential once you’ve gotten her pregnant.”

His cheeks flamed brighter. “Katie did not have a baby.”

Back to square one. “Samuel, we’ve been over this. She had a baby. There’s medical proof.”

“I don’t know these English doctors, but I know my Katie,” he said. “She says she didn’t have that baby, and it’s true; she couldn’t have.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Samuel turned away.

“Because isn’t good enough, Samuel,” Lizzie said.

He turned around, his voice rising. “Because we have never made love!”

Lizzie was silent for a moment. “Just because she’s never slept with you,” the detective gently pointed out, “doesn’t mean she hasn’t slept with someone else.”

She waited for the words to sink in, the awful battering ram that knocked down the last of Samuel’s defenses. The big man curled into himself, the brim of his hat touching his knees, his arms folded tight around his middle.

Lizzie remembered a case she’d worked on years ago, where the girlfriend of a jewelry store manager had cheated on her boyfriend and gotten pregnant. Rather than admitting to it, she saved face by claiming the guy had raped her and going to court. This newborn’s murder might not hinge on an argument between Katie and Samuel, but the very opposite. Instead of admitting that she had slept with another man, going against her religious principles, hurting her family, and ruining her prospects with Samuel, Katie had simply gotten rid of the evidence of her transgression. Literally.

Lizzie watched Samuel’s shoulders shake with emotion. Patting him once on the back, she left him to come to terms with the truth: It was not that he didn’t believe Katie had had a baby; it was that he didn’t want to.

“Would she do that?” Samuel whispered, holding onto Ellie’s hands like a lifeline. “Would she do that to me?”

She had never believed that you could see a heart break, yet here she was watching it. And it was much like the time she’d watched a skyscraper demolished in Philly, floor crumbling into floor until there was nothing but a memory hanging in the air. “Samuel, I’m sorry. I barely know her well enough to make that judgment.”

“But did she say anything to you? Did she tell you his name?”

“We don’t know there was another ‘he,’” Ellie said. “The detective wants you to jump to conclusions, in the hope that you’ll slip up and tell her something the prosecution can use.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Samuel insisted.

“Of course not,” Ellie said dryly. “I’m sure they have plenty to work with right now.” In fact, just the thought of it sent her head spinning: in a nutshell, here was the prosecution’s motive-Katie committed murder to cover up an indiscretion.

Samuel looked at Ellie seriously. “I would do anything for Katie.”

“I know.” And Ellie did. The question was, just how far did Samuel’s promise extend? Could he simply be a very good actor, and have known all along about his girlfriend’s pregnancy? Even if Sarah hadn’t noticed, Samuel would have easily discovered physical differences in Katie during a simple embrace-and would naturally have known if he wasn’t the father. Without any Fisher sons, Samuel stood to inherit the farm-as long as he managed to claim Katie. A Lancaster County farm was a tremendous boon, the real estate value of some of these properties reaching into the millions. If Katie had given birth and then married the father of the child, Samuel would be left out in the cold. It was a clear motive for murder-but pointed at a very different suspect.

“I think you need to speak to Katie,” Ellie said gently. “I’m not the one who’s going to be able to give you the answers.”

“We were going to be together. She told me so.” Samuel’s voice was shaking; although no tears had fallen, they were shining in his eyes. Another thing about heartbreaks-you could not watch one without feeling your own heart suffer a hairline fracture as well. Samuel turned away from Ellie, his shoulders rounded. “I know that it’s the Lord’s way to forgive her, but I can’t do that right now. Right now, all I want to know is who she was with.”

Ellie nodded, and silently thought, You’re not the only one.

• • •

Vines twined around the footing of the railroad bridge, stretching toward the high water mark and the rivets that anchored steel to concrete. Katie rolled up the legs of her jeans and took off her shoes and socks, following Adam into the shallow water. Pebbles bit at the arches of her feet; on the slick, smoother stones, her heels slipped. As she reached for the pillar to steady herself, she felt Adam’s hands grasp her shoulders. “It’s December, 1878,” he whispered. “An ice storm. The Pennsylvania Line’s carrying two hundred and three passengers headed toward New York City for Christmas. The train derails there, just at the edge of the bridge, and the cars tumble over into the icy water. One hundred and eighty-six people die.”

His breath fanned against the side of her neck, and then just as suddenly, he stepped away from her. “Why aren’t there a hundred and eighty-six ghosts, then?” Katie asked.

“For all we know, there are. But the only one that’s been seen by a number of different people has been Edye Fitzgerald.” Adam walked back to the bank of the river and sat down to fiddle with a long, flat mahogany box. “Edye and John Fitzgerald were newlyweds, on their way to New York City for their honeymoon. John survived the crash, and supposedly kept going into the wreckage with the relief workers, calling out for his wife. After identifying her body, he went to New York City alone, took the honeymoon suite in some fancy hotel, and killed himself.”

“That’s a sin,” Katie said flatly.

“Is it? Maybe he was just trying to get back to Edye again.” Adam smiled faintly. “I’d like to check out that suite, though, and see if he’s haunting it.” He opened the cover of the wooden case. “Anyway, there are over twenty accounts of people who’ve seen Edye walking around in the water here, people who’ve heard her calling John’s name.”

He withdrew two long L-shaped rods from the box and twirled them in his hands like a sharpshooter. Katie watched, wide-eyed. “What can you do with those?”

“Catch a ghost.” At her shocked expression, he grinned. “You ever use dowsing rods? I guess not. People play around with these to find water, or even gold. But they’ll pick up on energy, too. Instead of pointing down, you’ll see them start to quiver.”

He began to walk around the cement pylon so soundlessly that the water barely whispered over his legs. His hands curved around the rods, his head bowed to his task.

She could not imagine her parents doing what John and Edye had done in the extremes of love. No, if a spouse died, that was the natural course of things, and the widow or widower went on with his business. Come to think of it, she’d never seen her Dat even give her Mam a quick kiss. But she could remember the way he kept his arm around her the whole day of Hannah’s funeral; the way he’d some times finish his meal and beam at Mam like she’d just hung the moon. Katie had always been taught that it was similar values and a simple life that kept a hus band and wife together-and after that, passion came privately. But who was to say it didn’t come before? That sigh pressing up from the inside of your chest; the ball of fire in the pit of your stomach when he brushed your arm; the sound of his voice curling around your heart-couldn’t those things bind a man and a woman forever, too?