Mercy (33 page)

Allie nodded. "You can't get if off your hands, and you have to work with i t all the time." She put her hand on Cam's shoulder and with her other hand executed a flourish. "Check out my maple."

Mia ran her fingers over the line of the branch. "Very nice." Out of the cor ner of her eye she saw Allie's palm brush the back of Cam's neck, and she fo rced herself to walk away.

Cam took Allie's hand away under the pretense of holding it, and then stoo d up and stepped back. He did not understand how he had come to this--bein g parceled up between the two women, so that Allie had a hold on certain t hings--like his name and his house--and Mia had a hold on others--his mood

, the memories of this shop, the spot on the back of his neck that Allie h ad been rubbing a moment before.

He did not like coming to the flower shop, but he did it at least once a da y so that he could see Mia. He had started telling Allie that he was doubli ng up on shifts, working eight hours Wednesday and then midnight-to-eight t he next morning as well because one of the part-timers had moved and he was forced to fill in; but he spent that time instead with Mia, making love in her hotel bed with Kafka watching them from a perch on the television cons ole, his eyes wide and yellow with knowledge.

Often he went to bed after an early dinner on Wednesday, waking up at eleve n to find Allie pressed closed to him and those stained-glass daffodils dul l and flat in the window before him. He'd dress quietly and drive to the Wh eelock Inn, but he'd park on

Jodi Picoult

the side and take an employees' staircase up to the second floor, where Mia'

s room was. He did this so seamlessly that after several weeks, his duplicit y was second nature, and it did not seem possible that his life had ever bee n any other way.

Allie began to sort through the holly that Mia had dumped onto the floor. Sh e made two piles, one for greens and one for greens with berries. "Wreaths," she sighed. "I'm going to be doing wreaths all day." She glanced up at Cam. Graham had called her a few days ago and asked for h er help again, but this wasn't nearly as simple as rounding up the details of Jamie's life in Cummington. He had explained to her how he was questioni ng prospective witnesses, and how she couldn't really be one since she didn

't have firsthand knowledge of the incident or of Jamie's character before the incident. But, he had said, she knew Cam better than anyone else. And i f she could get a bead on how, exactly, Cam was feeling about Jamie in the days leading up to the trial, it would make the defense a lot smoother.

"You're asking me to spy," she had said, laughing. Graham cleared his throat. "No, I'm asking you to infiltrate." He did not tell her why it was important that she barrage Cam with reminders about Jamie, only that it was necessary to Graham's line of questioning at th e trial. Still, Allie wasn't stupid; she assumed it had something to do with guilt. And it wouldn't be difficult to work Jamie into their dinner conversat ions.

She took a sprig of holly, complete with three berries, and tucked it into t he buttonhole of Cam's breast pocket. "There. Very dapper." Cam looked down at it. "I've got to go now."

"Oh," she said, tapping her finger to her lips. "I remember what I was suppo sed to ask you. Jamie wanted to know if you have one of those adjustable rat chet sets."

"Jamie wanted to know that?" He frowned. "Is something broken at Angus's, then?"

Allie shook her head. "Not that I know of. He's just trying to come up with Christmas gifts, I think." She set herself to the task of pulling the lower leaves from several bunches of holly. "He was really set on getting you some thing you need."

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"I don't need anything from him. I don't want anything from him." Cam pulle d the holly out from his buttonhole and rolled the stem between his fingers

.

"Scrooge," Allie chided. "He's your cousin.'

He set his cap on his head and pulled the brim down to his eyebrows. "I don't know if I'll see you later," he said, deliberately changing the subject. Fro m the corner of his eye, he noticed Mia outside on the front porch of the sho p, battling with several long whips of curly willow as she twisted them into a tidy circle. "It's Thursday."

Allie nodded and turned to the ivy, spread at her feet. She began to gather it up. "I'll probably be here until four in the morning myself," she said. " You don't know how many orders I already have for next week." Cam knew next week was Christmas, which wouldn't have ordinarily been a p roblem, but Allie would be going off with Graham for several day trips to Cummington, to meet with the witnesses she'd dug up on Jamie's behalf. W

hich meant Mia would be left here all alone to make up over fifty differe nt wreaths and centerpieces and holiday baskets. Which meant that Mia wou ld be left here all alone.

Feeling much better, Cam put his hand on the doorknob. Mia was still outsid e; he could see her breath steaming on the cold air. He turned his attentio n to his wife. "You'd better get something for Jamie. I mean, I don't want to be caught empty-handed."

He had already turned his back, so he did not see Allies bright, wide smile. "I

'll take care of it," she said. "Don't you worry." T Tugo Huntley led Graham into a chamber filled with caskets. X. JL "I'm sor ry," he said for the fifth time, "but we have very little room when there's a wake going on."

Graham would have gladly postponed his interview with the funeral direct or/medical examiner if he'd known there was going to be a wake in progre ss. However, overwhelmed by details, Hugo hadn't called to cancel the me eting, and so Graham had found himself offering his condolences to a tin y weeping woman. Now he was in the selection room. At twenty-six, Graham hadn't given much thought to dying, not even considering Jamie MacDonal d's case. It was some-Jodi Picoult

thing that happened to you when you were much older and much more finished with living. He had never contemplated securing a family plot in the cemete ry; he had never even realized that coffins came in different shapes and si zes and colors, as individually suited to the deceased as the clothes in wh ich they were buried.

"Mr. Huntley," Graham began, "I'm trying to get a bigger picture of the eve nts leading up to Maggie MacDonald's death. And I understand that you provi ded the autopsy report for the DA's office."

"Oh." Hugo leaned against one of the coffins. "I'd be happy to tell you anyth ing I can."

Graham breathed a sigh of relief: a witness for the prosecution who was g oing to be cooperative under cross-examination. "What can you tell me abo ut the cause of Maggie MacDonald's death?"

Hugo pursed his lips and pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "She was smo thered, in layman's terms. Probably had been dead for about five or six hour s when I first saw her. He most likely used a pillow; there were fibers on h er lips and in her hair that matched up with the police lab reports, althoug h that might have just meant she liked to sleep on her belly."

"Anything else?"

From the other room came the high sob of a mourner. "You know, of course, that she was in the advanced stages of cancer."

Graham nodded. "I'll be speaking to her doctor in a few days. But you found . .

. ?" He let his question trail off.

"A radical mastectomy of both the breast and the lymph nodes. Evidence of r adiation for a tumor affecting the optic nerve. Bone lesions all over her b ody that had been present for some time." He shrugged and looked up. "She w asn't in great shape."

"You mentioned in your report evidence of skin beneath her fingernails."

"Her husband's," Hugo said. "But as I've told Miss Campbell, I don't think i t necessarily means there was a struggle. There was no other indication of t hat--no bruises or contusions, and from what I've heard, the room was in pre tty good condition too, although I suppose it could have been picked up clea n after the fact ..." He smiled ruefully. "You get into my line of work, Mr. MacPhee, and you start to get a sixth sense about things. I'm no expert abo ut police business or matters of the heart, either, but I have a connection with 235

the people I lay out for a burial. I would have been able to tell if Maggie was fighting him. People who are shot or stabbed always die with their eyes wide and scared, their mouths still screaming. Maggie looked like she'd gone off to sleep."

"Well," Graham said, forcing a smile. "How about that." He realized he had b een sitting on the foot of a mahogany casket and leaped to his feet. Graham remembered that Maggie's casket had been closed, and white, and del icate. He wondered if Jamie had picked it after he'd been released on bail

. He tried to imagine having to do such a thing. Did you proceed automatic ally, the way you might select a kitchen cabinet or a color to paint your house: the sandy one, no, the black with gold trim? How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?

/t had taken Angus nearly three full days to get in touch with the branch of the Scottish National Trust that took care of Carry-muir and to convince them that he was indeed a former custodian of the estate, but a week later he pre sented a package to Allie still bearing the marks of overnight international airmail. "Ye canna possibly thank me for all the trouble I've gone to, lassie

," he said, "so dinna fash yourself trying." Allie fell in love with the picture, which was still in a cracked obsidian f rame and faded with age. It showed two little boys on the front steps at Car rymuir. One was crouching over a game of marbles, the other had his hand on the broad back of a wolfhound. The two boys were about five, and a stranger would have guessed they were brothers, so alike were their rangy builds, the ir Beatles haircuts, and the shadow of their coloring.

As far as she knew, Cam had never seen the picture of himself with his cous in Jamie, taken in 1965.

She had removed the photograph when she got home from the shop, and Krazy Glued the frame back together. It wouldn't be dry till tomorrow, but she s lipped the picture back behind the glass so that Cam could get the overall effect.

He came in, clearly exhausted, unhooked his belt and holster and kicked off his boots. Then he flopped down on the couch, barely noticing Allie at the dining room table. "Rough day?"

Jodi Picoult

"I was a traffic light for rush hour," he mumbled. Allie smiled. "Is that like being a goblin for Halloween?" Cam groaned and sat up, hugging a throw pillow to his chest. "I want to k now why the DPW has programmed the only goddamned light in Wheelock to go on the blitz at four-thirty."

Allie rubbed the corner of the frame with her sleeve, making it shine. "Do t hey really need someone to direct traffic? What happened before there was a light?"

"People got into accidents." Cam glanced over at her. "What are you up to?" She walked into the living room. "I got Jamie's Christmas gift," she said, pr esenting the frame with a flourish.

Cam looked at it dispassionately, a word of praise hovering at his lips, and then his eyes flew open. "That's me."

"And Jamie."

He grabbed the frame out of her hand. "That's Carrymuir. Where the hell did you get this?"

His eyes were poring over the picture, as if sheer scrutiny could force the b lurry edges of the background into focus, or make the years that had gone bet ween come flying back. "Angus had it," she said, bending the truth just a lit tle.

Cam looked up at her. For a moment, a play of light from a passing car froz e her features, then she again became someone familiar. "Angus owns one pic ture. It's the one the National Trust made into a postcard."

"Well, he must have forgotten about this one."

Cam set the picture down on the couch beside him and shook his head. "You a ren't giving this to Jamie."

Allie smiled. "I knew you were going to want one too. I had a duplicate mad e up. It should be ready on--"

"You are not giving this to Jamie," Cam said again. "I don't want him comi ng up to me and thinking, 'Shit, we used to play with marbles together, he must owe me something now.'

Allie crossed her arms over her chest. "You're being ridiculous. Give me tha t."

"No," Cam said, coming to his feet. He towered over her, and she had to cr ane her neck to be able to maintain eye contact. "I'm sick of hearing abou t Jamie MacDonald from you and from my

mother and from the newspapers. I don't want to know that we used to play t ogether in Scotland. I don't want us to have any history whatsoever." A cord was pulsing erratically in his neck, and his eyes had darkened to a shade just shy of black. Allie took a step back, recognizing this part of t he argument. Here was the point where she usually backed down. Here was the point where she smiled at Cam and told him whatever he wanted to hear.

"You can't change something that's already been done," she heard herself sa y.

He didn't know, never would know, what put him over the edge. He wasn't eve n thinking about Jamie anymore when Allie decided to take a stand and impar t that piece of wisdom. He was thinking of Mia, and what he was guilty of. Cam looked at his wife, beautiful and fierce, and realized that he had fina lly succeeded in doing what he'd set out to do months before. He had provok ed Allie. And now he was overcome by his anger--at himself, for falling in love with Mia; at Allie, for finding this photo which was sure to make its way to the local paper; at Jamie, who had so usurped Allies thoughts that s he hadn't been there to stop Cam from tangling up his life to the point whe re getting free was only possible with a painful, irrevocable cut.

"Wanna bet?" he said, his voice silkily quiet, and he took the photo from th e couch. The healing frame gave under the pressure of his fingers, and the g lass shattered around their feet. Cam pulled the yellowed strip of photo out and tore it in half, so that he and the wolfhound landed a good three feet away from Jamie's image.

Allie shoved him, catching him so off guard he landed back on the couch sta ring up at her. He watched her throat shake as she tried to control her wor ds. "You bastard. Did you ever once think that what you want and what you n eed is not necessarily what's best for everyone else?" She grabbed her purse from the low parson's bench in front of the window a nd started for the front door. She kept hearing her words in her head, and wondered at what point the argument had gone from a silly squabble about a Christmas present to a question about her whole life with Cam. Everything about her was in some way connected to him. The location of Glory in the Flower had been chosen for its proximity to the pol ice station. She had adjusted her mealtimes so that they coincided with the shifts that Cam was working on a given week. In the past five years she had learned how to fish, how to target-shoot, how to tell time by the height of the sun, how to clear her mind in the aching cold. She was rarely Allie; ins tead, she had become the police chief's wife, the clan chief's wife. She had wanted Cam so badly eight years ago that she hadn't realized the price woul d be giving up herself.