Mercy (41 page)

Cam wound his fingers with hers. He understood for the first time how if yo u believed you belonged to someone, no piece of paper or priest's benedicti on could make it any more real. "Not bad for a beginner." Mia turned in his arms to face him. "Well," she said, "practice makes perfect

."

SUBJECT: James MacDonald BY: Harrison Harding, M.D.

In my initial session with Jamie, he was reserved and guarded. He repeatedly told me that since he wasn't crazy, he didn't understand what a psychiatris t could do for him in court. I explained that, court procedure notwithstandi ng, it made sense for someone who had experienced the trauma he'd experience d to discuss his feelings with a trained professional. To which he said that no one else, with the possible exception of his attorney, thought he'd been through a trauma.

I asked him to tell me about his background, his current living situation, an d his relationship with his wife, all in an effort to understand what he was like when his wife died. I said that eventually we would discuss the days lea ding up to Maggie's death, but that did not necessarily have to be today. He spent most of the time discussing his wife, Maggie. He said that he beli eved, you fell in love once, and he was lucky enough to have experienced th at for eleven years. If pressed, he could describe details of his wife, fro m the arch of an eyebrow to the length of her fingernails and the location of beauty marks. When speaking of Maggie, Jamie smiled quite often, and he would stand and walk to the window occasionally, as if he was expecting to see her.

He indicated several times that the woman he fell in love with was not the s ame woman he had killed. I asked him to elaborate. He said, "Everyone says I killed Maggie, but they don't remember what she used to be like. There was very little of her left by the time we got to Wheelock." He told me graphic stories of the pain she experienced, from hallucinations during the night to violent vomiting after chemotherapy. He said the last of her ailments was t he cancer spreading to the optic nerve, and he relayed how he had sat pressi ng the sides of her skull in his hands because she was convinced the bright flurry of colors would send it flying apart.

It seems that in spite of the reports from physicians, Jamie's awareness of the pain his wife was undergoing came from Maggie herself. Moreover, the n ature and strength of their relationship indicates that Jamie may have inde ed felt emotionally the same anguish his wife was physically suffering. When I asked him if there was anything he hadn't had a chance to tell Magg ie, he nodded. "That she was wrong," he said. "When we talked about it, sh e said it would be better to remember her as the woman she was than the wo man she had become. But the truth is, now I have neither." Jamie views his relationship with his late wife as something fine and sacred. His actions in the past seem to have

been calculated to please Maggie, which led to his agreement and, involveme nt in her death.

NOTE TO GRAHAM MACPHEE: I know what you're looking for from me, but the t ruth is Jamie was well-spoken and calm. He seems to feel remorse--not ove r the fact that he committed murder, but because at the very end, the wom an he'd idolized betrayed him about the ramifications to his own life. It

's not his mind that was broken. It was his heart.

Democrats rated the highest. People under thirty scored five points, while s enior citizens received only one point. Jews were worth six points; Protesta nts, three; Catholics, one. Graduate degrees were each worth an extra point. According to Fyvel Adams, who'd run the computer analyses of the jury survey

, sex made no difference in determining the ideal juror for Jamie's trial. N

either did nationality. The best juror for Jamie would receive, in total, tw enty points. Anyone who rated less than fifteen points shouldn't be allowed to serve.

Graham and Audra Campbell had met with Judge Roarke an hour before, agre eing to select fourteen jurors, which included the two alternates. Roark e reminded Graham about the verbal-prohibition motion Audra had filed. " Oh," Graham said under his breath, sneering at the ADA, "you mean the 'M

' word?"

When Roarke gave him a dirty look, Graham had realized something crucial to his client's case. Judge Roarke wanted a conviction. Which meant he wo uld not make mistakes that could lead to an appeal.

On Friday afternoon, Graham, Allie, Jamie, and Fyvel Adams sat at the defen se bench as the veniremen were called up individually. Jamie's left leg tap ped nervously until Allie, cool and prepared in a smart plum wool dress, st illed it with a touch. Graham smiled at her. He saw her take Jamie's hand a nd clasp it on the defense table between her own.

The first prospective juror was Alexander Grant, a retired colonel, who'd m ade a career of the Army. Graham rolled his eyes. "Great way to start," he whispered, and he used one of his twenty peremptory challenges to excuse th e juror.

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Grant was replaced by Roberta Cavendish, forty-seven, Catholic, high sch ool diploma, mother of five. "Seven points," Fyvel murmured, leaning tow ard Graham. "That won't do." Graham scanned his own list of yard checks, and saw that he had passed by the Cavendish home. Mangy dog, he had wri tten. House only half painted. Christmas lights everywhere. "She stays," Graham murmured.

The next potential juror, a young woman who taught music at the elementar y school in Wheelock, winked at Graham as she sat down to answer question s. Audra Campbell folded her arms across her chest and used one of her pe remptory challenges.

Graham challenged a sixty-five-year-old farmer with a sixth-grade educatio n. Audra challenged a twenty-five-year-old black social worker. A woman with limpid eyes and badly dyed orange hair waddled her way up to the stand. Obese, tentative; she knotted and un-knotted her fingers every time Audra or Graham fired a question at her. Beside him, Fyvel was furiou sly circling the number he'd totaled up on his scale for her: 8. He shook his head and mouthed the word "No." But Graham looked her in the eye, and thought he noticed the yellow spark that compassion sometimes leaves in it s wake. He nodded to the judge.

The jurors that were called got worse and worse, as if the lottery itself h ad been fixed. After a quick recess in the late morning, everyone seemed to be over the age of sixty; everyone was Catholic; everyone had done some ti me in the service. Graham began to ignore Fyvel's tugs at his trouser leg a nd violent scribbling on his legal pad. He whispered instead with Allie: /

like the way she blinks too much. Her mouth looks kind. A Mickey Mouse tie is a sure sign of nonconformity.

Audra challenged a young woman with a shaved head, as well as a Japanese c omputer technician. Graham objected to a lady who ran the local organizati on of right-to-lifers.

When there were fourteen potential jurors, Graham turned around to the jury box and took a deep breath. Of the fourteen, Fyvel had accepted only two: a self-professed starving artist and a nursery school teacher's aide. Allie felt strongly about the man with the Mickey Mouse tie and the fat lady wit h the dyed hair. Jamie said the woman with the kind mouth had smiled at him. Jodi Picoult

Most of the jurors could go either way, but even Graham had to admit it did not look good. The average age of the jurors assembled thus far was fiftytwo. The majority were Catholic, Republican, fairly uneducated. Fyvel threw his pencil down; it rolled off and under the defense table. Graham looked at the veniremen who had yet to be called for questioning. A sea of blank, old faces; no one who overtly possessed any of the characteri stics that would have guaranteed a 20 on Fyvel's scale. Not, of course, tha t you could pick a Democrat or a Jew by just looking--but Graham had no rea son to believe that the remaining prospective jurors would suddenly take a turn for the liberal.

He had five peremptory challenges left. If he used one of them, he gave Audr a the chance to get rid of one of the jurors they really liked, such as the artist or the aide. With the way his luck had been running, the replacement would be a White House Chief of Staff from the Reagan era. He glanced at Audra Campbell before turning to Judge Roarke to tell him tha t the defense accepted the jury.

TToecht Lake sat like a cherrystone in the middle of Braebury, JL -L ensconc ed in a valley that rose on all sides to become the town. It was enchanting. Cam laced Mia's skates for her and tugged her around the oval once until sh e felt steady enough to keep her own balance. The people that circled around laughed and bobbed in her field of vision like a sea of balloons. A little girl offered to take their picture with a Polaroid Mia had bought. Instantly the picture developed: Cam with the sun shining to rival his hair, his arms around Mia, a wide smile splitting her face.

But when you don't know how to skate, you quickly get tired of falling down

. "There's something genetically wrong with my ankles," Mia said, grabbing Cam's hand for support as she stumbled over a piece of straw stuck into the ice. "They turn in."

"There's nothing wrong with your ankles. They're just not used to this." Cam gently detached Mia's fingers and skated ahead of her, turning in a shar p curve on his hockey skates to send a spray of snow into her face. 291

"Show-off," Mia said.

"Now that is genetic." Cam did a little loop around her and locked his hands on her hips. "Just glide."

Mia felt her feet coming out from under her. "Let go," she said, pushing at C

am's palms. "I don't like going fast."

"Mia, the trees are moving faster than you."

He moved away, and Mia stumbled over another piece of straw sticking out of the ice. Cam straddled her and pulled her up from her armpits. "I knew tha t going away with you would be dangerous," she muttered. "I just didn't fig ure it would be quite like this."

Cam hauled her to her feet. "If you're very nice to me, I'll let you sit the nex t round out."

Mia clutched his elbow and smiled gratefully. He propelled her to one of th e Adirondack benches. "I'll be back," he said, and he took off toward the s eparate hockey oval at a breakneck pace.

She watched Cam dart and weave between the three hockey games in progress, leaving a thin white line on the ice where each skate had been. Suddenly, this grace of movement was not beautiful but upsetting. Mia would never s kate like that. She'd never fit seamlessly into the harsh New England wint ers like everyone else up here; like Cam. It was just one more difference to add to the mountain between them.

By the time Cam skated back to her, bright-eyed and panting, Mia was curle d into a ball on the Adirondack bench, her toe picks digging into the scar red wood and her arms hugging her knees. She lifted her face at his approa ch, knowing her nose was running and her eyes were red and her skin was mo ttled with the cold.

Cam's chest constricted when he saw her. All he could think was that she h ad hurt something when she fell and he had been stupid enough to leave her alone. "Mia?" He gathered her close. "What's the matter?" Her voice, hitched, was little more than a whisper. "I don't want to go skiing

."

Cam blinked. "You what?"

She pulled back. "I don't want to go skiing. Tomorrow." Sniffling, she wiped her sleeve across her nose. "I don't want you to see something else I do terr ibly."

Jodi Picoult

Cam kissed her ear. His lips were at least ten degrees warmer. "We don't hav e to go skiing," he said, slipping his arm around her shoulders. He thought of the grammar of Gaelic, in which you did not say you were in love with som eone, but that you "had love toward" her, as if it were a physical thing you could present and hold--a bundle of tulips, a golden ring, a parcel of tend erness. "I'd love you if you just sat in a chair all day." They sat in companionable silence, staring at an ice sculpture some burgeoni ng local artist had created at the juncture of the two skating ponds. It was a bird--a phoenix, Cam supposed--rising out of the pond with its wings spre ad.

Something at the back of his mind burned a little, and he recalled Jamie Ma cDonald's voluntary confession, which he'd read again on behalf of the ADA for trial preparation. He remembered Jamie talking about an ice sculpture h e'd seen somewhere on vacation with his wife, how it had been nothing but a shell with the life gone out of its eyes, how it had been like Maggie. Mia laced her gloved fingers through his bare ones. "You're not thinking ab out skiing anymore," she said.

Cam shook his head. "Jamie," he stated, as if this would explain it all. He turned to Mia and stared into her eyes. "Do you think he was wrong to kill h is wife, if he knew she was dying anyway?"

Mia glanced away. "The papers say she asked him." Cam nodded. "Well, in my book that makes a difference."

"I know," Cam agreed. "I'm not talking about placing the blame. I'm askin g what you would have done if you were Jamie."

Mia looked at Cam, his cheeks rough with beard stubble and his breath quick with health. She squeezed his fingers just to feel him squeeze back. She o f all people knew that what you thought you would do in a given situation d idn't mean a thing until you found yourself actually facing it. Would she kill Cam if he asked her to, for a good reason? Probably not. She was too selfish for that. She always had been. Her parents would have done what Jamie had done, in a heartbeat. Of course, they wouldn't have stopped there.

Which brought her to the question she really thought everyone should be a sking Jamie MacDonald. How could he not have killed himself, too?

"Do you think he was right?" Cam repeated.

Mia bit her lip. "1 think love makes you lose yourself," she said carefully

. "My mother used to start kitchen fires all the time because she'd get to teasing or kissing my father and forget anything was on the stove." She pau sed. "And I don't think my parents would have left me alone nearly as much as they did, but they were so wrapped up in being husband and wife they for got about being a father and mother."

She leaned close enough for her words to fall directly on Cam's lips. "I d on't know about Jamie, but I understand doing something you know you shoul dn't be doing, and knowing at the same time it's not wrong." Turning her head, she nestled closer to Cam. A single drip ran down the side of the ice.sculptute, boring a hole in the snow at the side of the pond. Ca m buried his face in Mia's curls, and he wondered how much time was left.