Nineteen Minutes (10 page)

Did they already?

A rush of cold air hit Lacy in the face as the front door opened. “For how long?”

The officer shrugged. “Till we’re done,” he said, and he left her out in the cold.

Jordan McAfee had been an attorney for nearly twenty years and truly believed he had seen and heard it all, until now, when he and his wife, Selena, stood in front of the television set watching CNN’s coverage of the school shooting at Sterling High. “It’s like Columbine,” Selena said. “In our backyard.”

“Except right now,” Jordan murmured, “there’s someone to blame who’s still alive.” He glanced down at the baby in his wife’s arms, a blue-eyed, coffee-colored mixture of his own WASP genes and Selena’s never-ending limbs and ebony skin, and he reached for the remote to turn down the volume, just in case his son was taking any of this in subconsciously.

Jordan knew Sterling High. It was just down the street from his barber and two blocks away from the room over the bank he rented as his law office. He had represented a few students who’d been busted with pot in their glove compartments or who got caught drinking underage at the college in town. Selena, who was not only his wife but also his investigator, had gone into the school to talk to kids from time to time about a case.

They hadn’t lived here very long. His son Thomas-the only good thing to come out of his lousy first marriage-graduated from high school in Salem Falls and was now a sophomore at Yale, where Jordan spent $40,000 a year to hear that he had narrowed down his career plans to becoming either a performance artist, an art historian, or a professional clown. Jordan had finally asked Selena to marry him, and after she’d gotten pregnant, they’d moved to Sterling-because the school district had such a good reputation.

Go figure.

When the telephone rang and Jordan-who didn’t want to watch the coverage but couldn’t tear his eyes away from it either-made no motion to answer it, Selena dumped the baby in his arms and reached for the receiver. “Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

Jordan glanced up and raised his brows.

Thomas, Selena mouthed. “Yeah, hang on, he’s right here.”

He took the phone from Selena. “What the hell is going on?” Thomas asked. “Sterling High’s all over MSNBC.com.”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” Jordan said. “It’s pandemonium.”

“I know some kids there. We competed against them in track and field. It’s just-it’s not real.”

Jordan could still hear ambulance sirens in the distance. “It’s real,” he said. There was a click on the line-call-waiting. “Hang on, I have to take this.”

“Is this Mr. McAfee?”

“Yes…”

“I, um, understand that you’re an attorney. I got your name from Stuart McBride over at Sterling College…”

On the television, a list of the names of the known dead began to scroll, with yearbook pictures. “You know, I’m on the other line,” Jordan said. “Could I take down your name and number, and get back to you?”

“I was wondering if you’d represent my son,” the caller said. “He’s the boy who…the one from the high school who…” The voice stumbled, and then broke. “They say my son’s the one who did it.”

Jordan thought of the last time he’d represented a teenage boy. Like this one, Chris Harte had been found holding a smoking gun.

“Will you…will you take his case?”

Jordan forgot about Thomas, waiting. He forgot about Chris Harte and how the case had nearly turned him inside out. Instead he looked at Selena and the baby in her arms. Sam twisted, grabbing at her earring. This boy-the one who had walked into Sterling High this morning and committed a massacre-was someone’s son. And in spite of a town that would be reeling for years, and media coverage that had already reached the point of saturation, he deserved a fair trial.

“Yes,” Jordan said. “I will.”

Finally-after the bomb squad had dismantled the pipe bomb in Peter Houghton’s car; after one hundred and sixteen shell casings had been found scattered in the school from fired bullets; after the accident recon guys had begun to measure the evidence and the location of the bodies so that they could produce a scale diagram of the scene; after the crime techs had taken the first of hundreds of snapshots that they would put into indexed photo-books-Patrick called everyone together into the auditorium of the school and stood on the stage in the near darkness. “What we have is a massive amount of information,” he told the crowd assembled before him. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure on us to do this fast, and to do this right. I want everyone back here in twenty-four hours, so that we can see where we’re at.”

People began to disperse. At the next meeting, Patrick would be given the completed photo-books, all evidence not being sent to the lab, and all lab submissions. In twenty-four hours, he’d be buried so far underneath the avalanche he wouldn’t know which way was up.

While the others headed back to various parts of the building to complete the work that would take them all night and the next day, Patrick walked out to his car. It had stopped raining. Patrick planned to go back to the station to review the evidence that had been seized from the Houghtons’ home, and he wanted to talk to the parents, if they were still willing. But he found himself pointing his car instead toward the medical center, and he pulled into the parking lot. He walked into the emergency entrance and flashed his badge. “Look,” he said to the nurse, “I know you had a lot of kids come through here today. But one of the first was a girl named Josie. I’m trying to find her.”

The nurse fluttered her hands over her computer keyboard. “Josie who?”

“That’s the thing,” Patrick admitted. “I don’t know.”

The screen swam with a flurry of information, and the nurse tapped her finger against the glass. “Cormier. She’s up on the fourth floor, Room 422.”

Patrick thanked her and took the elevator upstairs. Cormier. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. It was common enough, he figured-maybe he’d read it in the paper or seen it on a television show. He slipped past the nurses’ desk and followed the numbers down the hall. The door to Josie’s room was ajar. The girl sat up in bed, wrapped in shadows, talking to a figure that stood beside her.

Patrick knocked softly and stepped into the room. Josie stared at him blankly; the woman beside her turned around.

Cormier, Patrick realized. As in Judge Cormier. He’d been called to testify in her courtroom a few times before she became a superior court judge; he’d gone to her for warrants as a last resort-after all, she came from a public defender’s background, which in Patrick’s mind meant that even if she now was scrupulously fair, she still had once played for the other side.

“Your Honor,” he said. “I didn’t realize Josie was your daughter.” He approached the bed. “How are you doing?”

Josie stared at him. “Do I know you?”

“I’m the one who carried you out-” He stopped as the judge put her hand on his arm and drew him out of Josie’s range of hearing.

“She doesn’t remember anything that happened,” the judge whispered. “She thinks for some reason that she was in a car accident…and I…” Her voice trailed off. “I haven’t been able to tell her the truth.”

Patrick understood-when you loved someone, you didn’t want to be the one who brought their world crashing down. “Would you like me to do it?”

The judge hesitated, and then nodded gratefully. Patrick faced Josie again. “You all right?”

“My head hurts. The doctors said I have a concussion and have to stay overnight.” She looked up at him. “I guess I ought to thank you for rescuing me.” Suddenly, a flicker of intention crossed her face. “Do you know what happened to Matt? The guy who was in the car with me?”

Patrick sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. “Josie,” he said gently, “you weren’t in a car accident. There was an incident at your school-a student came in and started shooting people.”

Josie shook her head, trying to dislodge the words.

“Matt was one of the victims.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Is he okay?”

Patrick looked down at the soft waffle weave of the blanket between them. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Josie said. “No. You’re lying to me.” She struck out at Patrick, clipping him across the face and chest. The judge rushed forward, trying to hold her daughter back, but Josie was wild-shrieking, crying, clawing, drawing the attention of the nursing staff down the hall. Two of them flew into the room on white wings, shooing out Patrick and Judge Cormier, while they administered a sedative to Josie.

In the hallway, Patrick leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Jesus Christ. Was this what he’d have to put every one of his witnesses through? He was about to apologize to the judge for upsetting Josie when she turned on him just like her daughter had. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, telling her about Matt!”

“You asked me to,” Patrick bristled.

“To tell her about the school,” the judge qualified. “Not to tell her her boyfriend’s dead!”

“You know damn well Josie would have found out sooner or-”

“Later,” the judge interrupted. “Much later.”

The nurses appeared in the doorway. “She’s sleeping now,” one of them whispered. “We’ll be back in to check on her.”

They both waited until the nurses were out of hearing range. “Look,” Patrick said tightly. “Today I saw kids who’d been shot in the head, kids who will never walk again, kids who died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your daughter…she’s in shock…but she’s one of the lucky ones.”

His words hit her, a solid slap. For just a moment, when Patrick looked at the judge, she no longer seemed furious. Her gray eyes were heavy with all the scenarios that, thankfully, had not come to pass; her mouth softened with relief. And then, just as suddenly, her features smoothed, impassive. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this. It’s just…been a really awful day.”

Patrick tried, but he could see no trace left of the emotion that had, for a moment, broken her. Seamless. That’s what she was.

“I know you were only trying to do your job,” the judge said.

“I would like to talk to Josie…but that’s not why I came. I’m here because she was the first one…well, I just needed to know she was all right.” He offered Judge Cormier the smallest of smiles, the kind that can start a heart to breaking. “Take care of her,” Patrick said, and then he turned and walked down the hall, aware of the heat of her gaze on his back, and how much it felt like the touch of a hand.

Twelve Years Before

O n his first day of kindergarten, Peter Houghton woke up at 4:32 a.m. He padded into his parents’ room and asked if it was time yet to take the school bus. For as long as he could remember, he’d watched his brother Joey get on the bus, and it was a mystery of dynamic proportion: the way the sun bounced off its snub yellow nose, the door that hinged like the jaw of a dragon, the dramatic sigh when it came to a stop. Peter had a Matchbox car that looked just like the bus Joey rode on twice a day-the same bus that now he was going to get to ride on, too.

His mother told him to go back to sleep until it was morning, but he couldn’t. Instead, he got dressed in the special clothes his mother had bought for his first day of school and he lay back down in bed to wait. He was the first one downstairs for breakfast, and his mother made chocolate chip pancakes-his favorite. She kissed him on the cheek and took a picture of him sitting at the breakfast table, and then another one when he was dressed in his coat and had his empty knapsack on his back, like the shell of a turtle. “I can’t believe my baby is going to school,” his mother said.

Joey, who was in first grade this year, told him to stop acting stupid. “It’s just school,” he said. “Big deal.”

Peter’s mother finished buttoning his coat. “It was a big deal to you once, too,” she said. Then she told Peter she had a surprise for him. She went into the kitchen and reappeared with a Superman lunch box. Superman was reaching forward, as if he were trying to break out of the metal. His whole body stuck out from the background the tiniest bit, like the letters on books blind people read. Peter liked thinking that even if he couldn’t see, he would be able to tell that this was his lunch box. He took it from his mother and hugged her. He heard the thud of a piece of fruit rolling, the crinkle of wax paper, and he imagined the insides of his lunch, like mysterious organs.

They waited at the end of the driveway, and just as Peter had dreamed over and over, the yellow bus rose over the crest of the hill. “One more!” his mother called, and she took a picture of Peter with the bus groaning to a stop behind him. “Joey,” she instructed, “take care of your brother.” Then she kissed Peter on the forehead. “My big boy,” she said, and her mouth pinched tight, the way it did when she was trying not to cry.

Suddenly Peter felt his stomach turn to ice. What if kindergarten was not as great as he’d imagined? What if his teacher looked like the witch on that TV program that gave him nightmares sometimes? What if he forgot which direction the letter E went and everyone made fun of him?

With hesitation, he climbed the steps of the school bus. The driver wore an army jacket and had two teeth missing in the front. “There’s seats in back,” he said, and Peter headed down the aisle, looking for Joey.

His brother was sitting next to a boy Peter didn’t know. Joey glanced at him as he walked by, but didn’t say anything.

“Peter!”

He turned and saw Josie patting the empty seat next to her. She had her dark hair in pigtails and was wearing a skirt, even though she hated skirts. “I saved it for you,” Josie said.

He sat down next to her, feeling better already. He was riding inside a bus. And he was sitting next to his best friend in the whole world. “Cool lunch box,” Josie said.

He held it up, to show her the way that you could make Superman look like he was moving if you wiggled it, and just then a hand reached across the aisle. A boy with ape arms and a backward baseball cap grabbed the lunch box out of Peter’s grasp. “Hey, freak,” he said, “you want to see Superman fly?”

Before Peter understood what the older boy was doing, he opened a window and hurled Peter’s lunch box out of it. Peter stood up, craning his neck around to see out the rear emergency door. His lunch box burst open on the asphalt. His apple rolled across the dotted yellow line of the road and vanished beneath the tire of an oncoming car.