Nineteen Minutes (67 page)

“Can you tell us why you felt you had to resort to violence?”

Jordan had told Peter that whatever he did, he could not get angry. That he had to stay calm and collected while he spoke, or his testimony would backfire on him-even more than Jordan already expected. “I tried to do what my mom wanted me to do,” Peter explained. “I tried to be like them, but that didn’t work out.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I tried out for soccer, but never got any time on the field. Once, I helped some kids play a practical joke on a teacher by moving his car from the parking lot into the gym…. I got detention, but the other kids didn’t, because they were on the basketball team and had a game on Saturday.”

“But, Peter,” Jordan said, “why this?”

Peter wet his lips. “It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

“Did you plan to kill all those people?”

They had rehearsed this in the holding cell. All Peter had to say was what he’d said before, when Jordan had coached him. No. No I didn’t.

Peter looked down at his hands. “When I did it in the game,” he said quietly, “I won.”

Jordan froze. Peter had broken from the script, and now Jordan couldn’t find his line. He only knew that the curtain was going to close before he finished. Scrambling, he replayed Peter’s response in his mind: it wasn’t all bad. It made him sound depressed, like a loner.

You can salvage this, Jordan thought to himself.

He walked up to Peter, trying desperately to communicate that he needed focus here; he needed Peter to play along with him. He needed to show the jury that this boy had chosen to stand before them in order to show remorse. “Do you understand now that there weren’t any winners that day, Peter?”

Jordan saw something shine in Peter’s eyes. A tiny flame, one that had been rekindled-optimism. Jordan had done his job too well: after five months of telling Peter that he could get him acquitted, that he had a strategy, that he knew what he was doing…Peter, goddammit, had picked this moment to finally believe him.

“The game’s not over yet, right?” Peter said, and he smiled hopefully at Jordan.

As two of the jurors turned away, Jordan fought for composure. He walked back to the defense table, cursing under his breath. This had always been Peter’s downfall, hadn’t it? He had no idea what he looked like or sounded like to the ordinary observer, the person who didn’t know that Peter wasn’t actively trying to sound like a homicidal killer, but instead trying to share a private joke with one of his only friends.

“Mr. McAfee,” the judge said. “Do you have any further questions?”

He had a thousand: How could you do this to me? How could you do this to yourself? How can I make this jury understand that you didn’t mean that the way it sounded? He shook his head, puzzling through his course of action, and the judge took that for an answer.

“Ms. Leven?” he said.

Jordan’s head snapped up. Wait, he wanted to say. Wait, I was still thinking. He held his breath. If Diana asked Peter anything-even what his middle name was-then he’d have a chance to redirect. And surely, then, he could leave the jury with a different impression of Peter.

Diana riffled through the notes she’d been taking, and then she turned them facedown on the table. “The state has no questions, Your Honor,” she said.

Judge Wagner summoned a bailiff. “Take Mr. Houghton back to his seat. We’ll adjourn court for the weekend.”

As soon as the jury was dismissed, the courtroom erupted in a roar of questions. Reporters swam up the stream of onlookers toward the bar, hoping to corral Jordan for a quote. He grabbed his briefcase and hurried out the back door, the one through which the bailiffs were taking Peter.

“Hold it,” he called out. He jogged closer to the men, who stood with Peter between them, his hands cuffed. “I have to talk to my client about Monday.”

The bailiffs looked at each other, and then at Jordan. “Two minutes,” they said, but they didn’t step away. If Jordan wanted to talk to Peter, this was the only circumstance in which he was going to do it.

Peter’s face was flushed, beaming. “Did I do a good job?”

Jordan hesitated, fishing for a string of words. “Did you say what you wanted to say?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you did a really good job,” Jordan said.

He stood in the hallway and watched the bailiffs lead Peter away. Just before he turned the corner, Peter lifted his conjoined hands, a wave. Jordan nodded, his hands in his pockets.

He slipped out of the jail through a rear door and walked past three media vans with satellite dishes perched on the top like enormous white birds. Through the back window of each van, Jordan could see the producers editing video for the evening news. His face was on every television monitor.

He passed the last van and heard, through the open window, Peter’s voice. The game’s not over yet.

Jordan hiked his briefcase over his shoulder and walked a little faster. “Oh, yes it is,” he said.

Selena had made her husband what he referred to as the Executioner’s Meal, the same thing she served him each night before a closing argument: roast goose, as in, Your goose is cooked. With Sam already in bed, she slipped a plate in front of Jordan and then sat down across from him. “I don’t even really know what to say,” she admitted.

Jordan pushed the food away. “I’m not ready for this yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t end the case with that.”

“Baby,” Selena pointed out, “after today, you couldn’t save this case with an entire squad of firefighters.”

“I can’t just give up. I told Peter he had a chance.” He turned his anguished face up to Selena’s. “I was the one who let him get up on the stand, even though I knew better. There’s got to be something I can do…something I can say so that Peter’s testimony isn’t the last one the jury’s left with.”

Selena sighed and reached for the dinner plate. She took Jordan’s knife and fork and cut herself a piece, dipped it in cherry sauce. “This is some damn fine goose, Jordan,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“The witness list,” Jordan said, standing up and rummaging through a stack of papers on the other end of the dining room table. “There’s got to be someone we haven’t called who can help us.” He scanned the names. “Who’s Louise Herrman?”

“Peter’s third-grade teacher,” Selena said, her mouth full.

“Why the hell is she on the witness list?”

“She called us,” Selena said. “She told us that if we needed her, she’d be willing to testify that he was a good boy in third grade.”

“Well, that’s not going to work. I need someone recent.” He sighed. “There’s nobody else here…” Flipping to the second page, he saw a single, final name typed. “Except Josie Cormier,” Jordan said slowly.

Selena put down her fork. “You’re calling Alex’s daughter?”

“Since when do you call Judge Cormier Alex?”

“The girl doesn’t remember anything.”

“Well, I’m completely screwed. Maybe she remembers something now. Let’s bring her in and see if she’ll talk.”

Selena sifted through the piles of papers that covered the serving table, the fireplace mantel, the top of Sam’s walker. “Here’s her statement,” she said, handing it to Jordan.

The first page was the affidavit that Judge Cormier had brought him-the one that said Jordan wouldn’t put Josie on the stand because she didn’t know anything. The second was the most recent interview the girl had given to Patrick Ducharme. “They’ve been friends since kindergarten.”

“Were friends.”

“I don’t care. Diana’s already laid the groundwork here-Peter had a crush on Josie; he killed her boyfriend. If we can get her to say something nice about him-maybe even to show that she forgives him-it will carry weight with the jury.” He stood up. “I’m going back to the courthouse,” he said. “I need a subpoena.”

When the doorbell rang on Saturday morning, Josie was still in her pajamas. She’d slept like the dead, which wasn’t surprising, because she hadn’t managed to sleep well all week. Her dreams were full of highways that carried only wheelchairs; of combination locks with no numbers; of beauty queens without faces.

She was the only person left sitting in the sequestered witness room, which meant that this was nearly over; that soon, she’d be able to breathe again.

Josie opened the door to find the tall, stunning African-American woman who was married to Jordan McAfee smiling at her, holding out a piece of paper. “I need to give you this, Josie,” she said. “Is your mom home?”

Josie took the folded blue note. Maybe it was like a cast party for the end of the trial. That would be kind of cool. She called for her mother over her shoulder. Alex appeared with Patrick trailing behind.

“Oh,” Selena said, blinking.

Unflappable, her mother folded her arms. “What’s going on?”

“Judge, I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but my husband was wondering if Josie might be free to speak to him today.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s subpoenaed Josie to testify on Monday.”

The room started to spin. “Testify?” Josie repeated.

Her mother stepped forward, and from the look on her face, she probably would have done serious damage if Patrick hadn’t wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her back. He plucked the blue paper out of Josie’s hand and scanned it.

“I can’t go to court,” Josie murmured.

Her mother shook her head. “You have a signed affidavit from Josie stating that she doesn’t remember anything-”

“I know you’re upset. But the reality is, Jordan’s calling Josie on Monday, and we’d rather talk to her about her testimony beforehand than have her come in cold. It’s better for us, and it’s better for Josie.” She hesitated. “You can do it the hard way, Judge, or you can do it this way.”

Josie’s mother clenched her jaw. “Two o’clock,” she gritted out, and she slammed the door in Selena’s face.

“You promised,” Josie cried. “You promised me I didn’t have to get up there and testify. You said I wouldn’t have to do this!”

Her mother grabbed her by the shoulders. “Honey, I know this is scary. I know you don’t want to be there. But nothing you say is going to help him. It’s going to be very short and painless.” She glanced at Patrick. “Why the hell is he doing this?”

“Because his case is in the toilet,” Patrick said. “He wants Josie to save it.”

That was all it took: Josie burst into tears.

Jordan opened the door of his office, carrying Sam like a football in his arms. It was two o’clock on the dot, and Josie Cormier and her mother had arrived. Judge Cormier looked about as inviting as a sheer cliff wall; by contrast, her daughter was shaking like a leaf. “Thanks for coming,” he said, pasting an enormous, friendly smile on his face. Above all else, he wanted Josie to feel at ease.

Neither of the women said a word.

“I’m sorry about this,” Jordan said, gesturing toward Sam. “My wife was supposed to be here by now to get the baby so that we could talk, but a logging truck overturned on Route 10.” He stretched his smile wider. “It should only be a minute.”

He gestured toward the couch and chairs in his office, offering a seat. There were cookies on the table, and a pitcher of water. “Please have something to eat, or drink.”

“No,” the judge said.

Jordan sat down, bouncing the baby on his knee. “Right.”

He stared at the clock, amazed at how very long sixty seconds could be when you wanted them to pass quickly, and then suddenly the door flew open and Selena ran inside. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, flustered, reaching for the baby. As she did, the diaper bag fell off her shoulder, skittering across the floor to land in front of Josie.

Josie stood up, staring at Selena’s fallen backpack. She backed away, stumbling over her mother’s legs and the side of the couch. “No,” she whimpered, and she curled into a ball in the corner, covering her head with her hands as she started to cry. The noise set Sam off shrieking, and Selena pressed him up against her shoulder as Jordan watched, speechless.

Judge Cormier crouched beside her daughter. “Josie, what’s the matter. Josie? What’s going on?”

The girl rocked back and forth, sobbing. She glanced up at her mother. “I remember,” she whispered. “More than I said I did.”

The judge’s mouth dropped open, and Jordan used her shock to seize the moment. “What do you remember?” he asked, kneeling beside Josie.

Judge Cormier pushed him out of the way and helped Josie to her feet. She sat her down on the couch and poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. “It’s okay,” the judge murmured.

Josie took a shuddering breath. “The backpack,” she said, jerking her chin toward the one on the floor. “It fell off Peter’s shoulder, like that one did. The zipper was open, and…and a gun fell out. Matt grabbed it.” Her face contorted. “He fired at Peter, but he missed. And Peter…and he…” She closed her eyes. “That’s when Peter shot him.”

Jordan caught Selena’s eye. Peter’s defense hinged on PTSD-how one event might trigger another; how a person who was traumatized might be unable to recall anything about the event at all. How someone like Josie might watch a diaper bag fall and instead see what had happened in the locker room months earlier: Peter, with a gun pointing at him-a real and present threat, a bully about to kill him.

Or, in other words, what Jordan had been saying all along.

“It’s a mess,” Jordan said to Selena after the Cormiers had gone home. “And that works for me.”

Selena hadn’t left with the baby; Sam was now asleep in an empty filing cabinet drawer. She and Jordan sat at the table where, less than an hour ago, Josie had confessed that she’d recently started to remember bits and pieces of the shooting but hadn’t told anyone, out of fear of having to go to court and talk about it. That when the diaper bag had fallen, it had all come flooding back, full-force.

“If I’d found this out before the trial started, I would have taken it to Diana and used it tactically,” Jordan said. “But since the jury’s already sitting, maybe I can do something even better.”

“Nothing like an eleventh-hour Hail Mary pass,” Selena said.

“Let’s assume we put Josie on the stand to say all this in court. All of a sudden, those ten deaths aren’t what they seemed to be. No one knew the real story behind this one, and that calls into question everything else the prosecution’s told the jury about the shootings. In other words, if the state didn’t know this, what else don’t they know?”