Salem Falls Part 13

The schedules of students at Wes...o...b..ook had been computerized two years ago, thanks to the diligence of an intern who happened to be a technical whiz. It took Jack less than ten minutes to find Catherine Marsh's whereabouts. Within an hour, he was standing behind a large oak at the edge of the campus, watching as girls pa.s.sed by in small cl.u.s.ters, bright b.u.t.terflies lighting from conversation to conversation.

Catherine was walking alone, the first stroke of luck since this whole debacle had begun. Sweat broke out on his brow as he willed her to come closer. The sun glinted off the bra.s.s clutch of her knapsack, momentarily blinding him.

He reached out to grab her upper arm. Pressing her up against the tree, his hand clapped over her mouth. Catherine's eyes went wide with fear, then suddenly softened. He let go of her. "Coach," she said, smiling, as if she had not overturned the whole bowl of his life.

He swallowed, reaching for reason, but it was the anger that finally pushed one sentence through, rough and rusty as a spike. "Catherine," Jack hissed, "what the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l did you do?" did you do?"

She had never seen him angry before. Well, maybe once or twice, but that usually had to do with a player whose mind was on some stupid guy instead of practice. The bite of his fingers into the bones of her shoulders scared her with one heartbeat, then thrilled her the next. He came here for me, He came here for me, she thought. she thought.

Suddenly, he got himself under control again. "What did you tell them?"

In that moment, her feelings were a featherbed, downy and inviting. Catherine took a deep breath and jumped. "That I love you."

"You love love me," he repeated, the words sounding all wrong on the twist of his mouth. "Catherine, you don't love me." me," he repeated, the words sounding all wrong on the twist of his mouth. "Catherine, you don't love me."

"I do. And I know you love me, too."

"Anything I've ever said to you or done with you I would have said or done with any student," Coach said. "Catherine, you've got to stop lying to them. Don't you see I could end up in jail?"

For a moment, Catherine's heart stopped beating. And then she realized this was a test. A way of safeguarding his heart, until her own was laid bare. She smiled tremulously. "You don't have to hide the truth anymore."

"The truth?"

"You know ... how we're going to be together."

His eyes flashed. "Before or after I'm tried for a felony?"

"Oh, Jack," Catherine whispered, and she reached out to him.

He recoiled, unwilling to touch her, unwilling to be touched by her. And this, finally, gave Catherine pause. Even as she called to him, he continued to back away with his palms raised, as if he was no longer seeing a pretty young girl but a poisonous snake that might strike when he least expected.

"Of course she's skittish," the prosecutor said gently to Reverend Marsh. Loretta Winwood folded her hands on her desk, patient. "If she wasn't reluctant to testify, I'd be concerned about her motivations. But it's common to have underage witnesses balk. In fact, a hesitant witness on the stand is a powerful piece of evidence in a statutory rape case."

"But you heard her! She says she made the whole thing up."

Loretta gave the man a moment to compose himself. Poor guy, to find out just a few days ago that his daughter had been carrying on an affair with a teacher and then today to have her recant in a puddle at his feet. It was at moments like this that she truly understood why attorneys were called counselors. "Reverend Marsh, do you believe her?"

"My daughter's a good Christian girl."

"Yes, but she's either lying about this s.e.xual affair ... or she's lying about lying about it."

Marsh pressed his fingers to his temples. "I don't know, Ms. Winwood."

"What reason would Catherine have to make up a story about a consensual s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p that doesn't exist?"

"None."

"All right. Now, let's a.s.sume that she has been involved in a relations.h.i.+p with Dr. St. Bride, upsetting as that is to consider. What reason would Catherine have to suddenly retract everything she's confessed?"

Marsh closed his eyes. "To save him."

Loretta nodded. "One reason it's against the law to have intercourse with people under the age of sixteen is because minors are so susceptible to manipulation. What your daughter just told me-well, I see it a lot, Reverend Marsh. Unfortunately, these girls are are in love. And once they triumphantly tell the world and the object of their affection is carted off in cuffs, they suddenly wonder if that was such a good idea." in love. And once they triumphantly tell the world and the object of their affection is carted off in cuffs, they suddenly wonder if that was such a good idea."

"Can ... can you force her to be a witness?"

"I can force her to sit on the stand, but if she won't testify, she won't testify. That's why so many of these cases never make it to trial." She closed the file in front of her. "If Catherine tells the jury this affair existed only in her imagination, I can't impeach her with her prior statements to the contrary. We have some incriminating evidence ... but nothing as strong as Catherine's testimony. And I'm sorry to say that means Jack St. Bride will most likely be acquitted-and will most likely seduce another underage girl in the future."

Marsh's face mottled pink. "He'll burn in h.e.l.l one day."

This was a gray area in the law. If Catherine had been lying today about never having s.e.x with St. Bride, it wasn't really exculpatory evidence ... which meant her confession didn't have to be turned over to the defense ... which meant that Melton Sprigg would not know that Catherine was unwilling to testify against his client. "h.e.l.l would be fine," Loretta said. "But there might be something a little more immediate."

"A plea bargain?" Jack said. "Doesn't that mean they're running scared?"

The attorney shook his head. "Most cases that go to court ... well, ten percent are sure wins for the county attorney, and ten percent are sure losses. But the bulk of the cases-eighty percent-fall smack in the middle. Prosecutors offer pleas all the time, because they ensure a conviction."

"So what am I, Melton? The ten percent that wins or the ten percent that loses?"

"With you, the odds are more like five percent on either side, ninety in the middle. Rape trials, Jack ... a lot of the time, it comes down to one person's word against another's. Conviction or acquittal could hang on whether the jury had a good breakfast that day."

"I'm not taking a plea," Jack said. "I won't admit to something I never did."

"Well, just hear me out, then, all right? Because my job description says I have to read it to you." Melton handed him the fax. "They're willing to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor s.e.xual a.s.sault. Eight months in jail, no probation. It's a good deal, Jack."

"It's a good deal for someone who's G.o.dd.a.m.ned guilty!" Jack cried. "I never touched her, Melton. She's lying."

"Do you think you can convince twelve jurors of that? Do you really want to play that kind of Russian roulette?" He lifted Jack's mug and took his napkin from underneath it, then drew a line down the middle with his pen. At the top he wrote PRO PRO and and CON CON. "Let's look at what happens if you go to trial. Best-case scenario? You get acquitted. Worst-case scenario? You get convicted of a cla.s.s B felony. You get sent to the state penitentiary for seven years."

"I thought the sentence was three and a half years to seven."

"Only if you get paroled, Jack. And to get paroled, you'd have to complete the s.e.x offender treatment program there."

Jack shrugged. "How hard could that be?"

"You're not going to make it through day one unless you're very forthcoming about every aspect of your s.e.x offense. Which means you have to walk in there and tell them you have a thing for little girls."

"That's bulls.h.i.+t," Jack said.

"Not if you're convicted. In the mind of the parole board, you've committed that offense. Period. And you don't get paroled until you're amenable to treatment."

Jack dug his thumbnail into a scar on the table. "The plea," he managed to say. "What's the pro?"

"First, you're serving eight months, period. If you spend every second screaming you're innocent, they're still going to release you after eight months. Second, you're serving time at the county jail, the Farm. You're outside, working. It's a whole different ball of wax from the State Pen. You finish your sentence and you go on with your life."

"I'd still have a conviction on my record."

"A misdemeanor," Melton pointed out. "You can get it annulled after ten years, like it never existed. A felony s.e.xual a.s.sault charge-well, that's with you for life."

To his horror, Jack felt tears climbing the ladder of his throat. "Eight months. That's a h.e.l.l of a long time."

"It's a lot less than seven years." When Jack looked away, the lawyer sighed. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you were the one who got his hand slapped."

Jack turned to him. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Eight months," Melton said in response. "You'd be out before you know it."

The courtroom was claustrophobic. The walls were swaying in on Jack, and the air he drew in through his teeth sat like a block at the base of his stomach. He stood beside Melton Sprigg, his gaze square on Judge Ralph Greenlaw, a man whose daughter had been a goalie for Jack three years earlier. A nonpartisan trial? Not a chance. Every time the man met his eye, he could see him thinking of what might have happened if his own child instead of Catherine Marsh were sitting behind the prosecutor.

The judge scanned the plea bargain, that wisp of paper that had Jack's signature on it, just as sure as if he'd scrawled away his soul in blood. "Did you read this form before you signed it?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Has any pressure, force, or promise been made to you in an effort to get you to plead guilty to this offense?"

Jack thought of the c.o.c.ktail napkin, the pro and con list, that Melton had drawn up. He had saved it after their meeting. The next day, he'd flushed it down the toilet. "No."

"Do you understand the rights that you are giving up by pleading guilty and not going to trial?"

Yes, Jack thought. Jack thought. The right to live my life the way I always imagined it would be. The right to live my life the way I always imagined it would be. "I do," he said. "I do," he said.

"Do you understand that you're ent.i.tled to a lawyer?"

"Do you understand that you're ent.i.tled to a jury trial?"

"Do you understand that the jurors' vote would have to be unanimous in order to find you guilty?"

"Has any evidence obtained illegally against you been used to secure this conviction?"

He felt Melton hold his breath as the judge asked the next question. "Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?"

Jack could not force a syllable from his throat.

Catherine couldn't stand any of it-the weight of her father's solid body pressed against hers, the stoic resignation of Jack sitting beside his attorney, the truth that she was the one who had set this cart in motion. And even after she'd tried to fix it, it had been too late. No matter how many times she insisted she'd made this all up, they didn't want to hear. The prosecutor and her father and the psychiatrist he'd dragged her to for counseling all told her that it was perfectly normal for her to want to keep Jack out of jail but that he deserved to be punished for what he had done.

Me, Catherine thought. I deserve to be punished I deserve to be punished.

She wished with all her heart that this had happened differently, but she had learned that words were like eggs dropped from great heights: You could no more call them back than ignore the mess they left when they fell.

She felt herself coming out of her seat, as if she'd swallowed helium. "Don't do this to him!" she cried.

"Sit down, Catherine." Her father clamped an arm around her. The prosecutor and the judge didn't stop the proceedings. It was like they'd expected her to say this.

The judge nodded at the bailiff. "Please remove Ms. Marsh from the courtroom," he said, and suddenly a burly man was gently leading her outside, where she wouldn't have to bear witness to her own folly.

It was as if Catherine had never spoken. "Mr. St. Bride," the judge repeated, "do you admit that you knowingly had s.e.xual contact with Catherine Marsh for the purpose of s.e.xual arousal or gratification?"

Jack could feel the Reverend Marsh's eyes on the back of his neck. He opened his mouth in denial, only to choke on words that had been lodged in the pit of his belly, fed to him by his own attorney: You finish your sentence, and then you go on with your life. You finish your sentence, and then you go on with your life.

Jack gagged until his eyes teared, until Melton pounded him on the back and asked for a moment so that his client could compose himself. He coughed and hemmed and hawed, but something still seemed to be caught, irritating as a bone. "Try this," Melton whispered, pa.s.sing Jack a gla.s.s of water, but he only shook his head. He could drink an ocean and never dissolve the pride that was stuck in his throat.

"Mr. St. Bride," the judge said, "do you admit to committing this offense?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Jack answered, in a voice that was still not his own. "I do."

Late April 2000 Salem Falls, New Hamps.h.i.+re Selena Damascus kicked the tire of her Jaguar so hard that pain shot up her leg. "G.o.dd.a.m.n," she yelled, so loudly that both Jordan and the mechanic jumped.

"Feel better?" Jordan asked, leaning against a tool chest.

"Shut up. Just shut up. Do you know how much money I put into that car?" Selena thundered. "Do you?"

"Every lousy red cent I ever paid you."

She turned on the mechanic. "I could buy a Geo for the price you just quoted."

The man looked distinctly uncomfortable, but Jordan understood. Selena was formidable when she was in a good mood. In a temper, she was downright terrifying. "Um, there's something else," the mechanic muttered.

"Let me guess," Selena said. "You don't have someone qualified to service Jags."

"No, I can do that. But it's gonna take a week or so to get the part." A telephone rang in the service station, and the mechanic excused himself. "You make up your mind. This car ain't going nowhere anyhow."

Selena turned to Jordan. "This isn't happening to me. I'm just going to turn my life back twenty-four hours and when your son calls, I'm gonna let the phone keep on ringing." She shook her head. "You know this guy has a monopoly going on in this town."

"Yes. The ant.i.trust commission swung by last September to investigate."

"Zip it, will you, Jordan?"

"You could get it towed," he suggested. "You could rent a car."

Selena shrugged, considering this.

"Or you could just stay with us for a while," Jordan said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he wondered where they had come from. The last thing he wanted was Selena Damascus around, reminding him of what might have worked out in a different time and place.

"You can barely stand to look at me. G.o.d, Jordan, you took your cereal bowl into your bedroom this morning to keep us from having to eat breakfast together."

He looked away.

"Not to mention all that ... history ... between us."

She was asking him, Jordan realized, not telling him. He was very quiet for a moment, remembering how he had stayed up all night waiting to hear the tumblers in the lock announcing her return with Thomas, how he'd sat on the couch after putting away her blankets this morning and realized the scent of her was now a part of it, as much as its color and weave.

"If I stayed, we'd just be asking for trouble," Selena said.

"It would be a stupid move," Jordan agreed.

"Stupid?" she snorted. "It would be one of the ten biggest mistakes in the history of the world."