Superposition

^{CHAPTER 28}

Waiting for a jury to come back with a verdict is the worst sort of torture. The seconds drag by, and there are too many of them in each minute. Sometimes, when I looked at the clock, I could have sworn it went backward. Not that the time really mattered. There was no deadline. The jury was free to take all week to make a decision if it needed it.

Haviland’s final interrogation of me had been bloody and merciless. He dragged me through my story detail by detail, making me repeat it again and again, until it sounded as hollow and ludicrous as a fairy tale. Along the way, he asked me if I believed in gnomes, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster, or if I’d ever been abducted by aliens, each time shrugging as if, given my tale, these were reasonable points to establish. Terry stared stonily ahead, giving no indication that he noticed the beating we were taking.

When the bloodbath was finally over, the lawyers delivered their closing arguments. Terry made a valiant effort, reminding the jury that the only physical evidence the prosecution had against me showed that I had been at the scene, which I had freely admitted. It didn’t prove that I had pulled the trigger. There were no witnesses that placed me at the scene at the actual time Brian had been killed. The prosecution had provided no motive for me to commit such a crime, beyond their contention that I was a violent man. He didn’t push the science, except to claim that significant evidence had been brought to bear to demonstrate the plausibility of an alternate theory. Roswell frowned a bit at that and seemed about to interrupt, but she let it slide. He ended by reminding the jury that they didn’t need to believe the alternate theory entirely, only be able to see that things could have happened in more than one way, and thus that my guilt had not been proven.

Haviland, on the other hand, was triumphant in his closing argument, almost gloating. He ridiculed my “pseudoscience,” even provoking a laugh from one juror. Then he grew solemn and sermonized on the ills of causing the death of another human being, the need for society to protect its own, and the responsibility of each juror to their fellow citizens. He summarized the evidence in rapid style, and he dismissed the attempts of the defense to spin a plausible alternative story as “fanciful” and “desperate.” He glossed over the idea of motive, and harped instead on the “reasonable doubt” theme of his opening, claiming that any reasonable person would have no doubt who had killed Brian Vanderhall.

When both lawyers had finished, Judge Roswell gave the jury their instructions. She ordered them severely to consider only the evidence, not the lawyer’s questions or statements “or anything else you might have seen.” Only what was officially entered in court record was to be considered.

“One final thing,” Judge Roswell said. “I’m afraid that I’m going to have to call for this jury to be sequestered until a verdict can be reached. If you reach a verdict this evening, you will not be further inconvenienced. If not, however, you will not be able to return to your homes until the case is decided. Meals and lodging will be provided to you.”

The announcement was met with groans and traded looks by the jurors, and I was struck again by how insignificant this case was in the lives of these men and women. Even if they were conscientious people—and I had no reason to doubt it—this would all be over for them in a day or two. They would return home to their families and their lives and, after regaling their friends with tales of their murder trial for a week or so, forget all about it. They probably cared more about whether their court-provided hotel room would have HBO than they did about the ultimate outcome of the case. Perhaps I was being too cynical, but from where I sat, I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about the legal system.

Roswell fixed them with her evil eye, no doubt picking up on the same reactions. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do not allow your desire to go home prevent you from giving this case your full efforts. A man’s life hangs in the balance. Should you keep a dissenting opinion to yourself, and not speak up against the ideas of your fellow jurors, you may be punishing an innocent man, or allowing a guilty one to go free. Our system of justice entrusts you with this responsibility, believing that you will treat the determination of this man’s guilt or innocence with the same gravity as you would if it were your own.”

With that, the jury stood, faces unreadable, and filed out of the room. I sat in the same chair I had warmed for most of this interminable week, waiting. There was a lot of dead time in a trial, so I had already spent a great deal of time waiting in this room—waiting for the jurors to arrive, waiting for the lawyers to finish a sidebar with the judge, waiting for any of a hundred secret rituals the judge performed in hushed voices with her aides, the court recorder, the court officers, the bailiff, and any of the other unidentified people who went in and out, disrupting the flow of the trial. I had studied at length the room’s elegant crown molding, its bland oil paintings, its massive chandeliers. There was nothing left to distract me from a bitter reflection on my situation.

Someone else was living my life. That the someone else was technically me didn’t help very much. He was running around free, going where he pleased, hanging out with my friends, eating at restaurants, and spending time with my daughter, while I returned to my jail cell each night and would probably be convicted of murder. The prospect of our waveform collapsing didn’t provide much encouragement: the more like him the final Jacob turned out to be, the more I would cease to exist. The more like me the final Jacob turned out to be, the more likely it was that I would spend the rest of my life in jail. I was helpless, while the man who was living my life investigated things without me. What if he discovered a way to force the waveform collapse and choose which way it resolved? I could hardly fault him for making the obvious choice.

It was strange how I had begun to use the third person to describe my other self. Jacob was me in principle, but it felt less and less like that was true the more our experiences diverged. We had both been the same person the day Brian died, but were we anymore? It was hard to say.

And still the jury didn’t return. Every time someone coughed or a door opened or closed, my stomach muscles clenched in a jolt of panic, thinking that the jury was back. The waiting was agony. I asked to use the restroom, though I really didn’t need to, simply to get up and move around.

The bailiff took me to a special restroom separate from the ones open to the public. Sitting alone in the stall, looking up at the narrow, barred window, I thought about suicide. I wasn’t even sure how I would do it—a shoelace around the light fixture? A piece of broken glass to the wrists? I wouldn’t technically be dead, if I did it—Jacob Kelley would still be alive. Eventually, only one of us could live anyway, and it seemed better that it be him. I didn’t think I could really do it, though, at least not using the brutal and chancy means available. These were just the idle reflections of a man feeling cheated by life.

Fifteen minutes after I shuffled back into the courtroom, the jury finally reappeared. They were welcomed by the scrape of shifting chairs and the rustle of papers as the courtroom came alive again. The jurors’ faces were somber, giving no hint of the verdict. They filed in awkwardly and a few glanced down at their chairs, as if uncertain whether they were supposed to sit. Finally, after a few false starts, they all sat down.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do you have a verdict?” Judge Roswell asked.

The chairwoman stood. “No, Your Honor.” She looked embarrassed. “We didn’t have enough time to talk through everything, but the officer said we had to come back in now.”

I glanced at the time. It was five after eight.

Roswell didn’t look surprised at the lack of verdict. I guessed she had ousted them because it was past closing time, and her question had been mere formality. “Do you feel that with more time you will be able to reach a verdict?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” There was no hesitation, so I figured the group must have been asked the question already, and were just now repeating it for the record.

“Very well,” Roswell said. “Court will reconvene tomorrow at eight o’clock, and your deliberations can continue at that time. The court officers will direct you to your hotel and answer any questions you might have.”

“How can we get our clothes for tomorrow?” one juror blurted out.

“You will be able to call for a family member or friend to bring you what you need. If that is not possible, considerations will be made. Please direct any further questions to the court officers. Court is now adjourned.”

The packed gallery erupted in noise. Terry slid a thick sheaf of papers over to me. “In case you want to review the relevant case citations,” he said.

I gave him a strange look.

“Your double asked me to give this to you,” he said. “He said you should read it carefully.”

I nodded and tucked the papers under my arm. I stood quietly, looked at no one, and allowed the bailiff to lead me out.

I had only been in my cell for five minutes when a guard told me I had a visitor. I had just seen Terry, so it could only be the other Jacob, come to apologize or commiserate. I really didn’t feel up to seeing another reminder of the life I wasn’t living.

“Tell him I don’t want to see him,” I said.

This was enough to prompt a raised eyebrow from the bored guard. “You’re refusing your visitor?” He didn’t care one way or another, but most inmates would go see anyone at all, even a cop, just to get out of their cells and relieve the boredom. I considered the alternative: another round of interminable waiting and bitter contemplation. “I ain’t waiting all day,” the guard said.

“Fine, I’ll see him,” I said.

“Move it, then.”

We walked back to the space-age meeting rooms, with their transparent walls and molded yellow chairs, where someone was waiting for me. It wasn’t Jacob. It was a uniformed cop, a big guy with a blond crew cut and red blotches on his pale skin. I recognized him as Officer Peyton, the man who had responded to Elena’s 911 call.

I dropped into a chair across from him. “You here to post my bail?” I asked sarcastically.

“No.”

“It’s only ten million dollars. A nice round number.”

“Mr. Kelley, I was at your trial.”

“Yes, I know. For the prosecution. You told the jury all about my motive for murder.”

The blotches on Peyton’s face grew more pronounced. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“I saw what happened in court today.” He said it quietly, almost whispering, as if he were having trouble getting the words out. “There were two of you, just like you said. I saw you both as clearly as I can see you now. Unless you have a secret twin brother that there was no record of, you must be telling the truth.”

“Imagine that.”

“If you’re telling the truth about that, then maybe you’re telling the truth about the rest, too. That there were two of your friend Vanderhall and you really did see him at your home at the same time that he was dead in the bunker.”

“So you believe me now,” I said.

“Some of it, anyway,” Peyton said.

“Fat lot of good that does me. Tomorrow is when they decide to put me away for life.”

Peyton shrugged. “Maybe they’ll find you innocent.”

“I can’t say how encouraged I am by your legal expertise,” I said.

“It could happen. They were talking a long time in there, and they didn’t decide yet. Maybe this whole thing will just blow away.”

I jumped to my feet, shaking. It had been weeks since I punched anything, and I was only barely restraining myself from knocking that soft, pale face of his inside out. “I found the dead bodies of my wife and daughter and son. Everyone I know thinks I’m a murderer.” I leaned over and shouted into his face. “This thing will not just blow away!”

The guard outside yanked open the soundproof door. “Everything all right in here?”

“We’re fine,” Peyton said. “We’re not done yet.”

The guard gave his stick a menacing wave in my direction. “Sit down,” he said. I threw myself back into the chair. The guard left.

“That day when I came to your house, I saw something,” Peyton said. “Something I never told anyone else about.” He hesitated. “I saw a ghost in your back yard.” He looked at me expectantly, but I just stared back at him. “Esposito and Ashford walked around the house first, and they didn’t see anything, but I took a look afterward. There was a ghost standing in the middle of your yard, no footprints anywhere around, just standing there surrounded by smooth, unbroken snow. And then it was gone.”

He waited again for a reaction, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.

“The ghost just disappeared,” Peyton went on. “But it was like turning more than disappearing, you know? Like going around a corner, but there was no corner there. Have you ever seen anything like that?” He sounded desperate for me to validate his experience, to confirm he wasn’t crazy.

“You didn’t think this was important to mention in your report?”

“No, of course not. What would I say, that I saw a ghost in your back yard? I wasn’t even certain I saw it.”

“Don’t give me that. You were certain. But in your testimony in court, you told the jury that your search turned up nothing, no evidence of any other person besides Elena and me who could have fired that gun. You lied to save yourself from ridicule. At my expense.”

“How would it have helped you if I admitted to seeing a ghost? They wouldn’t even have let me testify.”

“What you saw was what we have been calling a varcolac,” I said. “And maybe the prosecution wouldn’t have called you as a witness, but the defense might have. You want me to tell you that you aren’t crazy. Why weren’t you willing to return the favor?”

“Look, I was just doing my job. I came; I took your statements; I filled out my report. When it comes down to it, I don’t know that you didn’t shoot your friend. Or that your twin didn’t.”

“Neither of us did. I hadn’t been near the NJSC in years when Brian died. If he’d bothered to take my name off his lock when I stopped working there, the police never would have come looking for me. They would never have connected me to this crime at all.”

“That’s not true. They had a tip that put them on your trail before forensics ever deciphered the lock.”

“A tip? You mean somebody actually called the New Jersey State Police and gave them my name in connection with Brian’s murder?”

Peyton nodded. “McBride made it seem in the trial like it was his smart police work that made the connection between you and the weapon and the murder, but that wasn’t really the case. An anonymous caller made the connection, and then Media and New Jersey started talking and matched the gun with the bullets. It was only afterward that they connected your name with the lock, and it seemed pretty cut and dried from there. The evidence was fitting together.”

“Except that I didn’t do it.”

“The jury’s supposed to decide that. That’s how the system works. We just try to collect enough evidence to be confident enough to make an arrest.”

“And then you only testify in court to the parts that make me look bad.”

Peyton stood up. “I’m done here. I’m sorry I came. If you really didn’t kill him, I hope the jury finds you innocent.”

He stood and motioned at the guard to unlock the door. The guard came in, but just as Peyton was about to leave, I cleared my throat.

“Listen,” I said, “the man you saw: it wasn’t really a man. It was a different kind of being, a creature made up of quantum entanglement. If you ever see it again, just run.”

“Man? What man?”

“The ghost you saw in my back yard.”

“It wasn’t a man.”

“What? I thought you said—”

“The ghost I saw was a woman.”