Jodi Picoult - House Rules: A Novel

HOUSE

RULES

ALSO BY JODI PICOULT

Handle with Care

Change of Heart

Nineteen Minutes

The Tenth Circle

Vanishing Acts

My Sisters Keeper

Second Glance

Perfect Match

Salem Falls

Plain Truth

Keeping Faith

The Pact

Mercy

Picture Perfect

Harvesting the Heart

Songs of the Humpback Whale

HOUSE

RULES

A Novel

JODI PICOULT

ATRIA BOOKS

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Jodi Picoult

I Shot the Sheriff 1974 Fifty-Six Hope Road Music Ltd. and Odnil Music Ltd.

All rights administered by Blue Mountain Music Ltd. Copyright renewed.

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First Atria Books hardcover edition March 2010

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Designed by Jaime Putorti

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Picoult, Jodi, 1966

House rules : a novel / by Jodi Picoult.1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. Aspergers syndromeFiction. 2. Autistic youthFiction. 3. Forensic sciencesFiction. 4. MurderInvestigationFiction. I. Title.

PS3566.I372H68 2010

813.54dc22 2009026381

ISBN 978-0-7432-9643-4

eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-9931-2

For Nancy Friend Stuart (19492008)

and David Stuart

I have so many people to thank, as always:

My brilliant legal team: Jennifer Sternick and Lise Iwon; as well as Jennifer Sargent, Rory Malone, and Seth Lipschutz.

The CSIs who let me tag along: Cpl. Claire Demarais, Betty Martin, Beth Anne Zielinski, Jim Knoll, Lt. Dennis Pincince, Lt. Arthur Kershaw, Sgt. Richard Altimari, Lt.

John Blessing, Detective John Grassel, Ms. Robin Smith, Dr. Thomas Gilson, Dr. Peter Gillespie, Detective Patricia CornellProvidence Police, Ret. Trooper Robert HathawayConnecticut State Police, Ret. Lt. Ed DowningProvidence Police, Amy Duhaime, and Kim Freeland.

Katherine Yanis and her son Jacob, whose generous donation to Autism Speaks UK

inspired the name of my fictional Jacob.

Jim Taylor, who provided the computer lingo for Henry, and who keeps my website the best one Ive ever seen for an author.

Chief Nick Giaccone, for police procedure.

Julia Cooper, for her banking expertise.

My publishing team: Carolyn Reidy, Judith Curr, Kathleen Schmidt, Mellony Torres, Sarah Branham, Laura Stern, Gary Urda, Lisa Keim, Christine Duplessis, Michael Selleck, the sales force, and everyone else who somehow keeps finding readers who havent heard of me and bullying them into getting on the bandwagon.

My editor, Emily Bestler, who actually makes me forget that this is supposed to be work, and not fun.

My publicist, Camille McDuffie, who still gets just as excited as I do over the good press.

My agent, Laura Gross, who may lose belts and BlackBerries (and provides excellent comic relief during stressful tours) but who has never lost sight of the fact that we make a phenomenal team.

My mom. We dont get to pick our parents, but if we did, I still would have chosen her.

My dad. Because Ive never thanked him formally for being so proud of me.

I spoke with numerous people who have personal experience with Aspergers syndrome: Linda Zicko and her son Rich, Laura Bagnall and her son Alex Linden, Jan McAdams and her son Matthew, Deb Smith and her son Dylan, Mike Norbury and his son Chris, Kathleen Kirby and her son David, Kelly Meeder and her sons Brett and Derek, Catherine McMaster, Charlotte Scott and her son James, Dr. Boyd Haley, Lesley Dexter and her son Ethan, Sue Gerber and her daughter Liza, Nancy Albinini and her son Alec, Stella Chin and her son Scott Leung, Michelle Snail, Katie Lescarbeau, Stephanie Loo, Gina Crane and Bill Kolar and their son Anthony, Becky Pekar, Suzanne Harlow and her son Brad.

A special thanks to Ronna Hochbein, a mighty fine author in her own right, who works with autistic kids and not only was a font of information for me regarding vaccines and autism but also arranged for multiple face-to-face interviews with children and their parents.

Thanks arent really enough for Jess Watsky. She needs something much largergratitude, humility, slavish devotion. As a teen with Aspergers, she not only allowed me to pick through her life and her mind and steal specific memories and incidents for fiction; but she also read every word of this book with lightning speed, told me what made her laugh and what needed to be fixed. Shes the heart of this novel; I could not have created a character like Jacob without her.

And last (but never least): to Tim, Kyle, Jake, and Sammy. If you four were all I had to call my own, Id be the richest woman on the planet.

HOUSE

RULES

CASE 1: SLEEP TIGHT

At first glance, she looked like a saint: Dorothea Puente rented out rooms to the elderlyand disabled in Sacramento, California, in the 1980s. But then, her boarders started tovanish. Seven bodies were found buried in the garden, and traces of prescription sleepingpills were found in the remains, through forensic toxicology analysis. Puente was chargedwith killing her boarders so that she could take their pension checks and get herself plasticsurgery and expensive clothing, in order to maintain her image as a doyenne ofSacramento society. She was charged with nine murders and convicted of three.

In 1998, while serving two consecutive life sentences, Puente began corresponding with awriter named Shane Bugbee and sending him recipes, which were subsequently publishedin a book called Cooking with a Serial Killer.

Call me crazy, but I wouldnt touch that food with a ten-foot pole.

Emma

Everywhere I look, there are signs of a struggle. The mail has been scattered all over the kitchen floor; the stools are overturned. The phone has been knocked off its pedestal, its battery pack hanging loose from an umbilicus of wires. Theres one single faint footprint at the threshold of the living room, pointing toward the dead body of my son, Jacob.

He is sprawled like a starfish in front of the fireplace. Blood covers his temple and his hands. For a moment, I cant move, cant breathe.

Suddenly, he sits up. Mom, Jacob says, youre not even trying.