I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t always understand what’s been said.

My mother is driving, with Oliver in the passenger seat, and I’m in the back with Theo. My father is at our house, in case the court happens to call in the twenty minutes it takes for us to get there in person. Every time the car goes over a frost heave it makes me think of jumping on a mattress, something Theo and I used to do together when we were little. We used to believe that, if we got enough bounce going, we could reach the ceiling, but I don’t think we ever did.

After all those years of Theo sticking up for me, I finally got to be the big brother. I did the right thing. I don’t know why that’s so difficult for these jurors to comprehend.

Theo opens his fist; inside it is the pink iPod that used to be Jess’s. From his pocket, he takes out a white tangle of wires-his earbuds. He sticks them in his ears.

To all of those experts who said that because I have Asperger’s I can’t empathize:

So there.

People who can’t empathize surely don’t try to protect the people they love, even if it means having to go to court.

Suddenly Theo pulls one of the earbuds out and offers it to me. “Listen,” he says, and I do. Jess’s music is a piano concerto that swirls behind my eyes. I bend my head toward my brother so that the wires reach, so that, for the rest of the journey, we stay connected.

CASE 11: MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

Theo Hunt had been engaging in risky behavior. His Peeping Tom excursions had escalated into entering empty homes and taking souvenirs-electronic games and MP3 devices. On the afternoon of January 12, 2010, he entered the home of a local college professor. Unbeknownst to him, the house sitter-graduate student Jess Ogilvy-was upstairs showering. He made himself a cup of tea and then heard noises overhead and went to investigate.

It’s hard to know who was more surprised-Ogilvy, who found a strange boy in her bathroom while she was stark naked, or Theo Hunt, who realized that he knew the girl in the shower, who tutored his older brother, Jacob. Ogilvy reached for a towel and exited the stall, but she stumbled, striking her head on the edge of the sink. As she struggled to her feet again, Theo Hunt ran-overturning the CD rack, several stools, and the mail on the counter during his speedy exit.

Two hours later Theo’s brother, Jacob, arrived for his weekly tutoring session. A student of forensic science, he was surprised to notice a familiar footprint on the porch-the Vans sneaker tread that matched a pair belonging to his brother. Upon entering the unlocked house, Jacob found it in disarray. He called out but received no answer. Further investigation upstairs led to the discovery of Jess Ogilvy lying naked in a pool of blood.

Making the assumption that his brother was involved in her death-possibly during an altercation in the midst of a botched robbery-Jacob proceeded to alter the crime scene so that it would point away from Theo. He cleaned up and dressed the body and moved it downstairs (stumbling once on the staircase, which resulted in Ogilvy’s front tooth being knocked out postmortem). Using bleach, he cleaned up the bathroom to remove blood evidence. He picked up the overturned furniture and CDs and mail and proceeded to create a crime scene that might have been interpreted by authorities at first glance as a kidnapping, and at second glance as a cover-up perpetrated by Ogilvy’s stupid jerk of a boyfriend, Mark Maguire. In order to do this, Hunt had to put himself in the mind of a borderline idiot who might attempt (poorly) to make a murder scene look like a kidnapping. He packed some of Ogilvy’s clothes and toiletries in a backpack but made sure that they were not clothes routinely worn by Ogilvy, which someone less astute (like Mark Maguire) would never have realized. He left a typed note-allegedly from Ogilvy herself-asking for the mail to be temporarily stopped, as if she had decided to take a trip. He then cut the screen in the kitchen with a butcher knife-a red herring for forced entry. Finally, he walked below this screen outside wearing Mark Maguire’s boots, so that the police could trace this “cover-up” back to Ogilvy’s boyfriend. Then Hunt carried Ogilvy’s body to a culvert several hundred yards from the house and waited for investigators to piece together the information he’d left them.

Jacob Hunt neglected to realize, at the time, that he might be implicating himself in the murder. He neglected to consider that the scene he’d come across (at worst, murder at his brother’s hand, and at best, a death accidentally caused by Theo) might instead be a death by natural causes: a slippery floor, a skull fracture, and a hematoma. None of this, however, really matters.

In the years afterward, Jacob’s motive for restructuring the crime scene and moving the body was hotly debated. Some felt that, as there can be crimes of passion, there can be crime scenes of brotherly love. Others felt that Jacob’s fixation on forensic science came into play: he wanted to experience the thrill a murderer might feel, waiting for the authorities to figure out the trail he’d left behind.

Think whatever you want. The only thing that really matters is this:

I’d do it all over again.

About Jodi Picoult

My Life in 8 Words: Writer, mom, Wonder Woman. Not necessarily in order.