53 pages • 1 hour read
The Good Daughter
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Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
Sam sits in the garden behind the hospital and considers how she and Charlie might handle Rusty’s end-of-life care. Sam remembers how she wanted to keep Anton alive at all costs. Charlie joins Sam and raises her sister’s anger issues. Sam tells Charlie that she is managing the anger well, but something about Pikeville “brings out the meanness in me” (262). Charlie updates Sam on the shooting, including her involvement with Huck. Sam realizes he is Mason Huckabee, the brother of a young woman who took her own life after surviving rape. Rusty had successfully defended the accused. Charlie is shocked by this.
Sam and Charlie discuss their family situations and not having children. The sisters discuss Kelly Wilson. Kelly has intellectual disabilities, opening the possibility of diminished capacity in defense. Sam tells Charlie she will manage Kelly’s arraignment. Charlie asks her to reconsider her decision, as being in Pikeville may be too overwhelming for Sam but Sam is decided.
Chapter 10 Summary
Sam and Charlie drive to the courthouse to see Kelly. On the way, Zach’s children see them and jeer and make threats. Sam stands up to them and they back off. Lenore arrives and says that Kelly’s arraignment has been moved up to today. Sam must hurry to prepare Kelly.
Sam meets Kelly, who is experiencing sickness. Sam explains to Kelly about her rights and the nature of the arraignment—where the accused enters a plea to the charges. Kelly will plead not guilty. Sam advises Kelly not to talk to anyone. Kelly can’t speak to her motivation, only saying that “the gun was in my hand” (292). Kelly seems honest but very naive and confused. Kelly tells Sam that the cops made a video of her when she was in the hospital. Sam worries Kelly may have confessed something on tape.
Chapter 11 Summary
At the arraignment, Sam ignores Ken Coin, the DA. She knows Coin thinks she owes him for killing Daniel Culpepper, but she doesn’t respect his methods: Coin is happy to use any means to condemn defendants. Sam plans to argue that the tape of Kelly is inadmissible evidence as Kelly was not told her rights in advance. Kelly’s parents are in the courthouse. Kelly calls out for her parents and Sam calms her down.
At first, Judge Lyman treats Sam with disdain, judging her choice to wear a trouser suit instead of a skirt, and mistaking her dark medical glasses for sunglasses but Sam keeps her temper and the Judge begins to behave more respectfully. Kelly pleads not guilty. Sam argues against the tape’s admissibility. Coin objects, arguing it showed that Kelly had asked if “the baby” had been killed, which he takes to mean the young victim Lucy. The judge rules against the tape and Sam feels it is a good start. She suddenly realizes that Kelly may be pregnant; the sickness is morning sickness and “the baby” she asked about is her own.
Chapter 12 Summary
Outside the courthouse, Charlie compliments Sam. Sam tells Charlie they need a mental health expert to evaluate Kelly, and find out who might be the father to her baby. Lenore, Sam, and Charlie go to Rusty’s office to see footage of the shooting that he has located. They can see the shooting but not the shooter. Judith comes into view and cradles Lucy. Kelly finally appears in the frame, looking shocked, holding the gun.
The news reports say Judith Pinkman was shot at twice, and was missed. However, the footage shows five bullets were fired, including the first which hit the wall. The group returns to the footage. Huck can be seen rushing toward Kelly and kneeling by her. Mason extends his palm to Kelly, trying to coax the gun from her. Kelly moves away into the blind spot. Then Mason is accidentally shot by the police officers, and the revolver in Kelly’s hands has disappeared. Sam goes into Rusty’s office and makes a to-do list, including a pregnancy test for Kelly, getting an audio recording of the security footage, and talking to Judith Pinkman.
Sam tells Charlie that there is something odd about Judith’s behavior. Judith ran into the hall after hearing the shots—which is against the procedure educators must follow in case of a shooting—and rushed to Lucy, rather than her husband. Charlie wonders why Kelly did not use her last bullet on Judith—since a revolver has six shells. Sam begins to look through Rusty’s papers and is shocked to find correspondence from Zachariah Culpepper in prison. Charlie shuts the drawer, saying they are Rusty’s private papers. Sam is incensed that Rusty is communicating with Zach. Charlie and Sam argue, bringing up past grievances.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
The textual leitmotif of differing perceptions continues to be in the spotlight in this section, as does the complex Sam-Charlie dynamic. This middle section is particularly important for driving the crime mystery plot and is characterized by close procedural detail and emphasis on the investigative narrative strand.
This section makes the key reveal that Huck is none other than Mason Huckabee, the brother of Mary Lynne, foreshadowing the later revelation that he was Zach’s accomplice in 1989. The mystery in the plot thickens when Sam interviews Kelly. Not only does Kelly seem disconnected from her crime, but her words are also carefully choreographed to obfuscate the truth. For instance, when Sam asks her if she killed Doug and Lucy, Kelly replies yes, since she had “the gun in my hand when I killed them two people” (294). While her curious turn of phrase may also suggest Kelly is dissociating herself from her crime, it clearly foreshadows that Kelly may not have been in the driver’s seat during the school shooting. Sam notes that Kelly shows no remorse, but the observation is a red herring. The actual subtext of Sam’s observation is that Kelly feels no remorse because she did not actually plan and execute the killings. Thus, the author uses literary devices such as misdirection, red herrings, and ambiguous statements to build the mystery around the case of Kelly Wilson.
The security footage emerges as another important symbol illustrating the thematic element of deceptive appearances. The narrative describes the ambiguous footage, which never shows Kelly in the frame when shooting Doug and Lucy. Instead, it shows a pair of hands holding a gun in the frame, shots being fired, victims collapsing, and then first Judith Pinkman, and then Kelly Wilson appear on the scene. The ambiguity of the footage, coupled with the use of excessive force on Kelly when she is arrested, shows how the desire to get retribution and find a perpetrator as soon as possible can obfuscate justice. The fact is that it takes deduction, observation, and nuance to uncover the truth; before that method is deployed, everything else is perception.
In this section, Sam emerges as the logical, observant outsider, and her character is significantly developed in these chapters. Removed from the emotionally charged environment of Pikeville, and powered by her rational, scientific way of thinking, Sam not only manages to deduce that Kelly is pregnant, but she also represents Kelly successfully through the arraignment. The scene in the courthouse where the judge questions Sam’s attire and her prescription glasses shows his prejudiced mindset and is part of Slaughter’s presentations of The Flaws in the Criminal Justice System. The judge’s attitude reflects larger social insensitivity toward women, and people dealing with disabilities. Though Judge Lyman forces Sam to walk across to him to show him her sunglasses, Sam does not lose her cool. When Lyman asks her about Rusty’s health, Sam coolly replies he is “eager to mount a vigorous defense for Miss Wilson, Your Honor” (310). Earlier, when the Culpeppers poke fun at her and Charlie, Sam tells Charlie in their earshot that she had forgotten “the sociolect of the native Appalachians” (276). These instances show how Sam uses her sharp intellect and irreverent humor to negotiate a hostile world, and also establishes her similarities with her mother, Gamma. The Flaws in the Criminal Justice System are further signified by the information that Mason went unpunished for his crime, while the innocent Daniel Culpepper was killed, showing the unfairness of the justice system. Another example of the system working against defendants is how Coin gets Kelly’s arraignment shifted up, knowing that Rusty, her lawyer, is in the hospital. Coin hopes to appoint a hostile counsel for Kelly, a plan that Sam’s presence thwarts.
Charlie’s changing response to Sam illustrates the theme of The Complex Dynamics in Families. In Chapter 9, Sam is so incensed with Charlie and Rusty that she has to step out into the park to calm herself down but the sisters come together again for Kelly’s arraignment. Charlie is bowled over by the handling of the arraignment. Yet, by the end of Chapter 12, the old mistrust is back, with Charlie refusing to let Sam see Zach’s letters to Rusty, and Sam once again feeling left out of the Rusty-Charlie equation. The reader can infer that the reason Charlie wants to hide the letters is not to protect Rusty’s privacy, but to protect Sam from the truth about what actually happened on the night of Gamma’s murder.
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By Karin Slaughter
