Perfect Match (24 page)

Fisher puts his hand on my leg, which has been jiggling nervously without my even noticing. “Stop,” he mouths.

“Did you see Nina Frost that afternoon?” Quentin asks.

“No,” Peter says. “I didn't see her.”

Quentin raises his brows in absolute disbelief. “Did you walk up to her?”

“Well, I was coming down the produce aisle, and her cart happened to be plac ed along the path I was taking. Her son was sitting in it. He's the one I ap proached.”

“Did Ms. Frost walk up to the cart as well?”

“Yes, but she was moving closer to her son. Not to me.”

“Just answer the questions as I ask them.”

“Look, she was standing next to me, but she didn't speak to me,” Peter says.

“Did you speak to her, Mr. Eberhardt?”

“No.” Peter turns to the judge. “I was talking to Nathaniel.” Quentin touches a stack of papers on the prosecutor's table. “You have access to the information in these files?”

“As you know, Mr. Brown, I'm not working on her case. You are.”

“But I'm working in her former office, the one right next to yours, aren't I?”

“Yes.”

“And,” Quentin says, “there aren't any locks on those doors, are there?”

“No.”

“So I guess you think she approached you so that she could squeeze the Ch armin?”

Peter narrows his eyes. “She wasn't trying to get into trouble, and neither was I.”

“And now you're trying to help her out of all that trouble, aren't you?” Before he can answer, Quentin turns over the witness to the defense. Fisher gets up, buttoning his jacket. I feel a line of sweat break out on my spine.

“Who spoke first, Mr. Eberhardt?” he asks.

“Nathaniel.”

“What did he say?”

Peter looks at the railing. He knows by now, too, that Nathaniel has gone mute again. “My name.”

“If you didn't want Nina to get into trouble, why didn't you just turn aroun d and walk away? ”

“Because Nathaniel wanted me. And after . . . after the abuse, he stopped tal king for a while. This was the first time I'd heard him speak since all that happened. I couldn't just do an about-face and walk away.”

“Was it at that exact moment that Mr. Brown rounded the corner and saw y ou?”

“Yes.”

Fisher clasps his hands behind his back. “Did you ever speak to Nina about her case?”

“No.”

“Did you give her any inside information about her case?”

“No.”

“Did she ask you for any?”

“No.”

“Are you working on Nina's case at all?”

Peter shakes his head. “I will always be her friend. But I understand my job, and my duties as an officer of this court. And the last thing I'd want to do i s involve myself in this case.”

“Thank you, Mr. Eberhardt.”

Fisher settles into place beside me at the defense table, as Quentin Brown gl ances up at the judge. “Your Honor, the state rests.” That makes one of us, I think.

Caleb's gaze is drawn to her, and he is shocked. His wife, the one who alway s looks crisp and fresh and coordinated, sits in bright orange scrubs. Her h air is a cloud about her head; her eyes are shadowed with circles. There is a cut on the back of her hand and one of her shoelaces has come untied. Cale b has the unlikely urge to kneel before her, to double-knot it, to bury his head in her lap.

You can hate someone, he realizes, and be crazy about her at the same time. Fisher catches his eye, pulling Caleb back to this responsibility. If he scre ws up, Nina may not be allowed to come home. Then again, Fisher has told him that even if he is flawless on the stand, she may still be locked up in jail pending trial. He clears his throat and imagines himself in an ocean of langu age, trying to keep his head above water.

“When did Nathaniel start speaking again, after you found out about the abu se?”

"About three weeks ago. The night Detective Ducharme came to talk to him.

"

“Had his verbal ability increased since that night?”

“Yes,” Caleb answers. “He was pretty much back to normal.”

“How much time was his mother spending with him?”

“More than usual.”

“How did Nathaniel seem to you?”

Caleb thinks for a moment. “Happier,” he says.

Fisher moves, so that he is standing behind Nina. “What changed after the in cident at the grocery store?”

“He was hysterical. He was crying so hard he couldn't breathe, and he wouldn 't talk at all.“ Caleb looks into Nina's eyes, hands her this phrase like a gift. ”He kept making the sign for Mommy.”

She makes a small sound, like a kitten. It renders him speechless; he has to ask Fisher to repeat his next question. “Has he spoken at all in the past wee k?”

“No,” Caleb replies.

“Have you taken Nathaniel to see his mother?”

“Once. It was very . . . hard on him.”

“How do you mean?”

“He didn't want to leave her,” Caleb admits. “I had to physically drag him away when the time was up.”

“How is your son sleeping at night?”

“He won't, unless I take him into bed with me.”

Fisher nods gravely. “Do you think, Mr. Frost, that he needs his mother bac k?”

Quentin Brown stands immediately. “Objection!”

“This is a bail hearing, I'll allow it,” the judge replies. “Mr. Frost?” Caleb sees answers swimming in front of him. There are so many, which is th e one he should choose? He opens his mouth, then closes it to start over. At that moment he notices Nina. Her eyes are bright on his, feverish, and h e tries to remember why this seems so familiar. Then it comes to him: this is the way she looked weeks ago when she was trying to convince a mute Nath aniel that all he had to do was speak from the heart; that any word was bet ter than none. “We both need her back,” Caleb says, the right thing after a ll.

Halfway through Dr. Robichaud's testimony, I realize that this is the trial w e would have had to convict the priest, had I not killed him. The information being presented focuses on the molestation of Nathaniel, and the consequences. The psychiatrist walks the court through her introduction to Nathaniel, his sexual abuse evaluation, his therapy sessions, his use of sig n language. “Did Nathaniel ever reach a point where he could talk again?” Fi sher asks.

“Yes, after he verbally disclosed the name of his abuser to Detective Ducha rme.”

“Since then, as far as you know, has he been talking normally?” The psychiatrist nods. “More and more so.”

“Did you see him this past week, Doctor?”

“Yes. His father called me, very upset, on Friday night. Nathaniel had st opped speaking again. When I saw him on Monday morning, he'd regressed co nsiderably. He's withdrawn and uncommunicative. I couldn't even get him t o sign.”

“In your expert opinion, is the separation from his mother causing Nathani el psychological damage?”

“No question,” Dr. Robichaud says. “In fact, the longer it goes on, the mor e permanent the damage might be.”

As she gets down from the stand, Brown gets up to do his closing. He starts by pointing at me. “This woman has a blatant disregard for rules, and clearl y, this isn't the first time. What she should have done the moment she saw P eter Eberhardt was turn around and walk the other way. But the fact is, she didn't.“ He turns to the judge. ”Your Honor, you were the one who imposed th e condition that Nina Frost not have contact with members of the district at torney's office, because you were concerned about treating her differently t han other defendants. But if you let her go without sanction, you'll be doin g just that.”

Even on edge, as I am, I realize that Quentin's made a tactical mistake. You c an make suggestions to a jury . . . but you never, ever tell the judge what to do.

Fisher rises. “Your Honor, what Mr. Brown saw in the produce department wa s nothing more than sour grapes. The reality of the matter is that no info rmation was exchanged. In fact, there's no evidence that information was e ven sought.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders. I have seen him do this with other clients ; in my office, we used to call it his Grandfather Stance. “This was an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Fisher continues, “but that's all it is . Nothing more, nothing less. And if, as a result, you keep Nina Frost from h er child, you may wind up sacrificing that child. Certainly after what everyo ne's been through, that's the last thing this court would like to see happen.“ The judge lifts his head and looks at me. ”I'm not going to keep her away fr om her son,“ he rules. ”However, I'm also not going to give her the opportun ity to violate the rules of this court again. I release Ms. Frost on the con dition that she be on home confinement. She'll wear an electronic bracelet, and will be subject to all the rules of probation and parole with regards to electronic monitoring. Ms. Frost.“ He waits for me to nod. ”You are not to leave the house, except to meet with your attorney or to come to court. For those times, and only those times, the bracelet will be reprogrammed accordi ngly. And God help me, if I have to patrol your street myself to make sure y ou're adhering to these provisions, I will.”

My new wrist cuff works through telephone lines. If I move 150 feet away fro m my house, the bracelet makes an alarm go off. A probation officer may visi t me at any time, demand a sample of my blood or urine to make sure I have n ot had any drugs or alcohol. I opt to wear my scrubs home, and ask the deput y sheriff to instruct that my old clothes be given, a gift, to Adrienne. The y'll be short and tight-in other words, a perfect fit for her.

“You have nine lives,” Fisher murmurs as we walk out of the parole offic e, where my cuff has been computer-programmed.

“Seven left,” I sigh.

“Let's hope we don't have to use them all.”

“Fisher.” I stop walking as we reach the staircase. "I just wanted to tell you .

.. I couldn't have done that any better."

He laughs. “Nina, I think you'd actually choke if you had to say the word th anks.”

We walk side by side upstairs, toward the lobby. Fisher, a gentleman to the l ast, pushes open the heavy fire door of the stairwell and holds it while I st ep through.

The immediate burst of light as the cameras explode renders me blind, and it takes a moment for the world to come back to me. When it does, I realize that in addition to the reporters, Patrick and Caleb and Moni ca are waiting. And then, emerging from a spot behind his father's big body, I see my son.

She is wearing funny orange pajamas and her hair looks like a swallow's nest Nathaniel once found behind the soda bottles in the garage, but her face is his mother's and her voice, when it says his name, is his mother's too. Her smile is a hook in him; he can feel the catch in his throat as he swallows it and lets himself be reeled across the space between them. Mommy. Nathanie l's arms rise up from his sides. He stumbles over a wire, and someone's foot , and then he is running.

She falls to her knees and that only makes the tug stronger. Nathaniel's so close that he can see she is crying, and this isn't even very clear because he is crying too. He feels the hook coming free, drawing out the silence tha t has swelled in his belly for a week now, and the moment before he reaches her embrace it bursts from his lips in a rusty, trebled joy. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Nathaniel shouts, so loud that it drowns out everything but the drum of his mother's heart beneath his ear.

He's gotten bigger in a week. I heft Nathaniel into my arms, smiling like a fool, as the cameras capture every move. Fisher has corralled the reporter s, is even now preaching to them. I bury my face in Nathaniel's sweet neck, matching my memory with what is real.

Suddenly Caleb stands beside us. His face is as inscrutable as it was the la st time we were alone, on opposite sides of a glass visitation booth at jail . Although his testimony helped free me, I know my husband. He did what was expected, but it was not necessarily something he wanted to do. “Caleb,” I b egin, flustered. “I ... I don't know what to say.”

To my surprise, he offers an olive branch: a crooked smile. “Well, that's a first. No wonder so many reporters are around.” Caleb's grin slides more f irmly into place; and at the same time, he anchors his arm around my should ers, guides me one step closer to home.

200 These are the jokes I know. What's in the middle of a jellyfish? A jellybutto n.

Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? It didn't have the guts. Why did the cookie go to the hospital? It felt crumby.

What do lizards put on their kitchen floors? Reptiles.

What do you call a blind dinosaur? An l-don't-think-he-saurus. There is one more:

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Sadie.

Sadie who?

Sadie magic word, Nathaniel and then you'll be allowed to go. When he told it to me, I didn't laugh.

202

And just like that, I have fallen back into my former life. The three of us s it around the breakfast table, like any other family. With his finger, Nathan iel traces the letters in the headline of the morning paper. “M,” he says qui etly. “0, M . . .” Over my coffee cup, I look at the photograph. There I am, holding Nathaniel, Caleb at my side. Fisher, somehow, has managed to get his face in the picture too. In the distance, a few steps behind, is Patrick; I r ecognize him only by his shoes. Across the top, in screaming black letters: m ommy.

Caleb takes Nathaniel's empty cereal bowl away as he runs off into the playro om, where he has set up two armies of plastic dinosaurs for a Jurassic war. I glance at the paper. “I'm the poster child for bad parenting,” I say.

“Beats being the local Maine murderess.” He nods to the table. “What's in t he envelope?”

The manila mailer is the interoffice kind, tied shut with red floss. I found it stuffed between the Local and Sports sections of the paper. I flip it over, bu t there is no return address, no marking of any kind.

Inside is a report from the state lab, the kind of chart I have seen before. A table with results in eight columns, each a different location on human DNA . And two rows of numbers that are identical at every single spot. Conclusions: The DNA profile detected on the underpants is consistent with the DNA profile of Szyszynski. As a result, he cannot be eliminated as a po ssible contributor of the genetic material detected in this stain. The chan ces of randomly selecting an unrelated individual who matches the genetic material found in the underwear are greater than one in six billion, which is approximately th e world population.

Or in English: Father Szyszynski's semen was found on my son's underwear .

Caleb peers over my shoulder. “What's that?”

“Absolution,” I sigh.

Caleb takes the paper from my hands, and I point to the first row of numb ers. “This shows the DNA from Szyszynski's blood sample. And the line bel ow it shows the DNA from the stain on the underpants.”

“The numbers are the same.”

“Right. DNA is the same all over your body. That's why, if the cops arrest a rapist, they draw blood-can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to ask t he guy to give a semen sample? The idea is, if you can match the suspect's b lood DNA to evidence, you're almost guaranteed a conviction.” I look up at h im. “It means that he did it, Caleb. He was the one. And . . .” My voice tra ils off.

“And what?”

“And I did the right thing,” I finish.

Caleb puts the paper facedown on the table and gets up.

“What?” I challenge.

He shakes his head slowly. "Nina, you didn't do the right thing. You said it yourself. If you match the DNA in the suspect's blood to the evidence, you'

re guaranteed a conviction. So if you'd waited, he would have gotten his pun ishment."

“And Nathaniel would still have had to sit in that courtroom, reliving eve ry minute of what happened to him, because that lab report would mean noth ing without his testimony.” To my embarrassment, tears rise in my eyes. “I thought Nathaniel had been through enough without that.”

“I know what you thought,” Caleb says softly. “That's the problem. What about the things Nathaniel's had to deal with because of what you did? I'm not sayin g you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do ... or the fitting thing . . . Nina, it still wasn't the right thing.”

He puts on his boots and opens the kitchen door, leaving me alone with the lab results. I rest my head on my hand and take a deep breath. Caleb 's wrong, he has to be wrong, because if he isn't, thenMy thoughts veer away from this as the manila envelope draws my eye. Who l eft this for me, cloak-and-dagger? Someone on the prosecution's side would have fielded it from the lab. Maybe Peter dropped it off, or a sympatheti c paralegal who thought it might go to motive for an insanity defense. At any rate, it is a document I'm not supposed to have.

Something, therefore, I can't share with Fisher.

I pick up the phone and call him. “Nina,” he says. “Did you see the morning paper?”

“Hard to miss. Hey, Fisher, did you ever see the DNA results on the priest?”

“You mean the underwear sample? No.” He pauses. “It's a closed case, now, o f course. It's possible somebody told the lab not to bother.” Not likely. The staff in the DA's office would have been far too busy to see to a detail like that. “You know, I'd really like to see the report. If it did co me back.”

“It doesn't really have any bearing on your case-”

“Fisher,” I say firmly, “I'm asking you politely. Have your paralegal call Que ntin Brown to fax the report over. I need to see it.”

He sighs. “All right. I'll get back to you.”

I place the receiver back in its cradle, and sit down at the table. Outside, Caleb splits wood, relieving his frustration with each heavy blow of the ax. Last night, feeling his way under the covers with one warm hand, he'd brushed the plastic lip of my electronic monitoring bracelet. That was all, and then he'd rolled onto one side away from me.

Picking up my coffee, I read the twin lines on the lab report again. Caleb is m istaken, that's all there is to it. All these letters and numbers, they are pro of, in black and white, that I am a hero.

Quentin gives the lab report another cursory glance and then puts it on a cor ner of his desk. No surprises there; everyone knows why she killed the priest . The point is, none of this matters anymore. The trial at hand isn't about s exual abuse, but murder.

The secretary, a harried, faded blonde named Rhonda or Wanda or something like that, sticks her head in the door. “Does no one knock in this building?” Quentin mutters, scowling.

“You take the lab report on Szyszynski?” she asks.

“It's right here. Why?”

“Defense attorney just called; he wants a copy faxed over to his office yeste rday.”

Quentin hands the papers to the secretary. “What's the rush?”

“Who knows.”

It makes no sense to Quentin; Fisher Carrington must realize that the informa tion will not make or break his case. But then again, it doesn't matter at al l for the prosecution-Nina Frost is facing a conviction, he's certain, and no lab report about a dead man is going to change that. By the time the secreta ry has closed the door behind herself, Quentin has put Carrington's request o ut of his mind.

Marcella Wentworth hates snow. She had enough of it, growing up in Maine, a nd then working there for nearly a decade. She hates waking up and knowing you have to shovel your way to your car; she hates the sensation of skis be neath her feet; she hates the uncontrollable feel of wheels spinning out on black ice. The happiest day of Marcella's life, in fact, was the day she q uit her job at the Maine State Lab, moved to Virginia, and threw her Sorrel boots into a public trash bin at a highway McDonald's.

She has worked for three years now at CellCore, a private lab. Marcella has a year-round tan and only one medium-weight winter coat. But at her workstat ion she keeps a postcard Nina Frost, a district attorney, sent her last Chri stmas-a cartoon depicting the unmistakable mitten shape of her birth state, sporting googly eyes and a jester's hat. Once a Mainiac, always a Mainiac, i t reads.

Marcella is looking at the postcard, and thinking that there may already be a dusting on the ground up there by now, when Nina Frost calls.

“You're not going to believe this,” Marcella says, “but I was just thinking ab out you.”

“I need your help,” Nina answers. All business-but then, that has always been Nina. Once or twice since Marcella left the state lab, Nina called to consul t on a case, just for the purpose of verification. “I've got a DNA test I nee d checked.”

Marcella glances at the overwhelming stack of files piling her in-box. “No problem. What's the story?”

“Child molestation. There's a known blood sample and then semen on a pair of underwear. I'm not an expert, but the results looks pretty cut and dried.”

“Ah. I'm guessing they don't jive, and you think the state lab screwed up?”

“Actually, they do jive. I just need to be absolutely certain.”

“Guess you really don't want this one to walk,” Marcella muses. There is a hesitation. “He's dead,” Nina says. “I shot him.” Caleb has always liked chopping wood. He likes the Herculean moment of heft ing the ax, of swinging it down like a man measuring his strength at a carn ival game. He likes the sound of a log being broken apart, a searing crack, and then the hollow plink of two halves falling to opposite sides. He like s the rhythm, which erases thought and memory.

Maybe by the time he has run out of wood to split, he will feel ready to go b ack inside and face his wife.

Nina's single-mindedness has always been attractive-especially to a man who , in so many matters, is naturally hesitant. But now the flaw has been magn ified to the point of being grotesque. She simply cannot let go. Once, Caleb had been hired to build a brick wall in a town park. As he'd w orked, he'd gotten used to the homeless man who lived beneath the birthday pavilion. His name was Coalspot, or so Caleb had been told. He was schizo phrenic but harmless. Sometimes, Coalspot would sit on the park bench next to Caleb as he worked. He spent hours unlacing his shoe, taking it off, s craping at his heel, and then putting his shoe back on. “Can you see it?” the man asked Caleb. “Can you see the hole where the poison's leaking?” One day a social worker arrived to take Coalspot to a shelter, but he wouldn 't go. He insisted he would infect everyone else; the poison was contagious. After three hours, the woman had reached the end of her rope. “We try to he lp them,” she sighed to Caleb, “and this is what we get.” So Caleb sat down beside Coalspot. He took off his own work boot and sock, pointed to his heel. “You see?” he said. “Everyone already has one.” After that, the homeless man went off, easy as a kitten. It didn't matter th ere was no poisonous hole-just at that moment, Coalspot truly believed there was one. And that for a second, Caleb had told the man he was right. Nina is like that, now. She has redefined her actions so that they make sense to her, if not to anyone else. To say that she killed a man in order to prot ect Nathaniel? Well, whatever trauma he might suffer as a witness couldn't be nearly as bad as watching his mother get handcuffed and carted off to jail. Caleb knows that Nina is looking for vindication, but he can't do what he did with Coalspot-look her in eye and tell her that yes, he understands. He can'

t look her in the eye, period.

He wonders if the reason he's putting up a wall between them is so that, when she is sentenced, it is easier to let her go.

Caleb takes another log and sets it on end on the chopping block. As the ax comes down, the wood cleaves into two neat pieces, and sitting in the cent er is the truth. What Nina has done doesn't make Caleb feel morally superio r, by default. It makes him a coward, because he wasn't the one brave enoug h to cross the line from thought to deed.

There are parts of it Nathaniel can't remember-like what he said when Nathan iel first shook his head no; or which one of them unbuttoned his jeans. What he can still think of, sometimes even when he is trying his hardest not to, is how the air felt cold when his pants came off, and how hot his hand was after that. How it hurt, it hurt so bad, even though he had said it wouldn't . How Nathaniel had held Esme so tight she cried; how in the mirror of her g old eyes he saw a little boy who no longer was him.

It will make Nina happy.

Those are Marcella's first thoughts when she reads the DNA results, and sees that the semen stain and the priest's blood are indistinguishable from each o ther. No scientist will ever say it quite this way in testimony, but the numb ers-and the stats-speak for themselves: This is the perp, no question. She picks up the phone to tell Nina so, tucking it under her chin so that she can rubber-band the medical files that came attached to the lab repo rt. Marcella hasn't bothered to scan these; it is pretty clear from what Nina said that the priest died as a result of the gunshot wound. But still, Nina has asked Marcella for a thorough review. She sighs, then puts back the recei ver and opens the thick folder.

Two hours later, she finishes reading. And realizes that in spite of her best intentions to stay away, she'll be heading back to Maine.

Here is what I have learned in a week: A prison, no matter what shape and siz e, is still a prison. I find myself staring out windows along with the dog, i tching to be on the other side of the glass. I would give a fortune to do the most mundane of errands: run to the bank, take the car to Jiffy Lube, rake l eaves.

Nathaniel has gone back to school. This is Dr. Robichaud's suggestion, a step toward normalcy. Still, I can't help but wonder if Caleb had some small part in this; if he really doesn't like the thought of leaving me alone with my s on.

One morning, before I could think twice, I walked halfway down the driveway to pick up the newspaper before I remembered the electronic bracelet. Cale b found me on the porch, sobbing, waiting for the sirens I was certain woul d come. But through some miracle, the alarm did not go off. I spent six sec onds in the fresh air, and no one was the wiser.

To occupy myself, sometimes I cook. I have made penne alia rigata, coq au v in, potstickers. I choose dishes from foreign places, anywhere but here. To day, though, I am cleaning the house. I have already emptied the coat close t and the kitchen pantry, restocked their items in order of frequency of us e. Up in the bedroom, I've tossed out shoes I forgot I ever bought, and hav e aligned my suits in a rainbow, from palest pink to deepest plum to chocolate. I am just weeding through Caleb's dresser when he comes in, stripping off a fi lthy shirt. “Do you know,” I say, “that in the hall closet is a brand-new pair of cleats fives sizes bigger than Nathaniel's foot?”

“Got them at a garage sale. Nathaniel'll grow into them.” After all this, doesn't he understand that the future doesn't necessarily follo w in a straight, unbroken line?

“What are you doing?”

“Your drawers.”