Perfect Match (15 page)

“Why don't you have children?”

Shrugging, she smiles faintly. “To date, no one's asked me.” Our eyes meet, and that is all it takes to erase the history between us. “Their loss,” I say, and I smile.

Thomas LaCroix is two inches shorter than I am, and going bald. It makes no difference whatsoever, of course, but I find myself shooting glances at Wa lly during this meeting, wondering why he could not find the most perfect s pecimen of a prosecutor, one polished on the outside as well as the inside, so that no jury could possibly find fault.

“We're turning this entirely over to Tom,” my boss says. “You know we suppo rt you and Caleb, we're a hundred percent behind you . . . but we don't wan t there to be any problems on appeal. And if we're in the courtroom, it mig ht look like we're stacking the decks against this guy.”

“I understand, Wally,” I say. “No offense taken.”

“Well!” Wally stands, having done his job here for the day. “We'll all be wai ting to hear what transpires.”

He pats my shoulder as he exits. When he leaves, it is just the three of us left-Caleb, myself, and Thomas LaCroix. Like a good prosecutor-like me-he jumps right into business. “They're not going to arraign him unt il after lunch because of all the publicity,” Tom says. “Did you see the me dia when you came in?”

See it? We had to run the gauntlet. If I hadn't known a service entrance into the court, I never would have gotten Nathaniel inside.

“Anyway, I've already talked to the bailiffs. They're going to clear the oth er prisoners off the docket before they bring in Szyszynski.” He checks his watch. “We're scheduled for one o'clock right now, so you've got some time.” I flatten my hands on the table. “You will not be putting my son on the stan d,” I announce.

“Nina, you know this is just an arraignment. A rubber stamp process. Let's ju st-”

“I want you to know this, and to know it now. Nathaniel isn't going to be tes tifying.”

He sighs. "I've done this for fifteen years. And we're just going to have to see what comes to pass. Right now, you know better than I do what the evide nce is. You certainly know better than I do how Nathaniel is faring. But you also know there are some pieces of the puzzle we're waiting on-like the la b reports, and your son's recovery. Six months from now, a year from now . .

. Nathaniel might be doing a whole lot better, and taking the stand might n ot be as much of a hardship. "

“He is five years old. In those fifteen years, Tom, how many cases with a fiv e-year-old witness ended up with a perp in jail for life?” Not a single one, and he knows it. “Then we'll wait,” Tom says. “We have s ome time, and the defendant is going to want time too, you know that.”

“You can't hold him in jail forever.”

“I'm going to ask for $150,000 bail. And I doubt the Catholic Church will p ost it for him.” He smiles at me. “He's not going anywhere, Nina.” I feel Caleb's hand steal into my lap, and I grab onto it. I think he is suppo rting me, at first, but then he squeezes my fingers nearly to the point of pai n. “Nina,” he says pleasantly, “maybe we should just let Mr. LaCroix do his jo b right now.”

“It's my job too,” I point out. “I put children on the stand every day, and I watch them fall apart, and then I watch the abusers walk. How can you ask me to forget that, when we're talking about Nathaniel?”

“Exactly-we're talking about Nathaniel. And today he needs a mother more th an he needs a mother who is a prosecutor. We need to look at this in steps, and today that step is keeping Szyszynski locked up,” Tom says. “Let's jus t focus, and once we clear this hurdle, we can decide what to do next.” I stare into my lap, where I've nervously pleated my skirt into a thousand w rinkles. “I know what you're saying.”

“Good, then.”

Lifting my gaze, I smile slightly. "You're saying the same thing I do, to vic tims, when I really don't know if I have any chance of securing a conviction.

"

To his credit, Tom nods. “You're right. But I'm not trying to con you. We ne ver know which cases are going to work out, which cases are going to take a plea, which kids will make a turnaround, which kids will heal to the point w here a year from now, they're able to contribute in a way they can't that fi rst day.”

I get to my feet. “But you said it yourself, Tom. Today I'm not supposed to give a damn about those other kids. Today I just care about my own.” I walk to the door before Caleb even has risen from his seat. “One o'clock,” I say, and it is a warning.

Caleb doesn't catch up to her until they are in the lobby, and then, he has to pull her aside to a small nook, where reporters will not find them. “What was that all about?”

“I'm protecting Nathaniel.” Nina crosses her arms, daring him to say otherwi se.

She seems shaky and unsteady, not at all herself. Maybe it is just the truth o f this day. God knows, Caleb isn't faring all that well either. “We ought to g o tell Monica that there's a delay.”

But Nina is busy putting on her coat. “Can you do it?” she asks. “I need to ru n to the office.”

“Now?” Alfred, and the superior court building, is only fifteen minutes away. But still.

“It's something I have to give to Thomas,” she explains. Caleb shrugs. He watches Nina walk out the front steps. The flashes of sever al cameras strike her like bullets, freezing her in time as she jogs down th e steps. Caleb sees her brush off a reporter with no more effort than she wo uld use to wave away a fly.

He wants to run after her, hold Nina until that wall around her cracks and all the pain spills out. He wants to tell her that she doesn't have to be so stro ng around him, because they are in this together. He wants to take her downsta irs to the bright room with alphabet squares on the floor, sit with their son between them. All she has to do is take off those focused blinders; then she w ill see that she isn't alone.

Caleb goes so far as to open the glass door, to stick his head outside. By no w she is a dot, far across the parking lot. Her name hovers on his lips, but then there is an explosion that blinds him-a newspaper photographer, again. B acking inside, he tries to shake the double vision, but it is a long time bef ore he can see clearly; and so he never witnesses Nina's car leaving the cour thouse lot, turning in the opposite direction of her office.

I'm late.

I hurry through the front door of the court, around the line of people waitin g to go through the metal detector. “Hey, Mike,” I say breathlessly, slipping behind the familiar bailiff, who just nods. Our courtroom is to the left; I open the double doors and walk inside.

It is filled with reporters and cameramen, all lined up in the back rows like the bad kids on the rear seats of a bus. This is a big story for York County, Maine. This is a big story for any place.

I walk to the front, where Patrick and Caleb are sitting. They have left a se at on the aisle for me. For a moment I fight my natural inclination-to conti nue through the gate, and sit at the prosecutor's table with Thomas LaCroix. That is why we “pass the bar”-we are allowed, by virtue of that test, to work in the front of the courtroom.

I don't know the defense attorney. Probably someone from Portland. Someone t he diocese keeps on retainer for things like this. There is a cameraman set up to the right of the defense table, his head bent close to the machine in preparation.

Patrick notices me first. “Hey,” he says. “You all right?” As I expect, Caleb is angry. “Where have you been? I've tried-” Whatever he is about to say is interrupted as a bailiff speaks. “The Honorab le Judge Jeremiah Bartlett presiding.”

The judge, of course, I know. He signed the restraining order against Caleb. He instructs us to sit down, and I try, but my body has gone stiff as a board and the seat does not fit me. My eyes take in everything and nothing all at once.

“Are we set for the arraignment on State v. Szyszynski?” the judge asks. Thomas rises smoothly. “Yes, Your Honor.”

At the defense table, the other attorney stands. “I'm representing Father Sz yszynski, and we're ready, Your Honor.”

I have seen this a thousand times before; one bailiff moves forward toward t he bench. He does this to protect the judge. After all, the people brought i n as defendants are criminals. Anything could happen.

The door to the holding cell opens, and the priest is led out. His hands are c uffed in front of him. Beside me, I feel Caleb forget to take his next breath. I hold my purse on my lap, a death grip.

The second bailiff leads the priest to the defense table, the inside seat, bec ause he will have to stand up in front of the judge to enter his plea. He is c lose enough, now, that I could spit at him. I could whisper, and he might hear me.

I tell myself to be patient.

My eyes go to the judge, then to the bailiffs. They are the ones I am worrie d about. They stand behind the priest, make sure he sits down. Move back. Move back move back move back.

I slide my hand into my purse, past the familiar, to the heat that leaps into my hand. The bailiff takes a step away-this defendant, scum of the earth, st ill has the right to privacy with his own attorney. There are words moving ar ound the courtroom like small insects, distractions I do not really notice. The minute I stand up, I've jumped off the cliff. The world goes by in a haze of color and light; my weight accelerates, head-over-heels. Then I think, Fall ing is the first step in learning how to fly.

In two steps, I am across the aisle of the courtroom. In a breath, I hold the gu n up to the priest's head. I pull the trigger four times.

The bailiff grabs my arm but I won't let go of the weapon. I can't, until I k now that I've done it. There is blood spreading, and screams, and then I'm falling again, forward, past the bar, where I am supposed to be. “Di d I get him? Is he dead?”

They slam me onto the ground, and when I open my eyes, I can see him. The p riest lies with half his head missing, just a few feet away.

I let go of the gun.

The weight on me takes familiar shape, and then I hear Patrick in my ear. “N ina, stop. Stop fighting.” His voice brings me back. I see the defense attor ney, hiding under the stenographer's table. The press, their cameras flashin g like a field of fireflies. The judge, pushing the panic button on his desk and yelling to clear the courtroom. And Caleb, white as snow, wondering who I am.

“Who's got cuffs?” Patrick asks. A bailiff hands him a pair from his belt, and Patrick secures my hands behind me. He lifts me up and bustles me towar d the same door through which the priest entered. Patrick's body is unyield ing, his chin firm against my ear. “Nina,” he whispers to me. “What did you do?”

Once, not long ago, standing in my own home, I had asked Patrick this same q uestion. Now I give his own answer back to him. “I did what I had to,” I say , and I let myself believe it.

II To be once in doubt Is once to be resolv'd.

-Shakespeare, Othello 124 ts my eyes to look.

Summer camp is a place that hums with crickets and is so green it sometime s hurts my eyes to look.

I'm afraid to be here, because it is outside, and because outside there are bees. Bees make my stomach feel like a fist, even seeing one makes me want t o run and hide. In my nightmares I picture them sucking my blood like it is honey.

My mother tells the camp counselors I'm afraid of bees. They say that in all the years of camp, not a single child has been stung.

I think, Someone has to be first.

One morning, my counselor-a girl with a macrame necklace that she wears eve n during swim time-takes us into the woods on a hike. It's time for a circl e, she says. She moves one log, to make a bench. She moves a second log, an d there are all the yellow jackets.

I freeze. The bees cover the counselor's face and arms and belly. She tries to bat them away while she's screaming. I throw myself at her. I slap my han ds on her skin. I save her, even while I am being stung and stung. At the end of camp that summer, the counselors give out awards. They are bl ue ribbons, each one, printed with fat black letters. Mine says Bravest Boy .

I still have it.

126

In the moments after, Patrick wonders how he could know that Nina's favorite number is 13, that the scar on her chin came from a sledding crash, that sh e wished for a pet alligator for three Christmases straight-yet not know th at inside her, all this time, was a grenade waiting to explode. “I did what I had to,” she murmurs, all the way across the slick and bloodied court. In his arms, she trembles. She feels light as a cloud. Patrick's head whirls. Nina still smells of apples, her shampoo; she still can't walk a straight li ne-but she is babbling incoherently, not at all in control the way Patrick is accustomed to seeing her. As they cross the threshold into the holding cell, Patrick looks behind him into the courtroom. Pandemonium. He's always though t that word sounds like a circus, but here it is now. Brain matter covers the front of the defense attorney's suit. A litter of paper and pocketbooks cove rs the gallery, as some reporters sob, and others direct their cameramen to f ilm. Caleb stands still as a statue. Bobby, one of the bailiffs, is talking i nto the radio at his shoulder: “Yeah, shots were fired, and we need an ambula nce.” Roanoke, the other bailiff, hustles a white-faced Judge Bartlett into c hambers. “Clear the court!” the judge yells, and Roanoke answers: “But we can 't, Your Honor. They're all witnesses.”

On the floor, being completely ignored, is the body of Father Szyszynski. Killing him was the right thing, Patrick thinks before he can stop himself . And then immediately afterward: Oh, God, what has she done?

“Patrick,” Nina murmurs.

He cannot look at her. “Don't speak to me.” He will be a witness at-Christ-Ni na's murder trial. Whatever she tells him, he will have to tell a court. As an aggressive photographer makes her way toward the holding cell, Patric k moves slightly to block the camera's view of Nina. His job, right now, is to protect her. He just wishes there were someone to protect him. He jostles her in his arms so that he can shut the door. It will be easier to wait out the arrival of the Biddeford Police Department that way. As it swin gs closed, he sees the paramedics arriving, leaning down over the body.

“Is he dead?” Nina asks. “I just need you to tell me, Patrick. I killed him, r ight? How many shots did I get off? I had to do it, you know I had to do it. H e's dead, isn't he? The paramedics can't revive him, can they? Tell me they wo n't. Please, just tell me he's dead. I promise, I'll sit right here and not mo ve if you just go look and see if he's dead.”

“He's dead, Nina,” Patrick says quietly.

She closes her eyes, sways a little. “Thank God. Oh, God, God, thank God.” She sinks down onto the metal bunk in the small cell.

Patrick turns his back on her. In the courtroom, his colleagues have arrived . Evan Chao, another detective-lieutenant in the department, supervises the securing of the crime scene, yelling over the crescendo of shrieks and sobs. Policemen crouch, dusting for fingerprints, taking photos of the spreading pool of blood and the broken railing where Patrick tackled Nina to get the g un out of her hand. The Maine state police SWAT team arrives, thundering dow n the center aisle like a tornado. One woman, a reporter sequestered for que stioning, glances at what is left of the priest and vomits. It is a grim, ch aotic scene; it is the stuff of nightmares, and yet Patrick stares fixedly, far more willing to face this reality than the one crying quietly behind him. What Nathaniel hates about this particular board game is that all you have to d o is spin the spinner the wrong way, and that's it, your little game piece is c oasting down that big long slide in the middle. It's true that if you spin the right way, you can climb that extra tall ladder . . . but it doesn't always wor k like that, and before you know it, you've lost.

Monica lets him win, but Nathaniel doesn't like that as much as he thought h e would. It makes him feel the way he did when he fell off his bike and had this totally gross cut all across his chin. People looked at him and pretend ed that there was nothing wrong with him but you could see in their eyes tha t they really wanted to turn away.

“Are you going to spin, or do I have to wait until you turn six?” Monica teas es.

Nathaniel flicks the spinner. Four. He moves his little man the right number of spaces and, it figures, winds up on one of those slides. He pauses at th e top, knowing that if he only moves three instead, Monica won't say a word. But before he can decide whether or not to cheat, something catches his atte ntion behind her shoulder. Through the wide glass window of the playroom, he sees one policeman . . . no, two . . . five . . . racing through the hallwa y. They don't look like Patrick does when he works-all rum-ply, in a regular shirt and tie. They are wearing shiny boots and silver badges, and their ha nds are on their guns, just like Nathaniel sees late at night on TV when he comes downstairs to get a drink and his parents don't change the channel fas t enough.

“Shoot,” he says softly.

Monica smiles at him. “That's right, a chute. But you'll have better luck next time, Nathaniel.”

“No . . . shoot.” He curves his fingers into a gun, the sign for the letter G.

“You know. Bang.”

He realizes the moment Monica understands him. She looks behind her at the sound of all those running feet, and her eyes go wide. But she turns back t o Nathaniel with a smile glued over the question that shivers on her lips.

“It's your spin, right?” Monica says, although they both know his turn has come and gone.

When feeling returns to Caleb's fingers and feet, it comes slowly, an emotio nal frostbite that leaves his extremities swollen and unfamiliar. He stumble s forward, past the spot where Nina has just shot a man in cold blood, past the people jostling for position so that they can do the jobs they were trai ned to do. Caleb gives the body of Father Szyszynski a wide berth. His body jerks toward the door where he last saw Nina, being shoved forward into a ce ll.

Jesus, a cell.

A detective who does not recognize him grabs his arm. “Where do you think you're going?” Silent, Caleb pushes past the man, and then he sees Patrick 's face in the small window of the door. Caleb knocks, but Patrick seems t o be deciding whether or not to open the door.

At that point, Caleb realizes that all these people, all these detectives, thin k he might be Nina's accomplice.

His mouth goes dry as sand, so that when Patrick finally does open the door a crack, he can't even request to see his wife. “Get Nathaniel and go home,” P atrick suggests quietly. “I'll call you, Caleb.”

Yes, Nathaniel. Nathaniel. The very thought of his son, a floor below while all this has been going on, makes Caleb's stomach cramp. He moves with a spe ed and grace unlikely for someone his size, barreling past people until he r eaches the far end of the courtroom, the door at the rear of the aisle. A ba iliff stands guard, watching Caleb approach. “My son, he's downstairs. Pleas e. You have to let me get to him.”

Maybe it is the pain carved into Caleb's face; maybe it is the way his words c ome out in the color of grief-for whatever reason, the bailiff wavers. “I swea r I'll come right back. But I have to make sure he's all right.” A nod, one that Caleb isn't meant to see. When the bailiff looks away, Caleb slips out the door behind him. He takes the stairs two at a time and runs d own the hall to the playroom.

For a moment, he stands outside the plate-glass window, watching his son p lay and letting it bring him back to center. Then Nathaniel sees him and b eams, jumping up to open the door and throw himself into Caleb's arms. Monica's tight face swims into the sea of his vision. “What happened up ther e?” she mouths silently.

But Caleb only buries his face against his son's neck, as silent as Nathani el had been when something happened that he could not explain. Nina once told Patrick that she used to stand at the side of Nathaniel's c rib and watch him sleep. It's amazing, she'd said. Innocence in a blanket. He understands, now. Watching Nina sleep, you'd never know what had happe ned just two hours before. You'd never know from that smooth brow what tho ughts lay underneath the surface.

Patrick, on the other hand, is absolutely ill. He cannot seem to catch his breath; his stomach knots with each step. And every time he looks at Nina 's face, he cannot decide what he'd rather find out: that this morning, she s imply went crazy ... or that she didn't.

As soon as the door opens, I'm wide-awake. I jackknife to a sitting position on the bunk, my hand smoothing the jacket Patrick gave me as a makeshift pi llow. It is wool, scratchy; it has left lines pressed into my cheek. A policeman I don't know sticks his head inside. “Lieutenant,” he says form ally, “we need you to come give a statement.”

Of course. Patrick's seen it too.

The policeman's eyes are insects on my skin. As Patrick moves toward the do or I stand, grab onto the bars of the cell. "Can you find out if he's dead?

Please? I have to know. I have to. I just have to know if he's dead." My w ords hit Patrick between the shoulder blades, slow him down. But he doesn't look at me, not as he walks away from the holding cell, past the other pol iceman, and opens the door.

In the slice of room revealed, I see the activity that Patrick's kept hidden from me for the past few hours. The Murder Winnebago must have arrived-a st ate police mobile unit that contains everything the cops need to investigate a homicide and the key personnel to do it. Now they cover the courtroom lik e a mass of maggots, dusting for fingerprints and taking down the names and statements of eyewitnesses. A person shifts, revealing a crimson smear that outlines a splayed, graying hand. As I watch, a photographer leans down, cap tures the spatter pattern of the blood. My heart trips tight. And I think: I did this; I did this.

It is a God's honest fact that Quentin Brown does not fancy driving anywher e, especially long distances, particularly from Augusta to York County. By the time he's in Brunswick he's certain that another moment and his six-foo t-five frame will be permanently stunted into the position demanded by this ridiculously tiny Ford Probe. By the time he reaches Portland, he needs to be put into traction. But as an assistant attorney general on the murder t eam, he has to go where he is summoned. And if someone offs a priest in Bid deford, then Biddeford is where he has to go.

Still, by the time he reaches the district court, he is in a formidable mood , and that's saying something. By normal standards, Quentin Brown is overpow ering-add together his shaved head, his unusual height, and his more unusual skin color, given this lily-whire state, and most people assume he is eithe r a felon or a vacationing NBA draft pick. But a lawyer? A black lawyer? Not heah, as the locals say.

In fact, the University of Maine law school heavily recruits students of co lor, to make up for their rainbow deficiency. Like Quentin, many come; unli ke Quentin, they all leave. He's spent twenty years walking into provincial courts and surprising the hell out of the defense attorneys who come expec ting someone-or something-different. And truth be told, Quentin likes it th at way.

As always, a path parts for him when he strides into the Biddeford Distric t Court, as people fall back to gape. He walks into the courtroom with the police tape crossing the doors, and continues up the aisle, past the bar. Fully aware that movement has slowed and conversation has stopped, Quenti n leans down and examines the dead man. “For a crazy woman,” he murmurs, a ppraising, “she was a damn good shot.” Then Quentin eyeballs the cop who i s staring at him as if he's arrived from Mars. “What's the matter?” he dea dpans. “You never seen someone six-foot-five before?” A detective walks up to him, swaggering with authority. “Can I help you?”

“Quentin Brown. From the AG's office.” He extends a hand.

“Evan Chao,” the detective says, working his damnedest not to do a double -take. God, how Quentin loves this moment.

“How many witnesses do we have to the shooting?”

Chao does some arithmetic on a pad. “We're up to thirty-six, but we've got about fifty people in the back room who haven't given us statements yet. They're all saying the same thing, though. And we have the whole shooting on tape; WCSH was filming the arraignment for the five o'clock news.”

“Where's the gun?”

“Bobby grabbed it, bagged it.”

Quentin nods. “And the perp?”

“In the holding cell.”

“Good. Let's draft up a complaint for murder.” He glances around, assessing the state of the investigation. “Where's her husband?”

“With all the other people, waiting to be questioned, I suppose.”

“Do we have any evidence linking him to the crime? Did he participate in any way?”

Chao exchanges a glance with a few police officers, who murmur among them selves and shrug. “He hasn't been questioned yet, apparently.”

“Then get him in here,” Quentin says. “Let's ask him.” Chao turns to one of the bailiffs. “Roanoke, find Caleb Frost, will you?” The older man looks at Quentin and quails. “He, uh, ain't in there.”

“You know this for a fact,” Quentin says slowly.

"Ayuh. He, well, he asked me if he could go get his kid, but he told me he'

d come back."

“He said what?” This is little more than a whisper, but coming from Quentin 's great height, it is threatening. “You let him walk out the door after hi s wife murdered the man who's charged with molesting his son? What is this, the Keystone Kops?”

“No, sir,” the bailiff replies solemnly. “It's the Biddeford District Court.” A muscle jumps in Quentin's jaw. “Get someone to go find this guy and inter view him,” he tells Chao. “I don't know what he knows; I don't know whether he's involved, but if he needs to be arrested, do it.”

Chao bristles. “Don't pin this on the police force; it was the bailiff's mist ake. Nobody even told me he was in the courtroom.”

And where else would he be, if his son's abuser was being arraigned? But Qu entin only takes a deep breath. “Well, we need to deal with the shooter, an yway. Is the judge still here? Maybe we can get him to arraign her.”

“The judge is ... indisposed.”

“Indisposed,” Quentin repeats.

“Took three Valium after the shots flew, and hasn't woken up yet.” There is a possibility of getting another judge in, but it is late in the da y. And the last thing Quentin wants is to have this woman released because o f some stupid bail commissioner. “Charge her. We'll hold her overnight and a rraign her in the morning.”