Perfect Match Read online

  Lumen. I repeat this word, and the others that are all that are left of this monster: no evidence of thrombus; the gallbladder serosa is smooth and glistening; the bladder is slightly trabeculated.

  The stomach contains partly digested bacon and a cinnamon roll.

  Powder burns from the gun form a corona around the small hole in the rear of his head, where the bullet entered. There is a zone of necrosis around the bullet tract. Only 816 grams of his brain were left intact. There were contusions of the cerebellar tonsils bilaterally. Cause of death: Gunshot wound to head. Manner of death: Homicide.

  This language is foreign, and I am suddenly, miraculously fluent. I touch my fingers to the autopsy report. Then I remember the twisted face of his mother, at the funeral.

  Attached to this file is another one, with the name of a local physician's office stamped on its side. This must be Father Szyszynksi's medical history. It is a thick file, far more than fifty years of routine checkups, but I don't bother to crack it open. Why should I? I have done what all those ordinary flus and hacking coughs and aches and cramps could not.

  I killed him.

  "This is for you," the paralegal says, handing Quentin a fax. He looks up, takes the pages, and then stares down at them, confused. The lab report has Szyszynski's name on it; but has nothing to do with his case. Then he realizes: It is from the previous case, the closed case--the one involving the defendant's son. He glances at it, shrugging at the results, which are no great surprise. "It's not mine," Quentin says.

  The paralegal blinks at him. "So what am I supposed to do with it?"

  He starts to hand it back to the woman, then puts it on the edge of his desk instead. "I'll take care of it," he answers, and buries himself in his work again until she leaves his office.

  There are a thousand places Caleb would rather be--in a prisoner-of-war's hovel, for example; or standing in an open field during a tornado. But he had to be present today, the subpoena said so. He stands in the courtroom cafeteria in his one jacket and threadbare tie, holding a cup of coffee so hot it is burning his palm, and tries to pretend that his hands aren't shaking with nerves.

  Fisher Carrington is not such a bad guy, he thinks. At least, he's not nearly the demon that Nina has made him out to be. "Relax, Caleb," the attorney says. "This will be over before you know it." They make their way to the exit. Court will convene in five minutes; even now, they might be bringing Nina in.

  "All you have to do is answer the questions we've already gone over, and then Mr. Brown will ask a few of his own. No one's expecting you to do anything but tell the truth. Okay?"

  Caleb nods, tries to take a sip of the fire that is his coffee. He doesn't even like coffee. He wonders what Nathaniel is doing with Monica, downstairs in the playroom. He tries to distract himself by picturing an intricate brick pattern he created for a former insurance CEO's patio. But reality crouches like a tiger in the corner of his mind: In minutes, he is going to be a witness. In minutes, dozens of reporters and curious citizens and a judge will be hanging on the words of a man who much prefers silence. "Fisher," he begins, then takes a deep breath. "They can't ask me anything, you know, that she told me ... can they?"

  "Anything Nina told you?"

  "About ... about what she did."

  Fisher stares at Caleb. "She talked to you about it?"

  "Yeah. Before she--"

  "Caleb," the lawyer interrupts smoothly, "don't tell me, and I'll make sure you don't have to tell anyone else."

  He disappears through a doorway before Caleb can even measure the strength of his relief.

  As Peter takes the stand for Quentin Brown at my bail revocation hearing, he shoots me a look of apology. He can't lie, but he doesn't want to be the one responsible for landing me in jail. To make this easier on him, I try not to catch his eye. I concentrate instead on Patrick, sitting somewhere behind me, so close I can smell the soap he uses. And on Brown, who seems too big to be pacing this tiny courtroom.

  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 placed along the path I was taking. Her son was sitting in it. He's the one I approached."

  "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 Charmin?"

  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 around and walk away?"

  "Because Nathaniel wanted me. And after ... after the abuse, he stopped talking 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 you?"

  "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 is involve myself in this case."

  "Thank you, Mr. Eberhardt."

  Fisher settles into place beside me at the defense table, as Quentin Brown glances 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 always looks crisp and fresh and coordinated, sits in bright orange scrubs. Her hair 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. Caleb 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 screws 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 language, trying to keep his head above water.

  "When did Nathaniel start speaking again, after you found out about the abuse?"

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

  "Had his verbal ability increase