Perfect Match Read online

  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 numbers. "This shows the DNA from Szyszynski's blood sample. And the line below 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 the guy to give a semen sample? The idea is, if you can match the suspect's blood DNA to evidence, you're almost guaranteed a conviction." I look up at him. "It means that he did it, Caleb. He was the one. And ..." My voice trails 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 punishment."

  "And Nathaniel would still have had to sit in that courtroom, reliving every minute of what happened to him, because that lab report would mean nothing 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 saying 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, then--

  My thoughts veer away from this as the manila envelope draws my eye. Who left 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 sympathetic 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, of 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 come back."

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

  "Fisher," I say firmly, "I'm asking you politely. Have your paralegal call Quentin 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 mistaken, that's all there is to it. All these letters and numbers, they are proof, in black and white, that I am a hero.

  Quentin gives the lab report another cursory glance and then puts it on a corner 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 sexual 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 yesterday."

  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 information will not make or break his case. But then again, it doesn't matter at all 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 secretary has closed the door behind herself, Quentin has put Carrington's request out of his mind.

  Marcella Wentworth hates snow. She had enough of it, growing up in Maine, and 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 beneath 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 quit 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 workstation she keeps a postcard Nina Frost, a district attorney, sent her last Christmas--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, it 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 about 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 consult on a case, just for the purpose of verification. "I've got a DNA test I need 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 hefting the ax, of swinging it down like a man measuring his strength at a carnival 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 likes 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 back 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 magnified 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 worked, 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 schizophrenic 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, scraping 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 help them," she sighed to Caleb, "and this is what we get."

  So Caleb