Perfect Match Read online

  Bright spots of color rise to my cheeks. Have I been that transparent? "All I want, all Dr. Robichaud wants, is to give Nathaniel a chance to communicate. Because being like this is frustrating him. Today I taught him to say 'I want the dog.' Maybe you'd like to explain to me how that's going to lead to a conviction. Maybe you'd like to explain to your son why you're so dead set on taking away the only method he has to express himself."

  Caleb spreads his splayed hands like an umpire. It is the sign for don't, although I am sure he does not know this. "I can't fight with you, Nina. You're too good at it." He opens the door and kneels down in front of Nathaniel. "You know, it's an awfully nice day to be sitting here, studying. You could play on the swings, if you want--"

  Play: two Y handshapes, caught at the pinkies to shake. "--or build a road in your sandbox ..."

  Build: U handshapes, stacking one on top of the other over and over.

  "... and you don't have to say anything, Nathaniel, if you're not ready. Not even with words that you make with your hands." Caleb smiles at Nathaniel. "Okay?" When Nathaniel nods, Caleb picks him up, swinging him high over his head to sit on his shoulders. "What do you say we go pick the crab apples in the woods?" he asks. "I'll be your ladder."

  Just before he breaks the edge of our property, Nathaniel twists on his father's shoulders. It's hard to see from this distance, but it seems that he's holding up a hand. To wave? I start to wave back, and then realize that his fingers are making that I, L, Y combination, then reconfiguring into what looks like a peace sign.

  It may not be technically right, but I can understand Nathaniel, loud and clear.

  I love you, too.

  Myrna Oliphant, the secretary shared by all five assistant district attorneys in Alfred, is a woman nearly as wide as she is high. Her sensible shoes squeak when she walks, she smells of Brylcreem, and she can allegedly type an astounding hundred words a minute, although no one has ever actually seen her do it. Peter and I always joke that we see more of Myrna's back than her front, since she seems to have a sixth sense about disappearing the moment any of us need her.

  So when I walk into my office eight days after Nathaniel stops speaking, and she comes right up to me, I know everything's wrong. "Nina," she says, tsking. "Nina." She puts her hand to her throat--there are real tears in her eyes. "If there's anything ..."

  "Thank you," I say, humbled. It does not surprise me that she knows what has happened; I told Peter and I'm sure he filled everyone else in on the relevant details. The only sick days I've ever used have been when Nathaniel had strep or chicken pox; in a way my absence from work now has been no different, except that this illness is more insidious. "But you know, right now, I just need to get things taken care of here, so that I can go back home."

  "Yes, yes." Myrna clears her throat, going professional. "Your messages, of course, Peter's been taking care of. And Wallace is expecting you." She heads back to her desk, but hesitates a moment, remembering. "I put a note up at the church," she says, and that's when I remember she, too, is a member of the congregation at St. Anne's. There is a small roped square on the News and Notes bulletin board, where people can request that a Hail Mary or Our Father be said for family members or friends in need. Myrna smiles at me. "Maybe God's listening to those prayers even now."

  "Maybe." I do not say what I'm thinking: And where was God when it happened?

  My office is just the way I left it. I sit gingerly in my swivel chair, push the papers around on my desk, scan my phone messages. It is good to come back to a place that looks, and is, exactly the way I've remembered it in my mind.

  A knock. Peter comes in, then shuts the door behind him. "I don't know what to say," he admits.

  "Then don't say anything. Just come in and sit down."

  Peter sprawls in the chair on the other side of my desk. "Are you sure, Nina? I mean, is it possible that the psychiatrist is jumping to conclusions?"

  "I saw the same behaviors she did. And I jumped to the same conclusions." I look up at him. "A specialist found physical proof of penetration, Peter."

  "Oh, Jesus." Peter clasps his hands between his knees, at a loss. "What can I do for you, Nina?"

  "You've been doing it. Thanks." I smile at him. "Whose brain matter was it, in the car?"

  Peter's eyes are soft on my face. "Who the hell cares? You shouldn't be thinking about that. You shouldn't even be here."

  I am torn between confiding in him, and ruining his good impression of me. "But Peter," I admit quietly, "it's easier."

  There is a long moment of silence. And then: "Best year," Peter dares.

  I grab the lifeline. That's simple--I was promoted, and had Nathaniel, within months of each other. "1996. Best victim?"

  "Polly Purebred, from the Underdog cartoon." Peter glances up as our boss, Wally Moffett, comes into my office. "Hey, chief," he says to Wally, and then to me, "Best friend?" Peter gets up, heads for the door. "The answer is me. Whatever, whenever. Remember that."

  "Good man," Wally says, as Peter leaves. Wally is the standard-issue district attorney: lean as a shark, with a full head of hair and a mouthful of capped movie-star teeth that could win him reelection all by themselves. He's also an excellent lawyer; he can cut to the heart before you realize the first incision has even been made. "Needless to say, this job is here when you're ready," Wally begins, "but I'll personally bar the door if you plan on coming back anytime soon."

  "Thanks, Wally."

  "I'm sorry as hell, Nina."

  "Yeah." I glance down at my blotter. There's a calendar underneath it. No pictures of Nathaniel are on my desk--a long habit I kept from District Court, when the scum of the earth would come in to plead their cases in my office. I didn't want them to know I had a family. I didn't want that to come back and haunt me.

  "Can I ... can I try the case?"

  The question is so small, it takes a moment to realize I've asked it. The pity in Wally's eyes makes me drop my own gaze to my lap. "You know you can't, Nina. Not that I'd rather have anyone else lock this sick fuck up. But no one in our office can do it. It's a conflict of interest."

  I nod, but I still can't speak. I wanted that, I wanted it so badly.

  "I've already called the district attorney's office in Portland. There's a guy up there who's good." Wally smiles crookedly. "Almost as good as you are, even. I told them what was going on, and that we might need to borrow Tom LaCroix."

  There are tears in my eyes when I thank Wallace. For him to have gone out on a limb like this--before we even have a perp to prosecute--is extraordinary.

  "We take care of our own," Wally assures me. "Whoever did this is going to pay."

  It is a line I've used myself, to appease frantic parents. But I know, even as I say it, that there will be an equal cost extracted from their child. Still, because it is my job, and because I usually have no case without a testifying witness, I tell the parents I'd do anything to get that monster into jail. I tell the parents that in their shoes I'd do whatever it takes, including putting their children on the stand.

  But now I'm the parent, and it is my child, and that changes everything.

  One Saturday I took Nathaniel to my office, so that I could finish up some work. It was a ghost town--the Xerox machines sleeping like beasts, the computers blinking blind, the telephones quiet. Nathaniel occupied himself with the paper shredder while I reviewed files. "How come you named me Nathaniel?" he asked, out of the blue.

  I checked off the name of a witness on a pad. "It means 'Gift from God.' "

  The jaws of the paper shredder ground together. Nathaniel turned to me. "Did I come wrapped and everything?"

  "You weren't quite that kind of a gift." As I watched, he turned off the shredder and began to play with the collection of toys I kept in the corner for children who had the misfortune of being brought to my office. "What name would you rather have?"

  When I was pregnant, Caleb would end each day by saying good night to his baby with a different name: Vladimir,