Perfect Match (39 page)

“What did your husband do to make you believe this?” I find Caleb in the gallery, shake my head. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Yet you took the extraordinary step of getting a restraining order to preve nt him from seeing his own child?”

“I was focused on protecting my son. If Nathaniel said this was the person wh o hurt him . . . well, I did the only thing I could to keep him safe.”

“When did you decide to terminate the restraining order?” Fisher asks.

“When I realized that my son had been signing the word father not to identify Caleb, but to identify a priest.”

“Is that the point where you believed Father Szyszynski was the abuser?”

“It was a lot of things. First, a doctor told me that anal penetration had occurred. Then came Nathaniel's hand sign. Then he whispered a name to Dete ctive Ducharme that sounded like 'Father Glen.' And finally, Detective Duch arme told me he'd found my son's underwear at St. Anne's.” I swallow hard.

“I've spent seven years putting together pieces to make cases that will sta nd up in court. I was just doing what seemed absolutely logical to me.” Fisher glares at me. Absolutely logical. Oh, damn.

“Nina, listen carefully to my next question, please,” Fisher warns. “When y ou started to believe that Father Szyszynski was your son's abuser, how did you feel?”

“I was a mess. This was a man I'd trusted with my own beliefs and my famil y's beliefs. With my son. I was angry with myself because I'd been working so hard-if I'd been home more, I might have seen this coming. And I was f rustrated because now that Nathaniel had identified a suspect, I knew the next step would be-”

“Nina,” Fisher interrupts. Answer the question, I remind myself with a ment al kick. Then shut up.

Brown smiles. “Your Honor, let her finish answering.”

“Yes, Mr. Carrington,” the judge agrees. "I don't believe Mrs. Frost is done.

"

“Actually I am,” I say quickly.

“Did you discuss the best plan of action for your son with his psychiatrist?” I shake my head. “There was no best plan of action. I've tried hundreds of ca ses involving child victims. Even if Nathaniel started speaking normally agai n, and got stronger . . . even if there were a year or two before the case we nt to trial . . . well, the priest never admitted to what he did. That means it all hinged on my son.”

“What do you mean?”

"Without a confession, the only thing a prosecutor's got against the defend ant is the child's testimony. That means Nathaniel would have had to go thr ough a competency hearing. He'd get up, in a room full of people like this, and say what that man had done to him. That man, of course, would be sitti ng six feet away, watching-and you can be sure that he's told the child, mo re than once, not to tell. But no one would be sitting next to Nathaniel an d nobody would be holding him, nobody would be telling him it's okay to tal k now.

“Either Nathaniel would be terrified and fall apart during this hearing, and the judge would rule him not competent to stand trial-which means that the abuser would never get punished ... or Nathaniel would be told he was able t o stand trial-which means he'd have to go through it all over again in court , with the stakes cranked up a notch and a whole new set of people watching. Including twelve jurors predisposed to not believe him, because he's only a child.“ I turn to the jury. ”I'm not all too comfortable here, now, and I'v e been in a courtroom every day for the past seven years. It's scary to be t rapped in this box. It's scarring for any witness. But we were not talking a bout any witness. We were talking about Nathaniel.”

“What about the best-case scenario?” Fisher asks gently. “What if, after all th at, the abuser was put in jail?”

“The priest would have been in prison for ten years, only ten years, becaus e that's what people with no criminal record get for destroying a child's l ife. He would have most likely been paroled before Nathaniel even hit puber ty.” I shake my head. “How can anyone consider that a best-case scenario? H ow can any court say that would protect my son?”

Fisher takes one last look at me and requests a recess.

In the conference room upstairs, Fisher crouches down in front of my chair.

“Repeat after me,” he says. “Oh, come on.”

“Repeat after me: I am a witness. I am not an attorney.” Rolling my eyes, I re cite, “I am a witness. I am not an attorney.” “I will listen to the question, answer the question, and shut up,” Fisher continues.

If I were in Fisher's shoes, I would want the same promise from my witness. But I am not in Fisher's shoes. And by the same token, he isn't in mine. “Fi sher. Look at me. I am the woman who crossed the line. The one who actually did what any parent would want to do in this horrible situation. Every singl e person on that jury is looking at me and trying to figure out whether that makes me a monster or a hero.” I look down, feeling the sudden prick of tea rs. “It's something I'm still trying to figure out. I can't tell them why I did it. But I can explain that when Nathaniel's life changes, mine changes. That if Nathaniel never gets over this, then neither will I. And when you lo ok at it that way, sticking to the testimony doesn't seem quite as important , does it?“ When Fisher doesn't answer, I reach as far down inside me as I c an for whatever confidence has been left behind. ”I know what I'm doing,“ I tell Fisher. ”I'm completely in control.”

He shakes his head. “Nina,” he sighs, “why do you think I'm so worried?”

“What were you thinking when you woke up the morning of October thirtieth ?” Fisher asks me, minutes later.

“That this would be the worst day of my life.”

Fisher turns, surprised. After all, we have not rehearsed this. “Why? Father Szyszynski was about to be arraigned.”

“Yes. But once he was charged, that speedy trial clock would start ticking. Either they'd bring him to trial or let him go. And that meant Nathaniel wou ld have to get involved again.”

“When you arrived at the courthouse, what happened?”

“Thomas LaCroix, the prosecutor, said they were going to try to clear the c ourtroom because this was such a high-profile case. It meant the arraignmen t would be delayed.”

“What did you do?”

“I told my husband I had to go to the office.”

“Did you?”

I shake my head. "I wound up at a gun shop, in the parking lot. I didn't real ly know how I'd gotten there, but I knew it was a place I was supposed to be.

"

“What did you do?”

“I went in when the store opened, and I bought a gun.”

“And then?”

“I put the gun in my purse and went back to court for the arraignment.”

“Did you plan what you were going to do with the gun during the drive?” Fis her asks.

“No. The only thing on my mind was Nathaniel.”

Fisher lets this lie for a moment. “What did you do when you arrived at the courthouse?”

“I walked in.”

“Did you think about the metal detectors?”

“No, I never do. I just walk around them because I'm a prosecutor. I do it tw enty times a day.”

“Did you purposefully go around the metal detectors because you were carry ing a gun in your purse?”

“At that moment,” I answer, “I was not thinking at all.” I am watching the door, just watching the door, and the priest is going to c ome out of it at any moment. My head, it's pounding past the words that Cale b says. I have to see him. I can't hear anything but my blood, that buzzing. He will come through that door.

When the knob turns, I hold my breath. When the door swings open, and the b ailiff appears first, time stops. And then the whole room falls away and it is me and him, with Nathaniel bound between us like glue. I cannot look at him, and then I cannot look away.

The priest turns his head and, unerringly, his eyes find mine. Without saying a word, he speaks: I forgive you.

It is the thought of him pardoning me that breaks something loose inside. My hand slides into my purse and with almost casual indifference I let it happ en.

Do you know how sometimes you know you are dreaming, even while it occurs?

The gun is tugged forward like a magnet, until it comes within inches of his head. At the moment I pull the trigger I am not thinking of Szyszynski ; I am not thinking of Nathaniel; I am not even thinking of revenge. Just one word, clamped between the vise of my teeth:

No.

“Nina!” Fisher hisses, close to my face. “Are you all right?” I blink at him, then at the jury staring at me. “Yes. I'm . . . sorry.” But in my head I'm still there. I hadn't expected the recoil of the gun. For e very action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kill a man, and you will be punished.

“Did you struggle when the guards fell on top of you?”

“No,” I murmur. “I just wanted to know he was dead.”

“Is that when Detective Ducharme took you into the holding cell?”

“Yes.”

“Did you say anything to him back there?”

“That I didn't have any choice. I had to do it.”

Which, it turns out, was true. I had said it, at the time, to deliberately so und crazy. But what those psychiatrists have testified to is technically accu rate-I had no conscious control of my actions. They are only wrong in thinkin g that this means I was insane. What I did was no mental illness, no psychoti c break. It was instinct.

Fisher pauses. “You found out some time later that, in fact, Father Szyszy nski was not the man who sexually abused your son. How did that make you f eel?”

“I wanted to be put in jail.”

“Do you still feel that way?” Fisher asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

In that instant, my eye falls on the defense table, where neither Fisher nor I are sitting. It is already a ghost town, I think. “I did what I did to keep m y son safe. But how can I keep him safe when I'm not with him?” Fisher catches my eye meaningfully. “Will you ever take the law into your own hands again?”

Oh, I know what he wants me to say. I know, because it is what I would try to draw from a witness at this moment too. But I have told myself enough lies. I'm not going to hand-feed them to this jury, too.

"I wish I could tell you I never would . . . but that wouldn't be true. I thoug ht I knew this world. I thought I could control it. But just when you think you 've got your life by the reins, that's when it's most likely to run away with y ou.

“I killed someone.” The words burn on my tongue. "No, not just someone, but a wonderful man. An innocent man. That's something I'm going to carry with me, forever. And like any burden, it is going to get heavier and heavier . . . e xcept I'll never be able to put it down, because now it's a part of who I am.

“ Turning to the jury, I repeat, ”I would like to tell you that I'd never do anything like this again, but then, I never thought I was capable of doing an ything like this in the first place. And as it turned out, I was wrong." Fisher, I think, is going to kill me. It is hard to see him through the tears. But my heart isn't hammering, and my soul is still. An equal and opposite rea ction. After all this time, it turns out that the best way to atone for doing something blatantly wrong is to do something else blatantly right. But for the grace of God, Quentin thinks, and it could be him sitting in th at box. After all, there is not that much difference between himself and Ni na Frost. Maybe he wouldn't have killed for his son, but he certainly greas ed wheels to make Gideon's conviction for drug possession go down much easi er than it might have. Quentin can even remember that visceral pang that ca me when he found out about Gideon-not because he'd broken the law, like Tan ya thought, but because his boy must have been scared shitless by the syste m. Yes, under different circumstances, Quentin might have liked Nina; might even have had something to talk to her about over a beer. Still, you make a bed, you've got to lie in it ... which has landed Nina on the other side of the witness box, and Quentin six feet away and determined to take her do wn.

He raises one eyebrow. “You're telling us that in spite of everything you k now about the court system and child abuse cases, on the morning of October thirtieth you woke up with no intention of killing Father Szyszynski?”

“That's right.”

“And that as you drove to the courthouse for this man's arraignment, which-as you said-would start the clock ticking ... at that point, you had no plans t o kill Father Szyszynski?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Ah.” Quentin paces past the front of the witness stand. “I guess it came to you in a flash of inspiration when you were driving to the gun store.”

“Actually, no.”

“Was it when you asked Moe to load the semiautomatic weapon for you?”

“No.”

“So I suppose when you skirted the metal detector, back at the courthouse, k illing Father Szyszynski was still not part of your plan?”

“It wasn't.”

“When you walked into the courtroom, Mrs. Frost, and took up a position tha t would give you the best vantage point to kill Glen Szyszynski without har ming anyone else in the room . . . even that, at that moment, you had no pl ans to kill the man?”

Her nostrils flare. “No, Mr. Brown, I didn't.”

“What about at the moment you pulled the gun out of your pocket-book and s hoved it up to Glen Szyszynski's temple? Did you still have no plans to ki ll him then?”

Nina's lips draw tight as a purse. “You need to give an answer,” Judge Neal says.

“I told the court earlier I wasn't thinking at all at that moment.” Quentin's drawn first blood, he knows it. "Mrs. Frost, isn't it true that you'

ve handled over two hundred child molestation cases in your seven years with t he district attorney's office?"

“Yes.”

“Of those two hundred cases, twenty went to trial?”

“Yes.”

“And of those, twelve were convictions.”

“That's true.”

“In those twelve cases,” Quentin asks, “were the children able to testify?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, in several of those cases, there was no corroborating physical eviden ce, as there was in the case of your son, isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“As a prosecutor, as someone with access to child psychiatrists and social workers and an intimate knowledge of the legal process, don't you think you would have been able to prepare Nathaniel to come to court better than jus t about any other mother?”