Perfect Match

by Jodi Picoult

  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 recite, "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. "Fisher. 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 single 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 tears. "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 look 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 can 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 would 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 courtroom because this was such a high-profile case. It meant the arraignment 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 really 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?" Fisher 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 twenty times a day."

  "Did you purposefully go around the metal detectors because you were carrying 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 come out of it at any moment. My head, it's pounding past the words that Caleb 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 bailiff 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 happen.

  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 every 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 sound crazy. But what those psychiatrists have testified to is technically accurate--I had no conscious control of my actions. They are only wrong in thinking that this means I was insane. What I did was no mental illness, no psychotic break. It was instinct.

  Fisher pauses. "You found out some time later that, in fact, Father Szyszynski was not the man who sexually abused your son. How did that make you feel?"

  "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 my 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 thought 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 you.

  "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 ... except 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 anything 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 reaction. 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 that box. After all, there is not that much difference between himself and Nina Frost. Maybe he wouldn't have killed for his son, but he certainly greased wheels to make Gideon's conviction for drug possession go down much easier than it might have. Quentin can even remember that visceral pang that came when he found out about Gideon--not because he'd broken the law, like Tanya thought, but because his boy must have been scared shitless by the system. 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 down.

  He raises one eyebrow. "You're telling us that in spite of everything you know about the court sy
stem 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 to 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, killing 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 that would give you the best vantage point to kill Glen Szyszynski without harming anyone else in the room ... even that, at that moment, you had no plans 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 pocketbook and shoved it up to Glen Szyszynski's temple? Did you still have no plans to kill 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 the 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 evidence, 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 just about any other mother?"

  She narrows her eyes. "You can have every resource in the world at your fingertips, and still never be able to prepare a child for that. The reality, as you know, is that the rules in court are not written to protect children, but to protect defendants."

  "How fortunate for you, Mrs. Frost," Quentin says dryly. "Would you say you were a dedicated prosecutor?"

  She hesitates. "I would say ... I was too dedicated a prosecutor."

  "Would you say you worked hard with the children you put on the stand to testify?"

  "Yes."

  "In light of those twelve convictions, wouldn't you consider the work you did with those children to be successful?"

  "No, I wouldn't," she bluntly replies.

  "But didn't all those perpetrators go to jail?"

  "Not long enough."

  "Still, Mrs. Frost," Quentin presses. "You made the justice system work for those twelve children."

  "You don't understand," she says, her eyes blazing. "This was my child. As a prosecutor, my responsibility was completely different. I was supposed to take justice as far as I could for each of them, and I did. Anything else that happened outside the bounds of that courtroom was up to the parents, not me. If a mother decided to go into hiding to keep an abusive father away from her child--that was her decision to make. If a mother walked away from a verdict and shot an abuser, it had nothing to do with me. But then one day I wasn't just the prosecutor anymore. I was the parent. And it was up to me to take every step to make sure my son was safe, no matter what."

  It is the moment Quentin's waited for. Finely tuned to her anger, he steps closer to her. "Are you saying that your child is entitled to more justice than another child?"

  "Those kids were my job. Nathaniel is my life."

  Immediately, Fisher Carrington bobs out of his seat. "Your Honor, may we take a short break--"

  "No," Quentin and the judge say simultaneously. "That child was your life?" Quentin repeats.

  "Yes."

  "Were you willing to exchange your freedom, then, to save Nathaniel?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Were you thinking about that when you held the gun up to Father Szyszynski's head?"

  "Of course I was," she answers fiercely.

  "Were you thinking that the only way to protect your son was to empty those bullets into Father Szyszynski's head--"

  "Yes!"

  "--and to make sure he never left that courtroom alive?"

  "Yes."

  Quentin falls back. "But you told us you weren't thinking at all at that moment, Mrs. Frost," he says, and stares at her until she has to turn away.

  When Fisher stands up to redirect, I am still shaking. How could I, who knew better, let that get away from me? I frantically scan the faces of the jury, but I can't tell a thing; you can never tell a thing. One woman looks near tears. Another is doing a crossword puzzle in the corner.

  "Nina," Fisher says, "when you were in the courtroom that morning, were you thinking that you would be willing to exchange your freedom to save Nathaniel?"

  "Yes," I whisper.

  "When you were in the courtroom that morning, were you thinking that the only way to stop that clock from ticking was to stop Father Szyszynski?"

  "Yes."

  He meets my gaze. "When you were in the courtroom that morning, were you planning to kill him?"

  "Of course not," I reply.

  "Your Honor," Fisher announces, "the defense rests."

  Quentin lies on the godawful bed in the efficiency suite, wondering why the heat hasn't kicked in, when he's cranked it up to eighty degrees. He yanks the covers over himself, then flips through the channels on the television again. An entertainment program, Wheel of Fortune, and an infomercial for balding men. With a small grin, Quentin touches his shaved head.

  He gets up and pads to the refrigerator, but the only thing inside it is a six-pack of Pepsi and a rotting mango he cannot recall buying. If he's going to eat dinner, he's going to have to get dinner. With a sigh, he sinks down on the bed to put on his boots and accidentally sits on the remote.

  The channel switches again, this time to CNN. A woman with a smooth space helmet of red hair is speaking in front of a small graphic of Nina Frost's face. "Testimony in the DA Murder Trial finished this afternoon," the anchor says. "Closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow morning."

  Quentin turns off the TV. He ties his boots and then his gaze falls on the telephone beside the bed.

  After three rings, he starts debating with himself about whether or not to leave a message. Then suddenly music explodes into his ear, a deafening backfire of rap. "Yeah?" a voice says, and then the sound is turned down.

  "Gideon," Quentin says. "It's me."

  There is a pause. "Me who?" the boy replies, and it makes Quentin smile; he knows damn well who this is. "If you're looking for my mom, she's not here. Maybe I'll tell her to call you back and then again maybe I'll just forget to give her the message."

  "Gideon, wait!" Quentin can almost hear the phone, halfway to its cradle, being brought back to his son's ear.

  "What."

  "I didn't call to talk to Tanya. I called to talk to you."

  For a long moment, neither of them speaks. Then Gideon says, "If you called to talk, you're doing a lousy job of it."

  "You're right." Quentin rubs his temples. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. About the whole rehabilitation sentence, all of it. At the time I really believed that I was doing what was best for you." He takes a deep breath. "I had no right to start telling you how to live your life when I voluntarily walked out of it years before." When his son stays silent, Quentin begins to get nervous. Did he get disconnected, without knowing it? "Gideon?"
>
  "Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?" he says finally.

  "No. I called to see if you wanted to meet me for some pizza." Quentin tosses the remote control on the bed, watches it bounce. The moment he waits for Gideon's response stretches to an eternity.

  "Where?" Gideon asks.

  Funny thing about a jury: no matter how scattered they seem during testimony; no matter who falls asleep in the back row and who paints their nails right during your cross-examinations, the minute it's time to get down to business, they suddenly rise to the challenge. The jurors stare at Quentin now, their attention focused on his closing argument. "Ladies and gentlemen," he begins, "this is a very difficult case for me. Even though I do not know the defendant personally, I would have called her my colleague. But Nina Frost is not on the side of the law anymore. You all saw with your own eyes what she did on the morning of October thirtieth, 2001. She walked into a courtroom, put a gun up to an innocent man's head, and she shot him four times.

  "The ironic thing is that Nina Frost claims she committed this crime in order to protect her son. Yet as she found out later ... as we all would have found out later, had the court system been allowed to work the way it is supposed to work in a civilized society ... that in killing Father Szyszynski, she did not protect her son at all." Quentin looks soberly at the jury. "There are reasons we have courts--because it's very easy to accuse a man. Courts hold up the facts, so that a rational judgment can be made. But Mrs. Frost acted without facts. Mrs. Frost not only accused this man, she tried him, convicted him, and executed him all by herself on that morning."

  He walks toward the jury box, trailing his hand along the railing. "Mr. Carrington will tell you that the reason the defendant committed this crime is because she knew the justice system, and she truly believed it would not protect her son. Yes, Nina Frost knew the justice system. But she used it to stack the odds. She knew what her rights would be as a defendant. She knew how to act to make a jury believe she was temporarily insane. She knew exactly what she was doing the moment she stood up and shot Father Szyszynski in cold blood."

  Quentin addresses each juror in turn. "To find Mrs. Frost guilty, you must first believe that the state of Maine has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Father Szyszynski was unlawfully killed." He spreads his hands. "Well, you all saw it happen on videotape. Second, you must believe that the defendant was the one who killed Father Szyszynski. Again, there's no doubt in this case that this is true. And finally, you must believe that Mrs. Frost killed Father Szyszynski with premeditation. It's a big word, a legal word, but you all know what it is."