Perfect Match

by Jodi Picoult

  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
sat down beside Coalspot. He took off his own work boot and sock, pointed to his heel. "You see?" he said. "Everyone already has one."

  After that, the homeless man went off, easy as a kitten. It didn't matter there was no poisonous hole--just at that moment, Coalspot truly believed there was one. And that for a second, Caleb had told the man he was right.

  Nina is like that, now. She has redefined her actions so that they make sense to her, if not to anyone else. To say that she killed a man in order to protect Nathaniel? Well, whatever trauma he might suffer as a witness couldn't be nearly as bad as watching his mother get handcuffed and carted off to jail.

  Caleb knows that Nina is looking for vindication, but he can't do what he did with Coalspot--look her in eye and tell her that yes, he understands. He can't look her in the the eye, period.

  He wonders if the reason he's putting up a wall between them is so that, when she is sentenced, it is easier to let her go.

  Caleb takes another log and sets it on end on the chopping block. As the ax comes down, the wood cleaves into two neat pieces, and sitting in the center is the truth. What Nina has done doesn't make Caleb feel morally superior, by default. It makes him a coward, because he wasn't the one brave enough to cross the line from thought to deed.

  There are parts of it Nathaniel can't remember--like what he said when Nathaniel first shook his head no; or which one of them unbuttoned his jeans. What he can still think of, sometimes even when he is trying his hardest not to, is how the air felt cold when his pants came off, and how hot his hand was after that. How it hurt, it hurt so bad, even though he had said it wouldn't. How Nathaniel had held Esme so tight she cried; how in the mirror of her gold eyes he saw a little boy who no longer was him.

  It will make Nina happy.

  Those are Marcella's first thoughts when she reads the DNA results, and sees that the semen stain and the priest's blood are indistinguishable from each other. No scientist will ever say it quite this way in testimony, but the numbers--and the stats--speak for themselves: This is the perp, no question.

  She picks up the phone to tell Nina so, tucking it under her chin so that she can rubber-band the medical files that came attached to the lab report. Marcella hasn't bothered to scan these; it is pretty clear from what Nina said that the priest died as a result of the gunshot wound. But still, Nina has asked Marcella for a thorough review. She sighs, then puts back the receiver and opens the thick folder.

  Two hours later, she finishes reading. And realizes that in spite of her best intentions to stay away, she'll be heading back to Maine.

  Here is what I have learned in a week: A prison, no matter what shape and size, is still a prison. I find myself staring out windows along with the dog, itching to be on the other side of the glass. I would give a fortune to do the most mundane of errands: run to the bank, take the car to Jiffy Lube, rake leaves.

  Nathaniel has gone back to school. This is Dr. Robichaud's suggestion, a step toward normalcy. Still, I can't help but wonder if Caleb had some small part in this; if he really doesn't like the thought of leaving me alone with my son.

  One morning, before I could think twice, I walked halfway down the driveway to pick up the newspaper before I remembered the electronic bracelet. Caleb found me on the porch, sobbing, waiting for the sirens I was certain would come. But through some miracle, the alarm did not go off. I spent six seconds in the fresh air, and no one was the wiser.

  To occupy myself, sometimes I cook. I have made penne alla rigata, coq au vin, potstickers. I choose dishes from foreign places, anywhere but here. Today, though, I am cleaning the house. I have already emptied the coat closet and the kitchen pantry, restocked their items in order of frequency of use. Up in the bedroom, I've tossed out shoes I forgot I ever bought, and have aligned my suits in a rainbow, from palest pink to deepest plum to chocolate.

  I am just weeding through Caleb's dresser when he comes in, stripping off a filthy shirt. "Do you know," I say, "that in the hall closet is a brand new pair of cleats fives sizes bigger than Nathaniel's foot?"

  "Got them at a garage sale. Nathaniel'll grow into them."

  After all this, doesn't he understand that the future doesn't necessarily follow in a straight, unbroken line?

  "What are you doing?"

  "Your drawers."

  "I like my drawers." Caleb takes a torn shirt I've put aside and stuffs it back in all wrinkled. "Why don't you take a nap? Read, or something?"

  "That would be a waste of time." I find three socks, all without mates.

  "Why is just taking time a waste of it?" Caleb asks, shrugging into another shirt. He grabs the socks I've segregated and puts them into his underwear drawer again.

  "Caleb. You're ruining it."

  "How? It was fine to start with!" He jams his shirt into the waist of his jeans, tightens his belt again. "I like my socks the way they are," Caleb says firmly. For a moment he looks as if he is going to add to that, but then shakes his head and runs down the stairs. Shortly afterward, I see him through the window, walking in the bright, cold sun.

  I open the drawer and remove the orphan socks. Then the torn shirt. It will take him weeks to notice the changes, and one day he will thank me.

  "Oh, my God," I cry, glancing out the window at the unfamiliar car that pulls up to the curb. A woman gets out--pixie-small, with a dark cap of hair and her arms wrapped tight against the cold.

  "What?" Caleb runs into the room at my exclamation. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. Absolutely nothing!" I throw open the door and smile widely at Marcella. "I can't believe you're here!"

  "Surprise," she says, and hugs me. "How are you doing?" She tries not to look, but I see it--the way her eyes dart down to try and find my electronic bracelet.

  "I'm ... well, I'm great right now. I certainly never expected you to bring me my report in person."

  Marcella shrugs. "I figured you might enjoy the company. And I hadn't been back home for a while. I missed it."

  "Liar," I laugh, pulling her into the house, where Caleb and Nathaniel are watching with curiosity. "This is Marcella Wentworth. She used to work at the state lab, before she bailed on us to join the private sector."

  I'm positively beaming. It's not that Marcella and I are so very close; it's just that these days, I don't get to see that many people. Patrick comes, from time to time. And there's my family, of course. But most of my friends are colleagues, and after the revocation hearing, they're keeping their distance.

  "You up here on business or pleasure?" Caleb asks.

  Marcella glances at me, unsure of what she should say.

  "I asked Marcella to take a look at the DNA test."

  Caleb's smile fades just the slightest bit, so that only if you know him as well as I do would you even catch the dimming. "You know what? Why don't I take Nathaniel out, so that you two can catch up?"

  After they leave, I lead Marcella into the kitchen. We talk about the temperature in Virginia at this time of year, and when we had our first frost. I make us iced tea. Then, when I can stand it no longer, I sit down across from her. "It's good news, isn't it? The DNA, it's a match?"

  "Nina, did you notice anything when you read the medical file?"

  "I didn't bother, actually."

  Marcella draws a circle on the table with her finger. "Father Szyszynski had chronic myeloid leukemia."

  "Good," I say flatly. "I hope he was suffering. I hope he puked his insides out every time he got chemotherapy."

  "He wasn't getting chemo. He had a bone marrow transplant about seven years ago. His leukemia was in remission. For all intents and purposes, he was cured."

  I stiffen a little. "Is this your way of telling me I ought to feel guilty for killing a man who was a cancer survivor?"

  "No. It's ... well, there's something about the treatment of leukemia that factors into DNA analysis. Basically, to cure it, you need to get new blood. And the way that's done is via bone marrow transplant, since bone marrow is what makes blood. After a
few months, your old bone marrow has been replaced completely by the donor's bone marrow. Your old blood is gone, and the leukemia with it." Marcella looks up at me. "You follow?"

  "So far."

  "Your body can use this new blood, because it's healthy. But it's not your blood, and at the DNA level, it doesn't look like your blood used to. Your skin cells, your saliva, your semen--the DNA in those will be what you were born with, but the DNA in your new blood comes from your donor." Marcella puts her hand on top of mine. "Nina, the lab results were accurate. The DNA in Father Szyszynski's blood sample matched the semen in your son's underwear. But the DNA in Father Szyszynski's blood isn't really his."

  "No," I say. "No, this isn't the way it works. I was just explaining it the other day to Caleb. You can get DNA from any cell in your body. That's why you can use a blood sample to match a semen sample."

  "Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, yes. But this is a very, very specific exception." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Nina."

  My head swings up. "You mean ... he's still alive?"

  She doesn't have to answer.

  I have killed the wrong man.

  After Marcella leaves, I pace like a lion in a cage of my own making. My hands are shaking; I can't seem to get warm. What have I done? I killed a man who was innocent. A priest. A person who came to comfort me when my world cracked apart; who loved children, Nathaniel included. I killed a man who fought cancer and won, who deserved a long life. I committed murder and I can no longer even justify my actions to myself.

  I have always believed there is a special place in Hell for the worst ones--the serial killers, the rapists who target kids, the sociopaths who would just as soon lie as cut your throat for the ten dollars in your wallet. And even when I have not secured convictions for them, I tell myself that eventually, they will get what's coming to them.

  So will I.

  And the reason I know this is because even though I cannot find the strength to stand up; even though I want to scratch at myself until this part of me has been cut away in ribbons, there is another part of me that is thinking: He is still out there.