Free Perfect Victim by Carla Norton, Christine McGuire

to do something socially responsible and personally fulfilling, she tried a stint with VISTA, working with Nevada Indian Legal Services.
    At the end of her commitment, she started putting resumes in the mail, landing an interview with Tehama County District Attorney Bill Scott and then a job in Red Bluff-a “hick town,” in her estimation, but not a bad place to learn the fine art of prosecution.
    She’d come to Red Bluff recognizing that, being a rural area, it wouldn’t be as progressive as L.A. But some of the attitudes she encountered among police officers and her colleagues made her stop and swallow. She was offended by their insensitivity toward victims of sex crimes, especially their “didn’t-she-enjoyit?” attitudes about rape.
    It seemed that either no one wanted to handle these cases, or no one took them seriously, because a lot of them were being plea bargained away-meaning that rapists, child molesters, and wife beaters were back on the streets in a relatively short time.
    Mcguire raised a stink about it, the cases started ending up on her desk, and more or less by default, she became the office specialist on the prosecution of sex crimes.
    And she got convictions. By the end of 1984, her conviction rate was running at 90 percent.
    So why hadn’t she been given the Hooker case?
    By the end of the day she was privately fuming. She went home to her six-month-old daughter, Nicole, and relieved Rose, the grandmotherly nanny. Still angry, she fed the baby while mentally reviewing all the reasons she should be the one to try Cameron Hooker.
    When her husband got home, she could finally keep it in no longer. She broke the unspoken rule of not discussing work at home.
    Her husband, James Lang, was the District Attorney. They’d been dating in 1982 when he ran against her boss, Bill Scott, for Tehama County DA. He won, they married, and now she found herself in the frequently awkward position of working for her husband.
    Except for their profession, James Lang and Christine Mcguire seemed an unlikely pair. Her manner was quick, his was methodical. Her voice was keen, with a distinct Midwestern twang, his was deep and resonant. She was just a few years out of law school; he’d spent 20 years as a cop, some years as a judge, and was about 30 years her senior.
    But in their conservative politics and law-and-order ethics, Lang and Mcguire stood as matched as bookends. They were a career-oriented couple. In fact, their relationship had sprung from Christine’s deep respect for Jim’s professionalism.
    Mcguire had noticed Lang’s deftness in the courtroom soon after arriving in Tehama County in 1980. She had marveled at his ability to take a case apart from several different perspectives, admired his sharp legal mind, his easy rapport with the jury, his skillful presentations in the courtroom. He tried a case “with such effortlessness,” she said, “he could have been shopping for groceries.”
    Her first years in Red Bluff, Mcguire had often sought out his advice, and in some senses, he’d become her mentor. But once they married, they determined not to mix their professional and private lives. Christine basically agreed with this, but sometimes felt exasperated by Jim’s secretiveness. From his point of view, he was being protective of her by insulating her from conflicts with the Board of Supervisors or judges or whomever, but she felt shut out and jealous of his easy camaraderie with the others in the office. At work, they maintained an uneasy distance.
    So Mcguire had kept her desire to try Hooker bottled up, resisting the urge to approach District Attorney Lang on the subject, believing that, eventually, he would come to her. But by nightfall she was so thoroughly convinced the case was rightfully hers that when Jim came home she let him know she was angry at not having been assigned it.
    “Why did you give the sex slave case to King? I’m supposed to be handling the sex cases, Jim. Why shouldn’t I