The Wrong Man (17 page)

S
cott drove east the following morning, early enough so that the rising sun reflected off the reservoir outside the town of Gardner, momentarily filling the windshield with glare. Usually when he drove the Porsche up Route 2, with its long, empty stretches through some of the least scenic countryside in New England, he let the car fly. He’d been ticketed once by a humorless state trooper, who’d clocked him at over a hundred miles per hour, and who had started a series of quite predictable lectures, which Scott had ignored. When he drove alone and fast, which was as frequently as he could, he sometimes thought it was the only time that he truly failed to act his age. The rest of his life was dedicated to being responsible and adult. He knew inwardly that the recklessness he exhibited spoke of some larger issue within him, but he ignored it.

The car began to hum in the distinctive sound that the Porsche had, an
I can go faster, if you’ll let me
reminder, and he settled into the drive, considering the brief conversation he’d had with Ashley the night before.

There had been no discussion of the reason for his trip to get her. He’d started to ask a question or two, but realized that she’d already spoken with both Hope and her mother, and so he was likely to simply be repeating questions already asked. So it had been all
I’ll be there early
and
Don’t bother parking, just beep, and I’ll come running out.
He figured that once she got into the car, she would open up, at least enough for him to make some sort of assessment of the situation.

He wasn’t sure what he thought, so far. The recognition that his first instincts upon reading the letter were correct didn’t give him any satisfaction.

Nor did he know, now that he was heading toward Boston to pick up his daughter, just how worried he should be. In a slightly perverse way, he was looking forward to seeing her because he doubted that he would have many more opportunities to truly act like a father. She was growing up, and she didn’t need him or her mother nearly as much as she did when she was a child.

Scott slid a pair of sunglasses down on his nose. He wondered, What does Ashley need now? A little extra cash. Maybe a wedding party sometime in the future. Advice? Not likely.

He punched the accelerator and the car jumped forward.

It was nice to be needed, but he doubted he would ever be again. At least, not needed in that small-child-and-parent way, where the smallest of problems can be magnified. Ashley was equipped to extricate herself from the problem. Indeed, he suspected she would demand this right. His role, he believed, was truly cheering from the sidelines, limited to making a modest suggestion or two.

When he had first seen the letter, he’d been filled with protective feelings that were reminiscent of her childhood. Now, as he drove to get her, more or less vindicated in his concerns, he glumly realized that his role was probably going to be small, and his feelings were best kept to himself. Still, as the stands of trees still carrying their fall colors swept past him, a part of him was overjoyed to be allowed into his daughter’s life in something other than a peripheral way. Scott grinned
Can’t catch me
as he headed down the highway.

Ashley heard the car horn beep twice, quickly peered out the window, and saw the familiar profile of her father in the black Porsche. He gave a small wave, which was both a greeting and a hurry-up gesture, because he was blocking the street and more than a few people who drive in Boston are willing to exchange words over the inconveniences of the narrow traffic lanes. Boston drivers take a sporting delight in honking and shouting. In Miami or Houston, that sort of conversation might produce handguns, but in Boston it is more or less considered protected speech.

She grabbed a small overnight bag and made sure that her apartment was locked. She had already unplugged the answering machine and turned off her cell phone and computer.

No messages. No e-mails. No contact, she thought, as she bounded down the stairwell and through the front door.

“Hi, beautiful,” Scott said as she crossed the sidewalk.

“Hi, Dad.” Ashley smiled. “Gonna let me drive?”

“Ah,” Scott hesitated. “Maybe next time.”

This was a joke between them. Scott never let anyone else drive the Porsche. He said it was for insurance reasons, but Ashley knew better.

“That all you’re going to need?” Scott asked, eyeing the small bag.

“That’s it. I’ve got enough stuff out there anyway, either at your place or Mom’s.”

Scott shook his head and smiled as he embraced her. “There was a time,” he said with a fake, sonorous tone, “that I distinctly recall carrying trunks and suitcases and backpacks and huge, military-issue duffel bags, all crammed with completely unnecessary clothing, just to be sure that you would be able to change at least a half dozen times each day.”

She smiled and headed toward the passenger door.

“Let’s get out of here before some delivery truck comes along and decides to squash your midlife-crisis toy car,” she said, laughing.

She put her head back on the leather headrest and momentarily closed her eyes, feeling, for the first time in some hours, safe. She breathed out slowly, feeling herself relax.

“Thanks for coming, Dad.” A few words that said a great deal.

Their exchange distracted her as her father steered the small car out of her street. He, of course, wouldn’t have recognized the figure sliding into the shadow of a tree as they went past, but she would have if her eyes had been open and she had been more alert.

Michael O’Connell stared after them, taking note of the car and the driver, and memorizing the license plate number.

“Do you ever listen to love songs?” she asked me. The question seemed to come out of the blue, and I hesitated for a moment before replying.

“Love songs?”

“Exactly. Love songs. You know, ‘Yummy, yummy, yummy, I’ve got love in my tummy,’ or maybe, ‘Maria…I’ve just met a girl named Maria’…I could go on and on.”

“Not really,” I replied. “I mean, I suppose everyone does, to some degree. Isn’t about ninety-nine percent of pop, rock, country, whatever, even punk, often about some sort of love? Lost love. Unrequited love. Good love. Bad love. I’m not sure what this has to do with what we’re talking about.”

I was a little exasperated. What I wanted to do was find out what the next step had been for Ashley. And I certainly wanted to get a better handle on Michael O’Connell.

“Most love songs aren’t about love at all. They’re about many things. But mostly about frustration. Lust, maybe. Desire. Need. Disappointment. Rarely are they about what love really is, which is, when you strip away all these other aspects, a…well, mutual dependency. The problem is, so often it is too difficult to see that, because we get obsessed with another one of these items on the love list, mistaking that for the be-all and end-all of the emotion.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “And Michael O’Connell?”

“Love for him was anger. Rage.”

I remained quiet.

“And it was as essential to him as the very breath of life.”

13

The Most Modest of Goals

T
he throaty hum of the sports car lulled Ashley into sleep almost instantly, and she didn’t stir for nearly an hour until she abruptly opened her eyes and sat up with a small gasp, disoriented. Scott saw her look about wildly and punch at the air in front of her for a second or two, before she slumped back again in the contoured seat of the car. She rubbed her hands across her face to clear the sleep from her eyes.

“Jesus,” she said. “Did I pass out?”

Scott didn’t answer the question. “Tired?”

“I guess. Maybe more like relaxed for the first time in hours. It just came over me. Feels kinda weird. Not bad weird, but not good weird, either. Just weird weird.”

“Should we talk about it now?”

Ashley seemed a little hesitant, as if with each mile that slid beneath the Porsche’s wheels, and Boston fading in the rearview mirror, whatever trouble she was in grew smaller and more distant. In that space of time, Scott asked a third question.

“Maybe you should just fill me in on what you told your mom and her partner,” he said quietly, aware that he had given a stilted formality to Sally and Hope’s relationship. “At least that way we’ll all be up-to-date on the same stuff. It would make sense if we could all put our heads together and come to some sort of reasonable plan for you to follow.” He wasn’t sure that making a plan was exactly what Ashley was coming home to do, but it was the sort of thing she would expect him to say, and that in itself was likely to be reassuring.

Ashley paused, shuddered, and then said, “Dead flowers. Dead flowers taped outside my door. And then he followed me instead of meeting me at a restaurant like we’d agreed, where I was going to get rid of him, and it was just like I was some animal, and he was a hunter, closing in on me.” She stared out the side window, as if organizing her thoughts in a way that would make some sense, then said with an immense sigh, “Let me start at the beginning, so you can understand it.”

Scott slowed the car down to the speed limit and moved into the right-hand lane, where the Porsche almost never traveled, and without saying a thing, listened.

By the time they reached the small college town where Scott lived, Ashley had pretty much filled him in on her relationship, if it could be dignified with that word, with Michael O’Connell. She had glossed over the initial connection as much as possible, not exactly being comfortable discussing alcohol use and her sex life with her father, using seemingly benign euphemisms such as
hooked up
and
sloshed
instead of words that were dangerously more explicit.

For his part, Scott knew exactly what she was talking about, but restrained himself from probing too aggressively. There were some details, he guessed, that he’d rather not know.

He shifted the car once or twice when they left the highway and started beating their way through country roads. Ashley had grown quiet again and was staring out the window. The day had risen brightly, a high, pale blue sky overhead.

“It’s nice,” she said. “To see home again. You forget about how well you know a place when you’re involved with so much other stuff. But there it is. Same old town common. Same old town hall. Restaurants. Coffee shops. Kids playing with a Frisbee on the lawn. Makes you think that hardly anything could be wrong anywhere.” She breathed out with a snort. “So, Dad, there you have it. What do you think?”

Scott tried to force a smile that would mask some of the turmoil he felt.

“I think we ought to be able to find a way to discourage Mr. O’Connell without too much trouble,” he replied, although he wasn’t sure about what he was saying. Still, he made certain that his tones were filled with confidence. “Perhaps all that is really needed is a talk with him. Or maybe some distance—this could cost you some time before your graduate program gets going. But that’s sort of the way life is. A little messy. But I’m sure that we can sort it out. He doesn’t really sound like as much of a challenge as I initially feared.”

Ashley seemed to breathe a little easier. “You think?”

“Yeah. I’ll bet your mom has pretty much the same take on it as I do. In her practice she’s seen some pretty tough guys, you know, in divorce cases or some of the low-rent crimes she handles. And she’s seen her share of abusive relationships—although that’s not exactly how I’d characterize this one—and so she’s pretty competent when it comes to getting all this sort of stuff straightened out.”

Ashley nodded.

“I mean, he hasn’t hit you, has he?” Scott asked, although Ashley had already given him the answer.

“I said no. He just says we’re made for each other.”

“Yes, well, I may not know who made him, but I know who made you, and I doubt that you were made for him.”

A small smile creased Ashley’s face.

“And, trust me,” Scott said, trying to make a small joke that might leaven the mood a little further, “it doesn’t seem like such a substantial problem that any well-respected historian couldn’t figure it all out. A little bit of research. Maybe some original documents, or eyewitness accounts. Primary sources. Some fieldwork. And we’ll be right on track.”