The Wrong Man (56 page)

“How much?”

“How much can you help?”

“Not sure. He and I don’t talk much.”

“When did you see him last?”

“A couple of years. We don’t get along too good.”

“What about at holidays?”

O’Connell shook his head. “I told you, we don’t get along too good. What’s he taken?”

Scott smiled. “Again, Mr. O’Connell, information like that would render your position, shall I say, precarious? Do you know what that means?”

“I’m not stupid. Of course. And how precarious, Mr. Jones?”

“Speculation is useless.”

“Just how much goddamn trouble is he in? The type of trouble that gets you beat up? Or the type of trouble that gets you killed?”

Scott took a breath, wondering just how far to push the fiction.

“Let’s just say that he can repair the damage he’s done. But it will require cooperation. It is a sensitive matter, Mr. O’Connell. And much more delay could prove problematic.” Scott felt utterly cold inside.

“What, drugs? He steal some drugs from somebody? Or money?”

Scott smiled. “Mr. O’Connell, let me put it to you this way. Should your son try to get in touch with you, and you were to advise us of that action, there would be a reward.”

“How much?”

“You asked that already.” Scott rose out of his chair, letting his eyes roam over the room, seeing a single hallway, leading to the rear bedrooms. It was a narrow space, he thought, that wouldn’t allow much maneuvering. “Let’s just say that it would be a pleasant Christmas gift.”

“So, if I can find the kid, how do I get ahold of you? You got a phone number?”

Scott put on the most pompous voice he could manage. “Mr. O’Connell, I really dislike telephones. They leave records, they can be traced.” He gestured toward the computer. “Can you send e-mail?”

O’Connell wheezed out rapidly, “Of course. Who can’t? But I got to have a promise, Mr. fucking Jones or Smith, that my kid ain’t going to get himself killed over this.”

“Okay,” Scott said, lying with ease. “An easy promise to make. You hear from your kid, you send an e-mail to this address.” He walked over to the table and found an unpaid phone bill and the stump of a pencil. He made up a completely bogus e-mail address and wrote it down.

He handed the paper to O’Connell. “Don’t lose that. And the phone number where I can reach you?”

The father rattled off his telephone number as he stared at the address. “Okay,” O’Connell’s father said. “Anything else?”

Scott smiled. “We won’t be seeing each other again. And, should anyone ask you, I presume you will have the sense to say that this little meeting never took place. And, should that someone be your son, well, then that admonition would go double. Do we understand each other?”

O’Connell’s father looked at the address a second time, grinned, and shrugged. “Works for me.”

“Good. Don’t get up. I can show myself out.”

Scott’s heart was moving rapidly as he slowly made his way back out. He knew that somewhere behind him was not only the ax handle, but a gun, which the neighbors had told him about, and probably a heavy-caliber rifle, as well; the glassy-eyed deer head mounted on the wall said as much. He had to trust that O’Connell’s father hadn’t had the simple good sense to write down his license plate number, although it was doubtful that he would fail to recognize the distinctive old Porsche if he saw it again. Scott told himself to take note of every detail on the way out; he might return to the house again, and he wanted to be familiar with the arrangement of the furniture. He took note of the flimsy locks on the door, then exited. Greed was an awful thing, and someone who would sell out his own child owned a cruelty that went somewhere beyond his own emotional reach. He felt a sudden wave of nausea nearly overcome him. But he had the sense to poke his head around the back side of the house, revealing the extra doorway that he had expected. Then he turned and hurried down the driveway. He could see gray clouds scudding across the horizon.

Michael O’Connell thought that he had been far too quiet and far too absent over the past few days.

The key to forcing Ashley to understand that no one—other than him—could actually protect her lay in underscoring everyone’s vulnerability. What prevented her from fully recognizing the depth of his love and the overwhelming need he had for her to be at his side was the cocoon that her parents had erected around her. And when he thought about Catherine, he got a bilious taste in his mouth. She was old, she was fragile, she was out there alone, and he had had the opportunity to remove her from the equation, but had failed to, even when she’d been within his reach. He decided that he would not make that mistake again.

He was seated at his computer, idly toying with the cursor, oblivious to the quiet that surrounded him. The machine was new. After Matthew Murphy had smashed his old one, he had almost instantly gone out and acquired a replacement. After a moment, he turned away, shutting down his machine with a couple of quick clicks.

He felt an overwhelming urge to do something unpredictable, something that would get Ashley’s attention, something that she couldn’t ignore and that would let her know it was useless to run from him.

He stood up and stretched, raising his arms above his head, arching his back, unconsciously mimicking the cats in the hallway. Michael O’Connell felt a surge of confidence. It was time to visit Ashley again, if only to remind them all that he was still there and still waiting. He picked up his overcoat and car keys. Ashley’s family was unaware how close the parallels between love and death really are. He smiled and believed that they didn’t understand that in all of this
he
was the romantic one. But love wasn’t always expressed with roses or diamonds or a saccharine Hallmark greeting card. It was time to let them know that the picture of his devotion had not changed. His mind churned with ideas.

The phone was ringing as Scott returned to his house.

“Scott?” It was Sally.

“Yes,” he said.

“You sound out of breath.”

“I heard the phone ringing. I was outside. I just got home and had to dash inside. Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, nothing overt has happened. Ashley and Catherine spent the day off doing something, but they won’t say what. I’ve been in my office trying to see our route out of this mess with mixed results, and Hope has hardly said a word since she got back from Boston, except she says we all need to talk once again and without delay. Can you come right over?”

“Did she say why?”

“I told you, no. Aren’t you listening to me? But it has something to do with what she found out in Boston, when she was watching O’Connell. She seems very upset. I’ve never seen her so sullen. She’s sitting in the other room, staring into space, and all she will say is that we all need to talk right away.”

Scott hesitated, thinking about what might have turned Hope so quiet, which wasn’t her usual style in the slightest. He tried not to react to the almost frantic tones he heard in Sally’s voice. She was being stretched thin, he thought. It reminded him of their last months together, before he knew about her affair with Hope, but when, on some deeper, more instinctual level, he had known everything was wrong between the two of them. He found himself nodding and said, “All right. I found out a great deal more about O’Connell, as well. Nothing damn good, and…” He paused again. For the first time since he had driven across the state, the vaguest semblance of an idea had begun to form in his imagination. “I’m not sure how we should use it, but…Look, I’ll be over shortly. How is Ashley?”

“She seems withdrawn. Almost distant. I guess some pop psychologist would say this is the start of a major-league depression. Having this guy in her life is like having some sort of really difficult disease. Like cancer.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Scott said.

“I shouldn’t be a realist? I should be some sort of optimist?”

Scott paused. Sally could be tough, he thought, and she could be maddeningly direct. But now, with their daughter’s situation, it frightened him. He was unsure whether his
we can get out of this
thinking or Sally’s
we’re in big trouble and it’s getting worse
attitude was right. He wanted to scream.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and replied, “I said I’ll be right over. Tell, Ashley…”

He stopped again. He could sense Sally breathing in hard.

“Tell her what? That everything’s going to be okay?” she asked bitterly. “And Scott,” she added after a small hesitation, “try to bring whatever our next step is. Or else a pizza.”

“They are still reluctant,” she said.

“I understand,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that I truly did. “But still, I need to speak with at least one of them. Otherwise the story isn’t complete.”

“Well,” she said slowly, obviously thinking over her words carefully before speaking, “there is one who is willing, in fact, eager, to tell what they know. But I’m not sure that you are completely ready for that conversation.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. One wants to talk, but what? The others are preventing it and think they are protecting themselves? Or are you protecting all of them?”

“They’re not sure that you fully understand their position.”

“Don’t be crazy. I’ve talked to all sorts of people, been all over this. They were in a quandary. I know that. Whatever they did to get out, it would seem justified….”

“Really? You think so? The end justifies the means?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what I meant was—”

She held up a hand, cutting me off, and stood looking across the yard, out past some trees to the street. She sighed deeply. “They were at a crossroads. A choice had to be made. Like so many of the choices that people—ordinary people—are forced to make, it would have profound personal consequences. That’s what you need to understand.”

“But what choice did they have?”

“Good question,” she replied with a small, haunted laugh. “Answer it for me.”

38

A Measure of Evils

S
cott walked up the pathway to his ex-wife’s house filled with doubts and uncertainties, all warring within him. When he reached the entranceway, he lifted his hand to ring the doorbell, but hesitated. For an instant he turned back and stared into the edges of darkness that filled the street. He was much closer now to Michael O’Connell, yet he knew that O’Connell still hid from him. He wondered if he was being studied just as closely by their target. He did not know if it was possible to get ahead, to gain an edge. He doubted it. For all he knew, somewhere in that block, right then, right at that moment, O’Connell was standing, hidden by the completeness of the black, watching him. Scott felt a surge of rage within him; he wanted to scream out loud. He imagined that everything that he’d discovered on his research trip, that he’d thought was so unpredictable, was actually totally expected, totally foreseen, and totally anticipated. He could not shake the idea that somehow, as impossible as it would be, O’Connell had learned everything that Scott had done.

A short groan escaped his lips, and he could feel sweat beneath his arms. He took a sudden step away from the door, angry, trying to confront the man he believed was watching, and then he stopped.

Behind him the door opened. It was Sally.

She stared for a moment, out into the night, following the path of Scott’s eyes. In that second, she understood what he was searching for.

“Do you think he’s out there?” Her voice was flat and hard.

“Yes. And no.”

“Well, which is it?”

“I think he’s either right there, right in some shadow or another, watching every move we make. Or else he’s not. But we can’t tell the difference, and so we’re screwed, one way or the other.”

Sally reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. A small act of surprising tenderness, it felt strange to her, as she realized that she had not actually physically touched in years the man whose bed she’d once shared. “Come on in,” she said. “We’re just as screwed inside, but it’s warmer.”