The Wrong Man (8 page)

The question was how to get started.

One of the great advantages of studying history, he reminded himself, was in the models of action that great men had taken through the centuries. Scott knew that at his core he had a quiet, romantic streak, one that loved the notion of fighting against all hope, rising to desperate occasions. His tastes in movies and novels ran in that direction, and he realized there was a certain childish grace in these tales, which trumped the utter savagery of the actual moments in history. Historians are pragmatists. Cold-eyed and calculating, he thought. Saying “Nuts” at Bastogne was remembered better by novelists and filmmakers. Historians paid more attention to frostbite, blood that froze in puddles on the ground, and helpless mind- and soul-numbing despair.

He believed that he’d passed on much of this heady romanticism to Ashley, who had embraced his storytelling verve and spent many hours reading
Little House on the Prairie
and Jane Austen novels. In part, he wondered, if this might be at least a little bit of the basis for her trusting nature.

He felt a small acid taste on his tongue, as if he’d swallowed some bitter drink. He hated the idea that he’d helped to teach her to be confident, trusting, and independent, and now, because she was all those things, he was deeply troubled.

Scott shook his head and said out loud, “You’re jumping way ahead here. You don’t know anything for certain, and in fact you don’t even know anything at all.”

Start simply, he insisted. Get a name.

But doing this, without his daughter finding out, was the problem. He needed to intrude without being caught.

Feeling a little like a criminal, he turned around and went up the stairs of his small, wood-framed house, toward Ashley’s old bedroom. He had in mind a more thorough search, hoping for some telltale bit of information that would take him beyond the letter. He felt a twinge of guilt as he went through her door and wondered a little bit why he had to violate his own daughter’s room in order to know her a little better.

Sally Freeman-Richards looked up from her plate at dinner and idly said, “You know, I got the most unusual call from Scott this afternoon.”

Hope sort of grunted and reached for the loaf of sourdough bread. She was familiar with the roundabout way that Sally liked to start certain conversations. Sometimes Hope thought that Sally remained, even after so many years, something of an enigma to her; she could be so forceful and aggressive in a court of law, and then, in the quiet of the house they shared, almost bashful. Hope thought there were many contradictions in their lives. And contradictions created tension.

“He seems worried,” Sally said.

“Worried about what?”

“Ashley.”

This made Hope put her knife down on the plate. “Ashley? How so?”

Sally hesitated for a moment. “It seems he was going through some of her things and he came across a letter she received that disturbed him.”

“What was he doing going through her things?”

Sally smiled. “My first question, too. Great minds think alike.”

“And?”

“Well, he didn’t really answer me. He wanted to talk about the letter.”

Hope shrugged a little bit. “Okay, what about the letter?”

Sally thought for a minute, then asked, “Well, did you ever, I mean, like back in high school or college, ever get a love letter, you know the type, professing devotion, love, undying passion, total commitment, over-the-top I-can’t-live-without-you sorts of statements?”

“Well, no, I never got one. But I suspect the reasons I didn’t were different. That’s what he found?”

“Yes. A protest of love.”

“Well, that sounds pretty harmless. Why do you suppose he was bent out of shape about it?”

“Something in the tone, I’m thinking.”

“And,” Hope said, with a touch of exasperation, “what precisely would that be?”

Sally considered what she was going to say before saying it, a lawyer’s cautiousness. “It seemed, I don’t know,
possessive.
And perhaps a bit manic. You know, the
If I can’t have you, no one can
sort of thing. I think he was reading too much into it.”

Hope nodded. She chose her own words carefully. “You’re probably right. Of course,” she added slowly, “wouldn’t it be a greater error in judgment to underestimate a letter like that?”

“You think Scott was right to be worried?”

“I didn’t say that. I said that ignoring something is rarely an answer to a question.”

Sally smiled. “Now you sound like a guidance counselor.”

“I
am
a guidance counselor. So it probably isn’t all that crazy that upon occasion I actually sound like one.”

Sally paused. “I didn’t mean for this to be an argument.”

Hope nodded. “Of course.” She wasn’t sure that she agreed with this, but it was a much safer thing to say.

“It seems, sometimes, that every time Scott’s name comes up, when we’re talking, that we end up arguing about one thing or another,” Sally said. “Even after all these years.”

Hope shook her head. “Well, let’s not talk about Scott. I mean, after all, he’s not really much of a part of who we are, is he? But he’s still a part of Ashley’s life, so we should deal with him in that context. And anyway, even if Scott and I don’t exactly get along, that doesn’t mean I automatically think he’s crazy.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Sally replied. “But the letter…”

“Has Ashley seemed out of touch, or distant, or anything out of the normal lately?”

“You know as well as I.
No
is the answer. Unless you’ve noticed something.”

“I don’t know that I’m all that great at spotting emotional undercurrents in young women,” Hope said, although she knew this statement was the opposite of the truth.

“What makes you think I am?” Sally asked.

Hope shrugged. The entire conversation was going wrong, and she couldn’t tell if it was her fault. She looked across the dining room table at Sally and thought that there was some tension between them that she couldn’t quite put a name to. It was like seeing some hieroglyphics carved into a stone. It was speaking a language that should be clear, but was just beyond her grasp.

“When Ashley was last here, did you notice anything different?”

As Hope waited for Sally to reply, she went over all the dynamics of Ashley’s last visit. Ashley had breezed in with all the usual bluster, confidence, and million plans all going on at once. Sometimes standing next to her was a little like trying to grab the trunk of a palm tree at the height of a hurricane. She simply had a natural velocity to her.

Sally was shaking her head and smiling. “I don’t know,” she said. “She was doing this and that and meeting up with one person or another. High school friends she hadn’t seen in years. It seemed like she hardly had a moment for her boring old mom. Or her boring old mom’s partner. Or, I suppose, for her boring old dad either.”

Hope nodded.

Sally pushed back from the table. “Ah, let’s just see what happens. If Ashley has a problem, she’s likely to call and ask for advice or help or whatever. Let’s not read anything into anything, okay? Actually, I’m sorry I brought it up. If Scott hadn’t been so upset…Actually, not upset. But concerned. I think he’s just getting a little paranoid in his old age. Hell, we all are, aren’t we? And Ashley, well, she’s got all that energy. Best thing is to just step aside and let her find her own way.”

Hope nodded. “Spoken like a wise mother.” She began to clear the dishes, but when she reached for a long-stemmed wineglass, the glass broke in her hand, a piece of the base simply breaking off and shattering as it hit the floor. She looked down and saw that the tip of her index finger was bleeding. For a moment she watched the blood gather and then drip down across her palm, each droplet welling up through the slice, synchronized to her heartbeat.

They watched a little television, and then Sally announced that she was going to bed. This was an announcement, not an invitation, not even accompanied by the obligatory kiss on the cheek. Hope barely looked up from some college essays she was reviewing, but she did ask Sally if she thought it was possible for her to get to a game or two in the upcoming weeks. Sally was noncommittal as she headed up the stairwell to the bedroom they shared on the second floor.

Hope slumped back into a spot on the sofa, looked down as Nameless shuffled over to her, and then, hearing the water running in the upper bathroom, slapped her palm on the seat next to her, inviting her dog up to her side. She never did this in front of Sally, who disapproved of Nameless’s cavalier attitude toward furniture. Sally liked everyone’s roles carefully defined, Hope thought. Dogs on the floor. People in seats. As little messiness as possible. This was the lawyer in her. Her job was to sort out confusions and conflicts and impose reason upon situations. Create rules and parameters, set out courses of action and define things.

Hope was far less sure that organization meant freedom.

She enjoyed some clutter in her life and had what she thought was a slightly rebellious streak.

She idly rubbed Nameless’s fur, and he thumped his tail once or twice while his eyes rolled back. She could hear Sally moving about, then saw the shadow thrown by the bedroom light disappear from the stairwell.

Hope put her head back and thought that perhaps their relationship was in far more trouble than she could imagine, although she was hard-pressed to say exactly why. It seemed to her that for much of their last year together Sally had lived in a world of distraction, her mind elsewhere, all the time. She wondered if someone could fall out of love as quickly as they fell into it in the first place. She exhaled slowly and shifted in her seat and exchanged her fears for her partner to fears for Ashley.

She did not know Scott well and had probably only spoken to him on a half dozen occasions in nearly fifteen years, which, she conceded to herself, was unusual. Her impressions were gathered mostly from Sally, and Ashley, but she thought that he wasn’t the sort of person to go off half-cocked about something, especially something as trivial as an anonymous love letter. In her job, both as a coach and as a private-school counselor, Hope had seen so many bizarrely dangerous relationships, and she was inclined to be wary.

She rubbed Nameless again, but he barely budged.

It was trite, she thought, for someone of her sexual persuasion to mistrust
all
men. But on the other hand, she was aware of the damage that runaway emotions could do, especially to young people.

Raising her eyes, she looked up at the ceiling, as if she could see through the plaster and wallboard and determine what Sally was thinking as she lay in bed. Sally had trouble sleeping, Hope knew. And when she did manage to drift off, she tossed and turned and seemed troubled by her dreams.

Hope wondered whether Ashley was having the same trouble sleeping. That was a question she realized she should probably acquire the answer to. But exactly how to do this eluded her.

At that moment, Hope had no idea that more or less the same dilemma was also keeping Scott awake.

Boston has a chameleon-like quality that seems different from that of other cities. On a bright summer morning, it seems to burst with energy and ideas. It breathes learning and education, constancy, history. A headiness that speaks of possibility. But walk the same streets when the fog comes rolling in off the harbor, or when an edgy frost is in the air or the dirt-streaked residue of winter snow litters the streets, and Boston becomes a cold, gritty place, with a razor harshness that belongs to a far darker side.

I watched a late-afternoon shadow creep slowly across Dartmouth Street and felt hot air coming from the Charles. I couldn’t see the river from where I stood, but I knew it was only a few blocks distant. Newbury Street, with its trendy shops and upscale galleries, was nearby. So was the Berklee College of Music, which filled the adjacent sidewalks with aspiring musicians of all varieties: budding punk rockers, folksingers, aspiring concert pianists. Long hair, spiked hair, streaked hair. I could also see a homeless man, mumbling to himself, rocking back and forth, back to the wall of an alleyway, hidden in part by shadows. He might have heard many voices, or one craving, it was hard to tell, as I turned away. On the street nearby, a BMW honked at some students jaywalking against the light, then accelerated with a squeal of tires.

For a moment, I paused, thinking that what made Boston unique was its ability to accommodate so many different currents, all at once. With so many different identities to choose from, it was no wonder that Michael O’Connell found a home here.

I did not know him well, yet. But I had the inkling of a feel for him.

Of course, that was the same mystery Ashley faced.