The Wrong Man

17

For the first time in her relatively short life, Ashley felt as if her world were not only incredibly small, but now defined by so few things that it lacked anywhere that she could hide, anywhere she could escape to take a small breath of air and gather herself.

The minor irritations and small signs that she was being trailed and observed kept up steadily. Her telephone had become a weapon, filled with silences or heavy breathing. She no longer trusted her computer. She refused to check her e-mail because she could no longer tell who was sending it.

She told her landlord that she had lost her apartment keys, and he sent a locksmith around to replace the locks on the front door, although she doubted it did much good. The locksmith told her that the new locks would keep out most people, but not anyone who actually knew what he was doing. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine that O’Connell would be in the category of people who knew what they were doing.

At her job at the museum some of her coworkers complained that they were getting odd anonymous phone calls and unsettling e-mails suggesting that Ashley was acting behind their backs on some project or bad-mouthing them to management. When Ashley tried to explain that this was all untrue, she thought she wasn’t believed.

Completely out of the blue, one morning a gay coworker angrily accused her of being a closet homophobe. The charge was so ridiculous that Ashley was completely nonplussed. She was incapable of responding. Then a day or so later, a black coworker eyed her suspiciously and refused to have lunch with her that day. When Ashley followed her, trying to see what was wrong, she haughtily announced, “We have absolutely nothing to talk about. Leave me alone.”

After her evening graduate course, Modern European Impressionist Artists, her professor called her into her office and told her that she was in danger of failing if she did not start attending classes.

Ashley was taken aback. Her mouth opened and she stared at the woman, who barely lifted her head from the stacks of papers, slides, and large, glossy art books that littered her desktop. Ashley tried to look around, find something to focus on, and stop the dizzy sensation that threatened to overtake her.

“But that’s impossible,” Ashley said. “I’ve been at every class. The sign-up sheets should have my signature right in the middle.”

“Please don’t lie to me,” the professor said stiffly.

“But I’m not.”

“One of the graduate assistants goes over these, then puts them into the department system,” the professor said coldly. “Of the weekly lectures and additional slide presentations, which we’ve had more than twenty of so far, we can only find your name on two separate occasions. And one of those would be tonight.”

“But I’ve been there every time,” Ashley pleaded. “I don’t understand. Let me show you my notes.”

“Anyone can get someone to take notes for them. Or get someone to let them copy theirs.”

“But I’ve been there. Really. I promise. Someone has made a mistake.”

“Sure. Someone. A mistake. Right. It’s all our fault,” the professor spoke sarcastically.

“Professor, I think someone is deliberately sabotaging my attendance record.”

The professor hesitated, then shook her head. “I’ve never heard of that. What purpose would anyone have…”

“An ex-boyfriend,” Ashley said.

“I repeat, Miss Freeman, what purpose would that have?”

“He wants to control me.”

The professor hesitated again. “Well,” she said slowly, “can you prove this allegation?”

Ashley breathed in slowly. “I don’t know how.”

“You understand I simply can’t take your word for this?”

Ashley started to respond, but the professor held up her hand, cutting Ashley off in midprotest. “I told everyone at the start, in the very first lecture, that attendance was required. I’m not heartless, Miss Freeman. If someone has to miss a single session, perhaps even two, I can see that. Conflicts arise. People get into trouble. But attending class and studying the material in the course is your responsibility. I do not think you will be able to pass this course. In fact, I’m not inclined-”

“Give me a test. A paper. Something that would let me demonstrate that I’ve grasped the elements of each lecture.”

“I don’t do special releases or give special treatment,” the professor said briskly. “If I did, then I would have to do the same for every lazy or less than fully dedicated student who sat where you are sitting, Miss Freeman, quite willing to lie to my face and with one excuse or another, including my dog ate the homework and my grandmother died. Again. Grandmothers seem to die in my classes with depressing frequency and considerable regularity, and often many more times than once. So, no deal, Miss Freeman. Start coming to class. Get a perfect grade on the final-if you can, and I doubt it, because no one ever has-and perhaps I can eke out a passing grade for you. That remains to be seen. Have you considered some other field? I mean, perhaps art and graduate studies aren’t what you should really be doing.”

“Art has always been-”

The professor held up her hand again, shutting off Ashley’s response.

“Really? Perhaps I am wrong. Regardless, good luck, Miss Freeman. You will need it.”

Luck, Ashley thought, has nothing to do with anything.

She exited the professor’s office into a corridor that echoed with emptiness. Somewhere in a stairwell, or rising from another floor, she could hear laughter, but it was disembodied, almost ghostly. She stood, almost frozen in the vacant space. He was there, watching her. She slowly pivoted, as if he were always just beyond her sight, like a shadow trailing her. She listened for a sound, breathing, a whisper, anything concrete that would inform her that he was really there, but she could hear nothing.

Tears began to well up in Ashley’s eyes. She had no doubt that O’Connell had somehow managed to erase her name from the class rolls. She slumped against a wall, breathing in hard. All the hours she had spent in the classes, all the attention she had paid, the notes taken, the information, the knowledge, the appreciation of all the colors, shapes, styles and beauty of the artists studied in the class were somehow, in that moment, rendered moot. It was as if all those moments existed in some different universe where the Ashley that she thought she was went about her life, well on her way to being the person that she hoped to be.

He is making me disappear.

Anger filled her on a parallel course with despair. She pushed herself off the wall. This has got to stop.

Scott remained at his desk, hamstrung by what he had read. He felt as if something inside him had frayed. The words on the pages in front of him wavered, like heat above a highway, and he could feel the earliest tightening of panic in his chest.

Professor Burris had sent him a copy of his own article published in the Journal and the computer printout of the doctoral thesis written by a Louis Smith at the University of South Carolina. The thesis had been submitted to that school’s history department some eight months prior to Scott’s article, and it had, at its core, an examination of much of the same material. Their similarities were inevitable, and both pieces had relied on some of the same source material.

But that wasn’t the dangerous part. There was simply no denying that a half dozen key paragraphs were word for word the same in both. Professor Burris had helpfully highlighted the offending sections in yellow.

In a lengthy scholarly paper for an esteemed journal and in a 160-page double-spaced doctoral thesis, the offending paragraphs constituted only a tiny percent. And the observations they made were hardly of earth-shattering academic importance. But Scott knew that both those aspects were entirely beside the point. They were identical and that was that.

He had a sudden memory of the Red Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Execution first, then we’ll have the trial!

Scott had absolutely no doubt that he had written the sentences in front of him. Whatever hopes he’d had, that somehow one of his two student assistants had accidentally put the words in a note and that he’d used them without double-checking had disappeared. Their work was blameless.

His, on the other hand, apparently was not.

He reeled about in his seat, squirming in turmoil.

Professor Burris had not indicated what the source of the complaint was. Scott presumed it had come from the doctoral student, or from someone on the faculty at the University of South Carolina. Possibly some history buff-of which there were hundreds of thousands around the United States-had made the comparison, but he doubted he or she would have had the reach to enlist a historian as prominent as Burris.

It was almost midday before Scott, unshaven, bleary-eyed, and on his fourth cup of coffee, finally reached the acting chair of the USC History Department on the phone. To his surprise, the man was outgoing and helpful, and clearly unaware that any questions had been raised about Scott’s work. Instead, the acting chair immediately assumed that the fault ran in the other direction.

“Why, certainly I recall that thesis,” the acting chair said. “It received some very high marks from the entire panel. It was well researched and well written and, I believe, is in line for publication somewhere. And the young man, quite a fine student, and quite a fine fellow, I imagine has a terrific career ahead of him. But you say there is some question about the thesis? I find it hard to imagine-”

“I just want to examine some similarities. After all, we work in the same general area of expertise.”

“Of course,” the acting chair said. “Although I would hate to discover that a student here had engaged in any impropriety…”

Scott hesitated. He knew he had given the fellow historian the untrue impression that it was the onetime student who was potentially guilty of an academic felony. “You know, if I could speak with the young man, it might clear things up,” Scott said.

“Why, of course. Let me just check…”

Scott was placed on hold for several nerve-racking minutes. He sat immobile waiting to resume the conversation that might cost him everything that he’d spent years constructing.

“Well, Professor Freeman, sorry to have kept you waiting. It’s a little tricky for anyone to reach out and contact Louis. Young Mr. Smith took his newly minted doctorate and joined Teach For America. Sure as blazes isn’t what most of our students do. Anyway, the number and address we have for him is in some place north of Lander, Wyoming, on an Indian reservation. I’ll give you that now.”

Scott called out to Wyoming, discovered that Louis Smith was stuck in a class of eighth-graders for several hours, left his name and number, and explained that it was urgent. When the phone finally rang, he grabbed at it.

“Professor Freeman? This is Louis Smith.”

“Thanks for calling back,” Scott said.

The young man seemed enthused. “I’m really honored that you would call, Professor Freeman. I’ve read everything you’ve ever published, especially on the early days of the Revolutionary War. That’s my area, too, and I have to admit, I find it all fascinating, all the time. The military maneuvering, the political intrigues, the most improbable success. So many lessons for today. I mean, you can imagine on an Indian reservation how differently people view all those concepts of history that we take for granted.” The young man spoke rapidly, nonstop. But before Scott could interject something, Smith paused and took a breath and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling. Please, Professor, to what do I owe the honor of this call?”

Scott hesitated. The boundless energy from the young teacher wasn’t what he’d expected. “I’ve read your doctoral thesis…”

“You have! Oh, that’s great, I mean, if you liked it? Did you think that I got it all right?”

“It’s excellent,” Scott said, a little taken aback. “And your insights are right on point.”

“Thank you, Professor. I can’t tell you how much that means. You know, you do all this work, and maybe it gets published by an academic press-I’m still hoping for that-but really hardly anyone except your board and maybe your girlfriend actually sees it. To find out that you’ve actually read it…”

“There is a question,” Scott said stiffly. “There are some similarities between your thesis and a piece I did some months later.”

“Yes. In The Journal of American History. I read it carefully, because we dealt with much the same material. But similarities? How do you mean?”

Scott took another deep breath. “I have been accused of plagiarizing some of the paragraphs you wrote. I did not, but I have been accused.”

He stopped and waited. It took Louis Smith a couple of seconds to gather himself.

“But, that’s crazy,” he said. “Who accused you?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might be you.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“No. Absolutely not. Impossible.”

Scott felt dizzy. He had no idea what to think. “But I have in front of me a printout of your thesis, and I must say that there are paragraphs that are word for word the same. I don’t know how this happened, but…”

“Impossible,” Louis Smith repeated. “Your article came out months after my thesis was written, but you must have been doing your writing and research at more or less the same time. And there were delays in publishing my thesis. In fact, other than on the university website, which links to several historical sites, it’s hard to get a copy. The idea that you managed to find it, and then adopt some of the language…well, this is a mystery. Can you read me the paragraphs that are the same?”

Scott looked down at the yellow-highlighted words. “Yes. In my article, on page thirty-three, I wrote…”

And Scott ran through both.

Louis Smith responded slowly. “Well, that’s most curious, because the paragraph you read me that purports to be in both papers does not exist in mine. That is, I never wrote that. It’s not in my thesis. I mean, the points are similar to conclusions I draw, but what you say is there, is not.”

“But I’m reading from a printout of your thesis.”

“I don’t know for certain, Professor, but my immediate suspicion is that someone has tampered with the document you have in front of you. Do you know anyone who might do that?”

The wind had picked up, cutting razorlike across the pitch, and the daylight was fading in the west, making the world filmy gray and indistinct, as Hope gathered the team around her at the end of practice. The strands of hair that had escaped from ponytails were plastered to their foreheads with sweat. She had worked them hard, perhaps harder than she ordinarily would near the end of the season, but she had lost herself in running with them, feeling a release in breathlessness, as if the cold air was the only thing that could possibly distract her.

“Fine effort,” she said. “As sharp as we’ve been all season. Two weeks before the play-offs. You will be tough to beat. Very tough. That’s good. But there are seven other teams heading into the tournament who might be working just as hard. Now it becomes something more than physical. Now it’s about desire. How do you want this year, this season, this team, to be remembered?”

She looked around at the glistening faces of young women who had come to understand that a prize can be attained by hard work and dedication. It finds a spot in their eyes first, Hope thought, then spreads right into their skin, so intense that it gives off a sort of heat.

She smiled at them all, but felt a deep hole inside.

“Look,” Hope said carefully, “in order to win, we’re all going to have to pull together. So is there anything anyone wants to say here in front of the team? Is there anything holding you back?”

The girls looked oddly at each other. Some heads shook back and forth.

Hope was unsure whether any rumors about her had begun to circulate. But she found it hard to imagine that there hadn’t been some talk, yet. There are no secrets in some worlds, she thought.

The girls seemed to collectively shrug. She wanted to interpret this as support.

“Okay,” she said. “But if there is anyone, and I mean anyone, who is bothered by something, anything, before we start the play-offs, they can come to me. Office door is always open. Or, if you don’t want to talk to me, then see the athletic director.”

She could not believe she was saying what she was. She had the sense to change the subject.

“This is, without doubt, the quietest you’ve ever been as a team. So quiet, in fact, that I’m going to assume you’ve all lost your voices because you’ve worked so hard. So, let’s cancel the postpractice run. Give yourselves a cheer, a pat on the back, and then grab your bags and head on in.”

This got a round of applause. No extra laps always worked.

Hope gave them a wave, sending them on their way. They are ready, she thought. She wondered whether she was.

Within seconds, the girls had started to make their way off the field, knotting into groups, and Hope could hear laughter. She watched them depart, then sat on the wooden sideline bench.

The wind had increased, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold. She thought to herself that being a part of something, such as the school and the team, was a large part of how she defined herself, and now that was in jeopardy. A shadow moved across the green grass of the field, making the earth seem black. Little in the world is as soul-deadening as being falsely accused, she thought. An empty fury filled her. She wanted to find the person who had done it and pummel him or her with her fists.

But whoever it was, at that moment, seemed to have no more substance than the darkness growing around her, and Hope, as angry as she was, instead put her head in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

“Ashley? Ashley Freeman? I haven’t seen her in a while. Months. Maybe even more than a year. Does she still live in the city?”

I didn’t answer that question, but asked, “You worked here at the museum at the same time as she did?”

“Yes. There were a bunch of us working towards various graduate degrees who filled part-time jobs here.”

I was in the lobby of the museum, not far from the restaurant where Ashley had fruitlessly waited one afternoon for Michael O’Connell. The young woman working the reception desk wore her hair close-cropped on one side and spiked on the top, giving her a roosterlike appearance, and she sported at least a half dozen earrings in one ear and a single large, bright orange loop in the other, which made her seem curiously off balance. She looked up at me, with a small, youthful smile, and finally got around to asking the obvious question.

“Why are you interested in Ashley? Is something wrong?”

I shook my head. “I’m interested in a legal case that she was connected to. I’m just doing a little background work. Wanted to see where she worked. So, you knew her, when she was here?”

“Not very well…” The young woman hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t think too many people knew her. Or liked her.”

“Really?”

“Well, I overheard one person once say that Ashley wasn’t at all like who she pretended to be, or something like that. I think that was the general consensus. There was a lot of talk and speculation when she left.”

“Why?”

“There was a rumor about some stuff found on her workstation computer that got her in trouble. At least that’s what I heard.”

“Stuff?”

“Like way different stuff. Is she in trouble again?”

“Not exactly,” I replied. “But then, trouble might not be the right word.”