The Wrong Man

18

Michael O’Connell told himself that his best skill was waiting.

It was not simply a matter of biding his time or sitting around patiently. Real waiting required all sorts of preparations and planning, so that when the moment that he was anticipating arrived, he was already significantly ahead of everyone else. He conceived of himself as something like a director, the sort of person who can see an entire story, act by act, scene by scene, right to the end. He was a man who knew all the endings, because he alone constructed each and every one.

O’Connell was stripped to his boxer shorts, his body glistening. A couple of years back, while browsing in a used-book shop, he had come across an exercise-regimen book that had been popular in the mid-1960s. This particular book was drawn from the Royal Canadian Air Force manual on physical fitness and was filled with antique drawings of men in shorts doing squat thrusts, one-handed push-ups, and chin lifts. It also had curious exercises he performed, such as springing into the air and lifting his knees so that he could touch his toes. It was the opposite of all the Pilates, Billy Blanks, Body by Jake, and six-minute abdomen-exercise programs that dominated daytime television channels. He had become proficient in the RCAF exercises and beneath his loose-fitting, worn student garb sported a wrestler’s physique. No vanity-driven health club membership or soulful, long runs alongside the Charles for him. He preferred to hone his muscles alone, in his room, occasionally wearing a headset blasting some pretentiously satanic rock group, such as Black Sabbath or AC/DC.

He dropped to the floor, raised his legs above his head, then lowered them slowly, pausing to hold his position three times before stopping with his heels just inches above the hardwood floor. He repeated this exercise twenty-five times. But on the final repetition, he remained in position, arms flat at his sides, holding himself immobile for one minute, then another. He knew that somewhere after three minutes he would start to feel discomfort, and two minutes later, distress. After six minutes, he would feel significant pain.

O’Connell told himself that it really wasn’t about developing muscles any longer.

Now, it was about overcoming.

He shut his eyes and shunted away the burning in his stomach, replacing it with a portrait of Ashley. In his mind, he slowly drew each detail, with all the patience of an artist devoted to duplicating every signature curve, every small, shadowy recess. Start with her feet, the splay of her toes, the arch, the tautness of her Achilles’. Then move up the length of her leg, capturing the muscles in her calf, to her knee and thigh.

He gritted his teeth and smiled. Usually he could hold his position all the way past her breasts, after lingering a long time contemplating her crotch, finally to the long and willowy, sensuous curve of her neck, before he was forced to drop his heels to the floor. But as he grew stronger, he knew he would someday complete the mental painting, filling in the features of her face and hair. He looked forward to developing that strength.

With a gasp, he relaxed and his feet bounced hard against the floor. He lay for a moment or two, feeling sweat trickle down his chest.

She will call, he thought. Today. Perhaps tomorrow. This was inevitable. He had put forces into play that would ensnare her. She will be upset, he told himself. Angry. Filled with demands, none of which meant a thing to him. And, more critically, he reminded himself, this time she will be alone. Frantic and vulnerable.

He took a deep breath. For an instant he believed he could feel Ashley at his side, soft and warm. He closed his eyes and luxuriated in the sensation. When it faded, he smiled.

Michael O’Connell lay back on the floor, blankly staring up at the whitewashed ceiling and a single unshaded hundred-watt bulb. He had once read that certain monks in long-forgotten orders in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had remained in that position for hours on end, in utter silence, ignoring heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and pain, hallucinating, experiencing visions, and contemplating the immutable heavens and the inexorable word of God. It made absolute sense to him.

The thing that troubled Sally was a single offshore bank account that had received several modest deposits from her client’s account. The sum in question was somewhere near $50,000.

When she had called the bank in Grand Bahama, they had been unhelpful, telling her that she would need an authorization from their own banking authority, implying that that was difficult to obtain, even for SEC or IRS investigators-and probably impossible for a single attorney operating alone, without subpoenas, or State Department threats.

What Sally could not fathom was why someone capable of raiding her client account had seemingly only stolen one-fifth of the amount. The other sums, arrayed through a near dizzying series of transfers back and forth through banks all over the nation, were still traceable, and, as best as she could tell, likely to be recovered. She had managed to have the sums frozen at nearly a dozen different institutions, where they rested untouched under different and transparently phony names. Why, she wondered, wouldn’t someone have merely transferred all of the cash into the offshore accounts, where it was in all likelihood completely untouchable? The majority of the money was simply hanging out there, not stolen, but waiting for her to undergo the immense difficulty in recovery. It troubled her deeply. She could not say with any precision what sort of crime she was the victim of. The one thing she knew was that her professional reputation was likely to take a blow, at the least, and more likely be crippled significantly.

She was equally uncertain who had attacked her.

Her first suspicion, of course, fell on the other side in the divorce case. But she did not understand why the opponents would make such serious trouble for her-it would significantly postpone matters and make things more difficult, in addition to dragging out the action in court, which would only cost everyone more money. In a divorce, she was accustomed to people behaving irrationally, of course, but this stumped her. People were usually more blatantly petty and obnoxious when they tried to make trouble. And, so far, this assault had a subtlety that she had yet to fully understand.

Her second suspicion, then, became some other opponent in some other case. Someone she had bested in some year past.

This unsettled her even more, the idea that someone would harbor a need for revenge over some time, waiting months, perhaps even years, before acting. It was Sicilian in nature, and seemed to her to be something right out of The Godfather.

Sally had exited her office early and walked through the center of town to a restaurant that sported a fake-Irish name and had a quiet and dark bar, where she nursed her second Scotch and water. In the background, she could hear the Grateful Dead singing “Friend of the Devil.”

Who hates me? she asked herself.

Whoever it was, she knew that she needed to tell Hope. She dreaded this. With all the tension between them, this was the last thing they needed. Sally took a long pull of the bitter liquid. Someone out there hates me and I’m a coward, she thought to herself. A friend of the devil is a friend of mine. She looked at the glass, decided that there wasn’t enough alcohol in the entire world to cover up how miserable she felt, pushed it away, and with what little remaining steadiness she had, started to make her way home.

Scott finished his letter to Professor Burris, then reread it carefully. The word that he’d chosen to describe what had taken place was hoax -he presented the allegation as if they had all been the subjects of some elaborate, yet mysterious, undergraduate prank.

Except, on this occasion, Scott wasn’t laughing much.

The only part of the cautiously worded letter that he’d felt comfortable with was the portion where he’d recommended that Burris take a long look at the academic accomplishments of Louis Smith. Scott thought that perhaps he could give the fellow a boost in his career.

He signed the e-mail and sent it. Then he went back to his house and sat in his old, tattered wing chair and wondered what had just happened to him. He wasn’t willing to believe that a single letter, even one as decisive as the one he’d just written, meant he was free from any problems. He still had the snooping campus reporter showing up at his office at the end of the week. The room grew dark around him as the day faded, and Scott knew that at some time in the future he would have to defend himself. That the charge had no substance, no credibility, was more or less irrelevant. Someone, somewhere, would believe it.

It all made Scott furious, and he sat clenching his fists, his head aching, wondering who had done this to him. He had no idea that many of the same questions were simultaneously plaguing Sally and Hope, and that if they all had known of one another’s struggles, the source of their problems would be far more obvious to all of them. But they were all, by circumstances and bad luck, in their own orbits.

Ashley was putting her few things together and getting ready to leave the museum for the evening when she looked up from her desk and saw the assistant director hovering uncomfortably a few feet away.

“Ashley,” he said, stilted, his eyes pivoting about the room, “I’d like a word with you.”

She put down her small satchel and dutifully followed the assistant director into his office. The quiet museum seemed suddenly cryptlike, and their footsteps echoed. Shadows seemed to mar the art on the walls, defacing the shapes, deforming the colors.

The assistant director motioned to a chair, while he sat down behind his desk. He paused, adjusted his tie, sighed, then looked directly at her. He had the nervous mannerism of rubbing his hands together at odd moments. “Ashley, we’ve had some complaints about you.”

“Complaints? What sort of complaints?”

He didn’t exactly answer. “Have you been going through some difficulty of late?”

She knew the answer was yes but she didn’t want to allow the assistant director into her private life any more than she had to. She thought him a wheedling, hollow man. She knew he had two young children at home in Somerville, a detail that rarely prevented him from hitting on every new, young female employee. “No. Nothing that unusual,” she said, lying. “Why do you ask?”

“So,” he said slowly, “you would say things were normal in your life? Nothing new?”

“I’m not sure what you’re driving at.”

“Your views, on the, ah, world at large, ah, haven’t recently changed in some radical direction?”

“My views are my views,” she said slowly.

He hesitated again. “I was afraid of that. I don’t know you very well, Ashley. So I suppose nothing should really surprise me. But I have to say…” He stopped. “Well, let me put it this way: You know, at this museum we try to be pretty tolerant of other people’s views and opinions and, well, lifestyles, I suppose you’d say. We don’t like to be, ah, judgmental. But there are some lines that can’t be crossed, wouldn’t you agree?”

She had no idea what he was speaking about, but she nodded. “Of course. Some lines, yes.”

The assistant director looked both sad and angry at the same time. He leaned forward.

“Do you really think that the Holocaust never happened?”

Ashley sat back in her chair. “What?”

“The murder of six million Jews was merely propaganda, and never really took place?”

“I don’t follow…”

“Are blacks really an inferior race. Sub-Mongoloid? Little more than wild animals?”

She didn’t reply, her voice disappearing in shock.

“Do Jews truly control the FBI and the CIA? And is purity of race truly the most important issue facing this nation today?”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

He held up his hand, red-faced. He gestured toward the computer on his desk. “Come over here and sign in with your ID and password,” he said abruptly.

“I don’t understand-”

“Just indulge me,” he said coldly.

She rose from the chair, walked around to his side of the desk, and did as he asked. The computer jumped to life, played a familiar small fanfare, and a picture of the museum filled the screen, followed by a Welcome Ashley screen and the message You have unread mail in your mailbox.

“Okay,” Ashley said. She stood up.

The assistant director abruptly pushed by her, seizing the keyboard.

“Here,” he said furiously. “Recent searches.”

Signed in on her name and password, he hit a rapid succession of keys. The image of the museum instantly disappeared, replaced by a large black-and-red screen. Martial music flooded the speakers, and a large swastika suddenly appeared, followed by a blast of music. Ashley did not recognize the “Horst Wessel Song,” but she could immediately sense its nature. Her mouth opened in astonishment, and she tried to speak, but her eyes were riveted on the computer, which changed to an old black-and-white newsreel of a line of people raising their arms in a Nazi salute as “Sieg Heil!” was repeated a half dozen times. She recognized Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. This faded and was replaced with a Welcome to the Aryan Nation Web Site page. A second screen followed instantly, which proclaimed, Welcome Storm Trooper Ashley Freeman. Please type in your password to enter.

“Do we need to go further?” the assistant director asked.

“This is crazy,” Ashley said. “This isn’t mine. I don’t know how-”

“Not yours?”

“No. I don’t know how, but-”

The assistant director pointed at the screen. “So, type in your museum password.”

“But…”

“Indulge me,” he said coldly.

She leaned over and typed it in. The screen immediately changed as the site opened up. It played another musical fanfare. Something from Wagner.

“I don’t understand.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure you don’t.”

“Someone did this to me. An ex-boyfriend. I don’t know how, but he’s very clever with computers and he must have-”

The assistant director held up his hand. “But you said nothing was unusual in your life. That was the very first thing I asked you, and you said no. Nothing unusual. An ex-boyfriend signing you up for membership in a hate group, at a modern-day Nazi website, well, I would consider that unusual. ”

“It’s, he’s, I don’t know…”

The assistant director shook his head. “Please don’t offend me any further with any other lame excuses. This is your last day here, Ashley. Even if your excuse is the truth, well, we cannot have this, one way or the other. Nasty boyfriend, or true belief. Both are completely unacceptable in the atmosphere of tolerance we try to promote here. This is the pornography of hate. I won’t allow it. And, to be frank, I’m not sure I believe you. We will mail you your final paycheck. Good night, Miss Freeman. Please do not come back here again. And please”-he added as he pointed to the door-“don’t expect a recommendation.”

Ashley alternated between tears of frustration and utter fury as she made her way back to her apartment through the fast-descending night. With each step, she grew angrier, so much so that she barely saw the shadows and darkness surrounding her. She quick-marched with military precision down the city streets, trying to decipher some plan of action, but unable to, her rage was so complete. She let it overcome her, so that her entire body quivered. No one in her right mind would allow someone to screw up her life so completely, and as she considered herself fully in her right mind, she decided that it was going to stop, that night.

She threw her jacket and backpack on the bed and went straight to the telephone. Within seconds, she had dialed Michael O’Connell’s number.

His voice sounded sleepy, disconnected, when he answered the phone.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“You know goddamn well who it is,” Ashley said in a voice that was on the edge of a shout, filled with bitterness.

“Ashley! I knew you’d call.”

“You bastard! You’ve screwed up my work at school. Now you’ve cost me my job. What sort of creep are you?”

He was silent.

“Leave me alone! Why can’t you leave me alone?”

He remained silent.

She picked up momentum. “I hate you! God damn you, Michael! I told you it was over, and it is! I never want to see you again. I can’t believe you would do this to me. And you say you love me? You’re a sick and evil person, Michael, and I want you out of my life. Forever! Do you understand that?”

He still didn’t reply.

“Do you hear me, Michael? It’s over! Ended. Finished. Completed. However you want to understand it, but it’s all over. No more. Got it?”

She waited for a response and got none. Silence slithered around her, enveloping her like a vine.

“Michael?” She suddenly thought he wasn’t there, that he’d disconnected and her words were simply disappearing into some immense electronic void. “Do you get it? It’s over.”

Again, all she heard at first was silence.

She thought she could hear his breathing.

“Please, Michael. It’s got to be over.”

When he did finally speak, it took her by surprise.

“Ashley,” he replied almost brightly, a little laughter in his tone, as if he were speaking a different language, one that was utterly foreign to her. “It’s just wonderful to hear your voice. I’m counting the days until we can get back together again.”

He paused, then added, “Forever.”

And then he hung up.

“But something happened?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Something, actually many things, happened.”

I watched her face and saw that she was struggling with the details of what she wanted to say. She wore reluctance in much the same way that someone puts on a warm sweater in the winter, in anticipation of some wind and cold and a shift in the weather for the worse.

“Well,” I said, a little exasperated by her oblique manner, “what’s the context here? You got me into this story by saying that I was supposed to make sense of it all. So far, I’m not sure what I’ve really gathered. I can see the games that Michael O’Connell was working. But to what end? I can see the crime taking shape-but what crime are we thinking about?”

She held up her hand. “You want things to be simple, don’t you? But crime isn’t so simple. When you examine it, there are many forces at work. Do you wonder, sometimes, whether we help create the psychological or maybe emotional atmosphere in which bad things, terrible things, take root, flourish, and then flower? We’re like a hothouse for evil, all in ourselves. Seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t answer this. Instead, I watched her as she stared down into her cup of coffee, as if it could tell her something.

“Doesn’t it seem to you that we live these incredibly diffuse, disjointed lives? Once upon a happier time, you grew up and stayed where you were. Probably bought the house down the street from your folks. Helped run the family business. So we all remained linked, in the same orbit. Naïve times. The Honeymooners and Father Knows Best on television. What a quaint idea: Father knows best. Now, we get educated and we depart.”

She paused, then asked, “So, what would you do then, when it became clear to you that someone had decided to ruin your life?”

She added, “And don’t you see? From our perspective, looking at the story from our safe spot in this world, it’s easy to see that there is this person out there trying to ruin their lives. But they couldn’t see that.”

“Why not?” I blurted out.

“Because it’s not reasonable. Because it made no sense. I mean, why? Why would he want to do this to them?”

“Okay, why?”

“Not yet. You need to find that out for yourself. But some things are clear: Michael O’Connell, with half their education, half their resources, half their prestige, had all the power. He had twice their smarts because they were like everyone else and he wasn’t. There they were, caught up and entwined in the midst of all his evil, and yet, they couldn’t see it. Not for what it was. What would you do? Isn’t that the question? Awful things have happened, but what is the real threat?”

I didn’t directly answer. Instead, I repeated myself, trying to get an answer, “But something changed?”

“Yes. A moment of lucidity.”

“How so?”

She smiled. “A lucky phrase. In what was fast becoming a most unlucky situation.”