The Wrong Man

24

He figured one more day spent on Michael O’Connell would be more than adequate.

Matthew Murphy had other, far more critical cases crying out for attention. Photographs of illicit affairs to be taken, records of tax evasion to be checked, people to be followed, people to be confronted, people to be questioned. He knew that Sally Freeman-Richards wasn’t one of the better-heeled lawyers in the area; no BMW or Mercedes sedan for her, and he knew that the modest bill he would send her way would reflect some sort of courtesy discount. Maybe just the opportunity to play a little head game on the punk was worth 10 percent. He didn’t get the chance to strong-arm too many folks anymore, and it brought back memories that he found enjoyable. Nothing like playing the tough guy to get one’s heart pumping and adrenaline flowing.

He parked his car two blocks away from O’Connell’s apartment in an enclosed lot. He drove up several flights of spaces until he was certain that he was alone, stopped, then went to the trunk of his car. He kept several weapons locked in the back, each in a worn duffel bag of its own. A long, red bag contained a fully automatic Colt AR-15 rifle with a twenty-two-shot banana clip. He considered it his get-out-of-big-trouble-fast weapon, because it was capable of blowing the hell out of just about any problem. In a smaller, yellow duffel, he kept a.380 automatic in a shoulder holster. In a third, black duffel, was a.357 revolver with a six-inch barrel loaded with the Teflon-coated bullets called cop killers because they would penetrate the body armor used by most police forces.

But, for the current assignment, he thought the.380 the right choice. He wasn’t sure he would have to do anything more than let O’Connell know he wore it, which an unbuttoned suit coat would display easily enough. Matthew Murphy was practiced in all the methods of intimidation.

He slipped into the shoulder harness, pulled on a pair of thin, black leather gloves, and then, in a familiar fashion, practiced removing the weapon rapidly once or twice. When Murphy was satisfied that his old skills were as sharp as ever, he set out. A small breeze swirled some debris around his feet as he walked. Just enough light remained in the day for him to find a convenient shadow across from O’Connell’s building, and as he slid his back up against a brick wall, he saw the first streetlights blink on. He hoped he wouldn’t have to stand there too long, but he was patient and practiced at the art of waiting.

Scott felt a rush of self-congratulatory pride.

He had already received a message on his answering machine from Ashley, who had successfully followed his maze of directions and linked up with Catherine in Vermont. He was delighted with the way things had gone so far.

The football boys had returned after unloading Ashley’s things into a self-storage facility in Medford. Scott had ascertained that, as he’d suspected, a fellow fitting O’Connell’s description had indeed asked some questions before giving a transparently phony story and disappearing down the street. But he’d been left clutching air, Scott thought. Grabbing at a phantom. All his answers would lead nowhere.

“Didn’t see this one coming, did you, you son of a bitch?” he said out loud.

He was standing in the small living room of his house, and he broke into a small jig on the worn Oriental carpet. After a second, he picked up the remote control that operated his stereo and punched buttons until Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” crashed through the speakers.

When Ashley had been little, he’d taught her the old twenties’ phrase cut a rug for dancing, so that she would come to him when he was working and interrupt him by asking, “Can we go cut a rug?” and the two of them would put on his old sixties’ music and he would show her the Frug and the Swim and even the Freddy, which was, to his adult mind, the most ridiculous series of motions ever created probably in the entire history of the world. She would giggle and imitate him until she would tumble to the floor with childish peals of laughter. But even then, Ashley had owned a kind of grace of movement that astonished him. There was never anything clumsy or stumbling about any step Ashley took; to his mind, it was always a ballet. He knew that he was smitten in the way that fathers with daughters often are, but he’d applied his critical, academic approach to his perceptions and come away reinforced with the notion that nothing else could ever be as beautiful as his own child.

Scott breathed out. He couldn’t imagine how Michael O’Connell would ever guess that she was in Vermont. Now it was simply a matter of letting some time pass, designing a new set of studies in a different city, then having Ashley pick up more or less where she had left off. A minor setback, a six-month delay, but bigger trouble averted.

Scott picked up his head and looked around the living room.

He felt suddenly alone and wished there was someone that he could share his feelings of elation with. None of his current crop of go-to-dinner-and-have-occasional-sex dates really fit the bill. His real friends at the college were truly professional in nature, and he doubted that any of them would understand. Not for one instant.

He frowned. The only person that he had really shared with was Sally. And he wasn’t about to call her. Not at that moment.

A wave of black resentment passed through him.

She had left him to take up with Hope. It had been abrupt. Sudden. A collection of bags packed and waiting in the hallway while he tried to think of the right thing to say, knowing that there wasn’t one. He had known she was unhappy. He had known she was unfulfilled and filled with doubts. But he’d assumed these things were about her career, or perhaps the way looking at middle age becomes frightening, or maybe even boredom with the complacent academic, liberal world that they occupied together. All these things he could wrap his imagination around, discuss, assess, comprehend. What he couldn’t understand was how everything that they’d once known could suddenly be a lie.

For a moment, he imagined Sally in bed with Hope. What can she give her that I didn’t? he demanded of himself, then, just as quickly, realized that that was an extraordinarily dangerous question to ask. He didn’t want to know that particular answer.

He shook his head. The marriage was a lie, he thought. The I do s and I love you s and Let’s make a life together were all lies. The only true thing that came out of it was Ashley, and he was even unsure about that. When we conceived her, did she love me? When she carried her, did she love me? When she was born, did Sally know then it was all a lie? Did it come on suddenly? Or was it something she knew all along, and as she was busy lying to herself? He put his head down for an instant, flooded with images. Ashley playing at the seashore. Ashley going to kindergarten. Ashley making him a card with flowers drawn all over it for Father’s Day. He still had that taped to the wall of his office. Did Sally know, during all those moments? At Christmas and on birthdays? At Halloween parties and Easter egg hunts? He did not know, but he did understand that the détente between them after the divorce was a lie, too, but an important one to protect Ashley. She was always seen as the fragile one, the one with something to lose. Somewhere in all those days, months, and years together, Scott and Sally had already lost whatever it was that they were going to lose.

He repeated to himself, She’s safe now.

Scott went to a small cabinet and took out a bottle of Scotch. He poured himself a stiff drink, took a sip, let the bitter amber liquid slide slowly down his throat, then raised his glass in a mock, solitary toast: “To us. To all of us. Whatever the hell that means.”

Michael O’Connell, too, was thinking about love. He was at a bar and had dropped a shot glass of Scotch into a mug of beer, making a boilermaker, a drink designed to dull the senses. He could feel himself seething within and realized that no drug and no drink would be sufficient to cover up the tension building inside him. No matter how much he drank, he was resigned to a nasty sobriety.

He stared at the mug in front of him, closed his eyes, and allowed rage to reverberate inside him, pinging off all the walls of his heart and imagination. He did not like being outmaneuvered or outthought or out-anythinged for that matter, and punishing the people who had done it was his immediate number-one priority. He was angry with himself for believing that the modest Internet troubles he’d already delivered to them would be adequate. Ashley’s family needed a far harsher series of lessons. They had cheated him out of something he was owed.

The more O’Connell raged at the indignity and insult to him, the more he found himself picturing Ashley. He imagined her hair, falling in red-blond strands to her shoulders, perfect, soft. He could draw in his mind’s eye every detail of her face, shading it like an artist, finding a smile for him on the lips, an invitation in the eyes. His thoughts cascaded down her body, measuring every curve, the sensuousness of her breasts, the subtle arc to her hips. He could imagine her legs stretched out beside him, and when he looked up into the dim light of the bar, he could sense himself getting aroused. He shifted on his barstool and thought that Ashley was ideal, except that she wasn’t because she had engineered this slap across his face. A blow to his heart. And as the liquor loosened his feelings, he could sense his reply; no caress, no gentle probing, he thought coldly. Hurt her, the way she’d hurt him. It was the only way to make her understand completely how much he loved her.

Again he twitched in his seat. He was fully aroused now.

He had once read in a novel that the warriors of certain African tribes had become engorged with passion in the moments before battle. Shield in one hand, killing spear in the other, an erection between their legs, they had charged their enemies.

He liked that.

Making no effort to hide the bulge in his pants, Michael O’Connell pushed away his empty glass and stood up. He hoped for a moment that someone would stare or comment. More than anything in that second, he wanted a fight.

No one did. A little disappointed, he crossed the room and walked out onto the street. Night had descended, and a cold chill touched his face. It did nothing to cool his imagination. He could picture himself looming over Ashley, thrusting at her, penetrating her, using every inch, every crevice, every space on the body for his own pleasure. He could hear her responding, and to him there was little difference between moans and cries of desire, and sobs of pain. Love and hurt. A caress and a blow. They were all the same.

Despite the cold, he undid his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, letting the cool air slide over him as he marched along, head back, gulping in huge breaths. The chill did little to erase his desires. Love is like a disease, he thought to himself. Ashley was a virus that coursed along unchecked in his veins. He understood in that second that she would never leave him alone. Not for a single waking second, for the rest of his life. He walked on, thinking that the only way to control his love for Ashley was to control Ashley. Nothing had ever seemed so clear to him before.

Michael O’Connell rounded the corner to the block to his apartment, his mind churning with images of lust and blood, all mingling together in a great dangerous stew, and not paying quite the attention that he should have paid when he heard a low voice behind him.

“Let’s go have a little talk, O’Connell.” An iron-hard grip seized him by his upper arm.

Matthew Murphy had easily spotted O’Connell as he passed beneath the glow of a streetlamp. It had been a simple matter to sweep out of his shadow and come up behind him. Murphy had been trained in these techniques, and all his instincts over twenty-five years of police work told him that O’Connell was a novice at true criminality.

“Who the hell are you?” O’Connell stammered.

“I’m your biggest fucking nightmare, asshole. Now open up the door and let’s go up to your place nice and quiet like, so I can explain the world and the way it works to you in a civilized manner, without beating the shit out of you or far worse. You don’t want worse, do you, O’Connell? What do your friends call you? OC? Or maybe just plain Mike? What is it?”

O’Connell started to twist, which only made the pressure on his arm tighten, and he stopped. Before he could answer, Murphy thrust another rapid series of questions at him.

“Maybe Michael O’Connell doesn’t have any friends, so no nickname. So, tell you what, Mike-y boy, I’ll just make it up as we go along. Because, trust me, you want me to be your friend. You want that more than you’ve ever wanted anything in this world. Right now, Mike-y boy, that’s your absolute, top, number-one need on this planet: making sure that I remain your friend. Do you get that?”

O’Connell grunted, trying to turn enough to get a good look at Murphy, but the onetime trooper stayed right behind him, leaning in, whispering into his ear, while all the time keeping a steady pressure on his arm and in the small of his back, pushing him forward.

“Inside. Up the stairs. Your place, Mike-y boy. So we can have our little chat in private.”

Half-pushed, half-forced, O’Connell was steered through the entranceway and up to the second floor by the constant pressure from Matthew Murphy, who kept up a cold, mocking banter with each step.

Murphy increased his grip, squeezing at the muscle as they reached O’Connell’s door, and he could feel O’Connell react to the sharp pain. “That’s another thing about being friends, Mike-y boy. You don’t want me angry. You just don’t want me losing me temper. Might force me to do something you’d later regret, if you had a later in which to regret it, which I would sincerely doubt. You understand? Now open your door slowly.”

As O’Connell managed to get the key out of his pocket and into the lock, Murphy looked down the hallway and saw the neighboring old lady’s cat collection scurrying about. One even arched its back and hissed in O’Connell’s direction.

“Not too popular with the locals, are you, Mike-y boy?” Murphy said, twisting the younger man’s arm again. “You got something against cats? They got something against you?”

“We don’t get along,” O’Connell grunted.

“I’m not surprised.” Murphy gave the younger man a vicious shove, sending him stumbling ahead into the apartment. O’Connell tripped over a thread-bare rug on the floor, sprawling forward, thudding hard into a wall, twisting around to try to get his first real look at Murphy.

But the detective was on top of him with surprising quickness for a middle-aged man, looming over O’Connell like a gargoyle hanging from a medieval church, his face set in a half-mocking grin, but his eyes wearing a look of harsh anger. O’Connell scrambled to rise at least to a half-sitting position, and he stared up at Murphy, locking his eyes on the ex-detective’s.

“Not too happy, are you, Mike-y boy? Not accustomed to being tossed around, are you?”

O’Connell didn’t reply. He was still assessing the situation, and he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

Murphy took that moment to slowly pull back his suit coat, revealing the.380 in its shoulder harness. “I brought a friend, Mike-y boy. As you can see.”

The younger man grunted again, shifting his eyes between the weapon and the private investigator. Murphy swiftly reached inside his jacket and removed the automatic. He had not been intending to do this, but something in O’Connell’s defiant stare told him to accelerate the process. With a rapid movement, he chambered a round and rested his thumb up against the safety catch. Slowly, he moved the pistol down toward O’Connell, until he finally rested the barrel up against the younger man’s forehead, directly between the eyes.

“Fuck you,” O’Connell said.

Murphy tapped the gun barrel against O’Connell’s nose. Just hard enough so it would hurt, not hard enough to break anything. “Poor choice of words,” Murphy said. With his left hand, he reached down and grasped O’Connell’s cheeks, pinching them between his fingers, squeezing tightly. “And I thought we were going to be friends.”

O’Connell continued to stare at the ex-detective, and Murphy abruptly slammed his head back against the wall. “A little more politeness,” he said coldly. “A little more civility. Makes everything go much smoother.” Then he reached down, grabbed O’Connell’s jacket, and lifted him up, keeping the handgun firmly planted on O’Connell’s forehead. Murphy maneuvered the younger man into a chair, half-tossing him so that O’Connell crashed back, the chair lifting on its back legs, and he had to struggle to keep his balance. “I haven’t even really been bad, yet, Mike-y boy. Not at all. We’re still just getting to know one another.”

“You’re not a cop, are you?”

“You know cops, do you, Mike-y boy? You’ve sat across from a cop more than once or twice, haven’t you?”

O’Connell nodded.

“Well, you’re absolutely fucking one hundred percent correct,” Murphy said, smiling. He had known this question was coming. “You should wish I was a cop. I mean, you should be praying right now to whatever God it is that you think might just listen to you, praying, ‘Please, Lord, let him be a cop,’ because cops, they’ve got rules, Mike-y boy. Rules and regulations. Nope. Not me. I’m a lot more trouble than that. Much worse. Much much worse. I’m a private investigator.”

O’Connell sneered, and Murphy slapped him hard across the face. The sound of his palm striking O’Connell’s cheek resounded through the small apartment.

Murphy smiled. “I shouldn’t have to explain these things to you, not someone who thinks he knows his way around like you do, Mike-y boy. But, just for the sakes of our little discussion this evening, let me explain a few items. One, I was a cop. Put in more than twenty years fucking with folks a whole lot tougher than you. Most of those tough guys are sitting in stir, cursing my name. Or else they’re real dead, and not thinking too much about yours truly because they probably have much more significant problems in the hereafter. Two, I am duly licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States federal government and fully authorized to carry this weapon. Now, you know what those two little things add up to?”

O’Connell didn’t reply, and Murphy slapped him again.

“Shit!” The word burst out of O’Connell’s lips.

“When I ask you a question, Mike-y boy, please respond.”

Murphy pulled back his hand again, and O’Connell said, “I don’t know. What do they add up to?”

Murphy grinned. “What it means is that I’ve got friends-real friends, not like our little play friendship here tonight, Mike-y boy, but real friends who owe me all sorts of real favors, whose butts I might just have pulled out of one fire or another over all those years and would be more than willing to do absolutely fucking anything for me, and who are gonna believe everything I say about our little get-together here tonight if it comes to that. They aren’t going to give a damn about a punk like you, no matter what happens. And when I tell them that you came at me with a knife or just about any sort of weapon that I can plant in your dead and lifeless hand, and I tell ’em it was just some damn tough luck, but I just had to blow your sorry little ass away, they’re going to believe me. In fact, Mike-y boy, they’re gonna congratulate me for cleaning up this world a little bit, before you had a chance to make any really big trouble. They’ll file it away under preventative maintenance. So, that’s the situation you’re currently in, Mike-y boy. In other words, I can do just about anything I fucking well want to, and you can’t do a thing. Is that clear?”

O’Connell hesitated, then nodded when he caught sight of Murphy pulling back his hand for another slap.

“Good. Understanding, they say, is the path to enlightenment.”

O’Connell could taste a little blood on his lips.

“Let me just repeat this so that we are completely clear: I am free to do anything I might think right, including send your sorry little life straight to kingdom come or more likely hell. You get this, Mike-y boy?”

“I get the picture.”

Murphy started to walk around the chair. He kept the barrel of the automatic in contact with O’Connell’s skin, occasionally tapping it painfully against his head, or digging it into the soft space between O’Connell’s neck and his shoulders.

“This is a really crummy place you’ve got here, Mike-y boy. Pretty rundown. Dirty.” Murphy stared across the room and saw a laptop computer on a table, making a mental note to take a handful of O’Connell’s backup discs with him.

So far, things were going more or less as Murphy had anticipated. O’Connell was as predicted. He could sense the younger man’s discomfort, knew that the insistent rapping of the weapon against his head was creating indecision and doubt. In all moments of confrontation, Murphy thought, at some point the skilled interrogator simply takes over the subject’s identity, controlling, steering him to compliance. We’re on track, Murphy thought to himself. We’re definitely making progress.

“Not much of a life, is it, Mike-y boy? I mean, I’m not seeing much of a future here.”

“It suits me.”

“Yes. But what is it about this that makes you think for a single second that Ashley Freeman would want to be a part of it?”

O’Connell remained quiet, and Murphy whacked him from behind with his free hand. “Answer the question, asshole.”

“I love her. She loves me.”

Murphy slapped him again. “I don’t think so, you low-life, bottom-dwelling slug.”

A thin line of blood came from O’Connell’s ear.

“She’s a class act, Mike-y boy. Unlike you, she’s got possibilities. She comes from fine folks, and she’s well educated and filled with all sorts of big-time potential. You, on the other hand, come from shit.” Murphy accentuated the last few words by smacking the younger man hard. “And you’re going to end up in shit. What? Prison? Or do you think you can manage to stay out?”

“I’m okay. I haven’t broken any laws.”

The repeated blows were taking effect. O’Connell’s voice cracked slightly, and Murphy thought he could hear a little quaver behind the words.

“Really? You want me looking at you any closer?”

Murphy had come full circle, and once again he tapped the gun barrel against the bridge of O’Connell’s nose, demanding a response.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

He grabbed O’Connell’s chin and twisted it painfully. He could see some tears in the corners of the younger man’s eyes. “But, Mike-y, don’t you think you ought to be asking me a little more politely to stay out of your life?”

“Please stay out of my life,” O’Connell said slowly and quietly.

“Well, I’d like to. I’d genuinely like to. So, Mike-y boy, just looking at it all, objective-like, don’t you think it would be a really, really good thing for you to absolutely make sure that I’m not in your life anymore? That this little get-together, friendly as it might be, is the absolute last time you and I ever see each other? Right?”

“Right.” O’Connell wasn’t sure which question to answer, but he was sure that he didn’t want to be hit again. And while he didn’t think that the man in front of him would shoot him, he wasn’t totally sure.

“I need to be persuaded, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

Murphy smiled. Then he patted O’Connell on the head. “Just so we truly understand each other, what we’re doing here is negotiating our own private, special, one-on-one temporary restraining order. Just as if we’d gone to court. Except ours is fucking permanent, got it? I know you know what one of them means: stay away. No contact. But ours, because it is a special one, just between you and me, Mike-y boy, well, because ours isn’t any wimpy old sort of eminently forgettable piece of paper issued by some old-fart judge that you’re not gonna pay any attention to, ours comes with a real guarantee.”

With the final word, Murphy slammed his fist into O’Connell’s cheek, sending him sprawling on the floor. Murphy was over him, automatic in hand, before the younger man had a chance even to collect his thoughts.

“Maybe I should just stop fucking around and end this right now.” With an audible click, Murphy released the safety catch on the pistol with his thumb. He held up his left hand as if to shield himself from the blowback of brains and blood.

“Give me a reason. One way or the other, Mike-y boy. But give me a reason to make a decision.”

O’Connell tried to twist away from the gun barrel, but the ex-detective’s weight pinned him to the floor. “Please,” he suddenly pleaded, “please, I’ll stay away, I promise. I’ll leave her alone.”

“Good start, asshole. Keep going.”

“I’ll never have any contact whatsoever. She’s out of my life. I’ll stay away. What do you want me to say?”

O’Connell was nearly sobbing. Each phrase seemed more pitiful than the last.

“Let me think about it, Mike-y boy.”

Murphy lowered his shielding hand and pulled his weapon back from O’Connell’s face.

“Don’t move. I just want to look around.”

He walked over to the cheap table where the computer rested. A handful of unmarked rewritable discs was spread about. Murphy grabbed them and slipped them into his coat pocket. Then he turned back toward the younger man, who remained on the floor. “This where you keep your Ashley file? This where you screw around with folks who are a whole lot better than you?”

O’Connell simply nodded and Murphy smiled. “I don’t think so,” he said briskly. “Not anymore.” Then he smashed the butt of the pistol down onto the keyboard. “Whoops,” he said as the plastic splintered. Two more blows to the screen and the mouse pad left the machine in pieces.

O’Connell simply watched, saying nothing. Using the barrel of the gun, Murphy poked at the shattered computer. “I think we’re just about finished, Mike-y boy.” He walked back across the room and stood above O’Connell. “I want you to remember something,” he said quickly.

“What?” O’Connell’s eyes were filled, as Murphy expected them to be.

“I can always find you. I can always run you to ground, no matter what nasty little rathole you crawl into.”

The younger man just nodded.

Murphy looked closely at him, staring hard, searching his face for signs of defiance, signs of anything other than compliance. When he was persuaded that there were none, he smiled.

“Good. You’ve learned a lot tonight, Mike-y boy. A real education. And it hasn’t been too bad, has it? I’ve pretty much enjoyed our little get-together. Almost fun, wouldn’t you say? No, probably you wouldn’t. But there’s just one last thing…”

He suddenly bent over and dropped to his knees, once again pinning O’Connell to the floor. In the same movement, he abruptly shoved the barrel of the automatic into O’Connell’s mouth, feeling it smash against his teeth. He could see terror in the younger man’s eyes, exactly what he was looking for.

“Bang,” he said quietly.

Then he slowly removed the weapon from O’Connell’s mouth, rose, gave him a grin, then pivoted abruptly and exited.

The cool night air hit Matthew Murphy in the face and he wanted to put his head back and laugh out loud. He replaced the.380 automatic in the shoulder holster, adjusted his coat so he would look presentable, and started off down the street, moving along rapidly, but not in any particular hurry, enjoying the darkness, the city, and the sensation of success. He was already calculating how long it would take him to drive back to Springfield and wondering whether he would get there in time to catch a late dinner. He took a few strides and started to hum to himself. He had been right. The opportunity to deal with a punk like O’Connell was worth the 10 percent discount he was going to give Sally Freeman-Richards. Now that wasn’t so damn hard, was it? he said to himself. He was delighted to remind himself that none of his old skills had dissipated, and he felt decidedly younger. First thing in the morning, he would do up a small report-leaving out the parts where the automatic had figured most prominently-and send it along to Sally, accompanied by his bill and his assessment that she would not have to worry about Michael O’Connell again. Murphy prided himself on knowing precisely what fear can do to the minds of weak people.

O’Connell’s ear throbbed and his cheek stung. He figured that one or more of his teeth might be loose because he could taste blood in his mouth. He was a little stiff when he rose from the floor, but he went directly to the window and just managed to catch a glimpse of the ex-detective as he turned the corner of the block. Michael O’Connell wiped his hand across his face and thought, Now that wasn’t so damn hard, was it? He understood that the easiest way to make a policeman believe him was always to take the beating. It was sometimes painful, sometimes embarrassing, especially when it was some old guy, whom he knew he could easily have handled anytime except the time when the guy had a gun and he did not. Then he smiled, licking his lips and letting the salty taste fill him. He had learned a great deal that night, just as Matthew Murphy had told him. But mostly what he had learned was that Ashley wasn’t in some foreign country in some graduate program. If she were in Italy, thousands of miles away, why would her family send some big-talking ex-cop around to try to intimidate him? That made no sense at all, unless she was close by. Far closer than he’d imagined. Within reach? He believed so. O’Connell inhaled sharply through his nose. He did not know where she was, but he would find out soon enough, because time no longer meant anything to him. Only Ashley did.

The News-Republican building was on a desultory tract of downtown land, adjacent to the train station, with a depressing view of the interstate highway, parking lots, and vacant spaces filled with trash. It was one of those spots that aren’t exactly blighted. Instead, it seemed simply ignored, or perhaps exhausted. Lots of chain-link fences, swirling debris caught by wayward gusts of wind, and highway underpasses decorated with graffiti. The newspaper office was a rectangular, four-story edifice, a cinder-block-and-brick square. It seemed more like an armory or even a fortress than a newspaper office. Inside, what was once quaintly called the morgue was now a small room with computers.

Once a helpful young woman had shown me how to access the files, it did not take me long to find the record of Matthew Murphy’s last day. Or, perhaps, last moments might be more accurate.

The front-page headline read EX – STATE POLICE DETECTIVE SLAIN.

There were two subheads: BODY FOUND IN CITY ALLEY and POLICE CALL KILLING “EXECUTION – STYLE.”

I filled several pages in my notebook with details from the spate of stories that day, and several follow-up pieces that appeared in the next few days. There was, it seemed, no end to possible suspects. Murphy had been involved in many high-profile cases during his time on the force and, in retirement, had continued to make enemies with a daunting regularity as he worked as a private investigator. There was little doubt in my mind that his murder had been given top priority by the Springfield detectives working the case, and by the state police homicide unit that had undoubtedly taken over. There would have been significant pressure on the local district attorney, cop killings being the sort of make-or-break cases that define careers. Everyone in law enforcement would want to be involved. Killing one of their own slices a small part from each of them.

Except as I went through the stories, they seemed too thin, and what should have happened did not.

Details began to be repetitious. No arrest was made. No grand jury indictment announced to great fanfare. No criminal trial scheduled.

It was a story where the big dramatic ending evaporated into nothing.

I pushed myself away from the computer, staring at a blinking no further entries found to my final electronic request.

That wasn’t right, I thought. Someone had brutally killed Murphy. And it had to connect to Ashley.

Somehow. Some way.

I just couldn’t see it.