The Wrong Man

32

When they gathered, later that evening, a sense of helplessness was in the air. Ashley, in particular, seemed crippled by events. She huddled beneath a blanket in an armchair, her feet tucked up under her, clutching an ancient stuffed brown bear whose ear had been partially shredded by Nameless.

Ashley looked around the room and realized that she had created the mess she was in, but then, she couldn’t exactly see what she had done to have it reach this point. Long forgotten was the single, slightly drunken night that had landed her in bed with Michael O’Connell. Even more distant was the conversation when she’d agreed to go out with him that one time, thinking then that O’Connell was different from all the college boys that she had come to know.

Now, she only thought herself naïve and stupid. And she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do. When she looked up and let her eyes fasten on Catherine and Hope and her mother and father, one after the other, she realized that she had endangered all of them; in different ways, certainly, but still, they were all in jeopardy. She wanted to apologize, and so, that was where she started.

“This is all my fault. I’m to blame.”

Sally responded quickly, “No you’re not. And punishing yourself won’t do any of us any good.”

“Well, if I hadn’t-”

Scott stepped in. “You made a mistake. We’ve been all over this before, and we should leave that mistake behind. We all managed to compound that mistake by thinking we were dealing with someone reasonable. So, perhaps you were wrong once, Ashley, but O’Connell managed to get all of us involved pretty quickly, and we’re all guilty of underestimating what he is capable of. Recriminations and blame are really stupid avenues to pursue now. Your mother is right; the only issue in front of us is, what do we do next?”

“I think,” Hope said slowly, “that’s not really it, Scott.”

He turned toward her. “How so?”

“The issue is, how far are we willing to go?”

This quieted the room.

“Because,” Hope continued, her voice even, but her words reverberating with authority, “we have only the vaguest idea of what Michael O’Connell is willing to do. There are plenty of indications. We know he is capable of just about anything and everything. But what are his limits? Does he even have any? Where will he draw the line? I think it would be unwise for any of us to think that he has any restraints.”

“I wish I’d-” Catherine started, then stopped. “Well,” she said with customary briskness, “Scott knows what I wish I’d done.”

“I suppose,” Sally said, “that now it is time for us to engage the authorities.”

Catherine coldly added, “Well, that’s what the local policeman told me outside my house, after my little get-together with Mr. O’Connell.”

“You don’t sound like you think much of that idea,” Hope said.

“I don’t.” Beneath her breath, Catherine added, “When the hell have ‘the authorities’ ever helped anyone?”

Scott turned to Sally. “Sally, you’re the lawyer. I’m sure that in your professional life, you’ve run into these sorts of problems. What would be involved in the process? What could we expect?”

Sally paused, running through details in her head before speaking.

“Ashley would have to go before a judge. I suppose I could handle the legal work, but it’s always wiser to hire outside counsel. She would have to testify that she was being stalked, that she was in fear for her well-being. She might be required to prove that there was some systematic behavior on O’Connell’s part, but most judges are pretty understanding, and they would be likely to accept what Ashley said without requiring much outside corroboration. They would issue a restraining order that would allow the police to arrest O’Connell if he came within some specified distance-usually it’s one hundred feet to one hundred yards. The judge would also, in all likelihood, order O’Connell to not have any contact with her, either by telephone or by computer. These orders are generally pretty complete and would effectively remove him from Ashley’s life, given one rather large if. ”

“What’s that?” Ashley asked.

“If he complies with the order.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Well, then the police can get involved. Technically, he could be arrested and held in violation of the order. That would put him away for some time. The standard sentence is up to six months. But that’s assuming the judge gives him the maximum. In reality, there’s more give-and-take. Judges are reluctant to put people in jail for what they often imagine is merely a dispute between a couple.”

Sally took a deep breath. “That’s the way it is all supposed to work. The real world is never quite as clear-cut as all that.”

She looked around at the others in the living room. “Ashley makes a complaint and testifies. But what real proof do we have of anything? We don’t know that he cost her her job. We don’t know that he was the one who made all the trouble for us. We don’t know that he broke in here. We can’t prove that he killed Murphy, although maybe he did.”

Sally took a deep breath. The others remained absolutely quiet.

“I have been thinking about this,” she said, “and it’s not an obvious call, by any means. Not in the slightest. I bet Michael O’Connell has experience with restraining orders and has them figured out. In other words, I think O’Connell knows what he can and can’t get away with. But to get something beyond that simple restraining order, to actually get O’Connell accused of a crime, Ashley would be required to prove that he is behind everything that has happened. She would have to be persuasive in a court of law, and under cross-examination. It would also put her within arm’s reach of Michael O’Connell. When you accuse someone of a crime-even of stalking-it creates a secondary intimacy. You are connected to that person in a profound way, even if there is an order keeping him at a distance. She would have to confront him in court, which would, I guess, feed his obsession. He might even enjoy it. But one thing is certain: Ashley and O’Connell would be forever linked. And it also means that Ashley would be looking over her shoulder forever, unless she flees. Goes someplace new. Becomes someone different. And, still, that isn’t a sure thing. If he decided to devote his life to finding her…”

Sally was rolling now, picking up momentum. “But being frightened and proving there is a real foundation for that fear in a court of law are different things. And then, there is a secondary consideration entirely.”

“What’s that?” Scott asked.

“What will he do if Ashley does get the order? Just how angry will he be? How incensed? And what will he do then? Maybe he will want to punish her. Or us. Maybe he will decide that it is time to do something drastic. If I can’t have you, no one will. What do you think that really means?”

They were all quiet, until Ashley said, “I know what it means.”

None of them wanted to ask her what they all understood.

But Ashley spoke out, her voice trembling.

“He means to kill me.”

Immediately Scott blustered and interrupted, “No, no, no, Ashley, you mustn’t say that. We don’t know that, not at all.”

Then he stopped, because he realized how ridiculous each word he spoke had sounded.

For an instant, Scott felt dizzy. It was as if everything that was crazy-that this man might kill Ashley-made sense, and everything that should have made sense was turned upside down. He felt a complete coldness enter him and found himself rising out of his chair.

“If he comes close again…”

This threat seemed as hollow as everything else.

“What?” Ashley suddenly blurted out. “What will you do? Throw history books at him? Lecture him to death?”

“No, I’ll…”

“What? What will you do? And how will you do it? Are you going to watch me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?”

Sally tried to remain even-keeled. “Ashley,” she said quietly, “don’t get angry-”

“Why not?” she shouted. “Why shouldn’t I get angry? What right does this creep have to ruin my life?”

The answer to that question, of course, was obvious to all of them.

“So what do I have to do?” she said, her voice filled with tears, emotion coloring every word. “I guess I have to leave. Start over. Go someplace far away. Hide out for years and years, until something happens so I can come out? It’s like some great big game of hide-and-seek, huh? Ashley hides and Michael O’Connell seeks. How will I ever know I’m safe?”

“I suppose,” Sally said, still speaking as cautiously as she could manage, “that’s all that we can hope for. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Scott asked.

She was choosing her words carefully. “We can think up some other plan.”

“What do you mean?” Scott demanded abruptly.

Sally spoke slowly, “What I’m saying is that there are two routes here. One is to work within the legal system. It might be inadequate, but it is what we have. It has worked for some people. But not for others. The law can make one person safe, and kill another. The law guarantees nothing.”

Scott leaned forward. “There is an alternative?”

Sally was almost shocked by what she was saying. “The alternative would be working on this problem outside the law.”

“What would that include?” Scott asked.

“I think,” Sally said coldly, “you might not want to ask that question quite yet.”

This reply plunged the room into silence.

Scott spent what he thought was a long time staring at Sally. He had never heard her sound so cold-blooded before.

“Why not,” Catherine blurted out, “just invite the bastard over here for dinner and then shoot him when he walks through the front door? Bang! A mess in the front parlor. I volunteer to clean it up. End of story.”

Again there was some silence in the room. Each of them could feel a certain appeal in this idea. But it was Sally, dropping into her most pragmatic, practiced legal tones, that immediately saw the problem.

“That might remove one dilemma-Michael O’Connell-but in its stead, a zillion other problems would arrive.”

Scott nodded. “I think I see what you’re saying, but go on.”

Sally actually mustered a smile at her ex-husband and Catherine. “First off, what you say-inviting him over and shooting him-is first-degree murder, even if he does deserve it. In this state it is punishable by twenty-five years to life, without parole. And the mere fact that we have all discussed it makes us all conspirators, so none of us, including Ashley, would walk away. I suppose one can always argue for an acquittal- jury nullification is the legal term, where the jury actually decides you were justified in taking the action you did-but that is a rarity. And not something anyone should count on.”

“There are other problems, as well,” Scott added. “What makes you think that we wouldn’t ruin all of our lives in the process? Our own careers, who we are, all would disappear. And we’d become the fodder for Court TV or The National Enquirer. Every bit of our lives would be exposed publicly. And even if we did this-and managed to insulate Ashley from the event-she would spend the rest of her life visiting us in prison and refusing interviews from Hard Copy, or watching her life turned into some Lifetime network movie of the week.”

Hope, who had been quiet, interjected, “The way you describe it, it would mean that O’Connell had won. He might be dead, but Ashley’s life-all our lives-would be ruined. And what he said- if I can’t have her -would turn out to be true, in a perverse way. She would be branded forever.”

Catherine snorted, as if disagreeing, but in actuality she could see the entire scenario, and beyond. She clapped her hands together and spoke out briskly, “Well, there must be some way to remove Michael O’Connell from Ashley’s life before something worse happens.”

Scott’s mind was churning. The word remove triggered a series of thoughts within him.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I have an idea.”

The others looked toward him. He stood up and took a few quick paces back and forth.

“For starters,” he said carefully, “it seems to me that we should take a page from his own book.”

“What do you mean?” Sally said.

“What I mean,” Scott replied carefully, “is that we learn to outstalk the stalker. Let’s find out everything-and I mean everything-we can about the son of a bitch.”

“Why?” asked Hope.

“Because he must be vulnerable somewhere. And it is what he would least expect.”

Catherine nodded her head vigorously. Somewhere in all of them there had to be a mean streak; it was simply a matter of finding it and employing it.

“All right,” Sally replied, “I suspect we could do that. But to what end?”

Scott was measuring his words cautiously. “We cannot kill him ourselves, but we must remove him. Who can do this for us? And do it in a way where all of us-especially Ashley-walk away without a scar. In fact, barely a scratch, if we do it right.”

“I don’t know who you mean,” Sally answered for the rest of them.

“You said it yourself, Sally,” Scott replied. “Who removes someone from society for five, ten, twenty years right up to life?”

“The State of Massachusetts.”

Scott nodded. “It is simply a matter of finding a way to have the state remove Michael O’Connell. They will do this happily and enthusiastically, won’t they? All we have to do is provide one small item for them.”

“What’s that?” Ashley asked.

“The right crime.”

“Do you not see the genius in Scott’s plan?” she asked.

“I don’t know that genius is the word I would choose,” I replied. “Stupid and risky come immediately to mind.”

She paused. “All right, fair enough, on first impression. But here is what is unique in Scott’s thinking: it goes utterly and completely against the grain. Just how many tenured history professors at small, prestigious liberal arts colleges become criminals?”

I didn’t reply.

“Or a guidance counselor and prep-school coach? A small-town lawyer? And Ashley, the art student? What could be more out of character than for that well-heeled group to decide to commit a crime? And to choose something that might lead to violence?”

“Still, I don’t know…”

“Who better to step outside the law? They knew better than almost anyone what they were doing, thanks to Sally and her expertise in the court system. And Scott, he was far better equipped to become a criminal than he’d ever imagined, thanks to his military training. He was disciplined. Wasn’t their biggest problem the moral prohibitions against crime that accompany their status in society?”

“I still would have thought they would call the police.”

“What guarantee did they have that the system would work for them? How many times have you picked up the morning paper and seen some tragedy unfold, fueled by an obsessive love? How often have you read of policemen complaining, ‘Our hands were tied’?”

“Still…”

“The words you surely don’t want carved into your own headstone are If Only… ”

“I agree, but…”

“Their position was hardly unique. Movie stars know about stalking. Secretaries in busy offices. Trailer-park, stay-at-home mothers. Television personalities. Obsession can cut across any sort of economic and social background. But their response to it all was unique. And what was their goal? To keep Ashley safe. How much purer could their motive be? Put yourself in their shoes for an instant. What would you do?”

And there was the simplest, most unanswerable question.

She took in a deep breath. “In reality the only issue was, could they get away with it?”