The Wrong Man

33

Scott was energized, driven to his feet. He looked at the women gathered around him and feverishly began to imagine plots and plans, all fueled by the rage he harbored toward Michael O’Connell. Sally was shifting about, and he could see the lawyer in her starting to gnaw through what he’d said, shredding his words, unraveling his ideas. She will see all the dangers in what I am proposing, he thought. He wondered whether she would see that those dangers might be less than the single threat faced by Ashley.

But to his surprise, Sally abruptly nodded her head. “Whatever it takes,” she said coldly. “We should be prepared to do whatever it takes.”

Then she turned toward Catherine and Hope. “You know, I think we are about to step over a line, and perhaps the two of you might want to reconsider whether you want to be involved. Ashley is, after all, Scott’s and my daughter, and our responsibility. Hope, admittedly, you’ve been her second mother, maybe even more, and Catherine, her only real grandparent-but still, you’re not blood, and-”

Hope snarled at her, “Sally, shut the fuck up.”

The room was immediately silenced, and Hope rose to stand with Scott. She gathered herself and said, “You know, I have been involved in Ashley’s life, for better or for worse, since the day you and I first met. And even if our last days haven’t been so good, and our future is questionable, that doesn’t diminish my feelings for Ashley. So, to hell with you. I will make up my own mind as to what and what not I’m willing to do.”

Catherine quietly added, “Me, too.”

Sally reeled back in her seat. I have screwed everything up. What the hell is wrong with me? she thought to herself.

“Don’t you understand anything about love?” Hope asked.

This question floated around the living room. After letting the silence creep around all of them, Hope turned to Scott.

“Okay, Scott, maybe you ought to outline exactly what you have in mind.”

Scott stepped forward. “Sally’s right. We are about to cross a line. Things are going to get doubly dangerous from this moment on.” He suddenly saw risk in everything, and it made him hesitate. “It’s one thing to talk about doing something illegal. It’s another thing to actually take that risk.”

He turned toward Ashley.

“Honey,” he said slowly, “this is the point where you are to get up and leave the room. I would like it if you went upstairs and waited for Mom or me to call you back down.”

“What?” Ashley nearly shouted, instantly irate. “This involves me. This is my problem. And now, when you think you’re going to do something, something that involves me intimately, I’m supposed to exit? Forget it, Dad, I’m not being excluded. This is my life we’re all talking about.”

Again silence gripped all of them, until Sally spoke.

“Yes, you are. Ashley, honey, listen. We need to know that you are isolated-legally-from whatever we do. So you can’t be a part of the planning. You’ll probably have to do something. I don’t know. But it won’t be part of a criminal conspiracy. You need to be protected. Both from O’Connell, and from the authorities if whatever we come up with blows up in our faces.” Sally used her clipped, efficient lawyer voice. “So, don’t ask any damn questions. Do what your father says. Go upstairs. Wait patiently. Then do whatever it is we ask, without question.”

“You’re treating me like a child!” Ashley blurted.

“Precisely,” Sally said calmly.

“I won’t stand for that.”

“Yes, you will. Because that’s the only way I will proceed.”

“You can’t do this to me!”

“What are we doing?” Sally persisted. “You don’t know what we are going to do. Are you suggesting that we have no right to act unilaterally on behalf of our own daughter? Are you complaining that we shouldn’t take steps to help you?”

“What I’m saying is that this is my life!”

“Yes.” Sally nodded. “You said that. We heard it. And that is precisely why your father asked you to leave the room.”

Ashley glared at her parents, tears forming in her eyes. She felt utterly helpless and impotent. She was about to refuse again when Hope interrupted.

“Mother,” she said cautiously, “I’d like it if you went upstairs with Ashley.”

“What?” Catherine demanded. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not a child that can be ordered about.”

“I’m not ordering you.” Hope paused. “Actually, yes, I am. And I would say the same to you as Scott and Sally just said to Ashley. You will be called upon to do something. I am sure of that. It’s hard for me to act in other ways if I’m constantly worried about you all the time. Simple as that.”

“Well, that’s nice of you to worry, dear, but I’m far too old and set in my ways to have my only child turn into my guardian. I can make up my own damn mind.”

“That’s what concerns me.” Hope looked fiercely at her mother. “Why is it that you can’t see that if I worry about you-just as Sally and Scott will worry about Ashley-that we will be constrained by what we might do? Are you so self-centered that you can’t allow me to choose my own path?”

This question stifled Catherine’s reply. She thought that in her many years with her daughter, it was the same question that had been posed to her over and over. Each time, she had acquiesced, even when Hope was unaware that she had. Catherine snorted and sat back hard in her chair, angry with what her daughter was suggesting, and also angry that she could see the sense in it. She steamed for a moment, then stood up.

“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “About me. And you”-she pivoted toward Sally-“are perhaps wrong about Ashley.” Catherine shook her head. “We are, both of us, perfectly capable of taking all sorts of chances. Tough chances, I daresay. But this is just the first step, and if you need me to absent myself, right at this moment, I will.” She turned toward Ashley. “That might change. I hope it does. But for now, okay. Come, dear, you and I will go upstairs and trust that these folks will see the light when they see the complete foolishness of excluding us.”

She reached out and grasped Ashley, half-lifting her out of her seat.

“I don’t like this. Not at all,” Ashley said. “I don’t think it’s in the slightest bit fair. Or right.” But she and Catherine trudged up the stairs.

The three remaining behind were quiet, watching them exit. Sally said, “Thank you, Hope. That was a pretty smart move.”

“It’s not chess,” Hope said.

“But it is,” Scott said. “Or, at least, it’s about to be.”

It took a little time, but they were able to hash out the initial division of responsibilities.

From the bare bones they had acquired in Murphy’s report, Scott was to delve into Michael O’Connell’s past. See his home, investigate where he grew up, uncover whatever possible about O’Connell’s family, work history, education. It would be up to Scott to ascertain who they were really up against. Sally was to spend the weekend examining the law. They did not know what crime they wanted to assign to Michael O’Connell, not yet, although they suspected it would have to be a major felony. They avoided the word murder throughout their conversation, but it lurked in everything they said.

Creating a crime out of whole cloth requires some planning, which was Sally’s job. She was to ascertain not merely what the best crime would be-that is, what would remove O’Connell most certainly from their lives for the longest period-but also what crime would be the easiest for the state to prove. What would quickly and efficiently lead to O’Connell’s arrest. What would be least likely to be pled out or result in some sort of bargain with prosecutors. It had to be a crime that he could not trade away by testifying against other, more culpable people. He had to be in whatever it was absolutely alone. And she had to uncover what elements the state would need to prove their case in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Hope, who they believed was the only one of them that O’Connell might not immediately recognize, was given the task of finding him and following him. She was to examine as much of his day-to-day life as she could.

They assumed that in what each of them was doing were the answers.

It was hard to see who faced the most danger. Probably Hope, Sally thought, because she would be physically closest to O’Connell. But Sally knew that as soon as she opened her first law book, she was guilty of a crime. And Scott, she recognized, was heading off into the least certainty, because there was no telling what he might find when he first dropped the name Michael O’Connell in the neighborhood where he grew up.

It was decided that Catherine and Ashley would stay in the house. Catherine, who still regretted not shooting O’Connell when she had the chance, was in charge of designing some sort of protective system, in case O’Connell should arrive at their door again.

This was Sally’s single greatest fear: that before they had a chance to act, he would.

She did not use the word race with Hope or Scott.

She simply assumed they were thinking along the same precise lines.

She eyed me for a moment or two, as if expecting me to say something, but when I remained silent, she announced, “Have you thought much about the concept of the perfect crime? I’ve been spending a good deal of my time these days considering some questions. What is right, what is wrong? What is just, what is unjust? But what I have come to believe is that the perfect crime, the true perfect crime, is not only the crime that one gets away with-that would be the absolute minimal standard-but also one that results in some psychological sea change. A life-altering experience.”

“Stealing a Rembrandt from the Louvre wouldn’t qualify?”

“No. That merely makes one rich. And doesn’t really make you something other than an art thief. Not much different from the gun-wielding punk who holds up a convenience store. I think the perfect crime-maybe ideal crime-is actually something that exists on a more moral plane. It rights some mistake. It creates justice, not defies it. It establishes opportunity.”

I rocked back in my seat. I had dozens of questions, but letting her speak made more sense.

“And something else,” she added coldly.

“What is that?”

“The crime restores innocence.”

“Ashley, right?”

She smiled. “Of course.”