The Wrong Man

34

The semifinal game went to penalty kicks.

Sports, she thought, devises many cruel endings, but this was certainly among the harshest. Hope’s team had clearly been outmanned, but had found some reserve of determination that had allowed them to hang in against their opponent. The girls were obviously exhausted, their exertion worn in their eyes. They were all streaked with sweat and dirt, and more than one sported bloody knees. The goalie was pacing back and forth nervously, apart from the others. Hope considered going over to say something, but she understood that this was a moment when her player had to stand alone, and that if she had not prepared her properly in all the practices that had led to this moment, then nothing she might add in that second would make up for that deficit.

Luck was not with them. Hope’s fifth shooter, her captain, all-league and all-region, who had never missed a penalty in four years on varsity, rang her shot off the crossbar, and with that single evil noise of ball resounding against metal, the season ended. Just like that, as sudden as a heart attack. The girls on the other team all squealed with unbridled joy and rushed forward to embrace their keeper, who had not once touched the ball in the entire shoot-out. Hope saw her own player fall to her knees in the muddy field, before dropping her head into her hands and bursting into tears. The other girls were equally stricken, and Hope could feel her own emotions stretched thin, but she still managed to tell them, “Do not leave your teammate alone out there. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Go remind her.”

The girls all ran-Hope had no idea where they got the energy-to surround their captain. Hope was proud of all of them in that moment. Winning, she thought, brings out the happiness in all of us, but losing brings out the character. Hope watched the team gather in the field. She remembered that she would have another battle to fight in the days to come. She shivered and felt cold; there was nothing left between that moment and the winter. This game was over. Time now to play another.

Although she didn’t know it, the parking spot on the street that Hope slid her car into was precisely the spot Matthew Murphy had chosen to keep watch on Michael O’Connell’s apartment building. She leaned back in her seat and pulled her knit ski cap a little lower on her head. Then she adjusted a pair of new, clear eyeglasses on her nose. She did not routinely wear glasses, but she imagined that some disguise was necessary. Hope wasn’t certain that Michael O’Connell had actually ever seen her in person, but she suspected so. She believed that he had done to all of them more or less what she was doing at that moment. She wore jeans and a old navy peacoat against the late-afternoon chill. Hope might have fifteen years on most of the students in the area, but she could look young enough to be on their outer fringes. She had picked out her clothes with the same nervous intensity of someone going out on a first date, desperate to make an impression by not making an impression. She simply wanted to blend in on the Boston streets, like a chameleon taking on the color and hue of everything that surrounded her, and become invisible.

She guessed that if she stayed put in the car that after a few minutes he would undoubtedly spot her.

Assume he knows everything, she reminded herself. Assume he knows what you look like and has memorized every detail of your four-year-old compact car, right down to the license plate number.

Hope remained frozen in her seat, until she imagined she appeared so obvious that wearing fake glasses would be irrelevant. She glanced down at Murphy’s report, took another long look at the photograph of O’Connell that accompanied it, and wondered whether she would actually be able to recognize him. Not knowing what else to do, she pushed open the car door, stepping out onto the street.

She stole a look toward Michael O’Connell’s address, wishing that it would become dark enough so that she could see him turn on a light in his apartment, then realized that by staring she was far more likely to allow him to see her than she was to see him. She turned and rapidly walked down to the end of the block, imagining a set of eyes boring into her back. She turned the corner and stopped. What precisely was the purpose of staking out his apartment if the first thing she did was quick-march directly away from it?

She took a deep breath and felt utterly incompetent.

Useless, useless, she said to herself. Go back, find some spot in an alley or behind a tree, and wait him out. Have as much patience as O’Connell does.

Shaking her head, she turned and walked back around the corner, her eyes scanning the block for some spot to hide, and saw O’Connell exiting his building. He had his head back, and he was grinning, exuding a jauntiness and evil that infuriated her. She was angry; it seemed that he was mocking her, when, of course, there was no indication that he even knew she was there. She slid sideways, trying to huddle against a wall, hoping to avoid making eye contact, but still watching him. At the same moment, she saw a small, wizened elderly woman weave her way down the block, on the same side of the street as Michael O’Connell. As soon as he spotted her, Hope saw him scowl. The look on his face frightened Hope; it was as if O’Connell had transformed himself in a split second, going from devil-may-care nonchalance to intensely furious.

The old woman seemed the very definition of harmless. She was moving along painfully slowly. She was short and stumpy, and wore a dowdy black wool overcoat that was probably twenty years old and had a multihued knit hat on her head. Both her hands were gripping white plastic grocery bags, weighed down with foodstuffs. But Hope could see the old woman’s eyes flash as she spotted Michael O’Connell, and she swayed slightly in her path to block his route.

Hope clung to a tree across the narrow street from where O’Connell and the old lady confronted each other.

The woman tried to lift a hand, still clutching the grocery bag, and waggled a finger in his direction.

“I know you!” she said loudly. “I know what you’re doing!”

“You don’t know shit about me,” O’Connell replied, his own voice raised.

“I know you’re doing something to my cats. I know you’re stealing them. Or worse! You are a nasty, evil man, and I should call the police on you!”

“I haven’t done anything to your damn cats. Maybe they’ve found some other crazy old woman to feed them. Maybe they don’t like the food you leave out. Maybe they just found better accommodations elsewhere, you old bitch. Now leave me alone, and be careful that I don’t call the health authorities on you, because they will sure as hell seize all those mangy goddamn cats, take them all out, and kill them.”

“You are a cruel, heartless man,” the old woman said stiffly.

“Get out of my way and go screw yourself,” O’Connell said as he pushed past the woman, and continued to saunter down the street.

“I know what you’re doing!” the old woman repeated, shouting after him.

O’Connell turned, staring back at her. “Do you now?” he answered coldly. “Well, whatever it is you think I’m doing, you’re lucky I don’t decide to do the exact same thing to you.”

Hope saw the old woman gasp and step back as if she’d been struck. O’Connell grinned again, clearly satisfied with his response, and pivoted, heading rapidly down the street. Hope did not know where he was heading, but knew she should follow him. When she turned back to the old woman, frozen in position on the sidewalk, she got an idea. As Michael O’Connell turned the street corner at the end of the block, Hope launched herself toward the woman.

Glancing to make certain that Michael O’Connell had disappeared, Hope gestured toward the elderly woman. “Excuse, me, ma’am,” she said as gently as she could while still getting the old woman’s attention. “Excuse me…”

The woman turned warily toward Hope. “Yes?” she asked cautiously.

“I’m sorry,” Hope said rapidly. “I was on the other side of the street and I couldn’t help but overhear the words you had with that young man.”

The woman continued to eye Hope as she closed the distance between them.

“He seemed very rude and disrespectful.”

The old woman shrugged, still not sure what Hope was getting at.

Hope took a deep breath and launched her lie.

“My cat, a really cute calico, with two white front paws-I call him Socks-has been missing for a couple of days. He’s lost and I just don’t know what to do. It’s driving me crazy. I live just a block or two over.” Hope waved in a general direction indicating virtually all of greater Boston. “And maybe you’ve seen him?”

In truth, Hope didn’t like cats. They made her sneeze, and she disliked the way they looked at her.

“He’s such a cutie, and I’ve had him for years and it’s not like him to be gone this long.” The lies tripped easily off her tongue.

“I don’t know,” the old woman said slowly. “There are a couple of calico cats in my collection, but I don’t recall any new ones. But then…”

The woman’s eyes slipped off Hope and stared in the direction that Michael O’Connell had disappeared. She hissed, almost like one of her charges.

“I can’t be sure he hasn’t done something evil.”

Hope adopted a stricken look. “He doesn’t like cats? What sort of person…”

She didn’t need to finish. The old woman took a small step back and looked Hope up and down, sizing her up. “Perhaps, you would like to come in, have a cup of tea, and meet my children?”

Hope nodded as she reached down to carry the woman’s grocery bags. I’m in, she thought. It felt like being invited to stand next to a dragon’s lair.

Scott sighed and stared out at the faded cinder-block and redbrick, low-slung high school and imagined that the same person who had designed it probably also designed prisons. A line of yellow school buses parked in front, engines running, filled the air with a distinctly harsh diesel smell. A frayed American flag had twisted around the flagpole, tangling up with the state flag of New Hampshire. Both flapped spastically in the stiff breeze. To the side was a high, rusty chain-link fence. A marquee out front carried two messages: GO WARRIORS! and SAT/ACT TESTS SING UP NOW. No one seemed to have noticed the misspelling.

Scott, too, had a copy of Matthew Murphy’s report stuffed inside his suit coat. It only hinted at the bones of Michael O’Connell’s past, and Scott was determined to put flesh to those few words. O’Connell’s high school had been as logical a place as any to start, even if their information would be ten years old.

He had spent a depressing morning surveying the world where O’Connell had grown up. Coastal New Hampshire is a place of contradictions; the Atlantic Ocean gives it great beauty, but the industry that leeched near the land where rivers empty into the sea was stolid and heartless, all smokestacks and rail stations, warehouses and smelting plants that worked around the clock. It was a little like staring at a far-too-old stripper working a down-and-out club in the middle of the day.

Much of the area where Michael O’Connell grew up was dedicated to the construction of large ships. Huge cranes capable of moving tons of steel outlined the gray sky. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, it was the sort of place where people wore hard hats throughout the day, coveralls, and sturdy, battered boots. The people who worked in the yards were sturdy and steady, as essential as the heavy equipment they operated. The place valued toughness over almost everything.

Scott felt completely out of place. As he sat in his car, watching the swarms of high school kids emerge from the shopworn school building, he felt as if he came from a different country. He lived in a world where his job was pushing students toward all the trappings of success that America likes to trumpet: big cars, big bank accounts, big houses. The teenagers he watched filing onto the waiting buses had lesser dreams, he guessed, and were far more likely to end up in a factory, working long hours and punching a time clock.

If I grew up here, I would do anything to get out, he thought.

As the loaded buses started to roll out, he emerged from his car and walked swiftly toward the school’s main entrance. A security guard hanging by the door pointed him to the main office. Several secretaries were behind a counter. He could see past them to where the principal was dully lecturing some female student with purple-spiked hair, a black leather jacket, and ear and eyebrow studs. “Can I help you?” a young woman asked.

“I hope so,” Scott replied. “My name is Johnson. I work for Raytheon; you know, we’re from the Boston area. We are about to offer a young man a position. His résumé says he graduated from this high school ten years ago. You see, we have some government contracts, so we have to double-check things.”

The secretary turned to her computer. “The name?”

“Michael O’Connell.”

She clicked some keys. “Graduated, class of 1995.”

“Is there anything else that might help us out?”

“I can’t give out grades and other records without written permission.”

“Yes, of course,” Scott said. “Well, thank you.”

He hesitated as the young woman turned back to filing papers electronically. Scott’s eyes caught a glance from an older woman, who had emerged from a vice principal’s office just as he’d spoken O’Connell’s name. She seemed hesitant. Then, with a little shrug, she walked over to where he was standing.

“I knew him,” she said. “He’s going to get a job?”

“Computer programming. Data filing. That sort of thing. It’s not crucial, but because some of the information is connected to Pentagon contracts, we have to do some routine background checks.”

She shook her head, surprised. “I’m glad to hear that he’s straightened his life out. Raytheon. That’s a big corporation.”

“His life back then. Was it that bent?”

The woman smiled. “You might say so.”

“You know, everybody has some trouble in high school. We try to look past the typical teenage things. But we need to be on the lookout for anything more serious.”

The woman nodded again. “Yes. Petty stuff.” She hesitated.

“O’Connell?”

“I’m reluctant. Especially if he’s turned things around. I wouldn’t want to mess up his chances.”

“It would be a help, really.”

The woman hesitated a second time, then said, “He was bad news, when he was here.”

“How so?”

“Smart. Far smarter than most. Significantly so. But troubled. I always thought he was a Columbine-type kid, except Columbine hadn’t happened yet. You know, quiet, but plotting something. The thing about him that always upset me was, if he got it into his head that you were a problem, or you were in his way, or if he wanted something, then that was the only thing he would focus on. If he got interested in a class, well, he’d get an A. If he didn’t like a teacher, well, then strange things would happen. Bad things. Like the teacher’s car getting trashed. Or his class records getting screwed up. Or a phony police report filed suggesting some sort of illegal behavior. He always seemed connected somehow. But never close enough so that anyone could prove anything. I was delighted when he left this school.”

Scott nodded. “Why-” he started, but the woman finished for him.

“If you came from that household, something would be wrong with you, too.”

“Where-”

“I shouldn’t.” She took out a piece of paper and wrote down an address. “I don’t know if this is still accurate. It might not be.”

Scott took it. “How is it you remember this? It’s been ten years.”

She smiled. “I’ve been waiting all that time for someone to come walking through the door and start asking questions about Michael O’Connell. I just never thought it would be someone considering giving him a job. Figured it would be the police.”

“You seem very certain.”

The woman smiled. “I was once his teacher. Eleventh-grade English. And he made a distinct impression. Over the years, there have been a dozen or so whom one never forgets. Half of those for the right reasons, half for the wrong. Will he be working in an office with young women?”

“Yes. Why?”

“He always seemed to make the girls here uncomfortable. And yet, they were drawn to him, as well. I could never quite figure it out. Why would you be attracted to someone you knew would cause you trouble?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should talk with some of them?”

“Sure. But after all this time, who knows where they might be? Anyway, I doubt you can find too many people willing to talk about Michael. As I said, he made an impression.”

“His family?”

“That’s his home address. Like I said, I don’t know if his father still lives there. You can check.”

“Mother?”

“She was out of the picture years ago. I never got the full story, but…”

“But what?”

The woman stiffened abruptly. “I understand she died when he was little. Ten maybe? Maybe thirteen? I don’t think I should say anything else. I’ve already said too much. You don’t need my name, do you?”

Scott shook his head. He had heard what he needed to hear.

“Earl Grey, dear? With a little bit of milk?”

“That would be fine,” Hope replied. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Abramowicz.”

“Please, dear, call me Hilda.”

“Well, Hilda, thank you very much. This is most kind of you.”

“Be with you in a second,” the old woman continued. Hope could hear the kettle start to sing. She cast her eyes about, taking in as much of the apartment as she could. A crucifix was on the wall, beside a vibrantly colored painting of Jesus at the Last Supper. This was surrounded by faded black-and-white photographs of men in stiff collars and women in lace. They were juxtaposed with pictures of a dark but green landscape, streets filled with cobblestones, and a church with pointed spires. Hope added it all together: long-dead relatives in an Eastern European country not visited in decades. It was a little like papering the walls of the apartment with ghosts. She kept searching for the old woman’s story; paint peeling near the windowsill; a row of vials and containers of medications. There were stacks of magazines and newspapers, and a television set that had to be at least fifteen years old adjacent to an overstuffed red armchair. It all spoke of emptiness.

There was only a single bedroom. She looked around and spotted a basket with knitting needles near the armchair. The apartment smelled of age and cats. Eight or more were perched on the couch, on the windowsill, and by the radiator. More than one came over and rubbed up against Hope. She guessed there were double the number hiding in the bedroom.

She took a deep breath and wondered how people could end up so lonely.

Mrs. Abramowicz entered with two cups of steaming tea. She smiled down at the collection of cats, who immediately began rubbing her and trailing after her. “Not quite dinnertime yet, loveys. In a minute. Let Mother have a little talk, first.” She turned to Hope. “You don’t see your Socks in my little menagerie, do you?”

“No,” Hope said, adopting a sad tone. “And I didn’t see him in the hallway, either.”

“I’m trying to keep my darlings out of the hallway. I can’t, all the time, because they like to come and go, that’s the way cats are, you know, dear. Because I believe he is doing something very bad to them.”

“What makes you think-”

“He doesn’t realize it, but I recognize each and every one. And every few days, one will be missing. I want to call the police, but he’s right. They will probably take the rest of my little friends away from me, and I couldn’t stand that. He’s a bad man, and I wish he would move out. I should never-”

Mrs. Abramowicz stopped, and Hope leaned forward. The old woman sighed and looked around her apartment.

“I’m afraid, dear, if your little Socks came to visit, then that bad man might have taken him. Or hurt him. I cannot tell.”

Hope nodded. “He sounds terrible.”

“He is. He scares me and I usually won’t talk to him, except when we have words, like today. I think he scares some of the others who live here, as well, but they won’t say anything either. And what can we do? He pays his rent on time, doesn’t make any noise, doesn’t have wild parties, and that’s all the ownership cares about.”

Hope sipped at the sweet tea. “I wish I could be certain. About Socks, that is.”

Mrs. Abramowicz sat back. “There’s one way,” she said slowly. “You could be certain. And it might help answer some of my questions, too. I’m old and I’m not very strong anymore. And I’m scared, but I’ve got no place else to go. But you, dear, you seem much stronger than me. Stronger even than I was, when I was your age. And I will wager that you’re not scared of much.”

“Yes.”

The old woman smiled again, almost coyly. “When my husband was alive, our apartment was larger. In fact, it included all the space that Mr. O’Connell now occupies. We had two bedrooms and a sitting room, a study and a formal dining room, and this entire end of the building. But after my Alfred died, they cut it up. Made our one big apartment into three. But they were lazy when they did it.”

“Lazy?”

Mrs. Abramowicz took another sip. Hope saw her eyes flash with an unexpected anger. “Yes. Lazy. Wouldn’t you think it lazy to not bother to change the locks on some of the doors to the new apartments? The apartments that were once my apartment.”

Hope nodded. She felt a sudden, electric tension within her.

“I do so want to know what he’s done to my cats,” Mrs. Abramowicz said slowly. Her eyes narrowed, her voice deepened, and Hope realized that there was something formidable about the woman. “And I imagine you’d like to know about Socks, too. There’s only one way to be sure, and that’s to look inside.” She leaned forward, putting her face only a foot or two away from Hope, and whispered, “He doesn’t know it, but I have a key to his front door.”

“So,” she said as a shadow slipped across her face, “do you now see what was in play?”

Any reporter knows there is a necessary seduction between subject and writer. Or maybe it’s instinctively knowing how to cajole the most difficult of stories out of a source. Still, I knew she was steering the conversations, had been since the beginning. Our meetings were trysts for information, but by telling the story, I would be using her as much as she had used me.

She paused, then said, “How often do you hear amongst your middle-aged friends the desire to change things? To be something other than who they are? They want something to happen that turns their life upside down, so they no longer have to face the dreary, deadly routines of life.”

“Often enough,” I replied.

“Most people lie when they say they want a change, because change is far too terrifying. What they really want is to regain their youth. When you are young, all the choices are adventures. It’s when we reach middle age that we begin to second-guess our decisions. We stepped upon a path, and we have to walk it, no? And it all becomes problematic. We don’t win the lottery. Instead, the boss calls us in and tells us we’re being downsized. The husband or the wife of twenty years announces, ‘I’ve met someone new and I want out.’ The doctor looks up from the sheet of test results with a frown and says, ‘These numbers aren’t good. I’m going to order some additional exams.’ ”

“Scott and Sally…”

“For them, Michael O’Connell had created that moment. Or, perhaps, that moment was fast approaching. Could they protect Ashley?”

She suddenly put her hand to her lips, and I heard a gasp escape from her throat. She took a second to regain her composure. “Because, although no one had quite articulated it, not yet, they all knew somewhere deep within, that what they hoped to purchase would come at a high price.”