The Wrong Man

44

Hope realized instantly that she had made a mistake.

Her mind racing with the wildest of possibilities, she placed her thumb against the safety switch and pushed it down, making certain it was in the firing position. She lifted her gloved left hand and fumbled with the action to push a round into the firing chamber-all of which she should have had the sense to do before she’d entered the house. The top snatched back, cocking the weapon. She had a terrible thought that neither she nor Sally had even bothered to check if the gun was properly loaded.

In that second, she did not know whether to flee or continue.

O’Connell’s father, his hands starting to rise in a gesture of surrender, suddenly let loose an immense bellow and threw himself across the room toward Hope.

As she raised the gun into a firing position for the second time, he closed the distance between them. As she pulled the trigger, he slammed into her.

She could feel the gun buck in her hand, heard a snapping sound and a thud, and then she spun backward, slamming into the kitchen table, upending it with a crash, sending empty liquor bottles flying across the room, shattering against walls and cabinets. Hope was knocked to the floor, the breath almost smashed out of her. O’Connell’s father, growling visceral, terrifying noises, fell on top of her. He was clawing at her face mask, trying to get his fingers around her throat, punching her wildly.

If her first shot had hit him, she could not tell. She tried desperately to lift the weapon, to fire again, but O’Connell’s hand suddenly clasped down viselike on her own, and he tried to force the weapon up into the air.

Hope kicked out, jabbing her knee into his groin, and she felt him gasp in pain, but not so much that his assault diminished. He was stronger than her, she could sense this immediately, and he was trying to bend the weapon back, so that its barrel would rest against her chest, not his. At the same time, he continued to pound her with his free hand, flailing away. Most of the blows missed, but enough landed so that sheets of red pain appeared behind her eyes.

Again she kicked, and this time the force of her leg slammed both of them back, sending more debris flying around the room. A wastebasket tumbled, spreading pungent used coffee grounds and empty egg shells across the floor. She could hear more glass breaking.

O’Connell’s father was a veteran of bar fights and knew that most battles are won in the first few blows. He was wounded and could feel pain shooting through his body, but he was able to ignore it, fighting hard. Far more than Hope, he sensed deep within him that this fight against the hooded, anonymous foe was the most important of his life. If he did not win, he would die. He pushed on the weapon, trying to force it down against his assailant’s body. It was not lost on him that he’d done almost exactly the same thing once many years earlier, when he’d battled with his drunken wife.

Hope was well beyond panic. Never in her life had she felt the sort of muscle that was pushing at her. Adrenaline screamed in her ears, and she grasped at air, trying to find the strength to win. With an immense thrust, she slammed O’Connell’s father sideways, and the two of them half-rolled against a counter. Dishes and silverware cascaded around them. The movement seemed to achieve something; O’Connell’s father bellowed with pain, and Hope caught a glimpse of red blood streaking against the white paint of the cabinet. Her first shot had caught him in the muscle and bone of his shoulder, and despite shredded tissues and cracked bone, he was fighting through the pain.

He grasped at the weapon with both hands, and Hope suddenly slammed him with her free arm, smashing his head against the cabinet. She could see his teeth bared, his face a mask of anger and terror. She raised her knee again, and again it found his groin. She pushed back and smashed at his jaw with her free hand. He was reeling, staggered by the blow, but still she remained pinned beneath him.

She pounded away with her left arm, keeping a fierce grip on the gun, demanding with every muscle she had to make certain that it did not turn and point at her.

And in that second, she suddenly felt the pressure on her gun hand diminish. She imagined that perhaps she was winning, and then, she gasped as an immense shock of pain creased through her entire body. Her eyes rolled back, and she nearly passed out. The blackness that threatened to overtake her spun her about dizzily.

O’Connell’s father had grasped a kitchen knife out of the debris that had tumbled about them. Holding her hand with the gun away with one arm, he had plunged the knife into Hope’s side, searching for her heart. He bent all his weight to this task.

Hope could feel the tip of the blade slicing into her. Her only thought was This is it. Live or die.

She reached across with her left hand and grabbed at the gun, jerking it toward O’Connell’s father’s face as it contorted with its own combination of pain and rage. She jabbed it up under his chin, just as the knife blade seemed to carve into her soul, and yanked on the trigger.

Scott wanted to glance down at the luminescent face of his watch, but didn’t dare take his eyes off the carport and the side door to the O’Connell house. Under his breath, he was counting the seconds since he’d seen Hope’s dark figure disappear inside.

It was taking far too long.

He took a step away from his hiding place, then shrank back, uncertain what to do. He could feel his heart pounding away. A part of him was screaming that everything had gone wrong, everything was messed up, that he needed to get away, right at that moment, right then, before he was sucked any further into some disastrous whirlpool of events. Fear, like a riptide, threatened to drown him.

His throat was dry. His lips were parched. The night seemed to be choking him, and he grabbed at his sweatshirt collar.

He told himself to leave right then, to get away, that whatever had happened, he needed to flee.

But he did not. Instead, he remained frozen. His eyes penetrated the dark. His ears were sharpened to sound. He glanced right, then left, and saw no one.

There are moments in life when one knows one must do something, but each option seems more dangerous than the next, and every choice seems to herald despair. Whatever was happening, Scott knew that somehow, in some oblique way, Ashley’s life might depend upon what he did in the next few seconds.

Maybe all their lives.

And, while desperate to give in to the panic growing within him, Scott took a deep breath and, trying hard to clear his head of all thoughts, considerations, possibilities, and chances, started to run fast toward the house.

Hope wanted to scream, opened her mouth in terror, but did not. No high-pitched fear emerged, just a raspy, weakened noise of harsh breath.

Her second shot had caught O’Connell’s father directly beneath the chin, crashing upward through his mouth, shattering teeth and shredding tongue and gums, and finally lodging deep in his brain, killing him almost instantly. The momentum of the shot had pitched him back, almost lifting him off her, then he had crashed down on top of her, so that she was almost pinned beneath his body, suffocating under the weight of his chest.

His hand still gripped the knife blade, but the force driving it into her body had evaporated. She almost blacked out with a sudden surge of pain. It sent streaks of fire through her side, into her lungs and heart, and sheets of black agony to her head. She was abruptly exhausted, and a part of her urged her to close her eyes, to go to sleep, right there, at that moment. But a force of will kicked in, and she gathered herself to push the dead man’s body off her. She tried once, but she didn’t have the strength. She pushed a second time, and he seemed to tumble a few inches. She pushed a third time. It was like trying to move a boulder, embedded in the earth.

She heard the door open, but could not see who it was.

Again she fought off unconsciousness, gasping for air.

“Jesus Christ!”

The voice seemed familiar. She groaned.

Suddenly, magically, the weight of O’Connell’s father holding her down, as if she were underneath an ocean wave, disappeared, and she surfaced. The shape that had once been O’Connell’s father slumped to the linoleum floor next to her.

“Hope! Jesus!” she could hear her name being whispered, and she gathered herself to turn toward the sound.

“Hello, Scott.” She managed a little smile through the pain. “I had some trouble.”

“No shit. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

She nodded and struggled to sit up. The knife still protruded from her side. Scott started to reach for it, but she shook her head. “Don’t touch it,” she insisted.

He nodded. “Okay.”

He half-lifted her up, and Hope pushed herself to her feet. The movement increased her dizziness, but she overcame the sensation. Gritting her teeth and leaning on Scott, she stepped over O’Connell’s father’s body. “I need help.” She draped an arm around his shoulder, and he started to steer her to the door. “The gun,” she whispered. “The gun, we can’t leave it.”

Scott looked around and saw the weapon on the floor. He picked it up and removed Hope’s backpack. He dropped the gun back into the plastic bag, sealed it, then threw the backpack over his free shoulder. “Let’s get outside,” he said.

They stumbled through the door, and Scott helped Hope to the dark side of the carport. He propped her up against the wall. “I’ve got to think.”

She nodded, drinking in the cold air. It helped to clear her head, and just exiting the close confines of death strengthened her. She pushed herself up a bit. “I can move.”

Scott was someplace between horror, panic, and determination. He understood he had to think clearly and efficiently. He lifted Hope’s face mask and could see why Sally had fallen in love with her. It was as if the pain of what she had done had etched itself on her face in the bravest of strokes. In that second, he realized that what she had done had been as much for him as it had been for Sally and Ashley.

“I must have bled, on the floor. If the police…”

Scott nodded. He thought hard, then knew what he had to do.

“Wait here. Can you manage?”

“I’m okay,” Hope said, although she clearly was not. “I’m hurt. Not injured,” she said, using an old athletic cliché. If you are merely hurt, you can still play. If you are injured, you cannot.

“I’ll be right back.”

Scott ducked around the corner of the carport and crouched down, hiding as best he could as he surveyed the mess of machine parts, stray tools, empty paint cans, and stacks of roofing shingles. He knew that somewhere within a few feet was what he needed, but was unsure whether he would be able to spot it among the weak shadows.

Be lucky, he whispered to himself.

Then he saw what he needed. It was a red plastic container.

Please, he spoke to himself. Don’t be empty.

He picked up the container, shook it, and could feel about a third of the container sloshing liquid back and forth. He unscrewed the top and immediately smelled the unmistakable odor of old gasoline.

Scott bent over and, as quickly as he could, slipped from the carport, into the light and through the door.

For an instant, he wanted to be sick, and he fought off a sudden surge of nausea. The first time he’d entered the house that night, he had been completely focused on Hope, and extricating her from the scene of her fight. This time he was alone with O’Connell’s father’s body, and for the first time he looked down and saw the gore, the man’s gargoylelike, ravaged face. He gasped and told himself to remain calm, which was useless. He could feel his heart pounding, and everything around him seemed somehow illuminated. The mess from the fight and the blood seemed to glow as if painted with vibrant colors. He thought that violent death made everything brighter, not darker.

Scott was stealing every breath he could, moving unsteadily.

He looked over to the spot where he’d found her pinned beneath O’Connell’s father, where there was likely to be blood, and he saw red droplets marring the floor. He sloshed some of the gasoline in that spot. Then he poured the remainder on the father’s shirt and slacks. He looked around, saw a dish towel, and dipped it into the mixture of blood and gas on the man’s chest. He stuck this in his pocket.

Again a wave of nausea threatened him, and he reached out to steady himself, then stopped. Every second he was inside the murder place, he thought, the likelihood of leaving some telltale clue increased. He stood up, dropped the container into the pools of gasoline, and stepped to the stove. There were matches on the counter next to the gas burners.

He stepped close to the door, lit the entire box, and tossed it onto O’Connell’s father’s chest.

The gasoline exploded into flame. For a second, Scott remained frozen, watching the fire start to spread, then he spun about and ducked back into the night.

He found Hope leaning against the carport. She had her gloved hand wrapped around the knife handle, still protruding from her side. “You’ve got to be able to move,” he said.

“I can walk.” Her words seemed raspy.

The two of them clung to the shadows until they reached the street. Scott slid his arm under Hope, so that she could lean against him, and they stepped slowly through the darkness. She was steering him toward her car. Neither looked back at the O’Connell house. Scott prayed that the fire he’d set would take some time to get going, that it would be several minutes before anyone in any of the adjacent homes spotted the flames.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“I can make it,” Hope replied, leaning against him. The night air had helped to clear her thoughts, and she was controlling the hurt, although every step she took sent a spike of electric pain through her. She ricocheted between confidence and strength and despair and weakness. She knew that no matter how Sally had plotted the remainder of the night, it wasn’t going to happen as planned. The blood she could sense pulsing through the wound told her that.

“Keep going,” Scott urged.

“Just a couple out for a brisk night stroll,” Hope said, joking through the pain. “Left at the corner, and the car should be just ahead, halfway down the street.”

Each step seemed slower than the last. Scott didn’t know what he would do if a car came along, or if someone came outside and eyed them. In the distance he could hear dogs barking. As they staggered around the corner, looking like a couple that had belted down too much at dinner, he saw her car. The party going on in the house nearby had gotten a bit louder.

Hope managed to stiffen herself. She felt as if she were using every muscle in her body, taking every ounce of strength she had.

“Get me behind the wheel.” She tried to speak with the authority that would leave nothing to debate.

“You can’t drive. You need a doctor and a hospital.”

“Yeah. But not here. Not anywhere close to here.”

Hope was calculating, trying to remain clearheaded, although the pain made it difficult. “The goddamn license plates,” she said. “The ones that were such a big deal to change. Change ’em back.”

Scott was confused. He didn’t see why this was a priority when stanching the wound in her side and getting her to an emergency room seemed far more critical. “Look-” he started.

“Just do it!”

He steered her into the driver’s seat as she’d requested. He grabbed at the bag with the plates and, with a frown and deep breath, a single glance at the house where the party was, ducked to the front and back of the car as rapidly as he could, putting the proper Massachusetts plates on the rental car. He took the others and threw them into the backpack along with the gun, and he stuffed the dish towel marred with gasoline and blood into the plastic bag alongside the weapon.

He went back to the driver’s side. Hope had put the key into the ignition, and he could see her face contort with pain as she stripped the tape from her ankles and pulled the tape and the two sets of gloves from her hands. She handed these and her balaclava to Scott. He stood by helplessly as she pulled the knife blade out of her body.

“Jesus!” she gasped. Her head lolled back, and she nearly passed out. But as quickly as this wave came, another arrived. The pain kept her alert. She breathed in sharply.

“I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

“I’ll get there myself. You’ve got too much to do.” She gestured at the knife. “I’ll keep that.” She dropped it to the floor of the car and pushed it out of sight.

“I could get rid of it,” Scott said.

It was hard for Hope to think completely straight, but she shook her head. “Get rid of that stuff, and the plates, somewhere where they won’t be connected to this car.” She was trying hard to remember everything, trying hard to be organized, but the pain prevented true calm, reasoned thinking. She wished Sally were here. Sally would see most of the angles, all of the details. It was what she was good at, Hope thought. Instead she turned to Scott and tried to look at him as if he were somehow a part of Sally, which, she imagined, he once was.

“Okay,” she said. “We’re back following the plan. I’m okay to drive. You do what you’re supposed to.” She gestured toward the backpack with the gun.

“I can’t leave you. Sally would never forgive me.”

“She won’t have a chance to forgive you if you don’t. We’re way behind schedule. What you have to do now is crucial.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Hope said, although she knew this was a lie. She wasn’t sure about anything. “Go. Go now.”

“What should I tell Sally?”

Hope paused. A dozen thoughts went through her head, but she said only, “Just tell her I’ll be okay. I’ll speak to her later.”

“Are you sure?” He glanced down to where the knife handle had protruded from her side. He could see where the black mechanic’s jumpsuit was stained with blood.

“It’s not nearly as bad as it looks,” Hope lied again. “Just go, before we lose our opportunity.”

The idea that, after everything she’d done, they might fail almost crushed her. She waved her hand toward Scott.

“Go.”

“Okay,” he replied, standing up, stepping back.

“Oh, Scott.”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for coming to help.”

He nodded. “You did all the hard work.” He closed the driver’s-side door and watched as Hope bent to the wheel and started the car. He stepped back, and she pulled away steadily. He continued to watch as she drove down the road, standing alone in the darkness until the red rear lights disappeared in the ink that enveloped him. Then he flung the backpack over his back and started to jog toward the bus route. He was late, he knew, and it might be disastrous, but he still had to play out the hand as Sally had dealt it. He was unsure what Hope was going to accomplish the remainder of that night, but most of their luck needed to ride with her. Then he realized that that might be wrong. Much luck was still needed in other locations that night.

Sally was parked on the edge of a strip-mall lot, waiting for Scott. She glanced down at her watch, then checked the stopwatch, picked up the cell phone, and thought hard about calling, but decided against it. She was perhaps forty-five minutes out of Boston, close to the interstate, a place selected for the same reasons she had selected the spot where she had met with Hope to transfer the gun, but different, in that it would provide Scott easy access to the route back to western Massachusetts.

She leaned her head back against the seat headrest and closed her eyes. She would not allow herself the fear of going through all the possible disasters that might have taken place that night. They were amateurs at the art of killing, she thought. They might each have had some expertise that made the planning, organization, and conceptualizing of death seem manageable and feasible, but when it came down to the actual execution of the plan, they were the rankest of novices. In a way, when she had designed the machinations of that night, she had thought that their inexperience would be their strongest suit. Experts would not have done what they did. The plan was too erratic, too haphazard, and far too dependent on each person managing certain tasks efficiently. That was the strength of the whole idea, she thought.

Educated people would not be doing what they were doing. Drug addicts or violent people might work their way up the ladder of criminality to murder. That was logical.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Perhaps the idea that they could function in a landscape of murder was a fantasy all along. She immediately envisioned Scott and Hope in handcuffs, surrounded by policemen. O’Connell’s father would be giving a statement, and she would be next, as soon as either Scott or Hope broke down under questioning.

And Ashley, even with Catherine at her side, would be facing a future of Michael O’Connell alone.

She opened her eyes and surveyed the green-tinged light of the parking lot.

No sign of Scott.

Hope should be on her way home.

Michael O’Connell should be on the side of the road either trying to repair his flat or waiting for a tow truck. He should be angry and cursing and wondering what the hell was going on. The one thing he wouldn’t be expecting was that he was caught up in a performance in which he was a critical player. Sally smiled. She thought that the part that was most likely to have been performed without dropping a line, or taking a misstep, had been his, and he did not even know it. He was being choked and he wasn’t even aware that he was being neutralized, removed from Ashley’s life right at that moment.

She clenched her fist and imagined, We’ve got you, you bastard.

She breathed out slowly. Maybe.

Scott should be pulling in. Any second.

She pounded on her steering wheel in frustration and despair.

“Where the hell are you?” she whispered fervently, sweeping the area with her eyes again. “Come on, Scott. Get here!”

She reached for the cell phone again, then put it down. Waiting, she understood, was the second-hardest thing. The hardest thing was trusting someone she had once told herself she loved, had left behind, cheated on, and then divorced. In truth, the only thing that maintained any kind of civility between her and her ex-husband was Ashley. That, she guessed, would be enough to get them through the night.

Then her thoughts turned to Hope. She shook her head and felt tears in her eyes. She knew she could trust her completely, though she had done precious little over the past months to deserve that trust. She felt as if she were floating in the air of uncertainty.

“Come on!” she whispered again, as if words alone could make things happen.

A large green Dumpster was located in a far corner of the parking lot where Scott had left his truck. To his immense relief, it was nearly full, not only with plastic bags jammed with debris, but also stray bottles and cans, and uncollected trash. He seized one of the bags that seemed only partway filled, undid the fastener at the top, and thrust the stolen plates and the rest of the leftovers of tape and gloves deep inside. Then he carefully retied the top so that it wouldn’t break free and replaced the bag in the midst of the pile of waste. He guessed that the container would be emptied soon, probably the next day.

He walked back to his truck rapidly and waited until no other cars were leaving before starting the engine.

After placing the backpack on the floor, Scott changed back into a suit and tie. He knew he had to hurry, but more important, he knew he had to avoid attention. He wished that he could speed, but dutifully stayed within the posted limits. Even up on the interstate, he diligently remained in the center lane as he headed to his meeting with Sally.

He did not know what he would say when he saw her.

Trying to formulate words, to fill her in on what had taken place that night, seemed impossible. If he told her nothing, she would hate him. If he told her everything, she would be terrified and hate him. She would want to go to Hope’s side immediately and not do what was next in line on the plan.

It could all fall apart.

He drove through the night knowing that he was going to lie. Perhaps not much, but enough. It made him angry and it made him sad, but mostly it made him feel incompetent and deeply dishonest.

When he pulled into the parking lot from the highway ramp, he spotted Sally. It did not take him long to accelerate into the space next to her. Scott grabbed the backpack with the gun and the dish towel covered with gas and blood and stepped from the car.

Sally remained behind the seat, but she turned on the engine.

“You’re late,” she said. “I don’t know if I have enough time left. Did it go as planned?”

“Not exactly,” Scott said. “It wasn’t as simple as we thought.”

“What do you mean?” Sally asked in her brisk lawyer’s tones.

“There was a bit of a struggle. Hope succeeded, she did what she volunteered to do.” He hesitated. “But she might have gotten hurt a little bit in the confrontation. She’s in the car now, heading home. And I was worried there might be something left behind that indicated she had been there, so I set a small fire.”

“Jesus!” Sally exclaimed. “That wasn’t in the plan!”

“I just was worried about the scene, you know. I thought that would be the best way to compromise what some cop might think had taken place. Isn’t that exactly the sort of thing you told us about?”

Sally nodded. “Yes, yes. Okay. I don’t think it’s a problem.”

“There’s a towel in with the item in the backpack. It will transfer some of the gas to the gun barrel. Get rid of it afterwards.”

Sally nodded again. “That was smart. But Hope, what were you saying about Hope?”

Scott wondered whether he wore the lie on his face. “She’s on schedule now. Do what you have to do and speak with her later.”

“What exactly happened to Hope?” Sally demanded sharply.

“You have to leave. You have to get back to Boston. Time is critical. There’s no way to tell what O’Connell will do.”

“What happened to Hope?” Sally repeated, bitter anger in her voice.

“I told you, she was in a fight. She got cut with a knife. When I left her, she said to tell you she was okay. Got it? That’s exactly what she said. Tell Sally I’m okay. You need to finish the job tonight. We all do. Hope did her part. I did mine. Now do yours. It’s the last thing, and…” He didn’t finish.

Sally hesitated. “Cut with a knife? What do you mean cut with a knife? Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth,” Scott answered her stiffly. “She was cut. That’s it. Now go.”

Sally imagined a hundred different responses to her ex-husband right at that second, but stopped. As angry as she was, she knew that once, years earlier, she had lied to him, and that right then he was lying to her, and that there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it. She nodded, not trusting her voice anymore, took the backpack, and drove off into the night. Once again, Scott was left behind, staring at car lights disappearing in the darkness.

“And so,” the detective said as he pointed to the crime-scene photographs, “the fire really messed everything up. And, even more than the fire, it’s the damn water that gets poured over everything by the fire department. Of course, you can’t really ask them not to do that,” he said with a wry laugh. “We were just really lucky the whole house didn’t go up in flames. The blaze was pretty much contained to the kitchen area. See the back wall there, all scorched? The arson guy said whoever it was that set the damn thing didn’t know what they were doing, so that instead of spreading across the room, the fire went up the wall and into the ceiling, which was how it got spotted by the neighbor across the way. So all in all, we were fortunate to be able to piece things together.”

“Have you worked many homicides before?” I asked.

“Here? We’re not like Boston or New York. We’re a pretty modest-size department. But the state bureau of forensics is pretty good, and the medical examiner’s office isn’t filled with slouches, so when a killing does come along, we generally get a pretty good handle on it. Most of the homicides we see are like domestic disputes that got out of hand, or else drug deals that turned sour. Most of the time the bad guy is standing there, or at least his buddy is, so someone tells us who we’re looking for.”

“That wasn’t the case this time, was it?”

“Nah. There were some questions made us scratch our heads at first. And there was a whole lot of folks who weren’t going to shed a tear over O’Connell buying the farm. He was a nasty husband, a nasty father, a nasty neighbor, and as dishonest a son of a bitch as the day is long. Hell, if he’d owned a dog, he probably would have starved the beast and kicked it twice a day just on principle, you follow? Anyway, there was just enough left in the house and in the crime scene for us to go on.”

I nodded my head. “But what put you in the right direction?”

“Two things, really. I mean, you have a fire and a dead body that was partially burnt, and truly dumb guys that we are, we initially just figured that the older O’Connell got drunk and somehow managed to set the place on fire along with himself. You know, passes out with a cigarette and a bottle of Scotch in his hand. Of course, that more than likely would have been in the living room in a chair, or in the bedroom, on the bed, instead of the kitchen floor. But when the medical examiner gets the body back on a table, peels away some charred flesh, sees the gunshot wound, and finds a twenty-five-caliber round in his brain, and another in his shoulder, well, that made things a whole lot different. So we were back at that soaking mess, looking for something to get us going, you know. But the doc also finds scrapings under the guy’s fingernails, as well, so we’ve got some pretty interesting DNA, and then all of a sudden, the mess in the house looks like a fight that went poorly for the old bastard. And then when we canvas the place, one of the neighbors recalls seeing a car with Massachusetts plates squealing out of there not too long before the smoke started. That and the DNA results got us a search warrant. And then what do you suppose we find?”

He was smiling, and he snorted a small laugh. A policeman’s satisfaction in once again learning that the world occasionally works the way it is supposed to.

I was less sure I would have reached that same conclusion.