The Wrong Man

45

Hope drove north, through the tollbooths at the border to Maine, heading toward a spot near the shoreline she remembered from a summer vacation, many years earlier, shortly after she and Sally had first fallen in love. They had taken the young Ashley there on their first trip together. It was a wild spot, where an overgrown park of dark trees and tangled underbrush went straight to the water’s edge, and the rocky shoreline caught the breakers that rolled in from the Atlantic, sending sprays of salt water into the air. In the summer it was magical, seals playing against the rocks, a dozen different species of seabirds crying against the onshore breezes. Now, she thought, it would be a lonely and abandoned spot, and it was the only place that she could think of that would be quiet enough for her to figure out what exactly she was to do.

She tucked her elbow down, keeping pressure on the wound in her side. This helped stymie the flow of blood, and the injury itself had slid into a constant throbbing pain. On more than one moment, she thought she was going to pass out, but then, as the miles slid beneath the wheels of the car, she had gathered some strength and, keeping her teeth clenched against the hurt, believed she could tough out the entire trip.

She tried to imagine what had taken place within her. She pictured different organs-stomach, spleen, liver, intestines-and like playing a child’s game guessed which ones had been sliced and creased by the knife blade.

The countryside seemed darker even than the night that enveloped her. Great stands of black pines, like witnesses by the side of the road, seemed to be watching her progress. When she exited the turnpike, she gasped with a sudden pain as she gently turned the wheel, steering the car down the ramp, then twisting through back roads that reminded her of her childhood home. She tried to measure her breathing, telling herself to take cautious pulls of the night air.

She let herself imagine that she was really on the road to the house where she had grown up. She could picture her mother years earlier, hair up, in the garden, wrangling with the flowers, while her father was in the back on the field he’d built for her, trying to juggle a soccer ball in the air. She could hear his voice calling for her to put on her cleats and come out and play. He sounded strong, not at all as he was later, in the hospital being stalked by disease.

I’ll be right there, she thought.

Small brown signs every few miles pointed her in the direction of the park, and now she could smell a little salt in the air. She remembered a hidden parking lot, which she knew would be empty on a cold November night. A single, yardwide pathway thickly padded with pine needles led through the stands of trees and brush, past a picnic area, then another three-quarters of a mile to the ocean. She lifted her eyes and saw the full moon. She knew that she might need its meager light. Hunter’s moon, she thought. It was rimmed with yellow, and she imagined that the first snows and ice weren’t far off. She doubted anyone else would come along; she did not know what she would say if someone did. She did not have the energy left to lie even to the most mildly inquisitive policeman or park ranger.

Hope saw another sign, a blue background with a large white H in the middle.

This was an unfair temptation, she thought. She had not remembered that the park was only a couple of miles from a hospital.

For a moment, she envisioned turning in that direction. There would be a large swath of bright light, and a sign in neon red spelling out EMERGENCY ENTRANCE. Probably an ambulance or two parked nearby, on a circular entry. Right inside there would be a nurse, behind a desk, doing triage.

She imagined the nurse: a sturdy, middle-aged woman, unfazed by blood or danger. She would take one glance at the wound in Hope’s side, and the next thing Hope would be aware of would be the fluorescent lights of the exam room, and the murmured voices of a physician and nurses as they bent over her trying to save her life.

Who did this to you? someone would ask. They would have a notepad handy to record her words.

I did it to myself.

No, really, who did it? The police are on their way, and they will want to know. Tell us now.

I can’t say.

We have questions. We need answers. Why are you here? Why are you so far from your home? What have you been doing this night?

I won’t say.

That’s not the same as you can’t say. We are suspicious. We have doubts. If you live through this night, we will have many more questions.

I won’t answer.

Yes, you will. Sooner or later, you will. And tell us, why is there someone else’s blood on your coveralls? How did that get there?

Hope gritted her teeth and kept driving.

Sally pulled her car into almost the same spot opposite Michael O’Connell’s apartment that she had occupied earlier that evening. The street was empty, save for the cars parked up and down the block. It was urban dark, where the night blackness tried to creep into corners, join shadows together, fight against all the ambient light that crept out from more vibrant parts of the city.

She looked down first at her wristwatch, then at the stopwatch, which was keeping a running time for the entire day. She breathed in slowly. Time was moving far too slowly.

Sally stared up at the façade of Michael O’Connell’s building. His apartment windows remained dark.

Gazing up and down the street, Sally could feel heat building within her. How close was he? Two minutes? Twenty minutes? Was he even heading this direction at all?

She shook her head. Proper planning, she told herself, would have designated someone to follow him out of his father’s home, so that every step he took that day was monitored. She bit down on her lip. But doing that would have endangered them all, for it would have put one of them in closer proximity to O’Connell than she wanted. That was why she had created the gap-between his exit and his return. But Scott had been dangerously slow at returning the weapon, and now she had no real grasp on where O’Connell might be. Did the air seep from his tire as Scott had promised it would? Had he been sufficiently delayed? Maybes screamed at her like a dissonant symphony of out-of-tune instruments.

Glancing sideways, toward the backpack that contained the gun, she fought off the urge to simply stick it into a trash container behind the building. There would be a more than good chance the cops would still find it. But it lacked the certainty of what she needed, and in a night filled with doubt, this part had to be conclusive.

For a moment, she grasped at the cell phone. Her mind spun wildly to Hope.

Where are you? she asked herself.

Are you okay?

Her hands were shaking. She did not know whether it was out of fear that O’Connell would catch her and destroy everything by doing so, or whether she was afraid for Hope. She pictured her partner, tried to imagine just exactly what had happened to her, tried to read between the lines of what Scott had told her, but every step she took along this path of imagination only frightened her more.

O’Connell was closing in on her, getting nearer with every passing minute; she could sense it. She knew she had to act without delay. And yet, crippled by uncertainty, she hesitated.

Hope was out there, in pain; she could sense that as well. And she could do nothing about it.

She let out a low, slow moan.

And then, with an overwhelming force of will, Sally seized the backpack and launched herself out of the car. She prayed that the night would conceal her as she ducked her head down and rapidly crossed the street. She knew that if anyone saw her and connected her and the backpack to O’Connell and his apartment, everything might unravel. She knew enough not to run, but to measure her pace. Eye contact with anyone would be fatal. Conversation with anyone would be fatal. Anything that made the next few moments noticeable in any manner or form would be fatal. To all of them.

She knew that this was the moment she had to rise to. It was the second where everything that had happened that night hung in some balance. A failure on her part would doom all of them, and possibly Ashley as well. She had the murder weapon in her possession. It was a minute of complete vulnerability.

Sally whispered to herself, Keep going.

As she moved through the vestibule of the apartment, she could hear voices on the elevator, so she ducked into the stairwell and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

She paused by the solid fire door, trying to listen through, then, realizing that that was impossible, she stepped through and walked steadily down the corridor to O’Connell’s apartment. She held Mrs. Abramowicz’s key in her hand, just as she had earlier that day. For a terrible second, she imagined him inside, lying on the bed, the lights out. She should make a plan. What if he was inside? What if he showed up before she finished her task? What if he spotted her in the hallway? What if he saw her on the elevator? Or exiting the building, on the street? What was she going to say? Would she fight him? Would she try to hide? Would he even recognize her?

Her hand shook with questions as she opened the door.

She stepped inside rapidly, closing it behind her.

She listened for breathing, for footsteps, for a toilet flushing, for the tap of computer keys-anything that might tell her she wasn’t alone-but she could hear nothing beyond the tortured noise of her breathing, which seemed to grow in sound and intensity with each passing second. Do it now! Do it now! There’s no time!

She ducked across the entryway, afraid to turn on any light, cursing herself as she bumped against a wall. A little streetlight slipped through the bedroom windows, giving her just enough illumination to see. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. It almost made her scream.

She dashed toward the closet and frantically unzipped the backpack, removing the gun. She could smell the pungent odor of gasoline, just as Scott had warned her. She slipped the gun back into the shoe and rammed the stray sock down over the top to stifle the smell. After pushing it back into position, hoping everything was placed exactly as she had memorized earlier, she rose.

Sally told herself to move calmly, efficiently, to think every step of the way, but she could not. She took the now empty backpack, glanced around rapidly, thought it all looked as it had earlier that day, and turned to head out.

Once again riveted by darkness, she stumbled.

She tried to control her racing fears, told herself not to run. She did not want to crash into anything, maybe knock something over. There had to be no sign at all that someone had been inside the apartment twice that day. Nothing, she told herself, as she waited for her heart to slow, could be more important.

Delaying her exit was almost painful.

When Sally finally reached the door, she almost panicked. He’s there, she thought. She imagined that she could hear his own key in the lock. She thought she heard voices, footsteps.

Sally told herself to ignore the tricks fear was playing on her, and she pushed her way out of the apartment. She swept her eyes right, then left, and saw that she was alone. Still, her hand twitched, and she thought she could hear telltale sounds approaching from every direction. She steeled herself, told herself to hold it all together.

Just as she had done earlier, she locked the door and made her way down the hallway. Again, she chose the stairs. Again, she made her way through the vestibule and out into the night. Suddenly she was flooded with a glow of success. She crossed the street, embracing anonymity.

In the street just in front of her car was a storm drain. She dropped Mrs. Abramowicz’s key between the grate spaces, hearing it plop into muddy water at the bottom.

Not until she got into her car, closed the door, and pushed her head back did she feel tears welling up within her. For a second, she believed it would all work, and she told herself, She’s safe. We’ve done it, Ashley is safe.

And then she remembered Hope and a new panic set in. One that seemed to rise up out of some black space deep within her, rushing forward inexorably, threatening to sweep her up in some new, shapeless fear. Sally gasped out loud, catching her breath. She reached for the cell phone and punched the number for Hope’s phone.

Scott felt relief as he pulled into his driveway. He tucked the truck back behind the house, to its usual spot, where it was hard to see from the roadway, or by any of the neighbors. He grabbed all his clothing from that night, got into the Porsche, and pulled back out into the street. He revved the engine, making sure that he made enough noise to be noticed by anyone still up and watching television or reading.

In the center of town was a pizza restaurant favored by students. This late-it was closing in on midnight-the presence of a professor was likely to be noted. It wasn’t that unusual-teachers correcting papers were known to seek out the occasional late-night burst of energy. It was as good a place as any to be seen.

He parked directly in front, and the sports car caught the attention of some of the young men seated at a counter by the window. The car always got noticed.

He bought a slice of grilled-chicken-and-pineapple pizza and deliberately used his ATM debit card to pay for it.

If asked, he would not be able to account for his presence earlier that night. Home, grading papers, he would say. And, no, I don’t answer the phone when I’m going over student work. But it would not have been possible for him to drive from O’Connell’s father’s home, all the way to Boston, and then back to western Massachusetts in the relevant time. Kill someone and then buy a slice of pizza? Detective, that’s absurd. It was not the best of alibis, but it was at least something. It was dependent, in more than a small way, upon Sally doing what she had promised she would with the weapon. So much hinged on that gun being discovered in the same spot that Scott almost coughed out loud as he choked with tension.

He took his slice over to an empty spot at the counter and ate slowly. He tried not to think of that day, tried not to replay every scene in his head. But a picture of the murdered man slid into his consciousness as he stared at his pizza. When he thought he smelled the unmistakable odor of gasoline, and then the equally sickening scent of burning flesh, he almost gagged. He told himself, You were at war again. He breathed in, continued to eat, and concentrated on what remained for him to accomplish. He had to drop off every item of clothing that he’d worn inside O’Connell’s father’s house at the local Salvation Army clothing dump, where it would disappear into the maw of charity. He reminded himself not to forget the shoes. They might have blood on their soles. He recognized the double entendre that had inadvertently scoured his mind: we all might have blood on our souls.

He looked down at the slice and saw that his hand trembled as he lifted the food to his mouth.

What have I done?

He refused to answer his own question. Instead, he found himself thinking about Hope. The more he envisioned her situation, the wound in her side, the more he understood there was a long way to go before he could breathe easily again.

Scott looked around the restaurant wildly, staring at the other late-night diners, almost all of whom kept to themselves, their eyes dutifully fixed ahead, looking beyond the window or gazing at the wall. For a moment, he thought they would all be able to see the truth about him that night, that somehow he wore guilt like a vibrant streak of crimson paint.

He felt his leg twitch spastically.

It will all fall apart, he thought. We are all going to prison.

Except Ashley. He tried to keep a vision of her firmly in his head as a way out of the overwhelming despair that threatened to overcome him.

The pizza suddenly tasted like chalk. His throat was dry. He desperately wanted to be alone, yet did not, both at the same time.

He pushed the paper plate away.

For the first time, Scott realized that everything that they had done, designed to return certainty to Ashley’s life, had thrown all of them into a black hole of doubt.

Scott slowly walked out of the restaurant, returned to his car, and wondered whether he would ever be able to sleep peacefully again. He did not think so.

Hope was still seated in her rental car, but the engine was off, the lights were extinguished, and she was resting with her head against the wheel. She had pulled into the deepest part of the small parking lot at the entrance to the seaside park, farthest away from the main road, as hidden as she could manage.

She felt light-headed, but exhausted, and she wondered whether she would have the strength to complete the night. Her breathing was shallow and labored.

On the seat next to her, she had the knife that had done so much damage, a cheap ballpoint pen, and a sheet of paper. She ransacked her mind, trying to think if there was anything else that might compromise her. She saw the cell phone, told herself that she had to get rid of it, and as she reached out, it rang.

Hope knew it would be Sally.

She picked it up, lifted the phone to her ear, and shut her eyes.

“Hope?” Sally’s voice came across the line, scratchy with anxiety. “Hope?”

She did not reply.

“Are you there?”

Again, she did not answer.

“Where are you? Are you all right?”

Hope thought of many things she could say, but none would form on her tongue, pass through her lips. She breathed in heavily.

“Please, Hope, tell me where you are.”

Hope shook her head, but did not say anything.

“Are you hurt? Is it bad?”

Yes.

“Please, Hope, answer me,” Sally pleaded. “I have to know you’re all right. Are you heading home? Are you going to a hospital? Where are you? I’ll come there. I’ll help you, just tell me what to do.”

There’s nothing you can do, Hope thought. No, just keep talking. It’s wonderful to hear your voice. Do you remember when we first met? Our fingertips touched when we shook hands, and I thought we were going to catch on fire, right there, in the gallery, in front of everyone.

“Are you unable to talk? Is there someone else around?”

No. I’m alone. Except I’m not. You’re here with me now. Ashley is with me. Catherine and my father, too. I can hear Nameless barking because he wants to go to the soccer fields. My memories are surrounding me.

Sally wanted more than anything else to panic, to give in to all the fear that blew around her with hurricane force, but she managed to grip tight to something within her, containing all the winds of tension.

“Hope, I know you’re listening to me. I know it. I’ll talk. If you can say something, please do. Just tell me where to go, and I will be there. Please.”

I’m at a place you will remember. It will make you smile and cry when you understand.

“Hope, it’s done. We’re finished. We did it. It’s all past us. She’s going to be safe, I know it. Everything will go back to being how it was. She will have her life and you and I will have our lives together, and Scott will have his teaching, and it will all be as it was when we were happy. I’ve been so wrong, I know I’ve been awful, I know it has been hard on you, but please, together, we will go forward from this point on, you and I. Please don’t leave me. Not now. Not when we have a chance.”

This is our only chance.

“Please, Hope, please. Talk to me.”

If I talk to you, I won’t be able to do what I have to do. You will talk me out of it. I know you, Sally. You will be persuasive and seductive and funny, all at once, the way you used to be; it’s what I loved about you from the beginning. And if I allow myself to talk to you, I won’t be able to argue with all the reasons you will use to dissuade me.

Sally listened to the silence, racking her brain for what it was she could say. She could not put what was happening into words; it was far too black and nightmarish. She knew only that there had to be some phrase, some concoction of language, that she could utter that might change what she was afraid was happening.

“Look, Hope, love, please let me help.”

You are helping. Keep talking. It makes me stronger.

“No matter what has happened, I can get us out of it. I know I can. Trust me. It’s what I’m trained to do. It’s what I have my expertise in. There is no problem too big that we can’t extricate ourselves from, working together. Didn’t we learn that tonight?”

Hope reached over and brought the piece of paper and pen in front of her. She crooked the phone between her shoulder and her ear, so that she could continue to listen.

“Hope, we can manage. We can win. I know it. Just tell me you know it, too.”

Not this. Too many questions. We will all be in jeopardy. I need to do this. It’s the only way I can be sure we’re all safe.

Sally was quiet, and Hope wrote on the page, There is too much sadness in my life.

She shook her head. The first lie of many, she thought. She continued writing.

I have been unfairly accused at the school I love.

Sally whispered, “Hope, please, I know you’re there. Tell me what is wrong. Tell me what to do. I’m begging you.”

And the woman I love no longer loves me.

Hope shook her head slightly as she wrote these words. She bit down on her lower lip. She needed to find some way to indicate that this was all a bunch of lies, find a way to say this so that only Sally would know the truth, not the park ranger who would find the note, nor the detective who would read it.

So I have come to this place that we once loved, so that I could remember what it once was like, and what I know the future would be, if only I were stronger.

Sally, tears flowing down her face, gave in to something that went way beyond terror. It was the sensation of inevitability. She wants to protect us.

“Hope, love, please,” she coughed out the words between gasps of complete despair. “Let me come be with you. Always, since the first, we relied upon each other. We made each other right. Let me do that again, please.”

But, Sally, you are.

I tried to stab myself with a knife but that only made me bleed all over the place, and I’m sorry. I wanted to stab myself in the heart, but I missed. So, I’ve chosen another route.

There it is, Hope thought.

The only route still open to me. I love you all, and trust you will all remember me the same way.

She was exhausted.

Sally’s voice had diminished to a whisper. “Look, Hope, my love, please, no matter how badly you are hurt, we can just say that I did it to you. Scott said you were cut. Well, we’ll just tell the cops I did it. They’ll believe us, I know it. You don’t have to leave me. We can talk our way out of this, together.”

Hope smiled again. It was a most attractive offer, she thought to herself. Lie our ways out of all the questions. And maybe it would work. But probably not. This is the only way to be sure.

She wanted to say good-bye, wanted to say all the things that lovers and partners would whisper to each other in the dark, wanted to say something about her mother and Ashley and everything that had happened that night, but she did not. Instead, she merely touched the END button on her cell phone to disconnect the line.

In her car, still parked on the street outside Michael O’Connell’s apartment building, Sally gave in to all the emotions cascading within her and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt as if she were shrinking, that she had abruptly grown smaller, weaker, and was only a shadow of the person she had been at the start of the day. Whatever they had done, she wasn’t sure that it was worth the cost that had been paid. She bent over, kicked her feet, and pounded on the wheel, flailing her arms about wildly. Then she stopped and moaned as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, slinking down in her seat, in total agony, and completely oblivious that Michael O’Connell, cursing loudly, openly enraged, glowing with red anger and black bitterness, and blinded to the world around him, had passed by only a few feet away as he stomped his way toward his own front entranceway.