The Wrong Man Page 24

  She pawed at the gravel in the parking lot, waiting for the bus, and thought to herself that life had not delivered to her the grandchildren that she had wanted and expected, but instead fate had delivered Ashley. She believed that in the first moment that she had met Ashley, and the child had peered out shyly and asked, “Would you like to see my room? Maybe we can read a book together?” that she had entered into a wholly different realm, where Ashley was exempted from all the disappointment and difficulty that Catherine and Hope experienced.

  “Damn it,” Catherine said out loud. “How late can a bus be?”

  In that moment she heard the wheezing noise of a big diesel engine, slowing to make a turn, and she saw headlights cutting across the darkness of the parking lot. She stepped forward quickly, already waving her arms above her head in greeting.

  Sally’s secretary buzzed her and said, “I have a Mr. Murphy on the phone who says he has some information for you.”

  “Put him through,” Sally said.

  “Hello, Mr. Murphy. What have you got for me?”

  “Well,” he said, speaking in a world-weary, cynical tone, “not as much as I can get, and will get, assuming you want me to continue, but I was figuring that you’d want an update sooner rather than later, given the, ah, personal nature of this particular inquiry.”

  “That would be correct.”

  “You want the bottom line? Or details first?”

  “Just tell me what you know.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’ve got too much to worry about. You’ve got something to worry about, that’s for sure, don’t get me wrong, but let me put it this way: I’ve seen worse.”

  Sally felt a surge of relief. “Okay, that’s good. Why don’t you fill me in?”

  “Well, he’s got a record. Not a real long one, and not one with a whole lot of red flags, if you know what I mean, but enough to be concerned.”

  “Violence?”

  “Some. Not too much. Fights, that sort of thing. No weapons that I can see from the charges filed against him. That’s good. But it can also mean he just hasn’t been caught.

  “Look,” Murphy continued, “this guy O’Connell seems like a bad guy. But I’ve got the feeling that he’s a lightweight. I mean, I’ve seen his type a million times, and with a little no-nonsense pressure, they fold up like a stack of chairs. You want to put up the cash, I can arrange for a couple of my buddies and me to go pay him a little visit. Put the fear of God into him. Make him understand that he’s screwing around with the wrong sort of folks. Maybe help him to understand that a different approach to life will be healthier for him, all around.”

  “Are you saying threatening him?”

  “No, ma’am. And I would certainly not advocate violence in any regard.” Murphy paused, letting those words sink in, and letting Sally understand that he was saying exactly the opposite. “Because that would be a crime. And, as an officer of the court, I know, Counselor, that you would never hire me to injure someone. No, ma’am. I understand that. What I’m saying is that he can be, ah, intimidated. That’s it. Intimidated. All well within the absolute letter of the law. As you and I understand the law to be. But something that definitely will make him think twice about what he’s doing.”

  “That’s a step maybe we should consider.”

  “Be happy to. Won’t cost too much, either. Just the usual per diem and travel for me. A little something for my, ah, companions.”

  “Well,” Sally said, letting a little hesitancy creep into her voice, “I’m not sure that I’m too comfortable with involving anyone else. Even friends whose, well, whose discretion in these sorts of matters you have confidence in. Especially a state policeman who might be forced, at some much later point, to testify in court, ah, truthfully. I’m just trying to think ahead here. Get a grasp on future eventualities and possibilities. Need to cover all bases, so to speak.”

  Murphy thought all lawyers failed to understand the lines between reality as it took place on the street and what was subsequently described by utterly reasonable people in the cool tones of a court of law. These were distinctions lost on almost all of them. Sometimes bloody distinctions. He sighed a little, but hid it from his voice.

  “You make a good point, Counselor. But my guess is that I could handle this part of the, ah, arrangement, on my own, without involving anyone currently in a law enforcement job. If that was what you wanted.”

  “That would be wise.”

  “I should go ahead, then?”

  “Why don’t you design an approach, Mr. Murphy? And we’ll go from there.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  The telephone line went dead in her hand. Sally sat back in her chair feeling unsettled at the same time that she was reassured, which, she understood, was a complete contradiction.

  It was a typical urban cemetery, tucked into a neglected corner of the small city, with a black wrought-iron fence surrounding it. My eyes swept the rows of gray headstones marked with name after name. They grew in stature as they marched up the slope of the hill. Simple slabs of granite gave way to more elaborate shapes and forms. The messages carved on the gravestones grew more elaborate as well. Lengthy testimonials to BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER or DEVOTED FATHER. I didn’t think Matthew Murphy, from what I already knew of him, was likely to be interred beneath horn-playing cherubs.

  I started to walk up and down the rows, feeling my shirt stick to my back, and a thin line of sweat break out on my forehead. Right about the time I was about to give up, I saw a single, modest headstone with the name MATTHEW THOMAS MURPHY above a set of dates. Nothing else.

  I wrote down the dates and stood for a moment. “What happened?” I asked out loud.

  Not even a wisp of breeze or a ghostly vision replied.

  Then I thought, with more than a small twinge of irritation, I knew who could answer that question.

  There was a filling station a couple of blocks from the cemetery with a pay phone. I plugged some coins into the machine and dialed her number.

  I didn’t identify myself when she picked up the line. “You lied to me,” I said, irritation in my voice.

  She paused and I heard her take a deep breath. “How so? Lie is such a strong word.”

  “You told me to go see Murphy. And I find him not in some office, but in a graveyard. Turning himself into food for earthworms and maggots. Seems like a lie to me. What the hell is this all about?”

  Again she hesitated, measuring cautiously. “But what did you see?”

  “I saw a grave. A cheap headstone.”

  “Then you haven’t seen enough.”

  “What the hell else was there to see?” I demanded.

  Her voice was suddenly cold, distant. Almost wintry. “Look harder. Look much harder. Would I have sent you there for no reason? You see a slab of granite with a name and some dates. I see a story.”

  Then she hung up the phone.

  24

  Intimidation

  He figured one more day spent on Michael O’Connell would be more than adequate.

  Matthew Murphy had other, far more critical cases crying out for attention. Photographs of illicit affairs to be taken, records of tax evasion to be checked, people to be followed, people to be confronted, people to be questioned. He knew that Sally Freeman-Richards wasn’t one of the better-heeled lawyers in the area; no BMW or Mercedes sedan for her, and he knew that the modest bill he would send her way would reflect some sort of courtesy discount. Maybe just the opportunity to play a little head game on the punk was worth 10 percent. He didn’t get the chance to strong-arm too many folks anymore, and it brought back memories that he found enjoyable. Nothing like playing the tough guy to get one’s heart pumping and adrenaline flowing.

  He parked his car two blocks away from O’Connell’s apartment in an enclosed lot. He drove up several flights of spaces until he was certain that he was alone, stopped, then went to the trunk of his car. He kept several weapons locked in the back, each in a worn duffel bag of i
ts own. A long, red bag contained a fully automatic Colt AR-15 rifle with a twenty-two-shot banana clip. He considered it his get-out-of-big-trouble-fast weapon, because it was capable of blowing the hell out of just about any problem. In a smaller, yellow duffel, he kept a .380 automatic in a shoulder holster. In a third, black duffel, was a .357 revolver with a six-inch barrel loaded with the Teflon-coated bullets called cop killers because they would penetrate the body armor used by most police forces.

  But, for the current assignment, he thought the .380 the right choice. He wasn’t sure he would have to do anything more than let O’Connell know he wore it, which an unbuttoned suit coat would display easily enough. Matthew Murphy was practiced in all the methods of intimidation.

  He slipped into the shoulder harness, pulled on a pair of thin, black leather gloves, and then, in a familiar fashion, practiced removing the weapon rapidly once or twice. When Murphy was satisfied that his old skills were as sharp as ever, he set out. A small breeze swirled some debris around his feet as he walked. Just enough light remained in the day for him to find a convenient shadow across from O’Connell’s building, and as he slid his back up against a brick wall, he saw the first streetlights blink on. He hoped he wouldn’t have to stand there too long, but he was patient and practiced at the art of waiting.

  Scott felt a rush of self-congratulatory pride.

  He had already received a message on his answering machine from Ashley, who had successfully followed his maze of directions and linked up with Catherine in Vermont. He was delighted with the way things had gone so far.

  The football boys had returned after unloading Ashley’s things into a self-storage facility in Medford. Scott had ascertained that, as he’d suspected, a fellow fitting O’Connell’s description had indeed asked some questions before giving a transparently phony story and disappearing down the street. But he’d been left clutching air, Scott thought. Grabbing at a phantom. All his answers would lead nowhere.

  “Didn’t see this one coming, did you, you son of a bitch?” he said out loud.

  He was standing in the small living room of his house, and he broke into a small jig on the worn Oriental carpet. After a second, he picked up the remote control that operated his stereo and punched buttons until Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” crashed through the speakers.

  When Ashley had been little, he’d taught her the old twenties’ phrase cut a rug for dancing, so that she would come to him when he was working and interrupt him by asking, “Can we go cut a rug?” and the two of them would put on his old sixties’ music and he would show her the Frug and the Swim and even the Freddy, which was, to his adult mind, the most ridiculous series of motions ever created probably in the entire history of the world. She would giggle and imitate him until she would tumble to the floor with childish peals of laughter. But even then, Ashley had owned a kind of grace of movement that astonished him. There was never anything clumsy or stumbling about any step Ashley took; to his mind, it was always a ballet. He knew that he was smitten in the way that fathers with daughters often are, but he’d applied his critical, academic approach to his perceptions and come away reinforced with the notion that nothing else could ever be as beautiful as his own child.

  Scott breathed out. He couldn’t imagine how Michael O’Connell would ever guess that she was in Vermont. Now it was simply a matter of letting some time pass, designing a new set of studies in a different city, then having Ashley pick up more or less where she had left off. A minor setback, a six-month delay, but bigger trouble averted.

  Scott picked up his head and looked around the living room.

  He felt suddenly alone and wished there was someone that he could share his feelings of elation with. None of his current crop of go-to-dinner-and-have-occasional-sex dates really fit the bill. His real friends at the college were truly professional in nature, and he doubted that any of them would understand. Not for one instant.

  He frowned. The only person that he had really shared with was Sally. And he wasn’t about to call her. Not at that moment.

  A wave of black resentment passed through him.

  She had left him to take up with Hope. It had been abrupt. Sudden. A collection of bags packed and waiting in the hallway while he tried to think of the right thing to say, knowing that there wasn’t one. He had known she was unhappy. He had known she was unfulfilled and filled with doubts. But he’d assumed these things were about her career, or perhaps the way looking at middle age becomes frightening, or maybe even boredom with the complacent academic, liberal world that they occupied together. All these things he could wrap his imagination around, discuss, assess, comprehend. What he couldn’t understand was how everything that they’d once known could suddenly be a lie.

  For a moment, he imagined Sally in bed with Hope. What can she give her that I didn’t? he demanded of himself, then, just as quickly, realized that that was an extraordinarily dangerous question to ask. He didn’t want to know that particular answer.

  He shook his head. The marriage was a lie, he thought. The I dos and I love yous and Let’s make a life together were all lies. The only true thing that came out of it was Ashley, and he was even unsure about that. When we conceived her, did she love me? When she carried her, did she love me? When she was born, did Sally know then it was all a lie? Did it come on suddenly? Or was it something she knew all along, and as she was busy lying to herself? He put his head down for an instant, flooded with images. Ashley playing at the seashore. Ashley going to kindergarten. Ashley making him a card with flowers drawn all over it for Father’s Day. He still had that taped to the wall of his office. Did Sally know, during all those moments? At Christmas and on birthdays? At Halloween parties and Easter egg hunts? He did not know, but he did understand that the détente between them after the divorce was a lie, too, but an important one to protect Ashley. She was always seen as the fragile one, the one with something to lose. Somewhere in all those days, months, and years together, Scott and Sally had already lost whatever it was that they were going to lose.

  He repeated to himself, She’s safe now.

  Scott went to a small cabinet and took out a bottle of Scotch. He poured himself a stiff drink, took a sip, let the bitter amber liquid slide slowly down his throat, then raised his glass in a mock, solitary toast: “To us. To all of us. Whatever the hell that means.”

  Michael O’Connell, too, was thinking about love. He was at a bar and had dropped a shot glass of Scotch into a mug of beer, making a boilermaker, a drink designed to dull the senses. He could feel himself seething within and realized that no drug and no drink would be sufficient to cover up the tension building inside him. No matter how much he drank, he was resigned to a nasty sobriety.

  He stared at the mug in front of him, closed his eyes, and allowed rage to reverberate inside him, pinging off all the walls of his heart and imagination. He did not like being outmaneuvered or outthought or out-anythinged for that matter, and punishing the people who had done it was his immediate number-one priority. He was angry with himself for believing that the modest Internet troubles he’d already delivered to them would be adequate. Ashley’s family needed a far harsher series of lessons. They had cheated him out of something he was owed.

  The more O’Connell raged at the indignity and insult to him, the more he found himself picturing Ashley. He imagined her hair, falling in red-blond strands to her shoulders, perfect, soft. He could draw in his mind’s eye every detail of her face, shading it like an artist, finding a smile for him on the lips, an invitation in the eyes. His thoughts cascaded down her body, measuring every curve, the sensuousness of her breasts, the subtle arc to her hips. He could imagine her legs stretched out beside him, and when he looked up into the dim light of the bar, he could sense himself getting aroused. He shifted on his barstool and thought that Ashley was ideal, except that she wasn’t because she had engineered this slap across his face. A blow to his heart. And as the liquor loosened his feelings, he could sense his reply; no caress, no gen
tle probing, he thought coldly. Hurt her, the way she’d hurt him. It was the only way to make her understand completely how much he loved her.

  Again he twitched in his seat. He was fully aroused now.

  He had once read in a novel that the warriors of certain African tribes had become engorged with passion in the moments before battle. Shield in one hand, killing spear in the other, an erection between their legs, they had charged their enemies.

  He liked that.

  Making no effort to hide the bulge in his pants, Michael O’Connell pushed away his empty glass and stood up. He hoped for a moment that someone would stare or comment. More than anything in that second, he wanted a fight.