John Katzenbach - The Wrong Man

He then took another couple of the nails and tossed them haphazardly around the driveway.

Moving as stealthily as he could, Scott made his way to the back of the elder O’Connell’s truck. He left the rest of the box of nails open in the back. He also left the mallet nearby, just another one of the many tools that cluttered the back of the truck and the carport.

His first task completed, Scott turned and walked steadily back to his hiding spot. As he crossed the street, he heard the first raised voice, electric with anger, coming from inside the house. He wanted to wait, to make out the precise words, but understood he could not.

When he reached the decrepit barn, he pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial.

It rang twice before Hope picked it up.

“Are you close?” he asked.

“Less than ten minutes.”

“It’s happening now. Call me when you stop.”

Hope disconnected without a reply. She pushed down on the gas, picking up her pace. They had figured on at least a twenty-minute lag time between Michael O’Connell’s arrival and her own. They were pretty close to schedule, she thought. This did not necessarily reassure her.

Inside the house, Michael O’Connell and his father stood a few feet apart, in the bedraggled living room.

“Where is she?” the son shouted, his fists clenched. “Where is she?”

“Where is who?” his father replied.

“Ashley, God damn it! Ashley!” He looked around wildly.

The father laughed mockingly. “Well, this is a hell of a thing. A hell of a thing.”

Michael O’Connell pivoted back in the older man’s direction. “Is she hiding? Where did you put her?”

The older O’Connell shook his head. “I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And who the hell is Ashley? Some girl you knew back in high school?”

“No. You know who I’m talking about. She called you. She was supposed to be here. She said she was on her way. Stop screwing with me, or so help me God, I’ll…”

Michael O’Connell raised his fist in his father’s direction.

“Or you’ll do what?” the father asked, a sneer filling his voice.

The older man remained calm. He took his time sipping at a bottle of beer, staring across the room at his son, eyes narrowed. Then he deliberately walked over to his lounge chair, slumped into it, took another long pull on the beer bottle, and shrugged. “I just don’t know what you’re getting at, kid. I don’t know anything about this Ashley. You suddenly call me up after being out of touch for years, start screaming about some piece of tail like you’re some punk in junior high school, and asking all sorts of questions I got absolutely no idea what the hell it is you’re talking about, then you all of a sudden show up like the whole world’s on fire, demanding this and that, and I still don’t have no clue what’s going on. Why don’t you pop a beer and calm down and stop acting like a baby.”

As he spoke, he gestured toward the kitchen and the refrigerator.

“I don’t want a drink. I don’t want anything from you. I never have. I just want to know where Ashley is.”

The father shrugged again and held his arms wide. “I have absolutely no goddamn idea what and who you’re talking about. You ain’t making any sense.”

Michael O’Connell, steaming, pointed at his father. “You just sit there, old man. Just sit there and don’t move. I need to look around.”

“I ain’t going nowhere. You want to take a look around? Go ahead. Ain’t changed much since you moved out.”

The son shook his head. “Yeah, it has,” he said bitterly as he pushed across the small living room, kicking some newspapers out of the way. “You’ve gotten a whole lot older and probably drunker, too, and this place is more of a mess.”

The father eyed his son as Michael O’Connell swept past him. He didn’t move from his seat as the younger man entered the back rooms.

He went first into the room that had been his. His old twin bed was still jammed into a corner, and some of his old AC/DC and Slayer posters were still where he’d tacked them up. A couple of cheap sports trophies, an old football jersey nailed to the wall, some books from high school, and a bright red painting of a Chevrolet Corvette filled the remaining space. He paced across the room and flung the closet door open, half-expecting to see Ashley hiding in the back. But it was empty, except for an old jacket or two that smelled of dust and mildew, and some boxes of out-of-date video games. He kicked at the box, strewing its contents across the floor.

Everything in the room reminded him of something he hated: what he was, and where he came from. He saw that his father had simply thrust many of his mother’s old things onto the bed-dresses, pantsuits, overcoats, boots, several painted boxes filled with cheap jewelry, and a photo triptych of the three of them on one of their rare vacations at a camping ground up in Maine. The picture stirred up nothing but terrible memories: too much drinking and arguing and a silent ride home. It was a little as if his father had simply dumped everything that reminded him of his dead wife and his estranged son into the room, kicking it away, where it collected dust and the smells of age.

“Ashley!” he cried out. “Where the hell are you?”

From his seat in the living room, his father shouted, “You ain’t going to find nothing and nobody. But you keep on looking, if that’s gonna make you feel better.” Then he laughed, a false, phony laugh, provoking even more rage.

Michael O’Connell gritted his teeth and threw open the bathroom door. He pulled aside a shower curtain that was grimy with mildew and mold. A vial of pills perched on the sink corner suddenly tumbled to the floor, spreading tablets across the tile. He bent down and picked up the plastic bottle, saw that it was heart medication, and laughed.

“So, the old ticker giving you some troubles, huh?” he said loudly.

“You leave my things alone,” the father shouted in reply.

“Screw you,” Michael O’Connell whispered to himself. “I hope whatever is wrong hurts like hell before it kills you.”

He tossed the vial back down on the floor, crushed it and all the scattered pills beneath his foot, and left the bathroom. He walked into the other bedroom.

The queen-size bed was unmade, its sheets filthy. The room smelled of cigarettes, beer, and soiled clothing. A plastic laundry basket in one corner was overflowing with sweatshirts and underwear. The bedside table was cluttered with more pill canisters, half-filled liquor bottles, and a broken alarm clock. He emptied all the pills into his hand and stuffed them into his pocket, tossing the canisters back on the bed. That will be a surprise when you need them, he thought.

Michael O’Connell walked to the closet and jerked open the double doors. Half the closet-the half that had once held his mother’s things-was empty. The rest was occupied by his father’s clothing-all the slacks and dress shirts and sports coats and ties that he never wore.

He left the doors open and went to the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard. He pulled on it, but it was locked. He pressed his face up against the glass, peering into the darkness. He unlocked the door and stepped outside, ignoring the cry from his father behind him: “What the hell you doing now?”

Michael O’Connell peered right and left. No place back there to hide, he thought.

He turned and went back inside. “I’m going to look in the basement,” he shouted. “You want to save me some trouble, tell me where she is, old man? Or maybe I’m going to have to ask you the hard way.”

“Go ahead. Check the basement. And you know what? You don’t scare me much now. You never did.”