John Katzenbach - The Wrong Man

“Let’s stay calm,” she told him. “You know the rules about taunting.”

The father shifted his glance to her. She saw his mouth open, as if to say something, then stop. For a second, he seemed about to release his anger. Then the barest restraint showed on his face, and he glared at Hope, before turning away. The other coach shrugged, and Hope heard him mutter, “Idiot” under his breath. She steered Vicki away and slowly began to escort her across the field. Vicki was still a little wobbly, but she managed to say, “My dad gets crazy.” The words were spoken with such simplicity and so much hurt that Hope understood, in that second, there was far more to that moment than a collision on the field.

“Maybe you should come talk to me about it after practice this week. Or come into the guidance office when you have a free period.”

Vicki shook her head. “Sorry, Coach. Can’t. He won’t let me.”

And there it was.

Hope squeezed the teenager’s arm. “We’ll figure it out some other time.”

This, she hoped was true. As she seated Vicki on the bench and substituted a new player into the game, she thought to herself that nothing was fair, nothing was equal, nothing was right. She glanced across the field, to where Vicki’s father stood, a little ways apart from the other parents, his arms crossed, glaring, as if counting the seconds that his daughter remained out of the game. Hope understood, in that moment, that she was stronger, faster, probably better educated, certainly far more experienced at the game. She had acquired every coaching license, attended advanced training seminars, and with a ball at her own feet, she could have embarrassed the lumbering father, dizzying him with sleight of foot and change of pace. She could have displayed her own skills, alongside championship trophies and her NCAA All-American certificate, but absolutely none of it would have made an iota of difference. Hope felt a streak of frustrated anger, which she bottled, alongside all the other, similar moments, in her heart. As she thought these things, one of her players broke free down the right and in a fast, almost imperceptible bit of skill, thundered the ball past the keeper. Hope understood, as the team jumped up and cheered at the goal, all smiles, laughter, and high fives, that winning was the one thing, and perhaps the only thing, that kept her safe.

Sally Freeman-Richards remained in her office, waiting in the October half-light, after her secretary and both her law partners had waved their good-byes and set off in the evening traffic for their homes. At certain times of the year, especially in the fall, the setting sun aggressively dropped behind the white spires of the Episcopal church on the close edge of the college campus and would flood through the windows of the adjacent offices with a blinding glare. It was an unsettled time of the year. The glare had an unwitting, dangerous quality to it; on several occasions students hurrying back from late-day classes had been hit crossing the streets by drivers whose vision had been eradicated by windshield-filling light. Over the years, she had observed this phenomenon from both sides, once defending an unlucky driver, in another instance suing an insurance company on behalf of a student with two broken legs.

Sally watched the sunlight stream through the office, carving out shadows, sending odd, unidentifiable figures across the walls. She appreciated the moment. Odd, she thought, that the light that seemed so benign could harbor such danger. It was all in where you were located, at just the wrong moment.

She sighed and thought that her observation, at least in a small way, defined much of the law. She glanced over toward her desktop and grimaced at the stack of manila envelopes and legal files that weighed down one corner. At least a half dozen were piled up, none of which were much more than legal busywork. A house closing. A workplace compensation case. A small lawsuit between neighbors over a disputed piece of land. In another corner, in a separate file cabinet, she kept the cases that intrigued her more, and which really were the underpinnings of her practice. These involved other gay women throughout the valley. There were all sorts of pleadings, ranging from adoptions to marriage dissolutions. There was even a negligent-homicide defense that she was taking second chair on. She handled her caseload with expertise, charging reasonable rates, holding many hands, and thought of herself at her best as the lawyer of wayward, misplaced emotions. That some sense of payback, or debt, was involved, she knew, but she didn’t like to be nearly as introspective about her own life as she was frequently forced to be about others’.

She seized a pencil and opened one of the boring files, then just as quickly pushed it aside. She dropped the pencil back into a jar labeled WORLD’S BEST MOM. She doubted the accuracy of this sentiment.

Sally rose, thought that there was nothing really pressing that required her to work late, and was wondering idly whether Hope was home yet, and what Hope might concoct for dinner, when the phone rang.

“Sally Freeman-Richards.”

“Hello, Sally, it’s Scott.”

She was mildly surprised to hear her ex-husband’s voice.

“Hello, Scott. I was just on my way out the door…”

He pictured her office. It was probably organized and neat, he thought, unlike the chaotic clutter of his own. He licked his lips for an instant, thinking how much he hated that she had kept his last name-her argument had been that it would be easier on Ashley as she grew up-but hyphenated in her own maiden name.

“Do you have a moment?”

“You sound concerned.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I should be. Perhaps not.”

“What is the problem?”

“Ashley.”

Sally Freeman-Richards caught her breath. When she did converse with her ex-husband, it was generally terse, to-the-point conversations, over some minor point left over from the detritus of their divorce. As the years had passed since their breakup, Ashley had been the only thing that truly kept them linked, and so their connections had been mostly the stuff of transportation between houses, of paying for school bills and car insurance. They had managed a kind of détente, over the years, where these matters were dealt with in a perfunctory, efficient manner. Little was ever shared about whom they had each become or why; it was, she thought, as if in the memories and perceptions of each, their lives had been frozen at the moment of divorce.

“What’s the matter?”

Scott Freeman hesitated. He wasn’t precisely sure how to put what was troubling him into words.

“I found a disturbing letter among her things,” he said.

Sally also hesitated. “Why were you going through her things?”

“That’s really irrelevant. The point is, I found it.”

“I’m not sure it is irrelevant. You should respect her privacy.”

Scott was instantly angered, but decided not to show it. “She left some socks and underwear behind. I was putting them in her drawer. I saw the letter. I read it. It troubled me. I shouldn’t have read the letter, I guess, but I did. What does that make me, Sally?”

Sally didn’t answer this question, although several replies jumped to her mind. Instead, she asked, “What sort of letter was it?”

Scott cleared his throat, a classroom maneuver to gain himself a little time, then simply said, “Listen.” He read the letter to her.

When he stopped, they both let silence surround them.

“It doesn’t sound all that bad,” Sally finally said. “It sounds like she has a secret admirer.”

“A secret admirer. That has a quaint, Victorian sound to it.”

She ignored his sarcasm and remained quiet.

Scott waited for a moment, then asked, “In your experience, all the cases you handle, wouldn’t you think this letter had overtones of obsession? Maybe compulsion? What sort of person writes a letter like that?”