John Katzenbach - The Wrong Man

There had been no sign of the elder O’Connell emerging from the house, although Scott told himself that the man might have slipped away when he was talking with one person or another. Still, a small, black Dodge pickup truck hadn’t moved all day. Scott assumed this was the older O’Connell’s vehicle.

He knew he would have to knock on that door, but he was as yet unsure exactly who to pose as. He decided he would make one more effort, at the local library, to find out about the circumstances surrounding O’Connell’s mother’s death.

The town’s library, in contrast to the bedraggled buildings on side streets and former farmland, was a two-story, glass-and-brick building, adjacent to a new police department and town offices complex.

Scott approached the main desk, and a slight, thin woman, maybe a half dozen years older than Ashley, looked up as she was sliding library cards into the backs of books and asked him not unpleasantly, “May I help you?”

“Yes. Do you keep high school yearbooks on file? And could you direct me to where you would keep local newspapers on microfilm?”

“Sure. The microfilm room is over there.” She gestured with her hand toward a side room. “And the collection is pretty clearly marked. Do you need help with the machine?”

Scott shook his head. “Think I can manage. The yearbooks?”

“In the reference section. What year were you hunting down?”

“Lincoln High, class of 1995.”

The young woman made a small face of surprise, then grinned. “My class. Maybe I can help you?”

“Did you know a young man named Michael O’Connell?”

She froze. For a second she didn’t reply.

Scott watched the young woman’s face race through bad memories.

“What has he done?” she finally whispered.

Sally pored over an array of legal texts and law review articles, searching for something, but precisely what, she was unsure. The more she read, the more she assessed, the more she analyzed, the worse she felt. It was one thing, she thought harshly to herself, to be on the intellectual side of crime, where actions were seen in the abstract world of the courtroom, involving arguments and evidence, search and seizure, confessions, forensics-and then the system took over. The criminal justice system was designed to bleed the humanity out of actions. It neutered the reality of a crime, turning it into something theatrical. She was familiar and comfortable with the process. But what she was doing was a step in a far different direction.

Find a crime.

Figure out how to assign it to Michael O’Connell.

Put him in jail. Go on with their lives. It sounded simple. Scott’s enthusiasm had been encouraging, until she had actually sat down and tried to work her way through all the various possibilities.

The best she had come up with so far were fraud and extortion.

It would be tricky, she thought to herself, but they could probably take all of O’Connell’s actions up to that point and re-form them so they would look like some sort of scheme to blackmail her and Scott out of cash. She thought she could probably make it appear to a prosecutor that everything O’Connell had done-especially his harassment of Ashley-was an aggressive plot. The only thing they would have to manufacture was some sort of threat unless they paid some sum of money. Scott could claim under oath that when he’d handed over $5,000 to O’Connell in Boston, O’Connell had demanded more, and that he’d stepped up his pursuit when they had been reluctant. They could even explain away their failure to engage the police up to this point, saying that they were scared what he might do.

The problem-or, Sally thought ruefully, the first problem of what were likely to be many-was what she remembered Scott saying after he’d handed over the $5,000. He thought that O’Connell had been wearing a hidden microphone that had recorded the entirety of their conversation.

If that were true, suddenly they would be seen as the liars. O’Connell would skate free, they might face charges, and her practice and Scott’s job might be in jeopardy. They would be back at square one, they would be in trouble, and there would be nothing standing between O’Connell, his anger, and Ashley.

And, she realized, even if they were successful, there was no guarantee that O’Connell wouldn’t get some sort of reduced sentence. A couple of years? How long would it take with him behind bars to allow Ashley to reinvent herself, to get free of his obsession? Three? Five? Ten? Could she ever be 100 percent certain that he wasn’t going to arrive on her doorstep?

Sally rocked back in her seat.

Kill him, she thought.

She gasped out loud. She could not believe what her own voice was saying to her.

What is it about your life that is so great that it shouldn’t be sacrificed?

This made some sense to her. She didn’t really love her work, she was filled with doubts about her relationship with Hope. It had been weeks, maybe months, since she’d felt joy about who she was, and what she stood for. Meaning in life? She wanted to laugh, but couldn’t bring herself to do so. She was a middle-aged, small-town lawyer, growing old, watching the lines of worry take root in the skin of her face every day. She thought the only mark she’d ever made in life was Ashley. Her daughter might have been the result of a lie of love, but there was no denying that she was categorically the best thing that Sally and Scott had managed in their brief time together.

Her future is worth dying for. Yours isn’t.

Again Sally was shocked at what her imagination insisted. This is madness. But it was madness that made sense.

Kill him, she told herself.

And then she had another, even more bizarre thought.

Or find a way to make sure he kills you.

And then pays for it.

She leaned back and stared at the books and texts surrounding her.

Someone had to die. Of this she suddenly became completely convinced.

I had nightmares for the first time since I’d started in on the story.

They arrived unbidden and kept me spinning in my bed, sweat-drenched in sleep. I awakened once deep in the night, staggered into the bathroom for a drink of water, and stared at myself in the mirror. I slipped from the room, padding down the carpeted hallway and peering in on my children, reassuring myself that their sleep wasn’t as troubled as my own. When I returned, my wife muttered, “Everything okay?” but had dropped off again before I could answer. I dropped my head to the pillow and peered up into the endless edges of darkness.

The next day, I called her on the phone.

“I think I need to speak with some of the principals in this little drama now,” I said roughly. “I’ve been putting that off for far too long.”

“Yes. I’ve been expecting that eventually you would make that demand. I’m just not sure who would be willing to speak with you at this point.”

“They are willing to have their story told, but not willing to speak with me?” I asked incredulously.

When she spoke, I could sense some distant turmoil within her; some events in the story were turning more critical. I was getting closer.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“Afraid of what?”

“So many things are in balance. A life balances a death. Chance balances against despair. So much is at stake.”

“I can find them,” I said abruptly. “I don’t have to play this cat-and-mouse game with you. I could hunt down faculty lists. Search legal databases. Go to student websites. Gay-women websites. Psychopath chat rooms. I don’t know. One of them will have enough information so that I’ll be able to assign real names, real places, and truths to what you’ve told me.”

“You don’t think I have been telling you the truth?”