This hit a nerve within her, but she kept her mouth closed.
O’Connell paused, then stiffened.
“Ashley!” O’Connell shouted. “Ashley! I know you can hear me! I love you! I will always love you! I will always be there for you!”
His words echoed through the house.
O’Connell turned back to Catherine. “Did you call the police, Mrs. Frazier?”
She didn’t reply.
“I think you did,” he said quietly. “But what law have I broken here tonight? I can tell you: none.”
He gestured at the shotgun. “Of course, the same is not true for you.”
She tightened her grip on the stock of the rifle and pressed her finger against the trigger. Don’t hesitate, she told herself. Don’t panic. It was as if the familiar world of her own home, her own living room, surrounded by her own pictures and mementos, was suddenly alien. She wanted to say something that might remind her of normalcy. Shoot him! A voice shouted out deep within her. Shoot him before he kills all of you!
In that second of indecision, O’Connell whispered, “It’s not easy to kill someone, is it? It’s one thing to say, ‘Take another step and I’ll shoot,’ and another altogether to actually do it. You might think about that. Good night, Mrs. Frazier. I will see you again. I will be back.”
Shoot him! Shoot him! Kill him now! As she tried to understand the voice within her head, O’Connell turned, and with surprising speed abruptly disappeared from her sight. She gasped. Ghostlike. One second he was there in front of her, the next he was gone. She could hear his footsteps on the planks of the wooden floor in the hallway, then the thudding of the front door opening and slamming shut.
Catherine exhaled slowly and sat back hard. Her fingers around the shotgun seemed frozen, and it took some force of will to peel them from the weapon. She lowered it into her lap. She suddenly felt exhausted, tired in a way that she had not experienced in years. Her hands shook, her eyes filled with tears, and she had trouble stealing breath from the air around her. She remembered a similar moment in the hospital ward years earlier, when her husband’s hand had slipped from hers, and just like that, he was gone. The same sensation of helplessness that had filled her then.
She wanted to call out for Ashley, but she could not. She wanted to rise up and lock the front door, but she was frozen. We have no chance.
Catherine remained in her chair for several minutes. She had no idea how many. She only stirred, regaining some grip on her circumstances, when the flashing blue and red lights of a police cruiser suddenly filled the room around her.
Thoughts raced like power surges through Ashley.
She had remained huddled, behind the locked bedroom door, aware that Catherine and O’Connell were speaking, but unable to make out the words, except those that Michael O’Connell had shouted out, each of which had speared her with fear. When she’d heard the front door slam, she remained frozen in position on the floor, behind the bed, a pillow clutched to her chest, her head facedown in the center, as if she were trying to prevent herself from hearing, seeing, and even breathing. The pillowcase was damp where she had gripped it with her teeth to prevent herself from crying out. She could feel tears racing down her cheeks, and she was terrified. And terrified of being terrified. She was ashamed that she had left Catherine alone to confront Michael O’Connell, despite the older woman’s insistence. She was well past the why can’t he leave me alone stage and knew that she was lost on a much larger sea than she’d ever imagined.
“Ashley!” Catherine’s voice penetrated the walls and her fears.
“Yes…” She gulped out her reply.
“The police are here. You can come down.”
When she left the bedroom and stood at the top of the stairs, she looked down and saw Catherine standing in the hallway across from a middle-aged local police officer wearing a Smokey the Bear hat. He held a notepad and pencil and was shaking his head.
“I understand, Mrs. Frazier.” The policeman was speaking slowly, a little densely, and Ashley could see Catherine was clearly frustrated. “But I can’t put out an all points bulletin on someone you invited into your home, simply because he seems to be obsessively in love with Miss Freeman…. Good evening, Miss Freeman, if you could come down…”
Ashley descended the stairs.
“Now, did this fellow strike you, or threaten you?”
Catherine snorted. “Everything he said was a threat, Sergeant Connors. It was not in the words he said, but in the manner he spoke them.”
The policeman looked over at Ashley. “You were upstairs, miss? So you didn’t witness anything?”
Ashley nodded.
“So, other than his presence, he didn’t do anything to you, did he, miss?”
“No,” Ashley said. The word seemed impotent.
He shook his head, closed the notebook, as he turned back toward Catherine. “What you should have said, Mrs. Frazier, is that he struck you and put you in fear for your life. Some physical contact. That would give us something to go on. You could have said that he brandished a weapon. Even that he was trespassing. But we can’t arrest someone for telling you that he loves Miss Freeman.”
The policeman smiled and tried to make a little joke. “I mean, I bet just about all the boys fall in love with Miss Freeman.”
Catherine stamped her foot. “This is useless. You say you cannot help at all?”
“Unless we’re pretty darn certain a crime has been committed.”
“What about stalking? That’s a crime!”
“Yes. But that’s not what happened here tonight, is it? But if you can prove a pattern of behavior, well, then you should have Miss Freeman here go before a judge and get a restraining order. That means that if this guy came within a hundred yards of her, we could arrest him. It would give us some ammunition, so to speak. But absent that…”
He looked over at Ashley.
“You haven’t got any such order, like in Boston, where you live?”
She shook her head.
“Well, you ought to consider it. Of course…”
“Of course what?” Catherine demanded.
“Well, I don’t like to speculate…”
“What?”
“You have to be cautious. Don’t want to trigger some real nasty behavior. Sometimes a restraining order does more harm than good. Talk to a professional, Miss Freeman.”
“We are talking to a professional!” Catherine interrupted. “After all, Sergeant, isn’t this what your job is?”
“I mean someone who is expert on these sorts of domestic issues.”
Catherine shook her head, but had the good sense not to say anything else. It would do no good to insult the local police.
“If he comes back, Mrs. Frazier, call the substation and I’ll send someone around. Day or night. That’s the least we can do. He knows there’s a cop around, he’s not likely to try much. That’s the best offer I can make.”
The policeman made a show of replacing his pencil and notebook in his shirt pocket as he turned and walked to the door. He paused and, to Ashley, seemed a little embarrassed.
“Our hands are sort of tied,” he said. “I’ll make a report about this call, in case you do go to a judge for an order.”
Catherine merely snorted again. “Well, that’s a comfort,” she said angrily. “That’s truly reassuring. This is all like saying we need to wait for the entire house to burn down before we call the fire department.”
“I wish I could be more helpful. I really do, Mrs. Frazier, because I understand these sorts of things are difficult. But, like I say, call us if he shows up again. We’ll be out here in a jiffy.”
The policeman suddenly lifted his head, listening.
“Jesus,” he said abruptly. “Someone’s going real fast.”
Both Catherine and Ashley leaned forward and heard the distant noise of an engine howling with speed. Ashley, of course, recognized the sound. As they stood there, it grew closer, louder, and they all
saw headlights cutting through the nearby stands of trees.
“That’s my father,” Ashley said. She thought she should at least be relieved to see him and feel safe, because he would know what to do. But those feelings eluded her.
“I have become a student of fear,” she said. “Physiological reactions. Psychological stresses. Behavioral issues. I read psychiatric textbooks and social science treatises. I read books about how people respond under all sorts of difficult situations. I keep notes, go to lectures, whatever I can, just to try to understand it better.”
She turned away, staring back out the window at the benign suburban world beyond the glass.
“This doesn’t seem like much of a clinic,” I said. “Things seem pretty quiet and safe around here.”
She shook her head. “All illusion. Fear just takes different forms in different locations. It’s all based on what we expect to happen in the next few seconds, versus what actually occurs.”
“Michael O’Connell?”
A wry smile creased her face. “Do you ever wonder how it is that some people simply innately understand how to deliver terror? The hit man. The sexual psychopath. The religious fanatic. It just comes naturally to each of them. He was one of those types. It’s as if they aren’t tethered to life in the same way that you or I or Ashley and her family were. The ordinary emotional bonds and restraints we all feel were somehow absent in O’Connell. And they were replaced by something truly unsettling.”
“What was that?”
“He loved who he was.”
31
Running from Something Unseen
Catherine stood outside, staring up into the canopy of stars that filled the midnight sky above her house. It was cold enough to see her breath, but she was far more chilled by what had just occurred. The one place that she expected to be safe was in her own home, on land that she had occupied for better or for worse for so many years, where every tree, every shrub, every breeze that clattered through the eaves spoke to some memory. It was what was supposed to be solid about life. But this night, the safety of her home had thinned from the moment she had heard the words I will be back.
Catherine turned back toward the front door. It suddenly seemed to her that it was too cold to stand outside, trying to sort out what to do, which surprised her a little. She had often stood beneath the Vermont sky and considered many questions, in all seasons. But this night, the black sky didn’t provide clarity, just a quick chill that worked its way down her back, and she shivered. She had the terrible thought that Michael O’Connell wouldn’t feel the frost. His obsession would keep him warm.
She glanced over at the line of trees on the edge of her property, out past a flat area beside the house, where her husband had borrowed a tractor and smoothed out a section, then planted it with athletic turf grass and erected a set of goalposts, all as a birthday present when Hope turned eleven. Usually staring at the minifield recalled so many happy moments, it comforted Catherine. But this night, her eyes went past the faded white frame of the goal. She imagined that O’Connell was out there, just beyond her sight, watching them.
Catherine gritted her teeth and went back inside, but not before making a single obscene gesture to the shadowy line of trees. Just in case, she thought to herself. It was well past midnight, but there was still packing to do. Her own bag was ready, but Ashley, still shaken, was taking longer.
Scott sat in the kitchen, drinking black coffee, the old shotgun on the table in front of him. He ran a finger along the length of the barrel and thought to himself that they would be much better off if Catherine had just pulled the trigger. They could have spent the rest of the night dealing with the local police and a coroner, and hiring her an attorney, although he suspected that she wouldn’t even have been arrested. If she had just shot the bastard as O’Connell came through the front door, he thought, he would have arrived and then helped sort everything out. And life would have gone back to normal within days.
He heard Catherine come through the door and enter the kitchen.
“I think I will join you,” she said as she poured herself a cup.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Scott said.
“Already is.”
“Ashley about set?”
“She’ll be ready in a minute,” Catherine said. “She’s just pulling a few things together.”
“She’s still pretty shaky.”
Catherine nodded. “Don’t blame her. I’m still a little shaky, as well.”
“You hide it better.”
“More experience.”
“I wish…” he started, then stopped.
Catherine smiled out of the side of her mouth wryly. “I know what you wish.”
“I wish you’d blown him straight to hell.”
She nodded. “So do I. In retrospect.”
Neither said what both were thinking: having O’Connell standing at the wrong end of a shotgun had been an opportunity they doubted they would have again. As quickly as this thought came into Scott’s head, he tried to dismiss it. The educated, rational part of him insisted, violence is never the answer. Then, just as smoothly, the reply rose up: Why not?
Ashley entered, hovering in the doorway.
“All right,” she said. “I’m ready.”
She stared at her father and Catherine. “Are you sure leaving is the right thing?”
“We’re pretty isolated out here, Ashley, dear,” Catherine said cautiously. “And it seems very hard to predict what Mr. O’Connell will do next.”
“It’s not fair,” Ashley said. “Not fair to me, not fair to you, not fair to anybody.”
“Being fair, I think, is no longer much of an issue,” Scott said.
“Being safe is the first concern,” Catherine said, still speaking gently. “So let’s err on the side of caution.” Ashley clenched her fists together, battling tears.
“Let’s just go,” Scott said. “Look, at the very least it will make your mother feel a whole lot better when you’re home. Hope, too. And Catherine, she sure as hell doesn’t want to be up here alone, dealing with the son of a bitch after he figures out that we’ve moved Ashley out.”
“Next time,” Catherine said stiffly, “I don’t think I will bother with conversation.”
She gestured at the shotgun, which made Scott and Ashley both smile.
“Catherine,” Ashley said, wiping away at her eyes, “you would make a fine professional killer.”
Catherine smiled. “Thank you, dear. I will take that as a compliment.”
Scott rose from the table. “Does everyone understand how this is going to work tonight?”
Both Ashley and Catherine nodded. “Seems elaborate,” Catherine said.
“Better elaborate than sorry. It’s best to assume he’s watching the house, don’t you think? And that he might try to follow us. And we don’t know what he might try to pull. He’s already run you off the road once tonight.”
“If that was him,” Ashley said. “We never got a good look at the guy. Or his car. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he try to kill us one minute, then stand in the hallway and shout out he loves me?”
Scott shook his head. It didn’t make sense to him, either. “Anyway, we shall give him something to think about, if he is watching.”
He collected the bags and arranged them all by the front door. Behind him, Catherine was turning off every light in the house. Leaving the two women in the hallway, he walked out into the nighttime. He scanned the night shapes, flashing back to when he was Ashley’s age, in Vietnam, staring out through spyglasses into the jungle, the battery of howitzers behind him, silent for once, the damp, stale smell of closely packed sandbags close to his chest, wondering if they were being observed from the vines and tangled, thick undergrowth.
Scott slid behind the wheel of the Porsche, fired up the engine, and backed into a space next to Catherine’s small four-wheel-drive station wagon. He left his car running, stepping out after popping the hood. He reached in and
started Catherine’s car. He went to the right-hand side of each vehicle, opened the door, and adjusted the passenger seat, so that they were lowered as far as they could go.
Scott went back inside, seized all the bags, and went out again into the night.
He placed Catherine’s bag in his car, and Ashley’s in Catherine’s, closing the trunks, but leaving all four car doors open.
He walked back swiftly to the front door. “Ready?”
Both women nodded.
“Then let’s go. Fast, now.”
All three of them moved together, in a single dark lump. Ashley slipped into the passenger seat in the Porsche, and Catherine behind the wheel of her own car. As she took her place, Ashley immediately dove down, so that she could not be seen. She had tucked her hair up under a dark navy watch cap.
Scott ran around, slamming all the car doors, before jumping into his own seat. He gave Catherine a thumbs-up signal, and she accelerated hard, her wheels spitting gravel. Scott pulled in, barely inches away. Fast now, he thought. But Catherine was already jamming her foot down on the gas, and the two of them headed quickly for the highway, in tandem.
Scott scanned the road behind him, on the lookout for headlights. But the twists in the highway made it difficult. He thought, There’s a full moon tonight. If I were chasing someone, I’d be driving without lights.
Beside him, Ashley remained scrunched down. He accelerated, keeping up with Catherine.
She was heading to a spot she knew, right before the entrance to the interstate highway. It was a drive-in bank that had a small parking lot in the rear. When she spotted the entrance, she waited until the last second to flick on her blinker and tugged the wheel sharply. She could hear the tires squeal briefly as she zipped between the dual drive-in windows, pulling into the rear, where there were no lights. She could hear the roar of the Porsche’s engine directly behind her. She stopped and breathed in.
Scott pulled in beside her, then leapt from his car and ran to the edge of the building.
A single car went past on the main road, then a second. He couldn’t make out the driver of either car.
The Wrong Man Page 32
