The Wrong Man

by John Katzenbach

  She was exhausted.

  Sally’s voice had diminished to a whisper. “Look, Hope, my love, please, no matter how badly you are hurt, we can just say that I did it to you. Scott said you were cut. Well, we’ll just tell the cops I did it. They’ll believe us, I know it. You don’t have to leave me. We can talk our way out of this, together.”

  Hope smiled again. It was a most attractive offer, she thought to herself. Lie our ways out of all the questions. And maybe it would work. But probably not. This is the only way to be sure.

  She wanted to say good-bye, wanted to say all the things that lovers and partners would whisper to each other in the dark, wanted to say something about her mother and Ashley and everything that had happened that night, but she did not. Instead, she merely touched the END button on her cell phone to disconnect the line.

  In her car, still parked on the street outside Michael O’Connell’s apartment building, Sally gave in to all the emotions cascading within her and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt as if she were shrinking, that she had abruptly grown smaller, weaker, and was only a shadow of the person she had been at the start of the day. Whatever they had done, she wasn’t sure that it was worth the cost that had been paid. She bent over, kicked her feet, and pounded on the wheel, flailing her arms about wildly. Then she stopped and moaned as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, slinking down in her seat, in total agony, and completely oblivious that Michael O’Connell, cursing loudly, openly enraged, glowing with red anger and black bitterness, and blinded to the world around him, had passed by only a few feet away as he stomped his way toward his own front entranceway.

  “So, Do You Want to Hear a Story?”

  “I see,” she said a little cautiously, “you managed to meet with the detective who investigated the case?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “It was most enlightening.”

  “But you have returned because you have a few more questions, correct?”

  “Yes. I still think there are other people I need to speak with.”

  She nodded, but did not reply at first. I could see that she was calculating carefully, trying to measure details against memories.

  “This would be the same request, would it not? To speak with Sally or Scott?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “I do not think they would speak with you. But regardless, what would you expect them to say?”

  “I want to know how it worked out.”

  This time she laughed, but without humor. “Worked out? What a truly inadequate phrase to describe what they went through and what they did, and how it might have impacted their lives in the days that followed.”

  “Well, you know what I mean. An assessment.”

  “And you think they would tell you the truth? Don’t you imagine that when you knocked on their door and said, ‘But I need to ask you some questions about the man you killed,’ that they would simply look at you as if you were completely crazy and then slam the door in your face? And even if they were to invite you in, and you were to ask, ‘So, how have your lives been since you got away with murder?’ what incentive would they have for unburdening themselves of the truth? Can’t you see how ridiculous that would be?”

  “But you know the answers to those questions?”

  “Of course,” she said carefully.

  It was early in the evening, just past the end of the summer afternoon, that undecided time between day and night when the world takes on a faded look. She had opened the windows in her home, letting in the stray sounds that I had grown accustomed to from many visits: children’s voices, the occasional car. The drawing down of another benign day in the suburbs. I went over to the window and took in a breath of air.

  “You will never think of this as home, will you?” I asked.

  “No. Of course not. It is a deadly place. Sad because it is so normal.”

  “You moved, right? After all these events took place.”

  She nodded her head. “Perceptive of you.”

  “Why?”

  “I no longer felt I could safely rely on the solitude that I had surrounded myself with for so many years. Too many ghosts. Too many memories. I thought I might go crazy.” Again she smiled. “So, what did the policeman tell you?”

  “That what Sally predicted did indeed take place. Actually, he didn’t say that; it’s what I extrapolated. When the detectives went to Michael O’Connell’s apartment, they found the murder weapon concealed in the boot. It was his DNA beneath his murdered father’s fingers. At first, he admitted being there, fighting with the old man, but denied killing him. Of course, a person who sadistically crushes another man’s heart medication beneath the sole of his shoe lacks some credibility on that score, and so they didn’t believe him. Not for a second. No, they had him, even without a full confession, and when they recovered the computer, which he’d dropped off at a repair shop, and found the angry letter to his old man…well, motive, means, opportunity. The holy trinity of police work. Isn’t that what Sally called it, when she first designed the plan?”

  “Yes. Exactly,” she said. “This is what I suspected they would tell you. But they must have told you more?”

  “He tried to blame it on Ashley, on Scott and Sally and Hope, but…”

  “A conspiracy that would require so many unlikely things, correct? One, stealing the murder weapon, giving it to another, having it pass through three sets of hands before returning it to O’Connell’s apartment, a fire…Really, it hardly made sense, correct?”

  “That’s right. It didn’t make sense. Especially when coupled with Hope’s suicide and the distraught note she left behind. The detective told me that to believe O’Connell, one would have to imagine that a woman bent on killing herself stopped off mid-drive to murder some man she’d never seen before, in a location she’d never been to, drove all the way back to Boston, replaced the gun in O’Connell’s apartment, and then drove all the way back to Maine and threw herself into the ocean after leaving behind a note which neglected to mention any of this. Or maybe you would think that Sally was the killer, but she was in Boston buying frilly lingerie right about the time of the killings. And Scott, well, maybe it was him, but he didn’t have the time to perform the act, then get to Boston and then back to western Massachusetts to his slice of late-night pizza. Again, not within the realm of probability.”

  As I talked, I could see tears welling up in her eyes. She seemed to be seated ever more straight and upright in her chair, as if each word managed to tighten the nut and screw of some memory within her.

  “And so?” she asked, but this time her words seemed choked.

  “And so, what Sally had envisioned eventually took place. Michael O’Connell copped a plea to second-degree murder. Apparently he wanted to fight in trial, continued to claim his innocence right up to the last minute. But when the cops told him that the caliber gun used in the murder of his father was the same as the one used to kill the private eye, Murphy, and that maybe they’d look at him for that crime, too, he took the easier way out. Of course, that was just a bluff on their part. The shots that killed Murphy produced bullet fragments far too deformed for forensic comparison. The police told me that. But it was a useful threat. Twenty to life. Eligible for his first parole hearing after eighteen years.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “This we know.”

  “So, they got what they wanted.”

  “Do you think?”

  “They got away with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, if I’m to believe what you’ve told me, they did.”

  She stood up, walked around the room, went to a sideboard, and poured herself a small drink. “Not too early, I guess,” she said. I could see that tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.

  I remained quiet, watching her.

  “ ‘Got away with it’ you say? Do you really think that’s the case?”

  “They aren’t going to be prosecuted in a
court of law,” I said.

  “But don’t you imagine that there are other courts within us, where guilt and innocence are always in the balance? Does anybody—especially people like Scott and Sally—ever get away with anything?”

  I didn’t reply. I guessed that she was right.

  “Do you imagine that Sally doesn’t lie alone in the darkness at night, sobbing the hours away, feeling a coldness in the bed where once Hope lay? What did she get away with? And the weight that Scott carries now, don’t you wonder how the events of those days batter him every waking second? Does he smell that odor of burnt flesh and death on every stray breeze? Can he face all those eager young faces in his school knowing what lie rests within him?”

  She paused, then said, “Do you want me to go on?”

  I shook my head.

  Then she added, “Think hard about it. They will continue to pay a price for what they did for the rest of their days.”

  “I should speak to them,” I repeated.

  She sighed deeply.

  “No, really,” I insisted. “I should interview Sally and Scott. Even if they won’t speak with me, I should try.”

  “Don’t you think they should be left alone with their own nightmares?”

  “They should be free.”

  “Free of one—maybe. But are they really?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  She took a long pull on her drink. “So, now we’re near the end, are we not? I’ve told you a story. What did I say, at the start of all this? A murder story? A story about a killing?”

  “Yes. That’s what you said.”

  She smiled behind her tears. “But I was wrong. Or, to be more accurate, I wasn’t telling you the truth when I said that. No. Not at all. It’s a love story.”

  I must have looked surprised, but she ignored this and walked over to a sideboard and opened a drawer.

  “That’s what it was. A love story. It’s always been a love story. Would any of it have happened if someone had really loved Michael O’Connell when he was growing up, so that he knew the difference between real love and obsession? And did not Sally and Scott love their daughter enough so that they would do anything—anything at all—to protect her from harm, no matter what price they would have to pay? And Hope, did she not love Ashley, too, with something far more special than anyone ever realized? And she loved Sally, as well, more deeply than even Sally knew, so that the gift she gave them all was a kind of freedom, wasn’t it? And really, when you look at any of the actions, any of the events, anything that happened along all those days and nights when Michael O’Connell came into their lives, wasn’t it about love, really? Too much love. Not enough love. But, when all is said and done, love.”

  I remained silent.

  As she was speaking, I saw her pull a pad of paper out from a drawer and write down several lines.

  “You have,” she suddenly said, “a couple more things to do, here, to really understand all this. It seems to me that there is indeed an interview of some importance that you need to conduct. Some critical information you need to acquire and, well, distribute. I will be counting on you.”

  “What’s this?” I asked as she handed me the slip of paper.

  “After you have done what is necessary, go to this location at this hour and you will understand.”

  I took the paper, glanced at it, and put it into my pocket.

  “I have a few photographs,” she said. “I keep them in drawers mainly, now. When I pull them out, I just cry and cry uncontrollably and that’s not a good thing, now, is it? Still you probably ought to see one or two.”

  She turned again to the sideboard, opened a drawer, shuffled through some frames, and finally removed one. She looked down at it, smiling through glistening eyes.

  “Here,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “This one is as good as any. It was taken after the state championship game and she was just a few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday.”

  Two people were in the picture. A muddy, joyous teenage girl, hoisting a golden trophy above her head, while being lifted into the air by a balding, hulking older man, who was clearly her father. Both their faces glowed with the unmistakable joy of victory after sacrifice. I stared at it. The picture seemed to be alive, and for a moment I could almost imagine the cheering and the excited voices and the tears of happiness that must have surrounded that moment.

  “I took the picture,” she said. “But really, I wished I had been in it, as well.”

  Again she took a deep breath.

  “They never found her body, you know,” she said. “It was several days before someone spotted her car and found the note left on the dashboard. And there was a big storm the day after, one of those classic late-fall nor’easters, and they couldn’t put divers into the water to search for her. The outgoing tides were very strong along the shoreline that November and must have swept her miles out to sea. At first, I could hardly bear this, but as time went on, I understood perhaps it was better that way. It allowed me to remember her at so many better times. You asked me why I told you this story?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two reasons. The first is because she was braver than anyone had any right to expect, and someone ought to know that.”

  Catherine smiled behind her tears and then pointed at my pocket, where I’d put the piece of paper.

  “The second reason?” I asked.

  “That should become apparent to you soon enough.”

  We were both quiet, then she smiled.

  “A love story,” she repeated. “A love story about death.”

  The setting differs, depending upon the age of the prison, and how much money the state is willing to invest in modern penal technology. But strip away the lights, motion detectors, sensors, electronic eyes, and video monitors, and prison is still just one thing: locks.

  I was frisked in an anteroom, first with an electronic wand, and then the old-fashioned way. I was asked to sign a paper stating that if for some reason I was taken hostage, I would not expect the state to go to any extraordinary measures to rescue me. My briefcase was inspected. Every pen I carried was unscrewed and examined. The sheets of paper in my notebook were ruffled, to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle something between the pages. Then I was led down a long corridor, through an electronic sally port, where the bars behind me snapped shut. The escort brought me to a small room, just off the prison library, he told me. Usually, it was for meetings between prisoners and lawyers, but a writer looking for a story seemed to meet the same qualifications.

  There were bright overhead lights, and a single window on one wall that looked out on a glistening razor-wire fence and an expanse of empty blue sky. A sturdy metal table and cheap folding chairs were the only furniture in the room. The escort motioned me to sit, then pointed at a side door.

  “He’ll be here in a minute. Remember, you can give him a pack of cigarettes, if you brought them, but that’s it. Nothing else. Okay? You can go ahead and shake hands, but that would be the extent of any physical contact. According to rules established by the state Supreme Court, we’re not allowed to listen to your conversation, but the camera up there in the corner”—he gestured up into the far edge of the room—“well, that records the entire meeting. Including me giving you this warning. You got it?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Could be worse. We’re a whole lot nicer than some states. Don’t want to be in stir down in Georgia, Texas, or Alabama.”

  I nodded, and the guard added, “You know, the monitor, it’s for your protection, too. We got some guys in here likely to slice your throat if you said the wrong thing. So we keep a close eye on all meetings like this.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Bu you don’t have to worry none. O’Connell is what passes for a gentleman in this place. All he wants to do is tell people how he’s innocent and all.”

  “That’s what he says?”

  The guard smiled as the side door opened, and
Michael O’Connell, in handcuffs, wearing a blue denim work shirt and dark jeans, was escorted into the room. “That’s what they all say,” the guard said as he went over to unsnap the cuffs.

  We shook hands, then sat across from each other at the table. He had grown a scraggly beard and cropped his dark hair into a crew cut. There were some lines around his eyes that I guessed hadn’t been there a few years earlier. I arranged a notepad in front of me and toyed with a pencil while he lit a cigarette.

  “Bad habit,” he said. “I took it up in here.”

  “It can kill you.”

  He shrugged. “In this place, it seems like the least of my worries. A lot of things can kill you. Hell, look at some dude cross-eyed and he’ll kill you. So, tell me why you’re here.”

  “I’ve been looking into the crime that landed you here,” I said cautiously.

  His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Really? Who sent you?”

  “No one sent me. I’m just interested.”

  “How did you get interested?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. I had known that this question was coming, but hadn’t really formulated an answer beforehand. I leaned back a little, and said, “I overheard something at a cocktail party, of all places, that sparked my curiosity. I did a little looking around, and thought I’d come and speak with you.”

  “I didn’t do it, you know. I’m innocent.”

  I nodded, didn’t reply, hoping he would simply continue. He watched for my reaction, taking a long drag on the cigarette, then blew a little smoke in my direction.

  “Did they send you?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Scott. Sally. But mainly Ashley. Did they send you, just to make sure I was still here, behind bars?”

  “No. No one sent me. I sent myself. I’ve never spoken with any of those people.”

  “Sure.” He snorted a laugh. “Sure you haven’t. How much are they paying you?”

  “No one is paying me.”

  “Right. You’re doing this for free. The fucking bastards. You’d think they’d leave me alone now.”