“It was always a question, wasn’t it? Which one of us was gonna grow up meaner?”
“Screw you, old man. Tell me what I want to know.”
“Get me another beer first.”
Michael O’Connell reached down and grasped his father by the shirt, half-pulling him out of his seat. In the same moment, the father’s right hand shot out and seized the son around the collar, twisting his sweater so that it choked him. Their faces were only inches apart, their eyes locked together. Then O’Connell thrust his father back, and the old man released his son.
Michael O’Connell walked over to the television set. He stared at it for an instant.
“This how you spend your nights? Getting drunk and watching the tube?”
The father didn’t answer.
“Too much of the old idiot box is bad for you. Didn’t you know that?”
Michael O’Connell waited for a second, so that the mocking words would settle in, then he drew back his foot and delivered a karate-style kick to the television, sending it crashing down, the screen shattering.
“Bastard. You’re gonna pay for that.”
“Am I? What else do I have to break to get you to tell me what happened when she called you? How long was she here? What did she promise you? What did you tell her you would do?”
Before his father could reply, he walked over to a bookcase and swept a shelf of knickknacks and photographs to the floor.
“That was just some of your mother’s leftovers. Don’t mean nothing to me.”
“You want me to look around until I find something that does? What did she tell you?”
“Kid,” the old man said through tightly pursed lips, “whatever it is this bit of tail is to you, I don’t know. And what she’s got you into, I don’t know either. You in some kind of trouble? Money trouble?”
Michael O’Connell looked at his father. “What are you talking about?”
“Who’s looking for you, kid? Because I think they’re gonna find you just about any minute, and when they do, they aren’t gonna be nice about it. But maybe you know that already.”
“All right,” Michael O’Connell said slowly. “Last chance before I come over there and start to pay you back for all the times you beat me when I was a kid. Did a girl named Ashley call you today? Did she say she wanted your help in breaking up with me? Did she say she was on her way to talk to you?”
The older man continued to eye his son through narrow, rage-filled eyes. But through the sheet of fury that seemed to be just a second or two away from breaking free, he managed to clench his lips and spit out, “No. No, God damn it. No Ashley. No girl. No nothing like what you just said. And that’s the goddamn truth, whether you want to believe it or not.”
“You’re lying. You old bastard, you’re lying.”
The old man shook his head and laughed, which infuriated Michael O’Connell even more. He felt as if he were on a ledge, trying to keep his balance. What he wanted, more than anything else, was to feel his fists smashing against the old man’s face. But he took a deep breath and told himself that he still needed to know what was happening, because there was some reason he’d been called here. He just couldn’t see what it was.
“She said…”
“I don’t know what she said. But Miss whoever-the-hell-she-is hasn’t called here or shown up at the side door.”
Michael O’Connell took a step back. “I don’t…” His mind was rapidly churning. He could not see why Ashley would send him on a trip to his home unless she had something in mind. What she expected to gain seemed just beyond his reach.
“Who you in trouble with?” the old man asked again.
“Nobody. What do you mean?” Michael spat back, angry at having the train of his thoughts interrupted.
“What is it? Drugs? You pull some kind of low-rent robbery with some guys and then stiff them on the cut? What are you doing that would have guys with money looking for you? You steal something from them?”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.” He was confused by the smug look on his father’s face. He realized, in that second, that the old man should be a lot angrier about the shattered television set. The reason he’s not angry is because he knows a new one is heading his way, Michael O’Connell thought.
“Who’ve you been fucking around with, kid? Because there’s someone real pissed with you.”
“Who told you that?”
The older man shrugged. “I ain’t saying. I just know.”
Michael O’Connell straightened up. Nothing makes sense, he thought. Or maybe it does.
“Old man, I will hurt you. You should understand that. You are old and weak and I will cause you great pain. Now tell me what you’re talking about!” he shouted across the room. He took two quick strides, so that he was again looming over his father, who remained in his chair, grinning, wondering whether he’d managed to keep his son in the house long enough for the mysterious Mr. Smith to make the correct arrangements, whatever they might be.
Less than a half mile away from the O’Connell house, on an adjacent street, Hope spotted several beaten old cars and pickup trucks sporting Harley-Davidson wings on stickers, all pulled to the side of the roadway, parked haphazardly. She could see some lights coming from a worn and battered ranch-style home set back from the street and could hear loud voices and hard-rock music. She realized someone was having some sort of get-together. Beer and pizza, she guessed, with a methamphetamine dessert. She stopped her rental car a few feet behind one of the parked cars, so she appeared to be just another visitor.
As quickly as she could, she pulled on the black coveralls that Sally had purchased. She jammed a navy blue balaclava-style face mask and hat into her pocket. Then she slipped on surgical gloves, and a pair of leather gloves over those. She wrapped several strands of black electrician’s tape around her wrists and her ankles, so that no flesh was exposed between the coveralls and her gloves and shoes.
She threw the backpack with the gun over her shoulder and started to jog in the direction of the O’Connell house, her outfit helping her to blend into the night. She had the cell phone in her hand, and she dialed Scott.
“Okay. I’m here. A couple of hundred yards away. What am I looking for?”
“The boy drives a five-year-old red Toyota, with Massachusetts plates,” Scott said. “The father has a black pickup truck, which is parked halfway beneath a carport. The only exterior light is by the side door. That is your entry point.”
“Are they still—”
“Yes. I could hear some things breaking inside.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not that I can see.”
“Where should I—”
“By the carport. On the right side. It’s cluttered with all sorts of tools and engine parts. You will be able to see them, but not be seen.”
“Okay,” Hope said. “Keep an eye out. I’ll talk to you afterwards.”
Scott hung up. He leaned against the side of the old, ramshackle barn and watched. There was very little light, he thought. No streetlamps in this rural section of the world. As long as Hope clung to the shadows, she would be fine.
Then he stopped, because the notion that she would be fine made absolutely no sense whatsoever. None of them were going to be fine, he realized. Except maybe Ashley, and she was the whole reason they were doing what they were doing.
Scott wondered, if he was so crippled and scared by the night that was unfolding, how did Hope, who was the actual performer on the stage the three of them had created, manage to control her doubts?
Running crouched over at the waist, more like some feral animal than the athlete she had once been, Hope cut across the side yard and slid herself up against the back wall of the carport. She pivoted about, lowered herself to the ground, and took a moment to get her bearings. The closest houses were all at least thirty or forty yards away, across the street.
She rolled her head back against the wall of the carport and shut her eyes
.
Hope tried to do some sort of odd inventory of her emotions, as if she might be able to find the one that would power her through the next few minutes. She pictured Nameless lying dead in her arms and then, in her mind’s eye, substituted Ashley for her dog.
This toughened her.
She managed to find a little more iron in the thought that O’Connell would come after Catherine, as well. She knew her mother would fight hard, but that wasn’t a fight she thought the older woman could win.
She added up all the threats to their lives and did the equation. She tried to subtract doubt and uncertainty from the sum. Everything that had seemed so clear-cut and obvious when the three of them were sitting in their comfortable living room now seemed perverse, wrong, and wildly impossible. She was sweating hard, and she knew her hands were shaking.
Who am I? she suddenly asked herself.
There was a moment, she remembered, shortly after her father had died, that she had truly been scared. It wasn’t so much the fear of being left behind; it was instead a fear of not being able to live up to what he’d wanted her to be. She tried to imagine that her dead father would have wanted her to be precisely in the position she was, with her head up against a wall, the night surrounding her, the damp ground seeping through her coveralls. He would understand taking a chance to protect others. He always wanted her to take charge, whether it was for good or for bad. You’re the captain, she could hear his voice in the darkness.
Hope thought that in that moment she was truly on the verge of madness.
Clear your mind, she told herself.
She pulled the balaclava down over her head, so that her face was obscured.
She reached inside the backpack and removed the gun from its plastic bag.
She slid her finger around the trigger. It was the first time in her entire life that she’d actually held a handgun. She wished she had more experience with weapons, but was surprised to feel a certain electricity flowing from the steel handle into her hand, an unfamiliar, almost intoxicating power.
Hope scrambled to the edge of the carport and listened to angry voices coming from inside the home as she waited for the right moment to arrive.
“I need to know what’s going on,” Michael O’Connell burst out. Every word he spoke was laden with years of hatred for the man smugly rocking in his lounge chair across from him, and with all the weight of his love for Ashley. He could feel his heart racing; it nearly made him dizzy with rage.
“What’s going on? You’re here, shouting about some girl, when you ought to be a whole lot more worried about whoever it is that you’ve made into an enemy,” his father said, waving his hand in the air.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t burnt anyone.”
The old man shrugged infuriatingly. Michael O’Connell took a step forward, fists clenched, and the older man finally pushed himself out of the chair, squaring his shoulders to his son. “You think you’ve gotten old enough and strong enough to take me on?”
“I don’t think you want to ask that question, old man. You’re looking a little paunchy and out of shape. That fake back injury of yours might start acting up for real. What you were good at was beating up on women and kids, and that was a real long time ago. I’m not a kid anymore. You might think hard about that.”
The chill in his voice caused the older man to stop. He puffed out his chest and shook his head.
“I never had any trouble handling you back then. You may think you’re all grown up, but I’m still a whole lot more trouble than you want to try to take on. I can still crush you.”
“You were a weakling then, you’re a weakling now. Mom used to hold her own against you. In fact, if she wasn’t drunk, you couldn’t even have beaten her. That’s how it really happened, isn’t it? The night she died? She was too drunk to fight back, and you saw your opportunity and that’s when you killed her.”
The older man snarled.
“I should never have lied for you. I should have told the cops the truth all along,” Michael O’Connell said bitterly.
“Don’t be pushing things,” the father replied coldly. “Don’t be going places where you got no right to go.”
As their words dropped in volume and increased in hatred, the two men had closed to within a few feet of each other, like dogs in that instant before growls turn into a fight.
“You think you could kill me and get away with it, like you did her? I don’t think so, old man.”
The father suddenly jerked forward and slapped his son hard across the face. The sound of the blow echoed in the small room.
Michael O’Connell grinned savagely. He shot out his right arm and seized his father by the throat. Closing his hand around the old man’s windpipe was instantly satisfying. As he could feel muscles contract, and tendons start to crush beneath his grip, he felt a passion that almost overwhelmed him. Panicked, the older man grabbed at his son’s wrist, digging his fingernails into the flesh, trying to pull free, while he felt the breath quickly choke out of him. As his father’s face turned a deeper red, Michael O’Connell suddenly pushed him back, releasing him. The older man slammed against a coffee table, spilling its contents. He grabbed at the arm of the lounge chair as he fell to the ground, pulling it over, and lay back, gasping on the floor, his eyes wide with surprise. His son laughed and spat at the older man.
“Stay there, old man. Stay there forever. But hear me on this: if you ever get a call from Ashley, or anyone connected to Ashley, and you promise them you will help them in any way, I will come back here and kill you. First I will hurt you, so that you will be begging for me to stop. And then I will kill you. Do you understand that? I’d like to kill everything in my past. It would make me feel a whole lot better. And the place I’d like the most to start with is you.”
The father remained on the floor, frozen. The son saw fear spread throughout the old man’s eyes and, for the first time that night, thought that the drive north had been worthwhile.
“You need to hope that you never see me again, you pathetic old man. Because the next time, you will end up in a box in a hole in the ground, which is where you belong. Where you’ve belonged for years.”
Michael O’Connell turned and, without a single glance back, went out the side door.
The cool night air hit him like another bad memory, but all he could think of was what game Ashley had invented, and why she had thought that his father could help her. Someone had been lying.
He slid behind the wheel of his car, fired up the engine, and decided he needed the answer to those questions immediately.
Hope had listened to the argument, then the clatter of a short fight. She gripped the automatic in her hand tightly, holding her breath when she saw Michael O’Connell lurch through the door and stride to his car only a few feet away from where she was hidden. She waited for him to back down out of the driveway, then accelerate rapidly into the night.
The next moment, she knew, was critical.
Sally had told her, Do not delay. Not for one second. As soon as he exits, you must enter.
She rose up.
Hope could hear Sally’s voice in her ear.
Do not hesitate. Do not wait. Go straight inside. Don’t say a word. Just pull the trigger. Don’t look back. Leave.
Hope took a single deep breath and emerged from behind the carport. She rapidly crossed through the small arc of light to the side door. She looked down and saw her left hand close on the door handle and thrust herself into the house.
Hope was in the kitchen, but she could see through the entryway into the living room, just as Scott had described. She stood there, nearly frozen, and watched Michael O’Connell’s father begin to pick himself up off the floor.
He turned toward her. He did not look surprised.
“Mr. Jones send you?” he asked as he straightened himself up, dusting himself off. “You missed the punk by less than a minute. That was his car peeling out of here.”
Hope lift
ed the weapon and assumed a firing stance.
The older O’Connell looked confused.
“Hey,” he said sharply. “It’s the goddamn kid you want, not me.”
Everything in the world was suddenly exaggerated. Every color was brighter, every sound louder, every smell more pungent. Hope’s breathing seemed to echo in her ears, a cascade of rushing noise. She tried not to think about what she was doing.
Aiming directly at the old man’s chest, she pulled the trigger.
And nothing happened.
The detective carried a large box with a broken red-tape seal over to his desk. He dropped it in the middle with a thudding sound, then leaned forward with a small grin and asked me, “You know how kids are on Christmas morning? When they stare at all those packages wrapped up underneath a tree?”
“Sure. But what…”
“Collecting evidence is a little like all those presents. The kids always think that the biggest present will be the best, but often it isn’t. It’s the less-significant, less-flashy box that really holds the most valuable gift. In a sense, that’s what happens with us. It might be the smallest thing that becomes the biggest, when you finally get to trial. So, when you arrive at a crime scene and pick up this or that, or when you execute a search warrant, you need to consider all the pieces.”
“And in this case?”
The detective grinned. He pulled out a handgun, encased in a plastic bag, with another red evidence seal closing it. He handed me the weapon, and I peered at it through the transparent shield. I could see the residue of fingerprint dust on the handle and the barrel.
“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t think that sucker’s loaded, but the clip is in the handle, so I can’t be sure.” He smiled. “You’d be surprised how many near-fatal accidents occur in property rooms when people start waving around guns that are supposed to be unloaded.”
The Wrong Man Page 47