The Wrong Man

When she spotted Sally in her own nondescript rental, moving slowly through the aisles of the mall lot, she stiffened. She placed the coffee in a cup holder and quickly rolled down the window, giving Sally a small wave to get her attention. She waited for Sally to park two aisles away, then walk in her direction. She could see that Sally was looking around nervously, and she seemed pale.

Sally was already shaking her head. “I can’t let you do this. It should be my job-”

“We’ve been over that,” Hope said. “And things are in motion now. Making a change might throw it all off.”

“I just can’t.”

Hope inhaled. This was her chance, she thought. She could back out. Refuse. Step back and ask, What the hell are we thinking?

“You can. And you will,” Hope replied. “Any chance Ashley has rests with us. Probably any chance we have lies in each of us doing what it is we’re capable of. It’s as simple as that.”

“Are you scared?”

“No,” Hope lied.

“We should stop, right now. I think we’re out of our minds.”

Yes, we probably are, Hope thought.

“If we do not go through with this, and then the worst happens to Ashley, we will never, not for one instant of one day for however many years any of us has left, forgive ourselves for letting it happen. I think I can forgive myself for what I’m about to do. But for standing aside and letting something terrible happen to Ashley, that would be something we would carry to our graves.”

Hope took a deep breath. “If we fail to act, and he does, we will never rest again.”

“I know,” Sally said, shaking her head.

“Now the weapon. It’s in the backpack?”

“Yes.”

“There’s not much time, is there?”

Sally looked down at her stopwatch. “I think you’re about fifteen minutes behind him. Scott should be moving into position now, as well.”

Hope smiled, but shook her head. “You know, when I was growing up, I played so many games against a clock. Time is always a crucial factor. This isn’t any different. I have to go. Now. You know it. If we’re going to play this game, then failing because we weren’t quick enough would be a terrible thing. Just leave, Sally. Do what you’re supposed to do. And I will do the same, and maybe, at the end of the day, everything will be okay.”

Sally had many things she could say, right at that moment, but she chose none of them. She reached out and squeezed Hope’s hand hard and tried to fight back tears. Hope smiled and said, “Get going. There’s no time. Not anymore. No more talk. Time to act.”

Sally nodded, left the backpack on the floor of the car, stood a few feet back while Hope started up the car, and gave a small wave as she exited the parking lot. It was only a quarter mile to the interstate highway entrance, and Hope knew that she needed to move rapidly, to close the difference in time between her and Michael O’Co

Scott pulled the battered truck into the student parking lot at a large community college some six or seven miles away from the house where Michael O’Co

After looking around carefully to make sure no one was nearby, he slid out of his clothes and rapidly pulled on an old pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, beaten blue parka, and ru

His stopwatch told him that Michael O’Co

Scott hunched up his shoulders and headed across the parking area. He knew that a bus route was near the entrance to the school. It would take him to within a mile or so of O’Co

A half-dozen students of various ages were waiting underneath the canopy of the bus stop. He fit in; at a community college, you could be a student at nineteen or fifty-nine. He made sure that he didn’t make eye contact with any of the waiting people. He told himself to think anonymous thoughts, and perhaps that would make him seem invisible.

When the bus came, he found a seat near the back, alone. He turned and peered out the window at the brown, beaten landscape of the countryside as the bus wheezed along.

Scott was the only person to get off at his stop.

For a second he remained still, alone on the side of the road, as he watched the bus disappear into the evening gloom. Then he set off along the side of the road, walking quickly, wondering precisely what he was hurrying toward, but knowing that time was of the essence.

Crime-scene photographs have an otherworldly quality to them. It’s a little like trying to watch a movie frame by frame, instead of in continuous action. Eight-by-ten, glossy, full color, they are pieces of a large puzzle.

I tried to absorb each shot, staring at them as I might the pages of a book.

The detective sat across from me, watching my face.

“I’m trying to visualize the scene,” I said, “so I can better understand what happened.”

“Think of the pictures like lines on a map,” he said. “All crime scenes make sense eventually. Although, I got to admit, this one wasn’t a picnic.”

He reached down and pawed through some of the photographs.

“Look here.” He pointed at furniture in disarray, blackened and charred. “Sometimes, it’s just a matter of experience. You learn to look beyond the mess, and it tells you something.”

I stared down, trying to see with his eyes.

“Exactly what?” I asked.

“There was a hell of a fight. Just one hell of a fight.”

43

Scott’s survey of the neighborhood several days earlier had told him where to wait.

He knew he had to be inconspicuous; if anyone saw him and made the co

Lights were on in the adjacent houses. Scott breathed in the cold air. He could see an occasional form flit by a window and the ubiquitous glow of television screens.

He lifted his hand and held it in front of his face, to see if it quivered. Maybe a little, he imagined. But not enough to make a difference.

Lots of answers this night, he told himself. Any lingering questions he might have had about who he was, or who Sally was, or even who Hope was, were destined for responses.