The Wrong Man

Her fingers hesitated.

For an instant, she allowed herself to think that perhaps he’d simply chickened out. He’d understood that she was going to dump him once and for all and decided not to hear the bad news in person. Maybe, she thought, he’s out of my life already. In that case, the call was u

She didn’t think she could be that lucky, but it certainly was a possibility. She could be suddenly, abruptly, delightfully free.

A little unsure about precisely what had happened, she went back to work, trying to fill her head with the humdrum of the job.

Ashley worked late, although she didn’t need to.

It was spitting rain outdoors when she exited the museum. A cold, angry sort of rain that played a drumbeat of loneliness on the sidewalk. Ashley tugged on a knit cap and pulled her coat tight as she set out, head down. She gingerly walked down the museum’s slick steps to the sidewalk and started to turn up the street, then her eyes caught a red neon reflection glistening from a storefront opposite her. The lights seemed to wash into the glare from automobile headlights that swept past. She was not sure why her eyes were pulled in that direction, but the figure she saw was ghostlike.

Standing just to the side, so that he was halfway in the light, halfway in a shadow, Michael O’Co

She stopped sharply.

Their eyes locked across the street.

He was wearing a dark stocking cap and a olive-drab, military-styled parka. He seemed both anonymous and hidden, but, at the same time, glowed with some intensity that she could not put a word to.

She felt a sudden heat within her and gasped for air, as if she’d suddenly turned short of breath.

He made no gesture. No sign other than his fixed stare that he even recognized her.

On the street in front of her, a car suddenly swerved to avoid a taxi, sending a sheet of light across her path. There was a sudden blaring of horns, and a momentary screech of tires against wet pavement. She was distracted for just an instant, and when she turned back, O’Co

She recoiled again.

She looked up and down, but it was as if he had vanished. For a moment, she was unsure precisely what she had seen. He seemed more hallucination than reality.

Ashley’s first step forward was unsteady, not in the same way that a drunken person at a party might take, or a bereaved widow at a funeral service might manage. It was a step filled with doubt. Again she pivoted, trying to spot O’Co

Ashley turned and followed them, her feet sloshing through puddles, moving as quickly as she could. She kept swiveling her head, searching right and left, but without success. She wanted to turn and check behind her, but she was too scared. Instead, she barreled on, almost ru

Within a few seconds she was at the T station, and she pushed her way through the turnstile, almost relieved by the crowds and the harsh, glaring lights of the platform.

She craned her head forward, trying to pick O’Co

Ashley swallowed hard and shook her head. She braced herself, tightening her muscles like an athlete anticipating the blow of contact, as if Michael O’Co

She let herself be carried forward by the surge from the commuters and slid into a seat, immediately crammed between an older woman and a student, who slumped beside her smelling of cigarettes. In front of her a half dozen other riders clung to the metal hand straps and overhead bars.

Ashley looked up, right and left, inspecting every face.

With another whoosh, the doors closed. The train lurched once as it took off.

She was unsure why, but she swiveled in her seat and took a single glance back at the elevated train platform as the train started to pick up speed. What she saw almost made her choke, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from crying out in fear: O’Co

She felt the rhythmic sway of the commuter train as it gathered speed, sweeping her away from the man who’d followed her. But no matter how fast it went, Ashley understood that the distance it placed between them was elusive and probably, ultimately, nonexistent.

The campus of the University of Massachusetts-Boston is located in Dorchester right next to the harbor. Its buildings are as graceless and stolid as a medieval fortification, and on a hot, early-summer day, the brown brick walls and gray concrete walkways seem to absorb the heat. It is a plain stepsister of a school. It caters to many seeking to take a second bite at education, with an infantryman’s sensibility: not pretty, but critically important when you need it most.

I got lost once in the sea of cement, had to ask for directions, before finding the right stairwell that descended into a threadbare lounge outside a cafeteria. I hesitated for a moment, then spotted Professor Corcoran waving for me from one of the quieter corners.

Introductions were quick, a handshake and a little small talk about the unseasonably hot weather.

“So,” the professor said as he sat down and took a swig of bottled water, “How precisely is it that I can help you?”

“Michael O’Co

Corcoran nodded. “I do, indeed. I mean, I shouldn’t, really, but I do, which says something all in itself.”

“How so?”

“Dozens, no, hundreds of students have passed through the same two courses he took from me, over the last few years. Lots of tests, lots of final papers, lots of faces. After a while, they all pretty much blend into one generic blue-jeans-wearing, baseball-cap-on-backwards, working-two-different-jobs-to-support-themselves-through-Second-Chance-U sort of student.”

“O’Co

“Well, let’s say it doesn’t surprise me to have someone show up asking questions about him.”

The professor was a wiry, small man, with bifocals and thi

“Okay,” I said, “why doesn’t it surprise you?”

“Actually, I always figured it for a detective who would show up with an inquiry or two about O’Co