The Wrong Man

“Okay, Scott, maybe you ought to outline exactly what you have in mind.”

Scott stepped forward. “Sally’s right. We are about to cross a line. Things are going to get doubly dangerous from this moment on.” He suddenly saw risk in everything, and it made him hesitate. “It’s one thing to talk about doing something illegal. It’s another thing to actually take that risk.”

He turned toward Ashley.

“Honey,” he said slowly, “this is the point where you are to get up and leave the room. I would like it if you went upstairs and waited for Mom or me to call you back down.”

“What?” Ashley nearly shouted, instantly irate. “This involves me. This is my problem. And now, when you think you’re going to do something, something that involves me intimately, I’m supposed to exit? Forget it, Dad, I’m not being excluded. This is my life we’re all talking about.”

Again silence gripped all of them, until Sally spoke.

“Yes, you are. Ashley, honey, listen. We need to know that you are isolated-legally-from whatever we do. So you can’t be a part of the pla

“You’re treating me like a child!” Ashley blurted.

“Precisely,” Sally said calmly.

“I won’t stand for that.”

“Yes, you will. Because that’s the only way I will proceed.”

“You can’t do this to me!”

“What are we doing?” Sally persisted. “You don’t know what we are going to do. Are you suggesting that we have no right to act unilaterally on behalf of our own daughter? Are you complaining that we shouldn’t take steps to help you?”

“What I’m saying is that this is my life!”

“Yes.” Sally nodded. “You said that. We heard it. And that is precisely why your father asked you to leave the room.”

Ashley glared at her parents, tears forming in her eyes. She felt utterly helpless and impotent. She was about to refuse again when Hope interrupted.

“Mother,” she said cautiously, “I’d like it if you went upstairs with Ashley.”

“What?” Catherine demanded. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not a child that can be ordered about.”

“I’m not ordering you.” Hope paused. “Actually, yes, I am. And I would say the same to you as Scott and Sally just said to Ashley. You will be called upon to do something. I am sure of that. It’s hard for me to act in other ways if I’m constantly worried about you all the time. Simple as that.”

“Well, that’s nice of you to worry, dear, but I’m far too old and set in my ways to have my only child turn into my guardian. I can make up my own damn mind.”

“That’s what concerns me.” Hope looked fiercely at her mother. “Why is it that you can’t see that if I worry about you-just as Sally and Scott will worry about Ashley-that we will be constrained by what we might do? Are you so self-centered that you can’t allow me to choose my own path?”

This question stifled Catherine’s reply. She thought that in her many years with her daughter, it was the same question that had been posed to her over and over. Each time, she had acquiesced, even when Hope was unaware that she had. Catherine snorted and sat back hard in her chair, angry with what her daughter was suggesting, and also angry that she could see the sense in it. She steamed for a moment, then stood up.

“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “About me. And you”-she pivoted toward Sally-“are perhaps wrong about Ashley.” Catherine shook her head. “We are, both of us, perfectly capable of taking all sorts of chances. Tough chances, I daresay. But this is just the first step, and if you need me to absent myself, right at this moment, I will.” She turned toward Ashley. “That might change. I hope it does. But for now, okay. Come, dear, you and I will go upstairs and trust that these folks will see the light when they see the complete foolishness of excluding us.”

She reached out and grasped Ashley, half-lifting her out of her seat.

“I don’t like this. Not at all,” Ashley said. “I don’t think it’s in the slightest bit fair. Or right.” But she and Catherine trudged up the stairs.

The three remaining behind were quiet, watching them exit. Sally said, “Thank you, Hope. That was a pretty smart move.”

“It’s not chess,” Hope said.

“But it is,” Scott said. “Or, at least, it’s about to be.”

It took a little time, but they were able to hash out the initial division of responsibilities.

From the bare bones they had acquired in Murphy’s report, Scott was to delve into Michael O’Co

Creating a crime out of whole cloth requires some pla

Hope, who they believed was the only one of them that O’Co

They assumed that in what each of them was doing were the answers.

It was hard to see who faced the most danger. Probably Hope, Sally thought, because she would be physically closest to O’Co

It was decided that Catherine and Ashley would stay in the house. Catherine, who still regretted not shooting O’Co

This was Sally’s single greatest fear: that before they had a chance to act, he would.

She did not use the word race with Hope or Scott.

She simply assumed they were thinking along the same precise lines.

She eyed me for a moment or two, as if expecting me to say something, but when I remained silent, she a

“Stealing a Rembrandt from the Louvre wouldn’t qualify?”

“No. That merely makes one rich. And doesn’t really make you something other than an art thief. Not much different from the gun-wielding punk who holds up a convenience store. I think the perfect crime-maybe ideal crime-is actually something that exists on a more moral plane. It rights some mistake. It creates justice, not defies it. It establishes opportunity.”