The Wrong Man

“Of course.” I got up to leave. “Still, thanks for your time.”

“Say,” the dean asked, “maybe you can tell me what happened to her? She seems to have dropped off our radar completely.”

I hesitated, not exactly sure how to answer her question. The pause caused the dean to look up in concern.

“Did something happen to her?” she asked, suddenly all jocularity vanishing from her tones. “I would hate to hear that.”

“Yes, I suppose you could say something did happen to her.”

37

Scott emerged slowly from his car, staring at the man he knew was O’Co

The older O’Co

Scott fixed his eyes on the father’s. He narrowed his gaze, remained silent, poker-faced, until the man said, “I’m waiting for an answer.”

“I know you are. I’m just wondering what sort of answer you’re going to get.”

This confused O’Co

Scott continued to stare, slowly looking O’Co

The ax handle came down partway.

“Keep talking.”

Scott shook his head. He was making things up as he went along.

“I don’t negotiate on the street, Mr. O’Co

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Let’s go inside your place, and then we can have a little private conversation. Otherwise, I’m going to get back in my car, and you will never see me again. But you might be visited by someone else. And that someone, or even a couple of someones, Mr. O’Co

Scott thought O’Co

“What did you say your name was?” O’Co

“I didn’t say. And I’m not likely to, either.”

O’Co

“What’s this about?” he demanded. But the tone his words carried contained some interest.

“A debt. But that’s all I’m saying right now. This could be valuable for you. Make some money. Or not. Up to you.”

“Why would you pay me anything?”

“Because it is always easier to pay someone than the alternative.” Scott let O’Co

Again, O’Co

And with that, he gestured across the street to his home, using the ax handle to direct their path.

There is a place in the woods beyond the dirt road that parallels the Westfield River, below a spot called the Chesterfield Gorge, where either side of the stream is protected by sixty-foot-high sheets of gray rock, carved by some prehistoric seismic shift, that is favored in the colder months by hunters, and in warmer times by fishermen. In the hottest days of summer, Ashley and her friends would sneak up to the river and go ski

“I think you should use both hands,” Catherine said sternly. “Steady the weapon in your right hand, grip them both with your left, take aim, and then pull the trigger.”

Ashley moved her feet slightly apart, cupped her left hand over her right, and tightened her muscles, feeling the trigger with her index finger. “Here goes,” she said quietly.

She pulled the trigger and the gun bucked in her hand. The shot resounded through the forest, and a piece of tree bark splintered off the oak she had aimed at.

“Wow. I can feel it tingle right through my forearm.”

Catherine nodded. “I think what you want, dear, is to pull the trigger five or six times, while you are holding the gun steady, so that all six shots will be clustered together. Can you do that?”

“It feels like it wants to jump around. Go all over the place. Almost like it’s alive.”

“I guess you could say that it has a personality all its own.”

Ashley nodded, and Catherine added, “And not a particularly nice one.”

“Let me try again.”

Again she assumed the firing position, and this time tightened her left hand’s grip to steady herself. “Here we go.”

She fired the remaining five shots. Three hit the tree trunk, spaced about two or three feet apart. The other two spun off into the forest. She could hear them whistling into oblivion, snapping through branches and the few remaining low-hanging leaves. The sound of the gun echoed in the bare trees around them and filled her ears. She let out a long, slow whistle of breath.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Catherine said.

“I think I should try again.”

Ashley clicked open the cylinder and dropped the spent shells on the pine-needle floor. She slowly took another half dozen bullets and loaded them into the weapon. “Only going to use this thing one time.”

“Yes. True enough. And only then if you really have to.”

“That’s right.” Ashley turned and took aim at the tree trunk once again. “Only if I really have to.”

“If you have no choice.”

“If I have no choice.”

Both of them had much to say about that, but didn’t actually want to use the words out loud, not even in the silent anonymity of the forest.

Scott moved slowly up the half-gravel, half-dirt driveway that led to O’Co