I stood up.
“You want a real mystery story, Mr. Writer?” the chief investigator said as he shook my hand and returned to his side of the desk. “Well, answer that question for me.”
I kept my mouth shut. But in that moment, I knew the answer.
27
Hope hated the quiet.
She found herself walking across campus, attending the final practices of the season, getting ready for the winter, anxious. She was constantly on edge, but unable to get a grasp on her feelings. She would find herself pacing down the campus pathways as if in a hurry when she wasn’t. She would suddenly feel her throat parched, her lips dry, and her tongue thick, and she would gulp away at bottles of water. In the midst of conversation she would realize that she hadn’t heard much of what was said. She was distracted by fear, and as each day went by in benign silence, she imagined that much worse was happening somewhere.
She did not, for a single second, imagine that Michael O’Connell was out of their lives.
Scott, as best she could tell, had thrown himself wholeheartedly back into his teaching schedule. Sally had returned to her upcoming divorce settlements and house closings, with a certain smug satisfaction that she had figured things out and taken the necessary steps to bring the situation to a conclusion. And Hope and Sally had once again retreated into the cold-war détente that marked their relationship. Even the smallest of affections had dissipated. There was never a caress, a compliment, nor a laugh, and certainly not a touch inviting sex. It was almost as if they had become nuns, living under the same roof, occupying the same bed, but married to some ideal beyond them. Hope wondered whether Sally’s last months with Scott had been the same. Or had she kept up appearances, sleeping with him, faking passion, fixing meals, cleaning up, carrying on conversations, while all the time slipping away at odd hours to meet with Hope and telling her that that was where her heart truly lay?
In the distance, Hope could hear voices from the playing fields. Playoff time, she thought. One more game. Two to the semifinals. Three to the championship. She could barely concentrate on the challenges. Instead, she was caught up in some morass of feelings, about Ashley, about Michael O’Connell, about her mother, and mostly about Sally, where they mixed together in a stew of impossibility.
As she walked along, she remembered meeting Sally. Love, she thought, should always be so simple. Meet at an art gallery opening. Talk together. Tell a joke and hear each other’s laughter. Decide to have a drink. Then a meal. Then another meeting, this time in the middle of the day. And finally a small touch on the back of the hand, a whisper, a glance, and it fell together, just as Hope had known it would from the first minute.
Love, she thought. That was the word that Michael O’Connell used over and over, and one Hope hadn’t used in weeks. Perhaps months. Ashley had told her, He says he loves me. Hope knew that nothing he had done had anything to do with love.
She hunched her shoulders forward.
He was gone, she told herself.
Sally says he’s gone.
Scott says he’s gone.
Ashley thinks he’s gone.
She did not believe this.
But she could not see one piece of concrete evidence that he had returned.
She heard voices, and she saw the girls on her team waving, running drills, and talking together, gathered in the center of the practice field. She reached for the whistle on a lanyard around her neck, then decided to let the fun continue for a minute or two longer. Being young goes by so fast, they should enjoy every moment. Except she knew that it was not in the nature of the young to ever understand this.
She sighed, blew her whistle, and decided that she would speak with her mother and with Ashley daily, just to make sure everything was all right. She wondered why Sally and Scott were not doing the same.
Sally stared at the headline in the afternoon paper and felt the blood drain from her face. She devoured every word of the series of stories, then reread them all, memorizing details. EX-COP FOUND MURDERED ON CITY STREET. When she placed the paper down, she noticed that her hands were covered with black newsprint. She eyed them, as if surprised, then realized that her palms had grown so sweaty while she was reading that the ink on the pages had melded onto her fingers.
KILLING CALLED “EXECUTION-STYLE.” The words seemed to trail after her, shouting for attention. POLICE EYE ORGANIZED CRIME CONNECTION.
The first thing she told herself was, This has nothing to do with Ashley.
She rocked back, as if someone had slammed her hard in the stomach. It has everything to do with Ashley.
Her first instinct was to call someone. As a lawyer, she had met any number of other attorneys connected with the county prosecutor’s office. Surely one of them would have more details. Some inside information that would tell her what she needed to know. She reached for her Rolodex with one hand and the phone with the other, then stopped herself. What are you doing?
She took a deep breath. Do not invite someone to scrutinize your life. Any prosecutor even vaguely connected to Murphy’s murder would ask her far many more questions than he would provide answers to her questions. By making that call, she would inject herself and her troubles into a mix that she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be part of.
Sally coughed. She had sent Murphy off to deal with Michael O’Connell. He had reported back successfully. Problem solved. Everyone safe. Ashley could get on with her life. And then, a short time later, Murphy is dead. It didn’t make sense to her. It was like seeing a famous mathematician, an Einstein, write 2 + 2 = 5 on a chalkboard and not hear a single voice raised in correction.
She seized the newspaper and reread every word for a third time.
Nothing suggested that Michael O’Connell had had anything to do with it.
It was professionally handled. Clearly some really bad guys that had crossed paths with Murphy were to blame. The killing went far beyond the capacity of a mechanic, computer nut, occasional college student, and minor-league criminal like Michael O’Connell, Sally insisted to herself. Really, it had nothing to do with them in the slightest, and for her to imagine otherwise was a mistake.
She leaned back in her desk chair, breathing hard.
No, we’re all safe. It’s just a coincidence. His death had nothing to do with their situation. After all, she had selected Murphy in the first place because of his willingness to skirt the niceties of the law. And he had undoubtedly done far worse, in his other cases, creating enemies wherever he went. One had finally caught up with him. That had to be it.