They had spent much of the night Ashley had arrived on the bus drinking tea and talking about what had happened. Catherine had listened with both astonishment and a growing sense of unease.

She looked out her window and saw Ashley commit a long, pale blue stroke of watercolor sky to the paper in front of her. “It isn’t right,” she said out loud.

She feared that Ashley would somehow be-she wasn’t sure exactly-but infected by Michael O’Connell. It was as if, in that moment, she was afraid that Ashley would turn against all men because of the actions of one man.

She gripped the edge of the sink to steady herself. She was not quite able to articulate within herself the dark edge of her thoughts. She didn’t want to think, I don’t want Ashley to become like Hope. And when some clouds of this fear worked into her heart, she grew upset with herself, for she loved her daughter. Hope was smart. Hope was beautiful. Hope was graceful. Hope inspired others. Hope brought out the best in the kids she worked with and the kids she coached. Hope was everything that a mother could possibly want in a daughter, except one thing, and that was the mountain that Catherine didn’t seem able to scale. And as she stared out the window watching her-what? Niece? Adopted grandchild?-she was trapped between fears. The problem was-although Catherine didn’t recognize this right at that moment-they were the wrong set of fears altogether.

“How did Murphy die?” I demanded.

“How? Surely you can figure out the how. Bullet. Knife. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. Whatever,” she replied.

“No. Correct…”

“It’s the why that concerns us. Tell me,” she continued suddenly, “did they ever arrest someone for Murphy’s murder?”

“No. Not that I can tell.”

“Well, it seems to me that in your hunt for answers, you’re looking in the wrong places. No one was arrested. That tells you something, doesn’t it? You want me-or some detective or prosecutor somewhere-to say ‘Well, Murphy was killed by…but we didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest.’ Because that would be nice and neat and tidy.” She hesitated. “But I never said this was a simple story.”

What she said was true.

“Can you think as creatively as Scott and Sally and Hope and Ashley?”

“Yes,” I replied far too quickly.

“Good.” She huffed the word out. “Easy to say. Hard to do.”

I didn’t respond to what she said. To answer might have been to insult myself.

“But tell me, can you do the same for Michael O’Connell?”

26

From the center of the Longfellow Bridge he could see up the Charles toward Cambridge. It was brisk in the early morning, but crews were rowing down the center of the river, their oars sweeping through the inky dark in unison, making small swirls in the placid surface. A sheen was on the water as the rising light scoured the liquid. He could hear the crews grunting in syncopation, their rhythm defined by the steady beat of the coxswain’s voice. He particularly liked the way the smallest man set the pace, how the slightest of the team ordered the larger, stronger men to his command. The least was the most important; he was the only one who could see where they were going, and he controlled the steering. O’Connell liked to think that even though he was strong enough to pull an oar, he was also smart enough to sit in the stern with the rudder.

Michael O’Connell often went to the walkway across the bridge when he needed to think through a complicated problem. The traffic moved recklessly on the roadway. Pedestrians kept up their get-to-the-office pace across the sidewalk. Beneath him the water flowed seaward, and in the distance, T trains filled with commuters emerged from beneath the streets. It seemed to O’Connell that he was the only one standing still. A hundred things common to the city morning should have distracted him, but he found that where he stood, he could concentrate fully on whatever dilemma was in his life.

He thought: I have two.

Ashley.

And the ex-cop Murphy.

Clearly, the route to Ashley passed through either Scott or Sally. It was simply a matter of finding it, and he was confident he could do so. The obstacle, however, was the ex-cop, who posed a far more significant problem. He licked his lips, still tasting the blood in his mouth, feeling the swelling from where he’d been slapped. But the redness and welts faded much faster than his memory. As soon as O’Connell surfaced close to the parents, they would sic the private eye on him. And he was uncertain just how dangerous the ex-cop would be. Somewhat less dire than his threats, O’Connell thought. He reminded himself of a simple, critical fact: In all his dealings with Ashley and her family, he needed to be the one capable of power. If there was to be violence, it had to be in his control. Murphy’s presence shifted that balance, and he didn’t like it.

He reached out and gripped the ornate concrete barrier with both hands, to steady himself. Fury was like a drug, coming on him in waves, turning everything in his sight into a kaleidoscope of emotions. For an instant he stared down at the dark river passing beneath his feet and doubted that even its near-freezing temperatures could cool him down. He breathed out slowly, controlling his rage. Anger was his friend, but he couldn’t let it work against him. He told himself, Stay focused.

The first order of business was to remove Murphy from the picture.

He did not think this would be difficult. A little dicey, but not impossible. Not as easy as what he had done with a few computer strokes to Scott and Sally and Hope, just to let them know who they were dealing with. But not beyond him by any means.

Michael O’Connell looked out across the water and saw one of the crews come to a rest. The shell sliced through the water, driven by momentum, while each rower slumped slightly over his oar, dragging the blades behind them. He liked the way the shell continued, driven by exertion, propelled by nothing more than the memory of muscle. It was like a razor slicing across the surface of the river, and he thought he was much the same.

He spent much of the day and the first part of the evening keeping watch on the office building where Murphy had his practice. Michael O’Connell had been pleased from the first moment that he’d set eyes upon it; the building was shopworn and shabby and lacked many of the modern security devices that might have made what he had in mind more difficult. O’Connell smiled to himself; if this wasn’t his first rule, it should have been: Always use their weaknesses and make them into your strengths.

He had used three different locations for his surveillance. His car, parked midway down the block; a Spanish grocery store on the corner; and a Christian Science Reading Room almost directly across from the building. He’d had one bad moment when he had emerged from this last location and Murphy had stepped that moment out the front door of his office.

Like any detective, practiced in safety, he had instantly turned right and left, peered up and down the street and across the roadway. O’Connell had felt a single fear pierce him, a cold sensation that he would be recognized.

He had known, in that instant, if he turned away, if he ducked into a building, if he froze and tried to hide, Murphy would make him instantly.

So, instead, he forced himself to idly walk down the street, making no effort of any sort to conceal himself, heading toward the corner store, just hunching his shoulders up, turning his head a little to the side so that his profile wouldn’t be obvious, not looking back once, only lifting his right hand and adjusting his jacket collar, to obscure his face until he reached the bodega door. As soon as he was inside, however, he shoved himself to the side and peered out the window, to see what Murphy was doing.