Andrew Klavan - True Crime

There it is , I thought. The CA’s gonna ask it himself to beat out the defense .

“He gets very cranky in the afternoon without his nap,” said Barbara.

“Oh. Right. Well. Can’t he drink some coffee or something?”

“He’s two, Steve, remember.”

“No, no, it was a joke.”

“Oh.” Barbara had no sense of humor. She sighed. It was a weary, hard-pressed-mother sort of sound. “All right. Listen …”

CA: You did not hear any gunshots, any screams? I read.

I looked up, keeping my finger on the place. My cigarette, clamped between my lips, sent a line of smoke up into my eyes, making me squint. “What?” I said.

“I said, come on home as soon as you can. He’ll just go to bed early tonight, that’s all.”

“Great. Right. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“I don’t know why you had to go in there on your day off.”

“Yeah, sorry, dumb move.”

“All right,” Barbara said sternly. “I’ll have him ready in half an hour.”

“Great. I’ll be there.”

And I dropped the phone into its cradle.

Now, finally, I tilted back fully in my chair, lifting my feet up onto the desk. I squinted down at the transcript as I chomped my cigarette.

“Coffee time!” Bridget sang out. She breezed up behind me, carrying a flimsy cardboard tray full of donuts and styros. She set one king-sized cup down on the desk beside my shoes. “Ooh,” she said, cocking her head at my cigarette. “More and more office workers are insisting on their right not to breathe secondhand smoke.”

“Yeah, well, more and more scumbags don’t care,” I said. “Thanks for the coffee. You’re a darling girl.”

She wagged a finger at me. “Sexual harassment: what are the guidelines?”

“Who can say?”

“I hate my job, Ev.”

“I know it, kid.”

With a taut smile, she started to motor off, toting her box of breakfast with her. “I thought you had the day off,” she called over her shoulder.

“I do. Can’t you see my feet on the desk?”

That made her laugh, which made her freckled cheeks go rosy, which made her look about ten years younger, poor thing. Most of the time, her frenetic, harried presence spread such a pall of stomachache over the place that no one could stand her. She even made me feel bad sometimes. But that was only because she liked me so much. And that was only because she knew absolutely nothing about human beings. She thought of me as a solid family man, a good husband and father. Being single herself, she believed that marital probity was chief among all the virtues. If someone had told her that Winston Churchill had had an affair, she’d have wanted to give Poland back to the Nazis. I would be sorry when she found out about me and Patricia. I would be sorry when they all found out.

I let out a last blast of smoke, and yanked my desk drawer open a crack to get at my secret ashtray. I was already reading the transcript again as I crushed the cigarette out with my free hand.

CA: Now, Mrs. Larson, before the moment when Frank Beachum ran out behind you, were you aware of anything unusual?

Witness: No, I was not .

CA: You did not hear any gunshots, any screams?

Witness: No. No, but I wouldn’t have .

CA: You say you wouldn’t have, but you were just outside in the parking lot. Surely, you would have heard someone screaming, the noise of a gun going off, wouldn’t you?

Yeah , I thought, wouldn’t you?

Witness: No, because it was a very hot day. I had the air conditioner on and all the windows were shut, and the radio was on too. I might have heard a car horn out on the street or something, but I don’t think I would’ve heard anything going on inside the store, no matter what it was .

CA: Thank you, Mrs. Larson .

Yes , I thought, thank you very much . The chair squeaked loudly as I brought my feet down to the floor. I packed the transcript back into its box and gave it a satisfied little pat. With a glance at my watch, I stood up. I lifted my hand in the general direction of the city desk.

“I’m going home for a while,” I called. “I’ll be down at the prison by four.”

Another baffling mystery solved, I thought, and plenty of time left to take Davy to the zoo.

It was now less than ninety minutes before Bonnie and Gail would come for their last visit. Frank waited for them in his cage. He had finished his letter to Gail and sealed it in an envelope. For My Darling Gail, When She Is 18 Years Old he had written across the front. He had stuffed the envelope into the back pocket of his pants. Soon after that, one of his lawyers, Hubert Tryon, had phoned, and they had talked for a while though there was no news yet about the appeal. Then, after that, there was nothing for Frank to do but wait for his wife and daughter to arrive.

So he waited, sitting at his desk, smoking cigarettes. Or sometimes he stood and paced, back and forth along the length of the bars of his cage. Sometimes he lay on his cot and stared at the white ceiling. And he prayed sometimes too. But mostly he sat. Sat at his desk with a cigarette smoking in his hand. Sat watching the clock, trying not to watch the clock. Thinking: Oh God, Oh God, I don’t think I’m going to make this .

He felt as if the seams of his skin were bursting. As if his skin could not contain the frigid ozone of suspense that filled it, the tides of grief that swelled in him and never quite receded. He felt as if he were holding his skin together by force of will. His face twisted with the effort sometimes and his fist clenched as he urged himself on. For Bonnie’s sake, for Gail’s. They were coming soon. It would be the last time they saw him. It would be what they had of him to remember, all they had. This, he told himself, is what a man does. He showed strong so that the people around him would feel unafraid. He showed unafraid, so that the people he loved would feel secure. This, he told himself, is exactly what it means to be a man.

He was startled out of his effort as the door opened. Too early- the words flashed through his mind. He was afraid he wasn’t ready for them yet. But it wasn’t Bonnie and Gail who entered. It was the prison chaplain, the Reverend Stanley B. Shillerman.

Frank Beachum felt his throat constrict in anger: to think that even one of his precious minutes was going to be wasted with this self-important little toad.

The Reverend Shillerman-the Reverend Shit-ferbrains, as Osage’s inmates called him-approached the duty officer, Benson, who rose from his table to meet him. Shillerman gave Benson’s shoulder a manly squeeze and murmured in his ear. Frank could hear the chaplain chuckle. Then Shillerman released the guard and Benson returned to his desk to type this latest visit into the chronological.

Shillerman, meanwhile, moved toward the bars of the prisoner’s cage. He stood there with his hands folded before him-as Luther Plunkitt had stood-as if to deliver a eulogy. Unlike Plunkitt, in his crisp, funereal suit, the reverend wore cowboy jeans and an open white shirt. He had placid parson features and lakewater eyes. And a voice-a softly urgent pulpit twang-full of wistful appeals to the errant sinner.

The voice was soggy with compassionate sadness now. “Good morning, Frank.”

“Chaplain,” said Frank through his teeth.

“How you making out, son?”

Frank felt a bitter taste in his mouth and nearly sneered. In his mind, he was sharing a private joke with Jesus. Might as well be shot for a hound as a hare , he was telling Christ-the joke being that he’d have liked to reach through the bars and strangle this asshole dead. “I’m doing fine,” he said quietly.