Andrew Klavan - True Crime

“We just have to …” I had to hold him tight to keep him from squirming out of my grip. “We have to …”

“I want the hippo-pot-a-muuuus!” He sobbed as if his mother had died, pushing against my chest. “I want the zoo!”

“We’ll come back to the zoo. We’ll come back,” I said desperately, walking faster round the hedges toward the entrance gate.

Powerless, Davy’s face plopped against my shoulder. Pressing against me for comfort, he cried miserably. “I want to go to the-to the zoo now,” he said.

I would have to meet with him, I thought. Porterhouse. I already knew that’s the way it would be. The man wasn’t going to break down over the phone and shout, “Yes, yes, my sworn testimony was a lie.” He wasn’t going to break down at all, ever. I would have to sit down with him, sit across from him, look into his face as he explained. And I would have to do it now, if I could. Before I went down to interview Beachum. By the time I walked into that prison, I wanted that crackle of doubt in my gut turned off. I wanted to know what this story was about.

With Davy crying inconsolably in my arms, with sweat pouring down my face and my stomach churning with guilt and excitement, I passed under the gay filigree of the gate. The pay phone was right there against the zoo’s brick wall, the blue sign brightly lit by the sun.

“Ssh,” I said to Davy, bouncing him light. “Ssh.”

“We’re going to the zoo,” he cried into my shirt.

Holding the boy in one arm, my left arm, I wrestled a coin out of my pocket with my right hand. With that hand only, I picked up the receiver, wrangled the money into the slot and punched the buttons.

“Ssh, Davy, ssh,” I said.

“Porterhouse and Stein,” said the receptionist.

Davy raised his head. “Don’t talk on the phone!” he demanded. He slapped weakly across my face at the receiver.

“Mr. Porterhouse please,” I said. “It’s Steve Everett of the News . Ssh,” I told Davy. I tried to kiss him. He twisted away. “I’m sorry, pal. I have to do this.”

Frowning, he forced back his sobs. “We’ll go back to the zoo in a minute,” he said manfully.

“Hello,” said a man’s voice over the phone. “This is Dale Porterhouse.”

It was a small, high, soft voice, trying, I thought, to sound bigger and deeper and firmer than it was.

“Hi! Mr. Porterhouse. This is Steve Everett of the St. Louis News . I’m covering the execution of Frank Beachum today. I know you were one of the chief witnesses against him …”

“Yes.” I could almost hear him swelling proudly on the other end. “Yes, I was.”

“I was wondering if you had some time to talk to me about the case.”

“Well …” He actually huffed. He sounded very important indeed now. “Unfortunately, I’m in a meeting right this minute.” He really did sound sorry about it too.

“I was wondering …”

I had to shift my arm as Davy twisted around against my hip. He looked longingly over his shoulder in the direction of the gate. He began to cry again. “I was climbing the hippo,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He was getting tired now. No nap.

“I was wondering if you could meet with me for a few minutes. Just to give me your take on the thing.”

He wanted to. I could tell he wanted to by the sound of his voice. By the rhythm of his breath, or some emanation out of the receiver, I don’t know. But you get so you can tell the ones who like to see their names in the paper.

“Zoo,” said Davy disconsolately to himself. And, heartbroken, he rested his head against me again.

“Yes, I suppose …” said Porterhouse. “This wouldn’t be a very good place … What if we met downstairs. At the Bread Company, the restaurant. Do you know it?”

“Pine Street. Yeah, sure.”

“Say in half an hour.”

“Great.”

Davy started to wail again when I carried him away from the zoo, when he saw which way we were going.

“We’ll go back to the zoo in a minute,” he kept sobbing.

The sweat streaked my face as I hurried to the car. “We’ll come back, I promise. Another day, another day, Davy, I swear to God.”

He fought me as I strapped him into his kiddie seat, his little legs kicking out, his arms thrashing helplessly. I worked in silence, forcing his soft body back against the cushion, forcing the belt between his legs, clicking it shut. By the time I got behind the wheel of the car, he had worked himself into a full-blown tantrum. I could see him in the rearview mirror, his face purple, his body writhing convulsively against the straps. Screaming without words, beyond words.

“Jesus, Davy, would you stop!” I said. But I bit my anger back and kept it lodged, bitter, in my throat. I turned on the Tempo’s engine. Davy reached for the window, for the zoo, longing after it as we drove away.

I prayed he’d fall asleep as we drove, but he didn’t. Where the hell was this famous nap of his? He just went on and on, crying and crying, more and more weakly as we sped beneath the trees, by the lakewater, over the winding park roads. The zoo was over for him now. He just wanted his mommy. “I want Mommy,” he kept screaming.

“All right, all right,” I kept answering between my teeth.

Barbara must have heard him as I carried him down the hallway to our apartment. Once again, she opened the door before I reached it. Davy stretched his arms to her, sobbing, and she took him from me. She stared at me, her lips parted, as he burrowed his face into her neck.

“I wanted to go-to go-to the zoo,” he told her. “I wanted to climb on the … on the … I wanted …”

I lifted my hands from my sides but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Barbara swallowed hard, bouncing our son gently in her arms. I stood with my hands raised, looking into her unblinking blue eyes.

“What …” she said finally, putting her hand on the boy’s neck, leaning her face against his hair. “What is wrong with you.”

I started to answer, but she closed the door in my face.

Just before Bonnie and Gail arrived, the phone rang in Death-watch. Benson answered it. Frank Beachum watched him. Frank was sitting at his table, eating his lunch. A ham sandwich. Ham on white bread with mustard. He chewed it, staring at Benson. It didn’t taste like anything to him.

At his desk outside the cell, Benson sat with the receiver to his ear for a moment. “Right,” he said. He stood up and came toward the bars, holding the receiver out toward Frank. The cord vibrated as it stretched the length of the room.

Frank had to stand up, had to put his hand out through the bars to take the receiver. He had to lean his head close to the metal cage to listen.

“Your lawyer,” said Benson, walking back to his desk. Frank nodded curtly. “Yeah,” he said quietly into the phone. He tried to brace himself, but it was no good. He tried not to hope, but that was no good either. He knew there was, in fact, no hope, but whenever the phone rang, whenever the lawyer called, he felt a coppery spurt of fear come up his throat onto his tongue and his spine ached and tightened. Then he knew he had been holding on to hope just the same.

The tense, youthful and, Frank thought, hapless voice of Hubert Tryon came over the line. “Frank?”

Frank closed his eyes and answered nothing. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.

“It hasn’t come down yet,” Tryon went on. “But the clerk says it’ll be any minute now. I didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten you.”

Frank glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost one o’clock, but it didn’t register with him. He just stared at the clock reflexively and saw nothing.