Andrew Klavan - True Crime

Slowly, Bonnie turned her back on the guard and faced her husband.

He didn’t move, still he didn’t move. He went on gazing dreamily down at the table, at his hand lying on the table. And Bonnie thought she could see him now; she could see him more clearly than she had in a long, long time. So tired , she thought; he looks so terribly tired. My God, my God-what have they done to him? It was as if she hadn’t noticed it before. And when she thought of the way he used to be … in the old days. Lumbering home with the garage grease on his face, with his teeth white through the black smudges. Pulling his shirt off as he tromped upstairs, dropping the shirt thoughtlessly half the time so that she scolded him as she scooped it up and dumped it in the hamper. The way the floor used to shake when he walked upstairs like that. The way the trinkets used to tinkle on the mantelpiece. It had been like having some beast in the house, some great, growling bear, and it was the best thing that had ever happened in her life. Men like Frank had always frightened her before. They had even disgusted her a little, big and dirty and like beasts. But now, the beast was in the house with her, and it made her feel … alive-more intensely alive. She had always thought of herself as a quiet, even mousy person. She knew she didn’t have that intensity herself. Frank, being with Frank, drew it out of her, drew it up to the surface of her skin where it pricked and tingled. He was her life. He was the life of her life. And she needed him.

She closed her eyes a moment. She felt dizzy, weak. She needed him. That was why she hadn’t seen him clearly, she thought. Because she could not admit there was no hope. Year after year, she hadn’t seen what was happening to him. She had gone on, as she always had, drawing on his strength, drawing on his life, and she hadn’t seen. And now she knew there was no hope.

She opened her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

He glanced up quickly, as if she’d awakened him. “What? Oh-no, Bonnie. For what?”

“Making such a fuss …” She pressed her knuckles to one side of her nose, then the other. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with her palm. “I guess that’s not much help, is it.”

“No, no. I love you, Bonnie,” he said, a little absently. “It’s all right.”

She nodded and said nothing. Benson started pattering grimly at his typewriter. Frank glanced over at him, and then at the door.

“He was a strange guy,” he said after a moment.

She followed his gaze. “Who? Who, the reporter?”

Frank didn’t answer right away. He watched the door. “That stuff he was saying. About how he didn’t care about anything. About right and wrong or …” He looked up at her, gave a brief, nervous, uncomfortable smile. “Must be kind of an empty life, it seems like,” he said.

Bonnie studied her husband’s face. She felt she didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. It was something. Not about the reporter. About something else. She could see it in his eyes, but she didn’t understand. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess he didn’t seem like a very nice person, now that you mention it.”

Her husband looked at the door again, looked at it in that same way. That frowning, dreamy stare.

“I almost think …” he said, after a long pause. “I almost think I’d rather be in here like I am than out there, living like that.”

Bonnie, in her strange state of mind, had the saddest sensation when he spoke these words. It was almost as if she heard him saying two different things at the same time. It was almost as if she heard him saying the thing that he had said-and the exact opposite thing as well.

A little cry of pity broke from her and she stepped to him quickly. She put her arms around him and pressed his head against her.

“I love you so much,” she said. “Don’t forget that. Think about that the whole time and it’ll be all right.”

Even as she held him, Frank kept looking past her, past her hands, looking at the door through which I’d left. Bonnie wished she had been struck dead before she ever let herself weaken in front of him.

The phone rang on Benson’s desk. She felt Frank tense in her arms, against her breast. She held on to him. The duty officer continued typing a moment.

“That’ll be Weiss,” Frank said quietly.

She pressed her cheek against his hair. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered. She shut her eyes tight as her tears started again.

The phone kept ringing. Benson stopped typing and grabbed it.

“It’ll be about the governor now,” Frank said dully. “It’ll be about the governor truning us down.”

“I love you, I love you,” said Bonnie, crying. “Just think about that, and it’ll be all right.”

Benson listened at the phone for a second. Then, with a sigh, he pushed to his feet.

“Frank,” he called out, as he came walking across the cell again. “It’s your attorney. Calling from Jeff City.”

I drove away from the prison slowly at first. Through the white flats, toward the white horizon, the white buildings fading away in the rear-view. Holding the wheel, I slumped against the seat, my body sagging. The vinyl scorched my back until my shirt clung to me. The airless interior made my head feel as if it were floating. I felt exhausted.

I lit a cigarette and took a long drag. I listened to the Tempo’s spark plugs pop, its fan belt whining. I stared through the windshield at the empty sky. Do you believe us …? I bought a bottle of A-1 Sauce … He knows … Jesus Christ our Lord … She backed into the other side of me … Where were you …? She didn’t have a clear view.… All this time … Do you believe us …? The voices of the last hour buzzed and danced and swirled in my mind: gnats in a sunset breeze. One rising to the top and then another, one buzzing at my ear and then the next, all whirring, droning, gossiping together, insistent and insensible. Do you believe us …? A-1 Sauce … He knows …

I laughed, once, wearily, in the steaming car. I laughed a mushroom of cigarette smoke at the windshield. What a thing, I thought. What a crazy thing. I could hardly believe it was really happening. But it was. It really was. They were actually going to kill that man. In eight … I glanced at the dashboard clock-it was five minutes to five-in seven hours. That man-Beachum-that hapless son-of-a-bitch. He had gone to the store one day for a bottle of steak sauce and now they were going to tie him down and inject him with poison by due process of law. I laughed again. I shook my head. What a nightmare. What a crazy thing.

A line of sweat dripped onto my glasses, trickled down over them, streaked the lens. I pulled them off and wiped them quickly on my pants leg, the road a blur, the empty terrain a blur. Where were you …? She didn’t have a clear view.… All this time … Do you believe us …? I put the glasses back on and peered out along the line of the Tempo’s hood toward that fearless horizon. They’re actually going to kill him , I thought. And I’m going to know about it. I’m going to know .

Talk about a nightmare. That was a nightmare: I was going to know. Frank Beachum was going innocent to his death, and I was going to be aware of it every second. I was aware of it now, before it happened. I was going to be aware of it all day long. When they strapped him down and slipped the needle in his vein, I would be aware of it, still aware. And I would wake up tomorrow morning, and the day after that, and the day after that, aware. He was innocent. I would know, I would still know.

Christ, I thought, slumped in my car seat, sagging. Christ, why should I? Why should I know? Nancy Larson had explained why she hadn’t heard the gunshot. Dale Porterhouse had stated firmly that he’d had a clear view, potato chips or not. The condemned man had protested his innocence, sure, but condemned men lie, that’s all they do. I had no proof of anything. I shouldn’t have known anything. Another man wouldn’t have known anything. No one had known anything for six long years.