Andrew Klavan - True Crime

At the height of the bend, the Datsun’s rear tires lost their grip on the road. Michelle felt the back of the car fly wide behind her. She jerked awake, afraid, swung the wheel in the opposite direction-just the wrong thing to do. The car zigzagged violently and, as the road continued to curve, the Datsun sailed on straight ahead. It jumped the curb and skimmed over the sidewalk into the car lot. The stretch of asphalt there was slick with runoff from the gas pumps. The Datsun started to spin. It seemed to pick up speed. Michelle wrestled desperately with the steering wheel. It had no effect. The car came full around. The white wall of the gas station garage grew huge in the windshield.

Michelle let out one high-pitched scream: “Please!”

The car smashed headlights-first into the wall.

Michelle was fired out of her seat like a rocket. She smashed into the windshield and the glass exploded. Her flesh ripped apart by the impact, her bones snapping like twigs, her bowels and bladder releasing, she lost consciousness. Her body thumped onto the crumpled hood like a laundry sack. Her blue blouse was quickly soaked with red.

She lay there, still, as smoke and steam hissed up around her.

It was almost 10:00 A.M. when Bob Findley got the call at the city desk. He set the phone down and sat for a moment, gazing out at the quiet room. It was a vast maze of brown desks with tan computer terminals rising from them. It was lit with a bland, hazy light by the fluorescents hidden behind the white plastic panels of the ceiling.

Bob took a deep breath, arranging his inner self. He was not sure, at first, how he wanted to react. Findley had a reputation for self-control and that reputation was very important to him. He was both young and in charge of the place and he wanted the staff to see him as the ultimate in calm. He never raised his voice or spoke faster than he could reason, especially in an emergency or under deadline. He liked to make quiet, ironical remarks in the midst of chaos so that anyone who was feeling frantic would trust he had the situation well in hand. Most of the time he did have it in hand. He was a good city editor. Smart, knowledgeable. A little inexperienced but ready to listen to advice. If anything, I guess, some of us sometimes wondered whether he wasn’t a little too contained. He had a round, pink, boyish face and it would grow bright red when he was angry, even as he went on speaking in his gentle tones. Some of us sometimes wondered whether it was just going to blow right off his neck one day like a pricked balloon.

But along with appearing calm, it was also important to Bob to be nice: caring, he called it. He was very caring. He worked hard at it. He even managed to look the part somehow: slender, soft-bodied, soft-featured under a bowl of brown hair. Always in a pressed shirt-a blue workshirt or a dressier pink-with a cheerful tie and no jacket; slacks. Casual, but serious; thoughtful; nice. Caring. His editorial stance, like his personal opinions, was always on the humane, liberal side of any issue. He thought that everyone would be humane and liberal if they would just take the time to think things through. That was our Bob.

And so now, as he hung up the phone, it was a bit difficult for him to find the proper reaction. If he was too calm, then he wouldn’t be caring. If he was too caring, then he wouldn’t be calm. After a moment, he ran a hand thoughtfully over his chin. He raised his eyebrows. “Whoo boy,” he murmured.

The assistant city editor, Jane March, glanced up quickly from her terminal. Knowing Bob, hearing a remark like that, she figured a plane had crashed into Busch Stadium or something.

“Is Alan in yet?” he asked her softly.

Really curious now, she moved her head toward the hallway. “He just went for coffee.”

Bob nodded slowly, considering. Carefully, he stood up. He walked out of the city room at a measured pace, heading down the hall in the direction of the cafeteria.

He met up with Alan Mann in the corridor. Alan was bulling his way back to his office. He had a styro of black coffee in one hand and a huge slab of crumb cake hidden in a bag in his jacket pocket. When Bob stopped him, Alan’s free hand touched the pocket protectively.

Alan was our editor-in-chief, a man in his fifties. At six foot two, he towered over Bob Findley. He had broad shoulders and the rest of him was fit and thin except for his belly, which stuck out above and below his belt like some kind of tumor, round as a volleyball. He had a narrow, beaked face and a big forehead with bushy eyebrows. Accipitrine-like a hawk: that was Alan.

Bob stood close to him and spoke very quietly up at his lowering brow. “I just got a call from Michelle Ziegler’s brother.” He gestured with his open right hand, as he often did, as if admonishing everyone to stay calm. “Michelle has been in a car accident.”

Alan scowled. “How bad?”

“Bad,” said Bob, gesturing with his hand some more. “She’s in critical. Right now, the doctors don’t think she’s going to make it.”

For a long moment, Alan kept glaring down at him as if he hadn’t spoken. Then, with a disgusted shake of his head, he walked right past him, right down the hall without making any answer. Bob trailed after him slowly, back into the city room.

Jane March watched the two men closely as they went into Alan’s office. When Bob shut the door, she whispered: “Damn!” Alan had the blinds drawn over the glass walls. He had wanted to come back and eat his crumb cake without being seen. From the city desk, Jane could only make out their shadows moving on the white blinds.

Inside the office, Alan Mann went around his desk. He still hadn’t said anything. He set his coffee on the desktop. Then he drew the crumb cake bag out of his pocket and slapped it down too with a declarative force: matters, he felt, had moved beyond such petty deceptions. He flumped into his swivel chair. He frowned darkly.

Finally, he said: “That dumb bitch. What was she, drunk?”

Bob gave a pained smile. Alan had hired him, Alan was his mentor, and, having seen gruff editors-in-chief on television, Bob generally assumed that Alan had a heart of gold like they did. Because of this, Bob felt he could be big enough not to despise Alan. But, all the same, secretly, he felt the world would be a more civilized place when dinosaurs like Alan Mann became extinct and everyone was more or less as caring as he was.

“I don’t know,” Bob answered him now, gently. “It was up at that vicious turn onto the parkway. They really should do something about that.”

Alan knew, of course, exactly how Bob thought of him and played his part to the hilt.

“That dumb bitch,” he said again. “What was she on today?”

Bob didn’t understand the question.

“Do we have to cover for her?” Alan said. “Did she have anything big on?”

“Oh …” Bob was taken aback. Not that he hadn’t considered this, he’d just figured they would express their grief for a while before discussing it. “She had that interview with Frank Beachum at Osage.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right. They’re putting the juice in old Frank tonight, aren’t they?” Alan chuckled. He pried the lid off his coffee cup and sat back with it in his high leather chair. He leaned his head on the headrest and gazed up at the white ceiling, thinking. “Did Ziegler have a seat for the show?”

“Yeah. She was going to go down and do the interview, then come back, then go down again at night to witness the execution.”

“Christ. Why me?”

Bob laughed. “I think it’s a little worse for Michelle, Alan.”

Alan only grumbled into his coffee.

Bob said, “I don’t know if the warden’ll go for a replacement on the interview. Or if Beachum will, for that matter. But the witness spot is assigned to the paper; we can send anyone we want. I thought I’d take Harvey off the fraud meeting and put …”