Andrew Klavan - True Crime

“Steak …” Beachum cleared his throat. “Steak and french fries, I guess,” he said. “A beer would be nice.”

Luther inclined his chin. “No problem. We’ll see what we can do.” He took another small step forward. He was within reach of the cage bars now. A more intimate distance. He lowered his voice. “Now about your personal effects and belongings …”

Luther’s eyes flicked down to the prisoner’s hands again as another ash fell from his cigarette, unattended. His damn coffee must be cold by now , Luther thought, annoyed with himself for feeling so shaken.

“My wife’ll take em,” said Beachum.

“And your remains? Does that go for your remains too?” Luther asked. “If she can’t afford the funeral expenses …”

“No. No. Her church raised some money. It’s all right.”

“So your wife will be claiming your remains then.”

Drawing a breath, Beachum straightened slowly in his plastic chair. It was the first sign he’d given of what had to be going on inside him. That little movement-that rattled Luther too. He felt a weight in his stomach, felt it twist and drag.

“Yes, sir, that’s right,” said the prisoner.

“Okay.” Luther felt his hand-the one in his pocket, on his keys-growing warm and damp. He brought it out and laced it with the other, hanging them both before him like a preacher at a graveside. He went into the next order of business, speaking briskly as before.

“I want to give you some idea here of what’s going to happen tonight so there are no surprises,” he said. This was a standard part of the protocol now. In one of the discussions they held after each procedure, the Osage execution team had decided it would help matters along to keep the condemned man thoroughly informed. Otherwise, with everyone so jumpy as the hour of execution approached, any little deviation from what the prisoner expected would tend to startle him, and might cause trouble. “We’ll have to ask your visitors to leave at six P.M.,” Luther went on. “So you might want to inform them of that in case they’re expecting to stay till ten. You’ll be given your dinner and a fresh set of clothes. There’s a sort of plastic underwear thing we have to ask you to put on. No one’ll be able to see it or anything but we need it for sanitary purposes. We’ll make certain that it’s removed before your wife claims your body. After about ten-thirty tonight, you’ll be able to have your spiritual advisor down here with you if you want, which I believe you’ve requested.”

The prisoner tried to answer, but couldn’t. He closed his eyes a moment and swallowed. Luther went on.

“The gurney is actually brought right down here to the cell, oh, about half an hour before the procedure. You’ll be taken into the procedure room and they’ll hook an EKG up to you and the intravenous lines at that time. But nothing’s gonna happen early or anything. We start at 12:01 and right up to then, we’ll be monitoring the phones and we got open lines to the attorney general and the governor and those’ll be checked right through to make sure they’re in working order. You got any questions about any of that?”

Beachum let out his breath as if he’d been holding it. “No.”

The superintendent shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Now, there’s just one more thing, and then I’ll leave you in peace here. It’s about the sedative.”

Beachum stiffened. His lips went thin and the line of smoke coming up from his cigarette smeared as his hand shook. “I don’t want any sedative.”

“The sedative is completely optional,” Luther told him quickly. “I would just like to strongly advise you that it can make things a lot easier.” Here, he slipped into an open, man-to-man tone. He had given these speeches enough times now so that his changes of inflection came more or less automatically. “Hell, Frank, it’s as much for me as for you,” he said. “Having this thing go smoothly is gonna be in the best interest of everybody concerned in the long run. This sedative they give you, it’ll make …”

“I don’t want it,” said Beachum tightly. Then, because you don’t have much leverage when you’re in a cage, he seemed to force himself to go on more reasonably: “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Plunkitt, but I wanna be clear in my mind.” He averted his eyes and added: “I want to be able to see my wife, all right? I’m not gonna make any trouble, I just wanna be clear for that.”

“Fair enough.” Luther knew when to let it alone. “It’s your choice. If you change your mind, just let the duty officer know or let me know. I just wanted to give my little sales talk, that’s all.”

The prisoner kept his eyes lowered, looking at his hands. His cigarette had burned down nearly to the filter now. It was making Luther antsy as hell. Finally, Beachum reached out and crushed it in the tinfoil ashtray beside him. Luther sighed with relief.

The warden stood another moment, watching the condemned man through the bars. His business was done. He had nothing more to say. He lingered, as Beachum’s hand returned to the coffee cup. Beachum swallowed as if there were a bad taste in his mouth. Then he lifted his face to the warden again.

Plunkitt nodded once, quickly, and turned away. He walked to the door, feeling the prisoner’s eyes on his back. Those dead man’s eyes, that face.

Walking down the hall to his office, Luther was still angry at himself. He could still see the prisoner’s face. He imagined it, as it would look tonight, staring up at him from the gurney. It was a hell of a way to be thinking, he thought. Pretty soon, he was going to start talking like one of those sisters of mercy who turned up in the death cells from time to time. Or like one of those solemn lunkheads from the TV news who thought they were the first to discover that condemned men were human beings too. Gosh agony, they would announce into their minicams, these people have intelligence, some of them, and personalities and problems and senses of humor-and they’re going to kill one of them. Gosh agorry. Film at eleven.

Luther nodded and winked at a passing secretary. His gait was relaxed and steady. His smile was bland. No one could have known what he was feeling. But he knew. That weight in his stomach. It was as if a number seven sinker were tied to his innards by a twelve-pound test line. It had been there ever since Beachum’s death warrant had arrived. And it made him angry at himself.

He had been working with criminals a long time now. Dangerous, dangerous men. He knew they could be appealing characters. Smart, funny, thoughtful, some of them. They could run a million games on you, play you like an instrument, a million scammy riffs. And, sure, they were men just as he was and some of them had had rough lives. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it. They were men. And men made choices. That’s what a man is. A man is the creature who can say no . And if you chose to do murder, to end the life of some mother’s child in agony and fear, to blackwash a dozen other lives with grief and anger, then it was your humanity itself which condemned you, wasn’t it? Because you could’ve said no . A man can always say no .

Luther looked ahead as he walked, and his features softened a little. Arnold McCardle, fat as life and fatter, was waiting for him outside his office door.

McCardle sank deep into Luther’s leather sofa. His white shirt bellied wide out of his gray jacket. The arc of it made his red tie fall so far short of his belt buckle that it looked, Luther thought, like a clown’s tie. Sure enough, the deputy superintendent was a right jolly fellow, with sparkling eyes in a great block of a face. Round his bulbous, beer-veined nose, his puffed cheeks glowed as he blew across the rim of his coffee mug. The mug was nearly hidden by the huge paw that held it. His other hand tapped a manila folder absently against his knee.