Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

Val stepped up to the porch rail and took a deep breath. But then she set her coffee cup down on the rail and, for a time, stayed perfectly still. Some of the coffee spilled when she went down the porch steps. She came back up with the morning paper in her hand and a sour look on her face.

“Read it and weep, boss,” Val said.

The headline consisted of only two words, but I had to read it several times before I could absorb it completely. MARCONI BUSTED!

Not far under the headline was an old photograph of me, taken at least a decade before for my current ID, from when I had been appointed first lieutenant for Coxsackie Correctional Facility in 1987. The black-and-white photo would have been available in the commissioner’s records. In the photo, I’m stone-faced, almost thuggish-looking. The photo looked more like a mug shot than anything else, with my eyes nearly closed and a smile hidden behind a Pancho Villa mustache.

Below the photo was another headline of almost equal proportions.

DAY NUMBER THREE FOR MASTRIANO!

Another photo showed the corrections officer lying in a Newburgh General Hospital bed, his mother by his side, along with Dr. Fleischer, the fierce little man peering directly into the camera. The photo credit belonged to the Associated Press.

“This thing made the morning papers,” I said. “Which means Pelton must have leaked the story to the press before he called me into his office.”

“They had every intention of arresting you,” Val deduced. “The whole thing was a setup from the start.”

“I’m the patsy,” I said, feeling very dizzy.

Just then a station wagon pulled up outside the driveway. A white van with a satellite dish on top pulled in behind that. Channel-13-Newscenter was printed on the sides of both the car and the van. The two vehicles couldn’t have been there for more than ten seconds when a Ford Bronco from a different television station arrived from the opposite direction.

I stood up just as the reporters and cameramen began scrambling out of their cars and trucks.

“Guess it’s about time we made a quick exit.”

“Congratulations,” Val said, “you’re gonna be famous.”

“Yah, for all the wrong reasons.”

We escaped back into the house.

I locked the deadbolt behind me and turned to Val.

“Listen,” I said, “there’s no telling where this thing is going and who could be implicated along the way.”

Val pressed her lips together. Her eyes were deep and wet.

“What are you trying to say, Keeper?”

“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.” I put my left hand on her arm and gripped the newspaper with my other.

“You can trust me,” she said. “I work for you before I work for anybody else.”

I kissed her forehead and pressed her against me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“As far as I’m concerned, those bastards toss you to the dogs, they toss me to the dogs, too.”

Outside the picture window in the living room, I could see a reporter standing on the front lawn, his hand at his forehead like a visor, trying to get a look inside the house.

“They already have, Val,” I said. “They already have.”

I SUPPOSE PEOPLE SHOW grief in different ways. I didn’t openly weep after Fran died. I didn’t cry at her funeral. From a distance, I could see other wives whispering to their husbands, and I knew what they were saying. Shouldn’t he be more upset? Shouldn’t he be crying?

But Fran’s death tore me up all the same.

Repairing those rips and tears over the last twelve months had not been easy. Now, any little thing could set me off, plunge me into the dungeon of despair. A half hour after Val left through a haze of reporters on her way to the office in Green Haven, I went into the living room to pick up the mess. I would have managed it, too, if I hadn’t picked up the portrait of Fran and me, the one with the X slashed through her face.

I stared at the photo for a good long while, longer than I should have. Then I gently put it on the fireplace mantel. I went to the bar and poured myself a tall Scotch. It had turned into a Scotch kind of afternoon. I lit a cigarette. My hands shook. Standing there alone in the living room with the reporters walking around aimlessly on my lawn, I knew I should have stashed the photo away, saved it for something. For evidence maybe. But I couldn’t help myself.

I took the photo off the mantel and lit the white corner with the Zippo. It caught fire instantly and I tossed it into the open fireplace and sat there smoking while the photograph shrunk and curled up into itself. I watched my body and the body of my wife disappear in a blaze of orange-and-red-colored flame, and I grieved all over again.

I took a pull on the Scotch and took another look outside the living room window. People were carrying all kinds of communications equipment, voice recorders, and cameras. They paced the front lawn waiting for something to happen.

I felt like the groundhog.

Maybe if I waited long enough, they would try to burn me out.

In the kitchen, I dialed my office and got Val.

“How you holding up?” she said.

“I feel like O.J. Except I didn’t do it.”

“More like John Gotti,” Val said. “Get your ethnicity right. You want to check in with Dan?”

“Why not?”

There was a pause and then the confused noises of the phone being transferred from one person to another.

“What the hell’s going on, Keeper?” Dan said. “Pelton called, said by court order you can’t step foot inside Green Haven. Said if you did to have you arrested again.”

There was that familiar organ-slide feeling in my gut. I made a conscious decision not to explain anything to Dan quite yet. Besides, what could I possibly tell him that he didn’t already know?

“Pelton make you acting warden?”

“Just this morning.”

“Good,” I said, as if that had been the plan all along. “Now I want you to do us all a favor.”

“Anything.”

“From here on out, you’ve got to avoid Pelton like the plague.”

“Won’t be easy, Keeper,” Dan said. “I mean, under the circumstances, he wants constant reports. Especially with Vasquez gone and general lockdown still in effect.”

“Just ignore his calls as best you can, or if he decides to make a surprise visit, take the back door. Just don’t let him get to you.”

“Anything else?”

“Sit tight, don’t say a word about anything to anybody, especially Pelton and Marty Schillinger. Val will fill you in on everything. In the meantime, I’ve got a little catch-up ball to play.”

After I hung up the phone I went around the entire house and closed all the curtains. The press had gathered enough nerve to move from the lawn to the front porch. They rang the bell a few times, but they knew I wasn’t about to open the door. They knew I was still inside the house, but I’d do my best to remain invisible until it came time to get by them.

Now I knew why they called them the press.

I returned to the living room, took hold of the heavy metal poker that leaned against the brick fireplace, and used the blunt end to crush the burned photo of Fran and me into so much soot and ash. It was then I noticed that the photo hadn’t burned completely. A semblance of the image remained. I bent down, sifted through the black ash, and picked out the remains.

Fran’s face was still there.

I put the cigarette between my lips, reached into my pocket for the Zippo. I started the lighter and brought the flame to the stamp-size portion of intact photograph.

Maybe my imagination was taking over but, like the image of her body, the image of Fran’s face took some time to disappear. No matter how I put the flame to it. I wasn’t the type to heed signs from above, but it seemed like a gesture from divine providence itself.