The boulevard streetlights came toward me, flashed over me. I passed the park, then the long stretch of low garages, fast food restaurants, parking lots. I reached the border of the city and saw Dead Man’s Curve ahead. I came round it slowly in the flow of the scant Monday-night traffic. As I went, I cast a quick look through the window in the direction of the filling station. The broken husk of Michelle’s red Datsun had been towed away, but the black mark of the crash was still smeared over the garage’s white wall. I could see it in the high station sodium lights. On the asphalt, in the glow, shards of glass still twinkled.
“Dumb broad,” I murmured, and my heart hurt for her, and for Beachum, and for myself.
I was just coming out of the bend, when I heard his name, Beachum’s. I heard it spoken by the newsman on the radio. I pushed up the volume, listened as the road straightened out before me.
“Frank Beachum,” the solemn newscaster said, “the St. Louis man scheduled to go to his death by lethal injection at midnight, has reportedly confessed to his crime.”
6
I pulled the Tempo over to the side of the road. The newsman continued: “Television station KSLM is now reporting that a source close to the governor’s office says Beachum has expressed remorse over the murder of Amy Wilson, the pregnant woman he shot dead six years ago.”
I gripped the wheel hard, my mouth open. I leaned forward until my brow was pressed against the wheel’s hard plastic.
“The source refused to be named and the confession has not been confirmed by officials at the prison, but the source told KSLM that Beachum said he was sorry for the grief he had caused the victim’s family. Mrs. Wilson’s father, Frederick Robertson says sorry is not enough.”
I leaned against the wheel. I stared down at the floor, unseeing. Frederick Robertson spoke on the radio.
“Sure he’s sorry. Now he’s facing his punishment I’m sure he’s sorry as hell. But that doesn’t bring my daughter back. That doesn’t bring her baby back, my grandchild.”
“The governor,” added the newsman, “has already said he will not call off the execution.”
I lifted my head. I looked around me, dazed. Confessed? I thought. I saw the gas station where Michelle Ziegler had crashed just behind me. I put the Tempo into reverse and backed over the curb into the lot. I felt dizzy and sick. I felt as if a black ooze was spreading through me. Depression. Nausea. Spreading through me. And something else too. Relief. I hated to admit it, but I felt relief. The man had confessed. It was over. I was off the dime.
I slowed the Tempo behind a line of parked cars and stopped it there. The newscaster had now gone on to other things. I turned off the radio. I sat gripping the wheel, shaking my head, reswallowing the contents of my stomach. Confessed, I thought. Confessed. It was over.
I put a cigarette in my mouth, hoping to calm my gut. Strangely enough, I believed the story completely, believed it thoroughly the moment I heard it. Beachum had confessed. He was guilty. It seemed to me to make sense of everything. It seemed to make all the pieces of the long day fall into place. There was no innocent man on death row. There was no last-minute race for justice. It had been a dream. I had known all along, deep down, it was a dream. But I had dreamed on. And now he had confessed.
I punched the steering wheel with the heel of my palm. How could I have deceived myself like that? How, knowing that I might deceive myself, had I deceived myself notwithstanding? But I knew the answers to these questions too. I could trace it back clearly over the day. It had started with the phone call from Bob. His phone call to Patricia. I had known from that moment what was going to happen: the end of my job, the end of my marriage. Just like in New York, only worse. And I was desperate not to go through it all again. I had seized on this story—the Beachum story—the second it had come into my hands. I had seized on it crazily in the wild hope of saving myself. Insignificant details—nonsense details—the gunshot Nancy Larson didn’t hear, the rack of potato chips, the accountant’s self-doubting eyes, a black kid buying a soda in the parking lot outside—I had seized on them all and tried to turn them into high-drama in my mind. I had turned them into a dream, a dream of salvation, of a last-minute reprieve for me and Beachum both.
But I was not dreaming anymore. He had confessed. I could see the whole business clearly. I could see I had nothing. I had nary a damn thing even to suggest that Beachum was innocent of the crime. How could I have? In one day? After a police investigation? After press coverage. After a trial, after six years of appeals. Could anyone—could anyone less desperate to salvage his miserable life—could anyone anywhere believe that the American justice system would make a fatal mistake so simple that it could suddenly be put right by a single man in a single day?
I laughed at that. I had to laugh. I lit my cigarette and sucked the smoke and laughed. What an asshole I was. Thirty-five years on the face of the earth and still as deluded about life as a college kid.
I switched off the engine. I kicked the door open, got out and slammed it shut. I walked across the lot to a phone booth that stood beside the gas station wall.
I called the paper first, but Alan had left for the day. I called him at home. He answered the phone breathless. I could hear Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing in the background. “Stompin’ at the Savoy.” I could hear Alan’s wife singing along with them at the top of her lungs. “What?” said Alan, gasping.
“It’s Everett.”
“Ev! You dumb shit! He confessed.”
“I just heard.”
“Even Bob laughed.”
“I hope you took pictures.”
“Look,” he said, coughing a little as his breath came back. “It might not be so bad. Mrs. Bob called after you left. Bob went home to her. Maybe they’ll work things out. Maybe he’ll forgive you.”
I blew smoke at the booth’s glass wall. “I don’t think Bob ever forgave anybody anything in his entire life.”
“Oh yeah. Good point,” Alan said. “Well, sorry. You’re screwed.”
“I guess.”
“I can’t lose him.”
“No.”
“Lowenstein loves the guy. Everybody loves the guy.”
“Sure.”
“Maybe you could file a grievance or something. I mean, look, we all know it’s personal. He’s blowing this Beachum interview out of proportion.”
“No, no. That’d drag it out,” I said. “I don’t want to do that to Barbara.”
There was a pause. “Well, my friend …”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll get you a month’s notice. I’ll call some friends at other papers. I’ll do what I can do.”
“I know you will, pal. Dance on.”
“Amen, brother.”
I broke the connection, fed another quarter into the slot and called my wife. She answered as she always did: abrupt, annoyed, as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of a million chores.
“It’s me,” I said. “Has the kid gone to bed yet?”
“Not yet,” she said brusquely. “I was just getting him ready.”
“Keep him up another fifteen minutes, willya? So I can say goodnight to him.”
For a moment, she didn’t answer and in the silence I felt as if a fist had squeezed my heart.
“All right,” she said quietly then. “Fifteen minutes. Will you be here?”
“I’ll be there,” I answered. “I’m finished. I’m through. I’m coming home.”
7
When Reverend Stanley B. Shillerman walked into Luther Plunkitt’s office, the warden was sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind his desk. Luther could not keep his eyes from moving down the man, from his beatific face, to his open white shirt, to his jeans, to his brown loafers. Luther examined them all with a gaze of steel.
The warden was not a man who hated many people. He prided himself on his tolerance, on watching the human comedy from a wry, forgiving point of view. With a firm sense of right and wrong, he’d fo
und, you could make your way from cradle to tomb downright calmly, if you worked at it. You did your job, you protected your own square mile and you let the villains and fools fend for themselves. That was his philosophy. So even he was not prepared for the throat-clogging rush of rage he felt against the Reverend Stanley B. He felt it rising to the surface of him, shining like light through the pores of his skin, coming off him in waves. He could imagine the waves, breaking against the other man, battering him, swallowing him, dragging him under. He could not remember the last time he had been so angry.
“Reverend,” he said, leaning forward, folding his hands neatly on his desk blotter.
Shillerman fashioned an expression of sober benevolence on his face but, as their eyes met, Luther spotted a flush of color come into the preacher’s soft cheeks. The gentle creases of the skin there looked clammy. Luther was glad. Shillerman could feel the waves of anger coming off him too. Luther nodded, satisfied. He smiled blandly.
“How’s it going in there, Luther?” Shillerman said, a bit hoarsely. “Anything I can do? I’ve been, you know, visiting with the prisoners. Lending an ear to their concerns but, you know, if the condemned man needs me, or any of the men feel they could use a willing ear—I’m their man. Here I am.”
Shillerman spoke softly, but quickly, and there was the slightest tremor at the bottom of his voice.
Luther kept nodding, kept smiling. “Reverend,” he said, “I understand there was a report on television to the effect that the prisoner Beachum has confessed. I understand it came from a source in the governor’s office.”
The reverend lifted his chin. He shifted his weight onto his right foot, the left knee bending. He opened his mouth, gestured with his hand—and said nothing. Luther watched him, smiling, feeling the waves of anger coming out of his own center.
Shillerman finally cleared his throat. “Well, of course, you know, from time to time, the governor’s aides will, uh, phone to me on matters of concern to the governor himself.”
Which meant Sam Tandy, his brother-in-law, would call him for his spy reports. Luther nodded and smiled, his hands folded in front of him.
“And, of course,” Shillerman went on, “I consider that part of an important liaison role that I can play—for all parties—and, at a time like this, when the governor has many, um, many, many people coming to him appealing for mercy and whatnot, uh, any information that would affect that decision on the part of the governor personally might make a crucial difference.”
Luther nodded. Luther smiled. The waves of rage came off him. Shillerman licked his lips and went on.
“And then if, through my ministrations and my spiritual discussions with a prisoner, I can—without violating any confidences, of course—well, obviously, that goes without saying—but if I can add to the governor’s store of information, I feel that’s an important aspect of my, uh, ministry as a prison, urn …”
Luther’s head bobbed up and down. His smile remained in place, his eyes remained hard as blue diamonds, incredibly bright.
“Not that I approve of any leaks to the press!” said Stanley Shillerman quickly. “Not that I … and if I made a … If I misunderstood something the prisoner might have said to me, of course, in the course of spiritual counseling … but if he says to me, meaning the prisoner, says to me ‘I’m sorry,’ in those words, and it’s under these extreme conditions, then when the governor’s aide on behalf of the governor himself comes to me expecting that I’ve been—as is my job, as you yourself know—that I’ve been in spiritual ministration with this man and so am able to communicate with the governor what it’s necessary or even urgent for him to know at this point when people are coming to him, well, then …” Another, deeper flush passed over the reverend’s features. Luther could see the sweat glistening now in the folds of his face. “But, of course, if I misunderstood, well … And I could see where that would do harm,” Shillerman said. “I could see where that would, uh, be, uh, of a nature … And if you felt—” He made a large gesture across the desk toward Luther. “If you were to feel that—anything I had caused … Or if my sense of what I understood was somehow harmful …” Shillerman swallowed. His gesturing hand had begun to shake and he brought it down, pressed it hard against the leg of his jeans. “And I know that the governor would not be happy if you were to … but if you would understand that in the kind of spiritual communication that might go back and forth between me and a prisoner in extreme circumstances might be interpreted in many ways or if … Um, I wouldn’t want …” Shillerman tried to chuckle amiably and shook his head, sweating. Luther watched him, nodding, smiling his bland smile. “Well, not for a minute, that’s for darn sure,” Shillerman said. “And if you were to feel in any way because I, you know, seeing as how this job is important to me and to my family and I certainly have tried and tried to communicate, God knows—I mean, God knows, Luther, with the sort of element coming into this place because, of course, it’s a prison—as, of course, you’re aware—and I certainly wouldn’t want you to feel that my performance in that regard was such that you would say to anyone who might affect me that this was deleterious. And you know it certainly is something I ask for guidance for every day from God—and I know he’s your God too and that’s something between us that we can understand and, well, if I could approach you in that regard, then I would certainly hate to feel that you couldn’t say to, for instance, the press or the governor’s aides or the governor or indeed any future employer who might still be willing to consider my ministry of importance as you know it is to my wife and family and everyone who knows me and understands my position, I would certainly hope you would find it in yourself to say to these people in all charity and forgiveness, Luther, you know, that this is someone who, as you understand it, is a man and that is something that we can take into consideration in such a way that you could say finally with a clear conscience of course that, well, as I say, this is a man. Uh. This is just a man …”
With which, Shillerman fell silent. He licked his lips again and his mouth remained open, but nothing more came out. His face was scarlet now and damp, and sweat fell from under his forelock to his shirtfront and to the floor. He shifted his weight to the other foot and back again and stared glassily across the desk at Luther. Luther could see that the man’s entire body was trembling, head to toe. And Luther was glad.
The warden sat nodding for a long time. He continued to smile blandly. Now he would have to call the governor’s office, he thought. Clear this thing up. Issue a correction to the press: There had been no confession. There was not going to be any confession. Luther only wished to God there would be a confession, but there would not. Part of him knew that that was why he was so angry: because there would be no confession. Not from Beachum. Not ever. The waves of rage came off him still.
First thing tomorrow, he thought, he was going to get rid of this son-of-a-bitch. Sam Tandy or no, he was going to make sure that the Reverend Stanley B. Shillerman was kicked the hell out of here. He was going to make sure that he never worked at another correctional facility anywhere between the San Andreas Fault and Jupiter.
He nodded. He smiled his bland smile.
“That’ll be all for now, Reverend,” he said.
8
I drove home, the radio off, my mind empty. I was tired; sick of myself. But I was glad, all the same, that the race to save Frank Beachum’s life was over.
PART EIGHT
PHILOSOPHICAL CONVERSATIONS
1
Davy-Davy-Davy-Dave, Davy-Davy-Davy-Dave,” I sang to the tune of the “William Tell Overture.” “Davy-Davy-Davy-Dave. Dave. Y-Davy-Davy-Dave. Davy-Davy-Davy-Davy-Davy-Davy-Dave …” And so on, pretty much along the same lines. As I sang, I held my little boy up in front of me, held him by the waist, facing away, tilting him this way and that as I raced him through the living room, down the hall, once around our bedroom, out into the hall again and to his nursery, to his bed. He screamed and giggled as I gave him the ride.
??
?I am going to my bed!” he cried out happily.
And I hoisted him over the rail and dropped him on the soft mattress with a healthy bounce. Then I leaned in over him, pressing the mattress to make him bounce again and again. My heart was a stone, heavy as a stone.
“Sleep-city, me boy-o,” I said.
He grabbed my arm, squealing. I eased up, letting him settle. His laughter eased into a wordless murmur. He held on to me. He studied my forearm, smiling. He gripped it in his two little hands. He stroked the hair there thoughtfully. “Why are you here?” he said.
I grinned like an idiot. Dear Christ, I thought. Dear Christ. “Where else would I be, ya goon?” I said, forcing a laugh.
He considered that too, and then let my arm go. “I will go to sleep now,” he said. He rolled over and closed his eyes.
“Wise move,” I told him. I nearly choked on the words.
At the door, I stood a moment and watched him lying there. He turned his head on the mattress and peeked at me. The fact that I was still there made him smile.
“Go to sleep, ya monster,” I said.
I switched off the lights.
In the corridor outside, I paused again. Stone-hearted, black-gutted, heavy-headed, beat. I stood with my head bowed. I massaged my temples with my hand. What had I done? What had I wrought? I could see it all so clearly now.
It was scary stuff: to have been so deluded all day. Not to be deluded anymore. Scary; empty; scary stuff. To have the Beachum story gone, resolved into a dew. The mission of the hour vaporized, the heroic effort a bagatelle, the grail a mirage—and the job kaput. The job and the marriage sure to be kaput. And nothing left but the glowing memory of chasing around all day trying to prove that a rack of potato chips made a guilty man innocent at the hour of his death. Ah, the human mind: what a kidder.