True Crime

4

At about that hour-around three o’clock-the Reverend Harlan Flowers was allowed into the Deathwatch cell again. He stood just within the door, his hands folded in front of him, and watched the Beachums through the bars of the cage.

Frank and Bonnie were sitting close together on the bed, holding one another’s hands between them. Gail was seated at the table, drawing with her crayons. There were bowls of popcorn on the table and the floor, some paper soda cups and a half-eaten hot dog on a plate. As the child drew, she kept up a low monologue about this and that-her friends at school, what her teachers had said-and Frank answered her and asked her questions.

After a minute or two, Bonnie lifted her eyes and saw Flowers standing there. She spoke in a whisper to Frank. “It’s time for Gail to go.” They had arranged it this way. So that Bonnie and Frank would have a few hours alone together before the six o’clock end of visiting hours. Later, Flower’s wife was coming down to Osage to take care of Gail during the execution, when both Bonnie and Flowers would be witnesses.

“I don’t want to go,” Gail said at once. She heard everything, of course. And her lips were already beginning to tremble as she looked at her parents over her shoulder.

Frank got up off the cot. He moved to stand beside her.

“Can we come back again tomorrow?” said Gail. “Can we stay at the motel again? Do we have to go all the way back to St. Louis?”

Frank put his hand on her cheek. It was wet under his palm.

“You’ll be going back home in the morning,” he said.

Gail’s severe little face seemed to crack open. “I don’t want to go back,” she said, crying. “I want to stay with you.”

Frank knelt down on one knee next to her, their eyes almost level. “Hey,” he said. He stroked her brown hair, tied back tightly stiff and brittle under his fingers. She sniffled. “Lookit, Gail, you’re a big girl. You know what’s happening here, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

But he knew she didn’t really. She’d blocked it out in some way. When Frank looked now into her eyes, the brown deeps of them, he saw a kind of daze, shock he figured, a world of pain but all fogged in, as if she were a child wandering alone through the smoke of a bombed-out city. She had been so happy, he thought, playing in her turtle-shaped sandbox, whapping her shovel against the sand.

“So lookit,” he said, licking his lips. “You know, after today … After today, you won’t be able to see your dad anymore …”

She threw her arms around him suddenly, buried her face in his shoulder. He held her, clenching his teeth, closing his eyes.

“But I’ll be there,” he said, his voice unsteady. “Listen to me, sweetheart, okay? Listen to your dad. You won’t be able to see me, but I’ll be there. I swear to God. You’ll always be able to talk to me. All right? You can talk to me any time you want, and I’ll hear you. Any time, any time you need to. You just say what’s on your mind and I’ll be right there, listening. I promise. Any time you need.” Hitting the sand with her plastic shovel, he thought. Gurgling and babbling so happily as Bonnie came to the screen door with the empty bottle of A-l. “Look-I wrote you a letter …”he began to say, but he couldn’t finish. It seemed like such a stupid, useless thing to him now. A goddamned letter. What good was that to her? “I promise,” he said again. Then he just held her, his cheek against her hair. He smelled her baby shampoo and the skin of her neck, a little girl’s smooth skin, not like her face which had grown worried and dazed and old. He could hear the sound, the whap, whap, whap, of her shovel against the sandbox sand. He could feel the heat of the sun in his backyard.

He patted her back resolutely and began to draw away. “Go on now,” he said. “It’ll be all right.” But she held on to him. Flowers had come forward, and Benson was moving toward the cage with his key. When the girl heard the barred door slide back, she pulled her head off her father’s shoulders. She stared into him.

“Why can’t you just come home?” she said.

Frank opened his mouth. “I can’t …”

“You should just kill all these people and come home. We would get a helicopter and fly you away and they wouldn’t be able to find you.”

He put his hand on her cheek again. Flowers put his hand on her shoulder.

“You should kill all of them!” the girl cried out.

Frank got slowly to his feet as Flowers drew the girl out of her chair. She stared at Frank as the preacher took her out of the cage. Her face twisted and reddened as she cried.

“Why don’t you, Daddy?” She spun on Benson and shouted at him. “He will too!” she said. “He’ll kill you. You wait. He’ll kill all of you and we’ll have a helicopter!”

Flowers led her across the room. She walked after him, looking back. She only dug in for a moment, just at the door.

“He’ll kill all of you,” she said again.

Frank raised his hand to her. The child sobbed. Flowers drew her to the threshold.

“Good-bye, Daddy,” she cried out. “Good-bye, Daddy.”

Flowers took her into the hall. Benson shut the door behind them. He glanced over at Frank who still stood watching, his hand upraised. The duty officer made a small, sympathetic expression as if to say: poor kid. Then he walked back to his desk, sat down and began typing the event into his chronological report.

Frank, standing where he was, shuddered once, his whole frame rippling. He moved his hand as if to cover his face, but his raised arm froze and the hand trembled in front of him. Finally, it fell. He slumped, his head hanging, his shoulders caving in. Like that, and with his back bowed, he shuffled, in turning, like an old man. He lifted his head wearily and looked at Bonnie.

She was sitting on the cot, as she had been. Very still, her hands folded in her lap now, her head slightly lowered. She was not crying, and her face was quiet. Though the lines of her brow, her cheeks, her mouth, were all drawn down, she wasn’t frowning. They fell as of their own weight and it made her look very old as well. Her eyes looked old when she lifted them to her husband.

“This is more than I can bear,” she said in a low, clear voice. “I thought God wouldn’t send me more than I could bear. But this is more …”

Frank nodded. She lowered her head again, He shuffled to the chair and settled himself into it, gripping the back for support.

“I thought God never sent you more than you could bear,” she said, staring down at the floor. “This is more.”

Frank sat in silence, his eyes wandering, seeing nothing. He wiped his lips with his palm. He let his breath out slowly through pursed lips, like a man recovering from a blow. “It’ll …” His voice failed. He ran his hand across his mouth again. “It’ll be all right,” he said.

Bonnie laughed once, a terrible sound. An expression of annoyance crossed her face. Then she shook her head and looked away from him, looked off into space.

“Maybe the appeal,” she said softly to no one. “Maybe they’ll listen this time. I mean, they can’t just go ahead and murder an innocent man. Maybe …”

“There’s no appeal,” said Frank, his eyes wandering the room.

“… at the last minute, they’ll have to see. I mean, this is still America, for heaven’s sake. Isn’t it? You were just going to the store. I just asked you to go to the store for me. They’re not just going to take a man, a good, decent man …”

“They turned the appeal down, Bonnie.”

“… and execute him. That wouldn’t make any sense. All these technical things they talk about. In the end, don’t you think in the end, maybe they’ll just say …”

Frank straightened himself in the chair, focusing on his wife finally. “Bonnie,” he said quietly.

“… they’ll just flat-out see.”

“Bonnie, for God’s sake.”

“They’ll have to see. It’s not a matter of some-some technical thing. It’s an injustice. An injustice. The lawyers will make them understand …”

“There’s no appeal, Bonnie,” said Frank, his voice rising. “They turned the appeal down.”

“… that they’ve made a terrible …” Bonnie stopped. Her lips moved a moment, as if she would go on, but she didn’t. She closed her eyes.

“That’s what Tryon was calling about before,” Frank said.

Bonnie didn’t answer. She didn’t move. She didn’t open her eyes. Frank watched her. She knew, he thought. Of course she knew.

After that, for a while, they went on as they were, seated where they were, apart from each other, staring off. The clock moved round and they felt the motion of the clock, the burden of its motion, heavy on their backs and in their stomachs. Finally, Frank-unable to stand the loneliness anymore-pushed himself to his feet. He walked the few steps to the cot wearily, and sat down beside his wife. After another moment or two, he put his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.