True Crime

4

Plunkitt walked back to the Death House. He came down the corridor to the Deathwatch cell, but he didn’t stop there. He went on until he reached another corner. He turned, and headed down another hall. There was another door with another guard stationed there. The guard’s name was Haggerty. A paunchy older man, a pasty Irishman. A veteran tough guy who’d come down here after the layoffs in Jeff City.

“Hal,” Luther said to him quietly. “You’re looking sharp.”

Haggerty grinned acidly with one side of his mouth-it was the only grin he had. He unlocked the door for the superintendent and held it open, grinning. Luther went inside.

The room he entered looked pretty much like a doctor’s examining room, which is what it had once been. Its white cinderblock walls were scrubbed clean. There was a white sink in the corner and a white folding screen spread against the lefthand wall. There was a metal door on the right that led into a neighboring storage closet. And there was a hospital gurney standing in the center of the floor.

There were straps on the gurney, heavy leather straps. There was a window against the back wall with white blinds that could be pulled down over it. There was a mirror on the right: a one-way glass so you could stand in the storage closet and look through. And beneath the mirror, there was a hole in the wall. Tubes ran out of the hole from the storage closet and were draped over an IV stand attached to one corner of the gurney.

Luther crossed the threshold and stopped. He stood where he was with his hands in his pockets. He smiled blandly down at the gurney. He heard the door shut at his back. He didn’t move. His expression didn’t change. He looked down at the gurney and, after a moment or two, he removed one hand from his pocket. There was a handkerchief gripped in the hand. He wiped his face with it and it came away damp. He considered the damp handkerchief, its sweat-gray fabric. This heat, he thought. I do hate this goddamned heat.

But the room was cool enough and Luther was thinking about Arnold McCardle. A half hour ago, Arnold McCardle had come into his office. The fat man had cantilevered enormously through the doorway, his big paw gripping the frame. “Your friend from the News just caused a minor shitstorm down in Deathwatch,” Arnold had said. “He told Beachum he thinks he’s innocent. Made like he was gonna crusade for him. The wife is all upset.”

“All right,” Luther had said with a sigh. “I’ll handle it.”

So he had gone down to the visitors’ entrance to meet me. And he had spoken to me. He had handled it.

And now, here, alone, in the execution chamber, he thought about Arnold McCardle leaning in at his door, and he thought about me. He replaced the handkerchief in his pocket. He gazed down at the gurney again. He sniffed, and he had to admit to himself that he was angry. Innocent, he thought. Man. That Everett. These journalists, some of them. Sleazy, empty little men. He was definitely going to phone the paper and complain about this. He shook his head. Innocent. What did Everett think this was? A TV show? A movie? These reporters. After a while, they always started to confuse the stories they wrote with real life. Because that was what was at stake here. A life. A human life. The people at Osage were sweating bullets trying to do this thing as professionally as possible, as humanely as possible. It didn’t help anyone for the prisoner to be upset or given false hope like this. Maybe it helped Everett. Maybe it helped his story. But it helped the prisoner not at all.

Goddamned reporters, thought Luther Plunkitt. He worked so hard to treat them decently. No one could blame him for getting angry sometimes. In the end, they always thought their stories were more important than real life.

He stood there with his hands in his pockets a long time. He gazed down at the gurney. After a while, he imagined Frank Beachum’s face. Frank Beachum’s long, sad face gazing up at him. Innocent, he thought. He drew out his handkerchief again and ran it again across his forehead.

Man, he thought. This goddamned heat.