They listened and Luther was glad to see that their faces were becomingly solemn. Even Reuben Skycock kept his well-known sense of humor in check for decorum’s sake. Luther’s eyes moved over them as he spoke. He knew what they were feeling, all of them. Excited, ashamed to be excited; afraid, ashamed to be afraid. He saw some in the group who had never been through this before, and he knew how they were feeling too. How they wanted to do well in front of the veterans. How they wanted desperately not to screw up, not to be seen as the weak link. Luther continued talking. His eyes rested a moment on Maura O’Brien, the only woman in the room. Her chubby face was fixed and serious like all the others. Her pale lips were a thin line. Luther didn’t much like having a woman in on this, but he knew Maura and he admired her grit. She had never taken any guff from the menfolk in this place, and he could see that she meant not to falter now.
Luther’s eyes moved on and he kept on talking. He knew, finally, that they were all looking to him. The whole execution staff was counting on his steady manner, his unfaltering smile. Drawing on his easy leadership for strength. So he was careful to appear to them-as he always appeared-imperturbable. Speaking in an even drawl, slouching in his chair with his legs outstretched, gesturing comfortably with one hand. And smiling. That bland smile. As if he were telling a story about the trout that outsmarted him last June in Quenton’s Brook. That was what they needed and that was what he gave them. He couldn’t afford-none of them could afford-the whole justice system of the state of Missouri could not afford-to have the head man falter at the eleventh hour.
And so Luther Plunkitt went on talking and gave no sign whatsoever of the weight that dragged relentlessly on his interior, or of how cumbersome, how ponderous a thing it had by now become.
In the small square courtyard just outside the medical building, there was no one. Nothing was moving at all. The air was thick and hot. The patch of sky above was clear and relentless. Crickets sang from their chinks in the wall and cicadas sang in the sparse patches of brown grass that sprang out of the asphalt. But the insects did not show themselves, and everything was still.
Within the door, in the hall outside the hospital unit, there were no patients, there was no one. A single nurse moved silently through his station behind the bulletproof window. The guard in the booth at the end of the hall watched his closed-circuit monitor dully. He was a new guard, just on for an hour, while the meeting in the conference room took place.
There was a new guard at the door of the Deathwatch cell too, and a new duty officer inside because Benson was also at the briefing. The new duty officer was a white-haired muscle builder named Len. Len had been happy to grab this part-day at time-and-a-half. He needed the money because his new lover was something of a party boy and wanted to spend nearly every weekend in the expensive leather clubs up in St. Loo. The work, as it turned out, was easy enough. All he had to do was sit at the long table under the clock, and type a note into the chronological report whenever anything happened. And hardly anything did happen. The prisoner and his wife seemed like nice, quiet folks. Which suited Len just fine.
In fact, Frank and Bonnie had barely moved at all in the last half hour or so. They sat at their table behind the bars of the cage. They sat facing each other with their two pairs of hands all folded together, their eyes locked on the other’s eyes. A deep sense of stillness had come over both of them now. They knew that Bonnie would be told to leave soon and it made them feel very quiet inside. They felt a sort of leaden wonder, almost like awe, at their impending separation. And they felt very close to each other, closer than they had felt for a long time.
In intimate, hushed, husky voices, the couple spoke steadily. They didn’t have to think about what to say, it simply came out of them.
“Thing I worry about,” Frank murmured into his wife’s eyes. “Thing I worry about more than anything in all this is Gail.”
“She loves you, Frank. She loves her daddy,” Bonnie said.
“I don’t want her ever to think, you know …”
“She wouldn’t think that. She knows you.” “Don’t ever let her think it. You tell her, okay?”
“I’ll tell her, sweetheart, I swear.”
“You keep telling her.”
“I will.”
“I worry, you know,” said Frank softly, pressing her hands between his on the tabletop. “People get bored sometimes hearing something. Even if it’s true. They get tired of hearing the same old thing.”
“She’d never believe …”
“Kids especially. You tell em something …”
“I know.”
“… and just cause they keep hearing it, they think it isn’t so.”
“I know. But she would never think you’d hurt anyone, Frank. She loves her daddy more than anything.”
He nodded to himself. He fought the urge to glance at the clock. It would be soon, that was all he needed to know. They would be coming to get her soon. He kept his eyes on hers.
“I wrote her …” He swallowed. “What’s that?”
“I wrote her a letter, you know. Something … I thought maybe she’d want something to have. I wanted to give it to her while she was here but …”
“It’ll be precious to her. It’ll be her most precious thing.”
“It seemed like nothing, you know. Way she looked at me when they took her. Just a damn letter.”
“… precious …” was all his wife could manage to say.
“Because I wanted to be there for her, you know.” “I know.”
“I wanted her to know that.”
“She will.”
He pressed his lips together. “Wishes and horses,” he said. “Thing is to just get through this now.”
“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. I’ll be right there. And Jesus’ll be with you.”
“Hate to make you see this.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He nodded. “If I can see you, you know …? If I can see your face …”
“You’ll see me.”
“That’ll help.”
“I’ll make sure.”
He held her hands tighter. He didn’t glance at the clock. It would be soon. Looking into her eyes, words welled up out of him. “I sure didn’t mean this to happen to you, Bonnie.”
“I know, I know.”
“This sure wasn’t what I had planned, you know, for us.”
“It’s all right, Frank.”
He shook his head a little. “Man. Man. This life. I tell you. It sure didn’t go right, did it? Hard to make out, I swear, Bonnie. Hard to make out what it was all for, you know, in aid of. Only thing ever made sense to me was you, you and Gail. That made sense of everything. It was too short. You know? Maybe all you can ask for, I don’t know, maybe I should be grateful probably, I don’t know. Sure seemed like, you know, like I just got it figured. I just had it figured out. Then this damn thing.”
“Nothing ever mattered to me either, nothing but you and Gail. I never loved anybody until you, the first time I saw you,” Bonnie said.
“Damn thing. And what’s the point, you know?”
“You gotta have faith, Frank. You gotta have. I just know God has some plan. I know he means something in this.”
“Hard to see, you know. Hard to make out. Wish I had time, more time. Doesn’t seem like there was hardly any time for us.”
“No. No. But I love you so, Frank. I love you so much. We’re gonna be together forever, I swear.”
“Damn thing. Like some kind of joke or something. Hard to figure.”
“You gotta have faith. Jesus won’t desert you.”
“I know.” He sighed.
And the door to the cell opened.
Bonnie’s breath caught. She clutched his hands tightly. She didn’t take her eyes away from his. He tried to hold on to her, to her look, but finally, he turned away and saw Luther Plunkitt standing just inside the cell. Benson came in behind him.
The superintendent lifted one hand in a gesture of apology. His smile was apologetic too. “Sorry, Frank, we’re gonna have to ask Mrs. Beachum to leave now.”