by Steve Thayer
“I’m innocent. I want the jury.”
The building shook like a minor earthquake as a train passed below. Stacy Dvorchak wrote notes on her legal pad in the slow, deliberate way she’d mastered. She didn’t talk for five minutes. On television she often came across as loud and bitchy. In reality, she was a quiet, intense woman. Dixon Bell watched her work. “I have two assistants now working full time on your defense,” she told him, “but the jury will see only you and me at the defense table. It’ll give us that underdog look. Minnesotans have a natural resentment toward the rich and the powerful. Where else can you see millionaires out mowing their lawns? You’ll stand trial at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis. Do you know the building?”
“I did a live shot from the garden in the lobby once. They keep bugging me about a lie-detector test. I think I should take it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why? If I pass, their case is shot. If I fail, it can’t be admitted in a court of law.”
“If you pass, it’s irrelevant to their case. If you fail, how are you going to keep it out of the news?” She scrawled some notes. Then the attorney for the defense awkwardly reached into a bag that hung from her electric wheelchair and pulled out a bottle of raspberry mineral water. “Can you open this for me?”
Dixon Bell screwed off the top, then set the bottle on the table in front of her. He sat back and watched as she picked up the bottle with both hands to quench her thirst.
Stacy spread papers before her until she found the sheet she was searching for. “I’ve already obtained a list of some of the people they’re talking to, potential witnesses. You’re going to have to fill in the blanks. General R.L. Patterson?”
“Commanding officer. Vietnam. He ran the air base.”
“John Dupre, Memphis, Tennessee?”
“News director at the Memphis station. I was the weekend weatherman.”
“Lisa Gilbert, Dallas, Texas?”
“Never heard of her . . . How long?” the Weatherman wanted to know.
“Another hour.”
“No, I mean how long before we go to trial?”
She unfastened her pen holder. Not a good sign. “I don’t see this coming to trial before the end of the year. This list is just the beginning. They’re going to have us running all over the country, and we still won’t be able to check out everybody.”
“I can’t wait that long,” he confessed. “I’ll go crazy in here.”
“I’ll take another stab at bail.”
The Weatherman watched in self-conscious awe as his attorney, unjustly sentenced to life in an electric chair, drank her raspberry water, strapped on her pen holder, then went back to scribbling notes on her legal pad like a child. He knew he had a damn good lawyer, but it was like having a sunny day in subzero weather.
The Epiphany
When the news show was over, when the weather had been guessed at and the Twins’ score given, they walked around the lake beneath Rick Beanblossom’s home in the sky. It was a hot, humid night. Tropical air was up from the Gulf, the kind of weather meant for outdoor baseball. Heavy traffic circled Calhoun Boulevard. On the glassy water that mirrored the lights of Minneapolis, sailboats were moored for the evening while ducks frolicked just offshore. A slight south breeze kept mosquitoes at bay.
“Children and dogs are the worst. I avoid them like the hot sun. Especially children. They don’t understand. They’re afraid of me. Some run from me. Others taunt me to mask their fear.”
It was near midnight when he realized he’d been talking all night. But Andrea Labore was a good listener. Joggers swept past them. They stepped down to a fishing dock and walked out over the water. The new moon of the midsummer was bright overhead. The water was so clear they could read the beer cans on the bottom. An old man was fishing in a rowboat toward the middle of the lake.
Rick talked on. “The doctors would push my face around with a pencil and talk about me like I was a steak. They kept telling me about the wonders of plastic surgery. About what great surgeons they had at the burn unit in Fort Sam Houston. At first I believed them. I believed my hair would grow back. That plastic surgery would restore the skin to my face. But the plastic surgery was only to cover the muscle and bone and stave off infection. The only hair that ever grew was beneath my chin.”
Andrea held his hand and rested her chin on his shoulder. “If I ever asked, would you show me your face?”
The question didn’t surprise him. He calmly shook his head no. “The day I bought this mask was the last day I looked in a mirror without it on. I swore I’d never look again. And I never have.”
From the fishing dock out over the water they had a panoramic view of Minneapolis. The skyscrapers the city was so proud of were ablaze in light, and foremost among them was the venerable IDS Tower. The red warning light atop the transmitting antenna shone just below the Little Dipper. “My God,” said Andrea, “we can see the newsroom from here.”
Rick looked up at the top row of lights. “Sky High News, where we accurately report all rumors.”
“Why did you do it—jump to television?”
“Besides the money? I thought I could bring newspaper quality to television news. Give it some literary content. But it can’t be done. No matter how much sweat you pour into it, it all comes out tits and glitz. Nothing personal. And you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be on television. Even before the shooting I didn’t like being a cop. It’s a man’s world. Women can’t compete. In television, I can compete. I want that anchor job because it’s like swimming—it’s the gold medal at the end of the race. I know it’s not noble and worthy of the news business, but it’s something I want. Can you understand that?”
“I understand, Andrea. I won a few sprints in my day. But what these clowns running news stations today don’t understand is that there’s a whole generation out there who grew up watching Edward R. Murrow, and Huntley and Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite. We watched President Kennedy die, we watched the war in Vietnam from the very beginning to the very end. We know how good television news can be.” He pointed to the skyscraper across the lake. “And we know that that isn’t it.”
“Are you going to stay with us?”
“Never be loyal to a company,” he reminded her. “In the end, they’re not going to be loyal to you. I figure I can wring one more contract out of them before the well runs dry.”
“And then?”
“I’ve got some dreams in the mail.”
“Your novel?”
The warm breeze was dying. Humidity was on the rise. Mosquitoes began the hunt. Andrea slapped at one of the tiny bandits but it stole away with her blood.
“Have you had a girlfriend . . . since . . . you know?”
The masked Marine shrugged. “I know what you’re asking,” he said to her, matter-of-factly. “The only way I can have sex is to pay for it, and I swore I’d never do that. So I make love with my VCR. I can walk into a video store and rent any fantasy I want.”
“That’s kind of two-dimensional sex, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s safe sex. I’ll probably outlive all of you.”
“I suppose. If you call that living.”The lights of his high-rise condominium were reflected on the water. Andrea turned and gazed up at the expensive boxes, one atop the other. “All those bedrooms stacked to the stars.” She brushed her fingers up his arm. “Which one is ours?”
Rick Beanblossom lost himself in the lights off the water. He shook his head. Didn’t know what to say. The moon floated over the east end of the lake. “It’s been a long time, Andrea. Don’t joke about something like that.”
Andrea smiled at him, a warm smile free of guile. “I’m not joking. I’ve given it a lot of thought.” She took his hand. “Come along, Mr. Beanblossom.”
Old Jesse strolled across the roadway and grabbed hold of the chain link fence that separated Industry from the rest of the pr
ison. He needed a break. The hot summer nights were hard on his aging bones. Each night seemed more hellish than the night before, and sure enough, almost directly over his head was that Electric Star illuminating the sky like a sparkler in the grass.
The janitor could see the construction through the fence. Beneath the red brick wall that ran along Stagecoach Trail were bulldozers, piles of dirt, and pallets of bricks. The state was actually building the damn thing. Yes, right below Guard Tower 4 and behind the electric shop they were constructing a Death House.
On television they said the Weatherman’s blood type was the same blood type as the man who had killed his granddaughter. That his shoe size was the same size they found in the slushy snow. They said the Weatherman lived in Edina, only blocks from the murder. That he killed because it was the last day of winter. That he killed because the weather drove him to kill. That he killed a police officer to defy the new law. That’s what they were saying on television.
Jesse had been watching the news on television since television news was invented. He often met the criminals as they went from a black-and-white image on a television screen to flesh and blood in Stillwater. But never before had he known the victims of their crimes. They were strangers sobbing on a TV set. Then one day on the noon report the news lady with the big brown eyes came on the air and said Officer Shelly Sumter was in the hospital. They showed her graduation picture from the police academy. They ran videotape of her being wheeled into the emergency room. He was shocked. He rushed to her bedside. The day she died was even more shocking. Another TV reporter talked into the camera as if he had known her for years, and at the same time he reduced Shelly’s life to one minute and thirty seconds. And now the state was building a Death House.
If Old Jesse had killed that man down home in South Carolina, he’d have been dead now more than a quarter of a century. But he killed the man in Minnesota, and instead of sending him to his death they sent him to Stillwater. Sometimes it seemed as if Minnesota was changing faster than the weather.
Andrea Labore lit a candle and ignited a golden glow in a bedroom that was shades of gold. The curtains were left open, but they were so high in the sky only the man in the moon could peek in on them. They lay side by side on the gilded sheets.
The unflappable, unshakable Marine was nervous as hell. In the months since her world-championship hangover they had talked often, had shared story ideas, traded gossip, confessed their wants and fears, but they’d never been intimate. Rick Beanblossom had come to accept the fact that he could only be a friend to this beautiful woman.
But now his lips were over her lips, and her mouth was warm and open and inviting him in, pulling him in, and, he thought, another one of the Weatherman’s improbable forecasts was coming true. Rick wrapped his arms around her as they kissed, and marveled at how light and slender she was. When their lips finally parted, he kissed his way down her neck to her breasts, and there he rested his head as she stroked the back of his mask.
He had worried about Andrea’s reactions, but she didn’t seem the least bit nervous. Her patience and her gentle hands put him at ease, the way a nurse in Japan had eased his suffering a score of years ago. He unbuttoned her blouse without fumbling and slipped her bra strap from her shoulder. The lace brassiere dropped with ease below her breast and he took the nipple into his mouth. Her breasts were small but firm and round, and he tried to suck down to the bone. The harder he sucked, the tighter she held him.
The hot summer breeze through the window was seductive, her perfume intoxicating. Rick had forgotten how the warm, soft flesh of another pressed against his own charred skin could lift his spirit and send it soaring to dizzying heights, higher than any narcotic. He slid her cotton slacks from her sleek legs. She rolled over on top of him and he slid his hands down the back of her panties and pulled her into him.
Andrea was a surprisingly bold lover. She removed her panties herself and straddled him on her knees, her bold brunette hair tumbling forward, accenting her sharp featured countenance. Rick outlined this celestial face with his fingers, then traced her neckline until he was cupping the pair of breasts dangling over him. She kept her eyes on his eyes the whole time. He let his hands trace her tummy and around her hips, then up her thighs between her legs. He pressed two fingers inside of her and she drew a sharp, erotic breath. Rick reached behind her and pulled her knees toward his head. She straightened up, sensing exactly what he wanted. He slipped his head down the pillow until all of the woman that was Andrea Labore was directly above him and he covered her with his mouth as she repeated his name over and over again.
On her back she was as sensuous, almost greedy, as she was lovely. She helped him off with his clothes. By the time the only piece of cloth he was wearing was over his head they had become inseparable—more than sex, a uniting of spirits the burn victim had known only once in his life. An eternity later he collapsed on top of her and the love he had bundled up inside of him for so many years spilled down her creamy soft legs and onto the golden sheets.
There seemed nothing to prove to Andrea, nothing to hide. So comfortable was he with this woman that it was she who held him in her arms as they listened to night sounds filter up from the lake below, ducks and geese and waves lapping at the shore.
They had barely recovered from the first union when they made love a second time. They were both perspiring, her sweat as intoxicating as her perfume.
In the wee hours of the morning, when they were too tired to make love, but too excited to sleep, they talked. Talked shop. Talked about the Weatherman. He shared with her more of what he knew.
“It’s so hard to believe,” said Andrea. “Can it be true?”
“All I know is that I interviewed two different men. Schizophrenic, perhaps. Multiple personalities, I don’t know. Maybe he’s just a freak of nature. But a murderer? I still don’t buy it.”
“Because?”
“I showed you the diary. The murders aren’t mentioned even in passing.”
“Rick, that diary was very disturbing. He may have been substituting those women for me and that Lisa girl. That’s what the state is going to try to prove.”
“Even in a television newsroom I don’t think we could have been that blind. They have a lot of circumstantial evidence, the diary of a very disturbed man, and a partial fingerprint they’re not sure about. I don’t think that’s enough for a conviction, much less seven convictions and a death sentence. I say we continue this investigation with the assumption they’ve got the wrong man. Let’s find out who had access to his office, to his computer, to his private phone numbers. Who has been in the newsroom that doesn’t belong there?”
“It’s a newsroom, it’s not a fort. Strangers run in and out of there every day.”
“Are you afraid the killer might be somebody at the station?”
Andrea crawled into his arms and rested her face on his chest.
“No, I’m afraid the killer might be Dixon Bell.”
Rick Beanblossom ran his fingers through her wet hair and kissed the top of her head. “The murder of Mary Rogers,” he suggested.
“I don’t remember a Mary Rogers. Which one was she?”
“Different city, different time.”
Andrea was feeling sleepy. “Tell me about her.”
“Well, it was in the summer of 1842, and the body of young and beautiful Mary Rogers was found floating in the Hudson River off the shores of New York City. She’d been strangled by a piece of lace tied so tightly around her neck it was hidden.”
“New York hasn’t changed much, has it?”
“Just like television news of today, the city’s newspapers back then were recklessly sensational with their reporting. Not only did they detail and print every piece of evidence, but the newspapers drew their own conclusions about that evidence, going so far as to name their own suspects. But for months the mystery remained unsolved.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then in November of that year
a brilliant young writer gathered together every published inch of newsprint on the murder of Mary Rogers. Get this . . . he never visited the scene of the crime. He didn’t interview any police officials or suspects, nor did he examine any of the physical evidence. All he worked with was the published stories before him. He picked up his quill pen, he dipped it into a bottle of ink, and he methodically tore into shreds each newspaper’s theory about the murder. He concluded by naming two new suspects who had been ignored by the police and the press.”
