Free True Crime by Andrew Klavan

anxious, saggy face. She had been at the
News
for a good many years. She was our living morgue, and an anchor for a staff of younger folks who tended to move on too quickly.
    Bob drew a breath, a long breath, before he spoke at last. “You got my message.”
    I nodded as remorsefully as I could. “Yeah.”
    He tossed his papers down on the desk in front of him. “Michelle Ziegler’s been in a car wreck,” he said.
    He said it bluntly like that, cruelly, as if it served me right, as if it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been in bed with Patricia. But, at first, it didn’t register. I was so fixed on the other thing between us. And then, for a crazy second, I thought it might be some nasty joke made for spite.
    “What? Michelle?”
    “She’s in a coma,” Bob went on coldly. “The doctors think she’s going to die.”
    “Oh! Oh no!” I felt it now. A weakness in my knees, a chill in my groin. “She’s twenty-three or something. She’s just out of school. She’s … she just got out of school.”
    “Yeah,” said Bob, and his voice was sad now, steadfastly decent as he was. “I guess that doesn’t count for much when you go full speed into a wall.”
    “Dead Man’s Curve,” said Jane March.
    “Aw, no,” I said. “Up by the parkway? That turn up there. Jesus. And they think she’s gonna die?”
    “Right now that’s how it looks,” said Bob.
    “Man oh man! That dumb broad. That poor kid. Jesus. She just got out of school.”
    So, for a moment, the little unpleasantness concerning my dick and Bob’s wife was washed aside by the image of Michelle. I could see her graceful body shattering against the windshield. I could feel the impact in my icy crotch. What the hell had she been doing? I thought. Drinking with her intellectual friends. Laughing with them, satirizing her ignorant colleagues till dawn. Too sure of herself to stay out of her car. Too stubborn to pull off the road. I wanted to shake her for being so stubborn, so sure. I wished I had shaken her the night before. Go home, I should’ve said to her. Stay home, write a better story. Make some calls, getsome facts. Write them up so well they
have
to print it. And she’d have done it too. She’d have listened to me. I don’t know why, but she always did. After she finished cursing me for a fascist and a pig and a this and that, she always came back and listened. I should’ve grabbed her by her stupid blouse front and shaken her till her eyes rattled.
    But now, the moment passed. Bob and Jane sat watching me and the whole situation crystallized in my mind. I lifted my glasses with one hand and massaged my brow. I understood the whole ridiculous business, and I felt sick.
    “All right,” I said. I sighed. “That stinks. That really stinks.”
    Bob nodded, frowned.
    I straightened. “So what do you need?”
    He went on watching me, his own thoughts moving behind the passionless features. I just felt sick. How had he found out? Why had he had to find out? I wished he would curse me for it. I wished I had never seen his goddamned wife at all. I wished for the days when we could’ve gone outside and shot at each other. Pistols in the
Bois de Boulogne
at dawn. It would’ve been easier to bear than this.
    “Michelle had an interview scheduled today with Frank Beachum,” Bob said finally.
    “Frank Beachum,” I repeated. I was thinking again about Michelle’s slender limbs, her brittle bones; Patricia’s long, strong figure; her breast beneath my hand. All the while, Bob’s steady gaze burned into me. I forced the images down. “Right,” I said, blinking once. “Right. Frank Beachum. The guy they’re gonna juice today. Right. I remember. Michelle had a seat for the show.”
    “She also had an interview with him. At four, face-to-face in the Deathwatch cell.”
    “Right. Okay. I remember that.”
    “Alan wants you to cover for her,” Bob said.
    “Alan. Right,” I said. I was beginning to focus again. I got the message.