True Crime by Andrew Klavan Page A

overstrode. He must’ve known how they laughed at him behind his back. He must’ve known what they called him. Proud as he was of his walkie-talkie and his cowboy jeans, it must’ve niggled at the chaplain that he was not a real guard. He had no real power to make the inmates walk the line, and they laughed at him. In his parish in St. Charles, the men might have spoken to him as if he were a woman, but at least they treated him like a lady. Frank thought about Shillerman telling his death row tales to his admiring friends. He thought those tales must’ve needed a good deal of embellishment before they really made the grade.
    “Now … son,” Shillerman said, shaking his head regretfully. “Son, I don’t need to tell you that there is gonna come a time, and I’m afraid that time is not far off, when you may wish you’d made a different decision but it’ll be too late. I don’t want to be too blunt here but there’s no sense in mincing words. I’m your chaplain, and I don’t want you to go to your death with this terrible crime on your head.”
    Frank’s anger surged through him, an acid gout. Christ,if he should lose control. When Bonnie was coming, when Gail …
    “Now, you know, I’m your chaplain, and anything you say to me …”
    “Benson,” said Frank, very softly. Then a little louder: “Hey, Benson.”
    The duty officer’s chair scraped the floor as he stood eagerly from his table. “What can I get you, Frank?”
    Frank’s eyes met the Reverend Stanley B’s. He cleared his throat and measured the volume of his voice before he spoke again. Then, tightly, softly, he said, “You can get me this goddamned son-of-a-bitch out of here.” And lifting his cigarette yet again, his hand trembling so badly that the ash fell off of itself, he muttered: “Reverend Shit-fer-brains.”
    The chaplain heard that. Oh yes. Oh, he knew that was his nickname, universally through the prison. Sure he did—and Frank bet that little detail didn’t figure in any of his dinner party stories. In fact, he bet it made the reverend kind of mad. Oh yes it did. It was making him mad right now. Frank could see it, with some very unchristian satisfaction, as Shillerman’s mouth twitched and his throat started working to swallow the insult down.
    As the guard came up behind him, the chaplain managed to go on in that gentle, God-loves-you drawl: “Now, Frank. I’m being honest with you here. I myself would not want to be strapped to that table tonight with the wrongs I’ve done unspoken and unrepented of …”
    Benson put his hand on the preacher’s shoulder. “Hey, Reverend, come on.”
    “Because when they put that needle in your arm …”
    “Jesus, Reverend,” Benson said. His eyes flicked at Frank, then back. “I’m telling you: come on.”
    Not resisting, but not moving either, still keeping his hands clasped before him, the Reverend Stanley B. Shillermanlooked at CO Benson as if down from a great height. “It may be upsetting, but I feel I have a job to do here.”
    “Well, yeah, but … I mean, you know the rules, Chaplain. Spiritual counseling is strictly at the prisoner’s request.”
    “Get him out of here,” Frank said.
    “I’m sorry for you, Frank,” said Shillerman.
    “I’m sorry too,” said Frank thickly. “Believe me.”
    “Come
on
, Reverend,” Benson said, really nervous now, hearing the tone of Frank’s voice. “I’m serious here. We don’t want any trouble.” He even tugged at the chaplain’s arm lightly.
    “All right, all right,” said the chaplain. He raised his two hands as if in benediction. He smiled his lofty blessing upon them all.
    Benson kept his arm extended behind the man as they walked to the door together, as if he were afraid Shillerman would turn suddenly and make a break for the cage again. But the chaplain permitted himself only one last backward look of pity and sorrow. Then the guard at the door opened at Benson’s knock and Shillerman was