“Yes.” Cavanaugh drew with a forefinger horizontally across empty air. “Up here is the level of love I had for Chris. Have for Chris. 99.99 percent of maximum.” He then lowered his finger and made a wavy motion. “And down here is all the bullshit static that interferes with our ability to love. All the brain chemistry, all the hormones, all the psychological noise. Stable people are stable because they have developed ways — ways they are not even aware of — to suppress the static.”
“So her dreams….” Alan said.
Cavanaugh regarded the younger man for a minute. “You get it. When she started dreaming and calling her lover, my static rocketed upwards. I lost my focus on what was important. I ran.”
Alan nodded, scribbling. “And after six months on the road?”
“I realized the static was greatly diminished. I got used to the memories. They scarred over. Simple as that. When the static level fell below the love line, I realized it was just a dream after all. And I headed home.”
If Matt Cavanaugh had arrived home one day before, maybe even one or two hours before, maybe one day later, he might still be happily married. He and his wife might be driving their children off to college today. But he had arrived at just the wrong time.
“My keys still fit the lock. Her car wasn’t there — I assumed she was at work. I didn’t know she had traded in the old one. I heard noises from upstairs, so I went to my gun vault and took out my pistol. I crept up the stairs and threw the door to the bedroom open. I saw her riding this guy. The static exploded in my head. I saw her fucking the man in the dream. The dream. It had come to life. My mind refused to accept it.”
“And I pulled the trigger.”
Long silence. The fans overhead whirred.
“I read something once that should be tattooed on every man’s chest. A guy who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived said he realized on his way down all the problems in his life were fixable — except this one.”
“The instant the slug left the barrel I knew I could have repaired everything.”
Alan swallowed hard. “So you didn’t know what you were doing.”
The condemned man smiled. “I didn’t. But I did. That’s why there is tomorrow.”
“And Mr. Linwood?”
Cavanaugh spat. “Motherfucker deserved to die. Fucking a married woman. Fucking my wife.”
Alan tapped his pencil on one knee. A psychiatrist might have used some of this story to present Cavanaugh in a more sympathetic light — well, maybe a less unsympathetic one. But Cavanaugh had apparently not offered the story. The only story he allowed was that he did it and he was willing to pay the price.
The prisoner offered no more information, so Alan broke the long pause and began to work his way through a list of questions he had been adding to since first hearing about the case. They were not particularly insightful, he realized about halfway. The answers contributed nothing to a deeper understanding of the man or of the crime. He was just wasting pencil lead.
The excitement of the Pulitzer died away to nothing, then fell deeper and deeper until he was squeezed empty. Depressed and hollow. It was suddenly harder for him to fill his lungs.
There was one window to the outside in this room. He could see the light fading. He could see no trees or birds. No grass. Just the metal grid and the fading day.
He had only one more question.
“Last wish?”
That caught Cavanaugh by surprise. He blew out a breath while he thought.
“Last wish? I wish there is a Heaven and a Hell. I wish as I am falling into Hell I am allowed to pass by Heaven and the cloud Christine is sitting on. Just so I could see her one last time before I burn.”
“But she was cheating on you,” Alan pointed out.
Cavanaugh gave him such a glare the reporter was grateful for the thick glass window.
“When she fell off him, I saw he had just an average penis. He wasn’t the hung lover of her dreams. It came to me then she was just lonely. I had deserted her without a word for six months. Could she have been faithful to me for that long? Sure. Would I blame her for drinking too much and bringing a warm body home for some human contact?”
Alan sat still during the long silence.
“She was on the floor. I got down and held her. I told her I was sorry. I told her I loved her.”
“I told her she would be okay.”
Cavanaugh stared at the floor for a time.
“They want to punish me? I have been punished all along.”
Alan was confused by the tense. Have been punished? The execution was tomorrow.
Cavanaugh saw his confusion.
“Not… that,” the man said. “It was… it is….” He hesitated, his face aged beyond his years and yet guileless as a child.
“I have not dreamed of her. Not once in these twenty stinking years.”
Something in Cavanaugh triggered, and Alan jerked back as the other man hammered on the glass.
“SHE WAS IN MY DREAMS ALL THE TIME BEFORE! NOW I CAN’T SEE HER–”
A guard ran toward Cavanaugh, his hand on his baton. Alan jumped up.
Cavanaugh sobbed. As the guard ripped the handset from him, the doomed man cried, “Why? Why?”
Another guard appeared and the two officers restrained the prisoner.
“WHERE IS SHE?” Cavanaugh screamed, as though Alan was personally responsible.
Then he was gone. The room was quiet.