Favorite Sons (18 page)

Ricky Blood turned backward and hoisted himself onto the table without assistance. He was strapped down and an intravenous line inserted in his arm. The tube ran from his arm into another room where, out of sight, the lethal drugs awaited their ride into the veins of Ricky Blood. The warden asked Ricky if he had any last statements. He shook his head and said, “Nope. Let's do it.” At
the warden's signal, sodium thiopental was injected into the tubes. Within a few minutes, Ricky Blood's eyes closed for the final time. Once he was unconscious and his brain activity depressed, the intravenous line was flushed with saline and pancuronium bromide was injected into the line. A neuromuscular blocker, pancuronium bromide prevents the nerves from communicating with the muscles and causes paralysis of the lungs and respiratory arrest. Following another saline flush, potassium chloride was injected into the line, interrupting the heart's electrical mechanism. In seconds, it stopped beating.

When it became apparent that Ricky had not taken a breath for several minutes, a curtain was pulled across the windows of the viewing rooms. After the prison physician declared him dead, the curtains were again opened and the warden announced the time of death—10:11 a.m.

M
y cell phone service returned when I got just north of Chillicothe and away from the barrier hills. There were four missed calls, all from Shelly Dennison. I erased them in rapid order without listening. She had a habit of calling my cell while she was driving and left long, rambling messages that had no purpose, other than to sate her boredom. If the allotted time for leaving a message on my phone ran out, she simply called back and continued from that point. If any of the messages were important, she would call again. My first call was to Margaret, who dispensed with hello and asked, “Is that son of Satan dead?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Good. He made the world a better place by leaving. Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm, now maybe that poor little girl can rest in peace.”

“Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm” was Margaret's all-encompassing expression for a variety of emotions—joy, sadness, disbelief, anger. I had heard it uttered many times outside my office when someone wanted to get past her to me. “Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm. That is not going to happen.” You could sooner get past a momma grizzly protecting her den than you could get past Margaret and into my office without an appointment. This included one monumental confrontation with Shelly, who shortly after becoming my campaign manager tried to brush by Margaret and into my office. I heard Margaret say, and could visualize that chubby index finger swaying
back and forth in front of Shelly's nose, “You remember this, missy, you may run his campaign, but I run this office. You want to see Mr. Van Buren, you come to me first.”

By the time I opened the door they were nose to nose, Shelly's eyes had turned to slits, and the venom was about to pour from her mouth. “Ladies, this is no place for a cage match,” I said. “Please step in here.” After twenty minutes of mediation, Shelly agreed to try to call ahead for appointments, and Margaret agreed that Shelly was due some scheduling latitude in light of the complexities of running a statewide political campaign. However, the truce was tenuous at best, and Margaret refused to refer to Shelly as anything but “the girl,” and Shelly pretended not to be able to remember Margaret's name, calling her “that large black woman who sits outside your office.”

Margaret Benning was fifty-two, highly intelligent, and profoundly religious, had skin the color of obsidian, the sense of humor of a military policeman, a rear end the size of a truck, and was the most intensely loyal human being I have ever known. She kept me on schedule, guarded my office with the ferocity of a Rottweiler, smelled heavily of lilac, and adored floral neckerchiefs, making Christmas shopping for her easy.

After I was elected Summit County prosecutor in 1996, Margaret was one of the hundreds of applicants to be my executive assistant. She was one of the few who didn't have some connection to the Republican Party seeking a return for favors so slight that they weren't worth mentioning. To be brutally honest, she got the interview because she was black. I had narrowed the field to a half-dozen candidates when my chief of staff brought to my attention that I had not one person of color on the list of finalists. I didn't think that was important, but at his insistence I selected three minority candidates, of which Margaret appeared to be the least qualified. She had not been employed for ten years while she was home raising three babies to two different husbands. She was fresh off the second divorce and desperate for employment. We hit it off immediately and I offered her the job on the spot; she kissed me full on the lips and danced around my office like she had just won the grand prize on a
television game show. It remains the only expression of uncontrolled exuberance I have seen from Margaret Benning since that day.

The previous year we had to trim five percent out of our budget and I teasingly told Margaret that she had better shape up or she might be one of the casualties. She planted two fists on her ample hips and said, “Mr. Van Buren, I'm a black, fifty-two-year-old single mother. I know you ain't messing with me.” I thought about that comment the day Ricky Blood told me that I understood dealing from a position of power. Maybe I did, but no one understood it better than Margaret.

“So, what's going on back there?” I asked.

“Oh, it's all sunshine and kittens here, Mr. Van Buren. You leave town in the middle of a campaign and miraculously everything gets nice and quiet.”

“You're kidding.”

She drew in a breath and I knew she was rolling her eyes at me. “Of course I'm kidding. The phone hasn't stopped ringing today since I parked myself in this chair.” I choked back the urge to laugh, listening to her flip through the pages of the spiral pad she kept on her desk. “Let's see, I've had five calls from folks wanting you to speak to their group; calls from a couple of very annoying, very persistent people who want jobs if you win the election, a request for an interview by a newspaper reporter in Zanesville, and a call from a lovely woman named Gladys Pickleseimer, who is about ninety-six and deaf as a haddock, who asked if you would consider being the grand marshal of the Obetz Zucchini Festival parade. It took me fifteen minutes of screaming into the phone to get her to understand that I couldn't make that decision. I'm still not sure that she understood, but I had to hang up on the poor thing before I went completely hoarse.”

“Busy morning,” I offered.

“Well, that was just the campaign. Then, of course, there's this annoying little daytime job you have. Let's see what occurred here. The secretary for the county commissioners called for the third time in the past week wanting to know why you haven't called to schedule a meeting with the commissioners to discuss next year's budget. Detective Guilivo of Akron P. D. called in with his shorts
in a bunch because the West Akron Rapist case goes to the grand jury next week and you two have yet to meet to prepare. And you apparently told Joe Steele that you would help him with his opening statement in the Jimmy Knox murder case. He's been back here three times looking for you this morning. He's the nicest man I know, but I'm going to snap his neck if he comes back here one more time.”

“I'm waving the white flag, Margaret. I give.” I started laughing. “I'm sorry, really.”

“Oh yeah, you sound sorry, all right.”

“Okay, are you ready?”

“Pencil in hand.”

“Send the speaking requests and the zucchini lady to Shelly.”

“With pleasure.”

“Tell anyone looking for a job that I won't even consider filling positions until after the election.” “Uh-hum, that's a lie.”

Margaret hated lies on any level. She knew I'd already had discussions with several people about filling posts in the attorney general's office, but I couldn't be bothered with every request for every secretary's position. “I know, but it's just a little lie and it will give you an easy out when they call back. Give the reporter in Zanesville my cell phone number and tell him . . . him or her?

“Him. Cal Kapral.”

“Tell Cal he can call me any time after three o'clock. Schedule my meeting with the commissioners—sometime late next week. Call Detective Guilivo and tell him to relax; the rape case is a slam dunk indictment. I'll give Joe a call in a few minutes to go over his opening remarks. Anything else, Margaret?”

“The girl called twice wanting to know if I'd heard from you.”

“I'll give her a call.”

“You do that, so she'll quit bothering me.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope. Now, you're sure that boy's dead, right?”

“Quite.”

“My other line is ringing. I've got to go.”

And with that, the line went dead.

*    *    *

In part, I relayed the story of Ricky Blood because it gives a good snapshot of what I have been doing with my life for the past thirty years. Oddly, there is a direct tie between Ricky Blood and my current political aspirations. It was Ricky, or more accurately, his lawyer, who unwittingly launched me on my quest to be Ohio's next attorney general. It occurred two years earlier when one of Ricky's attorneys filed an appeal stating the death penalty was cruel and unusual and the state couldn't guarantee Ricky a painless death. A reporter from the Associated Press called me and asked for a comment. It was the first time I had heard about the appeal and it hit such a nerve that I was unable to censor myself. I said, “Painful, compared to what— keeping an innocent girl tied up in the basement for a week while he raped and tortured her before burning her alive? Any pain he feels will be a fraction of what Tina Westmoreland went through, not to mention her family, so quite frankly I'm not too concerned with the amount of pain Mr. Buchanan feels from an intravenous needle.”

The article and my comments went out over the national wire. I was inundated with letters and e-mails, a few of which chastised me for being so cavalier about the death penalty, but an overwhelming majority supported my comments and said it was about time someone stood up for the victims of these crimes. Three days after the Associated Press interview, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party navigated his way past Margaret and was sitting in my office, attempting to recruit me to run for state attorney general. He said the Republicans had not a single viable candidate and just when it looked like they would have to concede the office, I had “arisen like a Phoenix from the ashes.” Part of me thought it sounded a little hokey, but I liked the mental image and I accepted his invitation. He suggested that I hire Shelly Dennison as my campaign manager, saying, “she has a real taste for the jugular. You'll love her.”

Until that moment, I had no lofty political aspirations. However, it came at a time in my life when I was again watching the clock on the wall. I knew my days as a prosecutor were numbered.

I had a great job putting bad guys in jail and on death row. I liked it, and I was good at it. Many of my law school compatriots were making a lot more money in corporate law or as defense attorneys, whom, in the case of the latter, I routinely pounded in the courtroom. I brought a swaggering, tin-badge-and-six-shooter mentality to the office. I was slow to negotiate plea bargains, particularly when I believed the accused deserved a harsh penalty. This was the central theme to my campaigns, and the public seemed to appreciate my take-no-prisoners approach.

Although I loved my job, I knew it was time to move on. I had known this for a while. The job was consuming me. It absorbed most of my waking hours and I seemed unable or, sadly, powerless to change. Being the Summit County Prosecuting Attorney was the overriding passion in my life. It was how I identified myself. I thrived on the ego surge and adrenaline rush that coursed through my veins when I won in the courtroom. It was my drug, and it was every bit as addictive as crack cocaine.

A few years back, I realized the job was getting the best of me as I planned for the trial of Jimbo Mull, a habitual drunk who returned to a Twinsburg automobile repair shop a few hours after being fired and emptied a .38 Special into the torso of his former boss. The wife of the victim opposed the death penalty and did not want to be subjected to a lengthy court battle. She asked that I accept an offer from Mull's attorney for a guilty plea in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without a chance of parole. I refused her request. I wanted to send the bastard to the death chamber as I believed it was the only penalty that fit the crime.

The lead detective on the case was Andy Esposito, as soft-spoken a man as I have ever met. During a pre-trial meeting, Esposito spent twenty minutes trying to persuade me to accept the plea deal. Finally, exasperated, he rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips and said, “Let me tell you a story, boss. When I was in Vietnam we hopped on a chopper and made a run somewhere in Quang Tri Province to pick up some Viet Cong prisoners. There were four of them. We landed, loaded them up, and headed south. We hadn't been in the air a minute when one of them starts acting up, he's yelling in Vietnamese to the other three, looking at us, gesturing with his head, sneering, yelling,
spitting, looking back at his buddies, more yelling. I knew just enough Vietnamese to understand that he wanted to try to overtake us. Their hands were tied behind their backs, but there were still four of them and I certainly didn't want to start shooting inside a helicopter. I start yelling at the guy, telling him to knock it off, but he didn't understand anything I was saying. I get close to him and yell and he spits in my face. He starts yelling again and tries to get up. I push him down with my foot, then a couple of the others start to get up. Me and my buddy, we didn't discuss it or think about it, we each grabbed an arm, walked him to the open door and pitched him out.” “