The Dead Room (48 page)

He turned back in his seat and peered through the windows into the dead room. He was calling it the dead room, even though Nash had told him more than once that it was still called an execution chamber. As his eyes roamed back and forth, it felt more like a stage. More like an operating room with its tiled walls than a room that had been renovated and might once have housed a gas chamber or electric chair. In fact, Teddy had read somewhere over the past few weeks that the execution complex at Rockview had once been a field hospital.

He looked back through the bulletproof glass. A single chair was bolted into the floor, its design much like that of an airline seat reserved for first class. An electrical cord ran from a control box attached to the chair and was plugged into the wall. Teddy had expected to see a simple gurney. Instead, someone had built the padded chair specifically for the purpose of killing people. It looked cold and sterile and ultra modern—perhaps the work of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ghost. Beside a door on the far wall, a small shelf had been bolted into the tiles just large enough to hold a desk phone.

Why a desk phone? Why not a simple phone mounted to the wall?

A man entered the room. An older man dressed like a surgeon who might even double as a medical examiner. A face mask hung about his neck and he carried a pair of latex gloves. He stepped up to the chair, his eyes avoiding the twenty-five faces staring at him through the windows along the near wall. Then he pressed a button on the console. The chair tilted back and flattened into a lounge. When he pressed a second button, the curtains behind the windows closed.

“They’re bringing Andrews out,” Nash whispered. “It’ll only be a few minutes now.”

Teddy shivered in his seat, wondering if he could remain in the audience and watch the man die. He dug his hand into his pocket, pulling a small photograph out. It was a picture of his father. He’d taken it himself with a 35mm camera as they walked through the open field across the street from the house, rooting out pheasants hidden in the tall grass and watching the birds take flight. He looked into his father’s eyes and stroked his face with his finger. This is how he remembered him. Wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up. The carefree smile on his face with the afternoon sun whisking through his windblown hair.

Teddy had found some degree of closure over the past six years. On a weekend during Andrews’s first trial, he’d removed the accordion file from his mother’s closet and taken it into his bedroom. He’d always known she had kept a record of what happened to his father, saved the stories that appeared in the newspapers, but he could never look at them before. As he read about his father’s arrest and eventual death in prison, questions remained. He sought out the prosecutor, an ADA named Stephen Faulk, but couldn’t find him. From what he’d read, his mother had been right. Faulk was young and trying to make a name for himself in Chester County. Teddy’s father had been a man of good reputation and looked like a big prize. When Teddy asked her about it, she said that the prosecutor died a long time ago. He saw the look in her eyes, the hurt flaring up again, and didn’t want to press her for details unless he had to.

And so he began searching out what had happened to Stephen Faulk on his own. He started with the local police department, but no one could tell him anymore than what his mother had. Faces changed with the passage of time, and those who remained didn’t appear very interested or talkative. This surprised Teddy. For almost half his life, every time he’d seen a cop pass the house, he thought the story was the only thing on their minds. After several weeks of getting nowhere, Teddy went to the library and spent a day going through microfilm archives from the
Daily Local News
, a newspaper based in the county. His mother had stopped saving press clippings on the day of his father’s death. But it was the next two weeks that told the story. Faulk had pressed the detectives working the case for an arrest. He’d held press conferences on a daily basis, and used every opportunity to try the case in the papers before a court date was even set. It was obvious to Teddy that Faulk had a chip on his shoulder, and one reporter described his voice as shrill. But after his father died, everything changed. The accountant came forward, overcome with guilt, admitting that he was the real murderer, not Teddy’s father. Faulk actually tried to discount the confession, but local and county detectives took issue with the prosecutor and fought back. The controversy went on for a week or so, spilling into the press until the county decided they’d had enough and fired the man. Three days after that, Faulk’s body was found behind the wheel of his car with the garage door closed and the engine running. The piece of shit took the easy way out and ate the pipe.

Teddy’s nightmares seemed to vanish after he found out what actually happened. He threw himself into his career, looking after Oscar Holmes’s interests, but spending most of his time in the courtroom as a criminal defense attorney. Small cases at first, with Nash guiding him through the process. As his experience grew, his practice began to flourish. Often times Nash would take a day off from teaching to sit in the courtroom and watch. After each trial, particularly in the beginning, Nash would offer his detailed critique over a pot of hot coffee in the office. When Teddy began to hit his stride a year or so ago, they switched to fine wines and broadened the discussion.

As he gazed at the photograph, he wished his father was here to see how things had turned out. He wished his father could see that he was on his own and doing okay. He was managing his debt, living in an apartment in the woods in Radnor on County Line Road—a large house built well over a hundred years ago that had been cut into apartments, couldn’t pass the zoning laws, but no one in the neighborhood talked about. His mother seemed to have come into her own as well. She and Quint had someone new to paint with. A new friend in Oscar Holmes. Often times when Teddy stopped by for a visit, he’d find them in the studio painting together. Holmes had married his neighbor and adopted her daughter. Although he was managing to make a small living from his art work, he remained psychologically damaged from his ordeals with Alan Andrews and Eddie Trisco. Even worse, people still pointed at him on the street at times and called him the Veggie Butcher. Teddy’s mother was perhaps the only person on earth who understood what he was going through, and his frequent visits to the house seemed to help both of them.

*          *          *

The curtain opened to the dead room.

Teddy closed his hand around the photograph and slipped it into his pocket. As he looked at Andrews through the window, he realized his seat was too close. Less than three feet away.

Andrews had lost weight since the last time he saw him, and his skin was considerably more pale. He was strapped down to the chair, but seemed to be resting comfortably beneath a sheet. The doctor was wearing eye protection now, and the face mask was drawn tight over his mouth. The two appeared to be speaking as the doctor rolled the electrocardiogram closer and checked the wires attached to Andrews’s chest.

Teddy’s eyes flicked down to Andrews’s arms. A single IV was attached to each just above his wrists. Curiously, the plastic tubes connected to the needles snaked around the chair into a small opening on the far wall. Above the opening was another window, but the curtains remained drawn.

The lights dimmed in the witness room. Teddy’s focus shifted to the reflections on the glass. He could see the people sitting behind him, their faces taught and still. Some were wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. Others looked defiant. A woman in the back row, perhaps the reporter, started coughing and couldn’t seem to stop.

He checked his watch. 6:58 p.m. A man in a uniform whom Teddy guessed was the warden entered the dead room and stood by the telephone. It seemed like a formality because everyone knew that the governor had presidential aspirations. Executions were an image consultant’s dream and an important step if you were going to make a run as president of the free world. Odds were that the governor wouldn’t be making any calls from his mansion in Harrisburg tonight.

Teddy’s eyes drifted to the left and he noticed another window. Another witness room. He saw Detectives Vega and Ellwood behind the glass, along with District Attorney Carolyn Powell. She seemed edgy and vulnerable, but most of all, she looked tired. Teddy hadn’t seen her for a couple of years. Their relationship hadn’t survived his decision to practice criminal law as a defense attorney, or her promotion and election to the new job. For Carolyn, the prosecution of Andrews seemed to draw her into a cocoon and tighten her up. For Teddy, the trial had been a release. They still checked in with each other every couple of months or so, but never mentioned getting together for another round of martinis. It had become his drink of choice now. And he hadn’t ordered one in six years without thinking of her or remembering that night they’d spent together.

A light mounted on the far wall started blinking, and the speakers on the wall were switched on.

The warden glanced at the doctor, then asked Andrews if he would like to make a statement. Andrews declined with a simple shake of the head. As the two men left the room and the door closed, Andrews settled in beneath his restraints and took a deep breath. He was alone. Ready for the deepest of sleeps to begin.

Then the curtain opened in the window on the far wall, revealing three men wearing black hoods. As Teddy noticed them, he tried to remind himself that he was living in a civilized world. Still, the image of their eyes peering out from beneath their hoods in the anteroom behind Andrews was horrifying. He knew what they were doing. He was well aware of the process. The execution team was comprised of three prison employees. Two would be feeding Andrews a drug cocktail that would lead to an overdose and wash away the spark of life. The third would be feeding a dummy bag with the lethal brew. In the end, no one would be certain exactly who wiped out Andrews’s life.

Teddy thought he knew when the sodium Pentothal hit the man’s arm and made the big push. Andrews was fighting the anesthetic, but at fifty times the dosage in a normal operation, his eyes finally wavered and became lazy. Drifting across the ceiling, they floated down the wall until they passed over the window and penetrated the glass. He was searching out the faces in the audience, moving from one to the next in the dim light. He was lingering on some and passing over others until his eyes found Teddy in the front row and slid to a sleepy stop.

Teddy flinched. A wave of fear buzz-touched his spine, rattling across the back of his neck. The seconds ticked by in shivers. Almost a full minute. Andrews was staring at him. Giving him a last look before he let go and said good-bye to the witness who did him in. The expression on his face wasn’t hard, but unexpectedly gentle and relaxed. It seemed to last forever, and in a sense, it was.

When his eyes finally smoked out like a candle, Teddy thought he was dead and checked the monitor. To his surprise, Andrews’s heart continued beating. It took ten minutes for the pancuronium bromide to paralyze his diaphragm and collapse his lungs. A few minutes more before the potassium chloride reached his heart and pulled the last switch. Then the glint in his eyes shifted and faded and rolled off to the side, becoming lost in the distance of forever.

The chaos was over. The battle lost. The decision final.

After a moment, the doctor entered the room and walked over to the chair without glancing at Andrews’s corpse or the faces staring at him through the window. Teddy watched his hand drop to the console. When he pressed the button, the curtain closed.

SEVENTY-SIX

In spite of its length, most of the trip back to Philadelphia was spent in silence. As they drove from the airport into the city in Nash’s new Jaguar, Teddy noticed the crowds on the sidewalks and wondered what was going on at midnight. Then Nash pointed at a man on the corner waving a sign. ALAN ANDREWS IS DEAD. They were partying. Celebrating. Dancing in the streets.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead.

Teddy looked away, trying to keep his mind busy until they reached Nash’s office. There was the promise of a glass of wine. Teddy expected it would take more than one glass to settle his nerves.

Nash pulled into his space in the lot behind the building. As they climbed the stairs and entered the office, Nash switched on the lights and headed straight for the cabinet beside his desk. His limp was less noticeable, but still there.

“I don’t think champagne’s necessarily appropriate tonight. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Nash searched through the bottles until he found one to his liking. Then he pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and fished through a drawer for the corkscrew. Teddy moved to the jury table, lit a cigarette and sat down. He’d quit smoking a few years ago, but bought a pack for the night.

“I’ve got something I think might cheer you up,” Nash said.

“If it’s the wine, I’m ready.”

Nash laughed. “It’s old. Let’s hope it hasn’t turned. But I wasn’t thinking about the wine.”

He pulled the cork and carried the glasses over, filling each glass to the brim as he often did if they were drinking alone. Teddy tapped Nash’s glass with his own and took a first sip. The wine tasted clean and rich, and he glanced at the label as he swallowed another large mouthful. It was a Chateau La Mission Haut Brion that had been bottled nineteen years ago.