The Executioner's Song (69 page)

Barrett only spoke to Gary for four or five minutes, but as he later told Earl, it was one of those things in his life that he didn’t know if he’d ever get over.

A reporter hanging around the office picked up the story. After it was printed, Barrett got calls from all over the country. ABC correspondent Greg Dobbs rang in from Chicago and said, “I’ll be out this weekend, can I interview you? Can I come to your home?” Before it was over, they set a time. Radio stations in the Deep South interviewed him by telephone. In Utah!

Work hit Earl like never before. In the criminal division of the Attorney General’s office, there were only two full-time attorneys, Barrett and himself, plus a few law clerks and secretaries. That was not much staff to take on all that was coming in. Right next day, for instance, Dorius ran into two well-known Salt Lake lawyers named Gfl Athay and Robert Van Sciver, and they were holding a press conference out in the hall of the Utah Supreme Court a floor above the Attorney General’s office. Earl heard them saying to the cameras that they intended to request a Stay of Gilmore’s execution on behalf of all other Death Row inmates at Utah State Prison. Athay’s client was one of the “hi-fi killers.”

The call came in from Deputy Warden Hatch. A little later, Maximum Security was on the line with Lieutenant Fagan who introduced the convict. Barrett heard this soft-spoken man who sounded very rational. He didn’t rant, rave, yell or scream. In fact he kept saying, Mr. Barrett.

First thing he asked about was getting a new lawyer.

“Mr. Gilmore,” said Barrett, “I believe I understand your situation, but this office can’t do anything. A new appointment is up to the Court.”

“Well, Mr. Barrett,” said Gilmore, “it is not a spur-ofthe-moment decision. I have given a lot of thought to this, and I feel I should pay for what I have done.”

“The difficulty, Mr. Gilmore,” Barrett said, “is that it may not be

The hi-fi killers had been convicted of killing several people in a record store. First they poured Drano down their throats, then pushed ballpoint pens into their ears. Those were the most gruesome killings in Utah for many years, exactly the kind to bring capital punishment back in one big hurry, Gilmore, by asking for his execution, wasn’t going to sweeten public opinion toward the hi-fi killers.

Yes, it was heating up fast. Too fast. Dorius had been looking forward to a conference in Phoenix for corrections officials that he and Barrett were going to attend, but this was a poor time to leave the shop. Earl was being interviewed like crazy by members of the media. They caught him in his office, at home, on the street-everywhere.

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Don’t the people of Utah have the courage of their convictions? You sentence a man to die —me —and when I accept this most ex treme punishment with grace and dignity, you, the people of Utah want to back down and argue with me about it. You’re silly.

Right after that, Warden Smith called. Another Gilmore letter to

him:

SYNCHRONICITY Sir, I do not wish to see any members of the press. However there is a man named Dennis Boaz, free lance writer, and former attorney, who I do desire to see. Mr. Boaz is the only exception to my no-interview rule.

Who, wondered Earl, is Dennis Boaz?

No sooner had Earl Dorius and Bill Barrett arrived at the correction officials conference, than they noticed that Gary Gilmore was hot news in Phoenix too. TV reports every night. In fact, they even saw the interview Greg Dobbs did with Bill Barrett on the ABC evening news. To be actually seeing Barrett on national network!

Then Earl and Bill met two Assistant Attorney Generals from the State of Oregon who talked about what a problem Gilmore used to be in the Oregon prison system. It seems he was never satisfied with his false teeth, Every time they made a new set, he would flush them down the toilet. The prison finally said that if he sent any more chop pers that route, he’d be gumming his food for the rest of his peniten tiary life. These Assistant Attorney Generals now said jokingly that after Gilmore was executed, Utah ought to return the plates to the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Next day, new developments. If you jacked up an old plaster ceiling, you couldn’t have more fast-developing cracks in a situation. The Utah Supreme Court had just ruled on Snyder and Esplin’s peti tion for an appeal and had given Gilmore a Stay of Execution whether he wanted it or not. Now, nobody knew when it would come off. Same day, Gilmore sent a letter back to the Court. The papers naturally printed it. Earl thought he could hardly believe what he was reading.

On Sunday night, Gary said to Cline Campbell, “I need your help. I have no lawyer and I figure to be in Court in a few days. I can always go up there and represent myself, but it would look more serious if I have an attorney.” He handed a letter to Campbell. “This man says he’s a lawyer. Will you contact him?” When Campbell promised he would, Gilmore added, “You got to do it quick.”

The letter gave no telephone number. Monday morning, Camp bell drove to the address on the envelope, and ran into a fellow just leaving the apartment. He turned out to be Boaz’s roommate, and said, “Dennis is in bed, but I’ll get him up. He’s been writing all night.”

After Campbell told Boaz why he .had come, both took a good look at each other. Campbell had to squint toward the ceillng. Boaz was as tall as a basketball player, six-four at least, and, like a tele scope, seemed to go up in extensions. At the top, he had a pleasant serious face, dark hair, and a dark brush mustache. To Campbell he looked as much like a tall skinny doctor or dentist as a lawyer.

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Since Dennis had been living rent-free in the basement his first thought when Campbell arrived was that the fellow might be a creditor. Campbell looked like a tough clean little soldier. He had a no-nonsense look, straight as starch. Of course Dennis had this new Saab he was out on a limb on. What the hell, he was broke. In fact, he owed ten grand. Under such circumstances, he naturally thought Campbell had come to repossess the Saab. The moment he found out Cline was instead the bearer of good tidings, he was able to take a lik ing to him. A gentle soft-spoken man, he decided, courteous and con cerned.

The place was looking a mess. Everson, his roommate, was a little disorganized at the time, and so there were books and papers all over, and this big double bed in the front room, somewhat chaotic, right. Campbell wasn’t going to be impressed unless he could see that the place had decent atmosphere. Everson was a good dude for letting him stay there, since it certainly interfered with Everson hav ing any ladies around. Yet being such a good person about it, Everson’s attitude mellowed out the chaos. Besides, Boaz felt he was now in the positive channel of the flow. He could carry off worse ap pearances than this.

He told Campbell it would only take an hour to get ready but then he had to get batteries for his tape recorder, and check in on his legal job for the bus drivers’ union. That was supposed to pay him a nominal retainer but hadn’t yet. With it all, he didn’t get out to the prison till two o’clock, three hours later.

The prison was at Point of the Mountain, twenty miles south from Salt Lake C..ty, halfway to Orem and Provo, and just opposite the place on the Interstate where the mountain came down to the road. To the right, at the exit, you got a good look at all the barrens stretching west, and then a view of the prison right at the edge of the desert, a compound of low yellow stone buildings behind a high wire fence.

Boaz parked his Saab, walked under the guard tower and into the Administration Building. It had a small entrance and no lobby,

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just two narrow hallways intersecting at right angles and an informa tion window to one side of this cross. It was like the dinky office you might find inside the door of a large warehouse. The guards wore maroon blazers that were too short in the back for those who had big asses, and Boaz could see them strolling down the hall, or going in and out of the crashing double gates that led into Medium Security. A trustee standing by a glass museum case was selling convict-made tooled leather belts to a group of tourists. Compared to California prisons he’d seen, Dennis tho-:ght it was old and funky for a state penitentiary. Still, it didn’t have the worst vibration, but was Eind of farmlike. Simple faces on the guards, and sly, like they’d been out in the hay. Yet nothing invidious or technologically corrupt. Why, some of the older guards had bellies sticking out large as wheelbarrows, yes, a simple place relatively speaking, country people as they should be. Some very tough dudes among the guards.

Outside the Warden’s offce was a typed message tacked to the wall:

I hate guys Who criticize Vigorous guys Whose enterprise Has helped them rise Above the guys Who criticize

Sam Smith •

Then the office. Small for a Warden’s den, and awful small for Sam Smith who was even taller than Dennis and had a big numb hulk of a body. He looked kind of a cross, Dennis thought, between Boris Karloff and Andy Warhol, and wore big light-shelled plastic-frame glasses. In fact, he spoke in a soft voice.

“I think,” said Dennis, “you have some knowledge of my coming here.”

“No,” said Smith, “I don’t know anything about it.”

Awful cautious man, thought Dennis. Smith, he decided, was in a frozen space, expression-wise. Leaned back in his chair and looked at his visitor with circumspection.

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Dennis explained that he was there as a writer. Gilmore wanted

to discuss the possibility .of doing an interview with him.

“Oh,” said Smith, “we can’t let any writers in.”

“Well, Gilmore wants to see me. He sent the Chaplain.”

Smith shook his head. These were very Warden-type energies, Dennis decided. Many layers of control over fear — didn’t want anything to interfere with that control.

“What is this?” said Dennis, starting to get angry. “The man’s going to die soon, and no one’s getting any access to him. He wants to see me. He wants to talk.”

“I just can’t let any writers in,” said Smith. Man, his body was rigid. For a big man, Smith moved all right, but he sure was tightly controlled. Dennis didn’t like him, not the way he’d sit in his chair, cold, worried, not smiling.

Sam Smith sat there thinking for a long time. His next remark surprised Dennis. “Well,” said the Warden, “you are a lawyer.”

He sure knows, thought Dennis, a lot more about me than he has let on up to now.

From California, Dennis told him. Well, murmured Sam Smith in reply, we couldn’t interfere with Gilmore’s right to see a lawyer.

Now Boaz was beginning to get it. Could it be that Smith wanted him around instead of Esplin and Snyder? Even if they had been fired, they were still the only Gilmore lawyers in existence. Already, they had caused a delay. Of course! The Warden wanted the execution to take place on time.

Sam Smith still wasn’t friendly. In fact, you might say he was physically intimidating. But now he said in that quiet voice, never looking at Boaz, that the only way Mr. Boaz could get in was as a legal counselor. Something would have to be put in writing to that effect.

Dennis drafted a note to say he wouldn’t do magazine or newspaper articles, and was in the prison as a lawyer. He added, however, that he waswriting this at the Warden’s request, and made a point of saying, “Our agreement is illegal.” The Warden was angered. It came off him like the radiation from a heated iron skillet. Obviously, these procedures all meant a great deal to Sam Smith. The man had something to prove.

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Boaz was let in, but without his tape recorder. A guard took him outside the Administration Building and they walked in the November air about a hundred yards over to Maximum Security, one ugly squat building by itself. There Boaz was put in a fairly large visiting room, maybe 4o by 25, with only a guard in a bulletproof glass cage to keep an eye on him. That guard was controlling the door to get in and out, but probably couldn’t hear much inside his booth. He was half asleep. Stupor on top of old woe was the sad vibration Dennis was getting from Maximum.

Dennis’s first impression was that an intelligence had just come into the room. Gilmore showed a quiet indrawn face. Dennis thought he might not have noticed him on the street unless they made eye contact. Gilmore had smoky gray-blue eyes with a lot of light in them. Startling. A direct clear gaze. Since he was wearing the loose white coveralls of Maximum Security, and had come into the room barefoot, Dennis could see him as a holy man in New Delhi.

They got off to a good start. Boaz laid an awful lot down real fast. Told of his law background, Boalt Hall at Berkeley-Gary’s nod showed he knew these were worthy credentials — and of the time he had put in as assistant prosecutor in the D.A.’s office of Contra Costi County a little northwest of San Francisco. He had been a pot-smoking prosecutor, he made a point of telling Gary. While he had dealt in the punitive side of the law, his sympathies were more to the defense. That was probably because of listening to Ginsberg and Kerouac back in the late fifties when just a college freshman-he and Gilmore must be about the same age, they agreed — and then later giving his sympathies to people like Mario Savio, Jerry Rubin, and the Berkeley movement in general. He pinpointed his life with these names — Gilmore knew the names.

Lately, he had not practiced much law, Boaz said. Too restricting. He was interested more in the consciousness movement, encounter groups, meditation, Sufi, the process called FischerHoff-man. He had come out of that process so moved by the