The Executioner's Song (77 page)

Nicole had fallen asleep on top of a picture of Gary in a little gold frame, just a color photo in a blue jacket in prison, but he was look ing good. Next to the picture was a letter, and Kathy saw at a glance that it was an old one, written early in August. She noticed the date because Nicole had often talked about how much his first long letter meant to her. Then Kathy tried to wake Nicole up again. All the while, Jeremy was looking at both of them.

Finally, Kathy called on Sherry, another neighbor, and both women went over to shake Nicole, and stood around on the balcony in their Levi’s and bare feet, looking worried. About the time they decided to ring the doctor, there came along that reporter, Jeff New man, heading right toward Nicole’s door, and Kathy hollered out, “She’s asleep. Nicole’s asleep.”

Jeff Newman stared at them kind of funny, and said, “Is she all right? I’m supposed to take her out to the prison this morning.” Kathy said, “Yes, she’s just tired.” He said, “I’ll be back in half an hour,” and went away. Then they called Sherry’s doctor. The mo ment he heard Nicole’s name, he told them to call the hospital,

The cops were running around the apartment trying to find pill bottles, and the ambulance men worked fast, checked her out and had Nicole on a stretcher, and Kathy went looking for Jeremy, who was now over at her apartment with her kids. They were all eating jello out of the fridge. Just then, Jeff Newman came back. Kathy said, “I don’t know whether Nicole appreciates you being here.” “Well, I’m not leaving,” he told her.

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Kathy decided with people like Jeff poking around, she’d better get Nicole’s letters. So she took a brown paper sack, stuffed them in, and camed it all back to her apartment. Then Les came by and Kathy went out to get milk for the kids, and, while she was gone, a couple of police showed, and told Les they wanted the letters. Maybe they had been watching the apartment. Told Les that Kathy could get in real trouble. Les said, “Okay, take ‘em back.” Later in the day, Kathy tried to visit Nicole at the hospital, but the authorities weren’t letting anybody in, only family. In fact, Kathy never got to see Nicole again.

Conversations with Gary over the weekend had been full of literary and philosophical questions on the nature of prison, and this Tuesday morning, Dennis was looking forward to talking about the murders. Naturally, he had a lot of curiosity. It hit hard when the reporter phoned to ask what Mr. Boaz thought of Gary and Nicole’s double suicide attempt. Dennis had completely forgotten “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” He said to himself, “I’m not in touch with anything.” To the reporter, he said, “Are they alive?”

“Hanging in,” said the reporter.

Only yesterday, a friend had suggested to Dennis that he get an agreement in writing from Gary. He hadn’t wanted to. In unusual cir cumstances like these, a contract would suffocate any possibility for decent human relations. He had had, however, to admit that Gary was getting businesslike. Yesterday, he had shown a little interest in Susskind, and was talking about Schiller, who had sent him a tele gram. Dennis had heard a new interest coming into Gary’s voice. That was why the suicide attempt surprised him so.

Then the day got worse. Another reporter called to say, Mr. Boaz, you have been put on Sam Smith’s list of people who could have slipped the drugs to Gilmore. Dennis felt sick. What if, unknown to him, the prison had been recording his conversations with Gary? They might have taped the one where he talked with Gary about

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bringing in fifty Seconals but not the next visit where he told Gary he certainly wouldn’t and couldn’t. At that moment, Dennis knew something about the cold, clammy hand of fear when it takes possession your guts. No clich6. His guts were being handled by an force.

Out at the hospital, a man from Newsweek gave the same new,, Boaz was the Warden’s number-one suspect. Then Geraldo Rivera ABC said as much. Dennis thought, I don’t need this a bit.

It became a day of catharsis for him and much emotion. At the thought of Gary dead, or Nicole gone, Dennis felt such a sense of loss that he began to wonder if he could keep asking in good conscience that Gary be executed.

At just that point, Geraldo Rivera suggested an interview, and they went up to his hotel suite to discuss it. To protect Gary, Dennis had stayed away from pot this last week, and had none on his person, but he figured Rivera might know somebody to turn him on, and, in fact, there was a reporter in the hotel with some high-quality Thai. Dennis took it into his lungs like love. But then there was always the reasonable premise that a portion of God’s love had been put into grass. Of course, Dennis had also run into a fellow who had the interesting counterhypothesis that what came into your lungs as love was a facsimile offered by the devil. An interesting argument, but all Dennis knew right now was that fine grass affected him emotionally. Went right to his heart.

As he sat in the hotel room, talking with Geraldo Rivera, he started to have this overwhelming feeling of the great hopelessness of the situation, and began to cry. Dennis couldn’t help himself. He just began to sob aloud in front of Geraldo. It was all so much sadder than he had conceived.

Afterward, Tamera would be the first to say that it sure sounded like she was stupid, but at the time, she had no idea her piece was going to be put on the front page.

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A couple of months back, when she first started at the Deseret News, she actually got a front-page by-line for a story on the break in the Teton Dam. That was terrific for a cub reporter. She thought the Teton Dam piece was going to be her one and ever, and she wasn’t even thinking of something as big as that again. So Monday afternoon, after she left Nicole, she returned to the paper, read through the letters, and worked on her story all night without thinking once where they’d put it. Yet by the time she finished, 7 A.M., she should have known. There were other people working with her now including a couple of editors. She just assumed the story might be sensitive to the readership, and so they wanted to take a look. Still, everybody was gathered at her desk, helping with last-minute corrections, and it even became one of those pull-it-out-of-the-typewriter, get-itto-the-printer jobs. They went to press at eight in the morning and Tamera hung in helping write cut lines, and about eight-thirty or nine, she was ready to go to bed but felt like seeing her story in print first. So, she went for a walk while waiting for the first edition.

Tamera ended up over at the Visitors Center at Temple Square and went up the ramp. It was a large spiral walkway that curved up through the air so you felt as if you were ascending into the universe or the galaxies. A dark blue ceiling was overhead and at the summit was a huge statue of Jesus. A beautiful place. Tamera had gone there other times to be alone and ponder. Very gentle peacefulness was out there. You could feel powerful bodies hovering around you, almost, and she prayed that her story would count and things would somehow work out for Nicole.

Then Tamera came back to the paper, and never had she seen a newsroom so electric. She knew something immense had landed right on top of their deadline. A story was being put together so fast, they were putting it right into the terminal that went to typesetting. Really wild. Her editor came up, and said, “Nicole and Gilmore tried to commit suicide. They are in Intensive Care. Start writing a little story.” Tamera said, “Wow.” Sat down at her typewriter, not even knowing what she was supposed to do.

Death and suicide, Tamera began, were the main topic in convicted killer Gary Mark Gilmore’s conversations with his girlfriend Nicole Barrett in the week preceding suicide attempts by bot].

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Nicole confided these conversations to me. In a series of intimate talks we had in the tension-filled week, she shared her many letters from Gilmore, spoke of how he had encouraged and reassured her about suicide, and discussed candidly her own feelings about dying.

Now my friend lies near death in a Provo hospital while all the world watches ….

She kept writing for page after page of all that had happened to her and Nicole.

thinking of her old boy friend, the convict. Later that night, her brother up in Vancouver, Washington, called to congratulate her and say how proud he and his wife were of her. They were making copies of the stories to send to the family. She found out later she had been syndicated all over. The AP carried her heavily and the London Observer, a Scandinavian service, some paper in South Africa, a Paris syndication, Newsweek, and the West Germans. The paper made each of those sales at $75o, which more than made back Tamera’s salary to date. That was really neat.

I had a source no one had been able to reach up to that point. My emotions were mixed. I cared about her as a person and like anyone in my profession, hoped for a story from her. But I didn’t want to pressure her or nudge her into a corner where she didn’t want to be.

As I saw her come out of the prison, levi-clad, sweater in hand and smoking a cigarette, I asked about her visit and our conversation began. As we got in my Volkswagen, I left the radio off So that it would be silent if she wanted to talk —and it seemed she did.

“There are knots in my stomach when I first go to see him,” she said, “but I feel better afterwards. He is so strong, so much stronger than I am, and he always reassures me and makes me feel better.”

It was one piece of work Tamera carried out like a robot. Actually took her news story over to the terminal and started putting it in, before any feeling began to come. Then she really did have a slew of mixed emotions. She had had no idea Nicole was going to do it today, none on earth.

By the time she calmed down one way, she was getting angry another. Gary was just a manipulator of the worst kind. It was one thing, Tamera thought, to try to talk someone into going tobed with you, but to manipulate them to die with you, that was totally selfish. All those letters, where he was so insanely jealous. Couldn’t stand the thought of her meeting another man or something. Boy, Tamera thought, just boy!

Exactly then, her brother Cardell came walking into the newsroom. He worked downtown but this was the first he had ever done that. Heard the story on the radio and figured Tamera would be needing him. She just hugged Cardell and cried. They might both be

Wayne Watson and Brent Bullock, from Noall Wootton’s office, went over to Nicole Barrett’s apartment after a call came from the police about the letters. They thought there might be admissions therein that could prove useful for the Max Jensen case if they ever had to try Gary on it.

Back in Noall’s office, Watson and Bullock started going through the stuff, but by the time they’d read the first ten, they got pretty disinterested. The guy was obviously an intelligent individual, but the letters, from the standpoint of uncovering new evidence, were boring. Wayne Watson did come across a paragraph that made sense if you knew how to translate rhyming slang, for it referred to pills as Jacks and Jills, and he contacted a man in the Sheriff’s office at Salt Lake who was doing the prison investigation on how the drugs got smuggled in, and told him Nicole might be the one.

Actually, the best part of the whole deal was that Brent Bullock and Wayne Watson had their picture taken by a press photographer in Nicole’s little living room. There they were, each squatting on one knee while looking at the letters on the floor, both of them appearing as big as professional football players, and handsome as all get-out with Brent showing his six-inch handlebar mustache. After that came out, they took a ribbing from their wives and friends. Super-sleuth, stuff like that.

Kathryne was at work at Ideal Furniture when her mother, Mrs. Strong, called. “Have you heard the radio?” she asked, “do you have the radio on?” Then she blurted out one word, “Nicole I”

Kathryne went to pieces. Started screaming, “No! No! No!” She just assumed the worst. The big stereo in the back of the store was on, but it had been turned low and she’d not been listening. Now her ears came right into focus, and she heard the words, “Gilmore’s girl friend … suicide.” Kathryne went hysterical. Her mother had to keep yelling over the phone until she heard what was being told her. “She’s not dead, you know,” said her mother, “she’s up at Utah Valley. I’ll be right over to picl you up.” Time passed for Kathryne in lost minutes, like she was in concussion. Then her mother was outside the store in the old Lincoln, the stinking Lincoln, their old family joke, picking her up. Next, they were in the emergency door of the hospital, and the lady at the desk was sending them to the second. When she entered Nicole’s room, Kathryne went through the horrors. That dreadful machine was there once more. Not seven days ago, her father had had the same machine on him. Now he was dead and they were working on Nicole.

They gave Kathryne a little Valium, and a doctor came by. He talked out of a tight little mouth and couldn’t even give Nicole a 5o-5o chance. “Could go either way,” he said, then added, “We don’t know if there was brain damage or not … question is if the machine can keep her lungs working.., can’t guarantee that either.” Sure wasn’t offering hope. “I can’t,” he said, “guarantee anything until all medication is out of her system.” There was a police officer sitting outside the door.

Kathryne would go to Nicole’s room for fifteen minutes, then go out and sit in the hall, while they let her moth6r in. Then she’d go back. This went on all afternoon. Rikki had come back from Wyoming for her father’s funeral, and was still here, and now he stayed in the Intensive Care Unit waiting room and kept journalists away. The reporters were all being held downstairs, but one girl snuck up to Intensive Care, and sat there all day with a knitting bag on the floor.