Three Classic Thrillers (126 page)

“I like him already.”

“He’s not a bad kid. He wants to study art and paint. I send him money all the time.”

“Does Sam know he has a gay grandson?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know who would tell him.”

“I probably won’t tell him.”

“Please don’t. He has enough on his mind.”

The ravioli cooled enough to eat, and they enjoyed it in silence. The waiter brought more water and tea. The couple next to them ordered a bottle of red wine, and Lee glanced at it more than once.

Adam wiped his mouth and rested for a moment. He leaned over the table. “Can I ask you something personal?” he said quietly.

“All your questions seem to be personal.”

“Right. So can I ask you one more?”

“Please do.”

“Well, I was just thinking. Tonight you’ve told me you’re an alcoholic, your husband’s an animal, and your son is gay. That’s a lot for one meal. But is there anything else I should know?”

“Lemme see. Yes, Phelps is an alcoholic too, but he won’t admit it.”

“Anything else?”

“He’s been sued twice for sexual harassment.”

“Okay. Forget about the Booths. Any more surprises from our side of the family?”

“We haven’t scratched the surface, Adam.”

“I was afraid of that.”

A
loud thunderstorm rolled across the Delta before dawn, and Sam was awakened by the crack of lightning. He heard raindrops dropping hard against the open windows above the hallway. Then he heard them drip and puddle against the wall under the windows not far from his cell. The dampness of his bed was suddenly cool. Maybe today would not be so hot. Maybe the rain would linger and shade the sun, and maybe the wind would blow away the humidity for a day or two. He always had these hopes when it rained, but in the summer a thunderstorm usually meant soggy ground which under a glaring sun meant nothing but more suffocating heat.

He raised his head and watched the rain fall from the windows and gather on the floor. The water flickered in the reflected light of a distant yellow bulb. Except for this faint light, the Row was dark. And it was silent.

Sam loved the rain, especially at night and especially in the summer. The State of Mississippi, in its boundless wisdom, had built its prison in the hottest place it could find. And it designed its Maximum Security Unit along the same lines as an oven. The windows to the outside were small and useless, built that way for security reasons, of course. The planners of this little branch of hell also decided that there would be no ventilation of any sort, no chance for a breeze getting in or the dank air getting out. And after they built what they considered to be a model penal facility, they decided
they would not air condition it. It would sit proudly beside the soybeans and cotton, and absorb the same heat and moisture from the ground. And when the land was dry, the Row would simply bake along with the crops.

But the State of Mississippi could not control the weather, and when the rains came and cooled the air, Sam smiled to himself and offered a small prayer of thanks. A higher being was in control after all. The state was helpless when it rained. It was a small victory.

He eased to his feet and stretched his back. His bed consisted of a piece of foam, six feet by two and a half, four inches thick, otherwise known as a mattress. It rested on a metal frame fastened securely to the floor and wall. It was covered with two sheets. Sometimes they passed out blankets in the winter. Back pain was common throughout the Row, but with time the body adjusted and there were few complaints. The prison doctor was not considered to be a friend of death row inmates.

He took two steps and leaned on his elbows through the bars. He listened to the wind and thunder, and watched the drops bounce along the windowsill and splatter on the floor. How nice it would be to step through that wall and walk through the wet grass on the other side, to stroll around the prison grounds in the driving rain, naked and crazy, soaking wet with water dripping from his hair and beard.

The horror of death row is that you die a little each day. The waiting kills you. You live in a cage and when you wake up you mark off another day and you tell yourself that you are now one day closer to death.

Sam lit a cigarette and watched the smoke float upward toward the raindrops. Weird things happen with our absurd judicial system. Courts rule this way one
day and the other way the next. The same judges reach different conclusions on familiar issues. A court will ignore a wild motion or appeal for years, then one day embrace it and grant relief. Judges die and they’re replaced by judges who think differently. Presidents come and go and they appoint their pals to the bench. The Supreme Court drifts one way, then another.

At times, death would be welcome. And if given the choice of death on one hand, or life on death row on the other, Sam would quickly take the gas. But there was always hope, always the slight glimmering promise that something somewhere in the vast maze of the judicial jungle would strike a chord with someone, and his case would be reversed. Every resident of the Row dreamed of the miracle reversal from heaven. And their dreams sustained them from one miserable day to the next.

Sam had recently read that there were almost twenty-five hundred inmates sentenced to die in America, and last year, 1989, only sixteen were executed. Mississippi had executed only four since 1977, the year Gary Gilmore insisted on a firing squad in Utah. There was safety in those numbers. They fortified his resolve to file even more appeals.

He smoked through the bars as the storm passed and the rain stopped. He took his breakfast as the sun rose, and at seven o’clock he turned on the television for the morning news. He had just bitten into a piece of cold toast when suddenly his face appeared on the screen behind a Memphis morning anchorperson. She eagerly reported the thrilling top story of the day, the bizarre case of Sam Cayhall and his new lawyer. Seems his new lawyer was his long-lost grandson, one Adam Hall, a young lawyer from the mammoth Chicago firm of Kravitz & Bane, the outfit who’d represented Sam for the past seven years or so. The photo of Sam was at
least ten years old, the same one they used every time his name was mentioned on TV or in print. The photo of Adam was a bit stranger. He obviously had not posed for it. Someone had snapped it outdoors while he wasn’t looking. She explained with wild eyes that the Memphis Press was reporting this morning that Adam Hall had confirmed that he was in fact the grandson of Sam Cayhall. She gave a fleeting sketch of Sam’s crime, and twice gave the date of his pending execution. More on the story later, she promised, perhaps maybe as soon as the “Noon Report.” Then she was off on the morning summary of last night’s murders.

Sam threw the toast on the floor next to the bookshelves and stared at it. An insect found it almost immediately and crawled over and around it a half dozen times before deciding it wasn’t worth eating. His lawyer had already talked to the press. What do they teach these people in law school? Do they give instruction on media control?

“Sam, you there?” It was Gullitt.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Just saw you on channel four.”

“Yeah. I saw it.”

“You pissed?”

“I’m okay.”

“Take a deep breath, Sam. It’s okay.”

Among men sentenced to die in the gas chamber, the expression “Take a deep breath” was used often and considered nothing more than an effort at humor. They said it to each other all the time, usually when one was angry. But when used by the guards it was far from funny. It was a constitutional violation. It had been mentioned in more than one lawsuit as an example of the cruel treatment dispensed on death row.

Sam agreed with the insect and ignored the rest of his breakfast. He sipped coffee and stared at the floor.

______

At nine-thirty, Sergeant Packer was on the tier looking for Sam. It was time for his hour of fresh air. The rains were far away and the sun was blistering the Delta. Packer had two guards with him and a pair of leg irons. Sam pointed at the chains, and asked, “What are they for?”

“They’re for security, Sam.”

“I’m just going out to play, aren’t I?”

“No, Sam. We’re taking you to the law library. Your lawyer wants to meet you there so y’all can talk amongst the law books. Now turn around.”

Sam stuck both hands through the opening of his door. Packer cuffed them loosely, then the door opened and Sam stepped into the hall. The guards dropped to their knees and were securing the leg irons when Sam asked Packer, “What about my hour out?”

“What about it?”

“When do I get it?”

“Later.”

“You said that yesterday and I didn’t get my rec time. You lied to me yesterday. Now you’re lying to me again. I’ll sue you for this.”

“Lawsuits take a long time, Sam. They take years.”

“I want to talk to the warden.”

“And I’m sure he wants to talk to you too, Sam. Now, do you want to see your lawyer or not?”

“I have a right to my lawyer and I have a right to my rec time.”

“Get off his ass, Packer!” Hank Henshaw shouted from less than six feet away.

“You lie, Packer! You lie!” J. B. Gullitt added from the other side.

“Down, boys,” Packer said coolly. “We’ll take care of old Sam, here.”

“Yeah, you’d gas him today if you could,” Henshaw yelled.

The leg irons were in place, and Sam shuffled into his cell to get a file. He clutched it to his chest and waddled down the tier with Packer at his side and the guards following.

“Give ’em hell, Sam,” Henshaw yelled as they walked away.

There were other shouts of support for Sam and catcalls at Packer as they left the tier. They were cleared through a set of doors and Tier A was behind them.

“The warden says you get two hours out this afternoon, and two hours a day till it’s over,” Packer said as they moved slowly through a short hallway.

“Till what’s over?”

“This thang.”

“What thang?”

Packer and most of the guards referred to an execution as a thang.

“You know what I mean,” Packer said.

“Tell the warden he’s a real sweetheart. And ask him if I get two hours if this thang doesn’t go off, okay? And while you’re at it, tell him I think he’s a lying son of a bitch.”

“He already knows.”

They stopped at a wall of bars and waited for the door to open. They passed through it and stopped again by two guards at the front door. Packer made quick notes on a clipboard, and they walked outside where a white van was waiting. The guards took Sam by the arms and lifted him and his chains into the side door. Packer sat in the front with the driver.

“Does this thing have air conditioning?” Sam snapped at the driver, whose window was down.

“Yep,” the driver said as they backed away from the front of MSU.

“Then turn the damned thing on, okay.”

“Knock it off, Sam,” Packer said without conviction.

“It’s bad enough to sweat all day in a cage with no air conditioning, but it’s pretty stupid to sit here and suffocate. Turn the damned thing on. I’ve got my rights.”

“Take a deep breath, Sam,” Packer drawled and winked at the driver.

“That’ll cost you, Packer. You’ll wish you hadn’t said that.”

The driver hit a switch and the air started blowing. The van was cleared through the double gates and slowly made its way down the dirt road away from the Row.

Though he was handcuffed and shackled, this brief journey on the outside was refreshing. Sam stopped the bitching and immediately ignored the others in the van. The rains had left puddles in the grassy ditches beside the road, and they had washed the cotton plants, now more than knee-high. The stalks and leaves were dark green. Sam remembered picking cotton as a boy, then quickly dismissed the thought. He had trained his mind to forget the past, and on those rare occasions when a childhood memory flashed before him, he quickly snuffed it out.

The van crept along, and he was thankful for this. He stared at two inmates sitting under a tree watching a buddy lift weights in the sun. There was a fence around them, but how nice, he thought, to be outside walking and talking, exercising and lounging, never giving a thought to the gas chamber, never worrying about the last appeal.

______

The law library was known as the Twig because it was too small to be considered a full branch. The main prison law library was deeper into the farm, at another camp. The Twig was used exclusively by death row inmates. It was stuck to the rear of an administration building, with only one door and no windows. Sam had been there many times during the past nine years. It was a small room with a decent collection of current law books and up-to-date reporting services. A battered conference table sat in the center with shelves of books lining the four walls. Every now and then a trustee would volunteer to serve as the librarian, but good help was hard to find and the books were seldom where they were supposed to be. This irritated Sam immensely because he admired neatness and he despised the Africans, and he was certain that most if not all of the librarians were black, though he did not know this for a fact.

The two guards unshackled Sam at the door.

“You got two hours,” Packer said.

“I got as long as I want,” Sam said, rubbing his wrists as if the handcuffs had broken them.

“Sure, Sam. But when I come after you in two hours, I’ll bet we load your gimpy little ass into the van.”

Packer opened the door as the guards took their positions beside it. Sam entered the library and slammed the door behind him. He laid his file on the table and stared at his lawyer.

Adam stood at the far end of the conference table, holding a book and waiting for his client. He’d heard voices outside, and he watched Sam enter the room without guards or handcuffs. He stood there in his red jumpsuit, much smaller now without the thick metal screen between them.

They studied each other for a moment across the table, grandson and grandfather, lawyer and client,
stranger and stranger. It was an awkward interval in which they sized each other up and neither knew what to do with the other.