Elsie awoke, her heart beating with terror. The worn T-shirt she slept in was soaked with perspiration.
Sitting up in bed, she willed herself to calm down. It was just a dream. A bad, bad dream.
The memory of the nightmare was beginning to fade, though her heart still raced. The image was still clear, though: she’d been at the prison in Jefferson City, the state capital. The old maximum security facility. Sitting in the gas chamber.
She shuddered. During a brief internship with the state attorney general’s office in her third year of law school, she’d been invited to tour the old prison—including the gas chamber, used to execute Missourians on death row prior to the move to lethal injection. The tour guide explained that the chamber was a two-seater, to accommodate any prisoners who wanted to die together.
The laces on Elsie’s Converse tennis shoes had come undone during the tour. As a joke, she’d flounced onto one of the seats in the gas chamber and tied her shoe.
It didn’t seem so funny now.
The dream continued to fade, but she knew that in the nightmare, she and Larry Paul had been seated side by side in the gas chamber. Madeleine was standing nearby, asking whether they had any last words. Larry Paul stuck his finger in his mouth; in the dream, Elsie knew he intended to wipe the finger on her arm, as he had done in court. She called out to Madeleine, trying to explain that it was a mistake; she only sat down to tie her shoe.
In slow motion, the door to the chamber shut with a clang. She could see Madeleine dropping the gas pellets, preparing to execute both of them: Elsie and Larry Paul. She tried to jump from her chair, but couldn’t move.
Larry Paul wiped his finger on her. Then he smiled and said, “That’s not how you catch AIDS.”
Sitting up in bed, Elsie took deep breaths, inhaling through her nose and blowing the air out. The thought she’d been suppressing took hold and refused to be silent.
I don’t want to be a part of this case, she thought.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and spoke it aloud. “I want out. Out of this fucking case.”
Hugging her knees, she buried her face in the quilt that covered her. The fabric was soft, and it gave a measure of comfort. It was an old quilt, stitched in a faded wedding ring pattern, made long ago by her mother’s grandmother. Elsie ran her hand over the nubby surface, trying to gather her fortitude and face her fears.
Breathing slowly in and out, she tried a technique she’d seen on Oprah once, or maybe Dr. Phil. Imagine the worst-case scenario. In an instant, she scrambled out of bed, gasping. So many horrific scenarios had jumped out at her that she couldn’t bear to contemplate them.
She grabbed the tattered heirloom quilt and dragged it into the living room. Huddled on the sofa, she reached for the television remote. Clicking through the stations, she visited one infomercial after another, and finally hit the Mute button and picked up a legal pad from the coffee table. Turning to a fresh page, she scrawled:
Advantages of serving in State v. Paul.
Elsie tapped the pen. Couldn’t think of any. Not one.
She divided the page with a stroke of the pen and made a second column: Disadvantages of serving in State v. Paul.
She started writing feverishly, muttering aloud, oblivious to the kitchenware offered for sale on the television screen.
I have no power. No discretion. Hate my cocounsel. Hate the opposing counsel. Suspicious of Claire O’Hara. Toting the weary load of Ivy Dent.
Breathing fast again, she studied the list, knowing that the real reason hadn’t yet been addressed.
She wrote:
I don’t want to kill anybody.
Unable to sit still, she jumped up and shuffled into the kitchen, still wrapped in the quilt. Opening the refrigerator, she surveyed the contents. A Styrofoam carryout box stood beside a small collection of condiments, many past their expiration date. On a lower shelf, a partially full twelve-pack of Diet Coke sat beside a fresh six-pack of Corona in bottles.
Clicking on the overhead light, she opened a cabinet, and rummaging behind instant oatmeal packets and Special K, she hit pay dirt: Pop-Tarts. Strawberry. Frosted.
“This is good stuff,” she said. “This will help me get my shit together.” She had read somewhere that ingesting sugar heightened test performances. She hoped it might improve cognitive abilities and emotional stability.
Juggling the Pop-Tart from hand to hand after it came out of the toaster, she sat again at her list. Determined to write something on the pro side of the paper, she bit down on the rectangle of cardboard pastry before it had a chance to cool down, and burned the tender flesh behind her front teeth.
Bearing down with the pen, she wrote in capital letters.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
Female Homicide Victims: 3 out of 4 women murdered by husband/boyfriend.
She willed herself to recall the hideous image of Jessie Dent, lying in a pool of blood. And the baby who died before he drew breath.
And Ivy. The girl had lost her whole family in one fell swoop, at the hands of Larry Paul.
Probably better off, a voice whispered in her mind. Elsie shook her head to banish the thought. “Shut the fuck up,” she said to the voice. An image of the child’s face, wary from exposure to disaster, floated into Elsie’s conscience. She whispered aloud, “I don’t see how I can fix it, kiddo. Your life is a train wreck. But it’s out of my hands.”
In the kitchen chair, her shoulders shuddered involuntarily, sending a shiver all the way down her spine. She grasped the pen to continue.
Trial experience, she wrote; but scratched it out with a stroke of the pen. She had years of trial experience; it was no particular gain in this case. Even the initial triumph of a major death penalty assignment had faded to ash in the past weeks. The price she was paying was high. Too high.
She broke the Pop-Tart into pieces and ate them, trying to think of a compelling reason to justify her aversion to working on State v. Paul, but her eyes kept drifting back to the core of her anxiety. She didn’t want to be part of a proceeding that ended with someone’s death. Even though he had caused two deaths, by his own hand.
It was one thing, believing in the worth of the death penalty from a philosophical point of view. But she was learning that being an inside player in a death penalty case was too close for comfort.
I can’t do this, she thought; and began to tear up. Before the tears rolled, she shook her head, hard, and blinked them back.
“Get over yourself,” she said sharply. She picked up the pen and wrote one last line.
It’s my job.
She dragged the quilt back to bed and lay down, but the dark comfort of sleep eluded her. After long minutes of waiting, she returned to the kitchen, still dragging the quilt along with her. She reached for a Corona inside the fridge and popped the top with a bottle opener and drank it, staring at the list on the kitchen table. Then she drank another one.
After that, she managed to drift back into a troubled sleep.