The warden’s day quickly went from bad to worse. His secretary called in sick, he spilled coffee on his best shirt, and by eight thirty, he’d received two calls from the governor asking that he reconsider a media presence at the execution. It seemed images of Lanesworth Prison were already running on major affiliates up and down the East Coast, and the governor was unhappy.
I see your prison on every network program but Captain Goddamn Kangaroo!
That was the most polite part of the conversation.
The governor, it turned out, was not a forgiving soul.
“Alice.” The warden stepped into the secretary’s vestibule. “It is Alice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. From records.” She frowned from behind the small desk, an iron-haired woman with enough spine for three men. “I have covered this desk before.”
“Of course you have.”
“December 3, 1968. Good Friday, the following year. Two days in March of ’70…”
“Yes, I remember. Thank you. May I ask you a question, Alice?” He did not wait for a response. “Do you watch the evening news? I mean the national news. I’m wondering if there’s been much interest in tomorrow’s execution.”
“You don’t watch the news?”
“But you do, I presume?”
“Walter Cronkite. 60 Minutes. It can’t just be The Lawrence Welk Show, now, can it?”
She sniffed in disapproval, which the warden ignored. “The execution?” he asked. “Much interest?”
“Oh yes.” She nodded solemnly. “There’s been tremendous interest, what with Juan Corona caught last year, and Mack Ray Edwards and that other one, I can’t remember his name. Then there’s the Gaffney Strangler, the Broomstick Killer. Only last month, four girls have gone missing in Seattle, and probably more we don’t know about yet. I shouldn’t be surprised, working where I do and knowing what evil dwells in a man’s heart; but it seems there are always new depths yet to plumb. There’s even a new term they’re using. Serial killer, if you can believe such a thing. So yes, the news is talking, and people are listening; and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. A good execution is exactly what this country needs.”
“Umm, yes. Well. Thank you, Alice.”
“Yes, sir, and God bless you for what you do.”
Filled with righteous approval, she spoke as if he, himself, would drop the switch. He hesitated a moment, and she nodded a final time, her chin folding so firmly into her neck that the warden backed away, as if allergic to such utter conviction. He made his way to the northeast tower, which looked down on to the main gate and its approach. The guards nodded at his appearance, then melted into the corners to give him space. The warden mopped his face from the long climb, then looked down on to the dusty approach, and said, “Good God Almighty. How many?”
The nearest guard said, “Protesters or news vans?”
“Vans, I suppose.”
“Thirty-seven, last I counted.”
The other guard said, “Thirty-nine,” and pointed off in the distance, where two more vehicles made bright spearheads on plumes of boiling dust. The warden shaded his eyes, and stared down at TV people in their fine clothes and blown hair. As for the protesters, he guessed there were at least a few hundred, with more certain to come. He counted seven buses from churches with names like Grace Baptist and Mount Zion Church of Christ. They’d parked haphazardly in the fields, and a few were still spilling parishioners out into the heat, most of them holding placards with slogans like ONLY GOD SHOULD TAKE A LIFE or BELIEVE IN THE REDEEMER. By midday, the merely curious would begin to arrive, as would those who supported the death penalty, and those darker souls who wished nothing more than to be nearby when a human being was cooked alive from the inside out.
One of the guards said, “We could push them out to the state road, if you want.”
The warden took his time in responding. He watched the two news vans draw near; saw that another bus was trundling down the road behind them. “Let’s leave ’em be,” he said, and left the rest of it unspoken: that with all he had to do for X, a little chaos might not be a bad thing.
For the next ninety minutes, the warden worked in his office, trying to arrange seating for the family members who planned to attend the execution. It was an unpleasant job, but he wanted to do it right. That meant revisiting many of X’s murders in an attempt to discern which families had suffered the most, and thus had the better claim for good seating. The father who’d lost two sons, but quickly? Or the husband whose wife had endured a long week of brutal torture? It was painful math, and the warden welcomed each interruption when it came.
The first was Ripley with an update on X. “Still agitated. Still asking about Byrd.”
“Any more visitors?”
“Two of his lawyers. Actual lawyers, I mean.”
“Any talk of last rites?”
“None.”
Nor would there be. X would die as he’d lived, without apology or regret.
The second interruption came forty minutes later, and was entirely unexpected, unimagined, even. “Sir?” Alice spoke from the open door. “You have a call on line two. It’s your wife.”
“Thank you, Alice. Would you close the door?” She did as he asked, and the warden stared at the phone, almost afraid to touch it. His wife never called. “Sweetheart?” he said. “Everything okay?”
“I’m calling because I know how hard this day will be for you, and that tomorrow will be even harder, given your thoughts on execution.” She spoke softly. “We’ve not been much use to each other these past years, but I am with you in this matter.”
“Sweetheart, that is so very kind.”
“At least until tomorrow,” she said. “When you kill that horrible, wicked man, and send his soul to hell forever.”
The line went dead, and left the warden staring at the receiver as if he’d never seen one. Slowly, he replaced it on the cradle. That’s when Ripley came back to his office, and the world really went to shit.
Five miles down the state road, Reece was parked in the shade of an abandoned gas station whose windows were broken out and boarded over. The Coke machine was broken, too. So were the bathroom doors, the pumps, and the faded, plastic sign that, once upon a time, said ESSO. It was a grim place, remembered only by those who passed it by on the dusty two-lane. But the pay phone still functioned, and that’s why Reece was there.
He checked his watch, and thought, Soon.
More worried than he cared to admit, he checked his fingernails for the third time, making sure he’d scrubbed off all traces of Lonnie’s blood.
He had.
Of course he had.
“This waiting,” he said. But it wasn’t the wait.
It was X. It was the gamble.
Almost absentmindedly, he opened the trunk, and looked down into it. “You boys still breathing?” Neither could respond, taped up as they were, and jammed in so tightly. But they were still breathing, so Reece gave them a nod. “Stay quiet, and you might get out of this alive.”
Reece closed the trunk, and shaded his eyes to peer up the road. A few buses had rattled past en route to the prison, but nothing much had come from the other way, just an old sedan, a timber truck, and a combine that rolled past at twenty miles an hour. A mile down, though, there was a wink of light where the road bent north to avoid the river.
“Here we go.”
The shimmer hardened into a Buick sedan driven by a soft and balding middle-aged man who looked like every such man who’d ever lived. The car slowed, and turned into the lot; and Reece walked out to meet it. “Any problems?”
Squeezed in behind the wheel, the driver squinted in the bright light, and shrugged. “Traffic was a little tight, going in. Protesters and such. The guards didn’t want to talk to me, but I told ’em what you said I should, and that got this Ripley fella out there pretty quick.”
“You put the package directly into Captain Ripley’s hands?”
“Is that the name on the receipt?” The driver pushed a piece of paper through the window. Reece checked the signature, and nodded. “Then that’s who I gave it to.”
“Describe him.” The driver did. A perfect match. “Go on, then.” Reece produced a hundred-dollar bill, and watched it disappear.
When the car was back on the road, Reece checked his watch again, adding up the minutes. He knew the guards, the prison’s ways. That told him about how long it would take.
The package sat untouched on the warden’s desk, a rectangle wrapped in brown paper, and sealed with tape. Perched on the edge of his chair, the warden decided he’d be happier if Ripley had handed over the package, saying it contained nitroglycerin or body parts, anything that had nothing to do with X. “Tell me again what he said.”
“He said, ‘This is for X, and he’ll want to see it. You tell Warden Wilson it’s in his interests to make sure he does.’”
“He called me by name?”
“Yes, sir.” Ripley nodded once, but looked a little green, too.
“Have you ever seen this man before?”
“No, sir. He said he was a paid messenger, and didn’t know the name of the man who’d hired him. The man he described, though, sounds a lot like Reece.”
The warden could easily believe it. Only Reece looked like Reece.
“You want me to go?” Ripley asked. “Privacy, I mean.”
Ripley didn’t have a family, but he did have a live-in girlfriend and three out of his original four dogs. The killing of that first dog had taught him early to take the carrot over the stick, and he’d been on X’s payroll for years. The warden had never asked how much money Ripley had made off the relationship, but it would be a considerable amount. The warden shook his head. “If this package concerns X, it concerns you, too.”
With no other choice, he drew the package across the desk, and slit the tape with a pocketknife. Inside, were a videotape cassette and a sealed envelope. Turning to the envelope, he read aloud what was written on its front. “To Warden Bruce Wilson, #2 Prison Farm Lane, husband to Gertrude, father to Thomas and Trevor.”
“That’s strangely specific.”
“He’s reminding me how vulnerable I am.”
The warden used the same knife to open the envelope. Inside, was a phone number on an index card, and a single piece of paper folded neatly in half. The warden read what was written there, then handed it to Ripley, whose lips moved as he read it in silence.
Dear Warden,
The enclosed videotape is to be IMMEDIATELY viewed by our mutual friend in the subbasement, and I trust you to make the necessary arrangements. In case you find yourself squeamish, I’ve kept a second copy of the same tape, and will deliver it to our mutual friend’s attorneys, if necessary. You can imagine our mutual friend’s displeasure should he discover any malfeasance on your part. I, of course, would also be VERY UNHAPPY.
With Warmest Regards to Your ENTIRE Family,
R
Ripley met the warden’s eyes, but there was little point in commiseration. They turned to the videocassette. The label on front had two words, in black ink.
Byrd Song
Ripley frowned. “X has been asking about Byrd all morning. You think it’s related?”
“It has to be.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Lock that door, and let’s get on with it.”
Ripley locked the door, and they met at the television in the corner of the office. The warden pushed the tape into the player.
“No way this is good,” Ripley said.
He was right about that.
The warden had no choice but to show it to X. He entered the subbasement carrying the tape as if it could still hurt him, largely because it could. He had no idea what X would do. Because of that, he stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Um, hello?”
Murmured conversation ceased, and X emerged from one of the cells. “Yes? Speak.”
“Ummm…”
“I said speak.”
“It’s about Byrd…” His arm rose with the tape. “This arrived with instructions I show it to you.”
X took the tape, and examined it. “Instructions from whom?”
“The tape is, ah, self-explanatory.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
As he spoke, four guards appeared with a television, video player, and extension cord. While they worked, X summoned his lawyers from the cell. Legitimate attorneys, the warden knew, all of them from a top firm in New York. That would be about X’s estate, his dying wishes. “Get started on what we discussed,” X said. “But stay close. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
They took the stairs up, burdened with briefcases full of God-alone-knew-what. When the machines were plugged in, the warden dismissed the guards, too. X watched them go, then turned with a stare so bottomless and black the warden felt a wet flutter where his heart would normally beat.
“Play it.”
The cassette rattled against the player as the warden tried twice to insert it. “I’m sorry. Sorry.” The machine welcomed the tape, at last, and the warden tried to walk away, eager to be anywhere else.
“Stay.”
X caught his arm, and turned him like a child. As the first images appeared, the warden covered his mouth. He’d never cared for Byrd, but no man should die as he had, and no one else should be forced to watch it, let alone be forced to watch it twice. Byrd’s torture did not faze X, of course, but he was affected. That was clear. But the warden had no idea how or why.
“It’s Reece,” X said. “You can’t see his face, of course—that would be foolish of him, even knowing what he knows—but it’s definitely Reece.”
“What does he know?”
“That I would never allow the police to see this tape. That what exists between us is personal.” X squatted in front of the television, his face only inches away from the screen. “How long does this last?”
“This part, umm, seven or eight minutes.”
“This part?”
“Killing Byrd, I mean. Something else comes after.”
“Show me.”
The warden almost fell in his rush to clear the screen of Byrd’s murder. He ran the tape forward, overshot the mark, and had to back up. “Here. Just here.” He stepped back as the scene changed to show a young man bound to a chair, a blade at his throat as he struggled. “That’s Jason French’s little brother.”
But X knew the boy; the warden could tell. It showed in the sudden, lock-jawed stillness, and in the flush of blood that made his face swell. It was pure rage, fury like nothing the warden had ever seen. Even his eyes looked hot enough to burn.
“Play it again.”
But the warden didn’t move. “There’s more,” he said.
The more was a blank wall, and an off-camera voice.
You shouldn’t have sent Byrd to my home. All our time together, and it ends because of what? A girl. Because you couldn’t allow me that one indulgence.
A soft exhalation could be heard on the tape.
Problem is, I know you too well. If you want me dead now, you’ll want me dead until the day it happens. That won’t change once they kill you. More like Byrd will come, an unbroken chain, and all because I belittled your precious trust. Do you see how much I hate for it to end like this?
Another sigh, as good as a lament.
You know, I’ve never understood your feelings for Jason French, but I was around when they first appeared, so I know how strong they are. I could tell you it’s pitiful, but I won’t. And I can’t pretend I’m not a little jealous. You did, at times, fill that fatherly place in my heart. But this is where we are, and here is what will happen. You will make assurances that our disagreement is behind us. In exchange, I will release Jason’s brother unharmed. If things go the other way, the boy stars in his own production of How to Die on Videotape, and I make sure Jason knows it’s entirely your fault. I’m sure he would never forgive you.
I don’t want it to be like this, but I know the kind of man you are. If you say we have a deal, I’ll believe you. Otherwise, I’ll burn it all down, the kid and his friend, and Jason, too, but only after he learns the truth of why his little brother died. So that’s it. That’s the deal, the boy’s life for mine. Think about it, and give me a call. The warden has the number.
The screen went blank, and X spoke with his eyes closed. “Is it true that you have a number?”
His voice was soft, but the warden was as afraid as he’d ever been. One had to know X to understand. “Yes, I have a number.”
“Where is he?”
“With God as my witness, I do not know.”
“The man who delivered the tape?”
“Gone. I’m sorry…”
“Stop.” X divided his palms, his eyes still closed. “I need five minutes alone, and then I need a phone.”
“Of course.”
X breathed in through his mouth, and out through his nose. “Do your children ever disappoint you, Warden Wilson? Does your wife?”
“Disappointment is part of life.”
“How do you punish them?”
“Um … ah … I don’t.”
“Because you love them?”
“Because they’re all I have.”
“And if you can help the ones who matter?”
“I’d do anything for them.”
X nodded once, his eyes still closed. “Five minutes, please. Five minutes, and a phone.”