by J. B. Turner
‘Where are you, Jack? I’ve had Lomax and all those advisers wondering what the hell’s happening. The phone’s never stopped.’
‘Listen Rose, it’s important that—’
‘The press keeps calling, you gotta help me!’
‘Rose, this is all a misunderstanding.’ Vanquez arched his eyebrows as if he knew better. ‘I’ll be back home before you know it. Don’t worry, please. Tony Stone will sort things out.’
‘Jack, please do the right thing. This has gone too far.’ O’Neill glanced at Vanquez who was being served some pretzels and a can of Diet Coke. ‘What did you do with the video?’
‘It’s still here.’
‘Listen to me, Rose. Let’s remember what we’re doing this for. It’s for Joe, no one else.’
Rose was silent. ‘Never in my wildest dreams did I think you’d turn out like this, Jack. Sad, immoral and corrupt.’
O’Neill closed his eyes and sighed. ‘You could be right.’
‘We used to laugh at guys like that.’
‘Are you laughing at me now?’
‘No, Jack, I’m not laughing. I’m crying. Crying over what you’ve done. I’m ashamed of you.’
‘We need the video, Rose.’
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Us. We need it to help Joe. Are you going to help me to help Joe?’
The line went quiet.
‘You still there, Rose?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, what do you think?’
‘I think it’s over.’ There was a click as she put the phone down.
Vanquez couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. ‘Your wife pissed at you, Jack?’
‘I need to make another call.’
Vanquez shook his head and crunched some pretzels. He smiled and seemed to be having the time of his life. ‘Come on, Jack,’ he said, his hand outstretched.
O’Neill handed over the phone and Vanquez clicked it back into its slot.
39
Deborah was still sitting at her desk in a near-deserted newsroom as another rainstorm lashed Miami. Clearly there was going to be no last-minute stay of execution for Craig. She had lost.
She checked her computer clock. It was 11:59 P.M. on November 4, 2002—the eve of the midterms and seven hours from William Craig’s execution.
Suddenly, on her screen, an advance wire feature on ‘The Life and Times of a Death Row Hero’ came in from Associated Press.
The rest of the newsroom, including Sam and Larry Coen, were drowning their sorrows at a nearby bar. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances. But watching her colleagues down Tequila slammers as Craig faced his lethal injection didn’t appeal to Deborah.
She stared blankly at the beige phone on her desk. Beside it was a yellow Post-It with a number scrawled on it. Deborah thought for a moment, then decided to call.
‘It’s Deborah,’ she said.
There was no reply.
Deborah felt choked. She watched the car lights on the glistening MacArthur Causeway heading down to the beach. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Craig. I didn’t want it to end like this. I’ve failed you.’
‘You’ve not failed me, my dear. You showed guts and you took it to the wire. I admire you more than ever.’
‘But we lost.’
‘I lost. You just ran out of time.’
‘I so wanted you to live.’
‘I’ve lived in a tomb for nearly a dozen years. Where I’m going, it’s got to be better than that, right?’
‘Do you regret what you did?’ She’d been wanting to ask that for a long time.
Craig sighed. ‘I’ve let my family down and I’ll die alone. I can’t even say sorry to them, face to face, that’s my chief regret. Sorry for the hurt I’ve caused.’
‘Have you heard from them?’
‘My sister Annie phoned half an hour before you. It’s hard on her. We were very close.’
‘I just want to say it’s been a privilege and an honor to know you, sir,’ Deborah said. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
‘Deborah, listen to me. I’m an old man with my life behind me. You have the world at your feet. Learn to move on.’
Deborah wiped her nose with a tissue. ‘Please remember that I’ll be thinking of you. And you’ll also be in the thoughts of many good people here in Florida, and all across America.’
‘What about Jenny? Do you think…’
‘More than anyone. You didn’t just save her that night. You undoubtedly saved many other women. We all owe you a huge debt of gratitude.’
Craig cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got to go. It’s time.’ Deborah felt a shiver run down her spine. She sat motionless. ‘God bless you.’
Craig said nothing.
A timeless void opened up between them. Deborah wanted it to stay like that forever. She wanted to postpone the future. Then Craig hung up.
40
Staring at the TV in the newsroom only made things worse. Deborah couldn’t bear to watch as protesters sang hymns and joined hands in a candlelit vigil outside Florida State Prison.
The newsroom door opened and Deborah looked up. It was a young guy from the mailroom.
‘This is for you, Miss Jones,’ he said, handing her a parcel. ‘Came in earlier this morning.’
Her name was written in thick red ink on the brown wrapping paper. ‘Are you serious? You know what time it is?’
‘We had to put it through a couple of checks—X-ray, chemical scans. Just in case…’
Deborah waited until the young man had gone before she opened the parcel. It contained a TDK cassette. But there was no accompanying note or letter. Was this another way for Richmond and his men to frighten her? Was it video footage of her undressing?
She went over to Kathleen Klein’s desk—she had a TV and VCR—and loaded the tape. The video started after several seconds—a shot of a bed, a white bedspread on top of it. It looked like high-quality amateur footage as the camera panned round the room. In came a man wearing nothing more than a white fluffy towel around his waist.
It was the governor.
He had a great Florida tan and was smiling broadly. He pulled out a bag of white powder from a bedside cabinet and, using a razor blade, started cutting it up into raggedy lines on a small vanity mirror. Then, using a rolled twenty-dollar note, he took a large snort.
‘Oh my God,’ Deborah said, covering her mouth with her hand.
Then a lithe, blond-haired young man, also with a towel round his waist, came into frame. He kissed the governor on the cheek before he bent down to snort a couple of lines. His eyes were glassy as he looked into the camera, wiping the white powder off the tip of his nose.
Deborah was transfixed but felt deeply uncomfortable. Then things got even worse.
The governor lay back on the bed and the young man used his teeth to pull off the governor’s towel. He started to perform fellatio on the older man.
Deborah turned away, unable to watch any longer. At the other end of the newsroom the night editor was preoccupied on the phone. Deborah heard the governor moan and her gaze returned briefly to the screen. She believed that sex should be a deeply private and personal thing, not a spectator sport.
Suddenly she made the connection. How could she have been so blind? Through this incriminating video, O’Neill had been able to blackmail the governor. He could ensure that his son’s killer would be executed, no matter what.
Deborah forced herself to watch as Wilkinson flipped the boy over, pulled down the towel around his narrow waist, and entered him from behind.
41
Deborah stared bleakly through the rain-streaked windows to the lights of the beach in the distance. In the background—on one of the newsroom TVs—she heard the somber tones of an NBC reporter describe the growing anti-death-penalty vigil outside Raiford.
Who had most to gain from sending the vide
o? It obviously wasn’t the senator. Did his wife get hold of the tape inadvertently? That was a possibility. Had she discovered it hidden in her own house? She had seemed very ill at ease, knowing that Craig’s life and her husband’s were in her hands.
If only the tape had arrived twenty-four hours earlier, William Craig might have been saved.
Deborah drank a cool glass of water and fought with her conscience. She could call Sam Goldberg and secure herself a scoop. She could call the FBI… She remembered how Brett used to chide her about her ‘ethical’ approach to journalism, even as a student. He found her ‘playing by the rules’ attitude mildly amusing, as though she was naive, not streetwise. But the germ of an idea had formed in her head.
Heart pounding, she made up her mind. Checking her PDA organizer she punched in a number.
The phone at the other end rang, and rang and rang. No answer. She kept on holding. Someone please pick up. Someone has to be in.
She waited nearly a minute before a syrupy voice answered. It was Tania Beckwith, the governor’s secretary.
Deborah hesitated for a split second. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I’ve an urgent call for Governor Wilkinson… Can you put me through?’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘I need to speak in confidence.’
‘Are you a member of the press?’
‘Yes. And please, it’s critical.’
‘There’s not been any last-minute stay, if that’s what you’re angling for.’
‘I’m well aware of that, but I need to speak to the governor right now.’ Deborah heard Wilkinson curse as his secretary called him to the phone.
‘I have a proposition for you, sir,’ Deborah said.
‘Is that you, Janine, yanking my chain?’ He let out a long, dirty laugh.
‘My name is Deborah Jones. A video has come into my possession within the last hour. An incriminating video.’
‘What the hell’s this got to do with me? I’ve got better things to do, Miss Jones, than glad-hand the press, y’understand?’
‘The video shows you having sex with a young man, while taking narcotics.’ Deborah heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line. Had she just made the biggest mistake of her career? Of her life?
‘Who else knows about this?’
Deborah took another gulp of water. ‘I can’t be sure. Me and whoever sent it, I guess.’
‘Can we talk about this?’
‘No.’ Deborah’s heart thumped harder. ‘The time for talking’s over. I want William Craig to be freed.’
Wilkinson snorted in derision. ‘Are you hustling me, Miss Jones?’
‘I guess so. If you reprieve Craig, I swear that the tape will be destroyed. No one will be any the wiser. Your secret will be safe.’
‘And if you’re lying?’
‘I’m not.’
‘I’ll need some time to think things through.’
‘Like I said, the time for talking’s over. Goodnight, governor.’
Deborah hung up and buried her head in her hands.
42
Sam Goldberg was back in his office with Frank Callaghan, waiting for the inevitable. For the last six hours they’d drowned their sorrows in Tobacco Road, but copious quantities of beer, Scotch and red wine had failed to lift the mood.
Goldberg shook his head at the media circus on TV. A blonde CNN reporter lapped up the drama in a concerned Mary Tyler-Moore-type voice. Hundreds of people were lined up along the chain-link fence, chanting and singing civil-rights songs of love and joining hands in solidarity. Some even managed to hold candles in the wet.
‘Damned vultures,’ Goldberg muttered to Callaghan, pointing at a blow-dried TV anchorman on CNN. ‘Be honest, Frank, I mean brutally honest. Could we have done any more?’
‘Sam, we took this baby to the wire.’ Callaghan peeled the label from his bottle of Bud. ‘There ain’t nothing more we could’ve done. The leads we produced, right up until this morning. Deborah’s revelation about the chief of police’s bribe was sensational. Absolutely first-rate investigative work. Christ, she’ll probably get a Pulitzer for the whole thing.’
‘I’m sure she’d rather have Craig off death row.’
There was a knock at the door and Larry Coen popped his head in, his face flushed. ‘We’ve got a development. Wilkinson’s called a press conference for six.’
‘He’s what?’
‘They’re going live at six. We’ll pick up the copy from AP and Reuters who’re already there.’
‘Has this come across the wires?’
Coen shook his head. ‘No, expecting that around five-thirty.’
Goldberg looked at Callaghan and rolled his eyes. ‘Fucking politicians. Always want to be the center of the universe.’
‘One more thing,’ Coen said. ‘Deborah’s disappeared. She left the building around four.’
43
Deborah sat in her bathroom, lights off, door locked, phone pressed to her ear. She was waiting for Faith to answer. The sweet smells of her bath salts and perfumes were making her feel sick.
Eventually Faith picked up, her voice a bit woozy as if she’d been drinking. A TV was on in the background.
Deborah sniffed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Hi, it’s me.’
The TV volume was turned down immediately.
‘Honey, I know this must be a bad time, but—’
‘Faith, I think I’ve done something bad.’
‘Deborah honey, you’re worrying me now. What the hell is it? You taken some pills?’
‘No.’
‘What, then?’
‘I’ve just blackmailed the governor of Florida.’
‘You did what?’
‘I got hold of some incriminating video footage. He’s a closet homosexual and drug user, and I blackmailed him to free—’
‘Honey, that is not good.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that.’
‘Look, I know how much that old guy means to you, but…’
‘I wanted him to get a break for once.’
‘You ain’t the law, honey.’
Deborah started to cry again. ‘I just couldn’t live with myself if I’d let him die.’
‘Where are you? I’ll come round.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Like hell it doesn’t. You’re my friend. And we stick together.’
‘Faith, I’m so scared, I can’t breathe. What if the governor is talking to the police right now about me trying to blackmail him, and goes ahead and kills Craig anyway?’
‘Honey, just slow down. Now, we’re gonna just sit and wait this out. What’s done is done, okay?’
Deborah blew her nose.
‘Goddamn, girl, you sure like to do things the hard way.’
‘I’m a fool, Faith.’
‘You ain’t no fool, honey. You’re just too close to the story. Much too close. Hell, you’ve become the story.’
‘They’re gonna crucify me for this, aren’t they?’
‘We don’t know anything yet. No use worrying about something that might never happen.’
‘Faith, I just want to say I love you and all the girls. And I’ve loved being part of your group. Just wanted to say thanks for everything.’
Deborah hung up, unable to talk anymore.
She left her tub to cool and went back to the living room. She switched on her TV and went out onto her balcony, T-shirt sticking to her back in the pre-dawn humidity. The black sky was already turning a pale gold.
She heard an ABC anchor describe the group outside the fence singing hymns. And Craig was being prepared for his slow journey to the execution chamber, a Presbyterian minister by his side.
Gazing out over the still waters of the Atlantic, the sound of drunken laughter drifting up from the neon-lit drag below, car horns still blaring, Deborah reflected that the hedonistic world of South Beach was quite oblivious to
the endgame that was being played out in north Florida.
She leaned forward on the balcony and stared all the way down to Collins below. Two hundred feet. Three hundred feet…
Loitering tourists and partiers wandered unaware of her torment high above.
For a brief moment, Deborah wondered if she had the guts to jump. What had gone through Rachel Harvey’s head at the Mandarin Oriental before she fell?
Inside her apartment, the ABC anchor spoke in stentorian tones. ‘In five minutes, we’re being told to expect an announcement from Tallahassee. We don’t know what to expect, but our correspondent, a witness to the forthcoming execution of William Craig, says he is being led, as we speak, to the execution room. I repeat, he’s being led to the execution room.’
Deborah blinked away the tears and stared up at the millions of faint stars in the sky above.
44
The small windowless room was hot, the fluorescent lighting harsh. Senator Jack O’Neill sat hunched over a scalding coffee and watched the TV pictures in the FBI’s field office in North Miami Beach. Alongside him were five special agents, all stares focused on Tallahassee. The smell of stale sweat and cologne was overpowering.
‘Why am I still waiting for my lawyer?’ O’Neill asked the man in charge, Special Agent Frank Alonzo. ‘I’m entitled to see him.’
Alonzo just shrugged, as if it wasn’t his problem.
‘So that’s it then, huh? Whatever happened to my constitutional rights?’
Alonzo didn’t answer.
There was a close-up on TV of Governor Wilkinson tanned, immaculately groomed in a dark three-piece suit, matching tie and white shirt. He stepped forward through the huge whitewashed columns of his Tallahassee mansion into a blizzard of flashbulbs, a light drizzle overhead.
O’Neill felt his blood boil.
The eyes of the world were upon the governor as he walked to the lectern. And didn’t he know it. He adjusted his tie and glanced around the assembled throng like the old pro he was.
Then he lowered one of the phalanx of microphones and gripped the side of the lectern. A lackey held a golf umbrella over him.
Wilkinson cleared his throat before speaking, an affectation that his media minders had advised him to persevere with, as it made him seem vulnerable and hence likeable to women.