by Matt Witten
Pam said, “Absolutely. Cell phones, loose change, anything.”
“Okay,” Susan said, and began emptying her pockets.
Pam said, “I’m so glad Agent Pappas is here to protect you from all those rabid reporters. And now your ex-husband is coming too? That’s wonderful! At times like these, families should be together.”
Susan was already sick of this woman. “Should I take off my belt?”
“Yes, please. Like I told your ex on the phone, if you don’t set off the metal detector, we won’t have to pat you down. I hope you took my advice about the …” Pam pointed delicately toward her own chest. “… undergarments?”
Susan had indeed made sure to pack only wireless bras. “I did.”
“Perfect.”
Susan and Robert made it through the metal detector without incident. Then they started walking through the prison. Pam chattered away about how big it was, when it was built, how many inmates there were, but Susan quit hearing her. This place was terrifying. She had never been in a prison before. Every time a door was opened or shut, there was a deafening clang. First a CO would open a door for them, steering them into a small enclosed space. Then the CO would clang that door shut, and the door in front of them would clang open, they’d walk through, and then that door would clang shut with a huge echoing sound. The echoes all got trapped in the long hallways.
Susan felt trapped too.
She passed several inmates, white, black, and brown. They all wore dark green prison uniforms and looked at her stone-faced. She wondered: Did they hate her? Did they know one of their fellow inmates would be killed tonight and she had demanded it?
Were these men murderers? Rapists? Or just drug users? Were they all guilty, or were some of them innocent?
Nothing on their faces gave them away.
Pam’s endless patter— “This is a federal prison, so we get folks from all over. Last year we even had two Samoans. Boy, were they huge!”—started to scratch on Susan’s ears like sandpaper. Luckily, they seemed to have the same effect on Robert, because he interrupted her.
“How did the run-through go?” he asked.
“Bing bang boom,” Pam said cheerily. “We have the A team today. They’ve all done at least three executions. The nurse has done ten of them.”
A nurse at an execution? What for?
Pam continued, “So we won’t have to worry about the condemned man herking and jerking and the needle coming out and chemicals spraying everywhere. That’s no fun.”
Susan winced, imagining the herking and jerking. She asked, “Is Curt’s sister here?”
“She’s with the inmate now. Don’t worry, you won’t see her. We keep the families of the condemned man and the victim totally separate.” Yet another door clanged behind them, and they left the administration building and entered a hallway that led to a cellblock building. “Would you like to visit the execution chamber? Some family members do and some don’t. It’s your choice.”
Susan hesitated, then turned to Robert. “What do you think?”
Robert said, “It’s probably a good idea. You’ll feel more prepared.”
“Okay,” Susan said, turning back to Pam. “Let’s go.”
“You got it. You’ll even get a chance to see Death Row. It’s on the way.”
Great, Susan thought.
When they made it through two more clanging doors into the cellblock building, things got more crowded. They acquired two COs who accompanied them for protection. Inmates and COs were everywhere, some surly, some laughing. The smell of bleach got stronger. It felt like a college dorm, except for the uniforms and the fact most of the men were older than college-age. Susan was self-conscious, wondering how often these men saw women in person. Not that she was a hot young chick or anything, but still. She looked furtively into the eyes of the men passing her and wondered how many of them would hurt her if given a chance.
They came to another thick metal door and waited for their two COs to open it. “Okay,” Pam said, “we’re coming to the Row.”
The two COs, one of them a muscular guy who looked like he spent his off hours at the gym and the other one tall and wiry, opened the door and shut it behind them. Susan immediately smelled something that felt a little off, then realized it was human shit.
They turned a corner and came to Death Row. So this is where Curt Jansen has spent his last twenty years, Susan thought.
As if reading her thoughts, Pam stopped in front of the very first cell. “This is Jansen’s cell. Or should I say, it was.”
Susan looked through the metal bars at the tiny six-by-nine room. Against the back wall was a skinny bed with a thin blanket. A metal toilet with no seat occupied one corner. Two books lay on the floor by the bed: a biography of Ted Williams, who Susan remembered used to play for the Boston Red Sox; and a book called You Can Have Heaven on Earth.
Must be some kind of self-help book, Susan thought. But so what? No doubt killers and rapists read self-help books too. It didn’t mean anything.
“Seen enough?” Pam said.
Susan nodded. She looked at Robert, standing there silently beside her. His eyes looked so soft. She just wanted to cry in his arms.
They headed down “the Row.” On either side of them, inmates looked up from their books, push-ups, and solo chess games. Their faces sullen, they watched the visitors pass by. Pam was saying, “So after the inmate eats his final meal—Curt Jansen asked for a T-bone steak and chocolate ice cream, by the way, what you might expect—anyway, then he sees the chaplain if he wants—”
To their right, an elderly inmate with missing front teeth came to the bars of his cell and looked straight at Susan. “Hey, honey. Curt says your daughter had a real tight pussy!”
That did it. All the other inmates started whooping and shouting. “Oh yeah!” “Shove that dick in there, baby!” “Fuck me, sweetheart, suck my dick!”
The muscular CO yelled, “Y’all better shut up right now, or you’re going in the hole!”
The inmates got even louder. “I’ll give you my dick too, asshole!” “Mothafucka, I’ll carve you up!”
Susan, Pam, and Robert walked faster down the Row, not saying anything anymore. The COs’ clenched jaws showed they wanted to go into those cells and bash a few heads, but instead they followed the three visitors.
At the very last cell on the Row, just before they could make it into an adjoining hallway and get out of there, a young inmate wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses lunged forward to the bars of his cell. As Susan turned toward him, he lifted his lips and spit at her. She felt wetness on the back of her hand and screamed.
As she frantically wiped her hand on her coat, all the other inmates on the Row laughed and shouted insults. The tall, wiry CO snapped at the young inmate, “You just got five months in the hole, dipshit.”
But the inmate shouted at Susan, “Fuck you, Curt didn’t do it! He’s innocent!”
“Come on, let’s go,” Pam said, and they got the hell out of there.
CHAPTER FORTY
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, PRESENT DAY
THEY MADE IT to the adjoining hallway, another windowless cement corridor painted dull green, with the inmates’ yells still in their ears. Pam said, “Sorry about that. The natives always get a little restless on Execution Day.”
“We’ll deal with that guy who spit at you later,” the muscular CO said.
“It’s okay,” Susan said, because she knew she was supposed to say something.
“I hope we don’t have to go through there again when we leave,” Robert said.
Pam said, “No, there’s another way, it just takes a little longer.”
“Wish we’d taken that way coming in,” Robert said.
“You’re probably right,” Pam said cheerily. “Live and learn!”
Geez, what an idiot, thought Susan.
Pam continued, “So when the time comes, the condemned man will walk down this hallway with at least four officers escorting him. Some of the
m fight like monsters with superhuman strength. Some of them drag their bodies on the floor like dead weights and scream the whole way.” She shrugged. “And then some of them just walk in and sit right down at the chair like they’re getting a haircut. You never know.”
The tall CO opened the metal door into the execution chamber, and Susan walked in with the others.
The room was painted the same dull green as the hallways outside. In the center of the room was a large, wooden reclining chair. It had thick black straps attached. Nearby was a medical cart with three plastic bags containing liquids. It reminded Susan of the cart in her mom’s hospital room when she had pneumonia.
Facing the death chair were two thick-looking windows. On the other side of the windows were two rooms, which she figured were the viewing rooms for people to watch the execution. They were both painted tan, with gray folding chairs set out.
The COs shut the door behind them in the execution chamber. Clang! Susan’s chest tightened, like there wasn’t enough air in here. She put her hand on her chest and tried to breathe. Having Robert beside her wasn’t enough to calm her.
Pam sat down in the death chair, looking like this was her favorite part of the tour. “Once they’re in the chair, they’re tied down with these straps,” she said, as she laid the straps over her body. “Then they’re given a chance to say some final words.” She gave an amused chuckle. “Last guy we had in here just said ‘F you, f you, f you’ a couple hundred times ’til they finally put a gag on him.”
“Will we be able to hear what he says?” Susan asked.
“This room is soundproof, but when the time comes, we’ll turn on the intercom so we can hear him but he can’t hear us. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a deathbed confession.”
God, I hope so, Susan thought.
Pam picked up a black hood. “After they finish talking, if they want, we cover their heads with this. And then …” She pointed to the three bags of liquids, one by one. “Drug number one puts ’em to sleep. Drug number two stops their breathing, and that’s really enough to kill ’em. But just for good measure, drug number three stops their heart.” She paused. “Pardon the dark humor, but drug number three is like beating a dead horse.” Her face tilted up into a half-smile, and she looked disappointed when Susan and Robert didn’t smile along with her.
Susan turned around and looked at the viewing rooms again. “Will he be able to see us?”
“If he doesn’t wear the hood, sure.” Pam pointed at the viewing room on the left. “The sister and the chaplain will be in that room.” Then she pointed at the room on the right. “You and your people will be in there.”
Robert turned to Susan. “The viewing rooms are soundproof too, so we won’t hear Curt’s sister.”
Susan imagined herself sitting in one of those gray folding chairs, watching Curt Jansen die. She had been so eager to be the last person Curt saw while he was taking his final breath. She wondered, would the judge have given Curt the death penalty if she hadn’t demanded it?
“Any other questions?” Pam asked.
“I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”
Pam took a barf bag out of a drawer of the medical cart. “We got you covered,” she said, her voice sounding extra cheerful, if anything.
Robert placed his hand on Susan’s shoulder. He asked Pam, “You don’t happen to have any cigarettes, do you?”
Pam said sternly, “Cigarettes are illegal in this facility.”
Then she gave Susan a wink. “If you get caught.”
The two COs opened the door again, and after multiple clangs and more interminable chatter from Pam, Susan found herself with a pack of Pam’s old-school Newports inside a women’s restroom on the second floor of the administration building. Pam had to go deal with the media, so Robert was in the bathroom with Susan while the two COs waited in the hallway. She stood by the open window and breathed out a hefty lungful of smoke through the open bars into the icy outside air.
Much as Pam annoyed her, she had to admit these cigarettes were a lifesaver. Smoking was just as good as she remembered. She didn’t even cough once—it was like she’d never stopped. As she inhaled the smoke, she wondered why the hell she ever quit. Then she remembered: she was pregnant, and she didn’t want to risk hurting the baby.
Well, she didn’t have to worry about that now. She wondered if she would start smoking again. And then she thought: Who cares?
She breathed out some more smoke through the bars. Robert leaned against a sink, watching her. “Feeling better?” he said.
Her phone buzzed. She’d been avoiding calls from her mom all day. She looked at her phone and groaned. It was Kyra. In some ways that was even worse.
But she picked up. She owed it to Kyra. “Hi,” she said.
She heard Kyra’s aggrieved voice. “I saw on the news. You said Danny didn’t do it.”
“It looks that way. It wasn’t the same necklace after all. Emily’s necklace was new.”
“What do you mean?!”
Susan explained about the absence of any DNA from Amy, and the pink duck bead that had been manufactured in 2014 or later. “So that means we’ve got no evidence against Danny.”
“Fuck the evidence!” Kyra said. “Listen to your gut. This guy has a six-year-old daughter!”
Susan felt a stab of pain in her chest. “Look, there’s nothing I can do.”
“You’ll let her get hurt, just like Amy? We both know Danny did it! Stand up and fight, for fuck’s sake! You can do it!”
“I’m sorry, Kyra,” Susan said, and shut her phone. She felt crushed.
“Your cigarette,” Robert said, pointing, and she saw it was burning her finger. She dropped it to the floor and stubbed it out. She could smell her burning flesh.
“Let’s pour some cold water on that,” Robert said.
“I’m fine,” she said. At least the pain in her finger distracted her. She looked at Robert. “Curt Jansen had better be fucking guilty.”
He nodded.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Robert held out another cigarette. “We still got another five minutes.”
Susan shook her head. “No, let’s just go,” she said, and led the way out of the bathroom.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, PRESENT DAY
THE TWO COS led Susan and Robert on a roundabout route to their viewing room, avoiding Death Row this time. As the doors clanged around them, Susan listened to her footsteps echoing down the hollow hallways. She felt like she was walking to her own execution.
They reached the hallway that had doors to the two viewing rooms. They were about to enter the room for the victim’s family when Susan heard footsteps heading toward them and looked up.
Lisa Jansen was coming her way. She was flanked by a CO and a sandy-haired, gentle-faced man who Susan figured was the chaplain.
Lisa saw Susan and stopped, glaring with hatred and disgust. But Susan forced herself to look Lisa right in the eye. She wouldn’t back down. Goddamn it, I’m not doing anything wrong!
“Look, your brother confessed,” she said. Her voice sounded harsh to her, harsher than she felt, but she kept going. “He said he killed my daughter.”
Lisa’s lips curled. “Don’t try to make yourself feel better.”
“You would’ve done the exact same thing if it was one of your little girls.”
Lisa stepped up close to her, so close she could smell coffee on Lisa’s breath.
“My brother is not a killer,” Lisa said. “But you are.”
Then she turned and walked off to her viewing room, followed by the chaplain and the CO.
Susan stood there frozen for a moment, watching Lisa go. Then Robert took her arm and led her into the other viewing room. When she entered, she saw Danny sitting on one of the folding chairs. He looked up and gave her a welcoming smile.
She looked down at him and swallowed, unable to figure out how she felt.
There were other people in the room
too: Pam, Director Williams, and two men and one woman in suits. Pam rose immediately to greet her.
“Here you are, just in time,” Pam said, beaming. “Susan and Agent Pappas, meet our warden, the amazing Jim Tomey; Assistant District Attorney David Johnstone; ADA Karina Navarro; and Director Williams of the FBI I believe you know.”
Williams said sarcastically, “Thought I’d stick around and make sure nothing else screws up.”
Warden Tomey graciously ignored that and shook Susan’s hand. “Ms. Lentigo, we’ll try to make this as positive an experience for you as possible.”
But it was Danny that Susan was focused on. He looked so normal, in his new blue jeans, black wool coat, and Timberlake boots. His face had just the right combination of somberness and concern for Susan, along with a bit of gentle humor.
“For a second there I thought you weren’t coming,” he said. “I saved you a seat.”
He can’t be a rapist and murderer. He just can’t.
It made sense that the two parents would sit next to each other, so she did what she was supposed to and sat in the folding chair next to Danny. Robert sat on her other side.
As soon as she sat down, she wished she and Robert could switch chairs. She hated being this close to Danny.
What if he is the killer?
She wished she and Robert were back at that bar, drinking pitchers of beer, listening to country music.
Director Williams eyed her with his permanently irritated expression. She wanted to give him a defiant stare but couldn’t summon the energy. She looked through the window into the execution chamber and was just in time to see the door from the hallway open.
Curt Jansen walked into the execution chamber. Behind him came four COs.
Because of the soundproofing, Susan couldn’t hear anything from inside there. But Curt wasn’t dragging or screaming, he walked with his head held high. He looked a little grayish from lack of sun, but he had a haircut and was freshly shaved. Also, somebody—his sister, no doubt—had given him a suit to wear to his death. He looked sort of … distinguished.
“Show time,” Pam said brightly. Robert and the woman lawyer gave her an annoyed look, but nobody said anything.