by Rachel Lee
Old, old arguments that changed no one's opinion.
Then she and Ted debated the issue for a couple of minutes, and Ted surprised her by saying that the Otis case was giving him his first doubts about the death penalty. “I know I've always been foursquare in favor of it,” he said. “But this is the first time I really thought it was possible **********that an innocent man was going to die. I'm rethinking the whole issue now.”
Then they opened the phones to callers, a majority of whom seemed to be of the opinion that Otis couldn't fry quickly enough.
All too quickly, they were at the ten o'clock break, and Jamie still hadn't called. Carey paced the yard behind the station and managed to smoke two cigarettes in five minutes. Tension had gripped her head in a vise, and her heart was beating rapidly, unwilling to slow down. She wished she could just crawl out of her skin and be done with this.
But she was back in the studio on time. Ted opened the hour with his own monologue on tonight's execution, finishing with a plea to Jamie to call, and a reminder there were less than two hours remaining.
They started to get calls from the victims of violent crime, moms and dads who had lost a child to murder and couldn't bear the thought that in only a few years the killer would be walking free while their child lay in a cold grave. The discussion shifted toward a life sentence without possibility of parole as a viable option to replace the death penalty.
A couple of people called in to cheer the upcoming execution. Ed did two more reports from the prison, where the waiting crowds were growing as the hour approached.
When Carey took time to glance at the clock again, it was almost eleven.
Then she glanced down at her screen and felt her heart stop.
Bob from Gulfport. Johnnie didn't do it.
She looked at Ted who was listening to a caller who had addressed her remarks to him. She caught his eye. “Take the next two calls,” she whispered. “Leave Bob for me.”
He nodded.
Carey hurried from the booth, nearly colliding with the policeman who was barreling out of the control booth. “That's him,” she said.
“I know. I'm radioing it in right now.”
She entered the control booth and found Marge frozen over the commercial and news carts. “Marge.”
Her producer turned. “It's him.”
“I know. Listen, skip the newsbreak. I don't want to lose him. And get the governor on the line right now and give him a live feed. I don't care how many bells you have to ring, or how many whistles you have to blow. Mention me and Ocala, tell him I'll drag his butt into court on a sexual-assault charge—I don't care what you have to do. And when you get him, tell him he's got to hear this right now because he's not going to want to read about it in tomorrow's paper. Got it? Tell him I'm going to get an on-air confession, and I've got a quarter of a million live listeners.”
Marge's eyes were huge. “Sexual assault? Are you sure?”
“He'll know exactly what I mean, and yes, I'm sure.”
She hurried back to the booth, where Ted was fielding a call from some bleeding heart who didn't understand why everyone was so upset about a murderer dying when people killed innocent animals all the time.
She sat at the console, put on her headphones, and drew her finger across her neck, telling Ted she was going to cut off the caller. He nodded and signaled it was hers.
She switched lines. “Bob from Gulfport. Are you there?”
“I'm here.”
“What do you want to say tonight?”
“Johnnie didn't do it. I did.” His voice was laced with anguish, as if he were on the edge of tears. “Johnnie didn't do anything wrong. I did it. I did it.”
“Jamie? Jamie Otis, is that you?”
She was answered by silence, and panic hammered her as she wondered if she had lost him. But no, she could still hear the sounds of traffic in the background over the phone. “Jamie? Are you still there?”
“Yes …” It was almost a whisper.
“Jamie, did you hear the governor last night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear what he said? We can't stop this unless someone else confesses. You just did that, didn't you? Why don't you turn yourself in right now—”
“No! But if they kill Johnnie, I'm going to make them pay! Do you hear me? I'm going to make every one of them pay, just the way I made the others pay!”
Carey caught her breath, stilling an urge to tell him that she knew exactly what he had done. She had to draw this out, keep him on the phone as long as possible so the police could reach him. “What did you do, Jamie? What others are you talking about?”
“You know what others! You know! I heard you say the police are looking for me. Well, they'll never find me. I'll just keep on killing people, and I'll never stop unless they let my brother go.”
“Jamie … Jamie, we've got less than two hours. In fact, I'd be willing to bet we've only got a little over an hour to stop this execution. It'll take time to get the governor, and time for him to stop the execution. So don't give me any crap, okay? Just tell me what you've done. Then maybe everyone will believe what you say you're going to do.”
There was another silence. Then Jamie said quietly, “I killed Downs and the Barnstable woman.”
Seamus had Carey's show playing quietly on the radio as he sat with Gil, and they waited for the call. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that they were cramping.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered tautly. “Let's go, dammit!”
“They'll let us know as soon as they have the location,” Gil said.
“We don't have all goddamn night.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you're short on sympathy?”
Gil shrugged a shoulder. “I don't have as much wrapped up in this as you do. You could give a damn about Otis. It's Carey you're worried about.”
“Tell me something I don't know. Besides, I do give a damn about Otis. I helped put him there.”
“Just one of the job perks.”
Just then the radio squawked. “Suspect is calling from a phone at Sixty-sixth Street and Thirty-eighth Avenue North. Move in cautiously. We don't want the bird to fly the coop.”
“Christ!” Seamus slapped his hand on his thigh. “We don't have anybody all the way up there! He's never called from up there before.”
But Gil didn't answer. He just put the light on the top of the car and headed for Sixty-sixth.
Governor on the newsline.
The message popped up on Carey's screen and Carey looked up to see Marge giving her a thumbs-up through the window. Bill Hayes was there, too, and he looked ready to chew his tie.
“Tell me about Henry Downs, Jamie,” Carey said into the mike. “He was a friend of mine, you know.”
“I know. I saw you there. You helped get Johnnie convicted.”
The announcement made her heart lurch, but she kept her voice steady. “So, are you going to kill me, too?”
“No. I thought about it. But I decided you're okay. You're trying to help him. But if they kill him tonight…”
He didn't complete the thought. He didn't need to. Carey suddenly had a vivid image of spending the rest of her life being stalked by a murderer. She suppressed a shudder. “So tell me about Henry Downs, Jamie. Why him? He was only doing his job.”
“That's what the Nazis said, too. They were only following orders. But he said terrible things about Johnnie in court. He said Johnnie murdered our dad for no good reason! He lied! He was a liar, and he deserved to die. Johnnie killed Daddy because he was … he was …” Jamie's voice broke. “He was going to hurt me. Johnnie told him to stop. He told Daddy it was a sin before God, and Daddy hit him and made Johnnie's nose and ears bleed, and then he grabbed me and started pulling my clothes off and then Johnnie got Daddy's razor …” He trailed off, panting heavily. “Johnnie saved me,” he finally said plaintively.
Carey gentled her voice. “He didn't save yo
u so you could go around killing people, Jamie.”
“I didn't have any choice! I didn't! Those people hurt him. They threw him out and told him never to come back. Nobody treats my brother that way. He saved me, and I had to save him. So I killed them.”
“Who did you kill, Jamie?” She asked the question gently, but as an attorney she knew how important it was to pin down the specifics. “Who did you kill to save Johnnie?”
“Linda and Harvey Kline,” Jamie said, sounding weary. “It was easier than slaughtering pigs. I went to their house with Johnnie's key. They were asleep and I just cut their throats first thing. Bang bang. Better than a gun. Quieter.”
“I see.” Carey's stomach was rolling over as she remembered the murder scene. It was far too easy to imagine all that had led up to what she had seen the following day in the Kline bedroom. “So you killed the Klines to save Johnnie. And you killed Downs to save Johnnie, and because he lied.”
“That's right. They deserved it, too. All of them deserved it.”
“So what about Beatrice Barnstable?”
“Bitch. She was a bitch. She was the one who stood up in the courtroom and said Johnnie had to die. So I killed her. What goes around comes around. That's what they say. It sure came around on her. I ex-e-cu-ted her. I let her know what was going to happen. I just wish I could have made it last five years, the way she did to Johnnie.”
“But what about Ben Webster? Ben defended your brother. He did his best in that trial to keep Johnnie from going to jail.”
“I didn't kill him.”
“No, but you tried to, didn't you. You tried to break into his home Sunday night.”
“I wish I'd made it.”
“But why? He tried very hard to save Johnnie.”
“No, he didn't. The Klines left everything to Johnnie in their will. Everything. I thought when I killed them that Johnnie would have a home even though they'd thrown him out. But Webster took it all. He took it all to pay for Johnnie's defense. At least that's what he said. Thirty thousand dollars!”
“He earned the money, Jamie. He represented your brother for a long time.”
“Until the money ran out. Then so did he.”
“I see.” Glancing at her console, Carey saw that the phones were absolutely silent. Whoever was listening to the program right now was listening on tenterhooks, just as she was. Nobody wanted to interrupt.
She looked at the clock and saw that more precious minutes had ticked away. Panic began to climb into her throat.
It was then that she decided to take a chance. She might cause Jamie to hang up, but she had to take the risk. Hardening her voice, she changed tack.
“Jamie?” Carey said. “You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see if I have this straight, okay? You killed the Klines, but you're letting your brother take the rap for it?”
“I'm trying to save him!”
Carey made her voice as hard as she could. “It doesn't look that way to me. You could have confessed five years ago and saved him all of this!”
“You don't understand!”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. Johnnie knows you killed the Klines, doesn't he?”
Jamie was silent. Panic lodged in Carey's throat making it almost impossible for her to breathe. Then he said uncertainly, “I… think so.”
“So there's your brother, whom you profess to want to save, sitting on death row in your place. What's more, he knows you did it, Jamie. But he loves you so much that he's willing to die to save you. Isn't that right?”
“I…” Jamie's voice broke, and he drew a ragged breath. “I… don't know!”
“You do know. You know he's giving his life to save yours. You know that he loves you enough to do that. But you don't love Johnnie enough, do you, Jamie? You don't love him as much as he loves you!”
“Yes, I do! Yes, I do! That's why I killed those people! Because I love Johnnie, and I want to save him!”
“If you really loved him as much as he loves you, you'd turn yourself in to the police, and you'd confess, and you'd do it right now. Right now, Jamie. Because your brother is going to die in less than an hour if you don't do it right now!”
The silence on the phone was so long that Carey would have feared she'd lost him but for the background traffic sounds that told her the line was still open. She held her breath, and felt as if most of the Tampa Bay area were holding its breath along with her. The phones remained utterly silent. Everyone was listening.
“Jamie?” she said finally. She heard him sob. “Jamie,” she said gently, “you know what you need to do. You know how to show your brother you love him as much as he loves you. You know how to save Johnnie right now. Will you talk to the police?”
“I… I…”
Suddenly there was a loud bang, as if the phone receiver hit something. There were voices, some of them raised in the background, and the sounds of a scuffle, “Jamie?” Carey called his name. “Jamie?” Oh, God, what had happened? Had he run?
But then she heard the rattle of the receiver again, and moments later a familiar voice saying, “This is Detective Seamus Rourke of the St. Petersburg Police Department, Ms. Justice. We have apprehended James Otis. Thank you for your assistance.” Then with a click, he was gone.
Carey didn't even blink. She hit die governor's line and put him on the air. “Governor Howell, you're on the air now. You heard the live feed we were sending you?”
“Uh… yes. Yes, I did, Ms. Justice.” His voice, at first sounding shocked, rapidly strengthened. “It was … interesting, to say the least.”
“You'll stay the execution of John William Otis then?”
“I can't do that.”
“Oh for God's sake,” said Ted Sanders, jumping in on his microphone. “Let's not be asinine about this, Governor! You just heard a man confess to the killings for which John Otis was convicted. Don't tell me—and don't tell our quarter million listeners—that you're going to let this execution go through!”
“I need more than this to pardon a man. All I have is some verbal claims made on the telephone.”
“Then don't pardon him,” Carey said sharply. “But at least stay the execution until we have a signed confession. Don't kill an innocent man because the paperwork won't be there on time!”
There was a pause. “Well, of course I'll stay the execution. I couldn't do anything less under the circumstances. You'll have to excuse me now, because I need to make the call to Raiford Prison.”
Carey glanced at the clock. It was now eleven twenty-seven. God, had she been on the phone with Otis that long? “Thank you, Governor,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
The phones were all lit up now, and messages from Marge filled her screen. She looked at them, then took her headphones off and rose from her chair. “It's your show now, Ted.”
Bill caught her outside in the hallway. “You can't leave! Everyone is going to want to talk to you. My God, what a program! But you can't leave.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “I'm leaving. My show was over a half hour ago. And you know what, Bill? I'm not sure I'll be back tomorrow.”
“Carey…” He called after her, but she just kept walking.
She couldn't say why, but she didn't feel jubilant. She felt… ill. And all she wanted was to get out and never come back.
Epilogue
Two days later, Seamus and Carey drove up to Starke, and were waiting outside Raiford Prison when John William Otis emerged into the free sunlight for the first time since the death of his foster parents.
There was no fanfare, no press of reporters to plague him. At his request, the prison had not revealed the time of his release.
He stood blinking, as if the light was brighter outside, somehow. Or as if he didn't quite know what to do. The prison had given him a bus ticket back to Tampa, and would have transported him to the terminal, but when Carey had called the prison and offered to come get him and take him home, he had jumped at the chance.
For him it was just that many minutes sooner that he would be free of the last physical reminders of the nightmare.
When Carey approached him, he smiled and offered his hand, shaking hers with surprising strength for a man so small. He remembered Seamus from the investigation after the murder, and from the courtroom, and he looked uneasily at the much larger man.
But Seamus pumped his hand warmly. “I'm glad it all worked out.”
John turned and looked back at the prison. “Did it?” he asked.
Seamus and Carey exchanged uncertain looks. But then John squared his shoulders and gave them both shy smiles. “Thanks for coming for me. Thanks for …” His voice trailed away, and Carey had the distinct impression he didn't know how to thank them for saving him at the expense of his brother.
“I'm sorry about Jamie,” she said.
John nodded. He looked down at his toes. When he spoke, his voice was infinitely sad. “Jamie doesn't know how to love,” he said. “He never had a chance to learn.”
“He could have learned from you.”
John's face somehow seemed to crumple in on itself, as if the pain was almost too much to bear. “Maybe he did,” he said quietly. “Maybe he did.”
There was another silence, and they stood in a frozen tableau, as if none of them were sure what to do next.
“Well, we'd better go,” Seamus eventually said. “I'd like to get back before dark.”
John nodded, and they started moving toward the parking lot.
“We got you a plane ticket, John,” Seamus continued. “It's open-ended. You can use it whenever you want.”
“Where to?” John asked.
“Boston. We figured you'd like to go up there and see the autumn colors in a couple of weeks.”
“And then you can see the snow. Real snow,” Carey added.
He nodded and paused to look back once more at the prison. There was a haunting, wistful tone in his voice.
“I just wish Jamie could go with me.”
“Are you feeling the way I'm feeling?” Seamus asked Carey that night as they strolled beside the water at St. Pete Beach. Ahead of them rose the exotic spires of the Don Cesar Hotel. Beneath their feet, damp sand resisted, then gave way. The gulf was quiet tonight, gentle waves rolling in with a lullaby rhythm. They held hands, their fingers clinging.