Prayers the Devil Answers

by Sharyn McCrumb

  Roy said good morning when I came in, taking no more notice of the flowers than I’d expected him to. He wasn’t much for small talk either. He held up an open envelope from the stack of morning mail. “Got a letter here that says they’re sending Lonnie Varden back to us by the end of the week.”

  I just nodded and began putting some water in the Mason jar I used for a vase. “Guess the trial is over then.”

  “If you ask me, they should have called us instead of writing a letter. We’re lucky that we got word before the newspaper reporters showed up.”

  I took the office scissors out of the drawer and started to cut the stems of the lilies so they’d be short enough to fit in the jar without making it topple over. “About Lonnie Varden?” I was barely listening to him, because I had just noticed a little black spider crawling along one of the lily stems, and it was taking all my concentration to keep from screaming. I was the sheriff, though, and I was at work, so it wouldn’t do for me to start squealing like a day-old shoat at the sight of a tiny bug. I held my breath, pinched it between my fingers, and flicked it into the wastebasket. Roy was still talking.

  “Why would reporters show up here if the trial’s over? Everybody knew he was guilty before he even went to court.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I expect that saved the prosecutor some time at trial. I suppose they wrote it up in the Knoxville paper, but I never saw it, did you?”

  “No. Knew he did it. Knew the court would find him guilty. Everything else they wrote would just be . . .” He tapped my flower. “Gilding the lily.”

  I smiled. “I should have kept up, since he’s from this county.” I should have, but the past few months had left me feeling like a bed sheet in a windstorm. Between cooking and washing and taking care of my sons, and doing my job, so that nobody could say I was taking charity, I barely had a thought to spare for cases we had already disposed of. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. “But you said they’re sending him back here?”

  Roy tapped the letter. “So they say. He’s been in Knoxville for trial, but I reckon they’re done with him now.”

  “Why isn’t he going to the penitentiary then?” I should have had a mug of coffee before we started talking. I was barely listening to what Roy was saying, just making the right noises whenever he paused, because I was concentrating too much on my flower arranging and not enough on the realities of state law.

  Roy stiffened and made a kind of noise, so I looked up at him to see what was wrong. He blinked uncertainly. “Well, he’s not going to the penitentiary because they found him guilty, ma’am. Of first degree murder.”

  “Well, of course they did. They had everything but a movie of him doing it. What of it?” There was one lily that wasn’t quite straight in the arrangement: its stem was too long, I decided, and I turned my attention back to that.

  Roy watched me fiddle with the flower for a few moments before he said, “Well, you see, a first degree murder conviction means they intend to hang him.”

  I looked up then, holding the scissors in one hand and the last lily in the other. “But you said he’s coming back . . . They’re going to hang him? Here?”

  Roy reddened and looked down at the letter, and I could tell that he bitterly regretted having started the conversation in the first place, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d have to know sooner rather than later, and it was his duty to tell me. “Well . . . I figured—I hoped—you already knew. I guess somebody will be along to talk to you about it. I’m sure they will.”

  “About the hanging? Does the state handle it or what?”

  Roy sighed. “No. We do. Well, I guess you could say that we represent the state, but what I mean is that executions are the responsibility of the county in which the offense occurred. So the local sheriff’s department carries out the sentence. That is, you do. State law says the hanging is performed by the sheriff of the county in which the offense was committed.”

  “So I have to decide which one of you performs the execution . . . maybe Tyree?”

  “I don’t think you can. Not unless they approve a special exemption.” Roy kept looking past me at the door, as if he were hoping that somebody would arrive and save him from this conversation. He groped for words to soften the blow. “And they might grant an exemption, of course. They might. All things considered.”

  “You mean because the sheriff is female?”

  “Well, yes. It’s a special circumstance. Nobody would argue with that. But if for some reason they don’t grant an exception . . . the fact is that you would have to perform the hanging. Yourself. Personally.”

  “Me? But doesn’t it take strength?” I must have had a dozen other objections, but that was the first one that came out.

  “To unbolt a trapdoor? Not much. They’ll start building the scaffold in a couple of days. Well, somebody will. We may have to get the plans from somewhere and hire local carpenters. Lord knows they could use the work. It will have a trapdoor, so they’ll have to work out how to manage that. If that thing got stuck during the execution we’d all look like fools. Anyhow, when the gallows platform gets assembled, you can go and have a look at it, see how it works.”

  I tried to picture myself practicing to perform an execution, but the idea made me shiver. Then I remembered something else. “The hanging is supposed to be public, isn’t it?” Roy had said we’d all look like fools. That’s what he meant: besides a whole crowd of ghouls to watch the grisly spectacle, there’d also be radio and newspaper reporters there to witness the execution on behalf of their audience who couldn’t attend in person. It wasn’t that any of them cared about seeing justice done for that poor dead woman. Everybody just wanted a chance to see a free spectacle they could brag about in later years. Watching a man die—how many chances did an ordinary person have to do that? Some people liked to watch animals being torn to pieces—coon hunts, cockfights—and for people like that this hanging might provide the same sort of grim thrill, only more intense. I wondered if there was any way to deprive them of their blood feast and to spare myself the ordeal of having to perform the act in public. “So the hanging will be done outdoors somewhere, and anybody that wants to can come and watch?”

  “Apparently so. State law says it has to be public.” He blushed a little.

  “There’ll be fools wanting to bring their kids to see a hanging. There’ll be drunks making a party of it. Can’t we stop that?”

  “Not as far as I can tell, but I could check. We have a book on the state’s law-enforcement regulations in the top file drawer, and I read up on executions awhile back. Didn’t see any point in bringing it up until now, though. I was hoping you already knew.”

  “No. I didn’t know. Nobody bothered to tell me. When is it supposed to happen?”

  He held up the letter. “According to this, there has to be time to build the scaffold and make the arrangements for an attending physician, figure out who will claim the body, all that. The letter covers a lot of the details. The execution date is in three weeks, it says. They’ll be sending him back here by the end of this week, though. He’ll stay here in jail until the hanging. But we have a couple of weeks to get ready.”

  “What do you mean, ‘get ready’?”

  “Well, I told you. Getting the scaffold built is the main thing. We ought to see if we can find somebody who has officiated at an execution before, because there may be things we wouldn’t think of on our own, like stretching the rope. We ought to study up on the procedure as much as we can.”

  I nodded. “I suppose we will need a preacher in case the condemned man wants one. I hope he does. I’d like him to be at peace with the Lord before he dies.”

  “I’d be more at ease knowing we had a doctor there. We will have one, of course, because there has to be a doctor on hand to pronounce the prisoner officially dead, but I hope he can see his way clear to giving the poor de
vil a sedative before we take him to the gallows. Not on his account, mind you. I don’t care if the prisoner suffers or not, after what he did. I just don’t want him to go to his death fighting and screaming and making things worse for you than they already will be.”

  I wondered what I would do in his place. Could I go to my certain death calmly and with dignity, the way people did in storybooks? I suspected that if I did, it would only be in order not to give the spectators the satisfaction of seeing my terror and grief. Death ought to be a private thing, and if it isn’t, at least you ought to try to keep your feelings about it to yourself. I think I’d mind the staring strangers worse than I would the rope. “Maybe you ought to make a list, Roy. The main thing, though, is building the gallows. There isn’t one around somewhere already, is there?”

  “No. Seems wasteful, doesn’t it, to keep rebuilding the same structure instead of just building a sturdy one and keeping it maintained? You’d think there’d be a permanent one in every county, but there aren’t too awful many hangings, so they just put one up when they need it and tear it down afterward. I guess that’s one benefit of this execution—the local carpenters could do with the work.”

  “I wonder how long it takes to build a gallows?”

  “I don’t suppose you’re the right person to speak to, really.” The plain young woman twisted her hands in her lap, shredding a paper handkerchief and looking anywhere but at me. She had on a straw hat, a purple-flowered church dress, and thick cotton stockings, which was probably her going-to-town outfit. It was clear that she was embarrassed about having come—probably never been in a sheriff’s department before in her whole blameless life, and I was sure she wouldn’t be here now if there hadn’t been a woman in charge. I wondered what she wanted.

  When I arrived that morning a few minutes before eight I had found her pacing back and forth on the office porch with an expression of such distress that I nearly grinned, picturing her trying to confess to blowing up the Lusitania. I couldn’t imagine her mixed up in anything more serious than killing a neighbor’s chicken by mistake. But I didn’t ask her any questions to begin with. Instead, I ushered her in and offered to make her coffee while she made up her mind to tell me what was troubling her.

  “I’m afraid I don’t drink coffee, ma’am,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody here drinks it. Do you mind if I make some coffee for myself?”

  “Please do.” She pulled up a chair next to the reception desk, took off her hat, and settled herself while she waited for me to fix the coffee. She studied the yellowing wanted posters on the board beside the desk until I sat down, ready to listen.

  “I heard tell the county had a woman sheriff now,” she said, peering at me curiously.

  “That’s so, ma’am. My husband died and I took his place. Is there something we can help you with?”

  She sighed and pulled another paper handkerchief out of her pocketbook. She didn’t blow her nose with it, though. She just started picking it to pieces while she talked, staring at it instead of at me. “It’s about this execution that’s going to take place. I just felt like I had to tell somebody. My sister calls it a jest of fate, and I know what she means, but I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe it. Do you believe in fate?”

  “I guess I believe that when things happen to people, most times they bring it on themselves. Maybe you’d better tell me what you’re getting at. And you might start by telling me your name.”

  She blushed. “I’m Eunice Greer. I’ve come about that man who flung his wife off The Hawk’s Wing. Honestly, I think my sister is gloating because Celia broke the rules and didn’t deserve a husband, but she got one anyway. We are the only spinsters left, my sister and I, but I think it’s quite tragic that Celia died because of a silly old game, and people ought to know about it. In case that makes a difference, you know.”

  She wasn’t making any sense. I suppose she was so nervous that she’d been working out her story in her head, and by the time she got to tell it to me she was already in the middle of it, so she just kept on going. I tried again. “Are you saying that your sister thinks the hanging is a game?”

  “No, no. Not the hanging. That’s a tragedy. Even she admits that. It’s what may have caused it that is such a terrible thing. Ever since he killed her, I’ve worried about whether or not I ought to say anything. I expect most people will think my story is pure foolishness, but I hoped that you’d understand—being a woman and all—because women know there isn’t always a straight line between one thing that happens and the next.”

  I wished there was more of a straight line in her explanation, because I still wasn’t following it. “Go on.”

  “Besides, you’re from a community up the mountain yourself, aren’t you? I’d heard that.”

  “That’s so. Before we moved to town, my home was a little settlement up the mountain. I was born and raised there. But just what is it you hoped I’d understand?”

  She sighed. “Well, it’s about Lonnie Varden, that prisoner you’re fixing to execute.”

  “Lonnie Varden? What about him?”

  “His wife, Celia, grew up in our settlement. We’d known her all our lives.”

  “Did you come to visit Mr. Varden? He’s not here yet, you know. I expect a couple of marshals will be bringing him in toward the end of the week. Is he also a friend of yours?”

  “Oh no. I barely know him by sight, and I don’t think it would do either of us any good if I were to visit him. He didn’t grow up anywhere around here, as far as I know, and Celia married him just a few years ago.”

  “But if you don’t know him . . . Do you know anything about the state of their marriage?” I knew that such a question had no bearing on my duty as a peace officer, and maybe I had no business asking it, but when a man murders his wife it’s only natural for outsiders to wonder what problems there had been between them. Why is a woman’s question, I guess, but we always want to know.

  She shook her head. “I never really spent any time with the two of them together. All I know is that the marriage was cursed before it ever happened, and that’s why he killed her. My sister says it was fate.”

  I wanted to ask her more about that, but the conversation felt too much like gossiping for me to let her keep going without first setting her straight about legal procedure, as best I understood it myself. “Well, Miss Greer, I’m sure that your story is very interesting, and I suppose the prosecuting attorney might have been able to use information about the victim’s past—or, more likely, the defense would have, but here in the sheriff’s department the details about the crime are none of our business anymore. After the arrest the courts decide what to do with him. We just carry out their instructions. The hanging is in a couple of weeks. I’m sure you’re anxious to see the killer punished for what he did to your friend.”

  “But that’s just it. I’m not sure that Lonnie Varden should even be punished. I mean I know he killed her and all, but we think he was fated to do it.”

  I’ll bet the defense would have thought this story was a Christmas present, except that Eunice Greer would have been the world’s worst witness, and her tale of fate might have proved so fanciful that they’d have been laughed out of court.

  A minute or two later she finally worked her way around to the beginning of the tale. “Back when we were young girls in the settlement, we had a Dumb Supper. You know about them, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Never went to one, but I know the custom. You cook a meal for your future husband, and if you do the ritual right, he’s supposed to show up, either in person or in spirit.”

  “Well, we had one for a lark nine years ago, and Celia broke the rules. She told me about it a year later—how she had dropped a place knife when she was setting the table, and when she went to put it back, she turned and faced the table.”

  “Facing the
table is forbidden, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It ruins everything. She should have stopped right then and told the rest of us, but she didn’t. Why, it’s a mercy the misfortune didn’t taint the other girls as well. Of course, we don’t know what’s to come, do we? It makes me glad I never tried to wed.”

  “Celia Varden dropped a knife playing at a Dumb Supper years ago, and you think that’s why she was killed?”

  She nodded. “We do. As soon as Celia was killed, I told my sister what had happened at the Dumb Supper, and she wrote to the others to let them know. She says Celia got what she deserved for being deceitful and trying to cheat fate out of a husband, and that she got what was coming to her for that deceit. I don’t know. Maybe my sister is just bitter about staying a spinster, no matter what she says to the contrary. But it’s Celia’s poor husband who concerns me. I’m sure she didn’t tell him anything about the Dumb Supper when she married him. So now she’s gone and gotten both of them killed.”

  It should have been funny except that the story was going to end with a hanging. I thought Eunice Greer was talking pure foolishness, but I could see that she was sincere in what she was saying. There’s people from all over who believe things even sillier than that, but it wouldn’t be right to mock them for it. Finally I said, “We’re not given to know if fate makes people do things or not, so in this world we have to hold people responsible for what they do, no matter why they did it.”

  She blushed. “Well, being a woman I thought you’d understand, anyhow. I’m sorry for him, but I don’t know what I can do about it. Maybe he couldn’t help it.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason why anybody in the world does anything, but we usually don’t know what those reasons are. I think we have to judge people by their actions, because they have a choice. At some point, curse or no curse, a person has to decide to do what he does. If there’s more to it than that, then his lawyer ought to bring it up in court and let the jury decide if it matters.”