The Walls

by Hollie Overton

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The call came from the governor’s office. “The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of execution,” the warden said. Kristy exhaled. She saw the warden and Chaplain Gohlke gesturing for the guards to close the curtains.

  Just like that the verdict was in. Clifton would not die tonight. From previous experience, Kristy knew that all hell was about to break loose and she would be at the center of it. Fiona was on her feet, tearful, in disbelief.

  “He’s saved. Sweet Jesus, Nina, our prayers worked. Cliff is saved.”

  She beelined for Kristy. “Can we see him? I want … I need to see my brother.”

  Kristy hesitated. She hated being the bad guy, but rules were rules.

  “I’m afraid that Clifton has to be transported back to Polunsky. You won’t be able to see him until the warden gives visitation approval,” Kristy said. “You’ll have to check in tomorrow and coordinate with the officials there.”

  Fiona shook her head, eyes drooping from exhaustion. “This whole system is so damn backward. Screwing with my brother like this, giving him hope. Y’all ain’t never letting him go and we both know it.”

  “I’m sorry …”

  “Hell, it’s not your fault. You’re just a goddamn cog in this wheel.”

  Kristy was exactly like that. A goddamn cog trapped in this wheel.

  “If you see Cliff, will you tell him we love him and we’ll keep on praying?” Fiona said.

  “I will,” Kristy promised.

  They left reluctantly and Kristy turned to Carmen, who was waiting for instructions.

  “Can you take the press back to the office while I go and get a statement from Clifton?” Kristy asked.

  “Will do. Crazy day, huh?”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. Kristy left Carmen to deal with the reporters, who were already foaming at the mouth for a statement. Nothing made for better ratings than a last-minute stay of execution. Any minute now, an AP reporter would be tweeting out the news. As it was, Kristy’s phone hadn’t stopped buzzing. She managed to glance at it for a moment, and saw a series of texts from Ryan.

  Going out with the team to put up more flyers.

  Left you dinner (turkey burgers) in the oven. Pops went to bed early. Love you.

  She texted him back. You’re the best kid in the world. I love you.

  She thought about adding something about Lance, but she was too exhausted for that level of dishonesty.

  On Kristy’s way toward Clifton’s holding cell, she saw Janice, raging at Annabelle, the victim’s representative.

  “What is going on? What is happening?” Janice demanded, shrieking with anger. “I’ve waited twelve goddamn years for this day and now what? What am I supposed to do now?”

  Janice’s mother tried to shush her. “You’re making a scene, honey.” But Janice wasn’t listening. To everyone else, Janice’s rage was driven by grief and the quest for justice. But Kristy wasn’t convinced. She spotted Gus hurrying back to the office and she called after him.

  “What the hell happened?” Kristy asked.

  “Apparently, Harris’s lawyers challenged the courts about the legality of the drugs we’re using. They’ll be releasing a statement shortly.”

  “Jesus, don’t tell me we’re using illegal drugs,” Kristy said. She’d heard that facing pressure from the public about the death penalty, pharmaceutical companies were cutting off their sales to prisons and other states were purchasing their drugs from black market sources.

  “Don’t get on your high horse. They were approved by people with far more power than you and I possess. Now if you don’t mind, I have to speak with the warden. Make sure you get a statement from Harris.”

  Kristy wanted to scream at Gus and all those goddamn bureaucrats, but all she cared about now was seeing Clifton. She hurried toward the holding cell, wondering how soon before the other death row inmates heard about Clifton’s stay and their attorneys began filing similar motions, all of them dreaming about getting off death row. It wasn’t fair to give any of these men and women that kind of hope. The state wasn’t going to admit that what they were doing was wrong. They couldn’t. They’d gather the best legal minds and make an argument that convinced the public the drugs were safe and that the death penalty was crucial in ensuring justice. Which meant that nothing would change. Not for Clifton. They were delaying the inevitable, just like Fiona said.

  A guard led Kristy into the corridor and over to Clifton’s holding cell. Through the metal bars, she saw him sitting on a cot, head bowed, hands clasped as if in prayer.

  “Hey, Clifton,” she said softly.

  His head sprang up, startled, a stunned expression on his face.

  “Ma’am …”

  Clifton half stood, like a gentleman greeting a first date, awkward, unsure. Two guards hovered beside Kristy. Her voice was crisp and businesslike, but she hoped her eyes revealed the true depths of her relief.

  “Clifton, you received a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals while the state looks into issues regarding the drugs being used for lethal injection. You’ll be able to speak with your attorney before they take you back to Polunsky. Before that, I need to brief the press. I wondered if you had anything you wanted me to pass along to them,” Kristy said. She had taken out her notepad to jot down his statement.

  Clifton paused, a slight tremor running through his body, his hands and legs twitching. Posttraumatic stress most likely.

  “It’s okay, Clifton. Take your time.”

  He paused again, trying to steady himself.

  “Tell them—I am an innocent man. Today is the sign I needed to keep fighting, and that’s what I will do.”

  Kristy finished writing, her business with Clifton now complete.

  “Stay strong. Fiona and Nina wanted me to say that they love you and they’ll see you soon.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Back in her office, Kristy prepared Clifton’s statement, refusing to think about the man she called her friend, instead typing up facts, statistics, the who, what, where, when, why, that made up every reporter’s story. Carmen returned and said that Janice was adamant about wanting to speak to the press. Kristy wasn’t quite sure she was emotionally prepared to run point on the press conference.

  “Carmen, would you mind taking the lead? I’ll be around. It’s just been a long day,” Kristy said. The adrenaline from Clifton’s last-minute reprieve and the constant uncertainty about what might happen with Lance was almost too much to bear.

  Carmen squeezed Kristy’s hand and said, “I’ve got you covered.”

  They held the press conference, the Walls a stark backdrop. Janice’s earlier rage had dimmed, a quiet fury now fueling her. Kristy and the staff watched while she railed against the system.

  “My children were babies when my husband took them from me. They would be teenagers now. Beautiful high schoolers with a lifetime ahead of them. Today was a travesty of justice. I can only hope this situation will be resolved and this man … this monster will be punished accordingly.”

  Janice urged people all over the state to call and demand that Clifton’s death sentence be carried out. Kristy braced herself, knowing that her phone had probably already started ringing. Once the press conference was over, Annabelle, the victim services rep, went to lead her away. Janice turned back and caught Kristy watching. Janice’s expression was pure ice.

  “Kristy, are you ready?” Carmen said. Kristy turned and just like that Janice was gone. It didn’t matter what Kristy believed or didn’t believe about Janice. There was still work to be done. Carmen and Kristy waited two hours before the Associated Press and local reporters finished filing their stories. Carmen insisted on staying with Kristy until the bitter end.

  It was almost eleven when Kristy returned home, the house pitch-black, no sign of Pops or Ryan. Kristy opened the oven and saw the burger Ryan left, neatly prepared on a plate for her. Kristy’s appetite had compl
etely vanished, but she heated the food and ate it, chewing slowly, grateful for Ryan’s kind gesture.

  On her way to bed, she stopped by Pops’s room and found him sprawled out, snoring loudly, the TV blaring in the background, some infomercial selling fitness videos promising chiseled abs droning on. Kristy watched him for a moment, his chest rising and falling, his breathing tortured. She wanted to ease his suffering, physical and emotional, but there was nothing she could do. She switched off the TV and went to Ryan’s room. He was asleep too, hair mussed, his gray comforter pooling at the bottom of the bed. She lifted the blankets up and pulled them over him, remembering all the nights he’d shouted, “Tuck me in,” the nights she’d pulled the covers taut over his tiny body, singing at the top of her lungs, “You’re as snug as a bug in a rug.”

  Her eyes slipped from his peaceful face to the floor. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a poster, the photo of Lance staring back up at her, the word MISSING printed under his image in big red letters.

  That damn smug grin mocking her, Clifton’s devastated face, Janice’s cold stare, all of it came together. Kristy gasped, a sob exploding.

  “Mom, what is it? What’s wrong?” Startled, Ryan bolted awake, trying to shake himself from his slumber.

  Kristy couldn’t speak. It was all too much. It was just too damn much. Giant heaving sobs racked her body.

  Ryan hugged her, trying to console her, willing to pretend, at least for tonight, that their family wasn’t falling apart.

  “It’s okay, Mom. We’ll be okay,” Ryan said over and over again, his words a mantra she desperately wanted to believe.

  Dear Ms. Tucker,

  I hope you’re hanging in there. Seems like no news is good news as far as I can tell.

  I’m looking forward to your next visit. This week has crawled by. Wednesday just can’t get here soon enough. It still doesn’t seem real, what happened. There I am, lying on that table, saying my prayers, trying not to think about what’s going to happen, when the phone rang. I tell you, I thought for sure that I was hallucinating. They took me back to my cell and I was so afraid they were gonna drag me back to the death chamber, I didn’t sleep for two full days.

  Going back to Polunsky was real hard. All the guys congratulating me, telling me I should be happy. Happy? That’s a laugh. What do I have to celebrate? I know Janice won’t rest until she finishes what she started. And the state sure as hell isn’t giving up on getting rid of me. I know I said I was ready to keep fighting, but once I got back to my cell, it all started to seem like too much. I was in a real bad place until I saw Fiona. Let me tell you she gave me a piece of her mind. She said, Cliff, you can be pissed and give up or you can be pissed off and keep fighting. She also called me a whole heap of names that aren’t fit to print, so to speak, but she made me see the light. I’ve got a second chance and I’m sure as heck not gonna waste it. So here I am, asking you to do your best to keep the interviews coming and I’ll keep shouting my innocence from the rooftops.

  Best wishes,

  Clifton Harris aka The Comeback Kid

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In the days and weeks leading up to Lance’s death, Kristy had been determined not to make any mistakes. She avoided credit card transactions, and she never used the Internet at home for research, only libraries and schools that didn’t require photo IDs. She hadn’t told a soul besides Clifton about her marital problems. She never sent a text or e-mail that detailed how unhappy she was. There were no photos of the abuse. No virtual trail. No physical trail. No eyewitnesses. That she knew of.

  Kristy’s attempts to create the perfect alibi had, for all intents and purposes, succeeded. Without any new leads, the search and rescue was called off. Ryan and his friends and a few die-hard volunteers still went out every couple of days, searching the woods and nearby campsites, handing out flyers to hikers and people in town, but no leads and no sign of a body meant no case.

  That meant Kristy, Ryan, and Pops had no choice but to return to some semblance of a routine. Ryan had final exams and was preparing for his summer trip to Notre Dame. Pops agreed to return to the clinical trial. Each day that passed, Lance’s murder, what Kristy had done, grew a little less real, the edges of that night fading, slipping away until it almost seemed as if someone else had done it. As the days passed, Kristy stopped reliving every moment of Lance’s death in her head. She forced herself to focus on the present, enjoying her time with Pops and Ryan at breakfast, making dinner, her appetite slowly returning, along with her joy at experiencing day-to-day activities without the fear of Lance’s outbursts.

  Bit by bit, Kristy’s anxiety lessened. She used to spend hours obsessing about what to wear to satisfy Lance without sending the wrong message to her colleagues or the inmates. She stopped obsessing over how much pepper she used on her steak or if her spaghetti was too al dente or if she served Pops and Ryan larger helpings than she served Lance.

  At night, Kristy climbed into bed, spreading out in the middle of the mattress, reveling in the fact that her body was hers again. She was free. Or so she tried to tell herself. But then she’d catch a whiff of Lance’s cologne or she’d hear a song, their song, on the radio, and for an instant, her heart would ache for what they could have been. No news was good news, Clifton had said, but Kristy found herself tensing every time the phone rang or a car pulled into the driveway or there was a knock on her front door. Some days Kristy wondered if she had simply traded one prison for another.

  She’d returned to work full-time. Her days blurred together, managing one crisis after another. She’d received a call from a reporter about Julia Vidal, a female inmate at Gatesville who had been corresponding with Steve, a truck driver she met on an Internet site for inmates. (Yes, even inmates did Internet dating thanks to friends on the outside.) It was a torrid love affair (on paper anyway). Julia decided it would be fun to post their letters on Facebook and roped the trucker into doing it. The letters were quite entertaining and garnered thousands of likes, instantly becoming a viral sensation. A New York publisher even offered a contract for Julia and Steve to write a book, some kind of prison erotica that would hopefully connect with the Fifty Shades crowd. The hiccup on their part was not realizing that it is illegal for inmates to make a profit while in prison. The reporter had spoken to the family of the man Julia poisoned to death, and they were obviously very upset.

  Kristy’s morning was devoted to putting out that fire before she headed over to Polunsky. Since his execution was halted, Clifton had become the most popular inmate in the state of Texas. The growing dissent over the human rights violations of executions (a series of botched ones had occurred across the country) had been enough to grant Clifton yet another reprieve.

  Clifton was excited by the momentum in his legal case. There were esteemed scientists from all over the world arguing over the expert witness and his testimony about how the fire started. There was a new statement by the lead fire investigator’s ex-girlfriend, who said the man was a drunk and a racist and may have been biased against Clifton. The courts were reviewing all the evidence, but even with that, Kristy knew there would have to be one hell of a miracle for Clifton to cheat death twice.

  Kristy was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice Gus until he was standing right in front of her, snapping his fingers.

  “Jesus, Tucker, I’ve been calling you.”

  “What is it, Gus?” she said, hoping he wasn’t going to bother her with some ridiculous request, like ordering less toilet paper for the staff bathroom to cut down on costs.

  “There are two detectives outside who want to speak with you,” Gus said, his beady eyes narrowing.

  “I’m supposed to go to Polunsky,” Kristy replied, knowing it was ridiculous but trying to stall for time, trying to prepare herself for what was about to happen.

  “Carmen can handle Polunsky. I’ve already told her to head over. Is it okay if I send the officers in?”

  He didn’t wait for an answ
er. Kristy sank back into her chair and waited. She imagined the uniform-clad men stepping into her office, reading her rights, handcuffing her and leading her past all her colleagues, their judgmental eyes boring into her head, whispers following her out.

  “Should’ve known the wife did it. The wife is always guilty.”

  “Can’t trust the quiet ones.”

  “Kristy Tucker, no way, she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Kristy smoothed her hair, sat up straighter in her chair, knowing that from this point on, everything she did would be analyzed. Detective Davenport entered, along with a Texas Ranger, easily identified by his signature uniform—the Texas-shaped badge, white button-down shirt, tan pants, and white cowboy hat. He was in his early thirties, with features that were handsome now—smooth olive skin, bright green eyes, and a lean figure—but she imagined him five years from now, thirty or forty pounds heavier, jowls sagging, the smooth skin weathered by the sun. She stood up and shook hands with Detective Davenport first.

  “Detective, how are you?”

  “I’ve been better, Mrs. Dobson.” She gestured to her colleague.

  “This is Texas Ranger Eduardo Santiago. He’ll be assisting us with your husband’s case.”

  They’d found Lance. That’s why he was here. Texas Rangers often consulted on murder investigations, especially in smaller towns where there wasn’t a need for murder cops. This was it. It was all over. Even though Kristy had pulled the trigger herself, her knees buckled. The ranger instinctively reached for her and eased Kristy back into her chair. Detective Davenport stared unblinking as she took a seat across from her. Kristy reached for a bottle of water and took a sip, her mouth dry.

  “Is this … is it about Lance?” Kristy asked softly.

  “It is,” Ranger Santiago said, his expression grim. “We located Lance’s body about thirty miles outside of town, fifteen miles from his campsite.”