Just Mercy: A Novel

by Dorothy Van Soest

  “Good lord, what is going on anyway?” She tried, without success, to keep her voice from rising.

  Regis patted her arm. “I’ll go see.”

  He approached the trauma team. They shook their heads in unison, then turned toward Bernadette as if one body. She looked at her watch, double-checked it with the clock on the wall. Seven fifteen. Something had to have gone wrong. Maybe the tie-down team had trouble securing Raelynn Blackwell properly because she was so small. Maybe there was a technical problem of some kind. She thought about the simulated execution she’d seen earlier on the video the trauma team had showed her during the witness orientation session: the injection team inserting an intravenous tube in each arm of the mannequin lying on a gurney, the right one a contingency in case the left one malfunctioned; the narrator describing how “the first lethal dose of sodium thiopental renders the offender unconscious, then a dose of pancuronium bromide collapses the diaphragm and lungs, and finally a dose of potassium chloride stops the heart. It takes only about seventeen minutes from the time the offender is restrained until he is pronounced dead.” Any number of things could have gone wrong, she thought now, at any point.

  Just then the door opened and in came the man she’d found so repulsive earlier. “It’s time,” he said. “Will the witnesses please follow me?”

  She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in, pushing it out of her puffed-up cheeks as she followed in the wake of the man’s sweat-odor trail. Someone squeezed her shoulder. She shrugged the hand off and, out of the corner of her eye, caught a glimpse of a retreating Amy Whitehall.

  At the door to the death chamber, two somber guards nodded and stepped aside. A muscle twitched in her jaw. This was it. A crushing wave filled with doubt, fear, and panic almost knocked her to the floor. She couldn’t move. She tasted vomit in the back of her throat.

  “It’s fast.” Amy Whitehall was back, whispering in her ear. “Don’t worry, it won’t last long.”

  “Such a comfort,” Bernadette retorted.

  At least the sound of Amy’s voice had the effect of jump-starting her legs so she was able to walk on her own. Once they were inside the small viewing room, the hair on top of her down-turned head brushed against the glass window. She closed her eyes and leaned against Regis as images of impending death flashed, unbidden, through her head: a Vietnamese prisoner executed at point blank range during the 1968 Tet Offensive, a Liberian soldier looming over an unarmed man lying face up in a ditch, bodies falling from the burning Twin Towers on 9/11, a young boy herded from the Warsaw ghetto by a Nazi wielding a machine gun.

  “Take your time,” Regis said, squeezing her shoulder.

  The images went away. But she couldn’t look at what was on the other side of the window. Not yet. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. This was the right punishment, she knew that, but watching someone die might be quite another thing altogether. Her body trembled even more than it had two weeks ago at Gatesville when she confronted Raelynn Blackwell. She didn’t know which was harder, facing the murderer of her daughter then or witnessing that murderer’s execution now.

  “She looks peaceful,” Regis whispered.

  Bernadette balled her hands into fists, and the muscles in her neck tightened as she willed her eyes to open. The first thing she noticed was how Raelynn Blackwell’s ankles disappeared under the thick restraints that secured her to the massive silver gurney and how her shins, thighs, waist, and chest were dwarfed under the brown leather straps and huge metal buckles. For some reason, Bernadette hadn’t expected everything to be so white: Raelynn Blackwell’s laundered and pressed prison garb, her socks under what looked like brand-new white tennis shoes, the makeshift pillow under her head, a towel folded in thirds. Her arms were extended on boards, her hands and fingers covered with white bandages. Intravenous tubes protruded from the bandages around her wrists, snaking under the gurney and disappearing through a hole in the wall just below a one-way window.

  Raelynn Blackwell turned her head toward the viewing window. A radiant smile brightened her face, and her blue eyes twinkled under trimmed bangs; even the blonde curls tickling her flushed cheekbones glowed. Bernadette’s eyes fixed on the silver cross resting on the woman’s throat, and she gritted her teeth just as she had the first time she’d seen it.

  “Not your God!” she had screamed that day at Gatesville while Raelynn Blackwell sobbed on the other side of the Plexiglas window. “You don’t get to have the same God Veronica had. I won’t allow it!”

  A cold fist closed over Bernadette’s chest now and her legs buckled, but still she held Raelynn Blackwell’s gaze, pressing against the window to hold herself up. Just as she had been determined not to turn away from Raelynn the first time she’d laid eyes on her, she refused to turn away from her now.

  Warden Fredrick stood at the head of the gurney with the chaplain at the foot, his hand cupping Raelynn Blackwell’s right ankle. Both men stared at the floor as a large microphone descended from the ceiling and stopped within inches of Raelynn Blackwell’s lips. Bernadette braced herself. Soon the microphone would receive her final words, the warden would give the signal, and the chemicals would be released. Soon, Raelynn Blackwell would be dead and it would all be over.

  She looked into Raelynn’s tearless eyes and remembered how strange it had seemed to her that, in spite of the ninety-five degree temperature in the visiting room at Gatesville that day, the woman hadn’t even broken out in a sweat.

  “I’m ready to die,” Bernadette remembered her saying. “It’s what I deserve.”

  Just as the heat hadn’t bothered Raelynn Blackwell that day, so too death was going to come easy for her now—unlike the cruel, painful death she had inflicted on Veronica. Bernadette clenched her jaw. Maybe this wasn’t the appropriate punishment after all. Shouldn’t she have to suffer more than this? She bit her lower lip and felt the heat of shame on her neck. After all her work with Regis, all those hours confronting Raelynn Blackwell, had it all boiled down to this—to her wanting Raelynn Blackwell to suffer as much as Veronica had? Bernadette started to cry. It wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right for Raelynn Blackwell to be at peace with herself and her god when Bernadette wasn’t. Not only was it not right; it wasn’t fair. But, then, what did it matter? Nothing could make things right again. Nothing could bring Veronica back. There could be no redemption.

  Just then, the curtain snapped shut across the viewing window. The repulsive man stormed into the tiny room, out of breath.

  “Sorry, folks,” he said, “if you’ll just follow me, I’ll take you to the warden.”

  SEVEN

  The pro-execution crowd, fearing the worst, grew angrier by the minute, while the anti-death penalty crowd, hoping for the best, became more subdued. Just as Fin’s eyes were darting between two opposing signs—“Die, Bitch, Die!” and “The Only Solution Is Love”—a burly bald man with bulging eyes jumped in front of Chuck and waved a noose right in his face. The noose was fastened to a sign that said “Raelynn Blackwell, It’s Your Time.” Fin threw himself in front of Chuck, and a police officer pulled the man away shortly after, leaving the two of them shaken.

  “Time to step back a bit, maybe?” Chuck said, his eyes wide with fear.

  They tried to move, but with so many people crammed together, getting away from the growing chaos proved to be impossible. At the sound of scuffling and shouting several feet to their right, Fin and Chuck stood on their toes and craned their necks to see what was going on, increasingly afraid that things might soon spiral out of control.

  “She’s a child of God.” A white-haired man waved a tattered Bible in the face of a young man with a crew cut.

  “She’s a cold-blooded murderer.” The young man waved a sign back in the old man’s face. The sign said “No Special Favors For So-Called Believers.”

  The crowd behind the young man started to chant: “Justice, not religion. Justice, not religion.”

  The police moved in and dragged the
young man away, and the man with the Bible fell to his knees.

  “Pray for those who despise you,” Chuck muttered.

  Fin didn’t say anything. Religion was one of the things about which he and Chuck didn’t see eye to eye, to say the least. Fin berated organized religion for inflicting pain on people in the name of God, while Chuck still attended services at the Baptist church in which he’d grown up, where he felt loved and accepted. Fin loved Chuck, yet there was something other than religion that kept them from being more than friends; while Fin dreamed of adopting a couple of kids someday, Chuck showed no interest in being a father. Not that they’d ever discussed the matter openly. Fin was too afraid.

  “Kill the bitch! Do it now! Kill the bitch! Do it now!” The crowd’s chants reached a hysterical level.

  Chuck cringed and took a few steps back. “They want blood,” he said.

  Fin put his arm around Chuck’s shoulder. “But there’s at least four times as many on our side,” he said, pointing to the growing numbers of people who were now getting down on their knees on the pavement to pray that Raelynn Blackwell’s life be spared. Fin crossed his fingers, closed his eyes, and prayed in his own way along with them.

  EIGHT

  Bernadette was stunned as she stumbled out of the death chamber, sure that her heart was going to hammer holes right through her ribs. She looked at Regis, behind her, and his face told her that he had no idea what was happening, any more than she did. With robot-like steps that matched the guard’s hollow footsteps in front of her and Amy Whitehall’s sighs behind her, she filed into a large open room along with everyone else.

  Tap, tap, tap. Warden Fredrick stood in the middle of the room, his thick fingers thumping against his chunky thighs. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead and a circle of sweat radiated out from the underarms of his light blue shirt. Bernadette searched his face for a clue about what was going on, but her intuition seemed to have gone as quiet as the room. All at once, several men exploded through the door, press tags flying from their necks, their edgy voices and shuffling feet shattering the silence as they vied for the best position near the warden. She glared at them. Who invited them, anyway? Shouldn’t the media be kept away?

  A fidgety circle formed around the warden. His face looked depleted and his eyes haunted as he expanded his chest as if he was trying to fill himself with courage. He raised his hands, and the room fell silent.

  “The governor stopped the procedure,” he announced.

  A burst of adrenaline shot through Bernadette’s veins and tightened around her throat. A chorus of gasps echoed through the room—and then havoc broke out.

  “What did the governor say?”

  “Why did she stop the execution?”

  “What’s going on?”

  The warden raised his palms and the reporters fell silent, notepads and pens at the ready.

  “The governor didn’t call at six o’clock like she usually does.” He cleared his throat. “At seven o’clock, we called her office. Her staff said we could expect to hear from her any minute.” He cleared his throat again.

  “When did she call?” A reporter interrupted, his voice loud, demanding.

  “Tell us what happened,” another one said.

  “Offender Blackwell was out of appeals.” Warden Fredrick tried to shout over the reporters’ voices but quickly gave up and pressed the palms of his hands into the air to restore order.

  “We fully expected the governor to give the go-ahead. That’s why we broke with policy just this once and prepared the offender. That’s why I made the decision to bring the witnesses into the viewing room.”

  He took a deep breath and looked at Bernadette, speaking to her as if she were the only person in the room. “I didn’t want you to have to wait any longer than you already had. That was poor judgment on my part. I should have waited. I’m sorry. I never should have put you through all that.”

  Then he cleared his throat again and sighed, looking around the circle as if resigned to the attacks that were certain to follow.

  “Why did the governor stop it?” a reporter blurted out.

  “Yeah, what happened, anyway?”

  “Does this mean her death sentence is commuted?”

  “I reckon Mr. Pearl over there is the one to do the rest of the explaining here,” Warden Fredrick said.

  A man who had been leaning against the wall stepped forward and joined the warden in the middle of the room. With suspicion, Bernadette eyed his buzz cut, his round head, and his ruddy face that seemed oddly placed on top of his lean body, a flaming red bowtie incongruous next to his impeccable gray linen three-piece suit.

  “I’m Attorney Jimmy Pearl, y’all,” he said, “and I’ve been on Miss Blackwell’s defense team from the start. The warden here is right that we had run out of appeals. But I decided to give it one last shot and sent a letter to the governor. I reckon she didn’t see it before tonight. And now it seems like it gave her enough grief to grant us a thirty-day reprieve.”

  “So you expected the execution to be called off the whole time.” It was a challenge, not a question, from a baby-faced reporter with a badge around his neck that indicated he was from the Austin American-Statesman.

  “Actually, young fellow, I did not. I expected my letter to be ignored.”

  “You… don’t… really… expect… us… to believe that.” Bernadette’s words came out in ragged bursts. Her face felt hot and pinched. She pressed her fingers against the vein pulsing in her neck and tightened her lips into a thin, angry line.

  “What was the basis for the appeal?” the reporter asked.

  Bernadette didn’t wait to hear the response. She stormed across the floor and hurled herself out the door. With her square shoulders pulled back and her sturdy shoes striking the floor like two jackhammers, she charged down the hall.

  “Por dios, señora.” A brown-skinned guard jumped as she hurried past. “Where is it that you are going?” he asked.

  “Home,” she snapped.

  “Lo siento, señora, but you cannot go alone. Un momento. I will take you.”

  He reached for his cell phone but kept his eyes fixed on her so that, as much as she wanted to bolt, she didn’t dare. She gritted her teeth, pursed her lips, and beat the floor with her foot.

  A hand touched her shoulder. She twisted away from it.

  “Are you okay?” It was Regis, sounding winded and looking alarmed.

  “Why didn’t you warn me? You should have known. Somebody should have known.”

  Regis reached for her hand, but she waved him away. He drew back with a nod.

  “Señora,” the guard said, “we will go now.”

  She stomped after him, rivulets of sweat flowing between her breasts and soaking her armpits. Regis stayed a safe distance behind until they approached the main entrance, at which point he jumped in front of her.

  “Hold on,” he said, blocking her path.

  She stopped and stretched to look over his shoulder. Outside, camera lights blazed against the dusky sky, the irate crowd roared. She crouched behind Regis, a chill running up her spine.

  “Good lord,” she said. “They don’t know.”

  ***

  Fin spotted his mom’s white 1996 Volvo station wagon right where Regis had said it would be. He bent over to catch his breath and his eyes landed on the bumper.

  “Mom, did you scratch that off yourself?” he’d asked her when he first noticed her End the Death Penalty bumper sticker was missing. She hadn’t answered, and he’d never asked again.

  He could still hear the frenzied cries of the crowds in the distance. Thank goodness Chuck left at the same time he did. Poor guy was scared to death that all hell was going to break loose any minute. It still might. It all depended on what had happened inside, and Fin still didn’t know what that was. All he knew was what Regis had told him on the phone a few minutes ago: that they were getting his mom out through a back door and he should meet her at her car. He punched the re
dial button on his cell phone.

  “Where are you?” Regis asked through the crackling static.

  “At Mom’s car.”

  “Don’t let her drive, okay?”

  A few minutes later, a white van with the blue Texas Department of Criminal Justice logo on its side rolled to a stop next to him. His mom jumped out.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said. Her hands shook as she fumbled in her purse for the car keys.

  “Let me,” Fin said.

  “I am perfectly capable,” she said.

  The keys fell to the ground and Fin snatched them up, held them out of her reach. Then he led her over to the passenger side of the car and opened the door.

  “Damn them!” A vein jumped up and down her neck as she slammed herself back against the seat.

  “Who?”

  “All of them. The protesters. The governor. The warden. Regis. The attorney. Raelynn Blackwell. Especially her.”

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t get it out of my head.” She squeezed her temples and closed her eyes, opened them, blinked, closed them again.

  “It must have been horrible,” Fin said. Of course she couldn’t get it out of her head. How could anyone? But why was she so angry? Was it because Raelynn Blackwell was dead? Now that it was over, did she have regrets about it? He reached over and touched her cheek. She turned away from him and straightened up.

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Does it look like I’m okay?” Her body was rigid, her voice cold as ice. “Does it?”

  He tried to imagine what it must have been like for her to watch Raelynn Blackwell die. It made him sick to think of her standing there, just letting it happen.

  “She knew. Don’t tell me she didn’t.”

  “Who? Knew what?”

  “Annamaria’s right. A leopard never changes its spots.”

  Fin was stunned to see his mom’s face twisted with such intense rage. What could Raelynn Blackwell have done before she died? Was it her last words?