Angel of Death

by J. Robert King

  Donna began to cry. What a cold comfort, to remember a life worth forgetting.

  DEFENSE MAKES MAN OF MONSTER

  AP International

  Photo and Story by Blake Gaines

  “I am human today, for the first time,” claimed alleged serial killer John Doe, a.k.a., William Bruce Dance, a.k.a., Son of Samael.

  The comment followed Wednesday’s trial session. Doe’s claim was supported by testimony Friday from surprise witness Peter James Dance, purported to be Doe’s brother. Dance indicated that his brother’s homosexuality made their stepfather try to kill Doe. According to Dance, their stepfather was a Klansman. Dance said their real mother had died in giving birth to Doe, whom he called Billy. Public Defender Lynda Barnett emphasized the suffering the alleged killer endured in his early years. Barnett summed the last two weeks’ testimony, “[Doe has] serious reality issues. He has been wronged and abandoned habitually from his earliest days.”

  The public defender went on to say, “[Doe is] an American patriot, returning wounded from the Gulf War fifteen years late.”

  EIGHTEEN

  It was the first day in over two months that Donna had been home by five o’clock, what with prison visits, NCIC searches, and meetings with the VFW and mental health advocacy groups. Even today, she came home only due to the undeniable call of nature – her septic holding tank had been full for three weeks, and it had finally backed up. Instead of crouching at her computer and impatiently coaxing piece after piece of William Dance from scattered, incomplete and damaged documents, Donna had spent the evening on hands and knees, scrubbing urine water from her bathroom floor. She called for the pump truck and said it was an emergency and said she’d pay for it. Just after that was done, she thought to call the power company and leave a message assuring them a check would be posted tomorrow. At one time, she would have panicked over a single late notice. Now, after three, she recognized the lapse only dully.

  She was hungry. The refrigerator was bare except for a moldy loaf of bread, the desiccated remains of a quarter pounder and fries, a flat bottle of Diet Rite, ketchup, a bag of withered apples, and a jar of three year-old pickles. The cabinet was not much more promising –

  Jiffy mix, stale cereal, five boxes of Jell-O, a can of beets, a bag of dried lentils, a bag of popcorn. Donna drew out the popcorn bag, unfolded it, and lay it on the dusty carousel of the microwave. She hit the “Popcorn” button. The disused machine lit up. Its fan began to blow, and the bag rotated hypnotically. Donna leaned against the counter and stared for a while at the wall behind the stove, noted the grease-and-dust choked spider webs that clung to the hood vent. The smell of hot oil and corn swept over her. She breathed placidly. It felt as though she hadn’t breathed in months.

  How long has it been since I had a life of my own?

  How long since I could sit in that love seat and watch a movie?

  As the first kernels exploded, little suicide bombers that shook the whole bag, Donna turned away and wandered toward the front door. Three plastic bags slumped there, one filled with hate-mail sent to her at the station house, another with notebooks from the psych sessions, and a third with –

  “Ah ha!” she said, triumphantly lifting the DVD case from the bag. Its black-and-white case showed a dark garden where a boy and girl lingered beside an imploring statue of an angel. Their hands probed together at the base of the statue, where lay the inscription “Eternity.” The title at the top of the tape read, “Tennessee Williams – Summer and Smoke.” She had ordered the DVD before Azra’s arrest, but Amazon had had to search high and low for a used copy. It arrived a week ago, but there had been no time to watch it – until tonight. Inside the microwave, the popcorn bag was shuddering and convulsing like an epileptic guinea pig. The fit slackened into a few hiccups, and the bag lay still and smoking.

  “Damn it,” Donna said, racing from the front door to jab the “Open” button. The door popped wide and the acrid smell of burnt popcorn billowed out over her. The smoke detector went off. “Mother of God!” She tore down the detector and wrenched loose its battery. It seemed her life was all alarms and last-minute saves. Outside, the pump truck growled and wheezed, a fat hose sucking up her septic.

  A few minutes later, all was placid again. Donna sat before the TV, half a bag of chips before her, Summer and Smoke beginning on the screen, and sad thoughts of Azra haunting the seat beside her.

  She dozed. In her dreams, he was there. It all was as it had been before.

  The DVD was almost over when she awoke. A young doctor and a young woman were in the doctor’s office, he calm and professional, she trembling and distraught. She was pleading with him, drawing nearer, reaching toward him as the girl on the DVD case had reached toward the angel. She told him that the girl who once rejected him was gone, dead – asphyxiated by the fire burning within her. She said that she had given up her pride, that pride only prevented people from having what they needed.

  The doctor gently pulled her hands away, and the woman seemed crushed. He explained that she had won the argument between them. He pointed to a diagram of vivisected human anatomy and said that the insides of humans weren’t rose leaves but ugly organs, packed so tightly there wasn’t room for anything spiritual. “But I’ve come around to your way of thinking, that something else is in there, an immaterial something – as thin as smoke – which all of those ugly machines combine to produce and that’s their whole reason for being.”

  He was dumping her. He was offering a spiritual bond instead of a physical one.

  “Mother of God,” Donna said, pausing the movie. It was like Tennessee Williams was watching right through the bay window.

  She stood, stretched, and walked across the too-long shag of her living room. She turned a corner into the bathroom – a long thin galley with a deformed sink, a pessimistic old toilet, and a bathtub stained with rusty water. She sat on the toilet, elbows on knees, and stared down at the gloves and rags she had used to scrub the floor. Finishing, she stood. The mirror showed back a stranger – hair needing a trim, wild about her shoulders, eyes ten years older – and where was her smile, her long and patient smile?

  Perhaps the place to find her smile would be her toothbrush. She opened wide the medicine cabinet and reached numbly for the brush. Her hand instead grasped a tampon, the last one left. She’d meant to buy more, but that was a couple months ago, and she had forgotten…

  “Mother of God…”

  Of its own accord, her hand slumped from the medicine cabinet and brought a shower of nail clippers and toothbrushes and razors down into the sink. Detective Leland herself landed on the floor.

  The stocky, gray-haired men marched with nothing like their old glory. Their pectorals sagged under the weight of tiny medals. Their beer guts bounced. They marched. Most leaned back on their heels, their chins up as though they had to look through the bottoms of their bifocals to see the sidewalk. Those that weren’t retirees were camouflaged and bearded, with the undefeated look of the southern soldiers after 1865. This mismatched assortment would, perhaps, have seemed comical if it weren’t for their number – sixtyseven parading before the Racine County Jail, and another forty-some shouting in a rally beside the outdoor directory. Perhaps more daunting than those numbers were the many in wheelchairs, the numerous amputees, and the signs they held above their heads.

  FREE WILLIAM DANCE.

  DON’T SPIT ON ME!

  MIA – MISSING IN AMERICA!

  POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IS REAL

  UNCLE SAM OR BIG BROTHER?

  RACINE COUNTY CORRECTIONS: TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

  HE’S ALREADY BEEN SENTENCED TO LIFE

  GIVE ’EM HELL, SAM-A-EL!

  I WAS CALLED MURDERER, TOO

  WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME

  ANOTHER VICTIM OF LIBERALISM

  IF YOU THINK HEADS ROLLED BEFORE…

  AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL? WHAT ABOUT AMNESTY AMERICA?

  WE PARDON DRAFT DODGERS BUT NOT WAR HER
OES?

  WILLY B. SHOULD B SET FREE

  And, were those things not enough, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Wisconsin – GALAW – had fielded forty-five marchers to picket the courthouse across the street.

  There’s something fragile in your eyes. Your hair is a little wild above a rumpled jacket of tweed. You tremble in the fluorescent glow pouring down from the interrogation table. It’s late. They usually don’t allow visits at this hour.

  I want to stand, but the shackles on my wrists keep me down. “What is it, Donna? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” You smile dismissively and somehow manage to look even more miserable. “It’s nothing.”

  You cross to my side of the table, dragging a scudding chair with you. You sit and take my hands. “It’s official, Sweetheart. You’re human.”

  I’m confused. “They came back with a verdict?”

  “No. No, the jury is still out,” you say, adding cryptically, “but there has been a definite verdict. God has given a definite verdict.”

  I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m carrying your baby. I’m going to be a mother. You’re going to be a father. You are going to have a child,” you reply. Tears trace the lines of your smile, and your laugh sounds half-sob. “We are going to be parents.”

  I’d never before felt such a storm of emotion. Now, there is wonder and terror in equal portions. You’re watching my face. You’re terrified of what I think. You. You weep before me, ache to be held by me. I feel the same. Your fear, your joy, your determination and dread, your shame and pride.

  I choke out, “I love you. You were right all along. This is good news. This is great news! Now – now, no matter what happens to me, there will be a part of me outside of prison walls. There will be a part of me flying kites in the park, playing video games, drinking a Coke, looking through the paper for free puppies–”

  “Yes, yes,” you say, excited through tears, “the child will have everything you never did. Birthday parties and playing in the sprinkler and trips to the Public Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry and the zoo, and love. Most of all, love.”

  I’m laughing now. I can’t lift my hands to hold you, but I’m holding you with my eyes and my smile and the craving of my whole body. “You’ve been with me this whole time. You’ve been with me in this room and the hospital room and the courtroom, but also in solitary, also in the darkest spaces and moments, you’ve been with me. You’ve made it all bearable, livable – no, more than that. You’ve made it good. You’ve made it heaven. No matter what happens to me, as long as I have you, you and my child, I can be human and mad and in prison and still be in Heaven.”

  NINETEEN

  The decorous courtroom had a different air today. Its solemnity had deepened to reverence, its moral outrage to a kind of giddy nausea. There was the very real impression of a crowd at the final judgment.

  “Have you reached a verdict?” Judge Devlin asked the jury foreman, a heavyset black woman in her mid fifties.

  Standing, the foreman said, “We have, Your Honor.”

  She proffered a folded slip of paper, which the bailiff retrieved and delivered to the judge. Sandra Devlin peered at the paper through her crescent-shaped reading lenses, folded the document again, and handed it back to the bailiff. He carried it again to the foreman. Judge Devlin said, in an utterly unimpassioned voice,

  “For the record, please read your verdict.”“Certainly, Your Honor. In the case of the State of Wisconsin versus John Doe, as regards the first charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Derek Billings, we find the defendant… guilty.”

  An excited whoop came from some members of the crowd, many of whom clapped, and two of whom gave the gavel-rapping judge a standing ovation. Donna clutched Azra’s hand. He nodded to her, his tight-lipped smile of resignation parting just long enough for him to whisper, “It will be all right.”

  “As regards the second charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Lawrence Teeds, we find the defendant… guilty.”

  The adulation resumed, less marked this time, more a cheer of vindication than one of vindictiveness. Donna and Azra sat, hand in hand, facing bravely forward.

  “As regards the third charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Jules Koenig, we find the defendant guilty.” The foreman paused, seeming to expect another outburst, but none followed. “As regards the fourth charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Lynn Blautsmeyer, we find the defendant guilty. As regards the fifth charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of David Miller, we find the defendant guilty. As regards the sixth and final charge of murder in the first degree, for the death of Harold Cruze, we find the defendant guilty.”

  There came a patter of applause like a gentle rain. Relief moved like a mist through the room. Even Donna and Azra seemed grateful that the long trial was finished. Judge Devlin rapped her gavel, regaining the floor. “I have reached a sentencing decision.” She let out a heavy sigh. “The man who sits here among us has no certain name. John Doe, Azrael Michaels, Samael, the Son of Samael, William B. Dance. Nor does he have a certain past – abused minor, runaway, POW, amnesiac, war hero, serial killer, angel. Whoever he is and whatever his past, though, he is guilty of heinous crimes, the most recent of which was committed while incarcerated just across the street in the jail. And those certain crimes require certain punishment.

  “For your crimes, John Doe, a.k.a. William Dance, you will live out the rest of your life behind bars. You will serve out six consecutive life sentences without possibility for parole.”

  More clapping erupted. Reporters typed furiously on their laptops, sending the verdict through Wi-Fi to their editors, to the world.

  “Quiet down. I’m not finished,” the judge ordered. Once the chamber had settled again into silence, the judge resumed. “However, as inconclusive as I consider the evidence to be in this case, I am convinced of one thing: You, John Doe, are not in your right mind. There will forever be arguments, I imagine, whether you are psychopathic or psychotic, whether you know right from wrong, or are incapable of knowing. Let the debates come.

  “As for me, the critical evidence is the slaying of your cell mate, a man the other prisoners have testified to be your only friend. To slay your only friend while awaiting trial, and to do so with no apparent concern for your clear guilt in the matter, demonstrates a mind that – while cunning and ruthless – is out of touch with reality.

  "I therefore remand you to the Wisconsin State Prison at Columbia, there to receive psychiatric assistance but also there to remain without the possibility of release for the remainder of your life. You will begin this sentence unless it is superseded by a harsher penalty from Illinois or Indiana, including the death penalty. And, whether you are human or angel or devil, may God have mercy on your soul.”

  The crowd was suddenly, noisily on its feet. Amidst the cheers and applause and hoots of delight were groans. Reporters shouted questions to the seated murderer and his cop lover. Photographers snapped pictures of the roaring crowd, the impassive man, and the embattled woman. There were even rumors she bore his child.Judge Devlin rapped loudly, calling for order, but none came. The already heavy police presence had been doubled for the day’s announcement, but still the officers were spread thinly along the edges of the crowd and at the doors. One of Azra’s own guards went to hold back the crowd. The other walked up behind him, hand grasping his holstered pistol. Camera flashes went off all around the room.

  All the while, Azra and Donna sat, unmoving and unmoved.

  The judge rose ominously, and the harsh crack of her gavel was joined by an order: “Clear the court! Clear the court!”

  The back doors were flung wide. The line of police pressed into the gathering. In places, blackjacks were raised to push back the people.

  Azra’s other guard returned to help move the cuffed prisoner toward the holding cells. He turned to Donna, gave her a quick kis
s, nodded sadly, and allowed himself to be led away. Azra did not resist, even thanking the blond-haired deputy who opened the door. Donna Leland was numb. Her fingers tingled with pins and needles. She tightly clutched the steering wheel. The sun had already set. It was hard to see through the cracked windshield of her Neon, hard to see with only a single skewed headlight wandering over the road and out along the black rile of hills that lay between her and home.

  She drove west down Route 11 – dark and tree-encroached, narrow and fifty-five miles an hour, with curves and oncoming traffic. The once-familiar shoulders and swales of Wisconsin felt forbidding and alien tonight. The people – once her friends and neighbors and colleagues – seemed enemies. The People of Wisconsin versus John Doe. Versus Azra Michaels. Versus Donna Le- land. Versus their unborn child. The land glowered. Remember Azra’s place of bliss – our place of bliss. Soon I’ll be there. Soon I’ll be there and imagine him sitting beside me.

  The memory of hurled rocks and shouted taunts was too strong, though. The picketers had called her whore and bitch. They had said she’d betrayed her badge. They had said she was as crazy as her lover. There is little bliss in cracked windshields and shattered headlights. Through it all, she had clung to him. She had saved him. Kerry had died of isolation, but not Azra. And he wouldn’t die. He would live. She would cling to him. They would be isolated together.

  Thank God the trial was over. Donna couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. After all, Azra was guilty of the murders. He was guilty and sick. He needed to live in an institution, needed therapy and protection. In the state penitentiary for the criminally insane, he would receive both. He would live – that’s what she had wanted most – and he would be cared for. And she would be able to visit him frequently. The furor of rocks and death threats would make it easy enough to leave Burlington. She’d transfer to a department near the penitentiary. There would be more trials, of course, in Illinois and Indiana, and perhaps they would supersede this sentence with a worse one, but for now, he would live.