The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  Silence.

  Molly lowered her voice. “Please, Mrs. Ferguson, if there’s any chance you might have some slip of paper or entry in a notebook, anything, it could help so much. And I can promise you there will be no trouble for you as a result.” She held her breath.

  “I’m feeling poorly today, Miz … uh … Cates,” Nelda Fay whined. “And I surely don’t know what you’re talking about here.…”

  “Just tell me if there’s any chance some other records were kept,” Molly persisted. “At home maybe.”

  Again there was a silence. Slow down, Molly thought. You’re pushing too hard; back off.

  Nelda Fay said, “No. All them records were at the office and got burned up. You was there, you saw what a mess it was. Now I’m not well at all. Sorry.” The phone clicked.

  Molly put the phone back in the cradle and counted slowly to sixty. Then she dialed the number again. The phone rang three times before it was picked up. The voice sounded even whinier this time.

  “Mrs. Ferguson, Molly Cates here. I think we got cut off; it’s this mobile phone of mine, damn machine doesn’t work right half the time. You were talking about feeling poorly and I can sure identify with that. You know where my face got all bruised yesterday when I was attacked on your property? Well, it’s sure giving me a bad time today and I’m wondering if there isn’t some bone damage on the cheek or maybe even some damage to the eye.…”

  “Miz Cates, I’m sorry to hear it, but my doorbell is ringing. I—”

  “I may go to see a specialist tomorrow,” Molly continued. “Now you shouldn’t worry about that. Not for a second. It wasn’t your fault it happened. Lord, I know how long it takes to get people to do things. Even something simple like boarding up a hazardous building like yours there on the Mansfield Highway. I mean you can’t expect it to get done the day right after the fire. Although some folks might say—”

  “Miz Cates.” Nelda Fay’s voice became anxious. “What is it you want me to do again?”

  Bingo. She got her. “To look through the records your husband kept at home for anything that mentions a car being painted in July of 1982.”

  There was a lengthy silence. Molly actually had to hold her tongue between her teeth to keep from saying more. Silence was often the best persuader.

  Finally the woman said, “I surely would like to help you.”

  “That’s real kind of you, Mrs. Ferguson.”

  “Now that I had a chance to think about it, I remember that my husband did from time to time take pity on someone less fortunate who had trouble paying the usual prices. He might have given a discount for cash. Since there was almost no profit, he might not have put it on his tax return. Not often, mind you. But it happened sometimes, and I believe he did keep some of them records at home.”

  Molly felt like she was walking on a narrow bar and could tip either way. “Mrs. Ferguson,” she said evenly, “could you look through those things now? I’d be happy to wait.” Molly felt an absolute certainty that the woman, motivated by curiosity, had gone home yesterday and searched through the old off-the-record records. Now the box—a shoe box maybe, or one of those cheap metal lock boxes—was sitting on the kitchen counter and Nelda Fay was probably staring at it right now as she wavered. It was a hard decision: trouble with the IRS was specter enough to discourage anybody from being a Samaritan.

  “I’ll have to do some rummaging around. Couldn’t I let you know in a few days?”

  “Mrs. Ferguson, the man’s going to be executed tomorrow just after midnight. There is no time. Please.”

  A long exhale went into the phone. “Just a minute.”

  Molly could picture Nelda Fay standing with her hand over the phone counting under her breath so a respectable amount of time would pass by.

  Waiting had always been painful for Molly. Keeping the phone at her ear, she reached into the back seat and pulled a pen from her bag. She began to doodle on the notebook page headed “Sam’s Body Shop.” Without planning it, her fingers drew a rough sketch of a car, blocking in a door and making little crosshatches over it to indicate the door was a different color from the rest of the car.

  She let her sandals fall to the ground next to the truck, and leaning back into the seat, she swung around so she could put her bare feet up on the dashboard.

  After several minutes, Nelda Fay Ferguson came back on the line. “Miz Cates?”

  “Yes.” Molly made herself jump with the loud eagerness of her voice.

  “There is something here.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s looks like a carbon copy, kind of blurred and messy, but it’s a receipt and it’s in my husband’s handwriting.”

  “Could you read it to me?”

  “Just let me put on my other glasses here. So I can try and make this out. Darn these old carbons. Sam was always economizing. All right-y. It says, ‘150 dollars p-d,’ you know short for paid, and the date is 7/6/82. Then it says, “ ’72 Mustang, total body, grabber blue,’ that’s the color, you know.”

  Molly found herself short of breath. “Is there a name on it?”

  “Well, let’s see. It’s kinda hard to read. These carbons always seem to get more worn out at the top when they been used too much. But it looks like the name is L. Bronson. Is that the one you wanted?”

  Molly felt like someone had whacked her in the chest with a two by four. L. Bronson was the name Louie had told her he had used.

  So it was true. There was no escape from it now. It was true.

  “Miz Cates? Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Molly said, “it’s what I was looking for.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t gonna bring me no trouble, Miz Cates?”

  “Absolutely. I promise it.”

  Molly stopped here; she hadn’t planned for this. She really had no idea what to do next. “Mrs. Ferguson, are you going to be home for a while?”

  “Well, I was planning on going out later.”

  “Well, I need to figure out a way to get this from you today.”

  “Get it from me? What are you going to do with it?” Her voice was shrill with alarm.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Ferguson. It’s just to show his car was blue after July sixth. For evidence.”

  “Oh, golly, I—”

  “Tell you what, I’ll call you back in a few minutes, after I’ve arranged it. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Molly put the phone down, leaned her head back into the seat, and closed her eyes tight. Why had she done this? She could have let it rest after making the trip yesterday. But now there was no going back.

  That painstaking research she’d done—all lies. Her beautiful book—all lies. She felt a flush of hot thick blood flooding into her chest and arms. She’d been duped by Louie Bronk. So had everyone else, it was true. But hers was so public. Would she have to print a retraction? Recall the book?

  Everyone would have to know. Or would they? She was the only one who knew about this, except for Nelda Fay Ferguson, who wasn’t about to tell anyone. She could just let it go. It probably wasn’t going to make any difference anyway; it was hardly the kind of evidence that would get the Bronk decision reversed. She could call Nelda Fay back and tell her it wasn’t what she was looking for after all. And she could tell Louie it had just been too late. Too late. Too bad.

  She opened her eyes and saw her face reflected in the dirty windshield—wet hair stuck flat to her head, the discolored cheek puffy, the rest of the face very pale. God. She certainly looked like the kind of person who could conceal evidence and present a lie to the world.

  At the very least, she was the kind of person who could let her own petty concerns overshadow the fact that a man was about to die for a crime he did not commit.

  She picked up the phone and called Grady Traynor’s number. He wasn’t in, but she got hold of Caleb Shawcross and got him to agree to call Fort Worth immediately and send a detective in plainclothes so as not to upset the lady to Nelda Fay Ferguson’s addre
ss to pick up some evidence. Then she talked him into having the detective put it on a Southwest flight to Austin and sending a man over to pick it up at the airport that afternoon.

  Molly called Nelda Fay back and told her to expect someone within the hour.

  She got down from the truck, stuck her feet in her sandals, and walked back to the pool. Jo Beth was doing laps again. Molly walked fast along the edge so she was waiting for her at the deep end. Jo Beth stopped and grabbed on to the edge of the pool. She looked up, studied Molly’s face, and said, “She found something.”

  Molly nodded. “A carbon of a receipt with the name he was using on it, the date, the type of car, and the color of paint used. It set him back 150 bucks. I shudder to think where he got the money.”

  “Now what?” said Jo Beth.

  Molly dropped her towel and sandals where she was and tucked her keys under the towel. Then she dove back into the water. When she surfaced, she shook her head to get the water out of her ears and said, “Damned if I know.”

  chapter 21

  If I could be

  Somehow set free

  From being me

  Here’s what I’d be—

  Wild Comanche

  Painted with mud

  And clotted blood,

  Covered in skins,

  No thought of sins.

  Scalp takers

  Skull breakers

  Scream makers

  Black hair lovers

  Swift death givers.

  LOUIE BRONK

  Death Row, Ellis I Unit,

  Huntsville, Texas

  Molly sat at her desk looking at the telephone. Her shoulder muscles burned, as if she had just done a hundred push-ups, or as if sharp claws were digging in between her shoulder blades. She pictured an evil-looking gargoyle clinging to her, grinning down at her.

  She jiggled her shoulders up and down to relax them. This was ridiculous; it wasn’t her responsibility to act on this information. Tanya Klein was the one. After all, Klein was Louie’s attorney, a specialist in habeas corpus law. The thing to do was just unload it all on her and let her carry it from here.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the number of the motel where Tanya was staying in Paducah, Kentucky. She was there doing research on behalf of a client of hers, another death-row inmate. It had taken Molly a half hour to wheedle Tanya’s unlisted home number out of one of her coworkers and then to beg her roommate to reveal the number in Kentucky.

  “Slumber Rest Motor Lodge. How can I help you?”

  “Tanya Klein’s room please,” Molly said.

  The operator let it ring about fifteen times before coming back on the line. “Miss Klein doesn’t answer.”

  Molly felt desperate; her shoulders were hunched up around her ears again. “Could you page her? She might be in your restaurant or the lobby or the pool maybe. It’s an emergency.”

  “We don’t have no pool, but I’ll check the coffee shop.”

  After a few minutes, Tanya’s world-weary voice came over the line: “This is Tanya Klein.”

  “Oh, Tanya, it’s Molly Cates. I’m so glad I found you. I—”

  “God. How did you track me down?”

  “Tricks of my trade,” Molly said. Then, unable to keep a breathlessness out of her voice, she poured out everything that had happened in Fort Worth. As if she were presenting some prize, she told Tanya about the receipt for painting the Mustang dated July sixth.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Tanya said, “Wait a minute here. Molly, you aren’t saying you believe Louie Bronk is innocent?”

  Molly took a deep breath and tried to lower her shoulders. “In the McFarland matter, yes. I am saying that.”

  “On the basis of a carbon receipt from an auto body shop? Something anyone could manufacture? Give me a break, Molly.”

  “I was thinking we might try to get DPS to date it.”

  “Oh, sure.” Tanya let out a bark of a laugh. “It would be perfect for carbon 14 dating. You get it? Carbon 14?”

  “Yeah. I get it. Tanya, how did someone so young get so cynical?”

  “You know the answer to that, Molly. You’ve covered enough of these cases. It’s dealing with a system where the Supreme Court of the land actually debates whether it is unconstitutional to execute someone who might be innocent. Where that same court agrees to hear the issues of a condemned man’s case but refuses to grant him a stay so he’ll be alive when his case gets heard.”

  “I know,” Molly said. “It’s ludicrous. But where are we now with the appeals?”

  “I wrote up a Certificate of Probable Cause and sent it to the Fifth Circuit Court. We may hear back tonight.”

  “What can we do with this new evidence?”

  Tanya sighed. “I guess I can go back to the state with a one-issue petition.”

  “Good,” Molly said. “Let’s do that.”

  “Of course there are a few little problems here. In Texas there’s a thirty-day limit on filing claims of new evidence after a conviction, a limit recently affirmed by the Supreme Court. And—let’s see—it’s been more than three thousand six hundred and fifty days since Louie was convicted, so we’re a little past the deadline. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t file these things. We do. All the time. You’d be amazed how often we find them: lost witnesses, newly uncovered alibis, confessions that were given by people now dead—you name it. Of course, the courts don’t pay any attention to them.”

  “But those are bogus,” Molly protested. “This is the real thing.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tanya said in a dead voice.

  Molly took a deep breath and said, “So what are you supposed to do with new evidence that really does come up at the last minute?”

  “Executive clemency is supposed to be the route for that.”

  “How does that work exactly?”

  “Well, you know in some other states the governor can commute a sentence or give a pardon unilaterally, but not in Texas. The way it works here is the Board of Pardons and Paroles has to recommend clemency first. But it’s never happened. Those pricks have never voted to commute a death sentence. Not once. And, anyway, all the paperwork has to be done in triplicate a minimum of five working days before the execution date and we’ve only got one day.”

  “Oh, shit. Where does that leave us?”

  Tanya measured another long-suffering silence into the phone. “Well, the governor does have the power to grant a one-time, thirty-day reprieve. In order to give the Board more time to consider a case. Like she did recently in the Boulton case. But, Molly, even if by some wild stretch of circumstance she could be convinced to do that, it would just delay it a month. The Board is simply not going to recommend commutation in this case, no matter how many carbon copies you come up with. Louie really doesn’t have any issues. Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter—they are out for blood.”

  Molly dug her fingers into her right shoulder, trying to force the tension out. It was impossible. Surely she’d done as much as could be expected of her. She could stop here.

  “Look. Molly,” Tanya said, “thanks for calling. Really. Tonight I’ll fax a petition to CCA and the trial court simultaneously, and I’ll include your new piece of evidence. Okay?”

  “How long will it take them to respond?” Molly asked.

  “At this point in the process, a few hours, usually. Just long enough for the judges to have a good laugh. They’ll probably slap my hands and accuse me of abusing the writ, like they did last time.”

  Molly put down the phone. She felt stabbing pains in her shoulders; the gargoyle was settling in, hooking its claws in deeper. This whole thing was futile. The state was determined to execute a killer and there was nothing she could do about it. She should go see a movie and forget the whole mess. Yes, that’s what she would do. But first she needed to talk to someone.

  She called Stan Heffernan’s home number. His wife said her husband was out sailing on Lake Buchanan and had failed to
take his beeper with him. Molly left an urgent message for him to call her the minute he got home.

  Then, not knowing what to do next, she started making calls, trying to find someone to talk to, anyone who might be available on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

  First she tried APD. Grady Traynor was at a crime scene in East Austin, one of the other homicide detectives said—another drive-by shooting.

  Richard Dutton didn’t answer his phone and didn’t believe in answering machines.

  Barbara Gruber, who was usually available, had actually gone out on a date—with a man, her mother said.

  Jo Beth had said she was going in to her office, but she didn’t answer her phone there.

  Molly even tried calling Jonathan Bellinger, her agent, to commiserate about the Japanese deal falling through. But Jonathan wasn’t home either.

  She pushed her rolling chair away from the desk, grabbed her big tote bag, and rummaged through it, scooping all the loose pieces of paper off the bottom and dumping them out on the rug. In the pile were two credit card receipts, a used Kleenex, several little triangular corners torn from her Day-Timer, and what she was seeking—the card Addie Dodgin had given her, which had gotten badly crumpled.

  She smoothed the card out and winced when she saw under the name and address the slogan “We are forgiven.” But it seemed less obnoxious now than it had the first time she saw it. Maybe she was warming to the idea.

  Maybe she felt more in need of forgiveness now than she had two days ago.

  Picking up the card and her cordless phone, she lay down on the little sofa and arranged the pillow under her knees. Again she looked at the card. Maybe all of us should print slogans on our cards, she thought—something pithy that would explain us to the world. We would be limited to three words. Three words. That would be a challenge. What would hers be? She rubbed her thumb over the slightly raised letters of Addie Dodgin’s card and considered it. Maybe hers would be “Never give up” or “Honor the dead.” That sounded so grim. When all this was over she’d have to make some changes. Work less. Live more. No more vigils. God, now she was thinking in slogans.