Getting Life

by Michael Morton

  I was now fifty-five years old. Eric was twenty-six and married. My mother’s hair had turned snowy white and my father’s walk had slowed. Sheriff Boutwell had died of cancer seventeen years before. Sergeant Wood had suffered a series of debilitating strokes. Ken Anderson was now a respected judge. The population of once sleepy little Williamson County had quadrupled.

  The world had gone on without me. All I could do was keep waiting.

  I thought back to the time, years ago, when our motion had first been filed. There had been some local newspaper and TV coverage of my effort to clear myself. One news story contained an interview with a member of the jury that convicted me. He said he feared that, if I got out, I would come looking for him—and kill him. I wished I could reassure him that nothing like that would happen.

  But I wondered at the time who else might have seen the articles and TV coverage. Had the man who killed Chris seen them? What did he think? I wondered where he was and what he was doing. Had he killed again? I wanted to know whether he felt regret or pain, fear or anger. I wondered if I would ever know his name or get to talk to him.

  I remember thinking that if I could only ask him one question, I would ask him, Why? Why had he done this? Why had he entered our home? Why had he chosen Chris? Why had he needed to kill her?

  I knew I would probably never get a satisfactory answer, if I got any answer at all. It was terrifying to think about the profound emotional disconnection required to break into a home, beat a sleeping woman to death, and then brashly wash the blood off in our shower under the gaze of a frightened toddler.

  I couldn’t help believing that someone who would do that—and then watch an innocent man go to prison—was a monster indeed. But I knew this vicious, unfathomable, unforgivable man was all too real. He existed—and he was still out there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Once again, we were on lockdown.

  The guards had found a number of shanks on our unit, knives made out of everyday stuff—a discarded piece of scrap metal from the maintenance shop or a broken piece of a plastic lunch tray. Sometimes a sharp-eyed inmate would find a shard of glass left behind by a careless worker and meticulously fashion it into a shiv—complete, of course, with a sensible safety handle wrapped in cloth. Once in a great while, a con might whittle a wooden stick into something sharp enough to perform surgery on a person—or require surgery on a person. DIY lethal weapons—prison crafts at their finest!

  The bursts of villainous innovation that constantly swept through the cells of my erstwhile friends and neighbors took my breath away. The entrepreneurs who fermented penitentiary “wine” and bottled it for sale; the crude but savvy businessmen who offered protection or punishment, for a price, to fellow inmates; the guys who ran drug rings inside prison while they served time for running drug rings outside prison—I couldn’t help but think how their lives would have been different if they’d used one scintilla of their commercial instinct to do something legal.

  Instead, they’d all opted to follow in their families’ footsteps, or defy their families, or simply do the only thing they knew how. There were many paths to prison. What was virtually certain about my neighbors inside was that the vast majority would keep doing the same thing after they got out.

  For many of these guys, the possibility of serving time was just another business risk—like rolling the dice on a pricey piece of real estate and losing a fortune. For them, losing huge chunks of their lives was the price of admission to their chosen profession.

  The crazy people inside—and there were many, many of them—were different.

  They simply couldn’t help themselves. Most of them had wandered for years through their lives unmedicated, uneducated, unwanted, and unloved. They systematically failed at everything—school, relationships, work. They couldn’t even take care of themselves. In the process, they alienated family and friends—and finally, the law.

  Inside, their mental health care was no better. In fact, it was arguably worse than the lack of treatment and lack of attention they got outside. But behind the walls, they had lots of company—people exactly like them, men they could commiserate with or fight with, antagonize or be bullied by.

  During our many lockdowns on the Michael Unit, I would sit on my bunk with my headset on and my radio off, my not-all-that-sly way of eavesdropping on the inane chatter. The lengthy conversations were full of sad and ineffectual plans for life on the outside, the ramblings of the clinically insane, and the fantasies of the criminally inept. Their ignorance and cruelty knew no limits. These dark dreams were bandied about—and carried out—by my neighbors, my fellow travelers, the men sharing my meals and my showers and my life.

  Eavesdropping helped me stay entertained during lockdown, which wasn’t easy. You could read—or sleep; be forced to repeatedly pack up and drag your property down to the gym for inspection—or sleep; eat your “johnnie,” a baloney sandwich sack lunch—or sleep.

  Did I mention sleeping?

  A lockdown created an almost narcoleptic atmosphere. Many inmates sprawled lifelessly on their bunks all day and all night. They simply couldn’t come up with anything else to do. Experienced inmates—like me—always kept special material on hand for lockdowns. Sometimes, I’d dive back into a big book I knew I would never finish unless I was locked up—literally. Other times, I would just sprawl on my bunk and torture myself by looking again and again at family photos. Many were taken at holiday gatherings, and my mom sent me a new round every year. I now had quite a collection.

  I searched every scene, pulling out the smallest details. Are those new curtains on Mom’s windows? Again? What is that food in the yellow bowl? Whose kid is that? I could not get enough of the faces. I feasted on the backgrounds. I could almost taste the meals. The clothes everyone wore simply fascinated me. But the way my family had changed over the years hit me hardest. In more than one picture, I hadn’t recognized my younger brother Matt—and that hurt.

  I had missed so much. And I longed for everyone and every element of the outside world so much it ached.

  I wanted to go home. I’d had enough of prison, enough of the stiff-upper-lip life I had been living for so many years. I would put the photos away to give myself a break—and then, in a few minutes, pull them out and go through them one by one again, as though they were part of a rosary I kept repeating and repeating. It was amazing how powerful and compelling ordinary family pictures are to a man who’s been locked away for what feels like forever.

  And it wasn’t just family photos that had that effect on me. One day I was jolted emotionally simply by looking at an IKEA catalog. I’d never seen one before, never even set foot in an IKEA store. I imagined that in some snobby, disconnected corners of the country, there were probably people who wouldn’t dream of shopping at such a mass-production, mass-marketed company. I did not feel any of that when I flipped through the catalog.

  I felt torn between anguish and envy. The domestic bliss and the sumptuous comfort—the livability and comparative luxury of the IKEA line—left me weak in the knees. Everything and everyone in the glossy pages seemed to almost sparkle. The women looked capable, fun, and relaxed. The children were all smiling and were clearly above average in every way. The men looked like no man I had seen in years—every single one of them appeared comfortable and happy. They looked loved.

  It broke my heart. I was nearly crying looking at a catalog—for God’s sake.

  The emotional instability I felt probably had more than a little to do with the fact that I was expecting word on the lab results from the DNA tests on the bandanna any day. Whatever they found—or didn’t find—would determine the rest of my life. That square of blue fabric would have the final say in whether I walked free or died inside. It would decide whether I would be able to spend time with my parents in their old age. It would control whether I could even attend their funerals. Everything in my life hung on whatever the
stains on that fabric contained.

  Early testing had indicated there was blood on the bandanna. But whose blood was it? How did it get there? Would they find anything else? If the bandanna held no secrets, I was doomed. It was literally my last chance.

  I prayed as hard as I could for acceptance of what came next. I had to consider that I might be destined to live out my life behind bars, even if that wasn’t fair or right or going to be easy. I braced for bad news and told myself I simply might not be wise enough to understand the why of my life just yet, but eventually—someday—I would.

  In late May 2011, I got handed a letter from Nina Morrison. In it, she wrote that she was going to be in Texas the next day (!) and planned on popping in to see me. We’d been writing each other and talking on the phone for six or seven years, and I was anxious to finally meet her. I felt I owed her so much.

  But a line near the end of the letter left me unsettled—she casually mentioned that John Raley might come in from Houston to join our visit. My mind reeled at the possibilities—were they both coming to excitedly give me the great news I had waited so long to hear? Or had we become close enough, and they simply cared enough, that they both wanted to be on hand when I got the news I feared most? Both scenarios made sense.

  I barely slept that night thinking over—and over, and over—all the possibilities that might be played out in the visiting room in less than twenty-four hours. I even thought about whether I might be overthinking things.

  Then I forgave myself for getting carried away. At such a late stage of my life and long sentence, I simply couldn’t help it. I flopped around on my bunk like a fish tossed into a boat—spending the whole night alternately praying and dreaming, hitting the pillow and holding my head in my hands, fantasizing and planning my reaction to good or bad news, then scolding myself and comforting myself—and then starting the whole sleepless grind all over again.

  Finally, dawn came and put me out of my misery.

  We were on lockdown again, and moving through the prison to do anything—especially to receive visitors—was difficult. I had to jump through all kinds of hoops and was still an hour late getting out of the dorm that morning and down to the visiting room. Once there I had to stand in a hallway for an hour. I worried that John and Nina were having trouble getting in. Finally, I saw my much-loved lawyers walk through the door.

  John Raley was at least a head taller than anyone else in the room—possibly anyone else in the prison. He was moving the way he always did—like he was late for a hearing or racing the clock to meet a court date or simply rushing to deliver news of great consequence. His full-steam-ahead stance reflected his approach to legal battles—every case was the Alamo all over again.

  Nina Morrison operated with an almost identical mind-set. We had never met, but I recognized her instantly. Marching beside John, matching him stride for stride, Nina looked tiny—of course, everyone did when they stood next to John. But she had a singular way of appearing ferociously on top of everything and almost sweetly endearing at the same time. I’d seen her on TV, so I knew she had long dark hair. From her years of work on my case, I knew, too, she was whip smart—almost scary smart.

  But I was totally unprepared to see her smile. It was so big and so beautiful and so startlingly bright that I believed she could have been used to signal ships at sea. Her high-wattage smile that day could have turned the deepest, darkest cave into Times Square. As I watched her walking toward me through the dreary visiting room, I swore that the light bursting out of her looked like a train emerging from an inky black tunnel.

  As they moved to our visiting cubicle, she and John were focused right at me. We made eye contact, and in that instant—I knew why they had come.

  I knew!

  Well, I hoped I knew.

  I silently prayed.

  We finally sat down together, separated by that maddening glass partition. My heart was beating so hard I felt certain they could hear it, even through the thick clear wall that kept us apart. My whole body was shaking. I pressed my legs into the chair as hard as I could—simply trying to hold them steady.

  John held his huge hand to the glass. I put mine up against his. He was still smiling. He looked at me, smiled at Nina as she sat beside him beaming—and then looked back at me.

  He said, “We have good news.”

  He and Nina excitedly passed their phone handset back and forth as they explained how the testing had confirmed that the blood on the bandanna belonged to Chris. This was big. We had always speculated that the bandanna had been dropped or thrown behind our house as the killer made his getaway. This was proof that we were right.

  The next piece of information was a bombshell.

  The testing had discovered other DNA deposited on the bandanna—­skin cells and sweat that were clearly intermingled with Chris’s blood. The DNA belonged to an unknown male—the man who had killed my wife, the man who had gotten away with murder, until now.

  Now there was a chance that, by running this man’s DNA profile through a national database, we could get a hit—we could find him, have him arrested and finally brought to justice. In odd ways this possibility reawakened the suppressed hurt and despair I felt about losing Chris. Nearly twenty-five years after she died, as I faced, at long last, finding out who had done this, a new wave of almost palpable grief swept over me. I hadn’t expected that at all.

  I had tried to imagine how I would react if the news was bad—or good. But when the moment came, when it was no longer theoretical, I was too profoundly shaken to do anything. I had no snappy comments to make or important thoughts to convey. I was struggling simply to swallow and continue breathing. The overwhelming physical effect the news had on me was a shock. I could feel it in every cell in my body. One minute I thought I had the strength of ten men and could jump so high I would touch the ceiling. The next instant I felt weak and out of control—as though I just might sink to the floor. It was not unlike the moment so long ago when I heard the jury foreman say “Guilty”—only this time, I was stunned in reverse.

  I was so lucky Nina was there. She had delivered this kind of earth-shattering news before—and had helped others who had ridden the emotional roller coaster that now carried me along. Talking with her made such a difference—she seemed to understand what I was feeling better than I did.

  John suggested I take a moment to simply breathe and process the information. He was right. While I steadied myself, they both stayed right there, reassuring me through the thick glass. My eyes were brimming with tears. I could feel myself forming uncontrollable smiles that seemed to come and go of their own accord. John and Nina kept talking as I struggled to regain my composure. They, on the other hand, were exultant—laughing about their wild drive to see me. They’d met in Dallas and made the hour-and-a-half trip together in a rental car. John joked that they’d been so happy and excited their “wheels hadn’t touched the ground the whole way.”

  By now all three of us were bouncing off the walls.

  Nina brought us back down to earth. She reminded me that nothing was official yet, that the lab report had not been issued—that would take a little while. And she soberly recalled the pitched battles we’d faced in years past—just to get us to this moment.

  She said that the Williamson County powers that be had fought us all the way—and they were going to keep on fighting.

  She looked at the marathon of legal wrangling still to come. And she had other worries, which she laid out in her typical “trust me, I’ve been here before” fashion. I was told to regard this time as not unlike the months between Chris’s murder and my trial. All of my mail, all of my phone calls, all of my conversations had to be guarded. One slip could ruin everything. She said that she and John would inform my parents, who could share the news with my family—and no one else.

  It was imperative that our plans be kept secret. She warned that a word from a jailhou
se snitch claiming he’d heard me say something about Chris’s murder could set us back years. I knew she was right. Many of the men behind the walls would do anything to get out—or to get out faster. That someone here would sell out another inmate—even an innocent one—did not require a stretch of the imagination.

  Our visit was coming to an end when John brought up something that sent me right back over the emotional edge. He asked if I wanted him to try to find Eric and share the news with him. I learned anew how raw my feelings were, how much I had been holding back every day. Huge, unashamed tears welled up in my eyes and slid down my face. In my memory Eric was still a little boy—­trusting me and needing me, even though I knew he was now a full-grown man. My mother had told me he was married. We hadn’t had contact for years. Now our relationship would change again—I hoped.

  My lawyers and I said our good-byes—full of hope for what lay ahead. Nina waved and beamed as she walked away. John stepped out of the cubicle on his side of the glass—then stepped back in. He picked up the phone and, with a big smile, told me what I already knew—“Prayer works.”

  I would need it to work for me again.

  As I walked back into the prison, every aspect of my limited life awaited me unchanged. I felt the relentless symphony of grating people, policies, and sounds envelop me again—the buzzers and shouts, the barking guards, the indecipherable squawks from the PA system, the slamming doors and endless jangling of keys and cuffs and twitchy nerves. I was still inside.

  It was as if John and Nina hadn’t been there and hadn’t delivered incredible news. It was as if this day had all been a dream. I had to struggle to continue accepting the constraints of prison life, to stay sane through the incompetence, the sheer stupidity, and the cruelty that filled every day behind bars. Nina had told me there would be an uncomfortable period of adjustment. She was right.