“I’m sure you know, ma’am, the power a psycho can call upon. Besides that power, she was able to make the most of her hookin’ skills to create something a lotta johns paid good money for. She became young, innocent, a darlin’ child who could pray with a sincere and heartfelt fervor.
“Now, ma’am, you’re FBI. I know I can’t shock you. So I’ll tell you that not long after she got here her sister came to visit. Rona Leigh had the corrections officer tell the girl she was too busy prayin’ to have any visits. Sister raised a little fuss so I got called over—girl was goin’ on about how she’d come all the way from Houston and Rona Leigh wouldn’t see her. Girl told me her sister’s prayers were nothin’ but fake. Said lots of times the johns’d make ’em kneel in prayer, their eyes lifted to the heavens, their hands folded. Have them recitin’ the Lord’s Prayer while they was—excuse me—fuckin’ ’em up the ass. The sister said Rona Leigh sure knew how to pray good. Real good. They all do. Hookers, I mean.
“In my mind, Rona Leigh has played that role, on her knees, eyes lifted to heaven, prayin’, managin’ to fool ’em all, for seventeen years. And you want to know somethin’? She hasn’t slipped once. Hasn’t lost her cool, hasn’t got mad, hasn’t told us all to go do somethin’ unmentionable to ourselves when each of her appeals to the board was tossed out. I admit I thought she would. In fact, I thought she’d end up like a pig on a wet deck, slippin’ and slidin’ back to what she was.
“But who knows? Pat Robertson is a highly educated man. Maybe he’s right, but I don’t think so. My feelin’ is that Pat Robertson is a fool just like all the rest.”
Warden had feelings after all. All right to have them as long as they don’t stray across a court’s verdict.
The bungalow was right next to the gate. It was no more than twenty feet from State School Road.
The same four cars were in the lot. The warden said, “This here’s where the corrections officers park. There’s a big lot for visitors back up the road at the main entrance to the complex, and that’s what the media’ll have to be content with, come Rona Leigh’s date. We have shuttle buses for visitors, but the newspaper and TV folk are goin’ to have to walk.” He smirked to himself, probably imagining Morley Safer made a fool of.
I said, “You’re going to have a crowd right outside these windows, aren’t you?”
“The windows have shades. The night of the execution, we’ll put up barricades at the end of the drive to keep the protesters and the cheerleaders out.”
He pressed the bell at the gate. The guard who came out was the same one I’d spoken to earlier. The warden introduced him to me.
“I already had the pleasure.” I shook hands with Captain Shank.
The warden looked at me from beneath the exquisite curve of the Stetson brim. “You been by here already, Agent?”
I would be Agent in front of the underlings.
“I came here first. I thought your office would be in the … unit.”
He and the guard caught each other’s eye. They both laughed. Captain Shank said to me, “We don’t put our wardens in the death house.” Then he turned back to his boss. “I love these Yankees, I surely do.” They laughed some more. I joined in. I’m not a Yankee, but no Texan considers Washington, DC, as being south of the Mason-Dixon line.
The guard let us through the fence and the warden took out his key.
There were three rooms carved out of the bungalow, all in a row, identical signs on each door: OUT OF BOUNDS. Inside the first of them was the mesh cage, the holding pen, centered exactly in the middle of the room, no different from the one the men have. Rona Leigh would spend the end of her life like a zoo animal.
We walked back out to the hallway and went in the next door. It was the death chamber, and it was set to go.
The slim cot was the lone object in the room, its two paddles extending straight out at right angles, solidly primed to embrace its victim. A final embrace.
There were no such paddles on the first cots. But they would become a necessity. It’s hard enough to get an IV drip into a relaxed still arm, let alone a flailing one. When I’d watched a condemned man secured to an identical cot and paddles, the whole scene took on the feel of a new-age crucifixion. Crucifixions for the millennium, an epidemic of them. I’d been part of the epidemic.
Now a woman would be crucified.
Seven wide brown leather straps hung down from the cot, heavy brass buckles dangling from each. One would be laid across her shoulders, one over her rib cage, one across her hips, and one each for her wrists and ankles.
I asked the warden, “How many men on your tie-down team?”
“Regulations say five. But I’m thinkin’ one guard and the medical technician’ll get the job done fine. The doc and me can always help, but I can’t see the need. Prisoner don’t weigh but a hundred pounds.”
Directly behind the head of the cot was what once had been a closet. The door was narrow and, just to its left, an opening had been chipped out of the cinder block. They’d put a plate over it with a hole for the IV tube. The nurse would be behind the door so she wouldn’t have to stand next to the prisoner while she killed her.
We went into the closet. There was a stand for the IV bag, a cupboard for the bag itself and for the tubing and syringes. Next to the cupboard, a little refrigerator.
“For the chemicals?”
“We’re expectin’ those any day.”
“Who checks the expiration dates?”
He smiled. “You ain’t lettin’ me forget I got a big-time agent from the FBI here as my guest, are ya? Don’t you worry, Agent, I’m sure that detail will be taken care of. Chemicals’ll be kept in my office until they’re transferred here. Check the expiration dates myself, how’s that?”
I smiled back. “Where’s the computer?”
“We’re hands-on in Texas.”
Maybe my jaw fell, I don’t know, but his smirk was a little expression of victory for him. No computer. No line of keys to tap in order to release the parade of poisons.
I said, “The nurse will use a hypodermic? Directly into the IV line?”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t want a computer with some kind of virus in it giving the condemned the flu.”
A big, big grin.
I said, “You’ve never been in command of an execution before, have you?”
“No, I have not. But I’ve witnessed my share, and I intend to see that in Texas we give all killers the same treatment, men and women alike.”
We left the little closet.
We went back into the death chamber.
One wall held a large window that looked onto the witness room. There were new draperies tied back on either side. Immediately after the condemned is pronounced dead and the doctor declares the time of death, the curtains are drawn shut. The witnesses do not see the body bagged. During the days of electrocutions, the draperies were introduced because it was deemed necessary to begin preautopsy procedures right away, there in the death chamber. The speculation is that the immediate start to the autopsy became a priority in order to kill the prisoner when 2,000 volts didn’t get the job done.
The warden said, “We’re still waitin’ on the folding chairs.”
Another departure. “Chairs?” At executions the witnesses simply crowd up to the window.
“All’s I need is for someone to faint and crack his head open. Once I saw a witness faint but someone caught her. I’m takin’ no chances.”
“How many witnesses can Rona Leigh have?”
“Six.”
“Has she chosen them?”
“She’s got five so far. But she can change her mind right up to the last. The men don’t change their minds. We’ll see if there’s a difference. With a woman. Since, as we all know, a woman’s prerogative is to change her mind.”
He was still smiling, his hat still angled so perfectly, string tie neat and black against the white shirt, just a touch of embroidery at the pocket.
I was now offici
ally sick of Wyatt Earp.
“May I see Rona Leigh?”
“Sure can.”
We went out and crossed the small yard to the main building. I didn’t ask why we weren’t driving.
Instead, I sprang my question when he wasn’t expecting any more of them.
“Warden?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Seeing as how Rona Leigh never slipped once, have you ever considered that she might not have done it? I mean, I know you’re not paid to cross the court’s decisions, but maybe such a consideration doesn’t quite do that.”
He stopped. He pushed his Stetson back one inch with the knuckle of his forefinger. “And what would be the point of my considerin’ any such thing?”
“Point? No point. But did it ever occur to you?”
He folded his arms across his chest. Captain Shank at his post gave us a sideways glance. “Truthfully, ma’am, there were a couple of times I wished she hadn’t done it. This is a real tricky business we got happenin’ here. We are usherin’ in an era of executin’ women. Lotsa red tape and headaches. I got enough ribs on the fire without wonderin’ whether any of my prisoners committed the crimes they were found guilty of. I say again, I respect the justice system of the great state of Texas.”
“But have you—”
He held up his hand, palm in my face. Maybe he’d begun his career as a traffic cop.
“Enough, ma’am. Enough.” He turned on his heel. I followed him.
And I wondered about the comfort that lies in faith. I wondered how comfort could possibly override consideration of the truth.
I felt my heels digging in a little further.
Before the warden left me, he said, “Agent, the woman is a killer. She’s a psycho, and as far as I’m concerned she’s downright brainwashed.”
“Who’d have brainwashed her? Her husband?”
He hooted. “That little boy? No, ma’am. Mind, now, their marriage was not consummated. To my mind it ain’t a real marriage. No conjugal visits on death row. Ask me, even Rona Leigh wouldn’t want to do it with that pinhead. So here’s who brainwashed my prisoner: She brainwashed herself. All that self-help business. I am a good person. People like me. I like me. I am no longer in the hold of Satan. I am a saint. Damn them all.”
He looked at his watch. He was almost through. “Rona Leigh has finally become the character she’s acted over all these years. Brainwashed into thinkin’ she’s the RC virgin. Now let me ask you somethin’, Agent Rice of the FBI, ’fore I take my leave. What do y’all want from us? The law don’t account for any presto-chango killers. Gal may sound like a saint, might act like an angel. But it don’t make her any less a killer. Innocent people are dead, and they were made dead at her hand. The court has spoken.”
“The court didn’t get all the evidence that could have been made available to them.”
“Who says?”
“I do.”
He took me in. “But you, ma’am, are an outsider.”
4
I was an outsider, but I wasn’t bound to rules and regulations when it came to visiting a prisoner in Texas, though Corrections Officer Captain Harley Shank thought I might be interested in knowing what they were. Shank was inside now, a different guard at the fence. Positions had shifted. He handed me a pamphlet to read while I waited for Rona Leigh to come out. There were two categories: what visitors were not allowed to wear and what they weren’t allowed to bring in. First category: no hats, belts, sweaters, jackets, vests, coats, boots, hair ornaments, or jewelry. Within that category also fell handbags, briefcases, bags, cameras, and computers. Second category: no food (including gum, candy, and drinks); no medications, cigarettes, cigars, newspapers, books, magazines, paper of any sort, pencils, pens, gifts, or money.
I put the pamphlet down on the ledge in front of me. The Plexiglas was spotless, the metal mesh embedded within it as thick as chain link. The room was wired for sound. This would not be a private conversation.
Shank escorted her in. She was manacled, ankles and wrists, and she wore a bright orange jumpsuit. When Shank got her seated, he walked a few feet away and took up a position behind her against the wall. She wiggled her fingers at him and he wiggled his fingers back, and then she turned to me.
Most people have three names, but only a certain class of Southerners goes by all of them. Miss America will never be Jane Doe because southern girls win. She’ll always be Jane Laureen Doe. I was reminded of that when Rona Leigh and I greeted each other. She smiled and said, “Please call me by my first name.”
Fine. “I’m glad to meet you, Rona. I’m Poppy Rice.”
And she chirped, “Begging your pardon, ma’am, it’s Rona Leigh.”
I said, “Excuse me. Rona Leigh.”
Her skin was indeed as smooth as marble. But Michelangelo notwithstanding, the sun hadn’t touched her face in seventeen years.
She said, smiling, “I don’t know why the FBI has sent someone to see me. I just spoke on the phone with my husband, and he said, ‘No, Rona Leigh, the Lord sent her.’ He said that if you feel I have truly repented, you will make a case for me to the governor.”
I apologized again. “I’m sorry, that’s not accurate. I will make a case to the governor if I feel there is evidence that you didn’t have a fair trial.”
The smile, which reflected curiosity, became benevolent. “Though I appreciate the effort you are making, I can tell you right now that I did evil. I deserve to pay for my crime, Miz Rice, an eye for an eye. But all the same, God has singled me out. He wants to make me an example—that in delivering to us His only Son, in sacrificing Him, He meant to teach us repentance and forgiveness. He meant to give us an alternative to retribution.”
“That really has nothing to do with the role I see for myself. I know that…”
She leaned forward, still smiling. “I only know this: If there is still some chance that our good governor will spare me, I will spend the rest of my days in prayer and praise of the Lord and in work for good causes.”
I looked into the lovely eyes of the condemned and asked Rona Leigh Glueck why she thought she had been chosen, why she thought she should be spared.
“I cannot question Jesus but only put myself in His mighty hands. When we give our lives over to the Lord, we must trust His judgment and not question it. I thank Him every day for my fate. I thank God for the gift He has given me. I know in my heart that the Lord Jesus never makes a mistake. I must follow where He leads me.
“He has allowed me to understand there has been reason for my tribulations. Just part of the path I have had to travel so that I could reveal His blessed message. I don’t understand what you think you can do for me, but God has told me to listen to you. Ma’am, at first I told my husband I didn’t see the purpose in havin’ a visit with you because even if you find some mitigatin’ circumstances that mean I shouldn’t be put to death, it will be of no use. You may be the FBI, but you ain’t Texas. I hold no hope that anything you find will sway the parole board or the governor when it comes to paying for the crime I committed.”
I would try to get her to see where I was coming from. “Rona Leigh, I’m not talking about mitigating circumstances. What if there is something of substance? Something that might shed suspicion on the decision to convict you?”
“Well, then, they’d kill me all the faster. Matter of pride. But none of that matters. I’m not innocent. I did it. I have taken responsibility for what I have done, even if you find that some lawyer forgot to enter in a piece of evidence.” She turned to Captain Shank. “Ain’t that true, Harley?”
He nodded. “It is.”
“Why don’t you explain it to the agent for me?”
Shank walked to the Plexiglas and stood next to her chair. He said, “Ma’am, this is a state where even if you was fourteen and mentally retarded and you killed somebody? Forget it. You’re dead as a can a corned beef. Why, in the old days, somethin’ like that happened? It was considered a little bitty oversight. Poli
ce would have brought the slow-witted child back home and bid his daddy and mama to put a few extra locks on the attic door. But now? You fourteen and don’t know how to cross the street without help? And you get ahold a your daddy’s peashooter and kill the mailman? Why, you goin’ to find your butt smack on the rookie end a death row. We got a coupla gals here can’t tie their own shoelaces. Not that they got shoelaces to tie.”
I looked from Shank to his prisoner. I wasn’t there to be humored.
“Rona Leigh, I am considering actual innocence. I am not speaking about mitigating factors or legal errors. The file we have contains discrepancies which could lead to evidence—”
“Miz Rice, I have no chance for another trial no matter what discrepancy you dug up. In Texas you got thirty days from your conviction to come up with new evidence. Tomorrow, if fifty witnesses came along and said they was lookin’ through that motel window seventeen years ago and the girl that killed those two kids wasn’t me, it’d be too late.”
I said, “The law giving you thirty days can be tested. If the evidence is not new, if it has been there all along.… I see that as your lifeline to the governor. I want to get that reprieve, a new thirty days. That’s all we can try for.”
She put her elbows up on her own ledge. Her little hands had been in her lap. Now they were out there, dwarfed by the wide cuffs. She said, “Here is the lifeline that Vernon and I see. Although we will continue to rely on prayer, continue to hope that the governor listens to Jesus, we are not going to put aside other ways that Jesus might place before us.
“You are a woman in power. You are from the FBI in Washington, DC. We’re thinkin’ that maybe you got ways to get the governor unstuck from the path he has chosen. You know.… What’s the word? You could intimidate him. By throwin’ him off his stride, you could maybe convince him that he has made a serious mistake in refusin’ to consider my plea for clemency.”
Intimidate the governor. Wonderful. “Playing games with the governor is not my plan. If justice was not served in your case, the rest of us weren’t served either. I want to go to him with something substantive. Realistically—”
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