by David R. Dow
THERE IS A MOMENT in the middle of every night when I am the only man alive. I slip out of bed and put on a sweatshirt. I fill a mug with hot water and a squeeze of lemon. I carry it into Lincoln’s room and watch him sleep. If he’s still enough, I touch his hair or stroke his cheek. I picture him and Katya sitting at the piano playing four-handed, or the two of them dancing at a wedding. Every New Year’s Day, they go swimming together in the ocean. I don’t need to stay alive. I’ve done my job. I sit at my desk and think of nothing. With headphones I listen to Art Tatum or Teddy Wilson. I wait. Sometimes I fall asleep there. Sometimes I just sit. Sometimes something comes to me. That night it was the blood. The blood might tell us something.
I crawled back into bed. Katya asked if everything was okay. I said, No, not really.
She said, It will be. She put her right leg over mine and dropped her arm over my shoulder, and for the few moments before I fell back asleep, she was right.
ON SOME DAYS, it is hard to believe that mind readers are confidence men. When I got to the office the next morning, everyone was already in the conference room. A time line and a dozen photographs of the crime scene were tacked to the wall. I went and got my rubber ball and came back. The two children had been killed in their beds. Dorris had been killed on the couch in the living room, lying on her back, a single gunshot wound in her temple. There was a trail of blood connecting the two rooms. To my eye, the drops looked thinner on the side closer to the kids, and fatter on the side closer to Dorris. That would mean that the kids died first, and the killer then walked back toward Dorris, dripping blood as he went, either from the gun or maybe from his body. Of course, your eyes often see what you want them to. Plus, the blood could have been there already, since before the murders, but there’s no point to believing in coincidences, especially when they’re not helpful. We had to assume that the killer trailed it from one victim to the next. But if the kids were shot first, Dorris would have heard the shots, and if she had, she would have gotten up. But she didn’t get up; she was killed lying on the couch, with no signs of struggle. Nobody sleeps that deeply. That meant she had to have been killed first, probably while she was sleeping. If she was, the blood drops would be from her. If the blood wasn’t from her, if it was from one of the children, then maybe she did commit suicide after all, first shooting her kids and then taking her life. The story was in the blood. We needed to test the blood drops and see who they came from and to see which direction the killer was walking.
I asked Gary, our in-house chemist, to write a motion asking the judge to let us test the blood and then to arrange for a lab to test it. Jerome was going to arrange to have Quaker polygraphed. The results of the test would not be admissible in a court proceeding, but if we got down to the eleventh hour and had to ask the governor to intervene, it would help to be able to say that Quaker had passed the lie detector. You might as well ask a Magic 8 Ball for advice, but if the governor believed in the wizard, I wasn’t going to pull back the curtain.
Gary and Kassie were going to line up the witnesses for the trial. We would bring in Green from death row to testify about what he had heard, and Bud, Dorris’s brother, would say that he had lied at the trial. We’d get Detective Wyatt to say that he had tested Dorris’s hands for gunpowder residue, and we might walk blind into an alley and ask him why he tested her hands. We would try to make sure Ruben Cantu was there, to say detectives had interviewed him, but I had a feeling Cantu was going to be hard to find again. It wasn’t nearly enough to prove that Quaker was innocent, but our goal wasn’t to prove that he was innocent. The goal was to create a little mayhem to buy more time. If we could keep him alive, we could try to figure out what had really happened. If we could figure out what really happened, we could keep him alive.
I went outside to walk around the block. There was nothing for me to do but wait. I walked by the cloisters. Two men sitting next to one another on a bench by a fountain looked so serene I thought they were fake, until they nodded to me in unison. Last fall I had taken a weeklong course on Buddhist meditation. The room smelled like sweaty feet, and when I tried to clear my mind, it would fill with images of lavender virus cells under a microscope. I should have spent the time working on another case, but when you cannot help but believe that an innocent man’s life is in your care, it can prove difficult to divert your attention to another pressing task.
My cell phone rang. It was Judge Truesdale. I stopped in midstride and stepped closer to a building. I looked behind me. It felt like someone was watching. She said, I just signed an order granting you a hearing in the Quaker case.
I had forgotten we even filed a request for a hearing. We always ask, and they are never granted. I thought, How did she get my cell phone number? Then I realized, She had probably called the office first and gotten it from someone there.
I said, Thank you, Judge.
She said, You are welcome, Professor. I told you this case bothered me.
She told me that we were set for the last week of January, and I told her I would see her then. She said, If not before.
When I got back, everyone was still in the conference room eating donuts. I put my phone down on the table and gave it a spin, like I was playing spin-the-bottle. I told the team we had a hearing in less than five weeks. Kassie asked, How do you know that? I told them that Judge Truesdale had called me. Kassie said, She called you on your cell phone to say she had signed an order?
There is little distance between calmness and irresponsibility. I am no Zen master, but I live far from the edge. When the plane is crashing, I will be as scared as everyone else, but I will be the one who isn’t screaming.
I said, Which one of you gave her my cell phone number? Gary stuffed half a cake donut into his mouth. Kassie stared at me. I looked at Gary and said, Was it you?
He swallowed and said, Are you kidding?
I said, Well, she got it from somebody.
Jerome said, That’s pretty weird.
I said, I think she might actually be bothered by the case.
Kassie said, Right.
I reached for a glazed donut and took a bite, and I felt happy. It was three days before Christmas. We had an execution date in six weeks and a hearing in five, not a lot of time. I said, Tick tock, folks.
QUAKER’S ONLY LIVING blood relative was his mother, Evelina. Quaker was the younger of two boys. His older brother Herbert died of a heroin overdose when Quaker was eight. Quaker found Herbert lying on the floor of the bedroom they shared, a tourniquet around his biceps, a needle hanging out of his arm. He dialed the operator and said his brother was asleep and wouldn’t wake up. EMT workers found him next to the body, saying, Open your eyes, Herbie. Please open your eyes.
Evelina had heard the news that we were going to have a hearing. She called me. She said, I apologize for bothering you, sir. I know you are a busy man. I told her that she wasn’t bothering me. She said, I need to do what I can to help Henry. My manager said he can give me the week off so I can come to Houston. Is that what I should do, sir? She lives in Temple, a four-hour-drive away, and works as a cashier at a grocery store. I told her she didn’t need to do anything and there was no reason for her to come to Houston. I tried to explain that the hearing was going to involve technical legal issues. I promised I would call her every day to let her know how things were going. She said, You do believe that Henry is innocent, don’t you, sir?
I decided to stop at the pool on the way home and go for a swim. I had an hour before Lincoln’s last t-ball practice of the year. It was four o’clock. The pool was empty. I tried to count my laps, but I kept losing track. I couldn’t stop the number 4 from appearing in my brain. They were scrolling across my retina on a film reel that counts down from ten until the movie begins, but every frame had the number 4, and it didn’t stop. 4, 4, 4, 4, 4. It was in black-and-white. The color part of my brain had malfunctioned. I wondered what it would be like to see the world without color, like a dog. I realized I knew already from old TV. Perry
Mason was black-and-white. So was Leave It to Beaver. Wally and the Beav. If the older brother is a delinquent, does the younger brother have a chance? Then another 4 appeared, and I lost the thread of my thought. I looked at my watch and decided to swim for twenty minutes. I proposed to Katya on February 4. She and I walked with Winona over to the park where we had had our second date, a picnic lunch. I unhooked Winona from her leash and she stood next to me, leaning against my legs, wanting to be even closer, not understanding the physical limits on proximity. Katya and I sat on a bench and I opened a bottle of champagne I had in my backpack. I told her she was the most amazing person I had ever met and would she marry me. Saying that meant more than her answer. To me, the moment was more magical even than the day we got married, because it was just us. Had I forgotten all that when we settled on the same date for Quaker’s execution, or did I have some unwarranted faith that we’d survive that day?
I looked at my watch. I’d been swimming more than half an hour. I pulled myself out of the pool. My heart was racing like a newborn’s. Wasn’t it Rousseau who loved mankind and hated man? That’s me. I do not want my clients to be executed, and I can’t stand them. Why can’t I help somebody who didn’t kill someone?
Before I left my office that afternoon I decided we would do nothing to try to stave off the execution of Ronnie O’Neill. He’ll be the first person executed after the new year—on January 12, if all goes according to the state’s plan. We can’t help everyone, and we’re focused on Quaker.
All decisions to do nothing are hard. This one was especially so. O’Neill is mad. Murderers are often sociopaths, but most of them are not crazy. Not so with O’Neill. He heard voices telling him to kill his ex-wife. He’d been sent to a mental hospital fourteen times. When the cops came to arrest him after the murder, they knew his name. O’Neill shouted to them through the window that he would be right out and surrender himself. They waited. O’Neill took a shower, dressed himself in a suit and tie, walked out the front door, and lay facedown in the grass until the police came over and cuffed him. At the trial, the judge let O’Neill fire his lawyers and represent himself. The judge knew one thing: You don’t lose any votes greasing the rails for murderers. O’Neill wore a purple cowboy outfit to court, complete with boots, chaps, and spurs. His Mexican sombrero hung from a string that circled his neck like a choker. He had a toy pistol in a holster on his hip. He issued subpoenas to Pope John Paul II, Anne Bancroft, and John F. Kennedy, Jr. He rambled like a lunatic while the judge dozed at his bench. The jury spent less than fifteen minutes deliberating before sentencing him to death. The judge appointed a new lawyer to handle the appeal. Then he let O’Neill fire that lawyer, too. O’Neill filed no appeal. He wrote a letter to the judge asking for a speedy execution date, and the judge obliged. I went to see him on death row to ask whether he wanted to reinstate his appeal. O’Neill leaned close to the window and whispered into the phone, No worries, sir. Their chemicals can’t kill me. They will make me invisible and I will walk out of here. I will put you on my witness list if you would like so you can see the miracle for yourself. Jesus has arranged it all. I’ll be preaching the good gospel by the coming dawn. I asked him again whether he wanted me to do something. He said, Don’t you dare. Then he said, And forgive me for saying this, sir, but if you try, I will be forced to strike you mute. Heed my admonition, sir. I implore you. I thanked him for coming out to see me. He held a finger to his lips and winked at me.
Jerome is the office conscience. He asked what we were going to do for O’Neill. He was holding half a fresh baguette, the only food he would eat all day. I noticed how thin his arms are.
So that I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye, I looked at the wall chart that shows the workloads of the lawyers in my office. No one has time to try to save O’Neill’s life. I said, Nothing. We’re not going to do anything. We don’t have any more capacity, and besides, O’Neill doesn’t want our help.
He opened his eyes wide and stared at me for a moment. He looked like he was rehearsing what to say. Then he turned and walked out without saying a word.
LINCOLN WAS WAITING in the driveway for me as I pulled up to the house. I changed clothes and we got on the tandem bike and rode to practice. The professional coaches were trying to teach the kids to field grounders. Lincoln was playing second base. The coach hit him a soft ground ball, and it rolled between his legs into right field. The shortstop, Alexander, came over to Lincoln and pushed him in his chest. Lincoln said, Hey, why’d you do that? On the way home, after practice, Lincoln said, Alexander is mean. He pushed me for no reason. I told Lincoln that some kids are like that. He asked me why. I said I wasn’t sure.
Here’s a bet I’d be willing to wager: Alexander is going to be a bully. He’s going to spend time in detention. He’ll get in some fights. But he’s a middle-class kid with middle-class parents living in a brick house in a nice neighborhood where people walk their dogs and kids ride their bikes in the middle of the street. He’ll never murder anyone. I’d bet my life.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. Lincoln wanted a slice of pizza. I asked the butcher for an organic chicken, which I planned to roast with olive oil, lemon, and lots of garlic. Lincoln said, Please don’t buy a chicken, Dada. When he was four, Lincoln loved chicken nuggets. One day he asked where they came from. I told him. He asked, Do they have to kill the chicken? When I told him that they did, he said, Then I’m not going to eat them anymore. It’s not nice to kill little chickens. He hadn’t eaten meat or fowl since. He has a Hindu friend at school. At a restaurant last week, when the waitress asked him whether he wanted a grilled cheese or a cheeseburger, he said, I have to have a grill cheese. Vijay and I are vegetarians. And I would also like some lemonade, please. And carrot cake for dessert.
When Katya was pregnant and the obstetrician told us we were going to have a boy, I knew I would love my son. Parenthood is just one cliché after another. What I didn’t know was that I would admire him.
I said, Amigo, I sure do admire you. But I like meat.
He said, Well, you shouldn’t. The animals didn’t do anything mean to you, did they?
That night, after Lincoln went to sleep, I told Katya about my conversation with Evelina. She drank some wine and said, You can’t save everyone, you know. She peeled the wishbone out from the piece of chicken she was eating. Here, she said, break this with Lincoln in the morning.
The next day, before he went to school, Lincoln and I broke the wishbone. Again he got the bigger piece. He said, Do you want to know what I wished?
I said, Sure, amigo, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.
He said, I know. But I don’t mind. I wished that I die at the same time as you and Mama, so that way, none of us ever has to be alone.
I’m sure there’s a good way to answer that, but I don’t know precisely what it is.
OUR PARALEGAL BUZZED ME the next morning and told me Ezekiel Green was on the line. Death-row inmates cannot make phone calls. They can talk with their lawyers, but only by prearrangement. I asked her whether she was sure. She said, That’s what he said.
Green said, I can’t talk long, but I heard about your hearing. You need to bench-warrant me up there so I can help.
A bench warrant is an order a judge signs to have an inmate transported to the courthouse. I said, How are you calling me?
He said, Cell phone, man. Don’t worry, it’s all cool.
I didn’t want to know what kind of favors Green was trading with a guard to be able to call me on a cell phone. I said, I don’t think the judge is going to hear from any witnesses. But I’ll let you know. And if you call me again, I’ll tell the warden.
Green said, Merry Christmas, counselor, and he broke the connection.
WINTER IS MY FAVORITE time at the beach. Every year, Katya and I drive down to Galveston a day or two before Christmas and stay until after the first of the year. We have the beach to ourselves. We go on long walks, read, watch the waves, and dr
ink margaritas on the deck. I was going to cancel this year, but Quaker was going to get executed anyway, so why bother?
The day before Christmas Lincoln wanted to practice riding his bike on the beach. When he hit the soft sand, his front tire started to wobble. He squeezed the front brake and went flying over the handlebars. His face hit the sand. He cut his cheek, right below his left eye, and his forehead. He bit through his lip. Blood was streaming down his face and he was crying. I told him falling is normal and he should get back on the bike. He was crying harder. When he gets older, he is going to encounter bad people. He needs to be able to defeat them, or at least avoid being hurt by them. I said, Get back on the bike, amigo, or we are going to take it back to the store. A woman walking down the beach looked at me oddly, but I was not screaming. I wasn’t. Lincoln was sobbing so hard he was shaking.
Just then, Katya came running up to us, and Lincoln wrapped his arms around her. While she stroked his hair, I told her what happened. She said to me in a stage whisper, Can I walk home with him?
I said, Fine. It might have been closer to a hiss.
When O’Neill was twenty-one years old, he rode a kid’s tricycle through his neighborhood. I’ve seen photographs. He looked like a circus clown. He wasn’t doing it to be funny. He played with kids who were six years old. The neighbors thought he was simpleminded but harmless. They were half right.
I pushed Lincoln’s bike for a while, then picked it up and carried it the rest of the way home. The dog usually ran ahead of me, attacked some waves, chased some gulls, and waited for me to catch up. This day she was walking ten yards behind me, like she was embarrassed. Another hall-of-fame parenting day.
Lincoln ate some soup and went to sleep. Katya said, Do you want to go back to Houston? I told her no. She said, Okay. But Lincoln and I will understand if you change your mind. She read until she fell asleep on the couch. I carried her to bed and put Lincoln in bed next to her. I carried a bottle of bourbon out onto the deck and listened to the ocean that was too dark to see. At three I crawled into bed. At five I got up and started to work on my outline for the Quaker hearing. My phone buzzed. I had gotten a text message. It said, Quaker needs to see you. It was signed EG.