by Mel Odom
“Gonna have to be done. He don’t need to be surprised.”
“I know. I just want to let him have another day or two without thinking about it.”
Granny rested her thin hand on Bekah’s shoulder. “I know, darling girl, but he has to deal with it. We all do.”
Lowering her head, Bekah tried to focus on her task. But it was hard. “I keep telling myself that this is for the best. After losing the job at Hollister’s, I need the money.”
“You don’t need the money. I’ve told you more than once that you and Travis are welcome to stay here as long as you need.”
“Granny, please. I can’t talk about this right now.” The argument was an old one, and Bekah couldn’t bear to rehash it again.
10
THE WIND STIRRED the August heat that surrounded Oklahoma State Penitentiary but only succeeded in making the air feel like it poured from a convection oven. Heath Bridger sweltered in his suit as he trudged up the white stone steps leading to the main building. His sunglasses blunted the sunlight, but he felt it beating down on him with physical force. He remained steadfast, though, and carried himself with dignity, attracting the ire of a few of the prison guards as he drew closer to the main building. The antagonism that radiated from them was thicker than the early-afternoon heat.
The prison guards knew who Heath was there to see, and their disapproval showed in scowls and muttered curses. Heath ignored the behavior the same way he had for the last five months. Some days he wanted to tell the guards and administration that what they dished out to him on these weekly visits paled in comparison to what his father handed out almost daily.
But he didn’t. He kept his family trials and tribulations close, the way he had all his life.
Once inside the building, he handed over his briefcase and submitted to the electronic and physical search that had become routine. He’d gotten so inured to the process that he went through the motions automatically—not taking anything personal, just accepting the events.
On the other side of the first security door, Heath pulled his clothing back into order, ran a hand through his short-cropped dark-blond hair, and took his briefcase back from one security officer while another affixed a visitor’s badge to his pocket.
“Stay in the designated areas, Counselor.” The guard who had clipped on the badge stepped back. He was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, probably about Heath’s age.
“Sure.” Heath tightened his grip on the briefcase’s handle. He didn’t bother pointing out that he’d heard the warning dozens of times.
“I’ll walk you to the room.”
Heath nodded and fell into step with the man. The guard was six feet tall—four inches shorter than Heath—but was wider across the shoulders and chest. Looked like he worked at it, maybe with the help of some steroids and muscle-mass hormones. His sleeves were rolled up to midbicep, and the material strained as he moved with an easy grace.
Lean and athletic, Heath paced the guard easily. Exercise, sports, and competition had helped him work out his frustrations and his father’s disapproval. Endorphins were his drug of choice, and he kept in shape for the Marines.
“I heard you used to play football.” The guard stopped in front of the next security door.
“I did.” Heath stood quietly beside the man. He didn’t want to talk to the guard, but he knew any reticence on his part would only add to the tension.
“Somebody told me you were a quarterback.”
“I was.”
The guard at the security door punched in the code, and the massive door slid back with a clang.
“Said you played at OSU.”
Heath nodded and thought about the years he’d spent at Oklahoma State University. When he was on the team, he’d felt like he was part of something that mattered. His father hadn’t respected football, though, and he’d never come to a single game. So Heath played even harder, getting enough ink in the papers that he knew his father had to avoid the topic when he was with his friends.
Lionel Bridger represented a few professional football players who got themselves into trouble, but he didn’t care for the sport. For Lionel, it was all about the money. Professional athletes could pay a lot, and they generally got into the kind of trouble that warranted a crafty lawyer. Lionel Bridger was that in spades.
“I’ve always been an OU fan.” The guard got under way again.
“The University of Oklahoma is a good school.” Heath hated walking down the prison’s gray corridors. Every time he did, it felt like the world was growing steadily smaller around him and would one day crush him beneath its weight. There wasn’t a single time he left the building that he didn’t feel like he’d just made an escape.
“If you were such a hotshot quarterback, why didn’t you play at OU?”
“Couldn’t make the cut.” Heath decided to give the guard that, even though it wasn’t true. He’d followed a girl to OSU, thought he’d been in love. Actually, he had loved her, but she hadn’t loved him. Not enough. When he caught her cheating on him, all that was left for him was the team.
And when the collegiate football career was over, Heath went to law school because he hadn’t known what else to do with himself. Lionel had insisted, and the confusion of his girlfriend’s betrayal had left him anchorless. Stuck with a father who only saw him as a continuation of the bloodline.
Strangely enough, Heath had an aptitude for law and a good, quick mind. More than that, he loved winning. The competition in the courtroom didn’t replace the action on the gridiron, but it awakened new areas in Heath’s life. He’d found a new battlefield that gave him new rewards.
“OU’s a tough program.”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody said they thought you were good enough to go pro.”
Heath shook his head. “Not me.” There had been offers, though. Never first-round choice, but he’d received some interest. After college, Heath just couldn’t wrap his head around football anymore. He moved on, and he didn’t have it in him to try to build that kind of relationship with anyone else. He’d wanted—needed—to be alone. Except for his service in the Marines. He enjoyed that camaraderie, but it had been limited—until lately.
After law school, he’d gone back to what he knew and began work at his father’s firm. They had offices in Dallas and Houston, in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. His father kept a lot of work on the dockets. Lionel Bridger was a rainmaker in two states, and he handled civil as well as criminal cases as long as the client had the long green.
The guard stopped at the doorway to the interview room and gestured to the table and chairs inside. “You got privacy in there, Counselor.”
“Thanks.”
The guard crossed his arms and looked at Heath with a measuring glance. “I also heard you were a soldier.”
Heath almost said, “I’m a Marine,” but he held himself in check. That would be Marine pride speaking, and the guard wouldn’t understand it as anything other than self-aggrandizement. “Yeah.”
“Weekend warrior.” The guard’s tone almost masked the sarcasm.
“That’s right.”
“But you’ve been in Afghanistan, other places like that.”
Heath stood in the doorway. Darnell Lester hadn’t been brought in yet, so he had time to kill. He didn’t want to kill the time with the guard, but the man wasn’t going to go away until he’d asked the question he was dying to ask. “I have.”
“So you’ve seen some bad things.”
The anger in Heath stirred like a snake, lifting and preparing to strike suddenly. “There’s a war on over there. Maybe you’ve heard about it.”
The guard smiled a little at that, and Heath knew the man was happy to have struck a nerve. “I have. Just seems to me you’ve seen brother soldiers go down.”
Heath remained silent with effort. He made himself breathe out and relax.
The guard only waited a short time for a reply that just didn’t happen. Then he forged on, obv
iously determined to say whatever he’d come to say. “After being there through something like that, it makes me wonder why you would defend a cop killer like Darnell Lester. I’d think maybe you’d sympathize with what we’re trying to do here instead of taking it on yourself to interrupt the wheels of justice.”
Heath flicked his gaze to the guard’s ID tag. He hadn’t taken note of the man’s name earlier, on purpose. Giving the opposition names allowed them more power to get under his skin. “Do you have a personal interest in this, Mr. Cookson? If so, I’ll need to see about having you relieved of duty here. Conflict of interest.” He didn’t know if he could do that, but the guard wilted under the threat.
“No. No personal interest.” Duane Cookson tried to play off his intimidation, but he was young and probably hadn’t been in the streets as a police officer.
Guys who had actually been out patrolling the streets gave off a different vibe than the one the guard had. Heath had learned to feel that vibe through experience in the courtroom. Those men hit his personal radar in the same fashion Marines did. They had a sense of purpose, a calling. At least the ones who had seen violence up close and believed in what they were doing.
“Because if you do, I need to know.” Heath leaned in, towering over the shorter man.
Cookson bristled and gritted his teeth. “Darnell Lester is a cop killer. He confessed to the shooting. He’s scheduled to die, and he probably wants to after fourteen years of being in this place.” His nostrils flared. “I’m thinking maybe you should just let him.”
Keeping his voice cold, his words like chipped ice, Heath met the man’s gaze full measure. “Are we done here? Or do I need to speak with your supervisor?”
Cookson held his position for a moment, and Heath knew the man had a lot of pride on the line. Maybe the other guards had put Cookson up to the confrontation, or maybe the man had taken it upon himself, but he wasn’t going to let it go easily.
Then he subsided. “Sure. We’re done. Just lemme know when you’re ready to leave.” He turned and walked away.
Breathing hard, Heath went to the table in the center of the room and sat down to wait. He focused on what he needed to say, and he tried to find the best way to say it.
The other door leading to the interview room abruptly clanged open a few minutes later while Heath was still considering his options. Darnell Lester shuffled into the room wearing the orange prison uniform and shackles on his ankles and wrists. He glanced at Heath and nodded slightly. Another guard, this one older and heavier, followed the prisoner into the room.
Heath stood and looked at the guard. “Take the cuffs off my client, please.”
The guard scowled but did as Heath ordered. During the process, Darnell never acknowledged the guard. He kept his eyes on Heath. When the guard had the shackles off, he glanced at Heath. “You need me, I’ll just be outside.”
Heath nodded. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
The guard walked away and closed the door behind him.
“Hello, Darnell.” Heath waved to one of the chairs at the table. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine. I’m holding up fine. Thank you.” Darnell eased himself into the chair across the table. He was fifty-four years old—not an old man, but fourteen years of prison had weighted him down. He was thin and knobby, a man who looked put together with ball bearings and piano wire. His head looked too big for his body, but his face had at one time been handsome.
That had been years ago, before the violent arrest that put him in intensive care and cost him the use of his right eye. Now age and physical abuse had weathered his features. The cottony fringe of hair that encircled his bald pate stood out against his ebony skin. Scars showed on the knuckles of his big hands, and burn scarring from the First Iraq War left his skin spotted and pink from the tips of his fingers to his midforearms. Faded gang tattoos, rendered in blue ink, barely stood out against his arms, but they remained indelible.
“I see you still ain’t winnin’ no friends here.” Darnell grinned and showed his tobacco-stained teeth. A few on the sides were missing, and his pink gums showed.
“I didn’t know we were in a popularity contest.” Heath took off his jacket and hung it from the back of his chair.
Darnell laughed, and the sound was soft and delicate. His voice sounded melodic when he spoke, and there was a cadence to it that Heath always took note of. “I suppose not.” He paused a moment. “So what are you doing here, Counselor?”
“I came to catch you up on where we stand.” Heath took a yellow legal pad from his briefcase and placed it on the table. He added a tape recorder, then took a pen from the briefcase as well. “I filed a motion to get a new judge to look over your files.”
Darnell clasped his hands in front of him and shook his head. “Why would you go an’ do a thing like that?”
“Because I don’t think Judge Winters is willing to look at an appeal.”
“Ain’t no reason he should. Nothin’s changed. That man’s still dead, an’ I’m the one that done it.”
“I know.” Heath had seen the video footage himself. Darnell Lester’s case had reached a swift end. The convenience-store footage showed Darnell robbing the store clerk, then shooting Keith Jointer, an off-duty Oklahoma City police officer who had stopped by for gas at the time of the robbery.
Jointer had pulled his weapon and started ordering Darnell to put his gun down. He hadn’t identified himself, and Heath didn’t fault the young officer for that. Adrenaline sharpened the senses and reflexes during conflict, but it also sometimes dulled the thinking. Experience with similar situations would change things, but that day had been the first time Officer Jointer had drawn his weapon during the commission of a crime. Jointer had fired first, missing Darnell by three feet.
Darnell, heavily under the influence of the drugs that had consumed his life back in those days, had turned and fired automatically. His bullet had caught the young officer dead center in the chest. When he saw what he’d done, Darnell had immediately tried to give first aid. He was still administering CPR when the patrol cars arrived.
Once the arriving officers learned that Darnell had shot Jointer, they had pulled Darnell from the body and beaten him with their batons. Darnell was unconscious before a shift sergeant arrived and finally got control of his men.
For six days, Darnell had lingered in a coma, and the doctors caring for him couldn’t say if he would live or die. When he finally came to, Darnell was in a world of hurt. His left arm had been broken in two places, both knees shattered, several ribs broken, and he’d been blinded in his right eye. On top of that, his drug dependency made it hard to administer the proper pain meds to keep him from agony and from overdosing.
As soon as he’d recovered enough to leave the hospital, Darnell had been taken to lockup. He’d gone from jail to prison and hadn’t been out in the world again except for his brief trial. Darnell’s original attorney had tried to plea-bargain, willing to take life imprisonment without any chance of parole over a death sentence. Darnell had been fine with that too. He’d never tried to deny his responsibility for Jointer’s death.
The district attorney had rejected the offer, insisting on making an example of Darnell Lester. After all, the man had shot a cop, the case was ironclad—with video footage and witness testimony as well as Darnell’s own continuing admission—and it had been an election year. The trial was everything a politically minded district attorney could hope for, and he wanted to personally pound the nails into Darnell’s coffin. It had been like shooting fish in a barrel.
Now, all these years later, Darnell was facing death by lethal injection within seventeen months. And the wheels of justice turned slowly.
If they turned at all.
Heath looked at Darnell, into the man’s good brown eye and not the dead blue one. “You don’t deserve the death penalty, Darnell. You’re not the same man you were when you pulled that trigger.”
Darnell took in a breath of air and l
et it out. His rounded shoulders rose and fell. “None of us stays the same, Counselor. That officer I shot had boys that ain’t the same as they was. Prob’ly gonna be glad when I’m dead. Won’t have to think about me no more.”
The man spoke without emotion, just a flat expression of a truth he believed in. Darnell Lester wasn’t a cynic. He was just a realist. All those years of being in prison had worn away whatever hopes and dreams he might have had.
“You have a daughter yourself.” Heath watched Darnell and saw the words hit him hard. His good eye blinked in pain, but he quickly compartmentalized it and put it away.
“I know I do. I take pride in that girl. She didn’t turn out to be like me.”
“I think she turned out more like you than you know.” Heath chose his words carefully. Most of the time Darnell would listen, but sometimes—when the pain he kept shut away so long and so hard slipped its bonds—he wouldn’t hear a thing Heath had to tell him.
Darnell started to object.
Heath kept speaking. “She’s a survivor. She’s tough and she learns quickly. She doesn’t give up.”
For a moment, Darnell sat silent as stone. Heath feared that he’d lost the man and the interview would be over. Then Darnell leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “Shoulda been easier for her. I made her life hard.”
“Deshondra has a good life. She’s a schoolteacher. She has two healthy children. A good husband.” Heath reached into his briefcase and took out a small envelope. “She sent new pictures of the kids.” He took the pictures from the envelope and placed them on the table, turning them so they were right-side up for Darnell. “Things aren’t easy for her, but they’re manageable. She and her husband are about to close on a house.”