The Sister

by R.J. Ellory

  Just after nine, I decide to leave the house. It won’t take more than twenty or thirty minutes to get to the jail, but I have nothing to do here and I want to be outside. I fetch my purse and my scarf, my overcoat, my hat, and I finish getting dressed, and I check the stove is switched off because twice I’ve come home in the evening and found it still on. I decide to get off the bus a stop before the jail, and walk the last half a dozen blocks. Perhaps I will smoke another cigarette to calm myself before I enter the jail itself. Perhaps it will be my last. I really should quit. I really should practice what I preached to Carole for so long and just quit.

  Fifteen seconds.

  The bus is delayed because of some trucks unloading furniture into a store on Halford Street, so I decide to go all the way to my stop and not alight at the earlier one. I don’t want to be late. I don’t want to go at all, but I have decided it must be done, and if I am going to do it then I will be on time. I can do that much at least.

  It is twenty-six minutes past nine when I walk up the front steps of the jail. I have seen it before, of course—the vast granite imposition, the width of it consuming an entire block—but I have never been inside.

  I give them my name and show my driver’s license. They know who I am, and they are sort of quiet and deferential. Like how people behave in church. I am shown through to a waiting room, and it is here that the priest comes to speak with me. I have not asked to speak to a priest, but evidently someone feels I should. I am not a religious-minded person, at least not in a formal way. I am unsure about God, and I believe He might be unsure of me. We maintain a tenuous reciprocal doubt, and that suits us both fine. I have never been given any indication to the contrary, so I presume He must concur.

  The priest has a crumpled face, as if someone had made him in origami, decided against the result, squashed it, and then retracted their decision and tried to straighten him out.

  He smiles compassionately, comfortingly, and then says that he will be the attending priest at the execution, that he has been counseling the defendant, that he will be there to read a few lines before the execution itself, and then deliver last rites.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Do you attend a church, my dear?” the priest asks.

  “No,” I say, not wanting to lie. You can’t lie to a priest, and besides, I was never so good at it. Apparently my eyes give me away. When I lie I don’t blink. I have tried to lie, but I can’t. Perhaps I am just one of those hapless fools who is destined to be eternally honest.

  “I understand,” the priest says. “Well, my name is Father Henry, and if there’s anything you wish to talk to me about before . . . well, before this happens, then I am all ears.”

  I wonder if his first name is Henry, or his last.

  “No, nothing really,” I say. “I sort of don’t want to be here, but I feel I have to be.”

  “To support your sister.”

  “My sister is dead.”

  “In body yes, my dear, but not in spirit.”

  “Oh,” I say, simply because I don’t know what else to say.

  “I understand the need to be here,” Father Henry says, “but I must warn you that it is not a pleasant experience.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “The execution.”

  “What, for me or for him?”

  Father Henry smiles, rather like those lawyers in court when they thought they’d won a hand. The comforting self-satisfaction of being a wiseass.

  “For you, my dear.”

  “So you’ve seen one before?” I ask.

  “Several,” the Father replies.

  “Why, if it’s so bad? Why would you want to see several?”

  “It’s my duty,” he says. “Any Catholic prisoner who requests the presence of a priest . . .”

  “He’s Catholic?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he knows he’s going to Hell then?”

  Father Henry smiles again, as if he is talking to a child. “Well, my dear, it’s not necessarily that black and white . . .”

  “So he might not go to Hell?”

  “He might not.”

  “Who decides?”

  “Well, the Almighty Father decides, dear, as He does in all things—”

  “So the Almighty Father decided to let that man kill my sister?”

  “God moves in mysterious ways—”

  “Too mysterious, if you ask me,” I say, which is kind of discourteous, and certainly no way to talk to a priest, but he had started to annoy me, and I just wanted a little time on my own.

  “I understand your anger and dismay,” Father Henry says, but I cut him off at the pass and say, “I think I’d prefer to be alone now, if that’s alright,” and Father Henry looks momentarily relieved, and then he realizes he looks relieved and adopts a serious expression on his crumpled origami face, and he gets up and nods silently and then leaves the room.

  They don’t like to be cornered without an escape route, and I thought it only fair to allow him one. After all, his duty demanded he be here irrespective of his own power of choice. A man’s got to work, and all that.

  Thirteen seconds. It can’t come now, can it? Surely there is no time for a phone call now, is there? I mean, doesn’t it take more than thirteen seconds to even dial a number and get connected? Or maybe the number has already been dialed. Maybe the operator is right now this second putting the call through to a small office behind that room . . .

  At ten minutes before ten one of the prison people came to get me. He had a kind face and he was much younger than Father Henry, perhaps forty or forty-two.

  “My name is Patrick,” he said, “and what we’re going to do now in just a minute or so is walk out through this doorway and down a short corridor. Then we’re going to wait just a moment for the last of the journalists and police witnesses to sit down, and then they’re going to dim the lights a little so it’s not so obvious when you walk into the viewing room. We’ll be sitting together right on the other side of the door, and you just hold my forearm here, and if you want to leave you just squeeze my arm, and I will take you right out of there before anyone even knows what’s happening.”

  I nodded. I liked his voice.

  “So once we are all seated the prisoner will be brought in through a door on the other side of the viewing glass. He won’t be able to see you because of the bright lights just above the window. You will see him very clearly, but he won’t be able to see anyone except those in the chamber with him. There’ll be two prison officials. They will be the ones who put him in the chair and affix all the straps and electrodes. Then the priest will come and say a few words. Once he’s done, the prisoner will be asked if he has any statement he’d like to make, and if he does, well, he’ll say it right then and there. And then they’ll put a black cotton sack over his head, and they’ll fix this sort of leather cap over that, and then everyone will leave the execution chamber. All of this will be finished by one minute before ten, and then we have to wait that last minute to see if there is a call from the Governor authorizing a stay of execution—”

  “Might there be?”

  Patrick smiled, shook his head. “No, I don’t believe there’s any chance of that.” And then he paused. “But we also have to be prepared for any eventuality, Miss Shaw.”

  I looked at him. There were no words in my mind. I could not believe there was any possibility that Carole’s killer would be reprieved.

  Eight seconds.

  “And then when the minute has passed and it is precisely ten o’clock, the executioner will throw a switch outside the chamber, and the execution will take place. The prisoner will jump suddenly. His body will pull away from the chair, and you will see him go stiff and straight like a board, and he may stay that way for some time. If that disturbs you, or you feel you’ve seen enough . . . or if at any time during the procedure or the minute’s wait you feel you want to leave, then you just go ahead and squeeze my arm and we’ll be out of there.”
r />   He stopped talking. There was silence between us for a moment, and I knew we would have to go very soon.

  “So, we should go now,” Patrick said, “but are there any questions or anything you’d like to know.”

  “Is there anyone here from the killer’s family?”

  “Yes, his brother is here, but he will be on the other side of the room. You more than likely won’t see him and you definitely won’t have to speak to him.”

  “Unless I want to.”

  “Right,” Patrick said, and I heard the surprise in his voice. “Unless you want to.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I got up. I put my gloves in my purse, and loosened my scarf a little. “I’m ready.”

  Five seconds.

  Patrick led the way. It was a narrow corridor, short, too, and we stood outside the door at the end for just a few seconds, and then Patrick inched it open to ensure that the lights were down, and then we went inside. He went in and sat two seats in, and then I sat beside him and to his left. He put his arm on the rest, and then he reached over and took my hand and laid it on top of his forearm, and then he leaned close to me and said, “Remember, if you want to get out, just squeeze my arm and we’ll be gone.”

  I could smell his aftershave. Bay rum. It was a good smell.

  I squinted in the semi-darkness, but it was impossible to see which one was the brother. I wanted to see the brother. I wanted to see if he was upset, or if he was relieved. I had never heard mention of a brother, not in four years, and there was certainly no one at the trial who looked in any way similar to Carole’s killer.

  Patrick leaned close again, perhaps to say something else, but then the curtain was drawn on the other side of the viewing window, and I held my breath.

  The chair itself was so much larger than I had anticipated. I had thought of an armchair, a rocker perhaps, but this was huge. It looked as if it had been roughly hewn direct from the forest and dragged here tree trunk by tree trunk. The leather straps were thick, each carrying a buckle the size of a dime-store novel. There were wires and the strange leather skullcap, and over to the left was a single door through which a prison official came. The killer came in second, another official followed him, and then Father Henry stepped through and stood in the bright light as if it was Judgment Day and he was taking roll call.

  Four seconds.

  I had not seen Carole’s killer for nearly four years. I remembered every line on his face, every shadow of his features. I remembered the sound of his voice, the way he had gripped the rail with his pianist’s fingers. Everything.

  He looked pale and sweaty. Perhaps it was just the light. I caught a flicker of movement over to my right, and a man sat with his head bowed, his shoulders moving awkwardly as if he was repressing his grief. The brother. No doubt about it.

  They strapped the killer into the chair, and he just stared back through the glass as if he could see every one of us, and they buckled his wrists and his ankles, and they attached electrodes to his legs, and I could see where they had shaved away some of the hair to make a better connection.

  Three seconds.

  And then Father Henry took a step forward, and said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  And then he made the sign of the cross, and I couldn’t help but think spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, and then he stood back and nodded.

  The official on the right stepped forward, and he read out the killer’s full name, and then he said, “Having been found guilty of first-degree murder, it is the duty of these persons present and the State of Illinois to carry out this sentence of death as handed down by a lawfully selected jury.” And then he turned and looked at the man in the chair, and he said, “Do you have anything to say?”

  The killer looked at the faces that he could not see as if searching for someone. His eyes went left, right, left again, and then, with a sense of utter horror building inside me, he seemed to seek me out.

  “In the eyes of God, I am innocent of this thing,” he said, “but in my heart I am guilty. I am sorry . . . so truly, deeply sorry . . .”

  And then he closed his eyes and lowered his head.

  Two seconds.

  Father Henry left the chamber, and the two officials busied themselves with further straps, and then they took the cotton sacking and started to put it over his head. And it was in that moment, that final dreadful heartbeat moment, that the killer’s expression changed utterly. It was as if he had seen something—someone—and his eyes were wide in disbelief, almost horror, and I looked over to the brother, and I knew.

  Perhaps I should have felt some sense of sympathy, some sense of pity for that man, but all I felt was hatred.

  And then the face was gone, the sacking had covered it completely, and they affixed the leather skullcap and the last electrodes that would send the better part of two thousand volts racing through the killer’s brain and heart and body. Once done, they stepped back, nodded to one another, and left the chamber.

  That final minute should have lasted forever, but it was gone before I knew it.

  Four years, five months, fifteen days and twenty-two hours collapsed into sixty seconds.

  One second.

  A small red bulb illuminated above the window. I heard a sound like a car door slamming, and then the killer’s body was hurled upwards out of the chair and held by the restraining straps.

  There were gasps of astonishment and disbelief amongst the assembled witnesses.

  I felt nothing at all. I had a single word in my mind, a word that I had hoped for for so long. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

  Later, that evening, I would replay that image and find myself physically shaking and close to tears, but as it happened—as it actually happened right in front of my own eyes—I felt nothing.

  The killer was stiff and straight like a board, just as Patrick had warned me, his feet off the ground, his fingers splayed, his head rocketing back and forth like a jack-in-the-box.

  He seemed to relax for a moment, and then he was bolt straight again, but this time his hands seemed to claw at the air, and I could see his long white pianist’s fingers desperately clutching at something that was not there.

  That sound again—like a car door—and the killer slumped back into the chair. His head lolled forward, and he was utterly motionless.

  A minute, perhaps two, and then the door within the chamber opened. A man came through, around his neck a stethoscope, and he pressed it tentatively to the killer’s chest as if he himself believed he would receive such a shock by contact alone, and he listened.

  We collectively held our breath, each and every one of us in that viewing room.

  The man withdrew the stethoscope, he turned and looked at the gathering through the glass, and he nodded sagely. He stepped forward and slowly drew the curtains.

  It was done.

  The killer had been killed.

  Carole’s death had been balanced out. This would never bring her back, but at least I would sleep more easily knowing that I had seen her killer suffer an excruciating death himself. And no, I did not care that he had been prevented from killing again. And no, it did not comfort me to know that some other mother’s child would not feel those pianist’s hands around their neck. It comforted me simply that I had been there to see him die.

  Patrick leaned toward me. Again I smelled the bay rum. “You were very brave,” he said in a whisper. “Are you ready to go?”

  “In a moment,” I replied.

  I sat stock-still. I didn’t dare breathe. I wanted the lights to go up, and go up they did, and in that slowly increasing illumination, I sought out the brother.

  He too sat motionless, but only for a m
oment, because then he turned and looked directly at me. He knew who I was. There was no doubt about it. And I could see the fraternal resemblance in him. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I could see the utter horror and pain in his face. For a split-second, there was a silent and unspoken communication that passed between us, and then I nodded to Patrick and said, “I am ready.”

  It was as I was leaving the viewing room that I saw the detective. I remembered his name. Nearly four years since I had last seen him at the sentencing, but I remembered his name. Robert Maguire. I remembered how he was in court, how he gave his statements in short and measured phrases, careful to consider each question, careful to weigh each answer, alert to the trickery and sleight-of-hand so ably attempted by the public defender.

  But he had aged so much. His hair had grayed at the temples, and he seemed to be heavier, not only in weight, but in presence, as if he was now carrying some unnamed burden that could not be shared with the world.

  I smiled politely at him, simply because I felt I should, and he tilted his head to one side. And then there was something in his expression, and he raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the door.

  He wanted to speak with me. I felt sure of it. What on earth would he want to say? Perhaps nothing more than to see how I was, to tell me to leave this all behind now, to get on with my life, to try and forget the terrible things that I had seen and heard today, the terrible fate that had befallen my sister, that I was still young to enjoy a future filled with picket fences and window boxes and children.