It took some demonstrating and coaxing, but eventually Meisner had Boyd down in the hole with him, on his knees. Each time Meisner loosened a stone with the shovel, Boyd would pick it up and place it in the pile on the rim of the hole. “The hard part was getting him to let go of the stones,” Meisner recalled. “Each one, he’d want to roll it around in his hands, or rub it up against his face. But he finally got the hang of it, and between the two of us, we got the thing dug.”
At that point, Meisner climbed out - by this time, he could barely lift his arms - and gathered up Ilsa’s body. He managed to lift her one final time and carry her to the newly dug grave, in which Boyd Davies continued to kneel, still captivated by the smooth stones. As Meisner approached, the limp body of his youngest child in his arms, a look of anguish on his face, something must have caused Boyd to look up from his stones, and in that instant,
Click!
The image of father and daughter was burned into the young man’s retinas, imprinted in some faraway corner of his damaged child’s brain, to rest there like some old forgotten photograph in the bottom of an attic trunk, waiting for August Jorgensen to utter the magic words that would unlock it and summon it forth sixteen years later.
By this time, it was already late afternoon, and Meisner did his best to cover Ilsa’s body with the stones and dirt they’d unearthed from the hole. Where his boots had left impressions in the soft ground, he used the shovel to obscure them. If he was somewhat less careful with the prints Boyd’s larger boots had made, he attributed the difference to exhaustion, rather than design.
Stepping back from the grave site, Meisner surveyed their work. Other than the fact that the newly turned earth was a shade or two darker than that surrounding it, there was nothing remarkable about it. And, he figured, the earth would dry some overnight, blending the colors until they wouldn’t be noticeably different.
That left the shovel.
It was Meisner’s shovel, an old one with duct tape wrapped around a portion of the handle, where a crack had developed. He tried to peel the tape off, but his fingers were too cramped and tired to do it. He carried it across the stream and farther up into the woods until the ground began rising. He continued on until he came to an outcropping of rock and boulders. He found a hollow spot behind one of the boulders and, after wiping the handle clean of any fingerprints, hid the shovel. He turned around, only to see for the first time that Boyd Davies had followed him.
“For a moment, I thought about killin’ him,” Meisner admitted, “I really did. But then I realized he wasn’t goin’ to say nothin.’ He never said nothin’ to nobody, that boy.”
Jorgensen wondered if perhaps Meisner wasn’t giving himself enough credit for guile. While a dead Boyd Davies might have been something he could have explained without too much difficulty, a living Boyd Davies presented the perfect murder suspect, totally unable to explain what had really happened. “I simply told Boyd to go home to his mama,” said Meisner. As for his own son, Meisner found him in the barn. By that time, Ilsa was overdue from school, and Kurt, Jr., had been asked by his mother to look around for his sister. When he saw his father, young Kurt went wild-eyed with fear.
“I knew right then,” said Meisner. “I mean I’d pretty much known already, but now I knew. He started backin’ up from me, like I was goin’ to beat him. Each time I’d take a step toward him, he’d back up two. Finally, I stopped, and opened up my arms to him, and motioned him to come to me. ‘It’s okay,’ I told him, ‘it’s okay.’ I kept tellin’ him that over and over, but I guess he didn’t believe me. He must’ve been scared I was going to give him a beating, or something. Around then, I remembered I still had his work glove stuck in my belt. So I took it out and tossed it to him. It landed on the ground, right at his feet. He looked down at it for a long time, like he was trying to figure out what it meant. Then he came into my arms and began sobbin’ like a baby. We musta stood like that for twenty minutes, huggin’ each other and sobbin’, until someone came in and found us. I don’t remember who it was, but they musta just figured we was upset cause Ilsa was missin’ and all. And that’s when I knew it was goin’ to work out.”
“How about when the police picked Boyd up?”
Meisner said nothing.
“And arrested him?”
A shrug.
“And how about when they took him to trial and convicted him?” asked Jorgensen. “And sentenced him to die?”
For once, Meisner met Jorgensen’s glance. “Are you a father?” he asked.
“No,” said Jorgensen, “No, I’m not.”
“Then you wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t possibly understand. I had to choose, you see. I had to choose between my son - my firstborn son - and, and some retard. So I chose my son. I chose my family. Do you know the price I’ve paid for that?”
It was Jorgensen’s turn to remain silent.
“I lost my daughter. I lost my son. I lost my wife. My other two children are . . .” He waved an arm in the air, as if to shoo away a fly. “And look at me.”
“They tell me you’re a Christian man,” said Jorgensen.
“I was. Once.”
“Do you believe in redemption?”
Meisner shrugged. By this time, he’d broken off eye contact again, and was busy staring out the window.
“Your son is dead. You’re protected from what you did by the statute of limitations. It’s time for you to come forward now, to tell this story to the authorities.”
Meisner shook his slowly. “I can’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
Meisner mumbled something in response, but Jorgensen couldn’t make it out. “What?” he asked. Marge had been after him for years to get a hearing aid, but he’d refused. Hearing aids were like canes and walkers and umbrellas, he’d told her; they were for old people. “What?” he said again, leaning forward and cupping his hand over his ear.
Again Meisner mumbled, and this time, it sounded almost like, “They’d kill me.” But when Jorgensen said, “What?” a third time, Meisner looked up at him and replied, “I can’t, I just can’t. That’s all.”
Jessica Woodruff heard from the courier shortly after five o’clock that afternoon.
“Still no sign of him, ma’am.”
“Fuck him.”
“What was that, ma’am?”
“Nothing. Okay, just leave the envelope for him.”
“It’ll get wet, ma’am.”
“What is it, raining there?”
“No, ma’am, but there’s all this mist and stuff, and it might as well be raining, if you know what I mean.”
“So slide it under his door.”
“I already thought of that, ma’am, but there’s no room.”
“Then wrap it up in plastic, and just leave it on the doorstep. You do have plastic, don’t you?”
“No, ma’am. But don’t worry. I’ll find something.”
“You do that,” said Jessica.
If Jorgensen hadn’t realized it at the moment, Kurt Meisner’s “That’s all” didn’t simply mean he couldn’t fully explain his reasons for being unable to go public with the true story of Ilsa’s death. It meant, as Meisner soon made clear, that the visit was over, and that Jorgensen was not welcome to return.
Jorgensen found this out in stages. First, Meisner said he was tired, and asked him to leave, which Jorgensen did. Then, when Jorgensen returned after lunch, he was told that Meisner didn’t want to see him. Jorgensen figured the man was worn out from the effort of unburdening himself. Tomorrow was another day, he decided. He went back to Ruby Mason’s, showered, shaved, put on clean clothes, spent some time with a much-neglected Jake, had dinner, and got his first good night’s sleep in as long as he could remember.
The following morning, he got up and returned once again to the Smythe Residence for Seniors. He was kept waiting at the front desk while a staff member, a young man with a harelip, went to inform Meisner he had a visitor. But when the young man return
ed, he was shaking his head.
“Mr. Meisner,” he reported, “says no more visitors.”
“There must be some mistake,” Jorgensen said.
“No mistake,” he was told. “Just no more visitors.”
He left a note; he tried calling from a pay phone; he went back once more that afternoon - but all to no avail. He realized he should have pressed Meisner into continuing the day before. Then he cursed himself for not having had the forethought to secretly tape their conversation, and for not having brought along a witness to hear the man’s confession. Without proof, he knew, he didn’t have a chance. Better than anyone, August Jorgensen understood the rules under which appellate courts operated. They’d have no interest whatsoever in his uncorroborated account of what Meisner had supposedly told him, even if he were to reduce it to affidavit form and swear up and down to it. The man was still in his fifties and living in a senior’s residence, for God’s sake, talking to someone who probably ought to be there, too. And now he’d clammed up.
“Damn!” he shouted to no one in particular. “Damn, damn, damn, damn!” Five “damns” were about as profane as he got.
The following morning, after breakfast, he squared his account with Ruby Mason and thanked her for her hospitality. Then he and Jake climbed into the red Chevy pickup truck and headed home.
He’d come as close as one could come to saving Boyd Davies, and he had only himself to blame for failing to pull it off. And fail he had. He would have been better off if he’d never gone to see Kurt Meisner in the first place. That way, someone else - someone younger and cleverer - might have had a chance. Or at least a tape recorder.
Maybe that’s what happened, he thought, when you sent a man to do a boy’s job.
Boyd Davies was innocent, completely innocent. He’d spent the last sixteen years in prison, waiting to die for a crime he’d never committed. Jorgensen had stumbled across the truth, but then he’d managed to destroy any chance of proving it. And what did he have to show for his trip to Virginia? Nothing. All the Supreme Court wanted to hear was whether or not Boyd’s possible inability to connect his crime to his punishment meant the Commonwealth couldn’t kill him. Well, how was Boyd supposed to connect something he couldn’t understand to something he hadn’t done? Jorgensen hadn’t come up with a thing to tell them, not a thing. He pictured Justice Rehnquist leaning forward to interrupt him before he could get two words out of his mouth.
“So tell us, Judge Jorgensen. Exactly where in the Eighth Amendment does it say it’s ‘cruel and usual’ for a state to execute a murderer who’s concededly competent, but who can’t quite reconcile in his mind his offense with his punishment?”
“He’s not a murderer, your honor.”
“Excuse me?”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Well, thank you so much for sharing that little insight with us. Call the next case, Mr. Clerk. And then please see to it that Judge Jorgensen is permitted to have a warm glass of Ovaltine and take a nap before returning home.”
Jorgensen found the entrance ramp to the interstate and pulled the truck into traffic, causing three faster cars and an eighteen-wheeler to swerve into the passing lane to avoid hitting him. The driver of the eighteen-wheeler pulled on his horn as he roared by.
“FUCK YOU!” Jorgensen shouted, easily exceeding his previous personal best. In the passenger seat, Jake lay down and covered his ears with his paws.
The old lighthouse never looked so good as it did to August Jorgensen, rising from the salt flats and the marsh grass against blue sky and bluer ocean. He’d made the drive straight through, fueled by anger and frustration and a single pit stop, just long enough to fill the truck’s tank and empty theirs.
As it always did, coming home had a soothing effect on him. There was something about sand and salt and sea air that calmed his nerves, ironed out the wrinkles of life, and allowed him to remember just why it was he’d chosen years ago to drop out and leave the mainland behind. He belonged here; he fit in. He’d grown out of touch with the rest of the world and was no longer a match for its vagaries and complexities, if ever he had been. Here, things stayed the same. The seasons changed, storms came and went, the beach shifted a bit. But the shifts and changes were natural ones, incremental ones, and afterward, everything pretty much returned to the way it had been before, the way it had always been.
Forget about Kurt Meisner, he told himself. Forget about little Ilsa and young Kurt, Jr. Forget about Boyd Davies. Other than some freakish accident that had left him able to draw like the lens of a camera, he was what he was. The world would barely notice his passing, and his suffering would finally be over. When the time came, Jorgensen would pack a bag, go up to Washington, and argue the case. How hard could it be to stand at a podium and tell nine old men and women that yes, of course it mattered that Virginia wanted to kill a man who was powerless to understand why. They’d interrupt him and ask him questions, and he’d do his best to answer them. Then he’d sit down, and they could do whatever they wanted, whatever they were going to do in the first place. Hell, they’d gone and decided a presidential election, hadn’t they? They hadn’t worried too much about what the Constitution said when they’d done that; why on earth should he expect them to now?
He pulled the truck between two dunes where a dozen storms had been kind enough to carve out a parking space. As soon as he killed the engine and opened the door, Jake jumped across him and bounded out. Jorgensen watched as the dog raced around in circles, the puppy in him rejoicing at being home again.
“You and me both,” said Jorgensen. “You and me both.”
There was an envelope on his doorstep; an envelope wrapped up in one of those little plastic bags they kept in rolls at the supermarket, the ones he could never figure out which end you were supposed to open. Rather than bending down to retrieve it, he simply slid it across the floor with his foot. Only when he’d put down his bag and fed Jake did he get around to picking it up and examining it. His name was typed on it, in large capital letters. the honorable august lars jorgensen. Hell, it had been years since anyone had accused him of being honorable. The return address told him it was from Trial TV.
They’ve changed their minds, he told himself. They’ve fired him and gotten Lawrence Tribe to argue the case instead. Well, good for them. Larry’ll give Boyd a run for his money. And Jorgensen? Well, it was almost March. Soon enough, it’d be time to put the boat in the water, do a little sailing.
He tore the envelope open. Inside was a letter, neatly typed, the right-hand margin as straight as the left. If he lived to be a hundred, Jorgensen would never understand how they did that.
The Honorable August Lars Jorgensen
One Lighthouse Lane
Old Santee Island, South Carolina
-BY HAND-
Dear Judge Jorgensen:
I hope and trust that this letter will find you in good health and spirits. We have received word that the United States Supreme Court has set the matter of Davies v. Virginia for argument the second Tuesday of April, the 10th, at 10:00 a.m. According to the scheduling order, each side will be given forty-five (45) minutes to argue the issue. Under the Court’s rules, as Petitioner, we have the option of reserving up to fifteen (15) minutes of that time for rebuttal.
Within the next several weeks, you will be contacted by a representative of a briefing team, headed by Professor Reynaldo Gilbert, whom you have previously met. The team will be setting up a series of practice sessions to bring you up to speed and fill you in on the nuances of any recent decisions you may have missed.
Very fondly,
Jessica Woodruff
Even before he’d finished reading the letter, Jorgensen felt the rush of adrenaline. Not five minutes ago, he’d been telling himself to forget about the whole thing, that Boyd Davies would be better off dead than languishing in prison. As for Jorgensen himself, he’d fantasized about being rescued by Lawrence Tribe. Anything to get off the case.
And now this
. This harmless little single-page, two-paragraph letter, informing him of nothing more than a few ministerial details - a date, a time, and a length of argument - assuring him of assistance, and wishing him well.
So why did reading it suddenly cause his heart to race as though he were back in high school, rounding the final turn of the cinder track in the half-mile run, leaning forward and shortening his stride for the final 100-yard kick?
What was it about April tenth, or ten o’clock a.m., or forty-five minutes, for that matter, that made him forget he was eighty-something, and feel instead like he was eighteen all over again? What was it about the patronizing references to a briefing team that he could laugh at and forgive? He had no answers to those questions, only the vaguest notion that it had to be about him, and about whatever it was that had driven him to the law in the first place, some sixty years ago. April tenth wasn’t just a day, then, or even the day; it was his day. Not Larry Tribe’s or David Boise’s or Alan Dershowitz’s. His. His day to stand up and speak for Boyd Davies, to summon up every ounce of strength and knowledge and wisdom he possessed, in order to do whatever he possibly could to try to save another man’s life.
His life.
He looked at the letter again, but the words on the page kept jumping in and out of focus, and it took Jorgensen a moment to realize that his hands were trembling. He folded the letter and placed it on the table, walked across the room to the weather porthole, and looked out. In the foreground, the cattails and tall spartina grass bent before the breeze. At the water’s edge, sandpipers scurried up and down the sand, emboldened by each receding wave, only to retreat a moment later, just before the next one’s advance. Farther out, herring gulls wheeled and dived and disappeared between the white-caps. And in the distance, where the breakers marked the outer banks, a string of pelicans flew single-file just over the water. With their long beaks and jointed wings, they looked absolutely prehistoric to Jorgensen; they might just as well have been pterodactyls, gliding on the very same currents, above the very same ocean, as they had 100 million years ago.
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