Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  Straps on Sam’s arms, two of them for each, then two more for the legs, over the shiny new Dickies, then the hideous head brace so he wouldn’t hurt himself when the gas hit. There now, all buckled down, and ready for the vapors. All neat and tidy, spotless and germ-free, no blood to be shed. Nothing to pollute this flawless, moral killing.

  The guards backed out of the narrow door, proud of their work.

  Adam looked at him sitting in there. Their eyes met, and for an instant Sam closed his.

  The doctor was next. Nugent said something to him, but Adam couldn’t hear the words. He stepped inside and rigged the wire running from the stethoscope. He was quick with his work.

  Lucas Mann stepped forward with a sheet of paper. He stood in the door of the chamber. “Sam, this is the death warrant. I’m required by law to read it to you.”

  “Just hurry,” Sam grunted without opening his lips.

  Lucas lifted the piece of paper, and read from it: “Pursuant to a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death returned against you by the Circuit Court of Washington County on February 14, 1981, you are hereby condemned to die by lethal gas in the gas chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. May God have mercy on your soul.” Lucas backed away, then reached for the first of two phones mounted on the wall. He called his office to see if there were any miraculous last minute delays. There were none. The second phone was a secured line to the Attorney General’s office in Jackson. Again, all systems were go. It was now thirty seconds after midnight, Wednesday, August 8. “No stays,” he said to Nugent.

  The words bounced around the humid room and crashed in from all directions. Adam glanced at his grandfather for the last time. His hands were clenched. His eyes were closed tightly, as if he couldn’t look at Adam again. His lips were moving, as if he had just one more quick prayer.

  “Any reason why this execution should not proceed?” Nugent asked formally, suddenly craving solid legal advice.

  “None,” Lucas said with genuine regret.

  Nugent stood in the door of the chamber. “Any last words, Sam?” he asked.

  “Not for you. It’s time for Adam to leave.”

  “Very well.” Nugent slowly closed the door, its thick rubber gasket preventing noise. Silently, Sam was now locked up, and buckled down. He closed his eyes tightly. Just please hurry.

  Adam eased behind Nugent, who was still facing the chamber door. Lucas Mann opened the door to the outside, and both men made a quick exit. Adam glanced back at the room for the last time. The executioner was reaching for a lever. His assistant was inching to the side to catch a glimpse. The two guards were jockeying for position so they could watch the old bastard die. Nugent and the deputy warden and the doctor were crowded along the other wall, all inching closer, heads bobbing up and over, each fearful he might miss something.

  The ninety-degree heat outside seemed much cooler. Adam walked to the end of the ambulance and leaned on it for a second.

  “Are you all right?” Lucas asked.

  “No.”

  “Just take it easy.”

  “You’re not gonna witness it?”

  “No. I’ve seen four. That’s enough for me. This one’s especially difficult.”

  Adam stared at the white door in the center of the brick wall. Three vans were parked nearby. A group of guards smoked and whispered by the vans. “I’d like to leave,” he said, afraid that he was about to be sick.

  “Let’s go.” Lucas grabbed his elbow and led him to the first van. He said something to a guard, who jumped into the front seat. Adam and Lucas sat on a bench in the center of it.

  Adam knew at that precise moment his grandfather was in the chamber gasping for breath, his lungs seared with burning poison. Just over there, in that little red-brick building, right now, he’s sucking it in, trying to swallow as much as possible, hoping to simply float away to a better world.

  He began to cry. The van moved around the recreation yards and through the grass in front of the Row. He covered his eyes, and cried for Sam, for his suffering at this moment, for the despicable way he was being forced to die. He looked so pitiful sitting there in his new clothes being tied down like an animal. He cried for Sam and the last nine and a half years he’d spent staring through bars, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon, wondering if anyone out there cared about him. He cried for the whole wretched Cayhall family and their miserable history. And he cried for himself, for his anguish at this moment, for the loss of a loved one, for his failure to stop this madness.

  Lucas patted him gently on the shoulder and the van rolled and stopped, then rolled and stopped again. “I’m sorry,” he said more than once.

  “This your car?” Lucas asked, as they stopped outside the gate. The dirt parking lot was filled to capacity. Adam yanked the door handle and stepped out without a word. He could say thanks later.

  He sped along the gravel trail, between the rows of cotton, until he came to the main drive. He drove quickly to the front entrance, slowing only briefly as he weaved around two barricades, then stopped at the front gate so a guard could check his trunk. To his left was the swarm of reporters. They were on their feet, waiting anxiously for word from the Row. Mini-cams were ready.

  There was no one in his trunk, and he was waved around another barricade, almost hitting a guard who wasn’t moving fast enough. He stopped at the highway, and paused to look at the candlelight vigil under way to his right. Hundreds of candles. And a hymn in progress somewhere down the way.

  He sped away, past state troopers loitering about, enjoying the break in the action. He sped past cars parked on the shoulders for two miles, and soon Parchman was behind him. He pushed the turbo, and was soon doing ninety.

  He headed north for some reason, though he had no intention of going to Memphis. Towns like Tutwiler, Lambert, Marks, Sledge, and Crenshaw flew by. He rolled the windows down and the warm air swirled around the seats. The windshield was peppered with large bugs and insects, the plague of the Delta, he’d learned.

  He just drove, with no particular destination. This trip had not been planned. He’d given no thought to where he would go immediately after Sam died, because he never truly believed it would happen. Maybe he’d be in Jackson now, drinking and celebrating with Garner Goodman and Hez Kerry, getting plastered because they’d pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Maybe he’d be at the Row, still on the phone trying desperately to get the details of a last minute stay which would later become permanent. Maybe a lot of things.

  He wouldn’t dare go to Lee’s, because she might actually be there. Their next meeting would be a nasty one, and he preferred to postpone it. He decided to find a decent motel. Spend the night. Try and sleep. Figure things out tomorrow after the sun was up. He raced through dozens of hamlets and towns, none with a room for rent. He slowed considerably. One highway led to another. He was lost but didn’t care. How can you be lost when you don’t know where you’re going? He recognized towns on road signs, turned this way then that way. An all-night convenience store caught his attention on the outskirts of Hernando, not far from Memphis. There were no cars parked in front. A middle-aged lady with jet-black hair was behind the counter, smoking, smacking gum, and talking on the phone. Adam went to the beer cooler and grabbed a six-pack.

  “Sorry, hon, can’t buy beer after twelve.”

  “What?” Adam demanded, reaching into his pocket.

  She didn’t like his snarl. She carefully laid the phone next to the cash register. “We can’t sell beer here after midnight. It’s the law.”

  “The law?”

  “Yes. The law.”

  “Of the State of Mississippi?”

  “That’s correct,” she said smartly.

  “Do you know what I think of the laws of this state right now?”

  “No, dear. And I honestly don’t care.”

  Adam flipped a ten-dollar bill on the counter and carried the beer to his car. She watched him leave, then stuck the cash in her pocket and went ba
ck to the phone. Why bother the cops over a six-pack of beer?

  He was off again, going south on a two-lane highway, obeying the speed limit and gulping the first beer. Off again in pursuit of a clean room with a free continental breakfast, pool, cable, HBO, kids stay free.

  Fifteen minutes to die, fifteen minutes to vent the chamber, ten minutes to wash it down with ammonia. Spray the lifeless body, deader than hell, according to the young doctor and his EKG. Nugent pointing here and there—get the gas masks, get the gloves, get those damned reporters back on the vans and out of here.

  Adam could see Sam in there, head fallen to one side, still strapped under those enormous leather buckles. What color was his skin now? Surely not the pale whiteness of the past nine and a half years. Surely the gas turned his lips purple and his flesh pink. The chamber is now clear, all is safe. Enter the chamber, Nugent says, unbuckle him. Take the knives. Cut off the clothing. Did his bowels loosen? Did his bladder leak? They always do. Be careful. Here, here’s the plastic bag. Put the clothes in here. Spray the naked body.

  Adam could see the new clothes—the stiff khakis, the oversized shoes, the spotless white socks. Sam had been so proud to wear real clothes again. Now they were rags in a green garbage sack, handled like venom and soon to be burned by a trustee.

  Where are the clothes, the blue prison pants and white tee shirt? Get them. Enter the chamber. Dress the corpse. No shoes are necessary. No socks. Hell, he’s just going to the funeral home. Let the family worry about dressing him for a decent burial. Now the stretcher. Get him out of there. Into the ambulance.

  Adam was near a lake somewhere, over a bridge, through a bottom, the air suddenly damp and cool. Lost again.

  Fifty-two

  The first glint of sunrise was a pink halo over a hill above Clanton. It strained through the trees, and was soon turning to yellow, then to orange. There were no clouds, nothing but brilliant colors against the dark sky.

  There were two unopened beers sitting in the grass. Three empty cans had been tossed against a nearby headstone. The first empty can was still in the car.

  The dawn was breaking. Shadows fell toward him from the rows of other gravestones. The sun itself was soon peeking at him from behind the trees.

  He’d been there for a couple of hours, though he’d lost track of time. Jackson and Judge Slattery and Monday’s hearing were years ago. Sam had died minutes ago. Or was he dead? Had they already done their dirty act? Time was still playing games.

  He hadn’t found a motel, not that he’d looked very hard. He’d found himself near Clanton, then was drawn here where he’d located the headstone of Anna Gates Cayhall. Now he rested against it. He’d drunk the warm beer and thrown the cans at the largest monument within range. If the cops found him here and took him to jail, he wouldn’t care. He’d been in a cell before. “Yeah, just got out of Parchman,” he’d tell his cell mates, his rap partners. “Just walked out of death row.” And they’d leave him alone.

  Evidently, the cops were occupied elsewhere. The graveyard was secure. Four little red flags had been staked out next to his grandmother’s plot. Adam noticed them as the sun rose to the east. Another grave to be dug.

  A car door closed somewhere behind him, but he didn’t hear it. A figure walked toward him, but he didn’t know it. It moved slowly, searching the cemetery, cautiously looking for something.

  The snapping of a twig startled Adam. Lee was standing beside him, her hand on her mother’s headstone. He looked at her, then looked away.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, too numb to be surprised.

  She gently lowered herself first to her knees, then she sat very close to him, her back pressed to her mother’s engraved name. She wrapped her arm around his elbow.

  “Where the hell have you been, Lee?”

  “In treatment.”

  “You could’ve called, dammit.”

  “Don’t be angry, Adam, please. I need a friend.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “I’m not sure I’m your friend, Lee. What you did was terrible.”

  “He wanted to see me, didn’t he?”

  “He did. You, of course, were lost in your own little world, self-absorbed as usual. No thought given to others.”

  “Please, Adam, I’ve been in treatment. You know how weak I am. I need help.”

  “Then get it.”

  She noticed the two cans of beer, and Adam quickly tossed them away. “I’m not drinking,” she said, pitifully. Her voice was sad and hollow. Her pretty face was tired and wrinkled.

  “I tried to see him,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Last night. I drove to Parchman. They wouldn’t let me in. Said it was too late.”

  Adam lowered his head and softened considerably. He would accomplish nothing by cursing her. She was an alcoholic, struggling to overcome demons he hoped he would never meet. And she was his aunt, his beloved Lee. “He asked about you at the very end. He asked me to tell you he loved you, and that he wasn’t angry because you didn’t come see him.”

  She started crying very quietly. She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and cried for a long time.

  “He went out with a great deal of courage and dignity,” Adam said. “He was very brave. He said his heart was right with God, and that he hated no one. He was terribly remorseful for the things he’d done. He was a champ, Lee, an old fighter who was ready to move on.”

  “You know where I’ve been?” she asked between sniffles, as if she’d heard nothing he said.

  “No. Where?”

  “I’ve been to the old home place. I drove there from Parchman last night.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to burn it. And it burned beautifully. The house and the weeds around it. One huge fire. All up in smoke.”

  “Come on, Lee.”

  “It’s true. I almost got caught, I think. I might’ve passed a car on the way out. I’m not worried, though. I bought the place last week. Paid thirteen thousand dollars to the bank. If you own it, then you can burn it, right? You’re the lawyer.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Go look for yourself. I parked in front of a church a mile away to wait for the fire trucks. They never came. The nearest house is two miles away. No one saw the fire. Drive out and take a look. There’s nothing left but the chimney and a pile of ashes.”

  “How—”

  “Gasoline. Here, smell my hands.” She shoved them under his nose. They bore the acrid, undeniable smell of gasoline.

  “But why?”

  “I should’ve done it years ago.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question. Why?”

  “Evil things happened there. It was filled with demons and spirits. Now they’re gone.”

  “So they died with Sam?”

  “No, they’re not dead. They’ve gone off to haunt someone else.”

  It would be pointless to pursue this discussion, Adam decided quickly. They should leave, maybe return to Memphis where he could get her back into recovery. And maybe therapy. He would stay with her and make sure she got help.

  A dirty pickup truck entered the cemetery through the iron gates of the old section, and puttered slowly along the concrete path through the ancient monuments. It stopped at a small utility shed in a corner of the lot. Three black men slowly scooted out and stretched their backs.

  “That’s Herman,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Herman. Don’t know his last name. He’s been digging graves here for forty years.”

  They watched Herman and the other two across the valley of tombstones. They could barely hear their voices as the men deliberately went about their preparations.

  Lee stopped the sniffling and crying. The sun was well above the treeline, its rays hitting directly in their faces. It was already warm. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “I know it meant a lot to him.”

  “I lost, Lee. I failed my client, and now he’s dead.”
r />   “You tried your best. No one could save him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t punish yourself. Your first night in Memphis, you told me it was a long shot. You came close. You put up a good fight. Now it’s time to go back to Chicago and get on with the rest of your life.”

  “I’m not going back to Chicago.”

  “What?”

  “I’m changing jobs.”

  “But you’ve only been a lawyer for a year.”

  “I’ll still be a lawyer. Just a different kind of practice.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Death penalty litigation.”

  “That sounds dreadful.”

  “Yes, it does. Especially at this moment in my life. But I’ll grow into it. I’m not cut out for the big firms.”

  “Where will you practice?”

  “Jackson. I’ll be spending more time at Parchman.”

  She rubbed her face and pulled back her hair. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” she said, unable to hide the doubt.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  Herman was walking around a battered yellow backhoe parked under a shade tree next to the shed. He studied it thoughtfully while another man placed two shovels in its bucket. They stretched again, laughed about something, and kicked the front tires.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “There’s a little café north of town. It’s called Ralph’s. Sam took me—”

  “Ralph’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sam’s minister was named Ralph. He was with us last night.”

  “Sam had a minister?”

  “Yes. A good one.”

  “Anyway, Sam would take me and Eddie there on our birthdays. Place has been here for a hundred years. We’d eat these huge biscuits and drink hot cocoa. Let’s go see if it’s open.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah.” She was excited and getting to her feet. “Come on. I’m hungry.”

  Adam grabbed the headstone and pulled himself up. He hadn’t slept since Monday night, and his legs were heavy and stiff. The beer made him dizzy.

  In the distance, an engine started. It echoed unmuffled through the cemetery. Adam froze. Lee turned to see it. Herman was operating the backhoe, blue smoke boiling from the exhaust. His two co-workers were in the front bucket with their feet hanging out. The backhoe lunged in low gear, then started along the drive, very slowly past the rows of graves. It stopped and turned.