Even though he’d met her only once before, over lunch in Aruba, he easily picked her out of the crowd. They exchanged greetings, including a polite kiss on the cheek, as is the custom in Latin America. He took her bag and they waited only briefly for a taxi to the private jet terminal where their executive jet was waiting.
Although Maria Theresa had hardly slept during the eleven-hour flight from Uruguay, and she was exhausted, adrenalin was pumping through her body. Not knowing where to start, she remained silent until they were seated in the aircraft and Winkler opened the conversation.
“How do you feel about this?” he asked. “You’re finally going to meet your real father!”
“Very nervous, David. I have been thinking about it ever since we met. I can’t stop thinking about my life to this point. It has only been lies, my so-called parents raising me as their own, without ever telling me of my history. Nothing but lies, and there is no one I can scream at about it because they are both dead. Yes, they probably saved me from death, but at the same time, I have to believe that my ‘father’ was involved in the death of my real mother. It’s terrible, David, something which is tormenting me.
“And now, if I can look forward, I am about to meet my real father. My biological father. A man I have never known. Over and over during the long flight from Uruguay, I asked why I am doing this to myself, and to him. What does it matter? It’s just a biological accident that I am his daughter.”
Winkler could only imagine the inner turmoil that was ripping her apart. “Yes, I understand, but still, it must mean something. When you found out your ‘parents’ weren’t your real parents, you must have felt a void—a big, empty space, a hole in your heart—something you wanted to fill by finding your real father, if you could. And now it looks like that may be possible.”
“I suppose so, and that’s why I hired you, and why I have come all this way. But then there is the matter of his fate. To meet your father a few days before his execution may be worse than never meeting him at all—”
“But Maria Theresa, we think we have a good chance to prove he isn’t the prisoner they think he is. We’re filing court papers to show they have the wrong person, asking that they put off his execution for thirty days to allow for a thorough review of our documentation.”
Emma had only told her she had to come to the United States urgently, that they’d located her father, who was in prison and scheduled to be executed in a few days. Emma had decided it would be too complicated to get into the details of the petition, matching of the fingerprints, and all the steps being taken to get a stay of execution. Now that Winkler had Maria Theresa in front of him, he could get into some of these details, which he did, as she listened intently.
“This is incredible, David, all of these things falling into place. Do you think you will be successful? I have heard that in America—which is supposedly the champion of human rights—the justice system works in strange ways. Sometimes the innocents are found guilty, just like in Latin America.”
“In this case, that’s already happened. Your father has suffered decades—a major part of his life—in prison, because of a series of events that are mostly not of his doing. I can’t guarantee the system will correct itself and free him, but we’re certainly doing everything we can, and I’m very optimistic. Let’s just take one step at a time.”
“Whatever you say, David. I suppose he will be just as shocked to know that I exist as I was to find out that he was my father.”
As the Executive Air jet began its descent into Griffin-Spalding County Airport, Winkler briefed her on the people she was about to meet, Warden Billy Joe Potts and the prison psychologist, Alice Hanover.
CHAPTER 41
IT WAS JUST BEFORE ELEVEN when Winkler pulled into the parking lot at the William Ewen Correctional Facility. Alice Hanover was already there, waiting nervously. After brief introductions, they marched up to the warden’s office. He was on the phone but waved them in and motioned them to sit down as he ended his call and closed his office door.
Winkler started the conversation.
“Warden,” he said, clearing his throat, “I want to thank you for scheduling this meeting. I’d like to introduce you to Maria Theresa Romero, the daughter of the prisoner you’re holding as Juan Martinez.”
“Yessir, Mr. Winkler, nice to see you again,” he said, politely but mildly annoyed. “Ma’am,” he said, turning his head to Maria Theresa, “nice to meet you as well, and good to see you, too, Alice. But as I told Alice over the phone, I’m not sure Mr. Martinez is willing to see you. As his last day is coming up real soon, we’ve been asking if he wants to see anyone, and he still maintains his ‘no visits’ policy. Don’t want no priests or pastors either.
“I asked our attorney, Tyree Johnson, in the state’s Attorney General’s office, the fellow who answers all our questions about prisoner rights and the like. Matter of fact, that’s who I was talkin’ to when you came in. He told me there’s no two ways about it: We have to respect the prisoner’s wishes. If he says, ‘no visits,’ then ‘no visits’ it is. Unless you get a court order.”
Winkler wasn’t sure how much he should tell the warden but decided to lay at least some of his cards on the table.
“Warden Potts, the thing is, Mr. Martinez doesn’t know his daughter is here. Actually, he doesn’t even know he has a daughter. So, if we could just talk to him briefly and explain the situation, we think there may be a good chance he’ll want to meet her, if only for a few minutes.”
“Mr. Winkler, this is all rather strange. First, you come in here and tell me you think our prisoner isn’t who we think he is. Now you tell me this young lady is his daughter, and he doesn’t even know he has a daughter. He’s been here for decades, and never once—not one single time—has he had a visit, a phone call, or even a letter from any member of his family. And now, just a couple of days before his execution, you show up here with someone you say is his daughter—and a newly discovered daughter at that! Mr. Winkler, this is not a circus, and I don’t intend to let you make it into one!”
“Warden, I understand how strange this must seem to you, and believe me, we don’t want to upset anyone—not you, and not Mr. Martinez. But if you just give us a few minutes with Mr. Martinez, if he doesn’t want to continue the discussion, we’ll politely go on our way.”
Winkler was reluctant to say anything about the petitions. If Warden Potts even suspected something was happening that could result in a stay, he could keep Winkler away from Martinez and conceivably do something to jeopardize his chances of success.
Winkler glanced over to Alice Hanover, in desperation.
“Mr. Winkler,” she said, “would you and Ms. Romero just give the warden and me two minutes to chat, just between ourselves? You can wait in the hallway.”
Clearly, the psychologist felt it was time to call in some chits.
Winkler and Maria Theresa stepped outside into the hall. Though they couldn’t hear exactly what was going on behind Warden Potts’ closed door, what started out as a quiet conversation had some really loud exchanges. The private meeting with the warden lasted more than five minutes.
When the door opened, Alice Hanover had a smile on her face; Warden Potts, on the other hand, was red-faced and had clearly conceded the point.
“Mr. Winkler,” said the warden, swallowing hard and taking some time to find just the right words. “I’ve decided it would do no harm to let you and Alice meet with Mr. Martinez for a few minutes, and if he wants to meet Ms. Romero after that, then that’s up to him. If he refuses to see you, or if he wants to end the meeting, then you’ve got to honor that request. I think we can say if we follow that procedure, we’re honoring the prisoner’s wishes. We’ll leave it up to him. Since Alice has worked with him over the years, and she’s prison staff—at least for a few more days—she can go with you.
“Alice, why don’t you just go on down to Block Four? I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re on your way.”
CHAPTER 42
“DO I DARE ASK WHAT YOU TOLD HIM, Alice, to make him change his mind?”
“I don’t think you really want to know, David, and anyhow, I told the warden I wouldn’t share that information. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Gotcha. No problem. You sure made your point, and it didn’t take very long.”
“I took a risk,” she said, “but let’s say no more about it. As far as anyone’s concerned, he rationalized in his own mind that it was the right way to handle it, to let us go down there and let the prisoner decide. But I mentioned nothing about the petitions, and when that information gets back to the warden…well, let’s just say I’m glad I’m about to retire.
“Let’s take my car. It’ll save us some time since they know me and I have a facility pass on the windshield.” The psychologist took the wheel. Winkler rode shotgun, and Maria Theresa took the back seat.
What Winkler had seen of the prison facility on his first visit was no more than the front gate and administrative offices, located right off the main highway at the north end of the property. The prisoner detention facility itself was located several miles into the property, on a new blacktop road. The land was flat and cleared on either side of the road, probably to make it easier to track escapees.
While they saw no one in the fields, the place conjured up images of prison guards on horseback overseeing prisoners doing field work for a few dollars a day. The only wildlife in sight were giant, black vultures, too fattened by roadkill to take flight as the car approached, so they simply hopped away.
“How close are we to the Air Force base, Alice? I remember seeing a turn-off just before the last turn to the prison,” said Winkler.
“As the crow flies,” she replied, “maybe five miles due east of here, but it’s been shut down for decades. When it was operating, it created a fair amount of economic activity in this region. But that was years ago, way back when we had lots of B-52s based around the country, even in the south—including Florida and Louisiana, as well as Georgia—which would have been sent out to annihilate Russia if war had broken out.
“After the Cold War ended, there was no support in Congress for keeping it open, so it was shut down, and the town just next to it, Amityville, lost most of its residents.
“The base and the old prison were built about the same time. Seems rather clever to warehouse your high-risk prisoners near an Air Force base. You certainly wouldn’t want them wandering around the post-nuclear wasteland, and the base—and incidentally, the prison—would be almost sure to get nuked early and often in any war.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some smart politician figured that after the bombs fall, it would be hard enough for any survivors to make ends meet without having to deal with rampaging escaped convicts, and it would be better for post-apocalyptic society to have hardened convicts instantly vaporized.”
Winkler grinned as Alice provided some comic relief for an otherwise grim situation.
“All that’s left of Amityville, in terms of businesses, is a seedy motel that provides a cheap place to stay for inmates’ visitors from downstate, and an old gas station, so old it’s not even self-serve. The rest of the businesses around here are in the town where we met at Sugar Daddy’s Getaway.”
A few minutes later, they approached another gatehouse, with armed guards. Their arrival had been announced, and they needed to do no more than show their IDs. The visitors’ lot was to the right, with several empty cars in it, and people sat on the grass next to the lot in the shade of large trees.
“What’s all that about?” asked Maria Theresa. “Are we before normal visiting hours?”
“Not really, but those folks are probably here to visit family and can’t get in because the guards haven’t finished their count. Before anyone can get in, they have to physically count the prisoners. The problem is, the guards can’t count. So, they don’t get the right number and have to do the count over again, and sometimes a few times.
“These poor souls get here on time but have to wait until they’re told the count is done. They prefer to wait patiently under a tree, rather than in their cars, which are baking in the sun. And they sure don’t have enough money to pay for gas to keep the cars and air conditioning going while they wait, which could be several hours. They hardly have enough money to pay for the gas to get here in the first place.”
At that moment, a message came over the loudspeakers that visiting hours had begun, and the family members starting picking up their things and making their way to the various cell blocks, which had large numbers painted on them in bright yellow paint.
Block Four was at the far end, an ugly two-story brick building with narrow slit medieval castle style windows spaced every ten feet or so. The entire perimeter was enclosed by two rings of parallel fences spaced about six feet apart. An outer twenty-foot high chain link fence was topped with razor wire, and an inner twenty-foot high fence consisted of five stacked four-foot high coils of razor wire.
They also saw four guard towers, one at each corner of the area that housed the four cell blocks.
As Winkler and the others got out of the car, they could see an exercise yard off to the left, closer to Blocks One through Three. Prisoners were wearing orange shorts and grey shirts and were marching around a small oval track. Even though the temperature was already in the mid-nineties and it was very humid, a few prisoners were shooting hoops on a cement basketball court.
The entrance to Block Four had a grey steel door, with a security camera to identify the visitors. A buzzer indicated when the door was unlocked and visitors could pass through.
Once inside, they saw a small reception area with a short, middle-aged guard wearing a prison corrections officer uniform; however, he didn’t look like he’d be much good at quelling a riot. He was yakking with another guard about catfish fishing.
Alice gave them a minute to finish their conversation, then politely cleared her throat to get their attention.
“Well, if it isn’t Alice Hanover, prison shrink! There’s a rumor ‘round here that you’re gonna hang it up and retire! Is that true, Alice?”
Ray Simkins knew it was true but just liked to make retirement small talk. He was five years from retiring, had a pin-up calendar on the inside of his locker where he crossed off the days, and everyone in the place knew about it. It was only a question of whether he’d live that long. He was grossly overweight, had always been a heavy smoker, and coughed like his lungs were ready to give up on him. The other guards made bets each year as to whether Ray would make it to Christmas, with the bets being evenly split.
“Ray, this is Mr. Winkler, a lawyer, and Ms. Romero, who is Martinez’ daughter. Ms. Romero hasn’t been in touch with her father because she didn’t know where he was, so we’re here to talk to Martinez for a couple of minutes to see if he’ll reverse his ‘no visits’ instruction. If he agrees, then we’ll come back out and bring the daughter down to see him. OK?”
“Yep, that’s what the warden said would be the procedure. You can leave the daughter out here with me. I don’t bite.” He directed Maria Theresa to sit down on a bench along the wall. “Just give me the IDs for the lawyer and daughter so I can take a picture of them, for the record.”
Ray then asked if they wanted a no-contact visit. Winkler looked at Alice; he didn’t know the difference and said they’d do whatever was easiest for the guards. The guard replied that a no-contact visit would be easier, so Winkler agreed. A no-contact visit involved talking to the inmate over the phone while separated by two inches of bulletproof glass. The facility had two such booths.
At that point, it dawned on Ray that the phone had been ripped out of one of the no-contact booths and the other one was tied up. “Sorry, Mr. Winkler, but we’ve got only one no-contact booth working. Looks like you’ll have a contact visit after all, unless you want to wait a while.”
“No problem,” said Winkler, thinking for a moment that if he were visiting any death row prisoner
other than Guttmann, he’d really prefer a no-contact visit.
Ray then phoned someone in the back and announced that Martinez had some visitors. They were soon joined by another corrections officer, much more imposing, about six-foot-six and extremely muscular. He had a giant blue tattoo of a Celtic cross on his forearm, and, unlike the first guard, looked like he’d be useful in quelling a riot; he might even enjoy the chance.
The corrections officers’ uniforms—black cargo pants, a grey shirt with a small logo of the prison system, and a black baseball cap—were vaguely fascist.
At that point, the first guard issued Winkler and Alice each a bar-coded sheet of paper. Celtic Cross led them around the corner of the reception area, where they stopped at an automatic folding door made of two-inch thick plexiglass, secured by an imposing steel lock.
To the right was the no-contact visiting area, where one old guy on the inside was yelling at another old guy on the visitor’s side of the glass.
Celtic Cross hit a buzzer, and the folding door opened. They were now in a twenty-by-twenty-foot airlock between the outside world and the prison proper. In addition to the plexiglass folding door behind them that led to the outside world, a steel door with a plexiglass window to their right led to the prisoner cells.
About a third of the airlock was occupied by a control booth filled with monitors and phones, off to the right and against the far wall. The control booth monitored movement in both the airlock and the cell block and was manned by two more corrections officers.
Having already locked their wallets, keys, and cell phones in lockers in the reception area, they passed through a metal detector without incident. Celtic Cross then asked Winkler to turn around and raise his arms, after which he gently, but thoroughly, patted him down.
The two men in the control booth asked Winkler if he wanted to be accompanied by an officer during the visit. He quickly declined; he didn’t want anyone to get wind of the petitions. They then said they’d monitor the visit on a video camera.
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