Just Beyond the Curve

by Larry Huddleston

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Just about the time John turned to sing into the microphone, the heavy steel door of the ‘tank’ where Danny was being housed swung open with a loud crash and several deputies came in. They were dressed in riot gear and acting none too friendly.

  “Alright!” their fearless leader screamed at the top of his lungs through the gas mask he wore, “Everybody get in your cell and slam the door! I want to hear each and every door slam, too!”

  “Could you repeat that, Officer Opie,” Danny said grinning smartly. “We couldn’t quite hear you. Or understand you, you were breaking up some!” he added, cupping his hands behind his ears.

  “Floyd you stay out!” the leader said, looking directly at Danny. “We got a bone to pick with you!”

  “I tremble,” Danny replied with a smirk. He figured the worse they could do was kill him. He didn’t care; the state was going to do that anyway, in all likelihood.

  When the nine cell doors slammed the inner door of the tank was opened and the crew of riot gear clad officers came in and surrounded Danny. One handcuffed him while two others placed shackles on his ankles. He was then led from the tank. The inner door was closed and locked by the leader, the inner cells were electronically unlocked, the outer door was slammed shut and locked and finally silence once again settled inside the death row bound cell house.

  “Floyd is a dead man!” one of the older men stated seriously. He had been convicted of kidnapping, raping, murdering and dismembering, then devouring, three homeless people. He was pending a sentencing hearing to determine if a mental evaluation was in order before he could be given the death penalty and sent to hell by lethal injection. To say the least, the odds were not in his favor.

  “Yeah, Floyd is a dead man,” Cool Freddie agreed. He had tested the rope he had braided together earlier and it was good and strong. It would hold the crazy white boy who would kill a good and innocent man like John Travis for no reason other than pure envy. Well, Cool Freddie, outta Big D didn’t have his trained killer, Jason Judd, here with him to take care of the light work for him, so he would do it himself! He was a big boy and he knew that with a life sentence already, and the murder of a drug dealer, who just happened to be an undercover cop, was not going to carry a mere life sentence in the normal sense of the word. It was going to carry a life sentence! Cool Freddie’s. He would get the death penalty. He knew that. He knew that because he was awaiting trial on a dead man’s tank! There could be no other explanation. He smiled and sat back to wait. He knew the cops wouldn’t kill Danny Floyd regardless of their threats. There were too many cameras and rats throughout the county jail to even consider getting away with something like that.

  When Danny was taken from the tank he was led down the steel hallway to a heavy steel door. It was unlocked and he was shoved inside. The cell was very small; maybe four feet by three feet. There was a stool welded to a table with a steel mesh screen down the center. On the other side of the screen was an identical room. He sat on the stool to wait whatever was about to happen.

  A key was shoved into the lock on the door on the other side of the screen and it was pulled open. It didn’t seem to be as heavy as the one on Danny’s side. That was the ‘free-world’ side of the jail, he figured, therefore the security wouldn’t need to be as heavy.

  A tall slim man in his early thirties, wearing a Brooks Brothers chalk stripe tailored light gray suit stepped into the phone booth sized side of the room and laid his briefcase on the table in front of him. He looked at Danny and smiled. Then reached into his coat pocked, produced a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and lay them on the table along with a Bic lighter.

  “Help yourself,” the man said.

  Danny turned to the side and showed the man the cuffs behind his back. “I’ll be right back,” the man said, then stood and stepped out of the cell.

  A few minutes later he stepped back inside and resumed his seat. Almost before he was comfortable the door behind Danny was unlocked and opened.

  “Stand up Floyd,” an aggressive voice said behind him, then grabbed his cuffed wrists and lifted him roughly.

  “Officer Stanton do you want to be charged with police brutality?” the man across the screen asked calmly. “If not, then treat my client with a little more kindness. It will do your heart good.”

  Danny didn’t see the glare Stanton shot at the man in the suit. But, he did see the man in the suit smile and he heard the man say, “Oh? Try me, mister!”

  The cuffs were removed without a word. The door was closed and locked.

  Danny reached for a cigarette and the lighter. When he had a lung full of the pungent blue smoke that he craved he looked across at the suit and said, “Thanks. Who are you?”

  “My name is Jeremiah Lake,” he replied. “I am the very best death penalty attorney in the fifth circuit. I have chosen to take your case free of charge. I hope to get you life instead of death. The cop is going to be the hard part...”

  “I don’t want life,” Danny stated. “I deserve to be dead for what I done. I have nothing. I deserve nothing. I pray nightly that John Travis dies, so I will win!”

  “John Travis has asked the court to drop the charges against you stemming from your assault on him,” Lake said calmly.

  “Why would he do that?” Danny interrupted.

  “He’s a far better man than you. Plus, he wants the music files back.”

  “The music files,” Danny mused. “Let’s see, what’d I do with them? I was really messed up that night; alcohol, pills, sadness, all rolled into one. What if I don’t give them back,” Danny asked, beginning to grin, as if he had just remembered where they were.

  “You’ll get the death penalty,” Lake said. “The files will do you no good. I recommend that you give them back. A show of good faith, so to speak.”

  “If I give ‘em back?”

  “You’ll go to the state mental hospital for ninety days observation. Then, based on the results, you’ll be brought before the court and the judge will determine whether you are eligible for the death penalty or not.”

  “Eligible?” Danny said with a laugh. “Hell, everyone is eligible, ain’t they?”

  “No,” Lake replied. “Can’t execute the insane or the mentally handicapped.”

  “John Travis took everything from me, why should I give anything back to him?”

  “He took nothing from you, from what I’ve been able to gather,” Lake said. “You had nothing he wanted. You are nothing. You never would have amounted to anything. Hell, you ever heard of an idiot savant?”

  “Vaguely,” Danny replied.

  “An idiot savant excels, for the most part in music and math. Nothing else,” Lake said seriously. “John Travis excelled in music. He only needed to see it done and hear it played and he knows how to do it in his mind. He only has to train his hands to do it in time. He is like Mozart was. So, you and your books and tapes were nothing to him. He could have watched a concert on TV and would have known how to play all the music he heard...”

  “Then, why didn’t he know, then?” Danny asked, believing this man was lying through his perfect white teeth at him.

  “He never owned a radio or a TV as a child. Never knew who his father was until after his mother had passed away and he inherited everything. Only then did he know he was the son of John Travis, the legend. So, are you beginning to see the picture, Danny?”

  “I put the files in my safety deposit box at First National Bank,” Danny said reluctantly, staring at the table. “I thought he was trying to dick with my head about the music. Thought he was a master!”

  “He truly didn’t know a thing,” Lake said. “Listen Danny, I don’t want you to get the death penalty. It would serve no purpose. Travis is out of the hospital. Your parents are your grief. The cop, Short. Well, he is the sticking point in all this. He’s the one we have to deal with.”

  “And his brother,” Danny confessed with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “His brother?” Lake asked w
ith a confused expression.

  “Yeah,” Danny replied. “He came and took me out of the tank this morning. He was going to beat me and rape me. I killed him with his set of keys. He’s down the hall in a small storage room. He’s dead.”

  “That is not what we need at this point!” Lake said through gritted teeth. Lake leaned back and glared through the screen at his client. “Is there any other bodies we don’t know about, Danny?”

  “No, that’s the last one,” he replied.

  “You need anything, Danny?” Lake asked angrily.

  “I’m in jail,” Danny replied. “I need everything!”

  “John Travis had me put five hundred dollars on your account when I arrived.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’s a good man, Danny. A decent human being. And he doesn’t want to see your life ended because of some stupid mistakes.”

  Danny looked at the table and tears began to slide down his face and drip to the table. “Oh God, what have I done? Please forgive me!” he buried his face in his palms and his shoulders shook with emotion.

  “Listen, I’ll be back in a day or so, Danny. Maybe I’ll have some good news for you.”

  Danny could only nod his head. He sensed the man leave the small visiting cell. A short while later the door behind him opened and the cuffs were replaced on his wrists and he was led back to the death tank.

  He sat in silence on the table and stared at the TV He had been sitting for less than an hour when the door opened and he was called back out. Again he was cuffed and shackled, then led to the elevators. Thirty minutes later he was standing in front of a judge.

  The courtroom was not packed, but there were a few people present. He saw John Travis almost instantly. Beside him stood Judy with the baby in her arms and it appeared another in her belly. He’d known she was a little whore! He was distracted from his rising anger by the abrupt entrance of the judge.

  “All rise!” the Bailiff yelled. “The Honorable James Dewey presiding!”

  When the judge was seated and comfortable, he looked out across the courtroom and said, “Be seated!” When the rustle fell to silence again Dewey continued, “I’ve been presiding over this bench for twenty-two years! And in all that time I don’t believe, no, I know, I’ve never seen a case like this.” He glared around the vast room. “I’m not even sure who’s prosecuting and who’s defending...Would someone please care to enlighten me?”

  “Your Honor, if it please the court,” a tall, reed-thin man with big black rimmed glasses and black hair, wearing a Sears Roebuck suit, straight off the rack, said as he came to his feet. “I would like to try and explain the State’s position in this case.

  “Please do, Mister Prosecutor,” Dewey said with a grim smile.

  “Your Honor, this is basically a plea for mercy from the victim...” the Prosecutor began in a slow solemn tone.

  The courtroom fell silent, sitting spellbound as the entire story unrolled off the man’s eloquent tongue. He explained the entire story, from the death of John Travis, Sr. all the way up to and including the killing of Ralph Short earlier that morning. By the time he was finished with his summation the Honorable Judge Dewey was red faced and trembling.

  “In summation, Your Honor, the State believes given a second chance, under the care and guidance of a trained professional, Mr. Floyd would not pose a future threat to society. Thank you, Your Honor.” The Prosecutor resumed his seat and sat staring at the table in front of him. He knew he looked like a total idiot, without the savant, in the eyes of the Court.

  Judge Dewey looked down at the file in front of him and shook his head. After a moment he looked up and addressed the room. “It has long been my belief that there is a time and a place for mercy, as well as punishment. This is one such case. For here we have a young man who deliberately attempted to take the life of another young man, did take the lives of his parents, and a police officer and his brother! His motive was envy, pride, greed, lust, sloth, and malice; five, maybe six, of the deadly sins!

  “On the other hand, we have the victim, who is asking this Court to overlook this multitude of sin. This Court does not have that authority. Therefore, since the defendant has chosen a trial before the Court, rather than a trial by jury, as is his right, this Court will find the victim guilty as charged in the indictments.

  “The Court will further suspend sentencing until a full and thorough mental examination of Mister Floyd’s stability can be determined. At that time, upon that determination, this Court will decide whether Mister Floyd should be committed to a mental hospital, a penal institution for the rest of his natural life, put to death as prescribed by the laws of the State of Texas, or released from custody. It would seem that exculpatory evidence may exist which would suggest that one or more of the killings were in self defense. As far as release from custody goes, Mister Floyd, this Court suggests that you do not get your hopes up for that!”

  The judge slammed the gavel down onto the top of the bench and said, “This Court is in recess!” He then stood and in a swirl of black silk robes, fled the courtroom as if fearing for his life.

  Danny looked over his shoulder at John Travis and Judy. His expression was cold and blank; like that of a snake. He then turned back and looked at Lake. “What the hell did he just say?”

  “You are a very lucky young man,” Lake said. “Don’t blow it with your mouth!”

  “So, I’m going to a looney-bin?”

  “It beats the alternative,” Lake assured him, knowingly.

  “John’s doing this for me?” Danny asked doubtfully.

  “Yes,” Lake replied seriously, gathering up his papers and placing them in his briefcase

  “Shoot, I wouldn’t do it for him!”

  “Of that, I have no doubt!” Lake replied wryly, as the Sheriff’s Deputies came up, lifted Danny from his chair and began handcuffing and shackling him. As he was led from the room, he saw John and Judy leaving the courtroom.

  Half an hour later Danny was placed back in his cell. He took his regular position on the end of the table and against the bars separating the cells from the day room.

  Behind him in a cell a small flame burned dimly. In the flame a plastic ink pen was being heated to melting, then rolled gently on the concrete floor into a very sharp point. It was allowed to cool back into its rock hard former self. It would make a formidable weapon once a strip of wool blanket was wrapped around it for a handle.

  In the dimness of the tank the end of the wool blanket rope was carefully and slowly dropped through the bars and across the top rail of the steel rod barrier between the cells and dayroom. In the end of the rope a noose hung limply halfway to the floor. This noose however would not loosen easily once it was snugged down tight.

  Cool Freddie walked silently through the doorway and into the day room. He stopped behind Danny, lifted the noose and after placing it around Danny’s head, snugged it down tight around his neck. Danny began to choke and fight, trying to get the choking noose loosened. It was no use. Cool Freddie walked calmly back through the door, along the wall of steel bars to the secured rope and began to hoist Danny, choking, fighting and losing up off the floor. Danny’s feet dangled, kicked and frantically tried to find purchase on the steel bars. It was no use, he could find no traction or ledge wide enough to lift himself and relieve the strangling rope around his throat.

  Within minutes Danny’s struggles began to lessen until he hung dead; his arms hung limply at his side, his face turned blue and his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth.

  Behind him the cells remained deathly silent. Only the grunting and slapping of flesh on flesh disturbed the night. When silence returned Cool Freddie walked from the cell, his hand, holding the sharpened plastic ink pen, bloody. He carefully wrapped Danny’s right hand around the handle, then lay the ‘shank’ on the table. Cool Freddie returned to his cell and went to sleep. He knew he would be awakened when the jailers found the body hanging from the bars, or
the dead cannibal in the last cell, curled into a ball with seventeen holes in his heart; the total number of victims he claimed.

  Cool Freddie believed in his heart that he had done the world two favors this night and John Travis at least one. He would sleep in peace with no regrets for the killings.