Suspicion of Vengeance (46 page)

He smiled and shook his head.

"But I hate this so much," she said.

"Yeah. It sucks." He lifted his hand to the window. "Is it okay if I say I love you? I mean, in a spiritual way."

"Of course it's okay, Kenny. I love you too." Gail put her hand next to his.

"Well, it's mostly spiritual. Good thing we got this glass between us, Anthony might come over and beat me up. But he's okay. For a lawyer."

"You're right. He's not so bad."

"Let me talk to him for a minute. All right?"

Gail waited in the corridor, able to see Ruby at the table, reading her Bible through a magnifying glass, one finger following the text.

"Gail."

She turned, and Anthony was there. He held on to her arm, speaking softly. "Kenny wants me to be the witness. The rules allow only one legal representative. We can't both be with him. He wants to know if you would mind if I do it."

Gail glanced past Anthony's shoulder. "Really? Why?"

"I think he's trying to be chivalrous."

"He doesn't have to do that."

"Let him," Anthony said. "Kenny needs to make this decision and you have to let him do it. Allow him some dignity."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

She looked at him closely. He needed his dignity as much as Kenny did. "All right. Ruby and I will wait for you outside."

They went back and sat down. Gail told Kenny that she hated to admit it, but she was relieved, really she was. She didn't want her last view of him to be shared by a room full of strangers. They talked for a while longer, then a guard came up behind them and said they had to leave. Gail leaned close and lightly pressed her lips to the mesh screen.

"Good-bye, Kenny."

Anthony put his hand flat on the glass.

Kenny put his hand in its outline. "You-all take good care of each other."

"We will," Anthony said.

At the door, Gail looked over her shoulder. Kenny's eyes were closed. He's glad we're going, she thought. He wants to get back to his cell. Gail could see he was starting to let go.

"Gail, wait." Anthony pulled her closer to the wall. "There's something I have to tell you." He spoke as if a surprising and long-hidden truth had just dawned on him. "You're such a good lawyer. Better than I am."

"Don't say that."

"It's true. Your passion, your devotion. You are fearless. I have never seen such commitment. Not only to your client, but to everything you touch. Gail, this has been missing for a long time in my life. I was wrong to think I had all the answers, or that you should listen to me. This was your decision, and I should have respected that. No matter what happens between us, I will always love and admire you. You are the best woman I have ever known."

The tears finally slid down her cheeks. "Thank you."

There were several dozen anti-death penalty protestors carrying signs at the hotel when they returned. Anthony parked around back and asked to use the freight elevator. Gail helped Ruby to her room, took a couple of Excedrin, then went downstairs with Anthony to do the press conference.

They spent the afternoon resting and waiting for a call from the Supreme Court. At four-thirty they took the freight elevator back downstairs and left for the prison. The clerk at the court had both their cell phone numbers, in case. Ruby's hands were folded on her Bible, which she held in her lap.

Once again, they reached the small town of Starke, then turned northwest. The land opened up to flat green fields, and the sun was in Gail's eyes. Nearing the prison she saw the cars and vans already lining the road. There were three satellite trucks parked on the grass. They had to speak to a guard to get through the main entrance, a metal arch resting on stone pillars. FLORIDA STATE PRISON. Beyond were the high chain-link fences and coils of razor wire.

Anthony parked in the lot near the one-story brick-fronted administration building. Two Department of Corrections vans waited nearby to transport the witnesses over to Q wing. Gail saw Detective Kemp hold the door for Sonia Krause. There were some men and women carrying notebooks, and she assumed they were reporters. No one seemed to be talking. Most of them wore dark clothing. How appropriate, she thought bitterly.

Anthony sat for a moment looking through the windshield, then said he ought to go in. Ruby, who was in the passenger seat, reached over and hugged him tightly and told him not to worry. He kissed her and got out.

Gail walked with him as far as the front door of the building. "Anthony, are you okay?"

"Yes, fine." He took a breath and let it out. He embraced her.

With nothing else to say, she told him that she and Ruby would be across the highway and he could walk over there afterward in the crowd. She would be looking for him. She added, "I love you." He nodded. His mind was already somewhere else.

Leaving him at the door, Gail came back down the walk and nearly ran into the Mayfields. Amber's parents blindly continued walking, but Gail and Lacey Mayfield circled each other like dogs, hackles rising. Triumph shone from Lacey's eyes. Her mouth was small and pinched. Gail wanted to pull her hair out by the roots and stomp her bleeding body into the ground. She should die an early and painful death, Gail thought, then immediately was ashamed of herself, imagining that Ruby had overheard.

She got back in the car. The windows were down, and the breeze came through. Ruby smiled at her through her heavy glasses. Gail curled her hands over the top of the steering wheel and rested her forehead on them. Ruby gently patted her back and Gail fell into Ruby's arms. Twenty-five years ago she would have crawled into her lap and rested her head on her bosom.

"Now, now. It's going to be all right," Ruby said.

"I don't know how," Gail said.

"You did everything you could, don't you know that? Kenny is saved. Maybe not in the way we thought he would be, but soon he'll be walking in a better place."

"Oh, Ruby. Do you really believe that?"

"My goodness, yes." Her eyes shone with certainty.

Gail felt that the world had gone insane, and she along with it. "Well, I guess you're right," she said to Ruby.

She started the car and drove off the prison grounds. Someone was directing traffic, and she found a place to park. She helped Ruby out of the car and unfolded her walker for her. Some of Ruby's women friends from the church had driven up to be with her, and soon they put her in a lawn chair and gathered around.

The grassy area opposite the prison was roped off into three sections. One for media. One for anti-death penalty protestors. One for advocates. The publicity had generated a crowd in the hundreds. Gail remembered she had promised some of the TV reporters she would speak to them, but turned her head away, and put on her sunglasses.

Ruby was busy talking with her friends, so Gail hid for a while behind a group of women with crosses on their breasts. They all held candles, which had not been lit and would in any event be useless in the bright sunshine.

People jostled each other and raised signs in the air. Gail craned her neck to read them. HOW CAN KILLING STOP KILLING ? EXECUTION IS NOT THE SOLUTION. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. She read the ones on the other side of the rope. REMEMBER THE VICTIMS, which had a photo of Amber and the baby. HE EARNED HIS WAY TO DEATH ROW. A photo of Kenny with a red circle around it, and a line drawn through. WHOSOEVER SHEDS THE BLOOD OF MAN, BY MAN SHALL HIS BLOOD BE SHED. GENESIS 9:6.

Someone bumped her, and she nearly stumbled across the yellow rope. She was drunk on lack of sleep, and her reflexes were slow.

A pickup truck drove by, and a man in a camouflage cap cupped his hands at his mouth. "What day is this? Fry-day."

"You dimwit," Gail said aloud. "They don't use the chair anymore."

The anti crowd booed the man in the truck, and some in the pro crowd cheered. Others told them to be quiet, that wasn't what this was about. Back in the media area, reporters stood in front of cameras. Their mouths moved, but Gail couldn't hear them. Another crowd had gathered around the trucks, watching the monitors inside.

A man's voice a few feet away said, "Shut up. Listen. The Supreme Court just denied his appeal." Someone turned up the volume on a portable radio, and the voice of the governor came through.

"... have finally reached an end. Mr. Clark has received the due process that our Constitution affords him, but enough is enough. Twelve years is more than enough. We need only point to the tragic suicide two days ago of the victim's husband, who could no longer bear the heavy weight of his grief To his family, and to hers, my deepest condolences. To Mr. Clark I say, I harbor no ill will toward you, sir, but you deserve the justice being meted out today. May God have mercy on your soul."

A cheer went up.

Groans.

The nuns began to sing "Amazing Grace."

Gail walked away, pushing past a man handing out anti-death penalty buttons. She stepped over the rope and stood with her back to the crowd. The ground sloped downward a bit, and another correctional facility was just to her left, but an area of grass stretched out ahead of her.

She reached for her shoulder bag and remembered she'd locked it in the trunk. She had wanted her cell phone so she could call Karen, who had been too little in her mind these last days. She'd wanted to tell her hello and say she would be home soon.

Gail walked a little farther, thinking of her promise. She and Karen would go somewhere, just the two of them. Not even Anthony. They wouldn't even wait until Anthony left to take his grandfather to Cuba. That would be later next month. The old man had been patiently waiting for Anthony to come home, something Gail had never thought he would do, wait patiently for anything.

A flock of birds flew by, and Gail turned to follow their progress. They were heading north. She supposed the snow had melted already. The days were getting longer. The breeze was warm.

She sat down on the grass. How fine it was, such long, tender shoots. Not like that in Miami at all. It had rained recently and the ground was moist. She gathered a handful of grass and held it to her nose. It smelled of earth, sweet and fresh.

Her shoe had come untied. She reached over to retie the laces.

CHAPTER 29

Thursday, April 12

The sun was going down. The hotel's shadow stretched across the sand, and the clouds over the Atlantic had turned pink. Standing on the terrace, cell phone at her ear, Gail listened to Anthony's voice telling her to leave a message.

"Damn." She snapped the phone shut and went inside. Anthony had left three hours ago, and she'd hoped to be home before dark. Karen was expecting her, and Gail longed to see the last of Martin County for a while.

"Still no answer?" Jackie was setting the last box on the stack of them by the front door. She had come to say good-bye, but when Anthony hadn't shown up, stayed to help Gail finish packing the suitcases, computer equipment and files in the Clark case.

"I don't know where he could be. He said something about going with Hector to pay the divers for those underwater photos of the sinkhole. I suppose they all got into a conversation about the good old days of the CIA, God knows what, and he forgot the time. Maybe he forgot to turn his cell phone on too."

"Did you try Hector?"

"His isn't on either."

Jackie's calm brown eyes followed as Gail put her cell phone by her purse and tapped her nails on the kitchen counter. "You're worried."

"Not really. He's with Hector. I'm just annoyed that he hasn't called me back." This wouldn't have bothered Gail so much if he hadn't been in such a weird mood the last couple of days. His face seemed carved out of stone, and he barely spoke. She had awakened in the middle of the night, and his side of the bed was empty. From the terrace she had seen the figure of a man walking along the deserted shore line, too far away to hear her call his name. Anthony, so careful to maintain his professional distance from cases and clients, had been swept into the dark vortex of Kenny Clark's execution.

Jackie said, "Well, I'll just stick around till he gets back, if that's okay."

"I'd like you to." Grateful to have her cousin's companionship, Gail said, "Something's going on with him. He's so angry at everything, and particularly at Whit McGrath. The last thing Kenny said to him was to let it go, it's not worth it, but he can't seem to get past it. I think time will take care of people like McGrath and Rusty Beck. That's what Ruby told me. I have to believe it, or I'd go crazy. Maybe getting the search warrant will help. Tell Garlan we appreciate what he's doing. Truly."

Jackie followed a few moments of silence with a little shrug. "He's just doing his job."

"It's more than that, Jackie. He's sticking his neck out."

Gail could tell that Jackie regretted having failed, on the eve of Kenny's execution, to persuade her father of his innocence. Even so, she had convinced Garlan, of the possibility of four bodies entombed in the trunk of a car. He was using his clout to get a search warrant, hoping to find something that would link the bodies to Rusty Beck, the man who fired the shotgun. And if charged with murder, who knew what kind of deal Beck would ask for. He might turn on Whit McGrath.

In the morning Garlan Bryce would take the warrant to Judge Willis for his signature. Garlan would give him a copy of the Mendoza deed, the underwater photographs, and state records that showed who owned the car. It wasn't much. Gail could imagine Whit McGrath's lawyers and PR people lining up to fight the inference that McGrath was connected in any way to what might be found at the bottom of that sinkhole. They would probably succeed. There was no physical evidence against McGrath. But the scandal of hauling up four skeletons would put a pall over River Pines and possibly cause McGrath to lose the vote on Phase Two. It would cost him dearly.

It wasn't enough, but it was something.

Gail put her hand on Jackie's arm. "Anthony and I were talking about a complete investigation, top to bottom, to prove who really killed Amber Dodson. There wasn't time before, but now there's no rush. Would you like to help?"