Raymond’s alibi was weak. His girlfriend, too, had a criminal record and made a lousy witness. His court-appointed defense lawyer subpoenaed three people who were supposed to testify that they had heard Coy vow to kill Raymond Graney. All three faltered under the pressure of sitting in the witness chair and being glared at by the sheriff and at least ten of his uniformed deputies. It was a questionable defense strategy to begin with. If Raymond believed Coy was coming to kill him, then did he, Raymond, act in self-defense? Was Raymond admitting to the crime? No, he was not. He insisted he knew nothing about it and was dancing in a bar when someone else took care of Coy.
In spite of the overwhelming public pressure to convict Raymond, the jury stayed out for two days before finally doing so.
A year later, the feds broke up a methamphetamine ring, and in the aftermath of a dozen hasty plea bargains it was learned that Deputy Coy Childers had been heavily involved in the drug distribution syndicate. Two other murders, very similar in details, had taken place over in Marshall County, sixty miles away. Coy’s stellar reputation among the locals was badly tarnished. The gossip began to fester about who really killed him, though Raymond remained the favorite suspect.
Raymond’s conviction and death sentence were unanimously affirmed by the state’s supreme court. More appeals led to more affirmations, and now, eleven years later, the case was winding down.
West of Batesville, the hills finally yielded to the flatlands, and the highway cut through fields thick with mid-summer cotton and soybeans. Farmers on their green John Deeres poked along the highway as if it had been built for tractors and not automobiles. But the Graneys were in no hurry. The van moved on, past an idle cotton gin, abandoned shotgun shacks, new double-wide trailers with satellite dishes and big trucks parked at the doors, and an occasional fine home set back to keep the traffic away from the landowners. At the town of Marks, Leon turned south, and they moved deeper into the Delta.
“I reckon Charlene’ll be there,” Inez said.
“Most certainly,” Leon said.
“She wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Butch said.
Charlene was Coy’s widow, a long-suffering woman who had embraced the martyrdom of her husband with unusual enthusiasm. Over the years she’d joined every victims’ group she could find, state and national. She threatened lawsuits against the newspaper and anybody else who questioned Coy’s integrity. She had written long letters to the editor demanding speedier justice for Raymond Graney. And she had missed not one court hearing along the way, even traveling as far as New Orleans when the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had the case.
“She’s been prayin’ for this day,” Leon said.
“Well, she better keep prayin’, ‘cause Raymond said it ain’t gonna happen,” Inez said. “He promised me his lawyers are much better than the State’s lawyers and that they’re filin’ papers by the truckload.”
Leon glanced at Butch, who made eye contact, then gazed at the cotton fields. They passed through the farm settlements of Vance, Tutweiler, and Rome as the sun was finally fading. Dusk brought the swarms of insects that hit the hood and windshield. They smoked with the windows down, and said little. The approach to Parchman always subdued the Graneys—Butch and Leon for obvious reasons, and Inez because it reminded her of her shortcomings as a mother.
Parchman was an infamous prison, but it was also a farm, a plantation, that sprawled over eighteen thousand acres of rich, black soil that had produced cotton and profits for the state for decades until the federal courts got involved and pretty much abolished slave labor. In another lawsuit, another federal court ended the segregated conditions. More litigation had made life slightly better, though violence was worse.
For Leon, thirty months there turned him away from crime, and that was what the law-abiding citizens demanded of a prison. For Butch, his first sentence proved that he could survive another, and no car or truck was safe in Ford County.
Highway 3 ran straight and flat, and there was little traffic. It was almost dark when the van passed the small green highway sign that simply said, PARCHMAN. Ahead there were lights, activity; something unusual happening. To the right were the white stone front gates of the prison, and across the highway in a gravel lot a circus was underway. Death penalty protestors were busy. Some knelt in a circle and prayed. Some walked a tight formation with handmade posters supporting Ray Graney. Another group sang a hymn. Another knelt around a priest and held candles. Farther down the highway, a smaller group chanted pro-death slogans and tossed insults at the supporters of Graney. Uniformed deputies kept the peace. Television news crews were busy recording it all.
Leon stopped at the guard house, which was crawling with prison guards and anxious security personnel. A guard with a clipboard stepped to the driver’s door and said, “Your name?”
“Graney, family of Mr. Raymond Graney. Leon, Butch, and our mother, Inez.”
The guard wrote nothing, took a step back, managed to say, “Wait a minute,” then left them. Three guards stood directly in front of the van, at a barricade across the entry road.
“He’s gone to get Fitch,” Butch said. “Wanna bet?”
“No,” Leon replied.
Fitch was an assistant warden of some variety, a career prison employee whose dead-end job was brightened only by an escape or an execution. In cowboy boots, fake Stetson, and with a large pistol on his hip, he swaggered around Parchman as if he owned it. Fitch had outlasted a dozen wardens and had survived that many lawsuits. As he approached the van, he said loudly, “Well, well, the Graney boys’re back where they belong. Here for a little furniture repair, boys? We have an old electric chair y’all can reupholster.” He laughed at his own humor and there was more laughter behind him.
“Evenin’, Mr. Fitch,” Leon said. “We have our mother with us.”
“Evenin’, ma’am,” Fitch said as he glanced inside the van. Inez did not respond.
“Where’d you get this van?” Fitch asked.
“We borrowed it,” Leon answered. Butch stared straight ahead and refused to look at Fitch.
“Borrowed, my ass. When’s the last time you boys borrowed anything? I’m sure Mr. McBride is lookin’ for his van right now. Might give him a call.”
“You do that, Fitch,” Leon said.
“It’s Mr. Fitch to you.”
“Whatever you say.”
Fitch unloaded a mouthful of spit. He nodded ahead as if he and he alone controlled the details. “I reckon you boys know where you’re goin’,” he said. “God knows you been here enough. Follow that car back to max security. They’ll do the search there.” He waved at the guards at the barricade. An opening was created, and they left Fitch without another word. For a few minutes they followed an unmarked car filled with armed men. They passed one unit after another, each entirely separate, each encircled by chain link topped with razor wire. Butch gazed at the unit where he’d surrendered several years of his life. In a well-lit open area, the “playground,” as they called it, he saw the inevitable basketball game with shirtless men drenched in sweat, always one hard foul away from another mindless brawl. He saw the calmer ones sitting on picnic tables, waiting for the ten p.m. bed check, waiting for the heat to break because the barracks air units seldom worked, especially in July.
As usual, Leon glanced at his old unit, but did not dwell on his time there. After so many years, he’d been able to tuck away the emotional scars of physical abuse. The inmate population was eighty percent black, and Parchman was one of the few places in Mississippi where the whites did not make the rules.
The maximum security unit was a 1950s-style flat-roofed building, one level, red brick, much like countless elementary schools built back then. It, too, was wrapped in chain link and razor wire and watched by guards lounging in towers, though on this night everyone in uniform was awake and excited. Leon parked where he was directed, then he and Butch were thoroughly searched by a small battalion of unsmiling guards. Inez was lifted out, rol
led to a makeshift checkpoint, and carefully inspected by two female guards. They were escorted inside the building, through a series of heavy doors, past more guards, and finally to a small room they had never seen before. The visitors’ room was elsewhere. Two guards stayed with them as they settled in. The room had a sofa, two folding chairs, a row of ancient file cabinets, and the look of an office that belonged to some trifling bureaucrat who’d been chased away for the night.
The two prison guards weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds each, had twenty-four-inch necks, and the obligatory shaved heads. After five awkward minutes in the room with the family, Butch had had enough. He took a few steps, and challenged them with a bold, “What, exactly, are you two doing in here?”
“Following orders,” one said.
“Whose orders?”
“The warden’s.”
“Do you realize how stupid you look? Here we are, the family of the condemned man, waiting to spend a few minutes with our brother, in this tiny shithole of a room, with no windows, cinder-block walls, only one door, and you’re standing here guarding us as if we’re dangerous. Do you realize how stupid this is?”
Both necks seemed to expand. Both faces turned scarlet. Had Butch been an inmate he would have been beaten, but he wasn’t. He was a citizen, a former convict, who hated every cop, trooper, guard, agent, and security type he’d ever seen. Every man in a uniform was his enemy.
“Sir, please sit down,” one said coolly.
“In case you idiots don’t realize it, you can guard this room from the other side of that door just as easily as you can from this side. I swear. It’s true. I know you probably haven’t been trained enough to realize this, but if you just walked through the door and parked your big asses on the other side, then ever’thang would still be secure and we’d have some privacy. We could talk to our little brother without worryin’ about you clowns eavesdroppin’.”
“You better knock it off, pal.”
“Go ahead, just step through the door, close it, stare at it, guard it. I know you boys can handle it. I know you can keep us safe in here.”
Of course the guards didn’t move, and Butch eventually sat in a folding chair close to his mother. After a thirty-minute wait that seemed to last forever, the warden entered with his entourage and introduced himself. “The execution is still planned for one minute after midnight,” he said officially, as if he were discussing a routine meeting with his staff. “We’ve been told not to expect a last-minute call from the Governor’s office.” There was no hint of compassion.
Inez placed both hands over her face and began crying softly.
He continued, “The lawyers are busy with all the last-minute stuff they always do, but our lawyers tell us a reprieve is unlikely.”
Leon and Butch stared at the floor.
“We relax the rules a little for these events. You’re free to stay in here as long as you like, and we’ll bring in Raymond shortly. I’m sorry it’s come down to this. If I can do anything, just let me know.”
“Get those two jackasses outta here,” Butch said, pointing to the guards. “We’d like some privacy.”
The warden hesitated, looked around the room, then said, “No problem.” He left and took the guards with him. Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again, and Raymond bounced in with a big smile and went straight for his mother. After a long hug and a few tears, he bear-hugged his brothers and told them things were moving in their favor. They pulled the chairs close to the sofa and sat in a small huddle, with Raymond clutching his mother’s hands.
“We got these sumbitches on the run,” he said, still smiling, the picture of confidence. “My lawyers are filin’ a truckload of habeas corpus petitions as we speak, and they’re quite certain the U.S. Supreme Court will grant certiorari within the hour.”
“What does that mean?” Inez asked.
“Means the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case, and it’s an automatic delay. Means we’ll probably get a new trial in Ford County, though I’m not sure I want it there.”
He was wearing prison whites, no socks, and a pair of cheap rubber sandals. And it was clear that Raymond was packing on the pounds. His cheeks were round and puffy. A spare tire hung over his belt. They hadn’t seen him in almost six weeks, and his weight gain was noticeable. As usual, he prattled on about matters they did not understand and did not believe, at least as far as Butch and Leon were concerned. Raymond had been born with a vivid imagination, a quick tongue, and an innate inability to tell the truth.
The boy could lie.
“Got two dozen lawyers scramblin’ right now,” he said. “State can’t keep up with ‘em.”
“When do you hear somethin’ from the court?” Inez asked.
“Any minute now. I got federal judges in Jackson, in New Orleans, and in Washington sittin’ by, just ready to kick the state’s ass.”
After eleven years of having his ass thoroughly kicked by the state, it was difficult to believe that Raymond had now, at this late hour, managed to turn the tide. Leon and Butch nodded gravely, as if they bought this and believed that the inevitable was not about to happen. They had known for many years that their little brother had ambushed Coy and practically blown his head off with a stolen rifle. Raymond had told Butch years earlier, long after he’d landed on death row, that he’d been so stoned he could hardly remember the killing.
“Plus we got some big-shot lawyers in Jackson puttin’ pressure on the governor, just in case the Supreme Court chickens out again,” he said.
All three nodded, but no one mentioned the comments from the warden.
“You got my last letter, Momma? The one about the new lawyer?”
“Sure did. Read it drivin’ over here,” she said, nodding.
“I’d like to hire him as soon as we get an order for the new trial. He’s from Mobile, and he is one bad boy, lemme tell you. But we can talk about him later.”
“Sure, son.”
“Thank you. Look, Momma, I know this is hard, but you gotta have faith in me and my lawyers. I been runnin’ my own defense for a year now, bossin’ the lawyers around ‘cause that’s what you gotta do these days, and thangs’re gonna work out, Momma. Trust me.”
“I do, I do.”
Raymond jumped to his feet and thrust his arms high above, stretching with his eyes closed. “I’m into yoga now, did I tell y’all about it?”
All three nodded. His letter had been loaded with the details of his latest fascination. Over the years the family had suffered through Raymond’s breathless accounts of his conversion to Buddhism, then Isalm, then Hinduism, and his discoveries of meditation, kung fu, aerobics, weight lifting, fasting, and of course his quest to become a poet, novelist, singer, and musician. Little had been spared in his letters home.
Whatever the current passion, it was obvious that the fasting and aerobics had been abandoned. Raymond was so fat his britches strained in the seat.
“Did you bring the brownies?” he asked his mother. He loved her pecan brownies.
“No, honey, I’m sorry. I’ve been so tore up over this.”
“You always bring the brownies.”
“I’m sorry.”
Just like Raymond. Berating his mother over nothing just hours before his final walk.
“Well, don’t forget them again.”
“I won’t, honey.”
“And another thang. Tallulah is supposed to be here any minute. She’d love to meet y’all because y’all have always rejected her. She’s part of the family regardless of what y’all thank. As a favor at this unfortunate moment in my life, I ask that y’all accept her and be nice.”
Leon and Butch could not respond, but Inez managed to say, “Yes, dear.”
“When I get outta this damned place we’re movin’ to Hawaii and havin’ ten kids. No way I’m stayin’ in Mississippi, not after all this. So she’ll be part of the family from now on.”
For the first time Leon glanced at his watch with the thoug
ht that relief was just over two hours away. Butch was thinking, too, but his thoughts were far different. The idea of choking Raymond to death before the state could kill him posed an interesting dilemma.
Raymond suddenly stood and said, “Well, look, I gotta go meet with the lawyers. I’ll be back in half an hour.” He walked to the door, opened it, then thrust out his arms for the handcuffs. The door closed, and Inez said, “I guess thangs’re okay.”
“Look, Momma, we’d best listen to the warden,” Leon said.
“Raymond’s kiddin’ himself,” Butch added. She started crying again.
The chaplain was a Catholic priest, Father Leland, and he quietly introduced himself to the family. They asked him to have a seat.
“I’m deeply sorry about this,” he said somberly. “It’s the worst part of my job.”
Catholics were rare in Ford County, and the Graneys certainly didn’t know any. They looked suspiciously at the white collar around his neck.
“I’ve tried to talk to Raymond,” Father Leland continued. “But he has little interest in the Christian faith. Said he hadn’t been to church since he was a little boy.”
“I shoulda took him more,” Inez said, lamenting.
“In fact, he claims to be an atheist.”
“Lord, Lord.”
Of course, the three Graneys had known for some time that Raymond had renounced all religious beliefs and had proclaimed that there was no God. This, too, they had read about in excruciating detail in his lengthy letters.
“We’re not church people,” Leon admitted.
“I’ll be praying for you.”
“Raymond stole the deputy’s wife’s new car outta the church parking lot,” Butch said. “Did he tell you that?”
Delta Blues Page 33
