Infinite Hope

by Anthony Graves

  “What do you have in the bag?” she asked Yolanda as we came through the door with our Jack in the Box dinners.

  “Go ahead and focus on those fish sticks,” I teased, shooing her away. “Where’s Arthur, anyway?”

  She pointed to the back room, where I found my brother on the phone, cooing like one of those old-time Vegas crooners, singing to some girl on the other end. He laughed as he looked up to see me, knowing I had caught him in the act. He raised one hand to cover the phone and put his finger to his mouth as if to ask for quiet.

  I offered him some of my steak sandwich as I started to sing, “Look at me, I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree,” mimicking Johnny Mathis loud enough for the woman on the other end to hear.

  The next thing I knew, I was talking to her. She said her name was Kay and that Johnny Mathis was her favorite. We talked for a short time—mostly about nothing—before I handed the phone back to my brother and left the room, singing the Mathis tune at the top of my lungs. I reported back to the girls what I’d just seen and heard, and we shared a laugh at Arthur’s expense.

  The three of us talked until a little after midnight, when someone knocked at the apartment door. My sister answered, letting in a neighbor, Albert Wright. Albert had gone by the nickname Squeaky since we were little kids. Squeaky had come by to borrow some bread from my sister after getting a late-night urge to fry chicken. He also asked to use the phone. In the back room, Arthur let him make his call, after which Albert left with his two slices of bread. It was late, close to 2 a.m., when my sister finally retired to her room, giving me and Yolanda some privacy in the front room. We lay on a pallet on the floor, not expecting much more from our long day and late night; we had each other and some quiet now, and that was enough for us.

  Little did I know that something horrible was happening that night some thirty miles from where we lay, something that would soon change everything for me.

  News of the murders traveled quickly in the region, and it wasn’t long until we got word about what happened. My sister Dietrich was the first to hear the grim details, learning about it early the next morning in a call from my aunt Chee Chee. She woke me up to remind me that my aunt needed a ride to work. I had been borrowing her car after mine was repossessed due to missed payments—a consequence of spending nights in the hospital with my oldest son, Terrell, then twelve years old, which I’d prioritized over holding small jobs to keep the car on the road. Terrell was born with sickle-cell anemia, and every time he got sick I’d be right there at the hospital with him. That was my main focus. My other two sons, Terrance (then nine) and Alex (then eight), luckily had not inherited the disease. But I was at the hospital often with Terrell. My aunt’s car was what was getting me there at the time. Driving my aunt to work was part of the arrangement, and I knew Chee Chee was calling to make sure I wasn’t running late.

  “Did you hear what happened up in Somerville last night?” my sister asked in the way someone shares the latest gossip.

  “No, what?” I asked.

  “A family got murdered, and whoever did it put the house on fire.”

  I was still half-asleep, but replied that whoever committed a crime like that needed their ass kicked. I rolled back over next to Yolanda to squeeze the last few minutes of sleep out of the morning before telling her that we needed to pick up my aunt.

  Meanwhile, fear and outrage were already beginning to choke the town of Somerville. With a population of just over fifteen hundred citizens, it was far from a hotbed of crime and had certainly never seen a murder of this magnitude. The whole town wanted justice, and justice meant holding someone—anyone—responsible for the act. The rush to identify the killer even infected the mayor, who came out in the papers the following day and stated that whoever committed the murders didn’t deserve a trial. They should be caught and hanged, she insisted. That’s the way law enforcement pursued the case.

  In small towns like Somerville, funerals are communal events, and the local news reports provide abundant details. It had been a few days since the tragedy, and by now six caskets were laid out in the local gymnasium for all to see what had been done. Among the grievers was reported to be a man named Robert Carter, the father of one of the children murdered in the home. My family would soon come to realize that this was the same Robert Carter who had recently married our cousin Cookie. Carter showed up bandaged like a mummy, his head wrapped in white cloth as if to cover severe burns. The Texas Rangers took notice, and Carter instantly became a suspect. The Rangers followed Carter to his home after the funeral. When they asked if they could have a chat, he agreed. That chat turned into fourteen hours of interrogation at the local office of the Department of Public Safety.

  No one knows exactly what was said during those fourteen hours, and I would never receive any notes or recordings taken during the interrogation, if any existed. The Rangers undoubtedly asked Carter why he’d shown up in bandages to the funeral of his burned child. They would question his odd reactions to it all. Above all, they would wonder whether he’d acted alone. What Carter said in his interrogation changed my entire life: he fingered me as his accomplice, placing me at the heart of a crime scene that I wouldn’t have been able to find if my very life depended on it.

  AUGUST 23, 1992:

  FIVE DAYS AFTER THE MURDERS

  A KNOCK ON MY mother’s front door disrupted the midmorning silence. It was her next-door neighbor Mike with news that made me uneasy.

  “Hey, man, the police are looking for you,” he said.

  At first I didn’t think I’d heard him right. We spoke for a few moments, and I thanked him for the information, then closed the door, perplexed.

  My mind raced as I tried to figure out just what it might be about.

  I put on a shirt and walked downstairs just in time to see a police cruiser pull up outside my mother’s apartment. As I stood there out front, I immediately recognized the officer as a longtime veteran of the local force. The expression on his face as he approached was stern. His uniform gave his name: GARCIA.

  “What’s your name?” Officer Garcia asked.

  “I’m Anthony Graves,” I responded.

  “Let’s see some ID, Graves,” he said.

  I reached into my back pocket to retrieve my wallet and showed the officer my driver’s license. He surveyed it, then explained that he had been ordered to pick me up and take me to the police station to answer some questions. Even though I wasn’t under arrest at this moment, I felt like I had no choice, but that didn’t bother me much as I had nothing to hide.

  Mike, my mother’s neighbor, had come outside to see what was happening, and by then Officer Garcia had asked me to put my hands behind my back. Cold and unforgiving steel pinched my wrists as my arms twisted into an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position.

  “Officer, can you just tell me what’s going on?” I pleaded.

  “The officers will talk to you when we get to the station,” he repeated.

  I called out to Mike, asking him to tell my mom what had happened when she got home and to let her know I should be right back.

  The ride through my hometown to the nearby Washington County Jail was quiet, except for when the cruiser radio came on. I heard nondescript voices mumbling, and I wondered how much of the conversation was about me. When we pulled up to a red light, another car pulled tight to our right. As I looked over, the driver peered into the squad car to see who was in the backseat. What must he have thought of me? It wouldn’t be the last time I was paraded through town and put on display for all to see. My face began to burn with embarrassment and confusion. I still didn’t know why I was being “taken downtown for questioning,” in handcuffs no less, but I didn’t imagine that the reason much mattered to the people watching my head bob above the window line of that cruiser.

  Once inside the police station, I was led to the booking room, a windowless space with drab walls and chipping paint. Officer Garcia released the handcuffs and asked me to empty my pockets. I plan
ted myself on a cold bench and placed on the countertop a pack of Certs, my wallet, my keys, and a broken silver chain.

  “Can you tell me why I’m here?” I asked.

  “Some Rangers are coming to talk to you. They’ll let you know why you’re here.” I was about to meet the Texas Rangers, the division of Texas law enforcement based out of Austin, who had statewide jurisdiction to investigate crimes. Apparently the local officers had some help on this one.

  A parade of impressively uniformed authorities walked in and out of the room, ignoring my requests for information. At least twenty minutes passed before four Texas Rangers and a magistrate walked into the booking room and turned their attention to me.

  “Are you Anthony Graves?” one of the Rangers asked. That question had suddenly become a familiar one and a little more unsettling than when it was asked the first time that morning.

  “Yes, sir, that’s me,” I said.

  The Ranger ordered me to stand up. When I stood, the magistrate began to speak, catching me by surprise.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” she said bluntly. “Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, then one will be appointed to you.”

  I listened, my concern mounting, as the magistrate continued to read me my rights. I heard the words coming from her mouth, but nothing she said answered the question of why I was there in the first place.

  “You have been charged with capital murder,” the magistrate continued. “You have no bond.”

  “Capital murder?” I asked flatly, as something like vertigo began to take hold. “Who? Me?” I stuttered, struggling to believe what I had just been told, repeating the word “who” in a punch-drunk stupor. The officer assured me that I’d have a chance to talk to other officers when they arrived.

  “Man, you guys are making a big mistake. I’ve never even shot a gun in my life!” I said, not knowing that the actual crime had involved a hammer, a knife, a gun, and some gasoline. I responded that way because I heard the word “murder,” and to me that implied a gun, but I had no idea what they were actually talking about. I urged the officers to reconsider, wanting to believe that as soon as they realized it was all an honest misunderstanding, everything would be OK.

  While the historic 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona required that police read a person his or her rights before questioning them in custody, by no means did Miranda guarantee due process for an accused man seeking justice. In practice, the rules on the street are made by the cops, definitely not by the arrested, and not even by the courts. Reading me my rights was not enough to ensure that all the i’s had been dotted and the t’s crossed.

  I signed a document the magistrate presented to me saying I had been read those rights. This would protect police and embolden prosecutors in case I happened to say something stupid in the days leading up to a trial. I proceeded to pace back and forth across the booking room, as if movement might awaken me from this bad dream. The officers watching me tap myself repeatedly on the side of the head as I tried to make sense of it all probably thought I was crazy. My thoughts raced as my mind flooded with fear and disbelief. How could law enforcement just come to my mother’s apartment and take me to jail for something I had nothing to do with?

  “Mr. Graves, would you like to talk to us?” a Ranger finally asked. Of course I would, I told him. He led me out of the booking room and down a hall, his hand on my back as we turned a corner and walked to the interrogation room.

  Up to that point, I had been treated like a criminal, but I hadn’t yet been treated like a violent criminal. I learned the difference quickly.

  Lift up your shirt. Turn around. The orders were delivered harshly and fast.

  “What are those spots on your back?” one Ranger asked.

  “It’s just a skin fungus,” I assured them. Later I would understand that they had been looking for burn marks. I learned then that little things that might otherwise seem meaningless can take on a life of their own in a murder investigation. The slightest burn might have confirmed for them my guilt. Eventually, a Ranger ordered me to take a seat. I still was not in handcuffs, which may have been another police tactic to make me relax and start confessing what they wanted to hear, even though I couldn’t say what I didn’t know.

  “You might as well tell us everything,” he said. “Robert has already told us, and he’s putting everything on you.”

  “Robert who?” I responded. It was the first time I had heard the name of the man who had implicated me in this heinous crime.

  “You know Robert,” the Ranger said.

  “Sir, I know several Roberts,” I replied.

  “Robert Carter,” one of the officers offered after a pause. I didn’t immediately recognize the last name. “Carter . . . Carter . . . Carter,” I repeated to myself. Suddenly it dawned on me. I remembered a conversation between my mom and sister. My second cousin Cookie had recently married a young man named Robert Carter. Relief washed over my face as I smiled on the inside. If we were talking about the same guy, then surely this would all be cleared up soon. “That guy doesn’t even know me,” I told the Rangers. “Are you sure he said Anthony Graves?”

  “He said your name,” one of the Rangers responded. “And he told us all that you did it.”

  “I don’t believe him,” another added. “I think he’s lying. I believe he did it, but I need you to tell us everything that happened.”

  I didn’t know what to think. Here, members of the Texas Rangers had just told me that a man being held for the murder of six people had put the crime on me. But they also said that they didn’t believe him. They wanted information from me that I did not have. All I could tell them was the truth.

  “Sir, I don’t know anything about him, and he doesn’t know me,” I said. “Ask that man anything about me. He can’t even tell you my nickname on the streets!”

  Lieutenant Earl Pearson was a tall, light-skinned black man who I guessed was in his late forties or early fifties. He towered over the room and carried himself as if he knew it. About an hour into the interrogation, one of the Rangers asked whether I’d be more comfortable speaking to Pearson.

  “Sir, no one has to go anywhere,” I said. “I have nothing at all to hide from any of you.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Graves,” he responded. “We’re going to go out of the room and let you talk with the black Ranger.” I was taken aback by the casual way he said this. Of course, I’d recognized immediately that I was surrounded by a team of mostly white law enforcement officials, and I knew too well the reality of rural Texas and how race figured in the state’s criminal justice system. Still, the Ranger’s assumption that I would be more comfortable talking to Lieutenant Pearson because he was black took me by surprise, even though he was right. The four white Rangers left the room as Pearson began to talk.

  “Son, you’re in a lot of trouble, and the only way I can help you is if you tell me everything. Is it OK if I turn this recorder on?”

  “Go ahead, you can turn it on,” I replied. I hoped that Pearson would be sympathetic to my plight. “Sir, are you sure that this guy said my name? I’m telling you the truth—he doesn’t even know me.”

  “He said your name,” Pearson said in a fatherly tone, like the wise old black characters you see in movies advising white characters in trouble. “I want to help you, but you have to tell me everything. The state is going to go after the death penalty in this case, and you can help yourself out by cooperating with me.” It was the first time I had heard mention of the death penalty and the first time in this case that I’d been offered something in exchange for compromising the truth. I assured the Ranger that I wanted to cooperate but that I didn’t know anything about the crime.

  “I’m willing to take a lie-detector test, a truth-serum test, or whatever test you want me to take,” I told him determinedly.

  He looked at me carefully, considering the offer. “Let me make a call and see if I can
set up a lie-detector test,” he said. “We’ll have to take you down to Houston to get it done.”

  The Rangers arranged with the local jailer to put me in a holding cell while the folks in Houston set things up.

  The cell was quiet, and I waited there alone. Once the steel door shut behind me, I could see no one and no one could see me. The cell was small, maybe eight feet by ten feet, with dull, neutral walls. A small security window had been cut into the door so that officers doing their security checks could open the door to the pan hole. I was surprised by how well the cell shut out the notorious Texas summer heat. I felt like I’d been placed in a large freezer, with nothing but a cheap, thin blanket made of rough fabric and a plastic pillow that was as comfortless as the cell. Like most everything else in the cell, the bunk was made of hard, cold metal as cold as the floor. I sat on the bed, waiting for someone to come get me. It was my first experience with solitary confinement.

  The time spent alone was disorienting; it was difficult to keep track of time. A couple of hours must have passed when I heard the slot in my door open and an officer call my name.

  “Graves, come over here so I can put these handcuffs on you,” he said. “They’re here to get you.”

  I was eager as I placed my hands to the slot, almost numb to the touch of steel on my skin after spending the last few hours in an icebox. I just wanted to take the polygraph test and get this over with. I had plans with Yolanda that night, and I wasn’t one to break a date.