Weekends were spent with Roscoe. Ginny didn’t relish giving up that time to Dot, with whom she already spent every waking hour during the work week. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, Ginny muddled over how to couch her response.
“You probably don’t want me intruding on the time with your boyfriend, huh?” Dot asked. “Fine. We’ll work on the cookbook in the evenings and I’ll let you lovebirds have your time alone.”
“Well, I don’t see him much during the week.”
“Ginny, I said it was all right. Lester’s wife may not like me, but she looks forward to me taking care of the boys on the weekends to give her a break. Lord knows what holy hell would ensue if Granny Dot no longer cooked Sunday dinner for those little ones.”
She poured Ginny another half cup of coffee and topped it off with heavy cream. She’d been sneaking extra fat into everything Ginny ate or drank, even offering the skin from her portion of roasted chicken one evening.
Ginny poured the contents of the cup into a small saucepan and lit the burner beneath it. “You’ve cooled down the coffee by adding cold cream. It has to be hot.”
“It has to be hot,” Dot mimicked. “Well, as long as you drink it, I’m satisfied.”
They had another twenty minutes before they had to leave, so Dot started making piles of the recipes while Ginny sipped the now-scalding drink.
“What are you doing?” Ginny peered across the table.
“Sorting by type of recipe. You know, main dish, side dish, dessert.”
“Uh-huh. Then what’s that pile?” She pointed to a few pieces of paper at the edge of the table.
“Those are the discards,” Dot said.
Dot had appointed herself as lead on the cookbook project just as she’d done with the house renovations. Roscoe’s words came back to Ginny. She was kind of bossy, but we settled into our roles.
Her enthusiasm was charming, but she couldn’t steamroll Ginny, who leaned across the table and grabbed the recipes. She was curious as to why Dot had deemed them unworthy. Scanning them quickly, Ginny added each to an already existing pile. For whatever reason, Dot weeded out the recipes served to the death row inmates.
* * *
Their work in the prison kitchen had a rhythm to it. Once in that groove, nothing could throw them off course. Problems cropped up, to be sure, but they met each head-on and rarely became flustered. The challenges in a kitchen, though, were by their nature fixable. Not enough milk? Use broth or water. Produce from the prison fields rotten? Serve something that wasn’t yet spoiled. Supplies running low? Serve half rations.
Roscoe’s afternoon visit to the kitchen set off an alarm in Ginny, as if a problem without an easy fix was about to upset the delicate balance. She gripped her apron.
“Afternoon, you two.” He nodded in Dot’s direction. “Ginny, can I speak with you in the hall?”
Knowing Dot would be tempted to listen, Ginny pulled Roscoe’s arm until they were safely out of earshot.
“I had a bad feeling when you showed up. What is it?” she asked.
“Samuel LeBoux’s grandmother called earlier. She and Sam’s girlfriend would like to visit his grave today.”
It wasn’t that Ginny put the incident with Samuel behind her. That night—the way he died—would be with her forever, as would her guilt she’d not followed through with what Aida and Eileen had asked of her. But she never imagined a scenario that would bring them face-to-face again.
“I don’t know if I can—”
“I’m going to meet with them. Not you,” he said.
“But they asked for me, right?”
Roscoe chewed on the skin of his thumb. “It doesn’t matter. It’s best if I show them the grave. I’ll make an excuse for you.”
“They’ll suspect something’s wrong if I’m not there.” Ginny tried to make sense of the worry lines creasing his forehead. “What? You think I’m not stable enough?”
“Now, Ginny . . . I didn’t say that. But it’s too risky. I’m already going have to lie to them. Best not to drag you into it.”
“I won’t tell them Samuel killed himself. I just want to be there.”
Roscoe looked puzzled. “Sam didn’t kill himself. I thought you knew.”
Her mind conjured the images that never leave her, not even in her sleep: the gore, the torn flesh at Samuel’s throat, the vacancy in his eyes as he slumped into Roscoe’s arms.
“I saw him. He killed himself because of me.”
“Let’s go to my office,” he said. “We need to talk.”
* * *
Roscoe asked Tim to hold all calls and not to disturb them under any circumstances. His brusque orders only heightened her confusion.
“I know what I saw, Roscoe.”
“When I sat with you, all those nights, I was sure you were listening,” he said. “I told you John staunched the blood with his shirt and that we got Sam to the infirmary in time.”
“He lived?”
“Oh, Ginny. You know better. We rescheduled the execution for the following week. He was stitched up and mended just enough for us to carry out the sentence.”
He explained that John and another guard had helped him clean up the room. Then he’d hurried back to his quarters to change clothes.
Ginny shook her head, unable to process such horrific news. Roscoe used his thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“God, Ginny. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but Sam’s blood was everywhere,” he said, shuddering. “I swear I kept seeing traces of it in the sink and around the tub no matter how many times I cleaned it.”
He said when a member of the press and some of the other guards showed up for the execution later that evening, he’d told them there’d been a problem with the electric chair and the execution would be rescheduled.
“You know John’s as loyal as can be, but that goddamned Wally . . . I had to bribe him to keep his mouth shut,” Roscoe said. “It would have been my head if the prison board found out.”
“Will the bribe work?” Ginny snuffled back her tears, now worried about what would happen to Roscoe if Wally talked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “No telling. Our differences run deep, from back in the day when your daddy and I were guards.”
Because of the severity of Samuel’s wounds, Roscoe said he had to call in a doctor from New Orleans. Still one more thread that, once pulled, could be his undoing.
Ginny’s head felt impacted from the crying and she breathed through her mouth. Roscoe handed her his handkerchief.
“It was better for me—for us—that Sam went to the electric chair,” he said. “If he died from the neck wounds, there’d have been an investigation. We’d have both been fired.”
Even though he was right, it seemed unusually cruel to save a man only to kill him later.
“Surely it was the longest week of that boy’s life,” she said. “How alone and angry and frightened he must have felt.”
Roscoe slumped back in his chair. “The wound to Sam’s neck made eating impossible, so he’d grown extremely weak. Even so, he was calm at the end. I sat with him often, reading Scriptures.”
Because her daddy’s killer had struggled vigorously against his restraints and hollered out his innocence, Ginny’s child mind was certain all death row inmates acted the same way right before the levers were pulled. After she started working at the prison, this theory was proved wrong. Sure, some men did struggle, but others just closed their eyes and wept quietly. Still others fixed their mouths into a hard, tight line. Their eyes shone with anger, maybe at the State of Louisiana or themselves.
“Mrs. LeBoux called a couple times asking to see the grave. I said you were visiting an ill family member and I’d meet her. She insisted on waiting until you were back.”
“I’m back.” Not physically or emotionally strong. Not rested. But she was back.
“It’s a bad idea, but I won’t stop you,” he said. “Go splash some water on your face and blow your nose. They’ll be here with
in the hour.”
She nodded and returned to the kitchen to let Dot know she’d be out the rest of the day.
* * *
Aida shuffled down the hallway toward Roscoe’s office. Arthritis stooped her shoulders and gnarled her fingers. She gripped a cane in one hand while Samuel’s girlfriend, Eileen, grasped her elbow. They’d left the baby at home with Samuel’s sisters. Aida looked decades older than she had the last time Ginny had seen her, when she moved so easily about her kitchen and porch.
Ginny hugged her. The robust embrace was that of the woman she’d met back in Jonesville. Eileen was still too shy to accept a handshake. Roscoe held his hat instead of offering his hand to either of the women.
“This is Warden Simms,” Ginny said to them. “He’ll escort us to the cemetery.”
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said.
Aida stared at Roscoe a good long time; long enough to make him shift his feet uncomfortably. Ginny wondered what Aida hoped to glean from his face. It was leathered by sun and time and a grueling job, and it wasn’t one that gave up truths easily.
“We can all fit in my car,” Ginny said, ending the awkward exchange.
Roscoe walked a few steps ahead, stopping several times to allow them to catch up. Ginny worried Aida might not be physically up to walking in the cemetery. Eileen saw the worry in her face and whispered, “She’ll do just fine.”
Once in the car, Roscoe was more quiet than usual. He started to chew at his thumb, then seemed to think better of it. Ginny felt she had to fill the silence, so she described how inmates are involved with the funeral proceedings, from building the pine coffins to giving the eulogies.
“The coffin is transported via a horse-drawn carriage,” Ginny added. “And several inmates walk beside, singing hymns.”
She wanted them to know how poignant and solemn the processions to the cemetery had become over the years. The inmates took the send-off of their brothers seriously and wanted no involvement of prison personnel. Her description of this custom felt inadequate and a disguised apology for the state electrocuting their loved one.
Eileen wept freely, but Aida stared out the window, her lip movements almost imperceptible. Ginny guessed she was praying. When the car stopped, Aida looked confused, as if roused from a nap.
Roscoe led the way to Samuel’s grave, although a marker hadn’t been placed there yet. The ground was sunken slightly. Rains from the recent tropical storm had also cut deep channels in the dirt walkways between the rows of graves. Its ugliness shamed Ginny.
“Why’s it look like that?” Eileen asked.
“The ground is settling above the coffin, ma’am,” Roscoe said. “We’ll fill in with more dirt soon. And add a stone cross like the other graves have.”
Aida and Eileen held each other for several minutes, not saying a word. Roscoe and Ginny stepped back a few feet. It felt natural to reach for him, but he put both his hands in his pockets, reminding Ginny that she was his employee.
“Mrs. LeBoux? Miss Eileen? Why don’t we go back to my office,” Roscoe suggested. “I’m sure you have some questions.”
Ginny shot him an angry look for interrupting their solitude, but Aida agreed it was a good idea; that indeed, she had questions.
* * *
Tim brought four cups of coffee into Roscoe’s office.
Roscoe waved his off. “Acid’s getting to my stomach,” he said. “Shall we get started?”
Ginny felt a slight pang that she didn’t know this small thing about Roscoe—and whether she was the cause of the physical distress.
Eileen clearly felt ill at ease, but questions played across her face. Ginny took her hand and said she should feel comfortable saying anything she liked.
“I want to ask about Thaddeus . . . what Sam said when you told him he had a son.”
Ginny’s stomach lurched as she tried to formulate a believable lie. She jumped when Roscoe spoke for her.
“I told Sam about his son, and he was right glad to hear the news,” he said. “We were reading together from the Bible. A passage about Jesus and the little children. His hope was the boy might know of him one day, but not about his crime.”
Eileen’s relief was visible, but she asked why Ginny hadn’t been the one to show Sam the photo.
Ginny was reeling from Roscoe’s decision to lie, so he spoke for her again. “Ginny was in Florida with her sick aunt. I promised her I’d tell him.”
“Then you didn’t prepare the stew?” Aida turned her question to Ginny.
“I did make the stew . . . and left instructions for my kitchen helper to bring it over,” she lied. “But Sam wasn’t feeling well and asked for plain toast. You can imagine it’s sometimes difficult for the men to eat before.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Aida said. “We appreciate you trying, Ginny. I could tell you had good intentions. You wanted to do something special for Sam.”
Perspiration ran down Ginny’s back and the coffee now seemed ludicrous on such a hot afternoon. The office was stifling despite the efforts of the small, metal fan rotating in the corner. She needed to get out of there before the truth escaped her lips in a torrent.
“We worried when we didn’t hear from you, Ginny,” Eileen said. “You promised to tell us Sam’s last words. We didn’t know what happened.”
“I left so suddenly for Florida . . . my aunt, you know . . . she was dying and I had to drive my mama. I’m sorry. I should’ve called . . . or wrote.” The lies tumbled from her mouth, the babbling almost unstoppable.
“Ginny, looks like the afternoon heat got to you,” Roscoe said, standing. “Why don’t you get some air? I’ll show our guests to their car.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, wiping her face. “Aida . . . Eileen . . . I’m sorry about Samuel. I really am.”
Ginny ran from the room and any other questions they could ask.
In her flustered state, she’d gone to the women’s barracks, forgetting that all her things had been moved to her childhood home. Ginny’s insides roiled with nausea and her tongue was dry and thick in her mouth, but she managed to get to the house. She stood over the kitchen sink, splashing water over her face and chest, then put her mouth near the faucet to try to quench the ungodly thirst. Ginny gulped and gulped, but her tongue still felt like sandpaper.
The faucet continued to run as she vomited the water into the sink.
* * *
She’d been lying in the bed for three hours, sleep escaping her. It was dark before Roscoe came to the house. He pulled the vanity chair to the bedside, but didn’t turn on the lamp.
“You all right?” He laid a hand on her hip.
“We lied to them. About Sam’s son.”
“I didn’t lie about Thaddeus,” he said. “I told Sam.”
She sat up in bed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“God, Ginny. I did. I told you lots of things when you were holed up in your room.”
Some of that month was crystal clear, like the heated conversations between her mama and Roscoe. But most of that time was lost to her forever. Her inability to recall his words seemed to cause him a deep sadness.
“Sam asked me to give you a message,” he continued. “I guess you don’t remember that either?”
“No! Tell me what he said, Roscoe.” Her heart would surely burst waiting for an answer.
“He said he forgave you for bringing the supper. He didn’t want you to carry that night with you the rest of your life.”
The news unleased the unspoken grief that had pressed against her heart, threatening to suffocate her all this time. Roscoe scooped her into his lap and cradled her gently. Except for an occasional “shhh,” he let Ginny cry long into the night.
Horace Beauchamp
Inmate Number 4603
Crime: Murder
Execution Date: December 22, 1956
Horace likes that she calls him Mr. Beauchamp. He supposes it’s ’cause he’s the oldest man to be executed at Greenmount.
Like that deserves some kind of respect.
“We’ve talked about a few things you might like,” she says to him. “Have you decided?”
He’s known for a long while that he wants a fruit-and-nut cake like his mama baked at Christmas when he was just a little thing. But Horace enjoys Miss Polk’s company, so he’s been pretending to be indecisive. She’s come to call on him three times, but he knows he’s pushing his luck. Guards aren’t likely to let her come again.
“I hate that they scheduled an execution so close to Christmas.” She seems awful tired. Sad, too.
“As good a time as any. Wouldn’t make a bit of difference to me if it was the Fourth of July,” he says.
But it does matter to Horace. Even though he’s seventy-nine years old, he remembers Christmases long past. He wants those memories to be like pieces of hard candy; each recollection so sweet it lingers on his tongue.
Knowing you’re meeting your Maker in a few days makes it hard to concentrate on much else. Even though his childhood has faded mostly into shadow, a few details still shine through: the small cedar tree in the front yard his mama would decorate with bits of string, pinecones, and blue jay feathers; and the woolen sock that served as a stocking—one so worn out it couldn’t be mended anymore. On Christmas morning, it’d be stuffed with an apple, a handful of walnuts, and two or three pieces of licorice.
For three straight years—he can’t remember which exactly—his mama worked as a cook for a French family in the Quarter. The missus there gave small loaves of fruit-and-nut cake as gifts to the neighbors. His mama would bring home those that were left to bake a little too long; those whose edges were so burnt that even soaking with brandy wouldn’t bring them back to life.
“I made up my mind, miss,” he finally says. “It’s fruitcake I’d like.”
She smiles as if she’s looking straight into his mind and sharing the recollection with him. She’s there, right beside him on the front stoop, nibbling the small pieces to make them last. She shares the disappointment that twists in his gut when he realizes he’s eaten too quickly. She also shares the anger he feels when he learns his mama’s been let go from the job that made those cakes possible.
The Last Suppers Page 13
