The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  When she heard a footstep behind her, Molly jumped and spun around.

  “Well,” Jo Beth said, “was it him?”

  “Huh?”

  “David Serrano—was it him?”

  “Oh. Yes, it was.”

  “Is that Dad out there in the patrol car?”

  Molly looked out again as if she wasn’t sure who it was. “Oh, yes,” she said, “it is.”

  chapter 12

  Lying makes your nose grow long—

  Lying is wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Lying keeps them guessing.

  Lying is a blessing.

  Everybody lies,

  Cries,

  Dies.

  LOUIE BRONK

  Death Row, Ellis I Unit,

  Huntsville, Texas

  Molly Cates woke with a gasp, her head jangling. It was the goddamned telephone ringing—surely the worst sound in the world to wake up to. She reached up and fumbled it down from the shelf in the headboard. “Hello.”

  “Mom, have you seen the morning paper yet?” Jo Beth’s voice sounded breathless.

  “Jo Beth. No, I just woke up. Why? What’s it—”

  “Just go get it and read the article on the front page of the City-State section in the Patriot. Listen, I’m late for a meeting. I’ll call you when I get out.”

  Molly put the phone down, exhaled a long breath, and sank back to the pillow for a minute to regulate her breathing. The David Serrano murder probably wouldn’t have made it into this edition of the paper. Whatever this was, she knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  She got up and threw on her old terry-cloth robe. Then she put some coffee on to perk, so she could fortify herself while she read whatever it was.

  She hurried out and scooped up both papers—the New York Times in its blue plastic bag and the Austin American-Patriot in the clear one—and stripped the bags off on her way inside.

  Back in the kitchen, she poured a mug of coffee and pulled out the City-State section. The headline stopped her dead. With the cup poised at her lip, she read it one word at a time to see if she’d gotten it right at first glance. “BRONK RECANTS CONFESSION IN 1982 MURDER.” She felt a slow churning in the pit of her stomach. She sat down and proceeded to read the article:

  Huntsville, Sept. 24 (AP) Convicted serial killer Louie Bronk claimed today from his death-row cell that he lied eleven years ago when he confessed to the 1982 slaying in Austin of Andrea “Tiny” McFarland. Bronk is scheduled to die here Tuesday by lethal injection for the robbery-slaying of the thirty-seven-year-old woman, who was shot to death outside her Northwest Austin home.

  Bronk, 48, was convicted by a Travis County jury of capital murder in 1983 and sentenced to death. He is believed to be the notorious Texas Scalper who during a five-year period from 1977 to 1982 murdered as many as fifteen women along the Interstate 35 corridor. Beside his conviction in the McFarland murder, he has been convicted of four other murders in Texas—Greta Huff in San Marcos, Rosa Morales in Corpus Christi, Candice Hargrave in Waco, and Lizette Pachullo in Denton. In each case he received a sentence of life imprisonment.

  Bronk has also confessed to at least fifty other murders in twelve states, but many of those confessions have been shown to be invalid.

  Bronk made his statement Thursday through Texas Prison Ministries founder Adeline Dodgin, whom Bronk calls his spiritual adviser and best friend.

  Bronk’s attorney, Tanya Klein of the Texas Assistance Center, who has been handling Bronk’s appeals, was out of town and unavailable for comment.

  In his handwritten statement, Bronk said he was confused and under severe pressure when he made the confession. He claimed that officials who questioned him supplied him with enough information about the crime that he was able to confess to it convincingly.

  Bronk said that the reason he has waited until now to recant the confession is that he has recently become a Christian and wants to set the record straight before he dies. “I know now that the only way to make up for the bad things I done is to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. God as my witness, I didn’t never even set eyes on Mrs. McFarland. I been reborn in Christ and I want to live whatever is left of life to me as a real Christian. That’s why I got to tell the truth about it now.

  “The book that was wrote about the murder is totally false,” Bronk also said in his statement, referring to the recently published Catton Press book about the crime, Sweating Blood, by Lone Star Monthly writer Molly Cates. “At that time I wasn’t a Christian and I did like to spin a story, so I gave that lady who wrote the book a long tall tale. She just believed everything I told her and put it in that book but none of it is true. She encouraged me to tell that pack of lies. I can’t believe in this country you can get lies printed like that.”

  Molly clenched her teeth and read on:

  Travis County District Attorney Stan Heffernan, an assistant DA at the time, prosecuted the case. Asked about Bronk’s recanting of his confession, Heffernan said, “This is just the sort of thing I would expect from Mr. Bronk, who enjoys manipulating the media. Here at the eleventh hour, with his appeals running out, Mr. Bronk is merely making a desperate gesture.”

  When questioned about the murder Wednesday of Georgia McFarland, 48, the second wife of Charles Clegg McFarland, whose first wife Bronk was convicted of murdering, Heffernan said Austin Police were actively following up several leads.

  Molly let the paper fall to the table. That perverse, lying son of a bitch! After all his talk about going down with dignity and not giving in to the red scream. The macho code on death row dictated that when your time came, you went stoically. The worst thing was to give in to the red scream—to give voice to the terror of the execution chamber. Now here he was whimpering and getting ready to scream the red scream.

  But why on earth should she be surprised? Like her daddy used to say, “Lie down with dogs, darlin’, and you get up with fleas.”

  When she had decided to do the follow-up interviews with Louie and include some of the material in her book, everyone had advised against it. Her editor, her agent, Richard, Jo Beth—they had all warned that he was too crazy, too unreliable a source. And she hadn’t really needed it; there was plenty of information available in the trial transcripts, case reports, and interviews.

  But she had been determined to hear about it in his own words and write part of the story from his point of view.

  She picked up her coffee cup and brought it to her lips. Her stomach gave a little heave of protest before she could drink. She dumped the coffee out into the sink and watched it run down the stainless-steel drain.

  Why was she feeling so queasy over this? Louie was a liar making a last-ditch effort as the reality of his approaching death hit him. No one was likely to take anything he said seriously. If she was going to get upset over a little heat like this she ought to write about charity balls or the golden-cheeked warbler.

  She glanced at the clock on the oven. It was seven-thirty and she had an appointment at eight-thirty with Alison McFarland. This development was all the more reason to get going on the story: a killer making a last-minute repudiation of the confession that got him convicted—this was good stuff. It would make a much better story. She needed to keep that in mind.

  Molly took a long hot shower and put on what amounted to her working uniform: tan slacks, a white T-shirt, and an orange linen blazer she liked because it was supposed to look wrinkled and did. After she was dressed, she felt slightly better, but her stomach was still roiling.

  She looked in her Day-Timer for the instructions to Alison McFarland’s house in South Austin. Then she picked up her notebook and little Panasonic tape recorder, checking to be sure there was a tape in it.

  Molly drove through the seedy old South Austin neighborhood to the tiny frame bungalow at 1202 Monroe where Alison McFarland lived with Mark Redinger. The roof was patched in places. Tarpaper sheets hung raggedly over the edges, and the sidewalk in front of the house had undergone an upheaval w
here the roots of an old oak had cracked and lifted it. This sure was a long way from her daddy’s modern mansion on the hill.

  As she parked in front of the house, Molly was glad to see the red Toyota in the driveway. Yesterday Alison had looked so distraught Molly had wondered if she was going to keep the appointment. And by now she’d probably heard about David Serrano; she could well be a basket case.

  Molly walked up and rang the bell. She frowned when she saw that the door was standing open and tried to peer in through the warped aluminum screen door. God, if the murders of two people who were close to you couldn’t get you to lock your doors, what could?

  Alison McFarland’s bare feet made absolutely no noise; suddenly she just materialized on the other side of the screen. She wore cutoff jeans that looked like they’d been chewed off rather than cut, leaving a stringy fringe of denim threads hanging down her thin pale thighs. She opened the screen door and held it for Molly. “Mrs. Cates, did you hear about David?” There was a shrill edge to her voice.

  “Yes, I did. And I’m so sorry. How did you hear?” In the morning light that streamed in through the open door the girl’s face was milky pale. Under her eyes the circles looked like week-old bruises.

  “My father just called. The police called him real early this morning. They want to talk to all of us about David. I just called down to the police station to tell them about the lunch date he missed with me yesterday. Remember when I saw you at the hospital?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And Mark was going to stop by the police station after running to tell them about when we saw him last.”

  “When was that, Alison?”

  “Monday night. He came over and the three of us went out for pizza.”

  “The three of you? You, David, and Mark?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you say Mark had seen David after that?”

  “No. They were going to go running and out for a drink Tuesday night, but David called and canceled it.” She crossed her arms tight over her thin chest. “And here I was feeling annoyed yesterday that he didn’t show up.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “He was probably already dead. God. This is like some nightmare that doesn’t ever end.”

  Keeping her eyes shut, she said, “And I saw the article in this morning’s paper—the one about Louie Bronk saying he didn’t do it. I feel like the whole world’s collapsing.”

  Molly rested a hand on her shoulder and felt a tremor under her hand.

  Alison turned and led the way into a stuffy dark living room furnished with a few mismatched chairs and a card table with a goose-necked lamp. She sat at the table, which was covered with open books and loose papers, and started to chew on a thumbnail. When she looked up and saw Molly watching, she stopped. “Sit down. Please.”

  Molly chose the chair closest to Alison.

  “I just don’t know what to think now.” Alison’s voice sounded close to tears. “It’s too much.”

  “I can see how you’d feel overwhelmed right now, Alison. And I see you’re trying to study.”

  “Have to—paper due,” the girl said, glancing down at the books on the table. “Here I was looking forward to this whole awful thing about my mother finally being over. And it all starts up again. Georgia gets killed. And then David. And now with him—you know, Louie Bronk—saying he didn’t do it …” Her voice trailed off.

  “But he did. No matter what Louie Bronk says now, Alison, I believe he killed your mother. Most death-row inmates protest their innocence to the end. What’s unusual about Louie is that he’s waited so long to start doing it.”

  Alison began chewing the side of her thumb. She nodded. “Yeah, he’s just trying to save his ass. But it won’t work.”

  “No, it won’t,” Molly said. “Alison, I don’t want to add to your worries now, but I do think you should keep your door locked. When I arrived, it was open.”

  Alison gave a nod. “Yeah. I forget. My father wants me to move back home while this is going on; he’s going to hire an extra security person for the house, in addition to Frank Purcell, who follows him everywhere, like a shadow. They’re both putting a lot of pressure on me to do it but …”

  Thinking of the open door, Molly said, “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. For a while. Can’t hurt.”

  Alison shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I will. He needs me now.” When she pulled her thumb away from her mouth, Molly could see that it looked red and raw.

  Molly held up her little tape recorder. “Is it all right with you if I record this conversation? I like to do it because my note-taking breaks down when people get to talking fast.”

  “I don’t mind,” Alison said in a voice that suggested there wasn’t much she did mind. “But like I told you on the phone I don’t have anything earth-shaking to tell you.”

  Molly put it in her lap and switched it on, watching to make sure the tape was spinning. “I’m not looking for earth-shaking,” she said, “just your reaction now to what’s going on, how you feel about the coming execution. Your father’s concerned that this is going to be too difficult for you, set you back somehow. I sure don’t want to do anything like that.”

  A shadow of a smile crossed Alison’s wan face. “My father doesn’t know anything about me anymore.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, ever since he got married and I moved in with Mark, I don’t see him much.”

  “I gather your father doesn’t approve of your living arrangements.”

  A small smile threatened again. “He doesn’t like it. As a matter of fact, he hates it, but he can’t do anything about it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He threatened to cut off my allowance. You know, if I’m old enough to make a decision like this I’m old enough to support myself. I think he thought it would bring me running home.”

  “But it didn’t,” Molly said.

  “Nope. And he didn’t do it anyway. I knew he wouldn’t. But I got a part-time job anyway, just in case.”

  “With school that must be difficult,” Molly said.

  “It’s only twelve hours a week, so it’s not too bad. Mark’s been a good influence on me there.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well he’s been on his own totally since his mother died when he was eighteen. He’s had to drop out of school a couple of times because of money, but he’s about to finish up now. Of course my father would never even think of helping him.”

  “Mark’s mother was your father’s sister?”

  “Yes. But Daddy didn’t have anything to do with her.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Oh, he thought she was trashy and lazy. Anyone who doesn’t work twenty-four hours a day is lazy, according to Daddy. We’re trying to figure out how Mark can afford to go to graduate school. He wants to get an MBA. And we’ve thought about getting married, too, so …” She shrugged, but her pale lips were tight with what looked to Molly like resentment.

  “What are you studying, Alison?”

  Alison picked up a pencil off the table and rolled it between her palms. “Journalism. I’m thinking of being a crime writer—like you.”

  Molly looked at her in surprise. Very few people set out to be crime writers; they usually fell into it like she did and found they had a knack for it.

  “I was wondering if you’d tell me how you got started, Mrs. Cates?”

  Molly hesitated. This was a question she got asked all the time, but something about the girl made her reluctant to give the stock answer to it. When she opened her mouth to speak, she surprised herself with a truth she hadn’t spoken in years: “A long time ago when I was sixteen, my father was murdered, out at Lake Travis. The sheriff didn’t do much about it, so I started looking into it myself. In the process I got to know some reporters at the paper and later when I had to earn a living, I went and applied for a job. The reporter on the crime beat had just left and no one else wanted to do it so they let me try. I just sort of learned on
the job.”

  “You didn’t study it in college?”

  Molly sighed. It was one of her major regrets in life. “Never went to college. But this was more than twenty years ago, Alison, when the business wasn’t so competitive. I sure don’t recommend anyone trying to do it that way today.”

  Alison leaned forward. “Did you find out who killed him? Your father, I mean.”

  Molly felt the old anger rising hot and thick in her throat. “No. I never did. I narrowed it down some, but I never have known for sure.” She heard the whiny quaver in her voice, and as always, she despised her inability to control it.

  Alison let the pencil fall to the table. “God, that’s awful, not to know. That must’ve been so hard for you.”

  Once you let even a little piece of truth slip out, Molly thought, it opens the spigot. “I adored my father,” she said, “and, more than anything, I wanted to do that last thing for him.” She closed her lips, determined not to let this start a flood of truth-telling.

  Alison looked down at her bony bare feet and said very quietly, “Maybe that’s why you’re still writing about crime. Because that didn’t get solved.”

  “Maybe,” Molly said impassively. “What about you, Alison? Why do you want to be a crime reporter?”

  “Maybe part of it is like with you—something to do with my mother’s death. But even before that happened, I was fascinated with murders and things. When I was eight I started reading mysteries. I exhausted Nancy Drew and the usual stuff and went on to adult things pretty quick.”

  “What things?”

  “Oh, like detective magazines and true crime books. I’ve read just about everything. Joe McGinness, Anne Rule. But my all-time favorites are In Cold Blood and Blood and Money.”

  “Those are two of my favorites, too,” Molly said.

  “I told you over the phone how much I liked your book,” Alison said. “It must’ve made you real mad this morning to read what Louie Bronk said about it.”