The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  The man put a china cup and saucer in front of the governor and one in front of Molly. He poured each a cup and walked out silently, pulling the door shut behind him.

  The governor picked up her cup and took a sip, studying Molly over the brim. Her bright blue eyes were framed by scores of deep wrinkles radiating out from the corners. She set her cup down and said, “Miz Cates, I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

  “No, ma’am,” Molly said, her throat dry and scratchy.

  “I have read some of your pieces in Lone Star Monthly. I particularly liked the one some years back about the archaeologist who investigated those old bones that got dug up during the construction downtown. Made me feel I missed a bet by not becoming an archaeologist.”

  “Me too,” Molly said. “I felt that way every time I talked with Dr. Carrue. He died a few months ago. On a dig in Big Bend.” Her voice cracked at the end of her statement. Molly took a sip of coffee to clear her throat.

  The governor opened the file folder in front of her and rested her long, delicate fingers on either side. “Miz Cates, I have to tell you I’m real familiar with this case. I followed it closely back in ’82. I was interested because I knew Tiny McFarland slightly—from the Planned Parenthood Board. And I have known Charlie for years; he’s been a generous supporter of mine. I’m grieving for him now, what with losing another wife. You should know this has a personal dimension for me.”

  She lifted the sheaf of papers in the folder and ruffled the pages with her thumb. “After I talked with Addie Dodgin last night, to refresh my memory on the details, I got out Mr. Bronk’s file—you know they send me these from Huntsville before every execution. And I have to tell you, I think he’s exactly the sort we ought to be executing.” She looked up and met Molly’s eyes directly. “I’m curious. What on earth could you have to say in his behalf?”

  “Nothing,” Molly said. “I have absolutely nothing to say for him. He’s far worse than you could know from reading that file, Governor. He’s certainly killed more women than he ever got convicted of. He’s a cold, brutal, manipulative, empty excuse for a man and he has no redeeming traits.… But I have come to be convinced that he didn’t commit the murder he’s scheduled to die for in seventeen hours.”

  The governor paused with her cup halfway to her lips. “Why?”

  Molly had planned out what she was going to say, but she had forgotten it all. She’d just have to wing it. “Governor, I’ve covered this case for eleven years. I spent two years researching and writing a book on it.”

  Susan Wentworth flicked an impatient hand. “I know that.”

  Molly flushed. “Until last Thursday I would have sworn to you that the man was guilty of Tiny McFarland’s murder. But something happened to change my opinion. When I read in the paper that Louie had recanted his confession, I went to see him. Not because I believed it, but I was curious to hear what he had to say. I was sure it was just the usual death-row scramble to avoid execution.”

  Molly’s voice gathered strength as she got into the story. “Governor, the story he told scared me plenty. He told how he was able to make a convincing false confession, how the authorities fed him information and how he gleaned the rest. He confessed because he liked the attention; it felt good and this was a glamorous case that attracted more attention than the other murders.

  “He said there was a way to prove his innocence. He said the car that was described by two witnesses at the McFarland house—you know all about it from the file so I won’t waste your time—could never have been there on July ninth because he’d had the car painted on July sixth and junked it on the seventh. He described the place where he’d junked the car in Fort Worth and where he’d had it painted and asked me to go find it.”

  Molly pushed her coffee cup away so there would be nothing between them. “Now Louie is a liar—big time—so you have to watch him. He was convincing but I wasn’t buying. Not then.

  “Governor, by the time I got to the wrecking yard in Fort Worth the next morning, a car of that description had been stolen off the lot the night before. When I got to the auto painting place, it had been burned down and all the records with it; the ashes were still smoldering. All the records had been destroyed. While I was there three men tried to beat me up.”

  Molly leaned forward so far in her chair she was just perched on the edge. “Governor, someone didn’t want me to find any evidence.”

  “Sounds like they were successful,” Susan Wentworth said in a dry voice, “since it seems you came up empty-handed.”

  “Not totally,” Molly said. “I persuaded the owner of the auto body shop to dig up a carbon receipt of a cash transaction—she was keeping the things not reported to the IRS at home—made on July sixth. It describes the car and the name—L. Bronson—is the one Louie told me he’d been using. So we do have that. We do have that piece of evidence.”

  Susan Wentworth set her cup down. “Doesn’t sound like diddly squat to me, Miz Cates.”

  “I know it’s thin. But, Governor, I’ve been covering crime for twenty-two years and I feel certain about this one. The murders of Georgia McFarland and another man—David Serrano—who used to work for the McFarlands—make me think we should hold off on the execution until we see what’s going on. What harm can thirty days do?”

  “What harm?” The governor sat up straighter and crossed one slim leg over the other. “My opponents in the legislature would say I was soft on mass murderers and every attorney with a death-row client would be beating on my door. Miz Cates, you’ve had eleven years to come up with something. It’s too late and too little.”

  She lifted her cup and took another sip of her coffee. “Anyway, this is a matter for the courts and Pardons and Parole to deal with.” She looked Molly directly in the eye. “Do you dislike the death penalty so much?”

  “It’s true I don’t like it. But that’s not the reason I’m here. Governor, Louie made a false confession to this crime. If we execute him, we’re going along with his lie. We become a party to it. Our system has made an error here. We need to own up to it.”

  The governor sighed and looked toward the window. “You know that I favor the death penalty in cases like this. I have often said it.”

  “Yes, I know that’s what you say publicly.” Molly took a deep breath. “But I have noticed, Governor, that in the six years you’ve been in office you haven’t yet attended an execution. It’s customary for governors to do that from time to time.”

  Susan Wentworth turned back to face Molly, the corners of her scarlet, bow-shaped mouth twitching. “And you’re reading into that that I’m secretly against it? Miz Cates, I’ve got a busy schedule and executions would not be a good use of my time.” She let the smile break through and it was dazzling. “I delegate executions.”

  The governor stood up. “I’m denying your request, Miz Cates. I appreciate your being an advocate for Justice as you see it here, but I’m not convinced your new evidence is worth a hill of beans. You know, I don’t make a habit of listening to eleventh-hour pleas, but it was Addie Dodgin who asked me to see you, and Addie is one of my heroes.”

  Molly was caught with a mouthful of coffee.

  “Oh, yes,” the governor said, “I don’t have many heroes, but she is one of them.”

  “Why?” The word blurted out of Molly’s mouth all on its own.

  “Why? You don’t know Addie’s story?”

  “Story? No. Actually I’ve only met her once, over in Huntsville.”

  “And she isn’t given to talking about herself, is she?” The governor glanced at a tiny gold watch on her wrist. “Well, time is racing, but I’ll give you an abbreviated version: about ten years ago Addie was at a convention of social workers in Houston. One night, she was attacked by two men in the hotel parking garage. She was raped and cut up so bad the docs needed a Simplicity pattern to figure how to stitch her up when she was carried into the emergency room. Well, they sewed her back together—she looks like a patchwork quilt—or,
like she says, a Humpty-Dumpty success story, and somehow she recovered. Her husband left her while she was in the hospital and one of her children was killed in a traffic accident the next year.”

  Molly’s eyelids stung.

  “Enough to do anyone in, isn’t it?” the governor said, watching Molly. “What Addie did with her grief was found her prison ministries and the first people she visited were the men who had assaulted her. She still visits them over in Huntsville—the sorry, miserable sumbitches.” She tilted her head. “You didn’t know all this?”

  “No.”

  “I would think her story would be irresistible to a writer like you who seems drawn to the violent. She’s far more interesting than Mr. Bronk.” Susan Wentworth slapped the file shut and picked it up. “I’ll tell you a secret if you’ll promise to keep it.”

  Molly nodded mesmerized.

  “I’m about to appoint Addie to the Board of Criminal Justice, to fill the new victim seat we created last year. I think she’ll turn out to be one of my best appointments.”

  She walked toward the door, then stopped and turned to Molly. “I have a suggestion for you: how about writing more about crime from the victim’s point of view? I reckon serial murderers sell books, but where are the stories about the Addie Dodgins of the world? People who survive the unimaginable and go on cheerfully—the stuff of real heroes.”

  Molly felt like an oversensitive second grader chastised by a beloved teacher. Her cheeks actually burned with the rebuke. “I’ll think on it, Governor. Thanks for the advice.”

  As Susan Wentworth put her hand on the filigreed brass knob to open the door, Molly found herself panicky. This was her only chance. “Governor, wait!” She took a few steps forward and said, “Addie told me the best way to talk to you was just to say what’s in my heart. It’s this: you’re the head of a mighty state, and you hold the power of life and death. Louie Bronk is a miserable worm of a man whose mother and four sisters beat and molested and humiliated him when he was a boy. He’s guilty of the most horrible crimes, but he was falsely convicted of this one. Here’s a chance to show mercy to someone who has never seen it before. Please, Governor. Give Louie Bronk a thirty-day reprieve. It could save us all from a grave miscarriage of justice.”

  She stopped. Molly found she had her arms outstretched in a beseeching gesture she wasn’t aware of having made.

  The governor pursed her red lips and let out a long stream of air. “Well, Molly Cates. I like your passion.” She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the carpet for several long seconds. “If anything would sway me on this issue,” she said, looking up, “that would. But the answer is no. The request is denied.” She smiled and said, “Go home.” Then she turned the knob and walked through the door.

  Molly felt like running behind her and tugging at her sleeve and she would have done it if there was the slightest chance it might do any good. But she recognized the finality of the answer.

  There would be no executive clemency for Louie Bronk.

  chapter 23

  On the Interstate

  Feeling mighty great.

  Nothing to do but drive,

  Speed a steady fifty-five.

  Cruising cops give me the eye.

  Hell, I just pass ’em by.

  This stretch of highway

  I have things my way.

  LOUIE BRONK

  Death Row, Ellis I Unit,

  Huntsville, Texas

  The worst of it, she thought as she drove up Lavaca, wasn’t the disappointment or even the embarrassment over her ineffective arguing of the case. The worst of it was that she felt relieved.

  Yes, here she was breathing easier than she had in days. She’d done everything that could be morally expected of her. She’d tried to bring out the truth, done her best. Yet nothing had changed: Louie was still officially guilty; her book hadn’t been proved wrong to anyone but herself. It was out of her hands now. That meant she could go about her business—get back to work, sign books at the party the magazine was throwing for her on Friday. Maybe now the Japanese would reinstate their offer and she’d get a nice fat check.

  Of course, there was still the problem of the article—what on earth was she going to write about Louie Bronk’s execution? The story had changed so radically. It was no longer the story of a serial killer finally being executed. It was the story of a serial killer who had been unjustly convicted; it was the story of an unsolved mystery from the past—what had really happened to Tiny McFarland? Who was lying and why?—and it was the story of two new murders which must be somehow connected to the past. It was a story richer and more convoluted, messier and scarier than the story she’d thought she had.

  So here she was, for God’s sake, a crime writer with the story of a lifetime right under her nose. Why wasn’t she home writing it? She stopped at the light at Lavaca and Martin Luther King, not sure where she was heading. The reason she wasn’t writing the story was that she had gotten accustomed to stories that were finished, neat, standing still, not ones that were crashing around her. This was real life, messy and hard to pin down, and she hadn’t a clue how to get her arms around it. Just thinking about it was enough to bring back yesterday’s paralysis.

  And then there was the execution tonight. Oh, God. She had committed herself to being there. But could she actually go and watch them execute a man for a crime he did not commit? Be a part of that big Godzilla lie? To go seemed dishonest and cold-blooded.

  To stay away seemed dishonest and cowardly.

  Right now the idea of just staying at home for the next twenty-four hours sure was an attractive idea. She could curl up with a bottle of wine and a good book, or a movie on the VCR. Maybe Grady would come over and offer some more police protection. It was supposed to get cool tonight. They’d put her goose-down comforter on the bed and get under it and not think about the meticulous, lethal procedure going on in Huntsville. By midnight she’d be asleep. By the time she awoke in the morning it would be all over.

  There would be a small item in the City-State section of the American-Patriot, page three, telling about the execution; she had read and written enough of those to know exactly what it would say. It would give the time the execution started and the time the doctor declared him dead. It would give his last words, if any, and say he was the fifteenth person to be executed in Texas this year, the sixty-eighth since Texas resumed executions in 1982—the highest total by far of any state in the nation. It would list his convictions. And every good citizen who read it would say to his wife across the breakfast table, “Good. That’s one animal who won’t be back out on the streets. We ought to do more of that.”

  When the light changed, she turned left onto Martin Luther King and pulled into the parking lot of a garish pink Taco Cabana. Whatever she was going to do next, she couldn’t do it without coffee. She ran inside and brought the cup back to the truck. Then she picked up the phone to make the call she hated to make. Sister Addie would be waiting.

  Addie answered before the first ring ended.

  “She said no,” Molly said without identifying herself. “No executive clemency. Said we didn’t have diddly squat and Louie was just the sort we should be executing.”

  Knitting needles clicked. Addie said, “Well, it’s hard to argue against that.” She clucked once. “And I just talked to Tanya Klein. The Fifth Circuit Court refused to grant relief and so did the state. Of course, she’ll file the usual last-minute petition to the Supreme Court, but there’s no chance, she says. It’s all over. We need to let Louie know.”

  Molly hadn’t even thought about that. Of course, he’d be waiting to hear.

  “Would you like me to tell him?” Addie asked. “I was just waiting for your call before driving over there. To the old death row over at the Walls. You know, they transferred him there early this morning. I think it’s better to tell him in person than ask them to give him the message, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. Much better. You tell him, Sister Addie.
Please.”

  “All right. I don’t believe it will come as that much of a surprise to him. You want to see him before tonight, dear? We could put you on the list.”

  The thought made Molly’s stomach swoop. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Any messages?”

  “Messages? Let me think. Yes. Tell him I tried. And I’m sorry,” Molly said, feeling right down to her toenails the inadequacy of that message. “So sorry.”

  “Well, I’ll see you tonight?” Addie said, her voice rising in a question.

  “I don’t know. I guess,” Molly said. “It seems wrong to come and wrong not to.”

  “I know what you mean.” Addie paused. “I don’t want to play the busybody here, but—”

  “But you’re going to.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I am. One advantage of my having attended too many of these melancholy occasions is that I have considered this question five ways to Sunday. Here’s how I see it. Being there is not in any way a tacit approval or acceptance. You are simply witnessing the event, that’s all.”

  Molly considered it in silence. Addie broke into her thought. “You haven’t been to an execution before, have you, Sister Molly?”

  “No.”

  “That place, the death chamber, is like no other place I’ve ever been. This is going to sound silly to you, but just wait—you’ll feel it the second you walk in—the very air in there is corrupted. It reeks of misery. I think it’s important that a few of us who disapprove should be present, so we can fill the air with our own vibrations of opposition.”

  It did sound silly. Molly said, “Prepare me for it. What should I expect?”

  “It’s, oh, my dear, it’s, well, it’s not—”

  “You aren’t going to tell me it’s not really so bad as I imagine, are you?”

  “Heavens, no. It’s worse. Far worse than you imagine. They tell you lethal injection is humane, but sometimes it goes very badly. That’s another reason for you to come. You should know.”