The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  They all filed out, two by two. Alison grabbed her brother’s arm and walked pressed up against his side. Stan fell in silently next to Molly. “I hear you went to see the governor this morning,” he said as they crossed the street.

  “Word does get around,” she said.

  At the front door of the prison, the demonstrators came to life. They picked up placards and raised their voices. “Execute Justice,” they chanted, “not people!” No one, including Molly, acknowledged their presence.

  The brass hand railing up the steps to the prison door gleamed, as if it had just been polished for a big party. And the whole thing did have a party feel—the undercurrent of excitement and anticipation. It was concealed under a somber facade, but it was there.

  Inside the door several of the men wearing Stetsons stopped to check their sidearms at a caged-in desk.

  They filed into the visitors’ lounge. There an assistant warden and a few other officials from TDCJ waited. The only one Molly recognized was Steve Demaris from the Ellis Unit.

  There are so many of us here, Molly thought—wardens and assistants and reporters and witnesses and elected officials—because this way no one is responsible. Safety in numbers. This is all an exercise in passing the buck.

  “Ladies,” Darryl Jones said, after they’d all gotten inside, “please leave your handbags in here. They’ll be safe. Officer Steck will be staying here with them. Members of the press, you are allowed to take into the chamber only a pen and notebook. We are required now to search you for recording devices. Bear with us, please, so we can get this done right quick.”

  Three young corrections officers began to search them.

  Quickly, routinely, they moved from person to person. When it was Molly’s turn she lifted her hands so the guard could feel her pockets. “ ’Scuse me, ma’am,” he said as he patted Molly’s jacket pockets and the back of her pants.

  They stood around for several minutes. Molly looked at her watch, staring at the face until it was exactly twelve. Just like New Year’s Eve, standing around waiting for midnight. Waiting, but not to be kissed.

  When she looked up, Molly was surprised to see that, somewhere along the way, Frank Purcell had joined the group. He was wearing a Stetson and boots instead of the business clothes she’d seen him in before. When he saw her staring, he nodded.

  Alison still clung to Stuart’s arm. He looked as if he’d like to be anywhere but where he was.

  The phone rang.

  Darryl Jones picked it up and listened. He nodded, then said, “It’s time.”

  He led the way through the visitors’ room, out a door, down a long corridor, then outside into the night air. The temperature had fallen. Molly wrapped her arms around herself for the brief walk down a cement path to a small freestanding brick building.

  The second Molly stepped inside and got hit with the dank odor of ancient dungeons, she felt herself falling backward to another century. She kept her arms wrapped across her chest. The chill. She’d never felt this before. It was as if this place, this killing place, had absorbed into its walls and floor and bars all the terror and death that had passed through. It seemed to be present now, all hundred fifty years of it swirling around her head. This is what Addie meant when she talked about this place. She had called it “corrupted air.”

  This could not be happening. This was 1993, the year of Our Lord 1993, September. An enlightened age, an age of computers and faxes. It was not an age where people were put to death in cold damp prisons. But this was real. They were here, a group of people gathered behind brick walls at midnight to enact an ancient ritual. To try to cure the tidal wave of violent crime by making one blood sacrifice.

  They passed by the eight tiny, empty gray cells of what had been the old death row, before the state of Texas had outgrown it. In the cell nearest the door, the one reinforced with tight mesh, stood three cardboard boxes. Probably Louie’s stuff, all packed up. Her chest ached.

  Darryl Jones waited at the door until they all gathered. Then he shepherded them into the chamber. It was a small brick room, very brightly lighted and painted an intense cobalt-blue, the kind of garish color you saw on walls in Mexico. The room was empty, no chairs, no distractions, nothing. Molly found herself blinking and wishing the fluorescent lights were not so intense.

  Bars painted the same color of blue separated this room from the execution chamber a few feet away. A white curtain was drawn back so they could see through the bars a tableau so strange that the only thing she could think of was a Halloween haunted house where she’d once taken Jo Beth. A gurney was bolted to the floor. On it Louie lay strapped down, his thin arms extended. He was dressed in an immaculate white prison uniform and shiny black shoes. His hair had been trimmed since she had seen him four days ago and he was freshly shaved. The state of Texas had spiffed Louie up for the party.

  His scrawny bare arms were stretched out and strapped down at the wrists. IV tubes ran from both arms and disappeared into a tiny square hole in the wall, next to a one-way mirror. The slack pale skin with its network of crinkled blue tattoos looked like some grotesque illustration from an anatomy text. Like skin and limbs and veins long dead. Yes, Molly was suddenly certain that his arms were already dead. So now it was too late to go back. The only humane thing was to go ahead and kill the rest of his body. She tried to swallow but her mouth was utterly dry. God, she was losing her mind. What if she wrote all this? Richard would be convinced she had gone mad. So would everyone else. She forced her eyes away from the dead arms.

  At Louie’s head stood the warden of the Walls Unit, dressed in a dark business suit and paisley tie instead of his usual tan Western outfit. He, too, had dressed up for company. In a sudden lapse of memory, Molly couldn’t quite dredge up his name. She wasn’t doing very well. Here she was, the star crime reporter for Lone Star Monthly, and she’d forgotten her notebook. Furthermore, she had no idea where the real story was, where it started or where it would end, what she would write, or whether she would write anything at all. Her legs felt rubbery and her stomach so hot and churning she was grateful she hadn’t put anything in it.

  Sister Addie stood at Louie’s side, holding his right hand. She wore the same pastel house dress she’d worn when Molly had first met her, and draped over her shoulders was the ugly pink and brown afghan she’d been knitting for Louie. Her head was bent down to his and they were talking in low voices, but when the group filed in, Louie looked away from her and turned his head toward the witnesses on the other side of the bars. His eyes darted and stopped on Molly. He gave her a slight nod. She nodded back and tried to smile. Instead her mouth fell open, as if she’d just got a shot of Novocain and lost control, or as if she were about to let out a scream.

  The door on Louie’s side of the bars opened. John Desmond, the state prison director, entered. “Warden,” he said in a deep voice, “you may proceed.”

  The warden turned to Louie. “Do you have a last statement to make?”

  Louie glanced quickly up at Sister Addie. Then he turned his head toward the witnesses but kept his eyes fixed on a spot above their heads. In a quavery, whiny voice, he said, “I want to say I’m sorry for the things I done. I want to thank my sister Carmen-Marie who’s not here but she’s been real nice to me in the past and I wish I’d been a better brother.” He paused and ran his tongue over his thin lips. Molly thought she saw him blink once, as if to force back a tear.

  “And Molly Cates,” he continued, “who tried to help. I left you something.” His chest rose and sank several times. “Thanks. Mostly, I want to thank Sister Adeline Dodgin for sticking by me and trying to show me the way to salvation. The only good thing I leave behind in this world is my poems.”

  He’d spoken the last words rapid-fire and now he had to take a breath. “Oh,” he said, as if he’d just remembered something important, “I forgive everyone who’s involved with this. Jesus forgives us all. We are forgiven.”

  He rolled his head on the gurney so that he was
looking up at Addie. She smiled down at him, looking directly into his eyes. The room was absolutely silent. Then as if she had received a signal, though Molly couldn’t discern any movement on Louie’s part, Addie looked at the warden and nodded. The warden stepped back and nodded to the one-way mirror in the wall where the tubes from Louie’s arm led. “We are ready,” he said.

  Death seemed instantaneous.

  Louie took a deep breath, his eyes opened wide in surprise, he coughed twice and was still. If she had blinked she’d have missed it.

  The only sound was the scratching of pens as the journalists wrote on their pads.

  The door in the execution chamber opened. A man in a white coat entered, carrying a stethoscope. He leaned over Louie and put the stethoscope to his chest. Then he stood up and looked at his watch. “Twelve-fourteen,” he said, and walked out.

  Louie lay still, his eyes wide open.

  Molly looked around, feeling confused. That was it? As easy as that? Life hadn’t even resisted. There was no fight, no scream, nothing to mark it. The line between being alive and being dead was so narrow it was almost imperceptible.

  That’s something Louie must have known, she realized—known better than anyone. A bullet or a knife in the right place and it was done. Quicker than a blink. No big deal. Happens all the time.

  chapter 25

  Here’s Louie Bronk’s rules

  For crime-fearing fools:

  There’s lots out there to fear.

  Don’t believe all you hear.

  Keep your distance from strangers

  And all them deadly dangers.

  Keep your car in good repair.

  Don’t let it get stuck out there.

  But here’s the truth, what the fuck,

  The whole damned thing’s a

  matter of luck.

  LOUIE BRONK

  Death Row, Ellis I Unit,

  Huntsville, Texas

  Back in the visitors’ lounge, Molly sat on one of the sagging brown sofas and listened to her own breathing. Stan Heffernan walked over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. It felt so heavy, so hot, so authoritarian that she longed to shake the damn thing off.

  In his whispery voice he asked, “What did he leave you?”

  “Huh?”

  “In his statement he said he left you something. I wondered what it was.”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said.

  He lifted his hand. “So, Molly, what do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Dazed, she looked around at the people coming into the lounge talking quietly. “I think—” She looked up at his face for the first time. “I think that in all my years of reporting on crime I have never seen a more premeditated homicide.”

  His big head nodded slowly.

  “What do you think?” she demanded.

  “I think, considering the weasel he was, he went down well. I was half expecting him to give in to the red scream.”

  “The red scream?” Molly said, feeling a vibration inside her chest. “Oh, yes. If he’d done that, it sure would have been a different show, wouldn’t it? Not near so neat and tidy. If I were worth a damn, I would give it for him. Right now.”

  She looked around the room at the prison officials, the journalists, the politicians, the curiosity seekers, all looking relaxed and relieved that it was over and had gone so well. What would happen if she stood up, opened her mouth wide, and let out the red scream that had been building up inside her all night?

  She didn’t, of course.

  Instead, she sat on the sofa with one hand over her heart and the other in her lap until the scream retreated and she felt confident enough to stand and talk with people.

  Molly was getting ready to leave, gearing herself up for the long drive back, when she saw Addie Dodgin standing in the door of the visitors’ lounge. Addie waved and walked over to her, pulling out of her bag a folded paper. She held it out to Molly and said in a very quiet voice, “Louie asked me to give you this.”

  “Is this what he meant when he said he left me something?”

  Addie nodded.

  Molly unfolded the paper. It was a page of wide-ruled school paper, the kind that Louie had always used for his poems; she saw at a glance that this was another one, a little longer than usual. She looked up at Addie. “Have you read this?” she asked.

  “No. He said it was for Molly Cates’s eyes only. And that’s a direct quote.”

  Molly looked down and read silently:

  For Molly Cates

  Special rates

  From a friend who waits

  At heavens gates.

  I’m all through

  Don’t you be blue

  Heres the news that intrests you—

  That thing I did or did not do.

  Tiny yes and Tiny no

  Eeny meeny miny moe.

  I’ve said no and I’ve said yes

  I’ve said all right I confess—

  What a bloody mixt up mess

  Now for the hot line—

  Was she one of mine?

  Yes

  Yes

  Yes

  PS

  About the car—

  It took me far.

  Make no misteak

  Its in the lake.

  Dont that take the cake?

  Im sorry, I guess

  Goodby and god bless

  Your friend at the end

  Louie Bronk

  For one second she was tempted to believe it, to ignore Fort Worth, and go with a dying man’s last words. But only for a second.

  “The son of a bitch!” she said. “The sick, sorry son of a bitch.”

  The whole room fell suddenly silent. Molly looked around her. Every head was turned her way—Stan Heffernan, Darryl Jones, Frank Purcell, Steve Demaris, Alison McFarland, Stuart McFarland, the assistant wardens, the journalists, the guards—all looking as if she’d blasphemed in church. Their shocked expressions made her so mad she said it again. “He was a sick sorry son of a bitch who never could tell the truth.”

  She looked at Addie. “Why didn’t you give me this before?”

  “Because he asked me not to deliver it until he was gone. What does he say?”

  “He says he did kill Tiny and that the car is in the lake. Says he guesses he’s sorry.”

  Addie sighed. “Pure Louie to the end.” She pointed to the paper in Molly’s hand. “Do you believe it?”

  “No.” Molly rubbed the paper between her fingers, feeling the cheap quality of it. “No. I don’t believe it. Do you?”

  “No,” Addie said. “I’m trying to figure out why he wrote it. To make you feel better about your book maybe?”

  “That’s a charitable thought, Addie, but I don’t think Louie’s capable of that.” She looked around to see if everyone was still looking. They weren’t, but she lowered her voice to make sure no one else could hear. “Addie, do you know when he wrote this?”

  “This evening, about nine, just before he ate.”

  “Did he have any visitors right before?”

  “Yes. Tanya Klein. As soon as she left, he sat down and wrote it. Took him about an hour. Then he folded it up and gave it to me. Made me promise I’d wait until he was dead.”

  “Did you hear their conversation?” Molly asked.

  “No. I took a break so they could talk privately.”

  Molly looked around the room for Tanya. “Did she leave already?”

  “Tanya? No. I think she’s picking up some of Louie’s effects at the side door.”

  “Effects? What effects?”

  “He marked her name on one of his boxes. Some papers, I suppose. The rest of his stuff he donated to my church group that works with the homeless.”

  Molly was thinking so hard she could hear a rushing in her ears. “Oh, damn. Addie, I may be totally deranged, but I think I know what’s in that box. Tell me—what was really important to Louie in this world?”

  “His poems,” Addie said immediately.


  “Uh-huh. Those wretched poems. You know, two years ago he had me sending them around, trying to get them published, but it was a lost cause. I used some of them in my book, but there are zillions of them, enough to fill a cardboard box.”

  Darryl Jones knocked on the door frame to get attention and said, “Folks, thanks for coming. They want to close up here, so let’s get out of their way. Any members of the press who want to talk are welcome to come back to my office for a spell.”

  People headed slowly for the door, very slowly, as though they didn’t want to leave or couldn’t face being alone. Molly certainly felt that way.

  Seeing Stuart and Alison McFarland, she caught up with them and said good-bye. They both looked subdued and burdened, she thought as she watched them walk out together. If they had hoped that witnessing the execution would make them free from the past, it hadn’t worked.

  “Louie didn’t like Tanya much,” Molly said, leaning down to talk to Addie as they walked, “so he certainly wouldn’t leave her his poems. But, to get them published, I think he would have agreed to almost anything, don’t you?”

  Addie thought for a minute and said, “Yes.”

  “I think someone used that as an incentive to get him to assure me that he killed Tiny so I’d stop being such a pain in the ass and let it go. That’s why he wrote me this last lie.” She waved the paper and stuck it in her bag. “Do you think that’s incredibly farfetched?”

  “Yes, but it’s probably true,” Addie said. “You think Tanya made him the offer?”

  They waited at the front door until it was buzzed open. They stepped outside into a cold wind that took hold of Molly’s thin cotton pants and fluttered them around her legs.

  “She’s a lawyer,” Molly said. “They’re usually acting for someone else. I think she’s just the agent for someone who agreed to put up the money to publish, probably at one of the vanity presses where you can get anything published if you pay for it yourself. God, just think of it—The Complete Poems of Louie Bronk.” They stood at the top of the steps for a minute looking into the darkness. “It’s enough to send you screaming into the night, isn’t it?”