Death Row

by William Bernhardt

  “I didn’t do it, you know,” Ray said. Fowler looked away. Ray was embarrassed for himself. His eyes were streaming tears, like some six-year-old on a playground. Thank God he’d taken the warden’s advice and gone to the bathroom, or he knew he’d have even more to be embarrassed about. The sick feeling inside his gut was spreading like cancer. How could anyone bear this?

  “I didn’t,” Ray continued, choking. “I know you hear this all the time, but it’s true. I didn’t kill those people. I couldn’t!”

  Without a word, they wheeled him down the corridor. They didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Pardons weren’t within their control. There was nothing they could do to stop it. And nothing he could do. Except lie there, bound and immobilized, his face wet with terror, blubbering like an infant. Wondering how God could allow this to happen. Wondering how human beings could do this to one another.

  And deep down, deep within him, desperate for it to be over. For the relief that would only come when the needle fell.

  In the death chamber, the phone rang.

  The bell made Andrew jump a bit. He knew that would be the governor’s office, calling to give them the go-ahead. A moment later, the warden, a large man with a short haircut and wire-frame glasses, put the receiver down and said quietly, “It’s time.”

  Goldman’s rabbi said some kind of prayer over him. Didn’t sound like last rites, and he didn’t hear any Hail Marys. Andrew didn’t know anything about Judaism, but he knew what he’d be praying for if he were the one strapped to the table. Please God—get me out of here. And if You can’t get me out of here, at least give me the strength to get through it without humiliating myself.

  On a signal from the warden, the two members of the chemical team—that was the user-friendly name they gave the actual executioners—would each push one of the two buttons on the machine’s control panel. Only one worked, and they didn’t know which. That way, they didn’t know for sure who had pressed the button that put the man to death. One of the buttons would cause stainless-steel plungers in the delivery module to be lowered into the chemical containers, which would force the poisons through the tubes and into Ray Goldman’s vein—first, sodium pentothal, then pancuronium bromide, then potassium chloride—to put him to sleep, then stop his breathing, then stop his heart. A medical doctor and nurse stood in attendance with an EKG, but other than giving notice when the heart had stopped beating, they had little to do. There wasn’t much the doctor could do, since the AMA didn’t allow doctors to participate in executions. The nurse would find a vein for the IV. And that was important. Lethal injection was supposed to be a quick, humane method of execution, but Andrew was all too aware of the Texas case in which it took the executioners forty excruciating minutes to locate a viable vein on a condemned heroin abuser.

  Ray Goldman didn’t struggle, thank God. In the course of four executions, Andrew had seen about everything. One of the men actually told jokes before he was killed. One of them did finger exercises. What the hell he thought he was getting in shape for, Andrew couldn’t imagine. All of them sweated, and all of them cried, eventually. Who wouldn’t? How could they help it?

  “Carrie? Are you out there? Are you there, honey?”

  No one answered him, and with the tears clouding his eyes, he was having a hard time seeing anything. Was she here? Sure, she hadn’t written in a while, hadn’t come to visit for years, but he understood that. It was hard, waiting, hoping, when time after time their appeals failed and their prayers were squashed. But she was here with him now, even though he couldn’t see her, right? She was, he was sure of it. She had to be.

  “I don’t want to die like this,” Ray said, to no one in particular. “I don’t want to die like a dog, strapped to a table. I don’t want to die alone.”

  None of the guards would look at him. Even the rabbi didn’t make eye contact.

  “It isn’t right!” Ray shouted. “I don’t care what you call it. Killing people isn’t right!” He twisted as much as he could, which wasn’t much. He strained against the straps that bound him to the table. He realized now why they had pinned him down early.

  He was helpless to stop this. But oddly enough, Ray felt a calm blanket him. It was over now. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. And for once, that was okay. It was time for it to be over. Relief was on its way.

  When Andrew took his position behind Ray Goldman’s head, the man looked up at him, right into his eyes and said, “Thank you.” Andrew just about lost it. Just about lost it once and for all.

  The nurse approached the table and slid the EKG pads under the neck of Goldman’s shirt. She flipped a switch on the machine, and they could all hear the steady beep of Goldman’s heartbeat. For now. She instructed Goldman to make a fist, swabbed the inside of his elbow with a cotton ball, and in a mercifully short period of time, managed to slip an IV needle into a vein. With two strips of surgical tape, she fixed the needle into place. For the moment, Goldman received a simple saline solution. But that wouldn’t last long.

  The preliminaries were complete. The warden removed the death warrant from his pocket and began to read. “Raymond Daniel Goldman, you have been found guilty of eight counts of murder in the first degree by the State of Oklahoma and have been sentenced to death by lethal injection.” He paused, folded up the warrant. “Do you have anything you wish to say?”

  The tranquillity that had embraced Goldman melted away. He began to wail. His voice was frenzied and desperate. “I did not kill all those people. I did not mutilate them. I couldn’t!”

  Andrew felt his hands trembling. Whether the man was lying or telling the truth, it was horrible. The tension in the room was all but unbearable.

  “I love you, Carrie!” Goldman screamed. “I know you’re out there! I love you!”

  The warden removed his glasses, which was the signal to the executioners to let the chemicals flow. The chemical team looked at each other, then stepped closer to the machine and laid their hands on the buttons.

  Goldman closed his eyes. The rabbi began muttering something in Hebrew.

  “I didn’t do it,” Goldman said, gasping for air in great heaving gulps, his chest rocking. “I didn’t. Tell them, Carrie. Tell them I didn’t do it.”

  Andrew looked away.

  And then the phone rang. The ring was jarring, strange. Everyone froze. The warden seemed confused for a moment, then he raced to the phone. “Stop!” he ordered. “Don’t do anything.”

  “What’s happening?” Goldman cried, his face wet with tears. “What’s going on?”

  The warden was on the phone for more than five minutes, most of that time just grunting or saying “I understand.” Before the call ended, a clerk raced into the room waving an extra-long piece of paper.

  The warden studied the document for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Mr. Goldman?”

  Goldman was shaking so hard he could barely speak. “Yes, sir?”

  “Mr. Goldman, it seems you have received a temporary reprieve. Thirty days, courtesy of the federal courts.” He turned to his staff. “Gentlemen, you may stand down. Please unstrap Mr. Goldman and return him to his cell.”

  As soon as he was off the table, Goldman fell to his knees. “Thank you!” he cried out, his eyes closed, hands clasped. “Thank you!” His rabbi knelt beside him, and together they said another prayer.

  Andrew felt a wave of relief so intense he could barely stand. He placed a hand against the wall to steady himself. When he finally felt he could walk reliably, he inched toward the warden.

  “A reprieve from the federal courts, sir?” Andrew said. “How in the world did Goldman manage that?”

  “He didn’t.” The warden was still staring at the paper, in particular scrutinizing a signature at the bottom of the page. “Do any of you boys know an attorney named Benjamin J. Kincaid?”

  Chapter

  2

  Ben tapped the side of his head, just to make sure the old noggin was working properly. “You
ate your shorts?”

  “Right.”

  “Like . . . literally?”

  “That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

  “I mean, I’ve heard people use the expression. Eat my shorts. But I’ve never met anyone who actually did.”

  The young man on the other side of the acrylic barrier sighed. Clarence Brown was a long-legged white kid, almost seven feet tall, and Ben knew from the referral file that he was barely twenty years old. “Look, the cop pulled me over for no reason at all.”

  Ben glanced at the file. “His report says you were driving erratically.”

  “That’s his story. I’m a good driver. Damn good driver.”

  “But the cop pulled you over.”

  “Right. And before he even gets out of his car, I can see him messin’ with that breath thing, you know?”

  Ben assumed he wasn’t talking about Mentos. “You mean the Breathalyzer?”

  “Yeah, that. He was gonna make me take that jive test. And I didn’t wanna.”

  “Because you’d been drinking.”

  “Because what do I know what’s gonna happen to me after I breathe into his little balloon? He says I fail, what do I do about it? Cops’ll say anything to put a boy from the ’hood away.”

  “And so . . . you ate your shorts?”

  “Well, I ripped ’em up first. Small pieces. Thought it would soak up the booze. So it wouldn’t show up on my breath.”

  Another glance at the report. “The Breathalyzer showed you with a .12 alcohol concentration.”

  “Yeah, well, so it didn’t work exactly like I planned.”

  “And the police officer charged you for attempted concealment of a crime and resisting arrest. In addition to drunk driving.”

  “You see what I’m tellin’ you?” Brown leaned forward, practically pressing his nose against the barrier. “Them cops’ll say anything to put me and my bros away. Anything!” He fell back with disgust. “So, what’ya say, counselor? Can you get me off? My main man says you’re a miracle worker.”

  “The DA is offering to let you off with a fine, with one condition. License revoked. You can’t drive for eighteen months.”

  “Eighteen months! No way. You gotta do somethin’!”

  “Well, I can probably bounce the concealment charge. Maybe even the resisting arrest. But they’ve got you dead to rights on the drunk driving. Especially since you appear to confess everything in your statement.”

  Brown rose out of his chair. “What you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m talking about your statement. You gave the arresting officer a statement.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “I have a copy of the officer’s notes.”

  “I never did no statement, no way, no how. No, sir! I never gave them any kind of statement.” He paused. “I just told the man what I did.”

  Ben blew out his cheeks. “Clarence, take the plea. I’m going to a party.”

  Christina McCall scrutinized the business card in her hand. “You actually hand this out?”

  The short man in the blue union suit nodded. “Clients, potential clients, everyone. Anyone who’s in trouble with the police or likely to be. You wouldn’t believe how effective it is. I’ve saved lives with that card.”

  Christina scrutinized it carefully. It was thicker than most cards because it had a shimmering 3-D surface done up in swirling psychedelic colors. Beneath the colors, set out in boldface capital letters, were four pithy statements stacked one atop the other: don’t say anything. don’t consent to a search. the police are not your friends. you need a good lawyer.

  She flipped the card over. In the center, above the address, it read: darryl cooke. a good lawyer.

  “And this gets you business?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe. Oh—excuse me, Chris,” Cooke said, already moving away. “I promised Charlton Colby a word.”

  Which was his way of saying he’d spotted someone more important to talk to. Christina supposed she shouldn’t fault him; he was just networking, like everyone else here at the Tulsa County Bar reception. In these days of cutthroat law practice, lawyers stealing clients from one another, big firms locking up the top corporate work, lawyers had to scurry for scraps and morsels. Any amount of kowtowing could be justified if it led to work. Preferably with a large profitable law firm.

  Christina, on the other hand, had already been with a large profitable law firm. And hated it. She didn’t want to switch; she just wanted to see Ben start making some money for a change. He was a fine, hardworking attorney with a growing reputation. But as a result of a bad incident with a big firm early in his career, his connections to the local power brokers were severely constrained. And his social skills were pitiful. The fact that Ben constantly took time-consuming cases for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay didn’t help much, either. Christina had insisted that Ben attend this reception, in a desperate attempt to increase his interactivity in the legal community. This was supposed to be his assignment, not hers. So where was he?

  “Christina! Is it really you?”

  She heard the voice and winced. Ohmigod. Not Alvin Hager. Anything but Alvin Hager.

  “Alvin Hager,” the man said, thrusting his hand into her abdomen. “How the hell have you been?”

  She forced a smile. Alvin had been a young associate at Raven, Tucker & Tubb back when she’d been a legal assistant there. He’d had a big crush on her—the drooling puppy-dog kind. He was basically a nerd, but it seemed to her at times that pretty much all lawyers were, so she tried not to hold it against him.

  “Christina, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you! I’m just—I’m overwhelmed!” As if he couldn’t restrain himself, he threw his arms around her and enveloped her in a tremendous bear hug. His faux mustache—too few whiskers thickened with some sort of gel—brushed against her cheek. “How did we ever lose track?”

  “Well, these things happen. So how are you?”

  “Oh . . . I’m slowly recovering,” he said, making Christina immediately wish she hadn’t asked. “I guess you probably heard—Candy and I gave up the ghost. Called it quits. After a year and a half of marriage, no less.”

  Christina shook her head. “That long.”

  “Yeah, sad, isn’t it? But I’m getting past the anger and, to tell you the truth, I’m rather relieved. I feel like a free man again. Like I’ve been reprieved from a life sentence. How about you?” he added, jabbing her in the ribs. “Still single? I hope, I hope?”

  This would be a good time to fictionalize a lesbian relationship with a first cousin, Christina mused, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “Yes, still single.”

  “And still in the law game?”

  “Yes. I work with Ben Kincaid.”

  Hager slapped himself on the forehead. “Oh, my God, no! You’re kidding, right?”

  “No . . .”

  “Not him! Not that chump we booted out of the firm!”

  “The one and only.”

  “Oh, you poor dear. I had no idea! I mean, I knew you left the firm at the same time, but I never dreamed you’d still be with him after all these years.”

  Christina tried not to bristle. “I like working with Ben. He’s a good attorney.”

  “Oh, but Christina—this will never do. I know times are tough for legal assistants, but someone with your skills—”

  “Actually, Alvin, I’m a lawyer now.”

  For the first time, Hager missed a beat. “You’re—what? A lawyer?”

  Did her newfound status threaten him? Christina wondered. Destroy some illusion he had of overwhelming the vulnerable legal assistant with his well-educated awesomeness? “And I like it where I am,” she continued. “Ben and I have handled some major cases. And won. We’ve helped innocent people avoid unjust charges—”

  “Criminal law?” He made a gagging face. “Oh, Christina—it’s just too horrible!”

  Christina felt her blood pressure rising. “I like what I’m doing.”r />
  “But Christina—a girl with your smarts could work anywhere. I bet I could get you back in with Raven.”

  “I’d sooner die.”

  “Then one of the other major firms. I’m a partner now, you know. I have a lot of connections. I could put in a good word.”

  Christina hesitated. She had come to network, after all. But the thought of leaving Ben and joining some big firm just didn’t appeal. “No thanks.”

  Alvin’s brow wrinkled. “What’s happened to you? The Christina I knew was a serious career woman. She wouldn’t pass on a golden opportunity to move herself up in the world. Is he paying you that much?”

  Christina suppressed a laugh. “No, that isn’t it.”

  “Have you two got some kind of . . . thing going?”

  “We’re just good friends.”

  Hager spread his arms wide. “Then what?”

  “I just—I—” What was she trying to say, anyway? Why had she stuck with Ben all this time? Why wasn’t she interested in moving onward and upward? She found herself utterly unable to explain it rationally. Was that because it wasn’t rational? “I like what I’m doing, Alvin. Where I’m doing it. I’m the person I want to be.”

  Hager took a step back. “That’s fine. Don’t get defensive on me. Just trying to help.” He winked. “So where is this paragon of lawyering, anyway?”

  She scanned the room. “There he is! I wonder how long he’s been here. Sorry, Alvin. Must dash.” She quickly crossed the room and grabbed Ben’s arm. “Thank goodness you’re here. I was trapped with Alvin Hager, of all people. Have you met anyone here?”

  “I’ve met lots of people,” Ben replied. “Most of them annoying.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what they say. Ninety-nine percent of the lawyers give the rest a bad name. But this soiree isn’t restricted to lawyers, you know. There are some real people here, too. All kinds of big shots. Potential clients.”

  “Like who?”

  Christina tugged her head to one side. “See the guy in the gray? Walt Helmerich, oil kingpin. The man he’s talking to? Chester Cadieux. Chairman of QuikTrip. I daresay he’s worth a few bucks.” She adjusted her gaze slightly to a strong-looking man with silver hair. “Robert Lorton. Tulsa World. Gordona Duca. Real estate. Major wheeler-dealer.”