Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  He closed and opened the door, admiring the squeakless hinges Emily blowtorched from a single sheet of anodized aluminum. He was good at metalwork, thanks to the endless hours restoring his race cars. She was better. His woman had the gift, the touch.

  My woman . . .

  He closed the door and headed back to the next section of grout.

  “Party’s over, hon,” Annie said, belting Emily into the passenger seat of her double-cab pickup. “I’ll drop you at home and pick you up in the morning.”

  “I can drive,” Emily mumbled.

  “Right. And my face is on Mount Rushmore,” Annie said.

  Emily hiccupped. “I’m not DUI.”

  “Just UI,” Annie said.

  “That’s mere supposition.”

  “It’s a fact, Jack,” Annie said, pulling away from the Mining Camp and heading for downtown. “Lee Ann had room in her garage, so your car’s safe and sound. Set your alarm when you get upstairs. Don’t forget, because I’m swinging by at six to pick you up.”

  “Aye aye, mommodore,” Emily said, saluting. She hit her nose instead of her forehead.

  Annie grinned. “On second thought, I’d better call you.”

  Marty checked his watch. Almost midnight. God, he was tired - worked all day, worked all night. But the powder room was finished, and for that, he was happy.

  “Guess Em’s gonna wait till tomorrow,” he muttered.

  He dragged himself upstairs, every step like climbing Everest. He peeked in the closet to make sure the tommy hadn’t disappeared, then walked to the master bathroom.

  He washed himself of dirt, sweat, and grout spatter, then dried with her bath towel. Kept it to his face a minute ‘cause it smelled like her. Hung it back on the rack, making sure the corners were lined up - she had her idiosyncrasies - and walked out into the bedroom.

  “Ow,” he said, grimacing.

  He sat on the bed, took off his right shoe. A chunk of grout fell out. He two-handed it into the wastebasket next to her triple dresser. Score.

  He tried to get up to go home, but his bones wouldn’t let him.

  “Quick nap,” he mumbled, letting the shoe fall from his hand. “That’s all I need. Ten minutes and I’m outta here.”

  Emily waved as Annie sped off. She opened and closed the front door, checked twice that it was locked. She wasn’t drunk, not a bit. But she had to admit to a certain tipsiness.

  She gathered the envelopes from the foyer floor. The day she installed the door slot, she asked Joey the mailman to make his deliveries there instead of the curbside box. He understood why and was happy to oblige. She did, however, maintain the curb box, to fool the bad guys. Another silly superstition, she supposed. But one just like it saved her life two years ago, and as Branch said time to time, “Can’t hurt, might help.”

  The Executioner gunned the mini-fueler under the Washington Street viaduct and into downtown Naperville. He cut west on Douglas Avenue, south on Mill Street, west again on Jackson Avenue. He stuck to the speed limit, signaled each turn. He’d memorized the information on the gas jockey’s driver’s license, but only marginally resembled the photo. He couldn’t afford a traffic stop.

  He slowed at the VFW, scouting the area. Homes, driveways, sidewalks, trees, grass. Lots of lights, but none inside the houses. Emily’s included.

  Nice-looking place, he thought. He appreciated artistry in industrial processes, and this had plenty. The terrain-hugging two-story featured a metal roof that looked like slate, brick cladding to match the Riverwalk pavers, contrasting limestone quoins, designer windows, and a wraparound porch. Not dissimilar to others in the neighborhood. The frame, walls, and floors, however, were poured concrete, two feet thick and sandwiched with insulation. He knew that from the Naperville Sun article about cutting-edge home building around town. Concrete, the article said, saved trees, cut energy bills, didn’t rot, and repelled destructive critters.

  Well, most, anyway.

  The front of the house sat blessedly close to the street. Brass lanterns lit everything yellowish white. The entrance door looked like oak. Probably steel, given the roof. A mail slot with a shiny brass cover was cut through at waist level.

  Exactly as he’d remembered from his drive-bys.

  Emily walked to the powder room. She’d start the grouting before hitting the hay. The job was much more fun when Marty helped, but that wasn’t possible so . . .

  “I must be drunk,” she muttered, not believing her eyes. Every line was grouted white. The exquisitely inlaid granites and marbles were sparkling clean. The floor was done, and it hadn’t been when she left for work. Who in the-

  She heard a titanic snore erupting from her bedroom.

  “Man, oh man, oh man, oh man,” she whispered.

  The Executioner peered through the gaps in the garage curtains. No cars. Nobody home.

  Flame on.

  January 17, 1972

  “Weatherman promises nine degrees tonight,” Potter Stewart said.

  “Nine?” William Rehnquist groused, not feigning the shiver. “Washington’s a southern city, for crying out loud. If I wanted winter wonderlands, I wouldn’t have left Milwaukee.”

  Stewart’s polished heels popped like snare drums as the two justices strode across the Great Hall of the U.S. Supreme Court. “Well, at least the debate was hot.”

  “Best I’ve heard in years,” Rehnquist agreed. “Death penalty cases stir such passion. Mr. Furman’s attorney made some impressive arguments for reversing his client’s death sentence.”

  “Glad to hear you admit it, Bill. He’s got plenty of cause,” Stewart said, nodding as William O. Douglas hurried by, juggling legal pads and coffee.

  Rehnquist shook his head. He’d been sworn in only ten days ago, but bowed to no one in parsing the Constitution. “William Henry Furman killed an innocent husband and father.”

  “Accidentally.”

  “He was burglarizing the man’s home, Potter. In the middle of the night.”

  “It was still an accident. Homeowner hears a noise. Thinks it’s their son sleepwalking again. Walks out of the bedroom to see what’s what. Furman panics, tries to run. He trips, his gun goes off, homeowner dies,” Stewart recited. “Because Furman lives in Georgia, he’s sentenced to the electric chair.”

  “Because the Georgia legislature decided execution fit his crime,” Rehnquist said. “Centuries of Anglo-American legal tradition support capital punishment, and you know it.”

  “What I know, Bill, is that societal standards evolve,” Stewart said. “We used to burn witches, flog sailors, and send our poor to debtors’ prisons. We do none of that anymore, because our notions of morality have changed. Become more sophisticated. It’s time to declare capital punishment incompatible with 1970s America.”

  “I agree,” Rehnquist said.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. Views do change over time. But not on capital punishment.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry, Potter, but you don’t,” Rehnquist said. “Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of putting killers to death. That gives the Georgia legislature - all legislatures - the moral and constitutional right to impose that penalty.”

  “Not if we rule otherwise.”

  “It’s not our place to substitute our judgment for theirs.”

  “We have to, Bill,” Stewart said. “That killing was accidental. If Furman did the exact same thing in Oregon, he’d get a manslaughter conviction and fifteen years. In Rhode Island, he’d get life. Arizona, death. California, thirty years. Texas-”

  “They’d hang the varmint by sundown.”

  They both laughed.

  “All kidding aside, capital punishment is a thicket of double standards,” Stewart said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to how it’s applied, just throw your dart and see where it sticks. States impose it so capriciously, so utterly contrary to the punishment fitting the crime, that it’s-”

  “Let me guess,” Rehnquist said. “Cruel an
d unusual.”

  “In the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual,” Stewart said, patting Rehnquist’s arm. “Because dying from it depends not on truth, justice, or facts, but on where you’re standing.”

  “Very eloquent. Do I hear the opening line of an opinion to reverse Furman’s death sentence?”

  Stewart smiled. “I hate to waste perfectly good prose.”

  “Take it easy, Wayne,” the state’s attorney said, offering his bulldog assistant a tumbler of Wild Turkey. “You’ll give yourself a stroke.”

  Covington drained it in one gulp. Felt the burn all the way down. It was nothing compared with his outrage.

  “Furman killed an innocent man,” he fumed. “In the man’s own house! Georgia properly sentenced him. How can the Supremes rule pulling the switch is unconstitutional?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” the state’s attorney said, refilling the tumbler.

  Covington jumped to his feet. Until reading the summaries of today’s oral arguments before the high court, he’d never dreamt his long-awaited execution of Earl Monroe might be commuted to mere prison. His boss said, “No way.” But if five of the nine justices bought Furman’s quixotic argument that death was too cruel and unusual a punishment for causing death, Monroe could slip the chair as well.

  “Quit pacing, goddammit,” the state’s attorney ordered. “You’re making me nervous.”

  Covington sat, slumped, sipped, sighed.

  “I’m telling you not to worry,” his boss continued. “Monroe’s execution is June 29. Five months from now. Much too quick for the Supremes to make a decision that far-reaching.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Covington said, rubbing the pocket comb he always carried.

  “Mm-hm. By the time they do get around to deciding, Earl’s body lies a-moldering in the grave. And this chair is yours.” He smiled. “Just remember the old proverb.”

  Covington arched a tapered eyebrow.

  “‘Be careful what you wish for,’” the state’s attorney said. “‘You may get it.’”

  “So what do you think, Doc?” Earl asked, swinging his black-and-blue legs. A trio of crew-cuts - that’s what he called the latest crop of guards, crew-cuts, for their horribly unstylish buzzed heads - delivered another “cop-killer” lesson last night. He’d managed to break two of three noses, so it wasn’t all bad. Didn’t even get tossed in solitary. That would have meant writing up the attackers, which nobody wanted because it was, well, Earl Monroe, not a more sympathetic orphan-drowner or baby-raper. “Furman gonna live or die?”

  Doc lit a pair of Camels, handed one to Earl. “Die.”

  “Why?”

  Doc blew a stream at the infirmary window. It swirled around the thick-painted bars, disappeared toward Joliet. “Two words,” he said. “Bobby Kennedy.”

  Earl winced. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered. “What year was it again that poor Irisher got himself whacked? I lose track.”

  “Sirhan slew Bobby in 1968,” Doc said. “Just two years after you-”

  “Not you, too,” Earl spat, more hurt than angry. “Thought you were different, being decent to me all these years. But you don’t believe me either, do you?”

  Doc sucked the cigarette tip red.

  “Darling!” Verna Monroe said. “It’s so good to hear your voice! Where are you?”

  “London.”

  “Calling long distance from England,” Verna marveled. “You’re attending that engineering conference, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. When NASA says ‘jump,’ I ask, ‘how high?’“

  Even with the crackle she heard the off note. “Is everything all right? Why are you calling when you’re so busy?”

  “No reason,” Daniel Monroe said. He was rereading the summary of the Furman arguments he’d obtained from a barrister friend. “Just wanted to hear your voice. With all the traveling I’ve been doing, I haven’t talked to you as much as I’d like.”

  “Well, isn’t that just like you,” Verna said. “Thinking of your mother when you’re doing such important work for our president. But that’s not really why you called, is it?”

  Silence.

  Verna waited patiently.

  “What do you mean we’ve got insurance?” Covington asked.

  “Sirhan Sirhan,” the state’s attorney said.

  Covington’s eyes lit up. He’d been so obsessed with what the Supreme Court might not do to Monroe that he’d forgotten all about that cockroach. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan emptied a revolver into JFK’s kid brother at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The assassin was tackled by a curtain wall of Rosey Grier, George Plimpton, and Secret Service, then charged, convicted, and doomed to breathe cyanide till his skin turned purple.

  “You’re right, skipper,” Covington said, inner fists unclenching. “No way the Supremes boot Sirhan from the gas chamber. Not after he whacks a Kennedy.”

  “Not for all the tea in Red China,” the state’s attorney agreed. “If they’re not partial to avenging Bobby, well, Charles Manson and Richard Speck are on Death Row, too.”

  “If the justices overturn Furman, they overturn everyone,” Covington said. “The public uproar would make the Boston Tea Party look like a college prank.”

  “And that, my worried friend, is why Earl Monroe will die in Stateville, on time, in that great good chair of ours.” He grinned. “Thank God for celebrity victims.”

  “You’re thinking about Earl, aren’t you?” Verna said. “Because of the court hearing.”

  “Uh-huh,” Danny said, rubbing his arm. It was raining - no surprise, this being London - and his forearm ached like loose dentures. Despite his vow to Earl, he’d tried going back to the hospital to redefine The Way It Was. Earl’s chief enforcer, a refrigerator-size biker named Theodore Rehnt, caught him. He drove Danny at gunpoint to Naperville Cemetery, opposite the hospital, and delivered an earful about staying away.

  Then broke his arm with a lead-filled blackjack.

  “Pipe down, Danny, it’s a small fracture,” Teddy said over his yelps. “It’ll set fine. Tell the emergency room docs you fell up some stairs. They’ll buy it.”

  He jacked Danny’s other arm, but only hard enough to bruise. “Don’t write to your brother. Don’t call. Don’t visit. Not now, not ever. He loves and misses you. But he can’t see you again. He told you that the other day, and you agreed. Now you gotta accept it like a man. Beats me why Earl wants it that way, but he does.”

  Teddy shoved his bear-like face close. “I like you, Danny. I watched you grow up, working for your pops. But my orders from Earl are clear - next time you get beat till you flop around like Howdy Doody.” He whacked the fracture for an exclamation point . . .

  His shudder brought his head back to London.

  “Mr. Furman’s attorney made some deft arguments,” he told his mother. “If the Supreme Court agrees, every death sentence in the country is commuted. It’s our best chance yet.”

  “Yes, honey, it is,” Verna said. “Earl’s lawyer stopped by the house a little while ago and told me what happened. It’s exciting. Maybe a miracle will occur. Maybe Earl actually won’t-” She bit off the thought.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I shouldn’t get my hopes up, is all. Hope just drives you crazy.” Long pause. “There’s something else you should know.”

  “What’s that?” he said, rubbing his pounding temples. Jet lag, probably.

  “If Mr. Furman doesn’t win his case, I’m going to watch Earl die.”

  “Think Furman’ll beat the rap?” Detective Burr said as he laid queens over jacks in the sheriff’s locker room.

  “Nah,” Detective Rogan said, shoving over the pot in disgust. “The robed wonders will pick their noses, scratch their balls, then tell Georgia, ‘Go ahead, y’all.’ Execution is an American tradition.”

  “Like Thanksgiving,” Burr said. “Or college football.”

  Rogan pointed his finger. “The Rose Bowl of frying.
”

  They laughed. Burr dealt the next hand, Rogan the one after that.

  “What if ol’ Earl didn’t do it?” Burr said, relighting his Tiparello.

  “Like the Japs didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m just saying, what if he really didn’t? Like he keeps claiming? We’d be executing an innocent man.”

  “We just catch the fish,” Rogan said. “Someone else fries ‘em.”

  Thursday

  12:28 a.m.

  Emily sat on her side of the bed, arms around her tucked-up knees.

  She’d been loaded for bear when she walked upstairs, intending to vent her outrage over what she knew was the real problem - Marty leaving her out of that most intimate part of his life. But her dudgeon melted when she saw his size twelve feet - one shod, one bare - splayed on the pillows and his head hanging over the bottom of the bed.

  She sighed, tucked a blanket over him. Headed for the shower. Dried quickly, prepped for morning, came to bed. Marty was snorting and mumbling. She kissed his head and neck, feeling so mellow from the dissipation of tension - and that boatload of rum - she didn’t even mind the annoying scrape against her window screen. Time enough to fix it.

  To fix us.

  She fell asleep.

  * * *

  Johnny Sanders slept so soundly in the satin sheets that he didn’t hear the phone ring.

  “She’s frayed,” Annie sighed into the darkness. “Wary. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Will she be all right?”

  “Just punch-drunk. Two years ago, now this. It can get to a person.”

  She laid her head on her husband’s chest.

  “Because of the Riverwalk attack, Emily’s convinced she’s the real target of our serial,” she said. “The woman did look like her in the dark, and he used a knife. The similarities end there, though. Her head knows that. Her heart believes otherwise.”

  “Wouldn’t yours?”

  “Sure. And I don’t have half her baggage.”

  “You got enough,” he reminded.

  “Yeah, but I’m made from titanium,” Annie said.

  “Your head maybe. Heart’s a gummy bear.”