Riven

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  It was all Thomas could do to keep from shaking his head until Ravinia had followed him into his office and the door was shut.

  “I can’t believe what I just heard, Rav. You played him like a fiddle.”

  Ravinia kicked off her heels and propped her feet on the edge of his desk. “I’ve never even considered writing a memoir,” she said. “But this would be chapter one.”

  Thomas studied her. “This whole idea has captured you, hasn’t it?”

  Ravinia lowered her feet to the floor and looked away.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” Thomas said.

  She shook her head. “I told Brady it would take a miracle to make this happen.”

  69

  Adamsville

  Gladys’s husband, Xavier, was a tall, knuckly man whose arms glistened black in the autumn Saturday sun. He labored over the charcoal grill in Thomas’s backyard as Dirk cavorted with Summer. Ravinia sat with her mother, who—despite the Indian summer day—sat in a chaise longue bundled in a blanket to her neck.

  Grace would tell Thomas later that the highlight of the day for her was discovering that Gladys shared her love of the old hymns and getting the chance to sing the melody on some of her favorites, countered by Gladys’s bluesy alto.

  After the little impromptu concert, Thomas and Gladys watched Xavier work from a respectable distance. “I’m glad you let him do this,” Gladys whispered. “He won’t admit it, but I think you offended him by implying he cooks for a living. You know he owns the place and just supervises now, only cooks in a pinch. He’s loving this.”

  Thomas worried where everyone would sit at the picnic table, what with Dirk and Ravinia still living apart and enduring this only for the sake of their daughter. He decided to just sit next to Grace and let the others sit where they wanted.

  “C’mere a minute, Rev,” Gladys said, moving into the shade. “You got to tell me what’s going on at work. I promise not to say a word, but what in the world is it with all the meetings with Andreason and even the governor? They gonna shut us down?”

  “Shut us down? Really, Gladys. What would they do with all the inmates?”

  “I don’t know, but it has to be about money. It always is. I mean, this state is proud of all of its prisons, but the budget is in deep trouble.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Thomas said. “You think it’s worse than it’s been?”

  “I’m not blind,” Gladys said. “Something is going on.”

  Thomas was debating how much to tell her when Summer squealed that she wanted to see Grandpa, and his son-in-law brought her over. “Anything new with Darby’s scheme?” Dirk said as Summer climbed onto Thomas’s back.

  “Darby’s what?” Gladys said.

  “Nothing,” Dirk said, looking sheepish. “You heard nothing from me.”

  “Me either,” Thomas said.

  “All right,” Gladys said. “I told you about the budget; you tell me what else is going on.”

  Dirk looked stricken and apologetic. “Goodness, Dad, I thought sure she’d know.”

  By the time they sat to eat Xavier’s award-winning barbecue spare ribs and chicken, everyone was talking about Brady Darby’s bizarre idea.

  “No specifics in front of little ears,” Ravinia said, dabbing her mouth. “And needless to say, none of this can go farther than this yard.”

  Two weeks later, the incendiary news engulfed the world. No one knew how the information had leaked from the prison to the International Cable Network (ICN), and it didn’t matter anymore. Somehow the whole freakish plan had reached just the right person. All that mattered now was that the prison’s money woes were over, and Brady Wayne Darby was the most famous man in the world for reasons far beyond his having been the Heiress Murderer.

  Chaplain Thomas Carey was slowly coming to think Brady’s idea might have some merit after all. The way things were coming together, maybe God was behind it.

  The press credited the almighty dollar.

  The news bombshell hit the planet simultaneously, as choreographed by ICN. Moments after dawn in every time zone, everybody everywhere was aware of the facts and began spouting their opinions.

  The International Cable Network had, for an undisclosed sum that most estimated in the high eight figures, secured all media rights—including Web, radio, TV, motion picture, book, and any subsidiary right anyone could imagine—to a singular event. They would film, with one stationary camera, the execution of Brady Wayne Darby by crucifixion.

  ICN reserved the right to show the footage live on international television, and naturally that announcement alone resulted in unending public debate over the next two years.

  Besides its enormous payment to the state, and specifically to the Department of Corrections and its crown-jewel supermax, Adamsville State Penitentiary, ICN committed itself to a laundry list of obligations.

  These included guaranteeing the security of the facility and its inmates, covering all related costs, and scheduling a separate extensive documentary that would put ASP in the best light.

  Of primary importance to the Department of Corrections was that Darby not have personal access to the media. He could not be interviewed. It was, Warden Frank LeRoy said, a policy for which he could not finagle an exception. Neither was Darby, nor anyone associated with him, to benefit financially from the project.

  The only further concession to Brady was that ICN agreed to pay for a simple headstone and a tiny section of the prison grounds where he would be buried four days after his death.

  The firestorm of vitriol that resulted included dire predictions from pundits that all manner of public agencies would begin parlaying their capital cases and, in essence, selling condemned inmates to the media to show public executions.

  Cooler heads pointed out that this spectacle was Darby’s own idea and that no man or woman without a specific agenda like his was likely to allow the broadcast rights to his or her execution to be sold for the benefit of the state.

  Virtually every municipality in the world immediately acted to prevent similar eccentric displays, and the federal government filed suit against the state to preclude what it called “a fiasco with the potential for irreparable harm to the common good.”

  While the case dragged on—Governor Allard guaranteeing he would defend states’ rights to the end—a cross was donated from a research facility in Israel that claimed the item was as close to the first-century Roman death contraption as it could be.

  Adamsville State Penitentiary

  Meanwhile, Brady devoted himself to becoming more than a curiosity. With the exuberant support of his aunt Lois (and, she assured him, her entire church), he was determined to get to know Jesus as well as he could in his time left on earth. He requested books from the chaplain’s library and began memorizing Scripture and reciting it aloud in his cell, despite a constant barrage of abuse from every con within earshot.

  The at-long-last meeting with his aunt had been a curious affair, the two of them with both hands pressed against the Plexiglas as they wept and talked and prayed and sang.

  “Somehow I always knew God had something in mind for you, Brady,” she said.

  He had to smile. “You coulda fooled me. Thanks for never giving up on me.”

  Brady spent most of his time pacing, memorizing, and quietly reciting line after line of Jesus’ words from the Bible. He spoke just above a whisper, but no one could have heard him if he had shouted, such was the clamor from within death row.

  “Think you’re Jesus now, Heiress Boy?”

  “Whatcha think Katie North thinks of you now?”

  “You gonna burn in hell no matter how you die!”

  And on and on it went.

  Ravinia finally secured permission for Brady to listen to tapes and CDs in his cell, and besides recordings of the Gospels, he got to enjoy Grace Carey’s a cappella hymns, humming along and sometimes singing with her while glancing at her photograph on the wall.

  He had finally got Thomas to tell hi
m all about her and not just her illness. Brady felt he really knew her, at least from Thomas’s perspective. He enjoyed their love story and the adventure of their early married life as they ventured out for God.

  All Brady’s studying and thinking had made him more introspective and curious, and his sensitive questions seemed to open the chaplain to revealing more of his own life. Brady suffered with him through the tales of disappointment, especially Grace’s leukemia.

  One thing the man would not reveal, however, was much about his daughter. Chaplain Carey would rhapsodize about his granddaughter, but perhaps because Mrs. Carey-Blanc was Brady’s lawyer, her father did not feel free to reveal much. Brady was getting the picture, though.

  Adamsville

  Thomas was energized as never before to get to the prison every day, as he finally had a disciple—what else could he call a man so eager to learn the things of God? It was as if the Lord Himself was making up for all that had gone wrong in Thomas’s life by allowing him this one amazing student.

  Thomas was stunned at the growth and maturity he detected in Brady, despite all that swirled about him. The prison, specifically Frank LeRoy, worked hard at protecting the young man’s privacy and followed through on the commitment to keep Brady from the media.

  Satellite trucks from every major news outlet in the world—not to mention every state, county, and local TV station—rimmed the vast prison property as far as one could see. They were restricted by barriers and overrun with the largest contingent of anti–death penalty demonstrators ever assembled in one spot. Various such groups had banded together and set up tent villages as close to the prison property fences as they were allowed.

  Thomas couldn’t get over the boredom that had to attend the unfortunate reporters and technicians who manned the TV trucks that sat there twenty-four hours a day. Day after day all they seemed to put on the air were interviews with protesters saying the same things over and over and prison employees who said they didn’t know much and wouldn’t be at liberty to say anything if they did.

  Naturally that didn’t stop the controversy. Enough employees were speaking anonymously, and many were making up stories. The press ran with everything, plausible or not, and opinion polls about the phenomenon became a cottage industry.

  The press even camped out at Thomas’s house until they tired of getting absolutely nothing from him. They tried to interview the mailman, delivery people, you name it, but though they surrounded Thomas every time he came and went, he followed the advice of his daughter and quit saying even, “No comment.”

  Each time he emerged to get in his car, he said, “Hello. Good-bye.” And each time he returned from work or an errand, he said the same. Regardless how many cameras and microphones were stuck in his face, Thomas kept moving.

  He apologized to the neighbors at every opportunity.

  Eventually the media pulled away from Thomas’s street, and Thomas knew Grace, for one, was grateful.

  The press did, however, ferret out Erlene Darby, now living alone over a hash house in rural northern Florida. She said she couldn’t afford to visit her son but that she was “glad he finally came back to Jesus, the way I raised him.”

  Thomas was intrigued at Brady’s reaction to seeing that on the news. Knowing the man’s history, he expected anger. But Brady just seemed sad. When public outcry forced ICN to pony up and fly Mrs. Darby to Adamsville for a visit, Brady told Thomas he was tempted to leave her name off the approved list.

  “You can’t do that,” Thomas said. “No one would understand.”

  “If they knew the truth, they would.”

  “And yet they can’t know that either, can they?”

  Isolation Unit

  About six months into the circus, Erlene Darby became a media star for a few days, her every step from Florida to the gate at ASP chronicled for all to see. In her late forties, she looked closer to sixty, haggard and pale despite a valiant makeover attempt sponsored by a popular talk show host.

  “Hey, Ma,” Brady said, forcing a smile.

  She sat staring, and then she swore. “So, you’re gonna die like Jesus. Why?”

  “Thing is, I want to live like Him.”

  “Well if you don’t sound like your aunt Lois. She been to see you yet?”

  He nodded. “Got to see her one day and Uncle Carl the next. They’ve been wonderful.”

  “Which I haven’t, is what you’re saying.”

  “Haven’t heard from you till now.”

  “You either. Don’t put it on me.”

  “Let’s not fight, Ma. I appreciate you coming.”

  “Well, I couldn’t have except for the TV people. They’re gonna pay me for a ’sclusive interview after, too. I just can’t talk to anybody else on the way out of here. You should talk to somebody, get ’em to give me more.”

  “You want more money?”

  “’Course! I ought to get something out of this. Never had anything, you know.”

  Brady fought to hide his disgust. “It’s not up to me, and I’m getting nothing.”

  “Nothing? You’re on TV every day! I never even knew anybody famous. Saw Merle Haggard once, or at least I thought I did; but then I found out he was on tour somewhere else, so I don’t know who it was. But now my own son’s on TV every day.”

  “Look what I had to do to accomplish that, Ma.”

  “Yeah, but TV.”

  “You’d murder to be famous?”

  “Just about.”

  I’ll bet you would. “So, anyway, thanks for coming.”

  “That’s it?”

  “You wanted something else?”

  “I guess not, if you can’t put in a good word for me with those TV people.”

  Erlene was hounded every step of the way from the prison to the exclusive interview and finally back to her ramshackle home. Brady forced himself to watch, heartbroken that she was clearly under the influence on national TV, though she had been able to recite a line that had plainly been crafted for her by some writer.

  When asked if she would watch when her son died, she said, “Probably. But it’ll be sad. He’s the only one I have left. It’s—what do you call it?—ironic. He was the devil growing up, and now he thinks he’s Jesus.”

  That same broadcast also featured Jordan North for what he himself guaranteed would be the last time. “You bet I’ll be watching,” he said. “And I’ll be cheering. This is all one cruel joke, but at the end of it, Brady Wayne Darby will still be dead.”

  Adamsville

  No matter what radio or TV station Thomas turned to or what newspaper he read or whom he happened to run into at church, in his neighborhood, or even at the grocer, it seemed all he heard was what people thought about the idea of a public execution.

  If the pollsters could be believed, the vast majority of people all over the world considered the idea barbaric and swore they would boycott it. Psychologists, on the other hand, prognosticated that few would follow through on that pledge, and media experts predicted that the event would be the single most-watched television broadcast in history.

  Many stations went on record that they would not show the thing live and perhaps never, but ICN was negotiating with Web sites and private television venues, all the while publicly pontificating on the sacred right of responsible adults to decide for themselves what they preferred to watch.

  One talk-show pundit intoned, “Need I remind all the nattering naysayers and holier-than-thou viewers that this was Mr. Darby’s idea from the start? He wants mature adults to see it.”

  Thomas was impressed when Brady had Ravinia draft a statement in response. It said, “Mr. Darby wishes to clarify that his original intention was that viewers who choose to witness his death learn from it the cruelty and brutality of the crucifixion process. He did not have in mind a live TV spectacle in which the event may not be framed within its proper historic context. That said, he further urges that, if the broadcast is in the end allowed, parents will keep children from seeing it, as
well as others who might be traumatized.”

  “Your daughter sure has a way with words,” Brady said at his next meeting with Thomas. “Did you think that statement sounded like me at all?”

  Thomas smiled and shook his head. “I’m sure she meant it to cover all the bases legally. But you know what you’re going to have to speak to next. The whole issue of motive. Everybody knows by now, I think, that you are not benefiting from this beyond the fame and attention—”

  “Which would do me no good anyway.”

  “Well, you’ll have trouble convincing people of that. They think most criminals want attention above all. But I’m sure you’ve seen and heard the same things I have with all the coverage: people have their own ideas of what you’re trying to accomplish.”

  “I keep the TV and radio off most of the time.”

  “I don’t blame you, but you can’t have it on for five minutes without hearing some expert, or some nobody, say you’re trying to get into heaven by doing this. Like the warden suggested from the first, that you’re trying to die for your own sin.”

  Brady shook his head. “You know that’s not true.”

  Thomas nodded. “And yet you can see why people get that impression. It’s human nature to suspect the worst.”

  “I guess I’ll have to have my lawyer write another statement. Have you heard about this group that wants to worship me? They say I’m really Jesus come back to earth and that I’ll rise again after three days.”

  “Saw it,” Thomas said. “That’ll be easy enough to disprove four days later, won’t it?”

  “You think your daughter can keep them from burying me until then, just to make it clear? Seriously, I wouldn’t mind if they had a team of doctors that people trust do an autopsy and swear it’s me, DNA and all, before they put me in the ground. I don’t want to be another Elvis, where people claim they see me at Burger King years later.”