Unforgiving Shadows

by Ray Flynt

  UNFORGIVING

  SHADOWS

  by

  Ray Flynt

  Second Edition

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One

  In ninety minutes, Wilkie would die.

  Brad Frame’s leg muscles ached as he stepped from the car onto the gravel driveway. He needed to stretch after the four-hour drive from Philadelphia, so he placed his hands against the car’s body, and braced his legs on the solid ground until he felt his hamstring go taut.

  After a moment, the warmth he had retained from the heated leather seats of the Mercedes quickly dissipated into the brisk March night. He zipped up his parka, exhaled, and watched as his breath, visible in the sodium vapor lights at the perimeter of the prison, wafted slowly into space. Standing by the open car door his gaze moved outward from the floodlit stone walls to the grays of distant hills silhouetted against a black sky. It all seemed so peaceful until the rising chants of nearby demonstrators, with their conflicting death penalty messages, reminded him why he stood next to his car on a godforsaken spot in the middle of Pennsylvania.

  A few minutes earlier as his car approached the base of the hill on which the prison stood, anti-death penalty protestors had rushed him. They leered at him with angry faces, shaking their hand-painted signs in an unreadable blur, and pounded the windows while shouting obscenities. Their fury surprised and angered him, and he stared back at them in disbelief. He couldn’t understand how they could embrace the life of a man who had brought so much pain and suffering to his family. Brad felt his heart racing and his jaw tighten. Words took shape in his mind: Do you know what this man did to my family? Before he could shout back the State Police had cleared the roadway, and Brad continued his journey up the hill.

  Brad glanced at his watch—almost 10 p.m. He slammed the car door and reminded himself that it wasn’t too late to back out. Frank Wilkie had invited him to the Rockview Correctional facility for the execution. Wilkie, who, eleven years earlier, had kidnapped his mother and sister from their Main Line home in Philadelphia. A week after the kidnapping they were found brutally murdered. Brad zapped the remote to lock his car, then turned toward the chain link fence.

  Approaching the gate of the death house, located on the grounds of the prison in a former field hospital, Brad stared up at the v-shape brackets at the top connected by barbed wire into which coils of razor wire had been cradled. Wicked looking stuff. The guards must have seen him coming, because the gate opened with a soft whir and he continued walking toward a thick security window at the building’s entrance. A uniformed officer behind the glass muttered, “ID,” into the intercom, and Frame flashed his driver’s license. A few seconds later a deep buzzer sounded followed by the clank of metal as the door ground open. Another Correction’s officer waited on the other side.

  “I'm Tom Hardesty.” The officer extended his hand. “We've been expecting you, Mr. Frame. You’re the last to arrive.”

  “Call me Brad,” he said matching Hardesty’s vigorous handshake.

  “I see you made it past the demonstrators. Sorry you had to go through that, but they got their First Amendment rights.” Hardesty laughed. “The other witnesses are in a holding room, Mr. Frame… Brad. You'll be going into the execution chamber shortly. Follow me.”

  Brad shivered. Hardesty said execution chamber as easily as he might say art gallery.

  Hardesty led him back a short fluorescent-lit hallway on a circuitous route. Brad followed the click of Hardesty’s hard-soled shoes down the tiled hallway, past rest rooms, a water fountain, and unmarked doors toward a stout, mustachioed man who waited for them near an open doorway. Hardesty stopped and turned smartly. “This is Mr. Frame,” he announced, then turned back and said, “Superintendent Henry Dolewski.”

  Brad grasped Dolewski’s hand, and noticed the superintendent sized him up as if he were a new tenant for the cellblock. Force of habit, he surmised.

  “It’s good to meet you,” Brad said. “I was surprised to get your call the other day.”

  “After twenty seven years in this business nothing surprises me,” Dolewski said, adding, “Would you believe I had to scrounge up another witness this afternoon? The condemned man’s other witness bailed out on us. You can wait in here, Mr. Frame.” Dolewski put his hand on Brad’s back guiding him through the door. Perhaps a dozen others, gathered in small clusters throughout the room, snapped their heads noting the new arrival.

  When the Superintendent had called three days earlier with the news that Frank Wilkie wanted Frame to serve as a witness to his execution, Brad’s first instinct was no way. But Sharon Porter, an associate in his detective agency had convinced him. She said it might help bring “closure,” and that maybe Wilkie wanted the chance to apologize. Brad doubted it. Besides, Brad was an agnostic on the death penalty, not quite understanding how another death would ease the pain he’d felt for the past eleven years.

  “You might be interested in the briefing materials, Mr. Frame,” Henry Dolewski said, pointing at a nearby table. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have important matters to attend to.”

  Brad grabbed a portfolio, and figured he should introduce himself to the other witnesses. It was easy to spot the government’s witnesses; they all wore suits—must have gotten the same memo. A retired police officer, a warden from a nearby county prison, a policy analyst from the State Correction’s Department, and a Deputy State Attorney General offered short greetings and polite handshakes. Then a man in a tight-fitting black suit with narrow lapels and wearing a goofy string tie described himself as an “interested citizen” and firmly grasped Brad’s hand for an overly long time until Frame finally disengaged.

  The media were easy to identify too, clumped in two groups at the far end of the room. The ones wearing denim and casual shirts were all print journalists, Brad surmised, while he recognized one of the two guys in dark blazers, pale blue shirts, fashionable ties, and Reeboks from Channel 6 in Philadelphia. They both looked primed for remote TV broadcasts when the execution was concluded. Brad approached the reporters and quickly introduced himself. He also recognized Paula Thompson from The Philadelphia Inquirer, who had interviewed him once as an expert in her coverage of a missing person’s case. Thompson started to ask a question, but Brad turned and beat a path to the water cooler, managing to avoid her.

  Except for Thompson, all the witnesses were men. What an eclectic group, he thought, with no more in common than if they were all vacationing on the same cruise ship.

  10:17 p.m. Brad retreated to a quiet corner of the conference room and thumbed through the Correction’s Department briefing kit—undoubtedly prepared for the benefit of the media—detailing the evening’s sequence of events. It described death by lethal injection in the clinical language of the law: “Death shall be inflicted by injecting the convict with a continuous, intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of an ultrashort-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent... until death is pronounced by a licensed physician.”

  “You ever see an execution?” The question rose above the murmur of scattered conversations.

  Brad glanced up from the briefing materials and saw the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter staring at him.

  “I did,” the reporter continued, “in Texas, when I worked for the Dallas Morning News. They used lethal injection too. Stuck the needle in a muscle, instead of a blood vessel. It took that poor son-of-a-bitch forty minutes to die. I thought I'd never get out of there.”

  Brad noticed that the policy analyst grimaced at the man’s story, while others turned away. Brad, unsure if he wanted to remain for the execution, headed toward the exit.

  Paula Thompson blocked his path. In addition to her denim fashion statement, her b
edraggled hair made a plea for a fresh shampoo. She reminded Brad of a cobra; its neck flattened and prepared to spit venom. She didn't even count to ten before firing her question at him: “So you weren't content to get the man convicted, you had to come see him die?”

  The room grew eerily quiet. Without looking Brad could tell that all eyes were focused on him. He cleared his throat and hoped he wouldn’t sound as anxious as he felt. “I take no pleasure at witnessing this execution, Ms. Thompson. I'm here at Frank Wilkie's request, but I'm also confident that justice is being done.”

  “What do you mean?” the Philadelphia TV reporter asked. “Are you saying Wilkie asked you to attend his execution?” Thompson had broken the dam and questions came flying, even from non-reporters: “Did you meet with him?” “What does he want?” “Did he ask you to petition the Governor for clemency?”

  Brad raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, I haven't seen Frank Wilkie since his trial ten years ago. I haven’t got a clue why he wants me here.”

  Thompson persisted. “What about all the appeals? Didn't you testify?”

  “No. I did not testify.” Brad met her gaze directly. “Appeals are used to argue law, not facts. The facts are that Frank Wilkie and Eddie Baker took the lives of two innocent people—my mother and sister. That's never been in dispute. The only thing that has is whether the jury's death mandate should be carried out.”

  Paula Thompson blinked her brown eyes, then turned and preached to the other witnesses. “A guy sits on death row for ten years. He’s already paid a big chunk of debt to society, and then they do this.” She shook her head, as if in disbelief.

  “It’s not my fault the courts can’t provide swift justice,” Brad countered. “Every time the State was ready to take Wilkie’s life, the appeals process kept extending it—first for weeks, then months and years. Judge MacIntee, who tried the original case, died a couple years later. And you know what?” Brad asked rhetorically, realizing a bitter tone had crept into his voice. “That gave some attorney another reason to file an appeal.” He drew a quick breath. “Get this! Based on not being able to probe the Judge’s state of mind when he sentenced Wilkie to death.”

  “Do you believe the death penalty deters murder?” Thompson asked. Brad noticed she was scribbling his comments in her notebook.

  “I know Frank Wilkie will never commit another murder.” Brad stared at her, as if daring her to dismantle that logic.

  “When they start broadcasting executions,” Thompson said, “they'll put an end to this barbarism.”

  Brad walked away from her. He wished he had never come to the prison. Not only wouldn’t he find closure that night, but also he faced the prospect of seeing his own words distorted and smeared across the pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

  “Wasn’t there another guy convicted of this same crime?” a reporter asked to no one in particular.

  “Eddie Baker,” the retired police officer answered. “He hung himself in his prison cell a couple years ago. He saved the taxpayers a few bucks, at least.”

  10:46 p.m. The seconds chugged by. And with each passing minute, the conference room grew more claustrophobic. Each witness managed to find a few square feet of space and paced off the minutes. Brad listened to the idle musings of his fellow witnesses.

  Hank, the interested citizen, chimed in, “I don’t know how what we're gonna see is any different than what that so-called ‘Suicide Doctor’ was doin’ up in Michigan. This is more humane than the electric chair.”

  A couple of witnesses nodded their heads. Brad remained stoic, not wishing to get drawn into any debates.

  “If you want to see something barbaric, we could bring back public hanging,” the county prison’s warden wryly offered. “The last public hanging in Pennsylvania was in my county in 1913. Back then each county was responsible for its own executions. Our county commissioners—ever mindful of the public tax dollars—paid an executioner who promised he wouldn't have to spend a lot of money building an expensive wooden scaffold. The guy rigged up this system which used counterweights to hoist the poor man into the air instead of goin' through a drop like a conventional hanging. After a half-hour of prayers and speeches, they strung the man up in the courtyard of the jail. It took him twenty minutes to choke to death, instead of getting his neck broke if they'd've rigged a regular drop.” The man paused, then seeming to draw energy from the rapt interest of his listeners continued, “Of course the public was admitted as witnesses along with any unsuspecting drunk and disorderly who happened to be confined the previous night. They considered it therapeutic for the other prisoners to watch the hangings.”

  Brad felt a headache coming on and massaged his forehead.

  Officer Hardesty materialized in the doorway. “Gentlemen, and, ah, lady, if you'll follow me, they're ready for you.”

  According to the briefing book, Frame was witness number six. The witnesses lined up in order and proceeded single file, in hushed silence, down a narrow corridor until Hardesty stopped, opened a door and directed them into the room where they would view the execution. His was the last seat in the front row, a sturdy wooden chair. The Deputy Attorney General sat next to him, and Frame noticed that Paula Thompson slid into a chair in the back row on the opposite end of the observation room. Officer Hardesty backed out of the metal door and it clanged shut. Soon the only sound Brad heard was the breathing of his fellow witnesses.

  There was no question where they were supposed to look. Three glass panels in front of them offered a full view of the death chamber. Brad was surprised how close they were to where the prisoner would meet his fate. If not for the glass, he could have touched the gurney. He was kept further back watching an oil change at the Mercedes’ dealership.

  The execution room was a modest-sized, windowless, concrete block space painted a pale shade of green. On the right side of the room, next to the only door, a black phone hung silently on the wall. On the left, a small one-way-mirrored-window concealed the place where Brad presumed the executioners could observe the prisoner. The briefing materials described a process involving two persons activating separate switches, only one of which actually released the deadly fluid. Like giving one member of a firing squad blank cartridges, he surmised the procedure provided emotional cover just in case one of the executioners later developed pangs of conscience. A coiled plastic tube extended from a slot beside their observation window. It would convey the drugs: Sodium Thiopental, producing nearly immediate anesthesia followed by brain death; Potassium Chloride, paralyzing the heart; and just to make sure, a third chemical, Pavulon, to impede the functioning of the lungs.

  Brad’s eyes focused on the sheet-covered gurney in the center of the room—the condemned man's deathbed. Behind it stood a white-coated technician with a tray of intravenous needles and plastic tubing, alongside a heart-monitoring machine. He noticed the man wore surgical gloves.

  11:02 p.m. Brad began to wonder if the Governor had granted a last minute reprieve. Every once in a while a witness would sigh.

  Then Brad saw the door on the opposite side of the execution room swing open, and a uniformed corrections’ officer held it back. First in the lineup to enter was Superintendent Dolewski who positioned himself behind the gurney.

  “…He leadeth me beside the still waters; he restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” A wiry black man in his mid-forties dressed in a gray jacket, black shirt, and wearing a clerical collar preceded the condemned man. His words drifted to the witnesses through metal grills above the windows in the partition wall, which gave every sound a muffled echo.

  Brad had read in the briefing materials that George Haines was the prison's Protestant chaplain. Continuing to recite the 23rd Psalm from memory, the chaplain moved into position to the left of the gurney.

  Four guards escorted Frank Wilkie. Brad barely recognized him, having not seen him for ten years. Back then
he’d been a cocky jerk in his late-twenties with a full head of brown hair. Now with thinning hair and a pasty complexion he was dressed in a light blue jumpsuit and already looked sapped of life. Wires connected to sensors taped to his chest protruded through grommets sewn into the suit, enabling prison officials to monitor his heart during the procedure. Brad noticed Wilkie clutched a book in his hands even as his wrists were secured with leather restraints. He glanced at the gurney and then toward the superintendent who remained taut lipped and alert. Two of the guards boosted the prisoner to a seated position on the gurney. Almost immediately, the other officers lifted and turned Wilkie’s feet so that he had to lie down. More officers entered the room, each with a task to perform. The prisoner was quickly bound to the table with thick leather straps. With military precision those guards withdrew, and two of the officers who had escorted him removed the leather wrist restraint attached to his belt. They re-secured Wilkie's right arm to an armrest extending from the right side of the gurney, dislodging the book he carried. The book fell to the floor. Brad leaned forward until his forehead touched the glass and could make out that it was a Bible Wilkie had dropped.

  Frank Wilkie let out a mournful groan, and flailed about, trying in vain to reach his Bible. The prisoner extended his still-free hand, but two guards jammed his left shoulder back toward the thin padding on the gurney, and the left arm restraint was quickly applied.

  “My Bible!” Wilkie thundered. His words echoed through the chamber, destroying the calm atmosphere that had prevailed up to that point.

  It seemed to Brad that the prisoner’s eyes pleaded with Chaplain Haines. As the guards double-checked the straps securing Wilkie to the table, the chaplain bent down to retrieve Wilkie's Bible.

  “I want you to take it, like we talked,” the condemned man said. His words were softly spoken, yet loud enough to carry through the grillwork in to the hushed witness chamber. Haines clasped Wilkie's arm and bowed his head in silent prayer. Frank Wilkie squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them as the chaplain withdrew to his appointed station.