by John Grisham
“When did we leave Clanton?”
Lee leaned forward and took her wineglass from the table. She sipped and thought for a moment. “He’d been in jail about a month, I believe. I drove down one day to see Mother, and she told me Eddie was talking about leaving. I didn’t believe it. She said he was embarrassed and humiliated and couldn’t face people around town. He’d just lost his job and he wouldn’t leave the house. I called him and talked to Evelyn. Eddie wouldn’t get on the phone. She said he was depressed and disgraced and all that, and I remember telling her that we all felt that way. I asked her if they were leaving, and she distinctly said no. About a week later, Mother called again and said you guys had packed and left in the middle of the night. The landlord was calling and wanting rent, and no one had seen Eddie. The house was empty.”
“I wish I remembered some of this.”
“You were only three, Adam. The last time I saw you you were playing by the garage of the little white house. You were so cute and sweet.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Several weeks passed, then one day Eddie called me and told me to tell Mother that you guys were in Texas and doing okay.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah. Evelyn told me much later that y’all sort of drifted westward. She was pregnant and anxious to settle down some place. He called again and said y’all were in California. That was the last call for many years.”
“Years?”
“Yeah. I tried to convince him to come home, but he was adamant. Swore he’d never return, and I guess he meant it.”
“Where were my mother’s parents?”
“I don’t know. They were not from Ford County. Seems like they lived in Georgia, maybe Florida.”
“I’ve never met them.”
He pushed the button again and the video continued. The first trial started in Nettles County. The camera panned the courthouse lawn with the group of Klansmen and rows of policemen and swarms of onlookers.
“This is incredible,” Lee said.
He stopped it again. “Did you go to the trial?”
“Once. I sneaked in the courthouse and listened to the closing arguments. He forbade us to watch any of his three trials. Mother was not able. Her blood pressure was out of control, and she was taking lots of medication. She was practically bedridden.”
“Did Sam know you were there?”
“No. I sat in the back of the courtroom with a scarf over my head. He never saw me.”
“What was Phelps doing?”
“Hiding in his office, tending to his business, praying no one would find out Sam Cayhall was his father-in-law. Our first separation occurred not long after this trial.”
“What do you remember from the trial, from the courtroom?”
“I remember thinking that Sam got himself a good jury, his kind of people. I don’t know how his lawyer did it, but they picked twelve of the biggest rednecks they could find. I watched the jurors react to the prosecutor, and I watched them listen carefully to Sam’s lawyer.”
“Clovis Brazelton.”
“He was quite an orator, and they hung on every word. I was shocked when the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict and a mistrial was declared. I was convinced he would be acquitted. I think he was shocked too.”
The video continued with reactions to the mistrial, with generous comments from Clovis Brazelton, with another shot of Sam leaving the courthouse. Then the second trial began with its similarities to the first. “How long have you worked on this?” she asked.
“Seven years. I was a freshman at Pepperdine when the idea hit. It’s been a challenge.” He fast-forwarded through the pathetic scene of Marvin Kramer spilling from his wheelchair after the second trial, and stopped with the smiling face of a local anchorwoman as she chattered on about the opening of the third trial of the legendary Sam Cayhall. It was 1981 now.
“Sam was a free man for thirteen years,” Adam said. “What did he do?”
“He kept to himself, farmed a little, tried to make ends meet. He never talked to me about the bombing or any of his Klan activities, but he enjoyed the attention in Clanton. He was somewhat of a local legend down there, and he was sort of smug about it. Mother’s health declined, and he stayed at home and took care of her.”
“He never thought about leaving?”
“Not seriously. He was convinced his legal problems were over. He’d had two trials, and walked away from both of them. No jury in Mississippi was going to convict a Klansman in the late sixties. He thought he was invincible. He stayed close to Clanton, avoided the Klan, and lived a peaceful life. I thought he’d spend his golden years growing tomatoes and fishing for bream.”
“Did he ever ask about my father?”
She finished her wine and placed the glass on the table. It had never occurred to Lee that she would one day be asked to recall in detail so much of this sad little history. She had worked so hard to forget it. “I remember during the first year he was back home, he would occasionally ask me if I’d heard from my brother. Of course, I hadn’t. We knew you guys were somewhere in California, and we hoped you were okay. Sam’s a very proud and stubborn person, Adam. He would never consider chasing you guys down and begging Eddie to come home. If Eddie was ashamed of his family, then Sam felt like he should stay in California.” She paused and sunk lower into the sofa. “Mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1973, and I hired a private investigator to find Eddie. He worked for six months, charged me a bunch of money, and found nothing.”
“I was nine years old, fourth grade, that was in Salem, Oregon.”
“Yeah. Evelyn told me later that you guys spent time in Oregon.”
“We moved all the time. Every year was a different school until I was in the eighth grade. Then we settled in Santa Monica.”
“You were elusive. Eddie must’ve hired a good lawyer, because any trace of Cayhall was eliminated. The investigator even used some people out there, but nothing.”
“When did she die?”
“Nineteen seventy-seven. We were actually sitting in the front of the church, about to start the funeral, when Eddie slid in a side door and sat behind me. Don’t ask how he knew about Mother’s death. He simply appeared in Clanton then disappeared again. Never said a word to Sam. Drove a rental car so no one could check his plates. I drove to Memphis the next day, and there he was, waiting in my driveway. We drank coffee for two hours and talked about everything. He had school pictures of you and Carmen, everything was just wonderful in sunny Southern California. Good job, nice house in the suburbs, Evelyn was selling real estate. The American dream. Said he would never return to Mississippi, not even for Sam’s funeral. After swearing me to secrecy, he told me about the new names, and he gave me his phone number. Not his address, just his phone number. Any breach of secrecy, he threatened, and he would simply disappear again. He told me not to call him, though, unless it was an emergency. I told him I wanted to see you and Carmen, and he said that it might happen, one day. At times he was the same old Eddie, and at times he was another person. We hugged and waved good-bye, and I never saw him again.”
Adam flipped the remote and the video moved. The clear, modern images of the third and final trial moved by quickly, and there was Sam, suddenly thirteen years older, with a new lawyer as they darted through a side door of the Lakehead County Courthouse. “Did you go to the third trial?”
“No. He told me to stay away.”
Adam paused the video. “At what point did Sam realize they were coming after him again?”
“It’s hard to say. There was a small story in the Memphis paper one day about this new district attorney in Greenville who wanted to reopen the Kramer case. It was not a big story, just a couple of paragraphs in the middle of the paper. I remember reading it with horror. I read it ten times and stared at it for an hour. After all these years, the name Sam Cayhall was once again in the paper. I couldn’t believe it. I called him, and, of course, he had read it too. He said not to worry. About two weeks l
ater there was another story, a little larger this time, with David McAllister’s face in the middle of it. I called Daddy, he said everything was okay. That’s how it got started. Rather quietly, then it just steamrolled. The Kramer family supported the idea, then the NAACP got involved. One day it became obvious that McAllister was determined to push for a new trial, and that it was not going to go away. Sam was sickened by it, and he was scared, but he tried to act brave. He’d won twice he said, he could do it again.”
“Did you call Eddie?”
“Yeah. Once it was obvious there would be a new indictment, I called him and broke the news. He didn’t say much, didn’t say much at all. It was a brief conversation, and I promised to keep him posted. I don’t think he took it very well. It wasn’t long before it became a national story, and I’m sure Eddie followed it in the media.”
They watched the remaining segments of the third trial in silence. McAllister’s toothsome face was everywhere, and more than once Adam wished he’d done a bit more editing. Sam was led away for the last time in handcuffs, and the screen went blank.
“Has anyone else seen this?” Lee asked.
“No. You’re the first.”
“How did you collect it all?”
“It took time, a little money, a lot of effort.”
“It’s incredible.”
“When I was a junior in high school, we had this goofy teacher of political science. He allowed us to haul in newspapers and magazines and debate the issues of the day. Someone brought a front page story from the L.A. Times about the upcoming trial of Sam Cayhall in Mississippi. We kicked it around pretty good, then we watched it closely as it took place. Everyone, including myself, was quite pleased when he was found guilty. But there was a huge debate over the death penalty. A few weeks later, my father was dead and you finally told me the truth. I was horrified that my friends would find out.”
“Did they?”
“Of course not. I’m a Cayhall, a master at keeping secrets.”
“It won’t be a secret much longer.”
“No, it won’t.”
There was a long pause as they stared at the blank screen. Adam finally pushed the power button and the television went off. He tossed the remote control on the table. “I’m sorry, Lee, if this will embarrass you. I mean it. I wish there was some way to avoid it.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I know. And you can’t explain it, right? Are you afraid of Phelps and his family?”
“I despise Phelps and his family.”
“But you enjoy their money.”
“I’ve earned their money, okay? I’ve put up with him for twenty-seven years.”
“Are you afraid your little clubs will ostracize you? That they’ll kick you out of the country clubs?”
“Stop it, Adam.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a weird day. I’m coming out of the closet, Lee. I’m confronting my past, and I guess I expect everyone to be as bold. I’m sorry.”
“What does he look like?”
“A very old man. Lots of wrinkles and pale skin. He’s too old to be locked up in a cage.”
“I remember talking to him a few days before his last trial. I asked him why he didn’t just run away, vanish into the night and hide in some place like South America. And you know what?”
“What?”
“He said he thought about it. Mother had been dead for several years. Eddie was gone. He had read books about Mengele and Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals who disappeared in South America. He even mentioned São Paulo, said it was a city of twenty million and filled with refugees of all sorts. He had a friend, another Klansman I think, who could fix the paperwork and help him hide. He gave it a lot of thought.”
“I wish he had. Maybe my father would still be with us.”
“Two days before he went to Parchman, I saw him in the jail in Greenville. It was our last visit. I asked him why he hadn’t run. He said he never dreamed he would get the death penalty. I couldn’t believe that for years he’d been a free man and could’ve easily run away. It was a big mistake, he said, not running. A mistake that would cost him his life.”
Adam placed the popcorn bowl on the table, and slowly leaned toward her. His head rested on her shoulder. She took his hand. “I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this,” she whispered.
“He looked so pitiful sitting there in a red death row jumpsuit.”
Twelve
Clyde Packer poured a generous serving of a strong brew into a cup with his name on it, and began filling out the morning’s paperwork. He had worked the Row for twenty-one years, the last seven as the Shift Commander. For eight hours each morning, he would be one of four Tier Sergeants, in charge of fourteen condemned men, two guards, and two trustees. He completed his forms and checked a clipboard. There was a note to call the warden. Another note said that F. M. Dempsey was low on heart pills and wanted to see the doctor. They all wanted to see the doctor. He sipped the steaming coffee as he left the office for his morning inspection. He checked the uniforms of two guards at the front door and told the young white one to get a haircut.
MSU was not a bad place to work. As a general rule, death row inmates were quiet and well behaved. They spent twenty-three hours a day alone in their cells, separated from each other and thus unable to instigate trouble. They spent sixteen hours a day sleeping. They were fed in their cells. They were allowed an hour of outdoor recreation per day, their “hour out” as they called it, and they could have this time alone if they chose. Everyone had either a television or a radio, or both, and after breakfast the four tiers came to life with music and news and soap operas and quiet conversations through the bars. The inmates could not see their neighbors next door, but they conversed with little trouble. Arguments erupted occasionally over the volume of someone’s music, but these little spats were quickly settled by the guards. The inmates had certain rights, and then they had certain privileges. The removal of a television or a radio was devastating.
The Row bred an odd camaraderie among those sentenced there. Half were white, half were black, and all had been convicted of brutal killings. But there was little concern about past deeds and criminal records, and generally no real interest in skin color. Out in the general prison population, gangs of all varieties did an effective job of classifying inmates, usually on the basis of race. On the Row, however, a man was judged by the way he handled his confinement. Whether they liked each other or not, they were all locked together in this tiny corner of the world, all waiting to die. It was a ragtag little fraternity of misfits, drifters, outright thugs, and cold-blooded killers.
And the death of one could mean the death of all. The news of Sam’s new death sentence was whispered along the tiers and through the bars. When it made the noon news yesterday, the Row became noticeably quieter. Every inmate suddenly wanted to talk to his lawyer. There was a renewed interest in all matters legal, and Packer had noticed several of them plowing through their court files with televisions off and radios down.
He eased through a heavy door, took a long drink, and walked slowly and quietly along Tier A. Fourteen identical cells, six feet wide and nine feet deep, faced the hallway. The front of each cell was a wall of iron bars, so that at no time did an inmate have complete privacy. Anything he happened to be doing—sleeping, using the toilet—was subject to observation by the guards.
They were all in bed as Packer slowed in front of each little room and looked for a head under the sheets. The cell lights were off and the tier was dark. The hall man, an inmate with special privileges, would wake them, or rack-’em-up, at five. Breakfast would be served at six—eggs, toast, jam, sometimes bacon, coffee, and fruit juice. In a few minutes the Row would slowly come to life as forty-seven men shook off their sleep and resumed the interminable process of dying. It happened slowly, one day at a time, as another miserable sunrise brought another blanket of heat into their private little pockets of hell. And it happened quickly, as
it had the day before, when a court somewhere rejected a plea or a motion or an appeal and said that an execution must happen soon.
Packer sipped coffee and counted heads and shuffled quietly along through his morning ritual. Generally, MSU ran smoothly when routines were unbroken and schedules were followed. There were lots of rules in the manual, but they were fair and easy to follow. Everyone knew them. But an execution had its own handbook with a different policy and fluctuating guidelines that generally upset the tranquility of the Row. Packer had great respect for Phillip Naifeh, but damned if he didn’t rewrite the book before and after each execution. There was great pressure to do it all properly and constitutionally and compassionately. No two killings had been the same.
Packer hated executions. He believed in the death penalty because he was a religious man, and when God said an eye for an eye, then God meant it. He preferred, however, that they be carried out somewhere else by other people. Fortunately, they had been so rare in Mississippi that his job proceeded smoothly with little interference. He’d been through fifteen in twenty-one years, but only four since 1982.
He spoke quietly to a guard at the end of the tier. The sun was beginning to peek through the open windows above the tier walkway. The day would be hot and suffocating. It would also be much quieter. There would be fewer complaints about the food, fewer demands to see the doctor, a scattering of gripes about this and that, but on the whole they would be a docile and preoccupied group. It had been at least a year and maybe longer since a stay had been withdrawn this close to an execution. Packer smiled to himself as he searched for a head under the sheets. This day would indeed be a quiet one.
During the first few months of Sam’s career on the Row, Packer had ignored him. The official handbook prohibited anything other than necessary contact with inmates, and Packer had found Sam an easy person to leave alone. He was a Klansman. He hated blacks. He said little. He was bitter and surly, at least in the early days. But the routine of doing nothing for eight hours a day gradually softens the edges, and with time they reached a level of communication that consisted of a handful of short words and grunts. After nine and a half years of seeing each other every day, Sam could on occasion actually grin at Packer.
