Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  The van crept along, and he was thankful for this. He stared at two inmates sitting under a tree watching a buddy lift weights in the sun. There was a fence around them, but how nice, he thought, to be outside walking and talking, exercising and lounging, never giving a thought to the gas chamber, never worrying about the last appeal.

  ______

  The law library was known as the Twig because it was too small to be considered a full branch. The main prison law library was deeper into the farm, at another camp. The Twig was used exclusively by death row inmates. It was stuck to the rear of an administration building, with only one door and no windows. Sam had been there many times during the past nine years. It was a small room with a decent collection of current law books and up-to-date reporting services. A battered conference table sat in the center with shelves of books lining the four walls. Every now and then a trustee would volunteer to serve as the librarian, but good help was hard to find and the books were seldom where they were supposed to be. This irritated Sam immensely because he admired neatness and he despised the Africans, and he was certain that most if not all of the librarians were black, though he did not know this for a fact.

  The two guards unshackled Sam at the door.

  “You got two hours,” Packer said.

  “I got as long as I want,” Sam said, rubbing his wrists as if the handcuffs had broken them.

  “Sure, Sam. But when I come after you in two hours, I’ll bet we load your gimpy little ass into the van.”

  Packer opened the door as the guards took their positions beside it. Sam entered the library and slammed the door behind him. He laid his file on the table and stared at his lawyer.

  Adam stood at the far end of the conference table, holding a book and waiting for his client. He’d heard voices outside, and he watched Sam enter the room without guards or handcuffs. He stood there in his red jumpsuit, much smaller now without the thick metal screen between them.

  They studied each other for a moment across the table, grandson and grandfather, lawyer and client, stranger and stranger. It was an awkward interval in which they sized each other up and neither knew what to do with the other.

  “Hello, Sam,” Adam said, walking toward him.

  “Mornin’. Saw us on TV a few hours ago.”

  “Yeah. Have you seen the paper?”

  “Not yet. It comes later.”

  Adam slid the morning paper across the table and Sam stopped it. He held it with both hands, eased into a chair, and raised the paper to within six inches of his nose. He read it carefully and studied the pictures of himself and Adam.

  Todd Marks had evidently spent most of the evening digging and making frantic phone calls. He had verified that one Alan Cayhall had been born in Clanton, in Ford County, in 1964, and the father’s name listed on the birth certificate was one Edward S. Cayhall. He checked the birth certificate for Edward S. Cayhall and found that his father was Samuel Lucas Cayhall, the same man now on death row. He reported that Adam Hall had confirmed that his father’s name had been changed in California, and that his grandfather was Sam Cayhall. He was careful not to attribute direct quotes to Adam, but he nonetheless violated their agreement. There was little doubt the two had talked.

  Quoting unnamed sources, the story explained how Eddie and his family left Clanton in 1967 after Sam’s arrest, and fled to California where Eddie later killed himself. The trail ended there because Marks obviously ran out of time late in the day and could confirm nothing from California. The unnamed source or sources didn’t mention Sam’s daughter living in Memphis, so Lee was spared. The story ran out of steam with a series of no-comments from Baker Cooley, Garner Goodman, Phillip Naifeh, Lucas Mann, and a lawyer with the Attorney General’s office in Jackson. Marks finished strong, though, with a sensational recap of the Kramer bombing.

  The story was on the front page of the Press, above the main headline. The ancient picture of Sam was to the right, and next to it was a strange photo of Adam from the waist up. Lee had brought the paper to him hours earlier as he sat on the terrace and watched the early morning river traffic. They drank coffee and juice, and read and reread the story. After much analysis, Adam had decided that Todd Marks had placed a photographer across the street from the Peabody Hotel, and when Adam left their little meeting yesterday and stepped onto the sidewalk, he got his picture taken. The suit and tie were definitely worn yesterday.

  “Did you talk to this clown?” Sam growled as he placed the paper on the table. Adam sat across from him.

  “We met.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he called our office in Memphis, said he’d heard some rumors, and I wanted him to get it straight. It’s no big deal.”

  “Our pictures on the front page is no big deal?”

  “You’ve been there before.”

  “And you?”

  “I didn’t exactly pose. It was an ambush, you see. But I think I look rather dashing.”

  “Did you confirm these facts for him?”

  “I did. We agreed it would be background, and he could not quote me on anything. Nor was he supposed to use me as a source. He violated our agreement, and ripped his ass with me. He also planted a photographer, so I’ve spoken for the first and last time to the Memphis Press.”

  Sam looked at the paper for a moment. He was relaxed, and his words were as slow as ever. He managed a trace of a smile. “And you confirmed that you are my grandson?”

  “Yes. Can’t really deny it, can I?”

  “Do you want to deny it?”

  “Read the paper, Sam. If I wanted to deny it, would it be on the front page?”

  This satisfied Sam, and the smile grew a bit. He bit his lip and stared at Adam. Then he methodically removed a fresh pack of cigarettes, and Adam glanced around for a window.

  After the first one was properly lit, Sam said, “Stay away from the press. They’re ruthless and they’re stupid. They lie and they make careless mistakes.”

  “But I’m a lawyer, Sam. It’s inbred.”

  “I know. It’s hard, but try to control yourself. I don’t want it to happen again.”

  Adam reached into his briefcase, smiled, and pulled out some papers. “I have a wonderful idea how to save your life.” He rubbed his hands together then removed a pen from his pocket. It was time for work.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, as you might guess, I’ve been doing a lot of research.”

  “That’s what you’re paid to do.”

  “Yes. And I’ve come up with a marvelous little theory, a new claim which I intend to file on Monday. The theory is simple. Mississippi is one of only five states still using the gas chamber, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the Mississippi Legislature in 1984 passed a law giving a condemned man the choice of dying by lethal injection or in the gas chamber. But the new law applies only to those convicted after July 1, 1984. Doesn’t apply to you.”

  “That’s correct. I think about half the guys on the Row will get their choice. It’s years away, though.”

  “One of the reasons the legislature approved lethal injection was to make the killings more humane. I’ve studied the legislative history behind the law and there was a lot of discussion of problems the state’s had with gas chamber executions. The theory is simple: make the executions quick and painless, and there will be fewer constitutional claims that they are cruel. Lethal injections raise fewer legal problems, thus the killings are easier to carry out. Our theory, then, is that since the state has adopted lethal injection, it has in effect said that the gas chamber is obsolete. And why is it obsolete? Because it’s a cruel way to kill people.”

  Sam puffed on this for a minute and nodded slowly. “Keep going,” he said.

  “We attack the gas chamber as a method of execution.”

  “Do you limit it to Mississippi?”

  “Probably. I know there were problems with Teddy Doyle Meeks and Maynard Tole.”

  Sa
m snorted and blew smoke across the table. “Problems? You could say that.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Come on. They died within fifty yards of me. We sit in our cells all day long and think about death. Everyone on the Row knows what happened to those boys.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  Sam leaned forward on his elbows and stared absently at the newspaper in front of him. “Meeks was the first execution in Mississippi in ten years, and they didn’t know what they were doing. It was 1982. I’d been here for almost two years, and until then we were living in a dream world. We never thought about the gas chamber and cyanide pellets and last meals. We were sentenced to die, but, hell, they weren’t killing anyone, so why worry? But Meeks woke us up. They killed him, so they could certainly kill the rest of us.”

  “What happened to him?” Adam had read a dozen stories about the botched execution of Teddy Doyle Meeks, but he wanted to hear it from Sam.

  “Everything went wrong. Have you seen the chamber?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There’s a little room off to the side where the executioner mixes his solution. The sulfuric acid is in a canister which he takes from his little laboratory to a tube running into the bottom of the chamber. With Meeks, the executioner was drunk.”

  “Come on, Sam.”

  “I didn’t see him, okay. But everyone knows he was drunk. State law designates an official state executioner, and the warden and his gang didn’t think about it until just a few hours before the execution. Keep in mind, no one thought Meeks would die. We were all waiting on a last minute stay, because he’d been through it twice already. But there was no stay, and they scrambled around at the last minute trying to locate the official state executioner. They found him, drunk. He was a plumber, I think. Anyway, his first batch of brew didn’t work. He placed the canister into the tube, pulled a lever, and everyone waited for Meeks to take a deep breath and die. Meeks held his breath as long as he could, then inhaled. Nothing happened. They waited. Meeks waited. The witnesses waited. Everybody slowly turned to the executioner, who was also waiting and cussing. He went back to his little room, and fixed up another mix of sulfuric acid. Then he had to retrieve the old canister from the chute, and that took ten minutes. The warden and Lucas Mann and the rest of the goons were standing around waiting and fidgeting and cussing this drunk plumber, who finally plugged in the new canister and pulled the lever. This time the sulfuric acid landed where it was supposed to—in a bowl under the chair where Meeks was strapped. The executioner pulled the second lever dropping the cyanide pellets, which were also under the chair, hovering above the sulfuric acid. The pellets dropped, and sure enough, the gas drifted upward to where old Meeks was holding his breath again. You can see the vapors, you know. When he finally sucked in a nose full of it, he started shaking and jerking, and this went on quite a while. For some reason, there’s a metal pole that runs from the top of the chamber to the bottom, and it’s directly behind the chair. Just about the time Meeks got still and everybody thought he was dead, his head started banging back and forth, striking this pole, just beating it like hell. His eyes were rolled back, his lips were wide open, he was foaming at the mouth, and there he was beating the back of his head in on this pole. It was sick.”

  “How long did it take to kill him?”

  “Who knows. According to the prison doctor, death was instant and painless. According to some of the eyewitnesses, Meeks convulsed and heaved and pounded his head for five minutes.”

  The Meeks execution had provided death penalty abolitionists with much ammunition. There was little doubt he had suffered greatly, and many accounts were written of his death. Sam’s version was remarkably consistent with those of the eyewitnesses.

  “Who told you about it?” Adam asked.

  “A couple of the guards talked about it. Not to me, of course, but word spread quickly. There was a public outcry, which would’ve been even worse if Meeks hadn’t been such a despicable person. Everyone hated him. And his little victim had suffered greatly, so it was hard to feel sympathetic.”

  “Where were you when he was executed?”

  “In my first cell, Tier D, on the far side away from the chamber. They locked everybody down that night, every inmate at Parchman. It happened just after midnight, which is sort of amusing because the state has a full day to carry out the execution. The death warrant does not specify a certain time, just a certain day. So these gung-ho bastards are just itching to do it as soon as possible. They plan every execution for one minute after midnight. That way, if there’s a stay, then they have the entire day for their lawyers to get it lifted. Buster Moac went down that way. They strapped him in at midnight, then the phone rang and they took him back to the holding room where he waited and sweated for six hours while the lawyers ran from one court to the next. Finally, as the sun was rising, they strapped him in for the last time. I guess you know what his last words were.”

  Adam shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Buster was a friend of mine, a class guy. Naifeh asked him if he had any last words, and he said yes, as a matter of fact, he did have something to say. He said the steak they’d cooked for his last meal was a bit too rare. Naifeh mumbled something to the effect that he’d speak to the cook about it. Then Buster asked if the governor had granted a last minute pardon. Naifeh said no. Buster then said, ‘Well, tell that son of a bitch he’s lost my vote.’ They slammed the door and gassed him.”

  Sam was obviously amused by this, and Adam was obliged to offer an awkward laugh. He looked at his legal pad while Sam lit another cigarette.

  Four years after the execution of Teddy Doyle Meeks, the appeals of Maynard Tole reached a dead end and it was time for the chamber to be used again. Tole was a Kravitz & Bane pro bono project. A young lawyer named Peter Wiesenberg represented Tole, under the supervision of E. Garner Goodman. Both Wiesenberg and Goodman witnessed the execution, which in many ways was dreadfully similar to Meeks’. Adam had not discussed the Tole execution with Goodman, but he’d studied the file and read the eyewitness accounts written by Wiesenberg and Goodman.

  “What about Maynard Tole?” Adam asked.

  “He was an African, a militant who killed a bunch of people in a robbery and, of course, blamed everything on the system. Always referred to himself as an African warrior. He threatened me several times, but for the most part he was just selling wolf.”

  “Selling wolf?”

  “Yeah, that means a guy is talking bad, talking trash. It’s common with the Africans. They’re all innocent, you know. Every damned one of them. They’re here because they’re black and the system is white, and even though they’ve raped and murdered it’s someone else’s fault. Always, always someone else’s fault.”

  “So you were happy when he went?”

  “I didn’t say that. Killing is wrong. It’s wrong for the Africans to kill. It’s wrong for the Anglos to kill. And it’s wrong for the people of the State of Mississippi to kill death row inmates. What I did was wrong, so how do you make it right by killing me?”

  “Did Tole suffer?”

  “Same as Meeks. They found them a new executioner and he got it right the first time. The gas hit Tole and he went into convulsions, started banging his head on the pole just like Meeks, except Tole evidently had a harder head because he kept beating the pole with it. It went on and on, and finally Naifeh and the goon squad got real anxious because the boy wouldn’t die and things were getting sloppy, so they actually made the witnesses leave the witness room. It was pretty nasty.”

  “I read somewhere that it took ten minutes for him to die.”

  “He fought it hard, that’s all I know. Of course, the warden and his doctor said death was instant and painless. Typical. They did, however, make one slight change in their procedure after Tole. By the time they got to my buddy Moac, they had designed this cute little head brace made of leather straps and buckles and attached to that damned pole. With Moac, and lat
er with Jumbo Parris, they belted their heads down so tight there was no way they could flop around and whip the pole. A nice touch, don’t you think? That makes it easier on Naifeh and the witnesses because now they don’t have to watch as much suffering.”

  “You see my point, Sam? It’s a horrible way to die. We attack the method. We find witnesses who’ll testify about these executions and we try to convince a judge to rule the gas chamber unconstitutional.”

  “So what? Do we then ask for lethal injection? What’s the point? Seems kind of silly for me to say I prefer not to die in the chamber, but, what the hell, lethal injection will do just fine. Put me on the gurney and fill me up with drugs. I’ll be dead, right? I don’t get it.”

  “True. But we buy ourselves some time. We’ll attack the gas chamber, get a temporary stay, then pursue it through the higher courts. We could jam this thing for years.”

  “It’s already been done.”

  “What do you mean it’s already been done?”

  “Texas, 1983. Case called Larson. The same arguments were made with no result. The court said gas chambers have been around for fifty years, and they’ve proven themselves quite efficient at killing humanely.”

  “Yeah, but there’s one big difference.”

  “What?”

  “This ain’t Texas. Meeks and Tole and Moac and Parris weren’t gassed in Texas. And, by the way, Texas has already gone to lethal injection. They threw away their gas chamber because they found a better way to kill. Most gas chamber states have traded them in for better technology.”

  Sam stood and walked to the other end of the table. “Well, when it’s my time, I damned sure want to go with the latest technology.” He paced along the table, back and forth three or four times, then stopped. “It’s eighteen feet from one end of this room to the other. I can walk eighteen feet without hitting bars. Do you realize what it’s like spending twenty-three hours a day in a cell that’s six feet by nine? This is freedom, man.” He paced some more, puffing as he came and went.