Three Classic Thrillers

by John Grisham

  “They also have this rule, it’s unwritten I’m sure, that allows one final conjugal visit with the wife. If there’s no wife, then the warden in his boundless mercy allows a brief appointment with a girlfriend. One last little quickie before lover boy checks out.” Sam glanced along the counter at Stock, then leaned even closer.

  “Well, ole Stock here is one of the more popular residents of the Row, and he somehow convinced the warden that he had both a wife and a girlfriend, and that these ladies would agree to spend a few moments with him before he died. At the same time! All three of them, together! The warden allegedly knew something fishy was going on, but everyone likes Stock, and, well, they were about to kill him anyway, so what’s the harm. So Stock here was sitting in the little room with his mother and sisters and cousins and nieces, a whole passel of Africans, most of whom hadn’t uttered his name in ten years, and he was eating his last meal of steak and potatoes while everybody else was crying and grieving and praying. With about four hours to go, they emptied the room and sent the family to the chapel. Stock waited for a few minutes while another van brought his wife and his girlfriend here to the Row. They arrived with guards, and were taken to the little office up front where Stock was waiting, all wild-eyed and ready. Poor guy’d been on the Row for twelve years.

  “Well, they brought in a little cot for this liaison, and Stock and his gals got it on. The guards said later that Stock had some fine-looking women, and the guards also said they commented at the time on how young they looked. Stock was just about to have a go with either his wife or his girlfriend, it didn’t really matter, when the phone rang. It was his lawyer. And his lawyer was crying and out of breath as he yelled out the great news that the Fifth Circuit had issued a stay.

  “Stock hung up on him. He had more important matters at hand. A few minutes passed, then the phone rang again. Stock grabbed it. It was his lawyer again, and this time he was much more composed as he explained to Stock the legal maneuvering that had saved his life, for the moment. Stock offered his appreciation, then asked his lawyer to keep it quiet for another hour.”

  Adam again glanced to his right, and wondered which of the two lawyers had called Stock while he was exercising his constitutional right of the last conjugal visit.

  “Well, by this time, the Attorney General’s office had talked to the warden, and the execution had been called off, or aborted as they like to say. Made no difference to Stock. He was proceeding as if he would never see another woman. The door to the room cannot be locked from the inside, for obvious reasons, so Naifeh, after waiting patiently, gently knocked on the door and asked Stock to come on out. Time to go back to your cell, Stock, he said. Stock said he needed just another five minutes. No, said Naifeh. Please, Stock begged, and suddenly there were noises again. So the warden grinned at the guards who grinned at the warden, and for five minutes they studied the floor while the cot rattled and bounced around the little room.

  “Stock finally opened the door and strutted out like the heavyweight champ of the world. The guards said he was happier about his performance than he was about his stay. They quickly got rid of the women, who as it turned out, were not really his wife and girlfriend after all.”

  “Who were they?”

  “A couple of prostitutes.”

  “Prostitutes!” Adam said a bit too loud, and one of the lawyers stared at him.

  Sam leaned so close his nose was almost in the slit. “Yeah, local whores. His brother somehow arranged it for him. Remember the funeral money he worked so hard to raise.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “That’s it. Four hundred bucks spent on whores, which at first seems a bit stiff, especially for local African whores, but it seems they were scared to death about coming to death row, which I guess makes sense. They took all Stock’s money. He told me later he didn’t give a damn how they buried him. Said it was worth every dime. Naifeh got embarrassed, and he threatened to prohibit the conjugal visits. But Stock’s lawyer, that little dark-haired one over there, filed a lawsuit and got a ruling that ensures one last quickie. I think Stock’s almost looking forward to his next one.”

  Sam leaned back in his chair and the smile slowly left his face. “Personally, I haven’t given much thought to my conjugal visit. It’s intended for husband and wife relations only, you know, that’s what the term means. But the warden’ll probably bend the rules for me. What do you think?”

  “I really haven’t thought about it.”

  “I’m just kidding, you know. I’m an old man. I’d settle for a back rub and a stiff drink.”

  “What about your last meal?” Adam asked, still very quietly.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought we were kidding.”

  “Probably something gross like boiled pork and rubber peas. Same crap they’ve been feeding me for almost ten years. Maybe an extra piece of toast. I’d hate to give the cook the opportunity to prepare a meal fit for free world humans.”

  “Sounds delicious.”

  “Oh, I’ll share it with you. I’ve often wondered why they feed you before they kill you. They also bring the doctor in and give you a preexecution physical. Can you believe it? Gotta make sure you’re fit to die. And they have a shrink on staff here who examines you before the execution, and he must report to the warden in writing that you’re mentally sound enough to gas. And they have a minister on the payroll who’ll pray and meditate with you and make sure your soul is headed in the right direction. All paid for by the taxpayers of the State of Mississippi and administered by these loving people around here. Don’t forget the conjugal visit. You can die with your lust satisfied. They think of everything. They’re very considerate. Really concerned about your appetite and health and spiritual well-being. Right at the very last, they put a catheter in your penis and a plug up your ass so you won’t make a mess. This is for their benefit, not yours. They don’t wanna have to clean you afterward. So, they feed you real good, anything you want, then they plug you up. Sick, isn’t it? Sick, sick, sick, sick.”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Sam finished the last cigarette and thumped it on the floor in front of the guard. “No. Let’s stop talking. I’ve had enough for one day.”

  “Fine.”

  “And no more about Eddie, okay? It’s really not fair to come in here and hit me with stuff like that.”

  “I’m sorry. No more about Eddie.”

  “Let’s try to focus on me the next three weeks, okay? That’s more than enough to keep us busy.”

  “It’s a deal, Sam.”

  ______

  Along Highway 82 from the east, Greenville was growing in an unsightly sprawl, with its strip shopping centers filled with video rental and dinky liquor stores, and its endless fast-food franchises and drive-up motels with free cable and breakfast. The river blocked such progress to the west, and since 82 was the main corridor it had evidently become the developers’ favorite territory.

  In the past twenty-five years, Greenville had grown from a sleepy river town of thirty-five thousand to a busy river city of sixty thousand. It was prosperous and progressive. In 1990, Greenville was the fifth-largest city in the state.

  The streets leading into the central district were shaded and lined with stately old homes. The center of the town was pretty and quaint, well preserved and apparently unchanged, Adam thought, in stark contrast to the thoughtless chaos along Highway 82. He parked on Washington Street, at a few minutes after five, as downtown merchants and their customers were busy preparing for the end of the day. He removed his tie and left it with his jacket in the car because the temperature was still in the nineties and showed no sign of relenting.

  He walked three blocks, and found the park with the life-sized bronze statue of two little boys in the center. They were the same size with the same smile and the same eyes. One was running while the other one skipped, and the sculptor had captured them perfectly. Josh and John Kramer, forever five years old, fr
ozen in time with copper and tin. A brass plate below them said simply:

  JOSH AND JOHN KRAMER

  DIED HERE ON APRIL 21, 1967

  (MARCH 2, 1962–APRIL 21, 1967)

  The park was a perfect square, half a city block which had once held Marvin’s law office and an old building next to it. The land had been in the Kramer family for years, and Marvin’s father gave it to the city to be used as a memorial. Sam had done a fine job of leveling the law office, and the city had razed the building next to it. Some money had been spent on Kramer Park, and a lot of thought had gone into it. It was completely fenced with ornamental wrought iron and an entrance on each side from the sidewalks. Perfect rows of oaks and maples followed the fencing. Lines of manicured shrubs met at precise angles, then encircled flower beds of begonias and geraniums. A small amphitheater sat in one corner under the trees, and across the way a group of black children sailed through the air on wooden swings.

  It was small and colorful, a pleasant little garden amid the streets and buildings. A teenaged couple argued on a bench as Adam walked by. A bicycle gang of eight-year-olds roared around a fountain. An ancient policeman ambled by and actually tipped his hat to Adam as he said hello.

  He sat on a bench and stared at Josh and John, less than thirty feet away. “Never forget the victims,” Lee had admonished. “They have the right to want retribution. They’ve earned it.”

  He remembered all the gruesome details from the trials—the FBI expert who testified about the bomb and the speed at which it ripped through the building; the medical examiner who delicately described the little bodies and what exactly killed them; the firemen who tried to rescue but were much too late and were left only to retrieve. There had been photographs of the building and the boys, and the trial judges had used great restraint in allowing just a few of these to go to the jury. McAllister, typically, had wanted to show huge enlarged color pictures of the mangled bodies, but they were excluded.

  Adam was now sitting on ground which had once been the office of Marvin Kramer, and he closed his eyes and tried to feel the ground shake. He saw the footage from his video of smoldering debris and the cloud of dust suspended over the scene. He heard the frantic voice of the news reporter, the sirens shrieking in the background.

  Those bronze boys were not much older than he was when his grandfather killed them. They were five and he was almost three, and for some reason he kept up with their ages. Today, he was twenty-six and they would be twenty-eight.

  The guilt hit hard and low in the stomach. It made him shudder and sweat. The sun hid behind two large oaks to the west, and as it flickered through the branches the boys’ faces gleamed.

  How could Sam have done this? Why was Sam Cayhall his grandfather and not someone else’s? When did he decide to participate in the Klan’s holy war against Jews? What made him change from a harmless cross-burner to a full-fledged terrorist?

  Adam sat on the bench, stared at the statue, and hated his grandfather. He felt guilty for being in Mississippi trying to help the old bastard.

  He found a Holiday Inn and paid for a room. He called Lee and reported in, then watched the evening news on the Jackson channels. Evidently, it had been just another languid summer day in Mississippi with little happening. Sam Cayhall and his latest efforts to stay alive were the hot topics. Each station carried somber comments by the governor and the Attorney General about the newest petition for relief filed by the defense this morning, and each man was just sick and tired of the endless appeals. Each would fight valiantly to pursue this matter until justice was realized. One station began its own countdown—twenty-three days until execution, the anchorperson rattled off, as if reciting the number of shopping days left until Christmas. The number 23 was plastered under the same overworked photo of Sam Cayhall.

  Adam ate dinner in a small downtown café. He sat alone in a booth, picking at roast beef and peas, listening to harmless chatter around him. No one mentioned Sam.

  At dusk, he walked the sidewalks in front of the shops and stores, and thought of Sam pacing along these same streets, on the same concrete, waiting for the bomb to go off and wondering what in the world had gone wrong. He stopped by a phone booth, maybe the same one Sam had tried to use to call and warn Kramer.

  The park was deserted and dark. Two gaslight street lamps stood by the front entrance, providing the only light. Adam sat at the base of the statue, under the boys, under the brass plate with their names and dates of birth and death. On this very spot, it said, they died.

  He sat there for a long time, oblivious to the darkness, pondering imponderables, wasting time with fruitless considerations of what might have been. The bomb had defined his life, he knew that much. It had taken him away from Mississippi and deposited him in another world with a new name. It had transformed his parents into refugees, fleeing their past and hiding from their present. It had killed his father, in all likelihood, though no one could predict what might have happened to Eddie Cayhall. The bomb had played a principal role in Adam’s decision to become a lawyer, a calling he’d never felt until he learned of Sam. He’d dreamed of flying airplanes.

  And now the bomb had led him back to Mississippi for an undertaking laden with agony and little hope. The odds were heavy that the bomb would claim its final victim in twenty-three days, and Adam wondered what would happen to him after that.

  What else could the bomb have in store for him?

  Twenty-three

  For the most part, death penalty appeals drag along for years at a snail’s pace. A very old snail. No one is in a hurry. The issues are complicated. The briefs, motions, petitions, etc., are thick and burdensome. The court dockets are crowded with more pressing matters.

  Occasionally, though, a ruling can come down with stunning speed. Justice can become terribly efficient. Especially in the waning days, when a date for an execution has been set and the courts are tired of more motions, more appeals. Adam received his first dose of quick justice while he was wandering the streets of Greenville Monday afternoon.

  The Mississippi Supreme Court took one look at his petition for postconviction relief, and denied it around 5 p.m. Monday. Adam was just arriving in Greenville and knew nothing about it. The denial was certainly no surprise, but its speed certainly was. The court kept the petition less than eight hours. In all fairness, the court had dealt with Sam Cayhall off and on for over ten years.

  In the final days of death cases, the courts watch each other closely. Copies of filings and rulings are faxed along so that the higher courts know what’s coming. The denial by the Mississippi Supreme Court was routinely faxed to the federal district court in Jackson, Adam’s next forum. It was sent to the Honorable F. Flynn Slattery, a young federal judge who was new to the bench. He had not been involved with the Cayhall appeals.

  Judge Slattery’s office attempted to locate Adam Hall between 5 and 6 p.m. Monday, but he was sitting in Kramer Park. Slattery called the Attorney General, Steve Roxburgh, and at eight-thirty a brief meeting took place in the judge’s office. The judge happened to be a workaholic, and this was his first death case. He and his clerk studied the petition until midnight.

  If Adam had watched the late news Monday, he would have learned that his petition had already been denied by the supreme court. He was, however, sound asleep.

  At six Tuesday morning, he casually picked up the Jackson paper and learned that the supreme court had turned him down, that the matter was now in federal court, assigned to Judge Slattery, and that both the Attorney General and the governor were claiming another victory. Odd, he thought, since he hadn’t yet officially filed anything in federal court. He jumped in his car and raced to Jackson, two hours away. At nine, he entered the federal courthouse on Capitol Street in downtown, and met briefly with Breck Jefferson, an unsmiling young man, fresh from law school and holding the important position of Slattery’s law clerk. Adam was told to return at eleven for a meeting with the judge.

  ______

  Although
he arrived at Slattery’s office at exactly eleven, it was obvious a meeting of sorts had been in progress for some time. In the center of Slattery’s huge office was a mahogany conference table, long and wide with eight black leather chairs on each side. Slattery’s throne was at one end, near his desk, and before him on the table were stacks of papers, legal pads, and other effects. The side to his right was crowded with young white men in navy suits, all bunched together along the table, with another row of eager warriors seated close behind. This side belonged to the state, with His Honor, the governor, Mr. David McAllister, sitting closest to Slattery. His Honor, the Attorney General, Steve Roxburgh, had been banished to the middle of the table in an obvious losing battle over turf. Each distinguished public servant had brought to the table his most trusted litigators and thinkers, and this squadron of strategists had obviously been meeting with the judge and plotting long before Adam arrived.

  Breck, the clerk, swung the door open and greeted Adam pleasantly enough, then asked him to step inside. The room was instantly silent as Adam slowly approached the table. Slattery reluctantly rose from his chair and introduced himself to Adam. The handshake was cold and fleeting. “Have a seat,” he said ominously, fluttering his left hand at the eight leather chairs on the defense side of the table. Adam hesitated, then picked one directly across from a face he recognized as belonging to Roxburgh. He placed his briefcase on the table, and sat down. Four empty chairs were to his right, in the direction of Slattery, and three to his left. He felt like a lonesome trespasser.

  “I assume you know the governor and the Attorney General,” Slattery said, as if everyone had personally met these two.

  “Neither,” Adam said, shaking his head slightly.