by David R. Dow
My papá would have said what was happening to me was impossible in America. Until seven years ago, I would have been sure he was right. But at ten on the button, the transport team told me to pack my things. We’d be leaving in an hour.
As I shuffled out of my cell, I heard voices coming from behind the other doors. I heard things banging, inmates protesting the only way we can, my neighbors telling me goodbye. They walked me through B-pod, past my old cell, on the way to my death. Through the cacophony I made out Sargent’s voice. He was saying, Illegitimi non carborundum.
I shouted, What the hell does that mean?
He said, Stare the motherfuckers straight in the eye, Inocente, straight in the eye.
They walked me out the same door through which I had come nearly six years before. I could see the overcast sky. Rain mixed with sleet, and a CO kindly draped a yellow slicker over my shoulders. McKenzie was there too, but he wouldn’t be making the drive to the Walls Unit, where the execution would occur. He mispronounced my name for what I figured was the final time, and told me he would pray to God to be merciful on my soul.
Already waiting in the van was a CO in the driver’s seat and another riding shotgun. The guard on my left pushed my head down and guided me into the back, where there was an upholstered bench perpendicular to the vehicle’s other seats. The guard used a pair of handcuffs to clip a leather belt encircling my waist to a D bolt welded to the floor. Then he backed out and another guard climbed in and said to the driver, Let’s roll.
No one spoke, except to give reports on our speed and location over a two-way radio to guards at both the prison we were heading to and the one we had left. I did not know how much time had passed, but when we got to the new prison, a clock on the facade read twenty minutes before one. I’d been in the van an hour and a half.
Four guards and the warden met us in the loading dock. They shackled me with their own set of irons, then removed the others and handed them to the guards who had brought me. The new warden introduced himself and told me the drill. I could shower and change. I said no thanks. He said I would be served dinner at three. I told him no thanks. He said they would bring it anyway, and I could eat it or not. He asked whether I had a spiritual adviser. I said no, and he asked whether I wanted one. He told me if I changed my mind to let the team know.
When the jury sentenced me to death all those years ago, it didn’t matter. I had already heard the word guilty, and once I did, everything else was white noise. With the warden there, it happened when he said team. He meant the tie-down team, the men who would cinch leather straps tight to pin me to the gurney and slide intravenous needles into my veins. By the time I realized nobody was talking, the warden was no longer there.
One guard led, one followed, and the two others were on my sides. We crossed a tiny manicured courtyard as wide as I was tall with blue and yellow winter pansies growing along the edge. I said, You guys actually plant flowers here? Nobody bothered to answer. The guard in front used a key to open three bolts on a heavy non-electronic door with a single wire-laced pane. There was the holding cell, the same size as my cell on the row, except it had bars wrapped with chicken wire in place of solid steel. The door leading in was open. To the right was a cot bolted to the wall, and next to it a stainless-steel toilet and sink. They unshackled me, backed out, and closed the door. A guard used a key to turn a lock and slid a rod into a notch from right to left.
They stood to the side and talked softly among themselves, every so often glancing my way. I paced three steps one way and three steps back. I took deep breaths. Sargent’s shout echoed in my head. Look them in the eye, Inocente. I wasn’t sure I could.
I was not expecting anyone to visit, but at four the warden walked in, followed by Luther and another CO. Luther handed me a copy of the state court’s opinion. I had lost. By a vote of two to one, the court concluded I was not entitled to last-minute DNA testing for two reasons. First, the judges said, I could not prove the bandana had not been planted or adulterated during the preceding six years. Second, they continued, it would not matter anyway, because the evidence of my guilt was overwhelming. They wrote, This eleventh-hour fishing expedition is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to delay and avoid the justice long overdue to this cold-blooded murderer.
The sole dissenting judge was incredulous. He pointed out that scores of people had been released from death row after their innocence was established. He wrote, To assume our criminal justice system to be infallible is the height of arrogance, and to indulge such arrogance when a human life is at stake—a potentially innocent life—is abhorrent. If Mr. Zhettah is guilty, there will be plenty of time to carry out his death sentence later; but if he is not, we will have committed simple murder, which cannot be excused or taken back.
Luther said, We already filed a petition in federal court.
I said, Please promise me that no matter what happens, you will have the bandana tested.
He said, We are going to get you a stay.
I said, Promise me.
He said, I promise.
A trustee brought in a tray of food. A guard looked at his watch and said, You’re late. The trustee shrugged and said, I came over when they tole me to. I said I was not hungry, and the same guard told the trustee to take it away. The trustee looked at me for a long moment, pleading, I thought, then took the tray and rolled the cart away. Luther had been standing there silent. He put his hand to the chicken wire and left. A pastor came in and introduced himself. I said, No offense, sir, but no thank you, and he too looked at me with pity before turning back in the direction from which he had come. At five the warden entered and asked if I wanted a sedative. I told him no. He left a plastic pill case with one of the guards.
On the gray wall across from my cell, the second hand on the clock clicked each time it jerked a notch forward, while the minute hand slid around in stealth. The warden had said they would move me into the execution chamber at ten ’til six, but at 6:05 I was still in my cell. A red phone without a dial sat atop a dirty plastic lawn chair adjacent to the door. At 6:07 I jumped when it rang. A guard answered, said his name, then quietly said, One moment please. My heart was beating ten times faster than it should. I heard whoosh whoosh whoosh in my ears. The guard handed me the receiver through a hole in the chicken wire that appeared to have been cut for exactly this reason. It nearly fell from my slippery hand.
Olvido said, Tonight is not the night you will die. The federal district judge just granted you a stay and the court of appeals upheld it. The attorney general told me they will not be appealing to the Supreme Court. They’ll be taking you back to death row shortly. I’ll be up to see you tomorrow.
* * *
• • •
When you’re expecting to die and you don’t, you can forget to do the small things. So I had made a list of the things that matter. Say goodbyes, express thanks, remind them I’m innocent, say let’s get this show on the road. It had been Sargent’s idea to tell them they were killing an innocent man. To me, the most important part was the thanks. I wanted to thank Olvido for everything she and the others had done for me, or tried to do, and I knew I’d be nervous. I worried the nearness of death would make me forgetful or mute, or maybe both. That’s why, starting the day before, I rehearsed the speech, memorizing a brief statement of gratitude, despite the ultimate failure. I planned to recite it when she called to tell me the Supreme Court had turned me down. I hoped she wouldn’t cry.
On the drive back to death row at eight o’clock that night, I could not recall whether I had thanked her for saving my life. I could barely remember our conversation at all.
The three COs whose plans had been to lead me to the gurney instead waited for someone to unlock the door to the courtyard, and then led me as we retraced our route, only this time in reverse. I said, How often y’all walk this way? Nobody answered. It was too dark to make out the flowers. When we got to th
e loading dock the warden was there. He said, Thank you, inmate, for your composure and deportment, and then I was sitting in a van again, this time one with windows, accompanied by three guards who did not speak. We pulled onto a wide esplanade with towering oaks. Despite the hour, a couple went jogging by, the man pushing a baby stroller in front of them. I smelled a mixture of hickory and oak. My stomach grumbled, and I wondered how far we were from the pit where briskets and ribs were being smoked. A half dozen college students were throwing a Frisbee on a soccer field illuminated by deco lamps. The death penalty protestors, pro and con, had all gone home, but poster boards with hand-scrawled slogans blew down the sidewalk in the breeze. I looked up, and through a thin scrim of wispy cirrus clouds I saw a triangle connecting Venus, Mars, and the crescent moon. It was the first time I had seen the moon in five years. In an hour, I was back at home.
Word of my fortune preceded me. As the transport team escorted me to my house, inmates clapped and whooped and beat their tin coffee mugs with metal spoons. Inside we did not celebrate victories in football games or other sport. We cheered only when one of us survived.
They put me back in the cell on B-pod where I had lived before I got a date. Lilac was on the escort team with two new guys who had just moved over from population. Sargent was still living across the hall. He said, Welcome back, Inocente. I told you your lawyer is the bomb. My cell was empty. I asked Lilac when I would get my possessions. One of the new COs said, You might be a little grateful you ain’t dead yet, inmate, instead a makin’ demands. From inside his cell, Sargent laughed. After my door closed and Lilac took back her chains, a kite came skittering in. Sargent had folded four white pills tightly inside. He’d written, I ain’t never been so happy to lose so much dough. He signed it with a smiley face.
It was midnight. I might have been dead for six hours. I hadn’t slept in forty but I wasn’t the least bit tired. I did yoga for an hour then whispered, Thank you, to Sargent.
He said, It’s the middle a the night, Inocente. Get some sleep. Then he said, And you’re welcome. I swallowed two of the pills, and when the breakfast tray arrived at a quarter to five, I didn’t stir. The announcements for a count over the scratchy intercom were folded into a dream I had of flying with my papá back home. I didn’t wake up until the transport team came for me at eight.
All three of them were there. Even Luther was smiling. I’d gone more than five years without touching anybody other than a corrections officer, but that was the first day it mattered. I wanted to hug them all. They told me the bandana had been sent off to a lab in Pennsylvania and that they would have results in less than two weeks. They stood up and touched their hands to the glass. I leaned forward and kissed it.
* * *
• • •
Day 2,019: For once my lawyers were wrong about the timing. Apparently, nobody’s in any hurry to free guys from death row. It took the lab more than six months, but they had something to show for it. Technicians extracted well-preserved DNA from sweat that had dried on the cloth, and they constructed a complete genetic profile, like a fingerprint, but a billion times better. My lawyers ran it through a database of DNA from other convicted and accused wrongdoers. It matched a guy who had been found guilty of murdering a prostitute in a suburb north of Houston three months after Tieresse was killed. He had beaten her to death with a softball bat. He was serving a life sentence at a unit near Wichita Falls.
My legal team then requested additional DNA testing on the candlestick. A new prosecutor did not oppose it. In the years since Tieresse’s murder, technology had gotten much better. New techniques allowed chemists to develop genetic profiles from a handful of skin cells. Analysts found four different profiles on the weapon. One belonged to Tieresse, one belonged to me, and one, not surprisingly, to the housekeeper. The fourth profile matched the DNA on the bandana.
Luther drove to Wichita Falls and interviewed the prisoner on video. He was a middle-aged white guy named Lucas Gleason. He had sunken cheeks and sallow skin. He told Luther he had cirrhosis and expected to be dead in a month. He said he had killed Tieresse.
He’d been serving a ten-year sentence for robbery when he was paroled eight months before Tieresse died. He moved to Houston and paid sixty dollars a week for a single room in a boardinghouse in an industrial neighborhood on the east side of downtown. He washed dishes at a taqueria in the morning and in the afternoon parked cars at a fancy hotel. That’s where he saw her. Tieresse routinely attended charity luncheons at that very hotel. Gleason told Luther he had noticed a ring Tieresse was wearing when she left her car at the valet stand. He wrote down the license plate number and used it to learn her address. When Luther told me all this later on I said, The ring was a fake. I already told you all her rings and necklaces were costume. Luther had replied, I don’t think Gleason had a jeweler’s eye. Luther asked him what had happened. Gleason said he had rung the bell and no one answered. He rung again. He did not think anybody was home. The front door was unlocked and he let himself in. He said he thought he might have the wrong house. Nothing looked fancy enough. But then he discovered a pile of what he thought were diamond necklaces in the closet. He had the right place after all. He stuffed the jewelry into his pockets and headed back out the front. Yet somehow, he took a wrong turn and ended up in an office.
I said, He turned left instead of right. Luther looked at me and continued.
Now in the parlor, Gleason paused to open the desk’s deepest drawer. When he looked up, Tieresse was standing there, wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. She had been in the shower. She must have heard him rummaging around. He jumped when she asked him who he was. He panicked and killed her. Luther asked him what time it was. He claimed he didn’t remember. Luther pressed him. He said, Listen, man, I ain’t got nothin’ to lose. If I knew, I’d tell you. All I know is it was just gettin’ dark when I got there and had got pitch-black when I left. I remember that ’cause I could see inside with no lights on at first but I kinda stumbled around on my way out. I still can’t believe I got ’way with it, well, at least up ’til now anyways. Luther asked him how he had done it. Gleason said, I reckon you already know I beat her to death. Luther showed him five photographs: a wooden mallet, a fireplace iron, a crystal paperweight, a baseball bat, and the candlestick. He said, Did you use any of these? Gleason said, Yeah, and he put his finger on the murder weapon.
PART 3
* * *
• • •
On day 2,029 a transport team came for me at dawn. I’d spent one year, one month, and nineteen days in the county jail, and another five years, six months, and twenty-two days on death row. I was not yet convinced I wouldn’t be back. I said, What should I bring? McKenzie said, Are you kidding me, za-heater? Bring everything. It’s moving day. I put my diary and a clean white cotton jumpsuit in a box. I planned to hang it up wherever I decided to live, so I could see the letters DR, stenciled in black on the back, every day for the rest of my life. The hot plate and radio were for Mao. I asked Sargent what of my stuff he wanted. He said, All I want, Inocente, is to watch your skinny ass walk out a here. I could see he was smiling. I told him to please take the chess set because Águila had given it to me, and he said, Will do, brother. All my other possessions I left behind.
McKenzie said, Hands. In three hours I would be ordered released from custody, but they do have their procedures at the TDC. I squatted and offered my wrists. As soon as my door slid open, the row erupted. It was a sound of victory, and because victories are so rare in our world, the sound was thunderous. Through the din I heard Sargent say, Take care of yourself, Inocente. His fist was pressed against the plastic slit in the door. If you read a newspaper story about him and what he did, you’ll probably think he’s just a cold-blooded monster. There’s nothing like knowing a killer to create complexity. To me he was the best friend I’d ever known, not counting my parents and wife, and the only friend who had literally saved my life
. I said, I’ll be back to visit. Count on it.
And with two COs standing on either side of me and a third trailing behind with my things, I walked out the same door through which I had entered more than five years before. I turned around and looked at the squat concrete block, then across the field where the horses grazed and tracking dogs bayed from their kennels. McKenzie said, Ready to go?, and I said, Yes, sir.
The back door of the van opened. Three guards were sitting inside. As the transport team was guiding me to the rear bench, McKenzie said, This ain’t something that happens too often around here. Good luck to you, za-heater. I said, Seems like something that shouldn’t ever happen at all. The guard walking behind me said, True that. McKenzie shook his head.
He did not offer to shake my hand. The guard who had my things placed them on the floorboard and did. I looked at his nameplate as he pumped my arm up and down and said, I appreciate that Officer Mullins. He said, Godspeed, sir. In less than two hours, I arrived at the courthouse in Houston.
When prisoners like me talk about not being able to touch another human being, we are not talking just about sex, or even mainly about sex. We are talking about the things you don’t notice: how the busboy uses his shoulder as he maneuvers past you to make sure you don’t stumble into his path, or how the sous chef places her hand in the small of your back as she passes behind you with a sauté pan of brown butter to make sure you don’t get scalded. We’re talking about guiding a woman by the elbow through a crowd or having a buddy on the adjacent barstool drape his arm over your shoulder and pull you toward him so he can whisper a secret in your ear. We’re talking about what’s invisible until it’s gone.
