by David R. Dow
I said, Actually, John, I think I might, but eventually you will get to know me well enough to realize I don’t really care.
The door clicked shut behind me, and if they said anything else, I couldn’t hear what it was.
Less than an hour later I was sitting at a booth in the diner, nibbling an apple fritter with my coffee and pretending to write to hide my excitement. I checked the Austin newspaper online and the local television news. There were no further updates. I went about my routine. I picked up a few items at the hardware store and bought my groceries for the day. I also purchased several books: the third in a historical trilogy of World War II, a volume of Neruda poems, and a novel nominated for the Booker Prize. If I was acting abnormal, nobody in town appeared to notice. Back at home I listened carefully to see if I could hear any noise from my prisoners. All I heard were the birds.
For the next two days, I left them all alone.
* * *
• • •
On the third day of their sentence I went down to level 6. I peered through the peephole. Moss had wet hair and was sitting on her cot. Stream was doing push-ups. Both of them had eaten several MREs. I opened the vault door and walked inside. I unlocked the redundant gate and approached their cells. Through the bars I handed each of them two towels, three white cotton jumpsuits, five T-shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, a package of athletic socks, and a pair of flip-flops.
I said, I see you figured out the shower. I’ll bring you clean clothes once a week and collect your dirty laundry. I am going to the department store later today, so if you tell me your size, I can get both of you underwear. I also have e-readers for you, but you will have to tell me what books and newspapers you want me to load onto them when I’m back aboveground. I’m sorry to say there is no public internet access down here.
Moss said, If this is about not getting the compensation owed to you, we can fix that.
I said, Jane, you can’t fix anything. If you want to keep your house tidy, please put your garbage in here.
I held a trash bag up, and Moss reached through the bars and dropped her empty meal cartons inside. When I stood outside Stream’s cell, he did not get up off the floor. I said, Suit yourself, John. But it’s gonna smell awfully ripe in here over the next six years if you hoard your trash. I’m not sure your mistress there is going to be too happy about that.
Moss said, I am not Leonard’s mistress.
I said, Actually, Jane, in a manner of speaking, you are. Don’t worry, I’ll eventually fill you in.
To Stream I said, Last chance, John, and I held out the garbage bag. He still didn’t move. I shrugged and turned around. As I was closing the door I heard Stream. He was either whispering to Moss or hissing at me. The vault clicked shut before I knew which it was.
* * *
• • •
After lunch the next day I went downstairs carrying a duffel bag. I gave Moss two boxes of wine and a Swiss chocolate bar. I handed Stream a fifth of Scotch I’d poured into a metal flask and a can of nuts. I said, Sorry about the containers, but this is a glass-free zone.
Moss looked at the wine label with surprise. I said, You can learn a lot poking through someone’s recycle bin. I do find it a bit ironic when people completely indifferent to legal rules and human suffering care enough about the planet to recycle, but whatever. Maybe there’s hope for you. Either way, I had no way of knowing whether the wine is your choice or your husband’s. If you prefer something else, let me know.
I looked at Stream and said, Same goes for you.
Moss said, Thank you. Stream only glared.
I gave each of them a copy of the papers my legal team had filed in their court, along with the opinions they had written denying me relief and the dissent of their colleague. I also handed them a copy of the order signed by the federal judge halting my execution. I passed them the results of the laboratory’s DNA testing, and a mug shot of the man who had murdered Tieresse.
I said, That picture is the thug who took my wife’s life. He doesn’t much resemble me, does he?
I taped a third copy of the murderer’s face to the wall next to the TV. Both Stream and Moss stared at the photo.
I said, But if the two of you had had your way, we would not know who bludgeoned my wife, and I would be dead. I’ll leave it here, so you don’t have an excuse to forget. Any questions?
Moss was breathing loudly through her nose. First her neck and then her face turned pink on their way to red. Stream’s four-day beard was mostly gray.
He said, People will be looking for us, and the first thing they will do is assume some disgruntled litigant is involved.
I said, I’m not disgruntled, and the people who are going to be looking for you are not who you’re hoping for.
I handed them each a page with an article I had printed from that morning’s Austin newspaper. It was a wire service story, carrying a dateline from Houston. It read:
Coast guard officials announced this morning they have located the wreckage of the single-engine plane that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico three hundred miles east of Galveston nearly one week ago. The plane is registered to Leonard Stream, a judge on the Texas Supreme Criminal Court. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, radar images indicate the plane was en route from Bastrop, Texas, to Key West, Florida. Officials noted the pilot had not filed a flight plan, which is optional, but did ask for a weather report approximately two hours before the plane disappeared from radar. It is unknown how many others were aboard the four-seat aircraft, but Stream was believed to have been accompanied by Sarah Moss, also a judge on the same court. There is no sign yet of either one.
Officials said rescue boats will search for survivors during daylight hours while divers look below the surface for clues. They caution, however, that the depth of the ocean floor where the plane went down is more than 3,000 feet. An investigator from the NTSB, while declining to speculate on the cause of this accident, indicated that weather was clear below 10,000 feet, and that the agency would likely issue a report on its investigation within six months. Private planes like this one, according to the investigator, do not carry so-called black boxes, making the investigator’s job more challenging. One source, who wished to remain anonymous, speculated the plane may have run out of fuel or the pilot may have been overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning. Stream had accumulated almost a thousand hours of airtime and had no reports of prior accidents.
Stream was first appointed to the court nine years ago and won reelection last November. He is divorced and has one grown son whose location is unknown. Moss, who also won reelection in November, is married to Harvey Salisbury, a self-taught pastor whose Sunday sermons are watched by an estimated 3 million people on cable TV. The couple has no children.
In a written statement, the Governor said his hopes and prayers are that Stream and Moss will be found alive and uninjured. He praised both judges as principled and conservative constitutionalists who place the law above their own personal feelings.
Moss gasped as she read it. A film of oily perspiration formed on Stream’s upper lip.
I said, So, John, you can see why, given the circumstances, I doubt your first choice of an investigative theory will prevail. I’m waiting for my luck to turn bad, but three thousand feet of ocean is more than I could have hoped for, so it looks like the gods might be rooting for me.
Moss said, Why does anybody think I was in the plane? My husband will know this isn’t true. He’ll tell them I had no plans to be away. He knows I wasn’t with Leonard.
I said, It’s a constant source of amazement to me how spouses can lead double lives. I saw a story on a TV newsmagazine last week about a man who had a wife and two children in Dallas, and another wife and three children in Detroit. You have to admire his attention to detail, right? Anyway, Jane, you sent your husband a last-minute text reminding him you were going to a conference, and as
you may recall, you told your secretary the same thing.
Moss lifted her hand to her mouth. Her eyes darted to the right, and then bored into mine. It took her only a moment to piece things together. In that moment, I saw her fear turn to anger.
I said, Eventually the authorities are going to realize you two were having an affair. They’ll assume this trip was just another dalliance. If I am really lucky, they will also find your purse or wallet or cell phone somewhere near the crash site.
She said, Nobody will believe Leonard and I were having an affair.
I looked at Stream and asked, Do you feel insulted, John?
I said to Moss, I do feel bad about being cruel to your husband. He does not deserve that. I wish I could have thought of something better.
Stream said, Why are you bothering telling us all this? Do you want me to congratulate you on your cleverness?
I said, That’s a fair question, John. But no, I am confident I can live without your congratulations. I’m telling you all this because I don’t want you hoping someone is going to find you or is even looking. Hope is a balm, and you can’t have any. Seven years ago I would have thought the worst thing about prison is being under someone else’s control. But that’s wrong. As I now know from experience, the worst part of being locked up is the complete hopelessness. I want you to have the entire experience. It’s not the boredom that drives people mad; it’s the certainty there’s no escape, and the knowledge that the people who control your fate do not care about you or your ordeal. It is the daily reminder that, while you are here, they go home at night and drink a beer and watch TV. So no, I don’t want you to congratulate me. I want you to realize you are going to be my prisoner until I decide to let you go.
I handed each of them a stack of pages on which I had printed all the e-mails and texts they had exchanged over the preceding fifteen months. Stream did not look down, but Moss did, and as she read, she began to shake.
I said, If the authorities search your homes and computers, they will find each of you had a secret e-mail account you used exclusively to communicate with one another, and a cell phone you used exclusively to talk and text to the other. The mystery will be solved: Two lovers die in a tragic accident while traveling to a secret rendezvous. Maybe instead of John and Jane, I should call you David and Bathsheba.
Stream said, Unbelievable.
Moss said, You are a cruel and evil man.
I said, No ma’am, I don’t think so. I’m just indifferent. From your perspective there might not be any distinction, but from mine there definitely is.
I double-checked to make sure I had removed the paper clips from the pages I had given them, and I looked around to make sure I was not leaving anything behind.
I said, I’ll be gone for a few days. When I get back, we can discuss those papers I gave you earlier. If either of you can persuade me there was a good reason to let an innocent man be executed, maybe I’ll let you go. Otherwise, I’d advise you to get comfortable in your new home.
Stream said, Where are you going? If something happens to you we’ll be trapped in here.
I paused in the doorway. I said, I guess you better pray I stay healthy.
* * *
• • •
Outside of Texas, after a brief story on the national news the day it happened, nobody was paying much attention to the crash of a small plane and the disappearance of two state court judges. Inside Texas, most papers were letting the Austin-based reporters do all the legwork. One wrote a story quoting a clerk from Judge Moss’s office as saying Moss told her staff she would be at a conference. The same story confirmed Moss had sent a text to her husband with similar information. The press liaison for the Texas troopers confirmed Judge Stream had prepaid for a hotel suite in Key West for two nights, booking the room through the hotel’s website and also that he had canceled a commercial air reservation. His SUV had been found parked at the field where he kept his plane. The story did not say whether police dusted for fingerprints, but I couldn’t think of a reason they would, and besides, I had been wearing latex gloves so they wouldn’t find mine. Investigators had not uncovered any evidence Moss was planning to attend the conference or made arrangements to be in Florida, but, they cautioned, the investigation was ongoing.
After leaving Moss and Stream, I flew to Texas to take care of a small piece of business. In the cab on the way to Olvido’s office, I asked the driver to stop so I could buy a local paper. Inside on page three, a wire service story reported the most recent development: A shrimp boat captain based in Port Aransas, some two hundred miles south of Galveston, found debris eight days after Stream’s plane crashed that included a piece of the plane’s rudder and an expensive leather purse. The fisherman gave the purse to the local police, who in turn handed it over to investigators from the Texas Rangers. Inside the handbag officers found a wallet with thirteen dollars in soggy bills, two credit cards, a driver’s license, Judge Moss’s government ID, and two waterlogged cell phones. An anonymous source told reporters Moss’s husband had been unaware his wife owned a second phone. I felt elation until I got to the part about the pastor, and then I felt a twinge of guilt.
But I remembered something Sargent had said one day when a feeble-minded effeminate inmate named Demerest who lived two doors down was being raped by a guard. Demerest said no no no and then started to whimper. Sargent read my mind. He said, Listen to me, Inocente. Buddhists say the first noble truth is you cain’t do everything to stop other people’s suffering. I said, I know that, but get me close enough to that sadistic CO and I can at least stop Demerest’s. Sargent said, True that, but it just be for now. Universe decides what’s gonna happen once you gone. I said, Is there a lesson I’m supposed to take from that? But he didn’t answer. That night I heard Sargent whispering to the lieutenant. The next day, the guard who raped Demerest was fired. I heard he did time, but I don’t know if it’s true. I asked Sargent about it. He said, I heard the same rumors as you. I said, Uh-huh.
When I walked into their new office in Galveston, Olvido, Luther, and Laura were sitting in a conference room eating pizza. Laura saw me first and hugged me tight enough to pop my back. I said, Nice digs. You guys take to representing the high rollers? Luther smiled. Laura said, I wish. They asked what I had been up to, and I told them about the places I’d been to visit. Unless it’s possible to lie by omission, everything I told them was true. We sat and visited for more than an hour.
Before I left I told Olvido I had a favor to request. I handed her an envelope containing several pages from a yellow legal pad. I had written the GPS coordinates for the entry to the silo and drawn a sketch of the building, with a thick arrow pointing to level 6. Below the arrow I wrote the numerical combination to the keypad lock on the door. I described exactly what I had done and how. At the bottom I wrote the day and date and a note saying no one other than me had been involved or had any knowledge of my plan. I printed and signed my name.
I said, I’d like you to put this in your safe and not open it unless a week goes by and you don’t hear from me.
She said, Are you in some kind of trouble, Rafael?
I said, No, I’m just careful. Will you do it?
And she said, Of course I will.
I spent the night at a motel in Norman, Oklahoma, and watched the baseball team lose in extra innings to Texas Tech. I had a beer in a pub with free Wi-Fi and logged on to a Texas prosecutors’ association discussion board. Reinhardt had taught me how to lurk on these boards anonymously, but I was extra careful and allowed myself to follow the gossip only from computers in public places.
There were more than one hundred messages dissecting the news about the discovery of Moss’s possessions. Several posters said they were not surprised that Stream, a leading proponent of stand-your-ground laws, would be addressing the Florida conference, but nobody could make sense of why Moss, who was not on the program and who had no expert
ise in the area, would be going to a meeting pertaining to Florida law. Toward the bottom of the thread a prosecutor from the Rio Grande Valley wrote, Maybe their relationship was, shall we say, not entirely professional
I closed the browser and erased the history. A day later, a reporter for a weekly independent had run with the story. Courthouse observers said the rumors of an improper relationship between Moss and Stream were absurd. Moss’s husband said he and his wife were happily married. Office staff for both judges said they never saw the two together.
Meanwhile, the coast guard formally announced that its mission had been reclassified from rescue to recovery. If the judges had survived the impact, they would have succumbed to dehydration or exposure. Officials remained hopeful, however, the bodies would be recovered, and they reported that a blue leather jacket, believed to belong to Moss, had been found floating twenty miles west of where the wreckage had been located. An official from the NTSB said the impact of the crash had caused a wing to break off, making it impossible to determine if the plane had run out of fuel. Officials closed the investigation, describing the cause of the accident as undetermined.
For the next two weeks I went downstairs every morning at eight, but I did not open the door to their cells. Through the peephole I would watch Stream do push-ups and pedal the stationary bike. Moss sat in her chair with a plastic cup of powdered MRE coffee and read. Once, she pulled the curtain closed between their cells and started to undress to shower. I pulled my eye away from the door and walked back upstairs.
That moment, I think, was my first encounter with doubt.
* * *
• • •
One morning Stream said, I’ll tell you the significance.
