The Chamber (53 page)

Sam scooted his chair away from the table, and stood. He stretched his arms and legs, and began pacing along the table, counting steps as he went.

“I’ll file a petition for cert to the Supreme Court in the morning,” Adam said as he looked at a checklist on his legal pad. “They probably won’t agree to hear it, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ll also finish the appeal to the Fifth Circuit on the ineffectiveness claim. The shrink
will be here tomorrow afternoon. I’ll file the mental competency claim Wednesday morning.”

“I’d rather go peacefully, Adam.”

“Forget it, Sam. We’re not quitting. I talked to Carmen last night, and she wants to come see you.”

Sam sat on the edge of the table and watched the floor. His eyes were narrow and sad. He puffed and blew smoke at his feet. “Why would she want to do that?”

“I didn’t ask why, nor did I suggest it. She brought it up. I told her I’d ask you.”

“I’ve never met her.”

“I know. She’s your only granddaughter, Sam, and she wants to come.”

“I don’t want her to see me like this,” he said, waving at his red jumpsuit.

“She won’t mind.”

Sam reached into the cooler and took another Eskimo Pie. “Do you want one?” he asked.

“No. What about Carmen?”

“Let me think about it. Does Lee still want to visit?”

“Uh, sure. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days, but I’m sure she wants to.”

“I thought you were staying with her.”

“I am. She’s been out of town.”

“Let me think about it. Right now I’m against it. I haven’t seen Lee in almost ten years, and I just don’t want her to remember me like this. Tell her I’m thinking about it, but right now I don’t think so.”

“I’ll tell her,” Adam promised, uncertain if he would see her anytime soon. If she had in fact sought treatment, she would undoubtedly be secluded for several weeks.

“I’ll be glad when the end comes, Adam. I’m really sick of all this.” He took a large bite of ice cream.

“I understand. But let’s put it off for a while.”

“Why?”

“Why? It’s obvious. I don’t want to spend my entire legal career encumbered with the knowledge that I lost my first case.”

“That’s not a bad reason.”

“Great. So we’re not quitting?”

“I guess not. Bring on the shrink. I’ll act as loony as possible.”

“That’s more like it.”

______

Lucas Mann was waiting for Adam at the front gate of the prison. It was almost five, the temperature still hot and the air still sticky. “Gotta minute?” he asked through the window of Adam’s car.

“I guess. What’s up?”

“Park over there. We’ll sit under the shade.”

They walked to a picnic table by the Visitors Center, under a mammoth oak with the highway in view not far away. “A couple of things,” Mann said. “How’s Sam? Is he holding up okay?”

“As well as can be expected. Why?”

“Just concerned, that’s all. At last count, we had fifteen requests for interviews today. Things are heating up. The press is on its way.”

“Sam is not talking.”

“Some want to talk to you.”

“I’m not talking either.”

“Fine. We have a form that Sam needs to sign. It gives us written authorization to tell the reporters to get lost. Have you heard about Naifeh?”

“I saw it in the paper this morning.”

“He’ll be okay, but he can’t supervise the execution. There’s a nut named George Nugent, an assistant superintendent, who’ll coordinate everything. He’s a commandant. Retired military and all, a real gung-ho type.”

“It really makes no difference to me. He can’t carry out the death warrant unless the courts allow it.”

“Right. I just wanted you to know who he was.”

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

“One more thing. I have a friend, an old buddy from law school who now works in the governor’s administration. He called this morning, and it seems as if the governor is concerned about Sam’s execution. According to my friend, who no doubt was told by the governor to solicit me to speak to you, they would like to conduct a clemency hearing, preferably in a couple of days.”

“Are you close to the governor?”

“No. I despise the governor.”

“So do I. So does my client.”

“That’s why my friend was recruited to call and lean on me. Allegedly, the governor is having serious doubts about whether Sam should be executed.”

“Do you believe it?”

“It’s doubtful. The governor’s reputation was made at the expense of Sam Cayhall, and I’m certain he’s fine-tuning his media plan for the next eight days. But what is there to lose?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not a bad idea.”

“I’m all for it. My client, however, has given me strict orders not to request such a hearing.”

Mann shrugged as if he really didn’t care what Sam did. “It’s up to Sam then. Does he have a will?”

“Yes.”

“How about burial arrangements?”

“I’m working on them. He wants to be buried in Clanton.”

They started walking toward the front gate. “The body goes to a funeral home in Indianola, not far from here. It’ll be released to the family there. All visitation
ends four hours before the scheduled execution. From that point on, Sam can have only two people with him—his lawyer and his spiritual adviser. He also needs to select his two witnesses, if he so chooses.”

“I’ll speak to him.”

“We need his approved list of visitors between now and then. It’s usually family and close friends.”

“That’ll be a very short list.”

“I know.”

      Thirty-seven      

E
very occupant of the row knew the procedure, though it had never been reduced to writing. The veterans, including Sam, had endured four executions over the past eight years, and with each the procedure had been followed with small variations. The old hands talked and whispered among themselves, and they were usually quick to dispense descriptions of the last hours to the new guys, most of whom arrived at the Row with muted questions about how it’s done. And the guards liked to talk about it.

The last meal was to be taken in a small room near the front of the Row, a room referred to simply as the front office. It had a desk and some chairs, a phone and an air conditioner, and it was in this room that the condemned man received his last visitors. He sat and listened as his lawyers tried to explain why things were not developing as planned. It was a plain room with locked windows. The last conjugal visit was held here, if in fact the inmate was up to it. Guards and administrators loitered in the hallway outside.

The room was not designed for the last hours, but when Teddy Doyle Meeks became the first in many years to be executed in 1982, such a room was suddenly needed for all sorts of purposes. It once belonged to a lieutenant, then a case manager. It had no other name except for the front office. The phone on the desk was the last one used by the inmate’s lawyer when he received the final word that there would be no more stays, no more appeals. He then made the long walk
back to Tier A, to the far end where his client waited in the Observation Cell.

The Observation Cell was nothing more than a regular cell on Tier A, just eight doors down from Sam. It was six by nine, with a bunk, a sink, and a toilet, just like Sam’s, just like all the others. It was the last cell on the tier, and the nearest to the Isolation Room, which was next to the Chamber Room. The day before the execution, the inmate was to be taken for the last time from his cell and placed in Observation. His personal belongings were to be moved too, which was usually a quick task. There he waited. Usually, he watched his own private drama on television as the local television stations monitored his last ditch appeals. His lawyer waited with him, seated on the flimsy bed, in the dark cell, watching the news reports. The lawyer ran back and forth to the front office. A minister or spiritual adviser was also allowed in the cell.

The Row would be dark and deathly quiet. Some of the inmates would hover above their televisions. Others would hold hands and pray through the bars. Others would lie on their beds and wonder when their time would come. The outside windows above the hallway were all closed and bolted. The Row was locked down. But there were voices between the tiers, and there were lights from the outside. For men who sit for hours in tiny cells, seeing and hearing everything, the flurry of strange activity was nerve-racking.

At eleven, the warden and his team would enter Tier A and stop at the Observation Cell. By now, the hope of a last minute stay was virtually exhausted. The inmate would be sitting on his bed, holding hands with his lawyer and his minister. The warden would announce that it was time to go to the Isolation Room. The cell door would clang and open, and the inmate would step into the hallway. There would be shouts of
support and reassurance from the other inmates, many of whom would be in tears. The Isolation Room is no more than twenty feet from the Observation Cell. The inmate would walk through the center of two rows of armed and bulky security guards, the largest the warden could find. There was never any resistance. It wouldn’t do any good.

The warden would lead the inmate into a small room, ten feet by ten, with nothing in it except a foldaway bed. The inmate would sit on the bed with his lawyer by his side. At this point, the warden, for some baffling reason, would feel the need to spend a few moments with the inmate, as if he, the warden, was the last person the inmate wanted to chat with. The warden eventually would leave. The room would be quiet except for an occasional bang or knock from the room next door. Prayers were normally completed at this point. There were just minutes to go.

Next door to the Isolation Room was the Chamber Room itself. It was approximately fifteen feet by twelve, with the gas chamber in the center of it. The executioner would be hard at work while the inmate prayed in isolation. The warden, the prison attorney, the doctor, and a handful of guards would be making preparations. There would be two telephones on the wall for the last minute clearance. There was a small room to the left where the executioner mixed his solutions. Behind the chamber was a series of three windows, eighteen inches by thirty, and covered for the moment by black drapes. On the other side of the windows was the witness room.

At twenty minutes before midnight, the doctor would enter the Isolation Room and attach a stethoscope to the inmate’s chest. He would leave, and the warden would enter to take the condemned man to see the chamber.

The Chamber Room was always filled with people, all anxious to help, all about to watch a man die. They would back him into the chamber, strap him in, close the door, and kill him.

It was a fairly straightforward procedure, varied a bit to accommodate the individual case. For example, Buster Moac was in the chair with half the straps in place when the phone rang in the Chamber Room. He went back to the Isolation Room and waited six miserable hours until they came for him again. Jumbo Parris was the smartest of the four. A longtime drug user before he made it to the Row, he began asking the psychiatrist for Valium days before his execution. He chose to spend his last hours alone, no lawyer or minister, and when they came to fetch him from the Observation Cell, he was stoned. He had evidently stockpiled the Valium, and had to be dragged to the Isolation Room where he slept in peace. He was then dragged to the chamber and given his final dosage.

It was a humane and thoughtful procedure. The inmate remained in his cell, next to his pals, up to the very end. In Louisiana, they were removed from the Row and placed in a small building known as the Death House. They spent their final three days there, under constant supervision. In Virginia, they were moved to another city.

Sam was eight doors from the Observation Cell, about forty-eight feet. Then another twenty feet to the Isolation Room, then another twelve feet to the chamber. From a point in the center of his bed, he’d calculated many times that he was approximately eighty-five feet from the gas chamber.

And he made the calculation again Tuesday morning as he carefully made an X on his calendar. Eight days. It was dark and hot. He had slept off and on and spent most of the night sitting in front of his fan. Breakfast
and coffee were an hour away now. This would be day number 3,449 on the Row, and the total did not include time spent in the county jail in Greenville during his first two trials. Only eight more days.

His sheets were soaked with sweat, and as he lay on the bed and watched the ceiling for the millionth time he thought of death. The actual act of dying would not be too terrible. For obvious reasons, no one knew the exact effects of the gas. Maybe they would give him an extra dose so he’d be dead long before his body twitched and jerked. Maybe the first breath would knock him senseless. At any rate, it wouldn’t take long, he hoped. He’d watched his wife shrivel and suffer greatly from cancer. He’d watched kinfolks grow old and vegetate. Surely, this was a better way to go.

“Sam,” J. B. Gullitt whispered, “you up?”

Sam walked to his door and leaned through the bars. He could see Gullitt’s hands and forearms. “Yeah. I’m up. Can’t seem to sleep.” He lit the first cigarette of the day.

“Me neither. Tell me it’s not gonna happen, Sam.”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. My lawyer’s about to unload the heavy stuff. He’ll probably walk me outta here in a coupla weeks.”

“Then why can’t you sleep?”

“I’m so excited about gettin’ out.”

“Have you talked to him about my case?”

“Not yet. He’s got a lot on his mind. As soon as I get out, we’ll go to work on your case. Just relax. Try and get some sleep.”

Gullitt’s hands and forearms slowly withdrew, then his bed squeaked. Sam shook his head at the kid’s ignorance. He finished the cigarette and thumped it
down the hall, a breach of the rules which would earn him a violation report. As if he cared.

He carefully took his typewriter from the shelf. He had things to say and letters to write. There were people out there he needed to speak to.

______