The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips (20 page)

Andy glared at him. “I’m glad you can laugh about this. I was right about you. You are a smug son of a bitch.”

John shook his head. “You really don’t know me, Officer. You confuse peace with smugness and you don’t know what to make of it.”

“Peace? Hah.” Andy laughed. “Nice act. Save it for the sentencing hearing.”

“It’s not an act,” John said. He looked across the table at Andy, looked at him without saying a word for so long, it made Andy very uncomfortable. It was one of those looks that made Andy feel as though John were looking right into his soul. This wasn’t how Andy had this little confrontation planned. “I’m worried about you,” John said to Andy. “I have been since the night I met you. I thought perhaps the verdict against me might give you some peace. Actually, I prayed that it would, but obviously it hasn’t.”

“This isn’t about me,” Andy said.

“Isn’t it?” John said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Andy said.

“You already know. Don’t you?” John replied with a gentle tone in his voice.

Andy stared across the table at John. “What are you talking about?” he said.

“Can I ask you a question, Officer Myers? Can you tell me why my son’s death haunts you?” John asked. “Would it have been easier on you if I’d screamed and cried and carried on the night you arrived at my apartment?”

“It would have been easier on me if you hadn’t killed him,” Andy said in a way that was colder than the temperature outside, which in Indiana at the beginning of January is pretty darn cold.

“Do you really think I could kill my own flesh and blood?” John said.

“That’s an odd question for a man waiting around for a judge to give him a death sentence. And from what I understand, he wasn’t your flesh and blood. You only thought he was,” Andy said.

“Oh, he was my son, all right. And I’m not worried about a death sentence. We all live with a death sentence hanging over our heads. No one lives forever, at least not in this life,” John said. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Andy said in a tone dripping with sarcasm: “Yes, I not only think you could kill Gabriel, I know that you
did,
in fact, kill him. I know it, and the state of Indiana proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, for some reason, you can’t seem to climb out from behind your wall of delusion to own up to what you’ve done. You will probably maintain your innocence until the moment they strap you into the chair and flip the switch. Being the religious man you claim to be, you should want to confess what you’ve done and get things right with your God before you go and see him. I guess I was wrong.”

“Why does my son’s death haunt you so?” John asked, seemingly ignoring everything Andy had just said. “I know that it does. I found the bear you left on his grave.”

“How dense are you? Why do you think it haunts me?” Andy said.

“That doesn’t answer my question. Do
you
even know why it haunts you? Do you know why you can’t get past that night? Do you understand what made you come here today?” John said.

Andy leaned across the table and said, “The only thing that haunts me is my desire for justice for Gabriel. He didn’t deserve what you did to him. That’s what haunts me. Justice. I want to see that Gabe gets justice.”

“Then you should already be satisfied. A jury said I am guilty as charged. The murderer didn’t get away with his crime and justice has been served. Case closed. So why isn’t that enough for you? Do you know?”

“Why did you do it, John? Why did you kill Gabe?”

“Can I ask you a question, Officer Myers?” John replied.

Andy slammed the table, rose up out of his chair, and said, “NO. DAMMIT. Answer the damn question. WHY DID YOU KILL HIM!?” He heard a tap on the one-way glass on the back wall and sat back down. “Why did you kill Gabriel?” Andy repeated, much calmer this time.

John slowly shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it?”

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Andy said.

“What is it that you want to hear?” John asked.

“The truth,” Andy replied.

“You already know the truth, but somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough for you. Can you tell me why?” John said.

Andy rubbed his forehead and let out a long sigh. He had envisioned a completely different conversation, with different results. John’s insistence on turning every question around caused Andy to become more and more frustrated. Finally he looked up at John, fire blazing in his eyes, and said, “I need to hear the truth from you.”

“The truth is I loved my son more than you can understand. I still do. The truth is he never understood why his mother and I couldn’t live together any longer. I couldn’t explain it to him without destroying his image of his mother, so I didn’t try. The truth is his mother could never do anything to hurt me so bad that I would ever even consider harming my little boy. The truth is I forgave her for what she did, I forgave her for the lies she threw at me, and I forgave her for accusing me of something I didn’t do. And the truth is . . . I forgive you for believing her and pushing so hard to convict me of murder,” John said.

“I don’t need your forgiveness,” Andy said. He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m just going to ask you one more time, why did you do it?”

“This won’t be the last time, we both know that.” John laughed. “You are going to keep asking me until I tell you what you want to hear, but even then it won’t give you the peace you’re looking for. I’ve had similar conversations with my wife. She didn’t just accuse me to the police. She called me a baby killer to my face, many, many times. Nothing I can say will satisfy her. Finally I had to ask her, do you really think I would kill my only son because of you?”

John’s words stopped Andy dead in his tracks. “What did you say?”

“I said I told her, do you really think I would kill my only son because of you?” John said.

Andy looked at him like he’d seen a ghost. He’d heard John say these same words a few months earlier in the dream that haunted him to this day. “Yes,” Andy said softly.

“Excuse me, Officer,” John said.

“Yes, I think you would,” Andy said.

“Then there’s nothing else I can say,” John said.

This line of questioning wasn’t getting Andy anywhere. The room was filled with silence for several minutes, both men looking across the table at one another. Finally Andy said, “I’m going to be there tomorrow. I’m going to be there to see the look on your face when the judge tells you he’s giving you the chair. And then I’m going to be there to watch you fry. I am going to be there to see you get what you deserve, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”

“Whether I live or die doesn’t really matter. To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. When the worst thing that can possibly happen to me is that I get to leave this earth and go home to be with my God, who loves me, and to see my son again, I would say my future looks pretty good. God has me where He wants me, and I trust Him completely. He knows what He is doing,” John said.

Without responding, Andy turned toward the one-way glass and said, “I’m through. Come and get him.”

After John had been led back to his cell, Ted Jackson walked into the room and said, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Andy, this isn’t some cop show. This is the real world. And in the real world bad guys don’t crack and cry for mercy. According to the people I’ve put away, not a one of those I arrested was guilty. They all claim they’re innocent. The prison system is stuffed to the gills with innocent people. You know that. Every trial that ends with a guilty verdict is nothing but a huge miscarriage of justice. They don’t call these guys cons for nothing. You got your guilty verdict, and you’ll probably get your death sentence. Let that be enough. He’s guilty, we proved that. He doesn’t have to admit it to make it real. Hell, the more he denies doing anything wrong, the more likely he will actually have to serve whatever sentence he gets. Accept it. Enjoy it. And move on,” Jackson said.

“I’m trying,” Andy said. “After I hear the judge hand down his sentence, I think I will be able to. I’ve never had a case affect me like this. I guess that’s what I get for breaking my own rules about women with kids,” he said with a nervous laugh.

“These cases . . . anytime there’s a child involved, they suck you in, even if you don’t know the kid ahead of time,” Jackson said. “Here’s some free advice. Go home. Go out in your garage and build something. Or just pound nails into a piece of wood. Or take your lawn mower apart and put it back together. Even if you screw it up, the price of a new lawn mower is nothing compared to what this case is doing to you. Go home and do something with your hands and let your mind relax. And while you’re at it, do me another favor. Get back on the twelve steps. The alcohol’s not doing you any favors.”

Andy knew Ted was right, and took his advice. He went home, spent the afternoon in his garage, and got busy. Now, my old man was never much of a mechanic. And he never claimed to be a carpenter. So he combined his lack of skills in both by taking out a hammer and beating on his lawn mower until both arms ached. By the time he was finished, he felt much better. He also went to an AA meeting that night, his first in over a year. He quit drinking completely, although he didn’t throw out all of his booze. He stashed one bottle away as sort of an emergency bender kit, just in case he needed it.

Chapter 16

T
HE SENTENCING HEARING
commenced at nine the next morning. Andy woke up before his alarm went off, and bounced out of bed for the first time since his suspension. Every other day of his unpaid vacation found him dragging out of bed around noon with a hangover. On this day his head felt clear, clearer than it had in months. His arms and hands ached from his afternoon swinging a hammer in the garage, but it was worth it. He had slept well. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to get a good night’s sleep. Of course, it helps when no one haunts you in your dreams. And he’d had a lot of dreams since John’s conviction. He never told me what they were. For all I know, he may not have been able to remember anything about them except the panic they left him in when he woke up. Or maybe they were just too weird to tell anyone about. Whatever they had been, they left him alone that night, for which he was thankful.

Andy arrived at the courthouse nearly an hour early, mainly because he was cheap. He hated putting money into parking meters, which he never had to do when he drove his patrol car. But he couldn’t drive his patrol car while he was suspended, which left him behind the wheel of his old Impala. However, since he was a cop and had friends on the Adamsburg city force, as well as the sheriff’s department, he knew the location of the three meters near the courthouse that did not work. He had to make a few trips around the block while he waited for one of them to open up, and when one finally did, he pulled his car into the spot, locked it, and headed toward Judge Houk’s courtroom.

Unlike the day when the judge read the jury’s verdict, Andy had his choice of any seat in the house when he walked into the courtroom. That is, almost any seat. To his surprise, he wasn’t the first observer in the courtroom that morning. A solitary black man with muscles that bulged under the long sleeves of his white dress shirt sat in the front row, directly behind the defendant’s table. He didn’t move when Andy walked in, nor did he acknowledge Andy’s presence when he asked, “Hi, how ya doing?” The man kept his shaved head bowed down, with his eyes closed, and Andy noticed his lips were moving. “Whatever,” Andy said as he sat in the second row on the prosecution’s side of the room. He thought it would give him the perfect vantage point to watch John as his sentence was read.

Pulling out a newspaper, Andy soon lost himself in the previous day’s college basketball scores and an article about the Indiana Hoosiers’ chances as they entered conference play. Over the next forty-five minutes, the courtroom filled to about two-thirds capacity. Occasionally Andy would look up to see if he recognized anyone. Loraine came in about ten minutes before the hearing began, accompanied by the same man who’d sat with her on the day John was found guilty. The two held hands as they entered, and he put his arm around her shoulder after they sat down. She glanced at Andy as she walked in, but she did not acknowledge him in any way. It was as though she did not know him. Andy followed her lead and went back to his newspaper. By now he’d read every story on the sports page, as well as the front-page section. With nothing else to do, he was now reading the classifieds. It doesn’t take long to read the daily Adamsburg paper.

About the time he’d read the last of the day’s real estate listings, Rachel Maris walked over to him to say hello. “This shouldn’t take too long,” she said. “Both sides filed briefs with the judge earlier, and he’s read the sentencing investigator’s report, so he should have already made up his mind on how he is going to rule today. If we have to, we’re prepared to call the boy’s mother to the stand to remind him of the cold-blooded nature of this crime. This judge usually doesn’t want a rehash of what’s already been said, so I don’t think it will be necessary. Of course, if the other side starts trying to flood the hearing with so-called character witnesses, then all bets are off. But from what I’ve heard about George Houk, the only thing that really moves him are signs of genuine remorse from the guilty party. If that happens, he may give Phillips a life sentence. Without it, this guy will probably fry.”

“All I want is justice,” Andy said.

“Well, get ready,” she replied, “because you are about to see it in action.”

All rise,” the bailiff said just as he did every time he called court into session. “Superior Court of Harris County, State of Indiana, is now in session. The Honorable George Houk presiding.” The judge walked in, his cowboy boots clicking on the floor, his hair still showing that distinctive hat line as he sat down behind the bench, and told everyone to be seated. Then he clanked his gavel, and the hearing began. The jury box remained empty because, back when all this took place, the judge, not the jury, decided on the sentence even in death penalty cases.