The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips (32 page)

As soon as they said that, Andy stepped out from behind the governor and dropped his gun to the floor. “What the . . . ?” the warden said. The guards looked at one another with shock. “Hey, no one is supposed to have any firearms in here.”

“Seize him, you fools!” Chambliss yelled. “Don’t you realize what he just did!?” Of course, none of them did. No one had a clue as to what had just happened, except that the governor had committed political suicide. There wouldn’t be any second terms for Reginald Chambliss, Esquire. After this, there probably wouldn’t even be a sign on the city limits of Silver City announcing it as the home of Reginald Chambliss, the governor of the great state of Indiana. When no one rushed Andy, Chambliss pushed past him, grabbed his gun, and pointed it at Andy. But he didn’t just point it at him. He grabbed the grip with both hands and shoved the gun out in front of him, with his legs spread wide, like a scene out of a bad cop movie.

Andy laughed. “It won’t do you much good,” he said. “There aren’t any bullets in it.”

Now this really set Chambliss off. He was so mad, he seemed to completely lose sight of who he was and where he was standing. His arms started shaking, and his eyes bulged out, and before he realized what he had done, he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled it again and again and again, until he finally flung it away from himself. If he’d been paying a little more attention, he probably would have thrown it to his right or just dropped it on the ground. Instead, he ended up throwing the gun right through the window that separated the execution chamber from the observation gallery. He didn’t know what he had done until he heard the crashing of the glass. Most of the reporters were still sitting there, waiting for the governor to come out and give them a full statement. I guess, technically, they weren’t actually sitting down. They all jumped when they saw the governor point a gun at a state trooper. Most knew that John Phillips had just been replaced as the biggest story of the year, although they didn’t know exactly what that story was just yet.

“ARREST THIS MAN!” Chambliss screamed. “He just set a murderer free.” Still, no one moved. The warden and the guards and Simon and everyone else just stared at the governor like he’d lost his mind.

Finally Andy spoke up. “He’s right. But you don’t need to arrest me. I give myself up.” With that, he dropped down on his knees and placed his hands behind his head, his fingers interlocked. He’d asked his share of people to assume that position when he arrested them, so he knew what to do. The warden grabbed a phone, and within a few seconds a team of guards came rushing in.

“Why?” Chambliss yelled at Andy. “Why would you do this?”

“Justice,” Andy said. “Plain old simple justice. Well, justice and forgiveness.”

“What!? I don’t understand. How was this justice!?”

“John Phillips didn’t kill his son. Gabriel Phillips hit his head and died when he fell out of his bunk bed. I never could believe this myself until just a few weeks ago. Of course, by then it was too late. I so badly wanted to believe John was guilty, that I couldn’t see the evidence any other way. By the time the truth hit me, it was too late. His appeals had all run out, and I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

Chambliss stood there, his jaw hanging open, a look of total disgust on his face. “You’re crazy. You could have come to me.”

“No. No, I couldn’t.”

“But why this?”

“Luke 19:8?” Andy said.

“Who?” Chambliss asked.

“It’s not a who. It’s a verse in the Bible about a guy named Zacchaeus. He wasn’t a nice man, but when Jesus forgave him, it changed him. He went out and set things right with the people he’d harmed. Well, I’ve found the same forgiveness Zacchaeus experienced, and it feels pretty good. But that’s not enough. I did more harm to the Phillips family than I could ever make up for in one lifetime. Setting John free like this was the least I could do.”

“You’re nuts.”

Andy just smiled. “Yeah. I guess I am. But for the first time in my life, I feel completely free.” The irony of that statement wasn’t lost on him. He knew he wouldn’t walk out on the streets as a free man for a very long time. Twenty-six years, three months, and nineteen days, as of tomorrow, to be exact. He said it was a small price to pay. Justice never tasted so sweet, he said. And after all, that’s all he ever really wanted for Gabriel Phillips. Justice.

Chapter 25

I
F YOU HAVEN’T
figured it out already, all of this is why I am here right now. My dad gets out of prison tomorrow. He served all of his time not far from here in the same prison where John served his time on death row. Of course, Andy spent his years in a different part of the prison. As much as Chambliss might have wanted, he couldn’t get a court to give Andy death. As it turns out, Andy spent a lot more time in prison than John did. I never heard him complain about it, but I know he’s anxious to get out. He gets to meet his grandson for the very first time tomorrow. My wife and I named him after my dad. It was her idea, but I thought it was a pretty good one.

I’m not sure what ever happened to John. In the letter he wrote to him, Andy explained everything he was doing and why. The plane tickets were in the envelope, along with the keys to the Impala. The money and some clothes were in the car waiting for him. In all the confusion, it took a while for a real manhunt to get under way. Police officers surrounded O’Hare Airport in Chicago and they stopped every flight out of there for over a day. Not that it did any good. John didn’t turn up there. Chambliss also put up blockades around the Indianapolis airport, but all that did was make a lot of travelers mad. Andy had anticipated both airports would be targeted, which is why he bought fully transferable tickets. I think John might have flown out of Detroit. It could have been Cleveland, for that matter. He might have flown to Belize. No one really knows, and my dad would never say. That’s part of the reason my dad never made parole until now. All Andy would ever say was that John was now on an extended mission trip and probably wouldn’t be back.

The manhunt for John lost its steam after Chambliss left office. He didn’t get a second term. It wasn’t so much the way this case turned out, although that certainly didn’t help, as it was the image of him pulling the trigger on an unarmed man. Voters never really got over that one. The new attorney general’s office opened a full-scale investigation into the whole affair, going back to the original investigation of Gabe’s death. They found “gross errors” had been made in the case, but they stopped short of exonerating John. They did, however, remove him from the wanted criminals list. The report ended Chambliss’s political career, however. Last I heard, he was living somewhere in Florida. Or Arizona. Or someplace warm.

But I guess I ought to answer the biggest question you probably have right now. Why did Andy do what he did, and how did that bring me to where I am right now? After all, nothing I’ve told you so far would lead you to believe that I should have any kind of relationship with my biological father. It’s a long story, but I’ll spare you. One long story is enough.

The long and the short of it is this. After Andy’s trip to see John after his last appeal was denied, and after his trip to visit Gabe’s grave in Adamsburg, Andy started thinking about everything John had told him, especially the part about guilt and forgiveness. Andy knew guilt would kill him. It nearly did. The bullet holes in the walls of his cabin were meant for his head. I don’t know if he was so drunk that he missed, or if God pushed his hand up at just the right moment. Either way, his suicide attempt failed. That’s when he tore open the package from John and discovered both a letter and a small Gideons Bible. John’s letter answered Andy’s question by saying that he forgave the man who was sleeping with his wife the moment he found out about it. Then he went on to explain how such an act was impossible on a human level. John could forgive others because God had forgiven him. The little New Testament had several verses underlined for Andy to read, verses that explained both the hows and whys behind the forgiveness God offers through His Son, Jesus. By the way, the story of Zacchaeus was
not
one of the verses John had marked.

Andy started reading through what John had marked for him. The more he read, the more sense it made. Pretty soon, he discovered he believed what he was reading, which led to him making a life-altering decision. No, not the decision to pull a gun on the governor. That came later. No, this decision had to do with the direction of his life, and handing control of it over to Jesus. I know this sounds a little preachy, but, hey, it is what it is. Most people who don’t think much about God think anything that talks about Him is preachy. So there you have it. Guilty as charged.

Andy’s decision to follow Jesus ultimately led to his decision to make things right with John in the only way he knew how. It wasn’t just John. Andy carried a load of guilt about Loraine, and her suicide only made it worse. He had given her the gun she ultimately used to kill herself. She said she needed it for protection. Andy never would have guessed she needed to be protected from herself. God gave him a peace about all of this, but he still felt compelled to, in the words of Zacchaeus, pay back those he’d wronged. That led to setting John free, and it also led to him contacting me.

When the first letter arrived, my mother threw it away. And the second. And the third. And I don’t know how many. Pretty soon the letters arrived so frequently that she finally decided she ought to let me read one. I think I was around thirteen at the time. I didn’t even know I had a father. Well, I knew I had to have some sort of biological father. I had no illusions about being born of a virgin. But I never knew I had a father out there that was still alive. I’d built up this little fantasy about my dad as this heroic guy who was shot down in a blaze of glory after shooting down about fifty Nazi warplanes. So I wasn’t too good at history and I watched way too many John Wayne movies when I was a little kid. What can I say?

Actually, that isn’t entirely true. I knew my father had abandoned me, and I hated him for it. But until the letters arrived, he was just an invisible someone out there I despised. My fantasy dad would have hunted him down and killed him, if the Nazis hadn’t gotten to him first.

The letters from my dad started off with an apology for how he had wronged me. He also apologized for repeating himself, because he was going to say the same thing in every letter until he received word that I’d read one of them. After the way he treated my mother, he must have assumed she would throw them away. For the brief time they were married, he knew her pretty well. When I wrote him back the first time, I told him I’d received his letter and please don’t write back again. He ignored my request. The letters kept coming. When Andy Myers puts his mind to something, he gets it done. And he had put his mind to building a relationship with me. As you can see, it worked.

I read his letters. All of them. And I kept them. I still have them today. About the time I finished high school, I drove up from Saint Louis and visited him in prison. I was still skeptical, but eventually I came around. I prayed to receive Christ with my dad in that same prison visitation room several years later. That day changed my life, just like it changed his. Once I was forgiven, I realized that the one person I’d wronged above all others was my father. I wouldn’t forgive him for the longest time, even after I could tell he wanted my forgiveness more than anything else in this world. That’s all changed now. Like I said, my wife and I named our little boy after him. At least his first name. His middle name is Gabriel.

So that’s it. That’s my story. That’s why I’m here.

Discussion Group Questions

1. Gabriel Phillips is gone when the story begins, but his presence is powerful throughout. What about this little boy was so special that he would have such an impact on so many lives so long after his death?

2. John Phillips had a peace about his son’s death that was inconceivable to Andy Myers and most of the authorities. What about his demeanor and his speech do you think made him look so suspicious? Why do you think it was so easy to believe he was guilty?

3. Andy Myers threw himself into the investigation of Gabriel’s death and made it his personal campaign to get justice for the boy. What do you think was really behind this obsession?

4. Loraine Phillips asked Andy in his dreams and face to face a question that haunted him: What have we done? Why do you think this question was so troublesome for Andy? What do you think was the source of the guilt he felt?

5. John Phillips seemed to have experienced a dramatic transformation in prison and was embraced by his religious community. Do you think the change was real? Do you think even violent criminals can receive redemption?

6. Loraine Phillips could not recover from the death of her child or cope with the role she played and eventually took her own life. What do you think was the primary responsibility she had in these events? Why do you think her guilt consumed her? What could she have done to save herself?

7. Eli Williams was the prisoner nearly killed by John, yet he stood by John throughout his trial and appeals. Do you think you could forgive someone something that big and even befriend them? What do you think gave Eli the strength to be so forgiving?

8. Andy eventually came to comprehend something of what was behind John’s faith and peace. What do you believe was the turning point for him? What finally helped him to understand and accept the Christian message John had been trying to share with him?

9. Andy’s son serves as the narrator for the story and only learned about Andy through their correspondence while Andy was in prison. Do you think Andy’s determination to restore their relationship had a positive impact on his son’s life?

10. Many of the characters in this story deal with feelings of guilt and struggle with forgiveness. Which of these characters address these issues the right way and which handle them poorly? What do you think made the difference in how each of them did so?