The Executioner's Song (35 page)

                Debbie said, "Ben's been shot in the head, and I think he's going to die." Chris said, "Oh, no, Debbie. Remember when my mom fell down the steps in D.C. and cracked her head open? Her head bled a lot but she's all right now. Ben'll be just fine." She didn't know what to say. How many times did somebody get shot in the head? She really didn't know what it meant.

                Debbie went back in the house, and David looked at Chris and said, "If he's been shot in the head, he's already gone."

                About this time, Chris began to notice that the baby was acting very odd. Benjamin usually recognized her. Chris had worked so often with Debbie in the day-care center that little Benjamin had seen Chris nearly every day of his early life. He was usually very lively and perky with her. Now Benjamin lay there like he was dead.

                His eyes were completely still. Just flopped in her arms and didn't move.

Vern had known Bushnell slightly. They would chat while Vern sprinkled his lawn and Bushnell watered the motel flowers. One evening a pile of scrap lumber got left in the Damico driveway and had to be brought to Bushnell's attention. He apologized and said he'd get after the carpenters. Next morning the mess was gone. It gave Vern the impression of a conscientious man.

                Now, Martin Ontiveros came up to Vern and said, "Gary did it." Vern said, "Gary who?" The kid said, "Gilmore." Vern said, "How do you know Gary did it? Did you see him do it?"

                "No," said Martin Ontiveros.

                "Then, how do you know I didn't do it?" Vern asked. "You didn't see it happen."

                Vern said, "Go tell an officer. If you think it was him, go tell." Ontiveros now said Gary had just been up at the station, and there was blood all over his pants.

                Vern thought, "Well, it has to bear looking into." He grabbed a cop who was married to a niece of Ida's, Phil Johnson, and asked him to check. Some talk went back and forth on a police radio. Then Phil came back and said, "It must have been him, Vern."

                "Do you think he did it?" asked Ida.

                "Yeah, he did it, the stupid shit," said Vern.

Glen Overton, who owned the City Center Motel, had just finished listening to the TV news when Debbie called. He lived in Indian Hills at the other end of Provo and came over fast in his green BMW, running every red light on the way.

                When he arrived, the street was in chaos. Nothing but police and spectators jamming the sidewalk and all over the road. There was an unheard sound in the air like everybody was waiting for a scream. Glen didn't know if it looked like a disaster or a carnival.

                Before he even tried to get into the office, he saw Debbie standing all alone outside her apartment. She seemed to be in total shock. He put his arm around her and held her. She kept asking, "Is Ben going to die?" Since they didn't want to let her back in the office, Glen finally asked her to wait outside a minute.

                After Glen identified himself and got in, he watched the paramedics working over Ben. The police were making chalk marks on the carpet, and photographing an empty cartridge on the floor. When he saw a paramedic giving Ben heart massage right there, the heel of the man's hand thumping in brutal all-out rhythm against Ben's chest, he knew Ben was dead, or near it. Heart massage was a last resort.

                Now a detective asked Glen to count the receipts and estimate the loss. Glen told them straight out that they never kept much more than one hundred dollars in the cash box. Any greater amount would be concealed in the apartment.

                At this point, the medics got ready to take Ben to the ambulance. Glen Overton found Debbie and as soon as the ambulance took off, he put her in his BMW and followed.

                On the drive, Glen sat behind the wheel trying to digest the irony that Ben had wanted this job because it would safeguard his life.

                On the day Glen first interviewed him, Ben had said he was working in Salt Lake but hated the drive. Said he had the feeling he was going to be killed on that drive. Somehow, Glen felt Bushnell's conviction. There had been a number of good applicants at Ben's level, but the intensity of his feeling that he had to get off the road got him the job. Glen didn't regret it. In fact, he had never known a manager who was so anxious to do more. Ben had kept talking to him about getting his life in order. Didn't know when he'd be leaving. It obsessed Ben a little that he hadn't finished college yet and a new baby might be on the way.

Ida was on the phone to Brenda. "Honey, somebody shot that dear Mr. Bushnell next door." Ida started to cry. In between sobs, she said, "Somebody seen Gary running away. They've identified him."

                "Oh, Mom." Brenda had been walking around all evening with a sense of disaster.

                Ida said, "He'll come to you. He always does."

                Brenda knew the police dispatcher in Orem, so she called, and said, "This is nothing more than a suspicion, but I think I'm going to need help with my cousin. Catch Toby Bath before he goes off duty."

                Toby was her neighbor. It was like having your own private police force.

                Then they locked the doors, and Johnny got out his .22 rifle. They had no more than done this, when the phone rang. It was Gary. "Brenda," he said, "is Johnny home? Can I talk to him?" Brenda thought, "That's different. He usually wants to talk to me first."

                "Johnny," he said, "I need some help."

                "What's the matter?"

                "I've been shot," said Gary. "I'm hurt real bad, man. I'm over at Craig Taylor's, and I need your help."

At the hospital Glen Overton was trying to keep Debbie's mind on other things, so he got her to call her uncle in Pasadena. It seemed to give her a desire to inform other people, for when Chris and David Caffee walked in with Benjamin, Debbie asked Chris right off to contact Ben's bishop, Dean Christiansen. That took doing.

                There were a slew of Christiansens in the Provo-Orem phone book, and they all had different spellings. It was one super-Mormon name. Besides, Chris didn't know if Dean was the first name or title.

                They finally put Debbie in a little office. She sat there thinking she had to believe in something. So she kept thinking Ben was going to be all right. Then she realized that the doctor had come into the room with Bishop Christiansen, and they had both been sitting there. Why wasn't the doctor with Ben? Then another doctor came in. They were all sitting there. It came in on her slowly. They were get up their nerve.

                Bishop Christiansen looked at her, and whispered gently. She didn't hear it. She kept looking at his silver hair. The doctor said that if Ben had lived, he would have been a vegetable. That thought went all the way in. That thought cleared her head. Debbie said, "If Ben had lived, he would have been warm, and I could have fed him and taken care of him." She had never felt more certain about what she knew. "At least," she said, "I would have had him with me."

                She had met Ben at the Mormon Institute at Pasadena City College when she was twenty-one. She had never dreamed of going out with him. He was big and very good looking with a high pompadour of nice dark hair, and she was just a pint-sized ex-tomboy with a big broad turned-up nose and a slightly receded chin. Still, she made a point of sitting behind him. She wanted to keep her eye on him.

                It took a while for Ben to ask her out, but on Christmas Eve of 1972, he did, and they went to church. Debbie didn't remember any of the Bishop's talk, she just sat by Ben. They saw each other every night after that. Took their happiness from looking at each other. They hadn't been going together a week before they decided to get married.

                Glen Overton happened to be with Debbie when they brought her in to see Ben. That was the hardest part of the evening for Glen. He was looking at a person he had spoken to three hours previously. Now that person was stretched out, face blue, mouth open. Glen had seen a boy killed in an avalanche. This was worse.

                A sheet covered Ben up to his neck, but Debbie walked forward, put her arms around him and hugged him. She really threw her arms around him. They had to sort of pull her away. She held on. They let her stay for thirty seconds more before they asked her to come out. Then they had to pull her away after all.

                A doctor took Chris Caffee aside. "Would it be all right if Debbie went home with you? She doesn't have anyone in Provo."

                Chris said, "Well, yeah, if the police'll check my house every minute on the minute all night long." They certainly hadn't found the murderer yet.

                On the way out of the hospital, a nurse followed them to the car and handed over a paper bag with Ben's bloody clothes, his valuables and his watch. The nurse said, "Do you want his wedding band?" Debbie looked at them and asked, "Do I want it?" David said, "Well, why don't you take it?" Chris said, "If you decide you don't want it, you can have it put back on him." They stood there waiting while the nurse went in, and came back out, and said, "We can't get his ring off. He's too fat. Do you want us to cut it off?" She was terrible. They said, "Leave the ring." Debbie was getting wimpy now. She wasn't crying hysterically or anything, but she kind of collapsed.

  Julie Taylor had come home from the hospital that day, and sleeping with Craig in their double bed, when the knock came. Craig went to the window and looked. Gary was standing on the porch. Just like that he said, "I've been shot." He made a point of showing a bleeding hand to Craig, and said he was in a lot of pain.

                Gary didn't ask if he could come in the house and Craig didn't feel exactly ready to let him in. Didn't know why, just didn't want to ask him. Julie being out of the hospital he didn't want blood all over the house, and her having to clean it.

                Gary, however, didn't seem to care. Just said he needed help. He had to have a set of clothes. He wanted Craig to take him to the airport.

                "I'll take you to the hospital if you like," Craig told him.

                "No," Gary said from the other side of the screen door, "I can't do that." He wasn't the least bit boisterous. Just moved his mouth, then said, "Call Brenda, then."

                When Craig heard her voice, he passed the phone out the window to Gary on the porch. Julie was really tired. From the corner of his eye, Craig could see that she had already gone back to sleep.

                While Johnny was talking to Gary, Toby Bath and his partner, Jay Barker, drove up and motioned for Brenda to come out. Just as she reached the patrol car, she heard an All-Points Bulletin on their radio. A voice said, "Gilmore is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Be prepared to shoot on sight."

                She started to bawl. "Come on in," she managed to say, "Gary's on the phone."

                Johnny needed a pencil to write down the address that Gary was giving him, so he handed the phone to Brenda. She got herself together and said, "How are you doing, Gary?"

                He told some story about a man robbing a store and there he was getting shot in the attempt to prevent it. It was a shitty story and he was a shitty liar. He really was.

                "Will you come to me?" Gary asked.

                "Yeah," she said, "I'll come to you. I've got some codeine and I've got bandages. Where are you?" He gave the address. She said it out loud for Johnny to write down. Toby Bath and Jay Barker stood there in their uniforms and also wrote it down.

                It hardly improved matters that Gary was at Craig Taylor's. Craig had a wife and two children. Brenda could see the shoot-out. But as soon as she hung up, the cops proposed that Johnny go in his truck. They would hide in the back.

                If Gary discovered he had brought the cops with him, everybody was going to get wasted. Johnny found himself lighting one cigarette right after putting the previous one, just lit, in the ashtray, and he said, "I don't want to go over." It was about as good a fear as Johnny ever felt. On reconsideration, the police agreed it was too risky.

                Brenda said, "I'll go. I don't think Gary will hurt me. Just let me take care of his hand."

                Johnny said, "You're not going."

                The cops said no. Flat-out.

                Brenda didn't know if she were relieved or miserable.

                Johnny went down to Orem Police Headquarters with Toby Bath and Jay Barker to see what the plans might be. Meantime, the Orem Police Chief called Brenda and said, "Stall Gilmore as much as you can. We need time." They agreed that Brenda would communicate with the police through her CB, and so be able to keep her telephone line open for Gary.

                Before long, Craig was calling again. He said, "Hey, Gary's getting kind of nervous. How long has Johnny been gone?"