The Chamber (Page 133)

The three shadowy figures stiffened together. Adam jumped to his feet, and without a word stepped from the cell as the door opened. His belly churned violently as he half-ran down the tier. "Give ’em hell, Adam," J. B. Gullitt said as he raced by.

"Who is it?" Adam asked Lucas Mann, who was beside him, step for step.

"Garner Goodman."

They weaved through the center of MSU and hurried to the front office. The receiver was lying on the desk. Adam grabbed it and sat on the desk. "Garner, this is Adam."

"I’m at the capitol, Adam, in the rotunda outside the governor’s office. The Supreme Court just denied all of our cert petitions. There’s nothing left up there."

Adam closed his eyes and paused. "Well, I guess that’s the end of that," he said; and looked at Lucas Mann. Lucas frowned and dropped his head.

"Sit tight. The governor’s about to make an announcement. I’ll call you in five minutes." Goodman was gone.

Adam hung up the phone and stared at it. "The Supreme Court turned down everything," he reported to Mann. "The governor’s making a statement. He’ll call back in a minute."

Mann sat down. "I’m sorry, Adam. Very sorry. How’s Sam holding up?"

"Sam is taking this much better than I am, I think."

"It’s strange, isn’t it? This is my fifth one, and I’m always amazed at how calmly they go. They give up when it gets dark. They have their last meal, say good-bye to their families, and become oddly placid about the whole thing. Me, I’d be kicking and screaming and crying. It would take twenty men to drag me out of the Observation Cell."

Adam managed a quick smile, then noticed an open shoe box on the desk. It was lined with aluminum foil with a few broken cookies in the bottom. It had not been there when they left an hour earlier. "What’s that?" he asked, not really curious.

"Those are the execution cookies."

"The execution cookies?"

"Yeah, this sweet little lady who lives down the road bakes them every time there’s an execution."

"Why?"

"I don’t know. In fact, I have no idea why she does it."

"Who eats them?" Adam asked, looking at the remaining cookies and crumbs as if they were poison.

"The guards and trustees."

Adam shook his head. He had too much on his mind to analyze the purpose of a batch of execution cookies.

For the occasion,-David McAllister changed into a dark navy suit, freshly starched white shirt, and dark burgundy tie. He combed and sprayed his hair, brushed his teeth, then walked into his office from a side door. Mona Stark was crunching numbers.

"The calls finally stopped," she said, somewhat relieved.

"I don’t want to hear it," McAllister said, checking his tie and teeth in a mirror. "Let’s go.

He opened the door and stepped into the foyer where two bodyguards met him. They flanked him as he walked into the rotunda where bright lights were waiting. A throng of reporters and cameras pressed forward to hear the announcement. He stepped to a makeshift stand with a dozen microphones wedged together. He grimaced at the lights, waited for quiet, then spoke.

"The Supreme Court of the United States has just denied the last appeals from Sam Cayhall," he said dramatically, as if the reporters hadn’t already heard this. Another pause as the cameras clicked and the microphones waited. "And so, after three jury trials, after nine years of appeals through every court available under our Constitution, after having the case reviewed by no less than forty-seven judges, justice has finally arrived for Sam Cayhall. His crime was committed twenty-three years ago. Justice may be slow, but it still works. I have been called upon by many people to pardon Mr. Cayhall, but I cannot do so. I cannot overrule the wisdom of the jury that sentenced him, nor can I impose my judgment upon that of our distinguished courts. Neither am I willing to go against the wishes of my friends the Kramers." Another pause. He spoke without notes, and it was immediately obvious he’d worked on these remarks for a long time. "It is my fervent hope that the execution of Sam Cayhall will help erase

a painful chapter in our state’s tortured history. I call upon all Mississippians to come together from this sad night forward, and work for equality. May God have mercy on his soul."

He backed away as the questions flew. The bodyguards opened a side door, and he was gone. They darted down the stairs and out the north entrance where a car was waiting. A mile away, a helicopter was also waiting.

Goodman walked outside and stood by an old cannon, aimed for some reason at the tall buildings downtown. Below him, at the foot of the front steps, a large group of protestors held candles. He called Adam with the news, then he walked through the people and the candles and left the capitol grounds. A hymn started as he crossed the street, and for two blocks it slowly faded away. He drifted for a while, then walked toward Hez Kerry’s office.

Chapter 50

THE walk back to the Observation Cell was much longer than before. Adam made it alone, by now on familiar terrain. Lucas Mann disappeared somewhere in the labyrinth of the Row.

As Adam waited before a heavy barred door in the center of the building, he was immediately aware of two things. First, there were many more people hanging around now – more guards, more strangers with plastic badges and guns on their hips, more stern-faced men with short-sleeved shirts and polyester ties. This was a happening, a singular phenomenon too thrilling to be missed. Adam speculated that any prison employee with enough pull and enough clout just had to be on the Row when Sam’s death sentence was carried out.

The second thing he realized was that his shirt was soaked and the collar was sticking to his neck. He loosened his tie as the door clicked loudly then slid open under the hum of a hidden electric motor. A guard somewhere in the maze of concrete walls and windows and bars was watching and punching the right buttons. He stepped through, still pulling on the knot of his tie and the button under it, and walked to the next barrier, a wall of bars leading to Tier A. He patted his forehead, but there was no sweat. He filled his lungs with muggy, dank air.

With the windows shut, the tier was now suffocating. Another loud click, another electric hum, and he stepped into the thin hallway, which Sam had told him was seven and a half feet wide. Three dingy sets of fluorescent bulbs cast dim shadows on the ceiling and floor. He pushed his heavy feet past the dark cells, all filled with brutal murderers, each one now praying or meditating, a couple even crying.

"Good news, Adam?" J. B. Gullitt pleaded from the darkness.

Adam didn’t answer. Still walking, he glanced up at the windows with their various shades of paint splattered around the ancient panes, and was struck by the question of how many lawyers before him had made this final walk from the front office to the Observation Cell to inform a dying man that the last thin shred of hope was now gone. This place had a rich history of executions, and so he concluded that many others had suffered along this trail. Garner Goodman himself had carried the final news to Maynard Tole, and this gave Adam a much needed shot of strength.

He ignored the curious stares of the small mob standing and gawking at him at the end of the tier. He stopped at the last cell, waited, and the door obediently opened.

Sam and the reverend were still sitting low on the bed, heads nearly touching in the darkness, whispering. They looked up at Adam, who sat next to Sam and placed his arm around his shoulders, shoulders that now seemed even frailer. "The Supreme Court just denied everything," he said very softly, his voice on the verge of cracking. The reverend exhaled a painful moan. Sam nodded as if this was certainly expected. "And the governor just denied clemency."