M I C H A E L 12 страница

gaze and he nodded imperceptibly. Warden Coyne squinted, and as

he recognized me, he sighed. "I can't let you in here. Father," he said, but

before the officers could escort me out, I had already slipped from the tent

and back into the building where Shay was even now waiting to die.

That night. Shay was moved to the death tent. They had built a single

cell there, one that would be manned round the clock. At first, it was

just like any other cell... but two hours into his stay there, the temperature

began to plummet. Shay kept shivering, no matter how many

blankets were piled upon him.

"The thermostat says it's sixty-six degrees," the officer said, smacking

the bulb with his hand. "It's May, for chris sake."

"Well, does it feel like sixty-six degrees to you?" I asked. My toes

were numb. There was an icicle hanging from the bottom rung of my

stool. "Can we get a heater? Another blanket?"

The temperature continued to drop. I put on my coat and zipped it

tight. Shay's entire body was racked with tremors; his lips had started

to turn blue. Frost swirled on the metal door of the cell, like a white

feathered fern.

"It's ten degrees warmer outside this building," the officer said. "I

don't get it." He was blowing on his hands, a small exclamation of

breath that hovered in the air. "I could call maintenance..."

"Let me into the cell," I ordered.

The officer blinked at me. "I can't."

"Why? I've been searched twice over. I'm not near any other inmates.

And you're here. It's no different than a meeting in an attorney client

conference room, is it?"

"I could get fired for this..."

Til tell the warden it was my idea, and I'll be on my best behavior,"

I said. I'm a priest. Would I lie to you?"

He shook his head and unlocked the cell with an enormous Folger

Adam key. I heard the tumblers click into place as he secured me

inside; as I entered Shay's six-by-six world. Shay glanced up at me, his

teeth chattering.

"Move over," I said, and sat down on the bunk beside him. I draped

a blanket over us and waited until the heat from my body conducted

through the slight space between us.

"Why... is it so... cold?" Shay whispered.

I shook my head. "Try not to think about it."

Try not to think about the fact that it is subzero in this tiny cell. Try

not to think about the fact that it backs up to a gallows from which you

will swing tomorrow. Try not to think about the sea of faces you will

see when you stand up there, about what you will say when you are

asked to, about your heart pounding so fast with fear that you cannot

hear the words you speak. Try not to think about that same heart being

cut from your chest, minutes later, when you are gone.

Earlier, Alma the nurse had come to offer Shay Valium. He'd

declined—but now I wished I'd taken her up on his behalf.

After a few minutes. Shay stopped shaking so violently—he was

down to an occasional tremor. "I don't want to cry up there," he admitted.

"I don't want to look weak."

I turned to him. "You've been on death row for eleven years. You've

fought—and won—the right to die on your own terms. Even if you had

to crawl up there tomorrow, there's not a single person who'd think of

you as weak."

"Are they all still out there?"

By they, he meant the crowds. And they were—and were still

coming, blocking the exits off 93 to get into Concord. In the end, and

this was the end, it did not matter whether or not Shay was truly messianic,

or just a good showman. It mattered that all of those people had

someone to believe in.

Shay turned to me. "I want you to do me a favor."

"Anything."

"I want you to watch over Grace."

I had already assumed he'd ask that; an execution bound people

together much like any other massive emotional moment—a birth, an

armed robbery, a marriage, a divorce. I would be linked to the parties

involved forever. "I will."

"And I want you to have all my things."

I could not imagine what this entailed—his tools, maybe, from when

he was a carpenter? Td like that." I pulled the blanket up a little

higher. "Shay, about your funeral."

"It really doesn't matter."

I had tried to get him a spot in the St. Catherine's cemetery, but the

committee in charge had vetoed it—they did not want the grave of a

murderer resting beside their loved ones. Private plots and burials were

thousands of dollars—thousands that neither Grace nor Maggie nor I

had to spend. An inmate whose family did not make alternate plans

would be buried in a tiny graveyard behind the prison, a headstone

carved only with his correctional facility number, not his name.

"Three days," Shay said, yawning.

"Three days?"

He smiled at me, and for the first time in hours, I actually felt warm

to the core. "That's when I'm coming back."

* * *

At nine o'clock on the morning of Shay's execution, a tray was brought

up from the kitchen. Sometime during the night, the frost had broken;

and with it, the cement that had been poured for the base of the holding

cell. Weeds from the courtyard sprouted in tufts and bunches; vines

climbed up the metal wall of the cell door. Shay took off his shoes and

socks and walked across the new grass barefoot, a big smile on his

face.

I had moved back to my outside stool, so that the officer watching

over Shay would not get into trouble, but the sergeant who arrived

with the food was immediately wary. "Who brought in the plants?"

"No one," the officer said. "They just sort of showed up overnight."

The sergeant frowned. I'm going to tell the warden."

"Yeah," the officer said. "Go on. I'm sure he's got nothing else to

think about right now."

At his sarcasm. Shay and I looked at each other and grinned. The

sergeant left, and the officer handed the tray through the trapdoor.

Shay uncovered the items, one by one.

Mallomars. Corn dogs. Chicken nuggets.

Kettle com and cotton candy, s'mores.

Curly fries, ice cream crowned with a halo of maraschino cherries.

Fry bread sprinkled with powdered sugar. A huge blue Slurpee.

There was more than one man could ever eat. And it was all the

sort of food you got at a country fair. The sort of food you remembered

from your childhood.

If, unlike Shay, you'd had one.

"I worked on a farm for a while," Shay said absently. "I was putting

up a timber-frame barn. One day, I watched the guy who ran it empty

the whole sack of grain out into the middle of the pasture for his steers,

instead of just a scoop. I thought that was so cool—like Christmas, for

them!—until I saw the butcher's truck drive up. He was giving them all

they could eat, because by then, it didn't matter."

Shay rolled the French fry he'd been holding between his fingers,

then set it back on the plate. "You want some?"

I shook my head.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I guess I'm not so hungry, either."

Shay's execution was scheduled for ten a.m. Although death penalty

sentences used to be carried out at midnight, it felt so cloak-and dagger

that now they were staggered at all times of the day. The family

of the inmate was allowed to visit up to three hours prior to the execution,

although this was not an issue, since Shay had told Grace not to

come. The attorney of record and the spiritual advisor were allowed to

stay up to forty-five minutes prior to the execution.

After that. Shay would be alone, except for the officer guarding

him.

After the breakfast tray was removed. Shay got diarrhea. The officer

and I turned our backs to give him privacy, then pretended it had not

happened. Shortly afterward, Maggie arrived. Her eyes were red, and

she kept wiping at them with a crumpled Kleenex. "I brought you

something," she said, and then she saw the cell, overrun with vegetation.

"What's this?"

"Global warming?" I said.

"Well. My gift's a little redundant." Maggie emptied her pockets, full

of grass. Queen Anne's lace, lady's slippers, Indian paintbrushes, buttercups.

She fed them to Shay through the metal mesh on the door. "Thank

you, Maggie."

"For God's sake, don't thank me," Maggie said. "I wish this wasn't

the way it ended. Shay." She hesitated. "What if I-"

"No." Shay shook his head. "It's almost over, and then you can go on

to rescuing people who want to be rescued. I'm okay, really. I'm ready."

Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but then pressed her lips together

and shook her head. Til stand where you can see me."

Shay swallowed. "Okay."

"I can't stay. I need to make sure that Warden Coyne's talked to the

hospital, so that everything happens like it's supposed to."

Shay nodded. "Maggie," he said, "promise me something?"

"Sure, Shay."

He rested his head against the metal door. "Don't forget me."

"Not a chance," Maggie said, and she pressed her lips against the

metal door, as if she could kiss Shay good-bye.

Suddenly, we were alone, with a half hour stretching between us.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Urn," Shay said. "Never better?"

"Right. Stupid question." I shook my head. "Do you want to talk?

Pray? Be by yourself?"

"No," Shay said quickly. "Not that."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," he said. "Tell me about her again."

I hesitated. "She's at the playground," I said, "pumping her legs

on a swing. When she gets to the top, and she's sure her sneakers

have actually kicked a cloud, she jumps off because she thinks she

can fly."

"She's got long hair, and it's like a flag behind her," Shay added.

"Fairy-tale hair. So blond it's nearly silver."

"A fairy tale," Shay repeated. "A happy ending."

"It is, for her. You're giving her a whole new life. Shay."

"I'm saving her again. I'm saving her twice. Now with my heart,

and once before she was ever born." He looked directly at me. "It

wasn't just Elizabeth he could have hurt. She got in the way, when the

gun went off... but the other... I had to do it."

I glanced over my shoulder at the officer standing watch, but he

had moved to a far corner and was speaking into his walkie-talkie. My

words were thick, rubbery. "Then you did commit capital murder."

Shay shrugged. "Some people," he said simply, "deserve to die."

I stood, speechless, as the officer approached. "Father, I'm really

sorry," he said, "but it's time for you to leave."

At that moment, the sound of bagpipes filled the tent, and an accompanying

swell of voices. The people outside, maintaining their vigil,

had begun to sing:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound...

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

Was blind, but now I see.

I didn't know if Shay was guilty of murder, or innocent and misunderstood.

I didn't know if he was the Messiah, or a savant who channeled

texts he'd never read. I didn't know if we were making history,

or only reliving it. But I did know what to do: I motioned Shay forward,

closed my eyes, and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. "Almighty

God," I murmured, "look on this your servant, lying in great

weakness, and comfort him with the promise of life everlasting, given

in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

I opened my eyes to find Shay smiling. "See you around. Father," he

said.

Maggie

As soon as I left Shay's cell, I stumbled out of the circus tent—that's what

this was, you know, a circus —and threw up on the grass in the courtyard.

"Hey," a voice said, "you all right?" I felt an arm steadying me, and I

glanced into the dizzying sunlight to find Warden Coyne, looking just as

unhappy to see me as I was to see him.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get you a glass of water."

He led me through dark, dismal corridors—corridors far more suited

to an execution, I thought, than the beautiful spring day outside, with its

brilliant blue sky and tufted clouds. In the empty staff cafeteria, he pulled

out a chair for me, then went to the cooler to get me something to drink.

I finished the whole cup of water, and still could taste the bitterness in

my throat.

"Sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to vomit on your parade."

He sat down in a chair beside me. "You know, Ms. Bloom, there's a

hell of a lot about me you don't know."

"Nor do I want to," I said, standing.

"For example," Warden Coyne continued blithely, "I don't really believe

in the death penalty."

I stared at him, snapped my mouth shut, and sank back into my

chair.

"I used to, don't get me wrong. And I'll perform an execution if I

have to, because it's part of my job. But that doesn't mean I condone it,"

he said. "Truth is, I've seen plenty of inmates for whom life in prison is

just as well served. And I've seen inmates I wish would be killed—there

are just some people you cannot find the good in. But who am I to

decide if someone should be killed for murdering a child... instead of

for murdering a drug addict during a deal that went bad... or even if

we should be killing the inmate himself? I'm not smart enough to be

able to say which life is worth more than the other. I don't know if

anyone is."

"If you know it's not fair, and you still do this, how do you sleep at

night?"

Warden Coyne smiled sadly. "I don't, Ms. Bloom. The difference between

you and me is that you expect me to be able to." He got to his feet.

"I trust you know where you go from here?"

I was supposed to wait at the Public Information Office, along with

Father Michael, so that we could be brought to the tent apart from the

witnesses for the state and the victim. But somehow, I knew that wasn't

what Warden Coyne had meant.

And even more surprising... I think he knew that I knew that.

The inside of the circus tent was painted with blue sky. Artificial clouds

rose into the peaks, above the black iron of the gallows that had been

constructed. I wondered if Shay would look at it and pretend that he was

outside.

The tent itself was divided by a line of correctional officers, who kept

the witnesses for both sides separated, like a human dam. We had been

warned about our behavior in the letters from the Department of Corrections:

any name-calling or inappropriate actions would result in us being

hauled out of the tent. Beside me, Father Michael was praying a rosary.

On my other side sat Rufus Urqhart, my boss.

I was shocked to see June Nealon sitting quietly in the front row

across from us.

Somehow I'd assumed she'd be with Claire, especially given the fact

that Claire would be getting ready for her heart transplant. When she'd

called to tell me she wanted Shay's heart, I hadn't asked any questions—I

hadn't wanted to jinx it. Now I wished I could go over to her and ask

whether Claire was all right, if everything was on schedule—but I would

run the risk of the officers thinking I was harassing her; and truth be

told, I was afraid to hear her answer.

Somewhere behind that curtain, Christian was checking to make sure

the rope and noose were exactly as they should be to ensure as humane a

hanging as possible. I knew this was supposed to comfort me, but to be

honest, I had never felt more alone in my life.

It was a hard thing, accepting to myself that I had befriended someone

convicted of murder. Lawyers knew better than to become emotionally

and personally involved with their clients—but that didn't mean it

didn't happen.

At exactly ten o'clock, the curtains opened.

Shay seemed very small on the gallows platform. He wore a white

T-shirt, orange scrub pants, and tennis shoes, and was flanked by two officers

I'd never seen before. His arms were fastened behind him, and his

legs were bound together with what looked like a strap of leather.

He was shaking like a leaf.

Commissioner Lynch walked onto the platform. "There has been no

stay of execution," he announced.

I thought about Christian's hands checking the knot against Shay's

neck. I knew the mercy of his touch; I was grateful that Shay's last physical

contact with a human would be gentle.

The warden stepped onto the platform as Lynch exited, and he read

the entire warrant aloud. The words slipped in and out of my mind:

... Whereas on the sixth day of March, 1997, Isaiah Matthew Bourne was

duly and legally convicted of two counts of the crime of capital murder...

... said court pronounced sentence upon Isaiah Matthew Bourne in accordance

with said judgment fixing the time for the execution for ten a.m. on

Friday, the twenty-third of May, 2008...

... command you to execute the aforesaid judgment and sentence by hanging

in a manner that produces brain death in said Isaiah Matthew Bourne...

When the warden finished, he faced Shay. "Inmate Bourne, do you

have any final words?"

Shay squinted, until he found me in the front row. He kept his eyes

on me for a long moment, and then drifted toward Father Michael. But

then he turned to the side of the tent where the witnesses for the victim

were gathered, and he smiled at June Nealon. "I forgive you," he said.

Immediately afterward, a curtain was drawn. It reached only to the

floor of the gallows, and it was a translucent white. I didn't know if the

warden had intended for us to see what was happening behind it, but we

could, in macabre silhouette: the hood being placed over Shay's head, the

noose being tightened against his neck, the two officers who'd secured

him stepping backward.

"Good-bye," I whispered.

Somewhere, a door slammed, and suddenly the trap was open and

the body plummeted, one quick firecracker snap as the weight caught at

the end of the rope. Shay slowly turned counterclockwise with the unlikely

grace of a ballerina, an October leaf, a snowflake falling.

I felt Father Michael's hand on mine, conveying what there were not

words to say. "It's over," he whispered.

I don't know what made me turn toward June Nealon, but I did. The

woman sat with her back straight as a redwood, her hands folded so

tightly in her lap that I could see the half-moons her own nails were cutting

in her skin. Her eyes were tightly squeezed shut.

After all this, she hadn't even watched him die.

The lower curtain closed three minutes and ten seconds after Shay had

been hanged. It was opaque, and we could not see what was happening

behind it, although the fabric fluttered with movement and activity. The

officers in the tent didn't let us linger, though—they hustled us out separate

doors to the courtyard. We were led out of the prison gates and immediately

inundated with the press. "This is good," Rufus said, pumped

up with adrenaline. "This is our moment." I nodded, but my attention

was focused on June. I could see her only briefly, a tiny crow of a woman

ducking into a waiting car.

"Mr. Urqhart," a reporter said, as twenty microphones were held up

to his face, a bouquet of black roses. "Do you have any comment?"

I stepped back, watching Rufus in the limelight. I wished I could just

vanish on the spot. I knew that Rufus didn't mean to use Shay as a pawn

here, that he was only doing his job as the head of the ACLU—and yet,

how did that make him different from Warden Coyne?

"Shay Bourne is dead," Rufus said soberly. "The first execution in this

state in sixty-nine years... in the only first world country to still have

death penalty legislation on the books."

He looked out over the crowd. "Some people say that the reason we

have a death penalty in this country is because we need to punish certain

inmates. It's said to be a deterrent—but in fact, murder rates are higher in

death penalty jurisdictions than in those without it. It's said to be cheaper

to execute a man than to keep him in prison for life—but in fact, when

you factor in the cost of eleven years of appeals, paid for with public

funds, it costs about a third more to execute a prisoner than to sentence

him to life in prison. Some people say that the death penalty exists for

the sake of the victims' family—that it offers closure, so that they can

deal, finally and completely, with their grief. But does knowing that the

death toll has risen above and beyond their family member really offer

justice? And how do we explain the fact that a murder in a rural setting is

more likely to lead to a death sentence than one that occurs in the city?

Or that the murder of a white victim leads to the death penalty three and

a half times more often than the murder of a black victim? Or that

women are sentenced to death only two-thirds as often as men?"

Before I realized what I was doing, I had stepped into the tiny circle

of space that the media had afforded to Rufus. "Maggie," he whispered,

covering the mikes, "I'm working this here."

A reporter gave me my invitation. "Hey, weren't you his lawyer?"

"Yes," I said. "Which I hope means I'm qualified to tell you what I'm

going to. I work for the ACLU. I can spout out all the same statistics that

Mr. Urqhart just did. But you know what that speech leaves out? That I

am truly sorry for June Nealon's loss, after all this time. And that today, I

lost someone I cared about. Someone who'd made some serious

mistakes—someone who was a hard nut to crack—but someone I'd

made a place for in my life."

"Maggie," Rufus hissed, pulling at my sleeve. "Save the true confessional

for your diary."

I ignored him. "You know why I think we still execute people? Because,

even if we don't want to say it out loud—for the really heinous

crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple

as that. We want to bring society closer together—huddle and circle our

wagons—and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of

learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify

those people? Who decides what crime is so awful that the only answer is

death? And what if, God forbid, they get it wrong?"

The crowd was murmuring; the cameras were rolling. "I don't have

children. I can't say I'd feel the same way if one of them was killed. And I

don't have the answers—believe me, if I did, I'd be a lot richer—but you

know, I'm starting to think that's okay. Maybe instead of looking for answers,

we ought to be asking some questions instead. Like: What's the

lesson we're teaching here? What if it's different every time? What if justice

isn't equal to due process? Because at the end of the day, this is what

we're left with: a victim, who's become a file to be dealt with, instead of a

little girl, or a husband. An inmate who doesn't want to know the name

of a correctional officer's child because that makes the relationship too

personal. A warden who carries out executions even if he doesn't think

they should happen in principle. And an ACLU lawyer who's supposed

to go to the office, close the case, and move on. What we're left with is

death, with the humanity removed from it." I hesitated a moment. "So

you tell me... did this execution really make you feel safer? Did it bring

us all closer together? Or did it drive us farther apart?"

I pushed past the cameras, whose heavy heads swung like bulls to

follow my path, and into the crowd, which carved a canyon for me to

walk through. And I cried.

God, I cried.

I turned on my windshield wipers on the way home, even though it was

not raining. But I was falling apart at the seams, and sobbing, and I

couldn't see; somehow I thought this would help. I had upstaged my

boss on what was arguably the most important legal outcome for the

New Hampshire ACLU in the past fifty years; even worse—I didn't particularly

care.

I would have liked to talk to Christian, but he was at the hospital by

now, supervising the harvest of Shay's heart and other organs. He'd said

he'd come over as soon as he could, as soon as he had word that the

transplant was going to be a success.

Which meant that I was going home to a house with a rabbit in it,

and not much else.

I turned the corner to my street and immediately saw the car in my

driveway. My mother was waiting for me at the front door. I wanted to

ask her why she was here, instead of at work. I wanted to ask her how

she'd known I'd need her.

But when she wordlessly held out a blanket that I usually kept on the

couch, one with fuzzy fleece inside, I stepped into it and forgot all my

questions. Instead, I buried my face against her neck. "Oh, Mags," she

soothed. "It's going to be all right."

I shook my head. "It was awful. Every time I blink, I can see it, like

it's still happening." I drew in a shuddering breath. "It's stupid, isn't it?

Up till the last minute, I was expecting a miracle. Like in the courtroom.

That he'd slip out of the noose, or—I don't know—fly away or something."

"Here, sit down," my mother said, leading me into the kitchen. "Real

life doesn't work that way. It's like you said, to the reporters—"

"You saw me?" I glanced up.

"On television. Every channel, Maggie. Even CNN." Her face glowed.

"Four people already called me to say you were brilliant."

I suddenly remembered sitting in my parents' kitchen when I was in

college, unable to decide on a career. My mother had sat down, propped

her elbows on the table. What do you love to do? she had asked.

Read, I'd told her. And argue.

She had smiled broadly. Maggie, my love, you were meant to become a

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