Читать книгу The Late Matthew Brown - Paul Ketzle - Страница 12

three

My position as associate director of the State Department of Corrections was a point of contention between my daughter and me. It was my job to ensure that our convicted thieves, rapists, killers, and casual drug users were clothed, fed, warm and moderately—just not especially—content. Hero made no secret of the fact that she wasn’t especially pleased with this career choice.

“I’m just not sure I can get that excited about having a jailer for a father.”

“It’s not like I’m passionate about it. It’s not like I’m doing cell inspections. Shackling the inmates. I’m a paper pusher. A petty bureaucrat.”

“Look at me,” she said. “Swelling with pride. Really.”

Corrections was merely another step on a ladder, I pointed out, another in a string of political appointments I’d ridden for the past decade, and one I’d been doing for only the past year, at that. I’d worked for campaigns, think tanks, and, of course, other departments in government. Prior to Corrections, I’d been director of the Bureau of Environmental Study, which, I quickly pointed out, made me a friend of the earth and all its small and defenseless creatures.

“Don’t patronize me,” she said.

Bureaucracy was my trade, but more than anything, I was a political animal—or, more accurately, the scion of political animals. I was following a life of government and politics that had run for generations in my family. My father had started out as an aide to a state legislator before taking up a lobbying career in the textile industry. My grandfather Devon had worked for a governor and run the Public Works Agency for decades, and off some downtown alley, there was a small office building dedicated to him. And on and on, back to before the War. I was following in a tradition as rich and antiquated as this place itself.

We lived in the era of the New South, but the Old South was still remarkably persistent, more enduring than mere memory, enshrined in its crumbling and rebuilt structures and traditions, its registry of cherished landmarks, its mansions and battlefields and overgrown natural wonders and sense of inherent majesty. The original Capitol Building was a symbol at the crossroads between old and new. Built up from the charred ashes of the War, it had frustrated and bored the politicians and lobbyists who roamed its corridors for over a hundred years. Those who wanted change dreamed of state-of-the-art, longed to be the envy of our neighboring states. For those who had to work there, change was about practicality, with nostalgia a mere afterthought. And finally, after decades of wrangling and debate, an actual proposal had been put into motion. A new capitol was to be commissioned—a high-tech symbol for these modern times, a sign of just how this New South had put its past behind it. As for the old building, it was to be razed to the ground. That was the plan, at any rate.

Radically new ideas flowed slowly through these legislative halls, and the halting process gave time for opposition to grow. Soon the preservationists were clamoring to save the old capitol, upset that the new one was to be built over the foundations of its predecessor. A local historical preservation society marched onto the Senate floor and dumped a hundred-thousand signed petitions across the dais. A chapter of the Daughters of the South mounted the steps of the old capitol building and chained themselves to the bronze statue of a Civil War cavalry soldier. It was the lead story on all three local newscasts and one national.

The ultimate compromise left no one entirely pleased. The two buildings would both remain, side by side, nearly overlapping. The past and the present. The new capitol towering over the old—the old refusing to give ground to the new. And so it was done.

The Department of Corrections stood next door to this two-headed monster of government. Each workday, as the tall, thick shadows stretched across the parking lot, I’d look upward at the newly completed building, its twenty-five stories rising straight up, and every time it appeared to be collapsing down upon me.

In the office, my associate Hal Wallace stood beside an employee’s desk, his leg propped up on a trash can, leaning over the shoulder of our new assistant, a young woman whose name I had had to ask for, and then forgotten, probably a dozen times now. We made eye contact, Hal and I, and I waved. He nodded but didn’t stop talking. His western-style holster flashed, its tanned leather cut, its ornamental curlicues plainly visible at his waist beneath the flap of his coat. Hal always wore that sidearm to work, an ivory-handled revolver that had been handed down to him by his G.I. father. He was an assistant director of the Department of Corrections, technically one step below me, though he’d been there much longer, nearly seven years, with a degree in criminal justice —and now he’d advanced to the top of the civil service heap, where the only ones above him were members of the political establishment, like the director and me. That he held such an important position, or for that matter that the government building he worked in forbade weapons of any sort, had no bearing on the matter for him, nor apparently for the security guards downstairs, or anyone else. Ours is an open-carry state. We don’t care if you want to bring lethal weaponry to work. We just want to see what’s coming.

Also, as a well-to-do black man in the South, Hal said he preferred letting everyone know that he was armed. It not only fed the frustrations of the old guard Klansmen, who could never have imagined the sight a generation ago, it was also a much safer way to walk down deserted and dark streets at night. Multi-ethnic gang violence had been on the rise for years, and for anyone with a hint of status, whatever your race, it paid to watch your back.

Through the haze of fluorescent lights, I navigated the padded cubicles to my office unmolested. The many faces of my coworkers looked up as I passed, then quickly looked down again without acknowledgment. Hal insisted that they were still getting used to me, that eventually I’d fit in. A year, though, seemed like a long time looking for a fit, and I was fairly convinced that whatever opinion they were going to have of me had long ago been formed and set.

During my year at Corrections, I had instituted my routine of delegation, a style of management that had served me well throughout my administrative career. I rarely attached my name to anything directly. I signed few documents. I wrote vague and brief letters. I avoided email and conveniently forgot my government-issued electronic address. As a result, my career had thus far been a rousing success. Only in my early thirties and already I was holding my second executive administrative position, a swift climb of the state government ladder and on pace to surpass all my relatives. And my accomplishments, while admittedly slight and largely cosmetic, were testament to the fact that the true currency of management wasn’t success, but change. Or, in my case, taking credit for the changes happening around you and the labors of others.

Hal suddenly popped his head through my doorway.

“Christy wants us.”

“What about?

“You know how he likes surprises.”

The director of the Department of Corrections, Christy Donaldson, was, like me, a political appointee, having been in and out of government for the better part of thirty years. His faded blue sports coats, his thinning gray comb-over—he was a holdover from another era, the heyday of the Old South political machine, his only qualification for the job being his fierce partisanship. He was standing in front of his desk and smiling as we entered, and before we had even settled into our seats, announced that the governor was going to sign a warrant of execution.

“No shit?” Hal laughed, then caught himself as if embarrassed.

“There’s a presser set for this afternoon. Going to be a big deal. Fits nicely with the overall campaign themes: Justice for victims. Crap like that.”

I was as surprised as Hal. Due to a variety of reasons, the state hadn’t managed to execute anyone in more than a decade. A moratorium following the last, admittedly disastrous, series of executions was no longer in effect, but the long appeals process had kept some of the more promising prospects from coming due. Two strong candidates for the chair had both recently had their convictions thrown back to the lower courts. Another had been the subject of a recent Dateline special, casting overwhelming doubt on his likely guilt. Executing him now would have been a public relations nightmare.

“We sure this one’s not going to fall through?” I asked.

Christy just smiled, handing me a case file.

Andrew Carl Adler was just the killer everyone had been waiting for: a middle- aged white man whose brutal and premeditated rape and murder of a local college student had only been eclipsed by his grotesquely comical attempts to cover up the crime. The fire he’d hoped to use to obliterate the evidence had scorched several apartments in the historical district where she lived and severely injured two firefighters, yet hadn’t harmed the girl’s body, left partially insulated in the tub where he’d strangled her. Though he denied it, genetic evidence had tied him to the murder, the arson, and also the theft of the victim’s car, which he tried to sell through an ad in the local paper. The trial had been a media sensation, the verdict quick, and his lack of public remorse for the death of an innocent young woman had only further inflamed public passions. If ever there was a slam dunk case for capital punishment, everyone agreed, this was it.

“Now, I’m going to be on the road for the next several weeks almost nonstop,” Christy explained. “The governor has called in just about everyone to help with the campaign. So I need you to put this thing together.”

“What do we have to do?”

“There’re a lot of little details to arrange—hiring someone to pull the switch, settling things with the warden. Not to mention the press. Our first execution in ten years. Matthew, I want you to personally arrange all the details.”

“What makes me so lucky?”

“We don’t want any accidents, like what happened last time. This is going to be a three-ring circus, and you’re the perfect public face for this.”

“I’ve never done anything like this.”

“Consider it a personal challenge.”

“I would have thought Hal seemed like a more natural choice. His experience.”

Christy shook his head. “Hal’s been tasked with a top-to-bottom department review, so he’s not going to be available. Besides, you shouldn’t need any help. You’re a former director, so you’re the natural choice. Just do a job like you did with the Work for Justice program and everything will be golden.”

I didn’t say anything but managed a tight smile. Hal was stoic, his fingers tracing the embroidered lines on his holster.

The Work for Justice program was part of an intense effort to bring the state correctional system into the 21st century. Having evolved well past the age of stocks and racks, thumb screws and iron maidens and pickup basketball, our modern prisons were productive and cost-efficient and privately run. For years inmates had been working the phones, processing complaints, taking orders, if only for later billing. But the slew of high-tech convictions had enabled us to up the ante: we now incorporated web design, system troubleshooting and computer assembly. A complete line of office and antivirus software was scheduled to hit the market in six months. There was an entire industry here, a conversion of labor, an enabling of the idle. The response from business leaders who were looking for an inexpensive labor solution or deals of cheap software had been overwhelmingly positive, and except for a few human rights activists and the nervous competitors who accused us of slave labor, Work for Justice had turned out to be a rousing success.

But it had nothing to do with me. It had been my good fortune to be there to take credit for a decade of others’ planning and work. Plans had long ago been put into motion by previous directors to better utilize the changing face of the incarcerated population. My entire contribution had been to go out on prearranged local media junkets—TV and radio and cable access. A business magazine profiled me, also the local television news. For a brief few weeks, I was a mini-celebrity. Everyone else at Corrections, except Christy, it seemed, understood that Hal was the engine of our department. He’d been at Corrections for ages, while my qualifications were limited to that three-year stint at Environmental and my knack for having the right political connections. Learning to stay out of the way was perhaps my greatest contribution to my department.

“Seems I have no choice,” I said.

Christy clasped his hands together with a slap. “All right, then. That’s settled!” He started shuffling through the papers on his desk, which was our sign to leave. “How’s the baby?” he asked absently, without looking up. “I hear you have a new daughter?”

“She’s twelve,” I said.

“Amazing, isn’t it, how fast they grow.”

We wound our way back through the beehive of cubicles. When Hal walked, though, everyone slipped aside, his barrel girth parting the streams. Rather than heading into his own office, Hal followed me into mine, easing himself with surprising lightness onto the corner of my desk while I took my seat.

We sat like this for a moment, no one breathing a word.

“Yes?” I said.

“Nothing,” Hal said. “Just looked like you had something on your mind.”

“I know nothing about executing someone,” I said.

Hal shrugged. “Before my time, too. That was a whole different crew, then, a whole different administration. Bunch of fuck-ups.”

That wasn’t an exaggeration. The last guy they tried to kill, Maxwell Carpenter Jaspers, had a barely functional IQ, and in the months leading up to his execution, this very fact had brought condemnations from human rights groups of every stripe, plus a majority of world leaders, including the Pope.

“I don’t know that I could stand up to the Pope,” I said.

“He ain’t so tough. Give yourself some credit. I’d give you at least even odds.”

All of these factors would have been bad enough, but then there was the malfunction with the chair. The first jolt hadn’t succeeded in killing Jaspers, and the sight of his wheezing, smoking body had caused one witness to faint. A second electric shock then set Jaspers’ mask on fire. By the time they had shoveled his blackened corpse from the chair, several of the witnesses had become physically ill. Public protests only became more pronounced when another convict later confessed to the crime.

Some believed that the state was done with killing people for good, at least those who put little stock in the emotional power of vengeance and its ability to drive voters out to the polls.

Hal wasn’t leaving. He rocked on the edge of my desk, still tracing his pistol, staring at the series of old photographs on my walls. “Why do you think Christy is so intent that I do this? I’m serious. It should be you. You’re the nuts and bolts guy.”

“Sometimes you got to just let things go,” he said, absently. “No point in making a fuss over what you can’t change. Besides,” he shrugged, “I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“What’s up with this review, anyway?” I asked.

“You haven’t heard about the investigations?”

I shook my head. I rarely paid attention to work gossip when I could avoid it. I never watched the news.

“Several agencies are being investigated by the special prosecutor’s office. It’s all pretty hush-hush, but it’s got Christy spooked. Word is, they’ve got teams of investigators running around, asking questions, poring through the paperwork. You know Jordan Thatcher, runs Food and Agriculture?”

“Vaguely. Small guy. Beard.”

“Indicted. Last week, on charges of bribery, misuse of office and a few other things I’d never heard of. They’re apparently widening the net. Heard they’re going after Commerce, Health, Environmental.”

“Environmental,” I repeated.

My three years as director of the Bureau of Environmental Study had been a dull, uneventful, if largely pleasant experience, though my tenure there had not ended happily. Some resented my decision to up and leave so suddenly, taking me for the political opportunist I certainly am. The governor’s office had “requested” that I move to Corrections, for reasons they did not specify, and I could read the situation well enough to know not to appear as anything but perfectly compliant. The assistant they’d picked as my replacement, C. Bernie Morr, was my opposite in every respect, too. Where I was hands off, he was micro-managing; where I was disinterested and unqualified, he was passionate, with twenty years of experience and a degree in Environmental Law to draw upon. He was also a fierce and loyal partisan for the political machine in contrast to my compliant ambivalence. It was difficult to imagine the department running into trouble under his watch, and though I’d made few friends there and remained close with no one, I didn’t like the idea of my former staff suffering under the weight of an investigation.

“You still know anyone working at the bureau?” Hal asked.

“A few, I think. Not that they’d want to talk to me. But I don’t see what that’s got to do with us and your review.”

“Nothing, we hope. For all our sakes. But better to know about it before they do.” Hal lifted himself heavily from the desktop. “Besides, it’s pretty obvious the political guys don’t want me anywhere near this execution. Just imagine how the voters would react to my beautiful face. Adler may be a killer, but he’s still white.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “You can’t be serious.”

“Think about it. That wouldn’t sit so well with certain important constituencies of the voting public. You don’t think this was Christy’s idea, do you? I’ve been here long enough to know that he’s got very specific instructions.”

“So you think it’s all about race,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

“You think if Adler was black they wouldn’t be putting me front and center? Of course it’s about race. They’d be crazy not to make it about race. I’m not saying I’m happy about it. But they need you, buddy. Should make you feel special.”

“I hate this. I’m not a racist.”

“As long as the next word isn’t ‘but,’ we’re cool.”

I paused, then began: “I don’t like playing these kinds of games.”

“I spend all my day around white people, and I’ve never met a single one who was a racist.”

“That seems hard to believe,” I said.

Hal lifted his large shoulders and pointed a finger at me with a nod. “Exactly,” he said.

Over half our inmates were white, but a disproportionate number were black. Hal had walked me through a memo on this after I’d been on the job only a few days. Someone would ask me about this, he said, so don’t be surprised and don’t pretend it isn’t true. Just nod sadly, he recommended, and point out that our job is to incarcerate, not judge. And, now, of course, to kill.

“I just don’t know that I’m qualified,” I said.

“That’s the thing about institutional memory,” Hal said, leafing through the dusty volumes on my bookshelves, most left there by my predecessor and untouched in a year. “Lose it and you’re starting over from scratch.”

“I’ve got to get some help from someone. What about the new girl? What’s her name? Jane. Kate. The blonde.”

“Everyone’s pretty overwhelmed right now, but maybe you could find someone to pick up your slack. Anyway, you should probably learn their names before you start asking for favors.”

“I’m not sure they know mine. Lord knows they don’t trust me.”

“They’re just still getting used to you.”

“They should know by now. I’m not the enemy. At least you know that. Besides, I come from a long line of cowards.”

“They’re protective is all.”

“What are they protecting?”

“They’ll get used to you,” he said, without conviction, and surged out the door. “Don’t worry.”