Love Her Madly (14 page)

I said, “Rona Leigh has agreed to Cardinal de la Cruz's request. She is happy he made such an offer. I will tell the warden she has consented to the cardinal's being her spiritual adviser. He will be with her when she is executed.”

Frank grabbed my arm. He couldn't help himself. I asked the secretary if he thought the cardinal might change his mind, and I moved so that the receiver was full to Frank's ear. He took in the priest's one-word answer and bit his lip.

Then I said into the phone, “Father, may I be the one to break the news to the media?”

He said, “To the benefit of Rona Leigh?”

“To the service of justice.”

A little pause. “Then certainly. The cardinal will not object. But let me know when it will happen so he can have a press conference ready to go.”

“It will break in two days. Hold on a minute, Father.” I put my hand over the mouthpiece.

“Frank, what time will
People
hit the grocery stores?”

“When they open the doors.”

I said to the priest, “The best thing would be for the cardinal to have the press conference at La Guardia, the morning he leaves for Texas.”

He agreed and I received yet another blessing.

I hung up. In a strangled whisper Frank filled the photographer in, grabbed the phone, and started jabbing numbers. I pressed my finger on the little mechanism that gave him a dial tone.

“What? What?”

“Do not tell your editor who your source was, just that it's one hundred percent reliable. Have him call the cardinal's office for verification.” I gave him the secretary's number.

The photographer, hovering over us, said, “Don't call from here, Frank. Call from the car.”

Frank said to me, “What's this secretary's fucking name?”

“Watch the mouth. He's a priest.”

The photographer said, “This is great. I get to go back to New York. I've never taken a shot of a cardinal before.”

I went to Best Western and waited an hour. I called the cardinal's secretary back. Yes, the
People
editor had spoken to him. He told me he wondered at my speed. I said, “Speed is one of the things they pay me for, Father.”

“We know that. It took you two weeks to find what we'd spent six months on to no avail.”

“You knew someone was robbing you for
six months?
”

“I suppose we hadn't told you that. We were too embarrassed.”

Oh.

I dialed the number my director had given me. A receptionist sang, “Secretary of State.” I identified myself and asked to speak to the secretary. Without a hint of hesitation she asked me if she should call him out of his meeting. I told her yes, and she told me it would be just a couple of minutes. It took one minute.

“Agent Rice, what can I do for you?”

I described the news that was about to come down in two days and, no, I wouldn't say which publication, just that it was national and it was big. Then I asked him if the governor could fit in a meeting with me right away, preferably tomorrow.

He asked me where I was.

“Gatesville.” I gave him my number.

“I'll get back to you.”

I told him, “If I don't hear from you tonight, say by eight o'clock, I'll call the
New York Times
one minute after eight.”

He didn't get back to me and neither did the governor. The governor's wife called me at seven-forty-five instead. She inquired as to how I was enjoying Texas. I told her I loved it, I'd been to so many places, and I was entirely smitten with Laredo.

She said, “Me, too!” Then, “I'm also wonderin' if you can make it down to Austin tomorrow. We're havin' a barbecue here at the house, and the governor and myself would love it if you'd join us.”

Good. I was finally going to get an authentic Texas barbecue.

I went to the Best Western desk and asked the clerk if I'd have to go to Waco to get the best boots around.

“No, ma'am, you just head right into town. Man who makes the warden's boots'll make yours.”

She gave me the address.

I drove into the center of Gatesville. I asked the bootmaker, “How long have you been out?”

He said, “Not long enough, buttercup.”

Boots cost six hundred and fifty dollars. Another hundred for the rush.

*   *   *

There were around forty people gathered in the backyard of the governor's mansion, and none were uniformed guards. Just a couple of Texas Rangers in full dress stationed at the gate. I spotted another Ranger not in full dress. He was a guest. Max Scraggs. He gave me a nod.

I was surprised at the lack of security, just as I'd been surprised when I came upon the prisons in Gatesville where all the prisoners were out hoeing, unattended. Just as surprised as I'd been in Laredo, watching the Mexicans bathe in the Rio Grande. The governor's mansion had a fence around it, but it was decorative wrought iron. The mansion stood on probably an eighth of an acre of grass, and across the street a rising lawn led to the capitol, sitting on a crest. Aside from that view there was no other. The mansion was surrounded on three sides by soaring new office buildings.

I mentioned the lack of security to my assigned escort guide.

He said, “We really don't need much. I guess it's because everybody round here is packin' a rod. If some cowboy with a weakness north of the ears looks like he's trying to get into the governor's house uninvited, why, the postman will nail him.”

That was good to know.

The mansion was a pretty white house with columns in front and swings at either end of the wide front porch. But it wasn't a terribly big house, four rooms down, four up, with a four-room addition in the back. My escort explained that seventy-five years ago a governor had moved in with eleven children, hence the addition. There was a basketball hoop in the driveway and a little patio where the governor's cat snoozed on one of several worn and comfortable-looking wicker rockers. The cat's fur was shaved over his backside. The escort told me the cat tended to roam and had come in a few nights ago with a couple of bites out of his hindquarters.

“A retreat injury. If his head were bitten, that would be an injury of aggression and he'd be showin' off his stitches. He's one embarrassed wimp of a cat.”

Then he complimented me on my boots.

The governor came right over as soon as he spotted me. He was as gracious as he was attractive. In his forties, trim, his hair graying ever so classically at the temples. Tanned and tall. He wanted me to feel comfortable in his home, he told me. He introduced me to several Texas legislators whose wives were on the other side of the lawn, chatting. The guys did a lot of backslapping and laughing, maneuvering me along what was pretty much a reception line until I was funneled to the wives.

Along the way I was introduced to Commander Scraggs. He shook my hand. “Nice to see you, Agent.”

I said, “Likewise,” and moved on.

The ladies welcomed me into the conversations about their jobs and the juggling they did to keep up the domestic ends of their lives, about politics, religion, and everything that mattered, while the boys went back to the pressing matter of a crucial playoff game.

Then we were all handed plastic bibs that said,
I ATE RIBS WITH THE GOVERNOR
.

Once we dug in, the governor's wife kept plying me with Handi-Wipes until she was assured I didn't mind eating ribs without the use of utensils and could fall right into sucking the sauce off my fingers along with the locals. I told her the rest of the country didn't know the meaning of barbecue. She said, “The secret is just a few blocks away. A restaurant called Stubbs. They cater, God love them. Stubbs makes our favorite sauce. If you have time, you can stop by and get a few jars to stick in your suitcase.”

I would try so I could take the sauce to Joe, and he'd duplicate her feast.

The governor ambled over to us, leaned toward me, and said, “You and me will just sneak away shortly. Have that little powwow you'd like before dessert's served.”

He'd do his best to blow me off in the few minutes between courses.

His wife led me to a bathroom so I could have a “scrub.” Just before she dropped me off in the library—“the governor's favorite room”—she said, “You do know that the Bible instructs us,
An eye for an eye.
”

Now where had I heard that before? I was about to protest, tell her the issue I was concerned with was not the death penalty but rather ferreting out corruption. But I felt like playing her idiotic game.

I said, “I interpret that scripture as meaning a crime deserves punishment but not that the punishment should be the same act as the crime. If someone is raped, you don't rape the rapist. So I believe it should be left to the Lord concerning the ultimate punishment, since the Bible commands ten things in particular, one of them,
Thou shalt not kill.
”

Her response was a little cough. She escaped as quickly as she could, depositing me at the library door. Inside was a small antique cabinet with very old books, the bindings faded and cracked. That was the extent of the library's collection.

I went in and sat on one of the chairs across from the sofa. An aide led the governor in, I stood, and he waved me back into the chair. Then he waved the aide out. He settled comfortably into the sofa, a coffee service on the table between us. He poured. Next to the coffee service he'd set the glass of scotch he'd carried in. It was half empty. He picked that up, rather than the cup of coffee, and polished it off.

His handsome laugh lines were now worry lines. He looked ten years older than he did while shmoozing out on the line. He took me in.

“Been enjoyin' yourself, Agent?”

“I have.”

“Everyone treat you good?”

“Everyone. Your wife went out of her way.”

“She can sense when to do that and she can sense when she needn't bother. She is aware that you did us one very crucial favor. Knowing news that will affect me as strongly as this will.… You have allowed that I will maintain the upper hand. Besides that, made me realize I shouldn't be seen as hidin' out. Time to throw a little party. So I owe you and I will listen to you. But I have to tell you that I don't expect anything you can say will influence the decision I've made. Only reasonable I should say that. I have made up my mind as regards the condemned prisoner. However, I will hear you out if you wish to proceed.”

He looked at his empty glass, decided on the coffee after all. He leaned back into the cushy sofa with his cup in hand and waited.

I said, “Governor, I do wish to proceed, and I want to start by saying people in this country, as you know, have begun to feel uneasy about the escalating numbers of executions. They're feeling especially uneasy about the mounting number of mistakes. Considering the impact of DNA testing—”

“I have considered that impact. But very few people in Texas, according to the polls we've taken, are feeling uneasy. And they certainly know as I do that there's no mistake when it comes to Rona Leigh Glueck. As their representative, my understanding of the law is that contrition is not a criterion for overthrowing a sentence of death. Contrition is not DNA. That woman is as cold-blooded a killer as ever there was. I know there are people who have decided that Jesus has saved Rona Leigh Glueck's soul and that I should save her life. They are in the minority.”

I tried again. “What I'm saying to you has nothing to do with any of that. I am not here protecting Rona Leigh. I am here because, unfortunately, there is no test the equivalent of DNA that can say a prisoner was a victim of false evidence, police tampering, or a lawyer who fell asleep at the wheel. Giving such a victim a second chance at—”

“Wait right there. Giving a second chance to a condemned killer is a sign of weakness, as far as I can see. Weakness is a political liability, sure as anything. As many people as there are who need to think Jesus wants me to change Rona Leigh's death sentence to life in prison, twice as many do not. I am not a wimp, Miz Rice.”

“I am talking about a reprieve, not a commutation of her sentence.”

“It's all the same. People are watching to see if I am tough enough to put a woman to death. Well, I surely am.” He stood up and picked up his empty glass. “Think I'll have another one of these. Care to join me?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

He went to a little cabinet, took out a decanter and a glass, and poured. There was no ice around. He refilled his own glass.

He handed me the glass of scotch and sat down again. I took a sip. Man knew how to drink.

While he slugged it down, I took advantage. “Governor, I've come to learn several things about the crime Rona Leigh Glueck was convicted of which, in other states, would be conditions for a reprieve, for a new investigation. But the reason I am here to see you personally, the reason I needed to see the governor of Texas, is because the evidence I've found would allow you to determine whether or not she had a fair trial.”

He snorted. “First off, what other states do or don't do makes no matter to me. And second, I am only duty-bound to consider two factors: whether there's any doubt about the inmate's guilt—and the only doubt would arise from a DNA test—and whether that inmate had access to the courts.”

“But fairness is—”

“Court says guilty, that's it. It's a contradiction to say the condemned is innocent of a crime he's been condemned to die for because otherwise he wouldn't be condemned.”

I think he got the line of double-speak he'd memorized mixed up. Single malt scotch will do that.

“I'm afraid I don't understand your point.”

Neither did he. “Listen, nobody raped anybody here. Nobody left their telltale body fluids behind, and what a relief that is.” He raised his glass. “I believe I will drink to that fact.”