The Chamber (12 page)

Mann’s face was expressionless. He thought for a long minute, then said with a hint of satisfaction, “I sort of figured that.” He immediately started flipping papers as if the file possessed many other surprises. “Sam’s been a very lonely man on death row, and I’ve often wondered about his family. He gets some mail, but almost none from his family. Virtually no visitors, not that he wants any. But it’s a bit unusual for such a noted inmate to be ignored by his family. Especially a white one. I don’t pry, you understand.”

“Of course not.”

Lucas ignored this. “We have to make preparations for the execution, Mr. Hall. For example, we have to know what to do with the body. Funeral arrangements and all. That’s where the family comes in. After I talked to Garner yesterday, I asked some of our people
in Jackson to track down the family. It was really quite easy. They also checked your paperwork, and immediately discovered that the State of Tennessee has no record of the birth of Adam Hall on May 12, 1964. One thing sort of led to another. It wasn’t difficult.”

“I’m not hiding anymore.”

“When did you learn about Sam?”

“Nine years ago. My aunt, Lee Booth, told me after we buried my father.”

“Have you had any contact with Sam?”

“No.”

Lucas closed the file and reclined in his squeaky chair. “So Sam has no idea who you are or why you’re here?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow,” he whistled at the ceiling.

Adam relaxed a bit and sat up in his chair. The cat was now out of the bag, and had it not been for Lee and her fears of being discovered he would have felt completely at ease. “How long can I see him today?” he asked.

“Well, Mr. Hall—”

“Just call me Adam, okay.”

“Sure, Adam, we really have two sets of rules for the Row.”

“Excuse me, but I was told by a guard at the gate that there was no death row.”

“Not officially. You’ll never hear the guards or other personnel refer to it as anything but Maximum Security or MSU or Unit 17. Anyway, when a man’s time is about up on the Row we relax the rules quite a bit. Normally, a visit with the lawyer is limited to an hour a day, but in Sam’s case you can have all the time you need. I suspect you’ll have a lot to talk about.”

“So there’s no time limit?”

“No. You can stay all day if you like. We try to
make things easy in the last days. You can come and go as you please as long as there’s no security risk. I’ve been to death row in five other states, and, believe me, we treat them the best. Hell, in Louisiana they take the poor guy out of his unit and place him in what’s called the Death House for three days before they kill him. Talk about cruel. We don’t do that. Sam will be treated special until the big day.”

“The big day?”

“Yeah. It’s four weeks from today, you know? August 8.” Lucas reached for some papers on the corner of his desk, then handed them to Adam. “This came down this morning. The Fifth Circuit lifted the stay late yesterday afternoon. The Mississippi Supreme Court just set a new execution date for August 8.”

Adam held the papers without looking at them. “Four weeks,” he said, stunned.

“Afraid so. I took a copy of it to Sam about an hour ago, so he’s in a foul mood.”

“Four weeks,” Adam repeated, almost to himself. He glanced at the court’s opinion. The case was styled State of Mississippi v. Sam Cayhall. “I guess I’d better go see him, don’t you think?” he said without thinking.

“Yeah. Look, Adam, I’m not one of the bad guys, okay?” Lucas slowly eased to his feet and walked to the edge of his desk where he gently placed his rear. He folded his arms and looked down at Adam. “I’m just doing my job, okay. I’ll be involved because I have to watch this place and make sure things are done legally, by the book. I won’t enjoy it, but it’ll get crazy and quite stressful, and everybody will be ringing my phone—the warden, his assistants, the Attorney General’s office, the governor, you, and a hundred others. So I’ll be in the middle of it, though I don’t want to. It’s the most unpleasant thing about this job. I just want you
to realize that I’m here if you need me, okay? I’ll always be fair and truthful with you.”

“You’re assuming Sam will allow me to represent him.”

“Yes. I’m assuming this.”

“What are the chances of the execution taking place in four weeks?”

“Fifty-fifty. You never know what the courts will do at the last minute. We’ll start preparing in a week or so. We have a rather long checklist of things to do to get ready for it.”

“Sort of a blueprint for death.”

“Something like that. Don’t think we enjoy it.”

“I guess everybody here is just doing their job, right?”

“It’s the law of this state. If our society wants to kill criminals, then someone has to do it.”

Adam placed the court opinion in his briefcase and stood in front of Lucas. “Thanks, I guess, for the hospitality.”

“Don’t mention it. After you visit with Sam, I’ll need to know what happened.”

“I’ll send you a copy of our representation agreement, if he signs it.”

“That’s all I need.”

They shook hands and Adam headed for the door.

“One other thing,” Lucas said. “When they bring Sam into the visiting room, ask the guards to remove the handcuffs. I’ll make sure they do. It’ll mean a lot to Sam.”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck.”

T
HE TEMPERATURE HAD RISEN AT LEAST ten degrees when Adam left the building and walked past the same two trustees sweeping the same dirt in the same languid motions. He stopped on the front steps, and for a moment watched a gang of inmates gather litter along the highway less than a hundred yards away. An armed guard on a horse in a ditch watched them. Traffic zipped along without slowing. Adam wondered what manner of criminals were these who were allowed to work outside the fences and so close to a highway. No one seemed to care about it but him.

He walked the short distance to his car, and was sweating by the time he opened the door and started the engine. He followed the drive through the parking lot behind Mann’s office, then turned left onto the main prison road. Again, he was passing neat little white homes with flowers and trees in the front yard. What a civilized little community. An arrow on a road sign pointed left to Unit 17. He turned, very slowly, and within seconds was on a dirt road that led quickly to some serious fencing and razor wire.

The Row at Parchman had been built in 1954, and officially labeled the Maximum Security Unit, or simply MSU. An obligatory plaque on a wall inside listed the date, the name of the governor then, the names of various important and long-forgotten officials who were instrumental in its construction, and, of course, the names of the architect and contractor. It was state
of the art for that period—a single-story flat roof building of red brick stretching in two long rectangles from the center.

Adam parked in the dirt lot between two other cars and stared at it. No bars were visible from the outside. No guards patrolled around it. If not for the fences and barbed wire, it could almost pass for an elementary school in the suburbs. Inside a caged yard at the end of one wing, a solitary inmate dribbled a basketball on a grassless court and flipped it against a crooked backboard.

The fence in front of Adam was at least twelve feet high, and crowned at the top with thick strands of barbed wire and a menacing roll of shiny razor wire. It ran straight and true to the corner where it joined a watchtower where guards looked down. The fence encompassed the Row on all four sides with remarkable symmetry, and in each corner an identical tower stood high above with a glass-enclosed guard station at the top. Just beyond the fence the crops started and seemed to run forever. The Row was literally in the middle of a cotton field.

Adam stepped from his car, felt suddenly claustrophobic, and squeezed the handle of his thin briefcase as he glared through the chain link at the hot, flat little building where they killed people. He slowly removed his jacket, and noticed his shirt was already spotted and sticking to his chest. The knot in his stomach had returned with a vengeance. His first few steps toward the guard station were slow and awkward, primarily because his legs were unsteady and his knees were shivering. His fancy tasseled loafers were dusty by the time he stopped under the watchtower and looked up. A red bucket, the type one might use to wash a car, was being lowered on a rope by an earnest woman in a uniform. “Put your keys in the bucket,” she explained
efficiently, leaning over the railing. The barbed wire on the top of the fence was five feet below her.

Adam quickly did as she instructed. He carefully laid his keys in the bucket where they joined a dozen other key rings. She jerked it back and he watched it rise for a few seconds, then stop. She tied the rope somehow, and the little red bucket hung innocently in the air. A nice breeze would have moved it gently, but at the moment, in this stifling vacuum, there was scarcely enough air to breathe. The winds had died years ago.

The guard was finished with him. Someone somewhere pushed a button or pulled a lever, Adam had no idea who did it, but a humming noise kicked in, and the first of two bulky, chain-link gates began to slide a few feet so he could enter. He walked fifteen feet along the dirt drive, then stopped as the first gate closed behind him. He was in the process of learning the first basic rule of prison security—every protected entrance has either two locked doors or gates.

When the first gate stopped behind him and locked itself into place, the second one dutifully snatched itself free and rolled along the fence. As this was happening, a very stocky guard with arms as big as Adam’s legs appeared at the main door of the unit and began to amble along the brick path to the entrance. He had a hard belly and a thick neck, and he sort of waited for Adam as Adam waited for the gates to secure everything.

He eased forward an enormous black hand, and said, “Sergeant Packer.” Adam shook it and immediately noticed the shiny black cowboy boots on Sergeant Packer’s feet.

“Adam Hall,” he said, trying to manage the hand.

“Here to see Sam,” Packer stated as a fact.

“Yes sir,” Adam said, wondering if everyone here referred to him simply as Sam.

“Your first visit here?” They began a slow walk toward the front of the building.

“Yeah,” Adam said, looking at the open windows along the nearest tier. “Are all death row inmates here?” he asked.

“Yep. Got forty-seven as of today. Lost one last week.”

They were almost to the main door. “Lost one?”

“Yeah. The Big Court reversed. Had to move him in with the general population. I have to frisk you.” They were at the door, and Adam glanced around nervously to see just exactly where it was that Packer wished to conduct the frisk.

“Just spread your legs a little,” Packer said, already taking the briefcase and placing it on the concrete. The fancy tasseled loafers were now stuck in place. Though he was dizzy and momentarily without the use of all his faculties, Adam could not at this horrible moment remember anyone ever asking him to spread his legs, even just a little.

But Packer was a pro. He patted expertly around the socks, moved up quite delicately to the knees, which were more than a little wobbly, then around the waist in no time flat. Adam’s first frisk was mercifully finished just seconds after it started when Sergeant Packer made a rather cursory pass under both arms as if Adam might be wearing a shoulder harness with a small pistol inside it. Packer deftly stuck his massive right hand into the briefcase, then handed it back to Adam. “Not a good day to see Sam,” he said.

“So I’ve heard,” Adam replied, slinging his jacket once again over his shoulder. He faced the iron door as if it was now time to enter the Row.

“This way,” Packer mumbled as he stepped down onto the grass and headed around the corner. Adam obediently followed along yet another little red-brick
trail until they came to a plain, nondescript door with weeds growing beside it. The door was not marked or labeled.

“What’s this?” Adam asked. He vaguely recalled Goodman’s description of this place, but at the moment all details were fuzzy.

“Conference room.” Packer produced a key and unlocked the door. Adam glanced around before he entered and tried to gather his bearings. The door was next to the central section of the unit, and it occurred to Adam that perhaps the guards and their administrators didn’t want the lawyers underfoot and poking around. Thus, the outside entrance.

He took a deep breath and stepped inside. There were no other lawyers visiting their clients, and this was particularly comforting to Adam. This meeting could become tumultuous and perhaps emotional, and he preferred to do it in private. At least for the moment the room was empty. It was large enough for several lawyers to visit and counsel, probably thirty feet long and twelve feet wide with a concrete floor and bright fluorescent lighting. The wall on the far end was red brick with three windows high at the top, just like the exterior of the unit’s tiers. It was immediately obvious that the conference room had been added as an afterthought.

The air conditioner, a small window unit, was snarling angrily and producing much less than it should. The room was divided neatly by a solid wall of brick and metal; the lawyers had their side and the clients had theirs. The partition was made of brick for the first three feet, then a small counter provided the lawyers a place to sit their mandatory legal pads and take their pages of mandatory notes. A bright green screen of thick metal grating sat solidly on the counter and ran up to the ceiling.

Adam walked slowly to the end of the room, sidestepping a varied assortment of chairs—green and gray government throwaways, folding types, narrow cafeteria seats.

“I’m gonna lock this door,” Packer said as he stepped outside. “We’ll get Sam.” The door slammed, and Adam was alone. He quickly picked out a place at the end of the room just in case another lawyer arrived, at which time the other lawyer would undoubtedly take a position far to the other end and they could plot strategy with some measure of privacy. He pulled a chair to the wooden counter, placed his jacket on another chair, removed his legal pad, unscrewed his pen, and began chewing his fingernails. He tried to stop the chewing, but he couldn’t. His stomach flipped violently, and his heels twitched out of control. He looked through the screen and studied the inmates’ portion of the room—the same wooden counter, the same array of old chairs. In the center of the screen before him was a slit, four inches by ten, and it would be through this little hole that he would come face-to-face with Sam Cayhall.