The Chamber (22 page)

“Did you see Marvin Kramer and his sons go into the building?”

“No. I turned a corner and saw his car parked, and I thought dammit! I went blank. I couldn’t think. But then I thought, what the hell, he’s just a Jew and he’s done many evil things. Then, I thought about secretaries and other people who might work in there, so I walked around the block again. I remember looking at my watch when it was twenty minutes before eight, and I had this thought that maybe I should make an anonymous phone call to the office and tell Kramer that there was a bomb in the closet. And if he didn’t believe me, then he could go look at it, then he could haul ass.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have a dime. I’d left all my change as a tip for the waitress, and I didn’t want to walk into a store and ask for change. I have to tell you I was real nervous. My hands were shaking, and I didn’t want to act suspicious in front of anybody. I was a stranger, right? That was my bomb in there, right? I was in a small town where everybody knows everyone, and they damned sure remember strangers when there’s a crime. I remember walking down the sidewalk, just across the street from Kramer’s, and in front of a barbershop there was a newspaper rack, and this man was fumbling in his pocket for change. I almost asked him for a dime so I could make a quick call, but I was too nervous.”

“Why were you nervous, Sam? You just said you
didn’t care if Kramer got hurt. This was your sixth bombing, right?”

“Yeah, but the others were easy. Light the fuse, hit the door, and wait a few minutes. I kept thinking about that cute little secretary in Kramer’s office, the one who’d shown me to the rest room. The same one who later testified at trial. And I kept thinking about the other people who worked in his office because when I went in that day I saw people everywhere. It was almost eight o’clock, and I knew the place opened in a few minutes. I knew a lot of people were about to get killed. My mind stopped working. I remember standing beside a phone booth a block away, staring at my watch, then staring at the phone, telling myself that I had to make the call. I finally stepped inside and looked up the number, but by the time I closed the book I’d forgotten it. So I looked it up again, and I started to dial when I remembered I didn’t have a dime. So I made up my mind to go into the barbershop to get some change. My legs were heavy and I was sweatin’ like hell. I walked to the barbershop, and I stopped at the plate glass window and looked in. It was packed. They were lined up against the wall, talking and reading papers, and there was a row of chairs, all filled with men talking at the same time. I remember a couple of them looked at me, then one or two more began to stare, so I walked away.”

“Where did you go?”

“I’m not sure. There was an office next door to Kramer’s, and I remember seeing a car park in front of it. I thought maybe it was a secretary or someone about to go into Kramer’s, and I think I was walking toward the car when the bomb went off.”

“So you were across the street?”

“I think so. I remember rocking on my hands and
knees in the street as glass and debris fell all around me. But I don’t remember much after that.”

There was a slight knock on the door from the outside, then Sergeant Packer appeared with a large Styrofoam cup, a paper napkin, a stir stick, and creamer. “Thought you might need a little coffee. Sorry to butt in.” He placed the cup and accessories on the counter.

“Thanks,” Adam said.

Packer quickly turned and headed for the door.

“I’ll take two sugars, one cream,” Sam said from the other side.

“Yes sir,” Packer snapped without slowing. He was gone.

“Good service around here,” Adam said.

“Wonderful, just wonderful.”

S
AM, OF COURSE, WAS NOT SERVED COFFEE. He knew this immediately, but Adam did not. And so after waiting a few minutes, Sam said, “Drink it.” He himself lit another cigarette, and paced around a bit behind his chair while Adam stirred the sugar with the plastic stick. It was almost eleven, and Sam had missed his hour out, and he had no confidence that Packer would find the time to make it up. He paced and squatted a few times, performed a half dozen deep bends, knees cracking and joints popping as he rose and sank unsteadily. During the first few months of his first year on the Row, he had grown quite disciplined with his exercise. At one point, he was doing a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups in his cell each day, every day. His weight fell to a perfect one hundred and sixty pounds as the low-fat diet took its course. His stomach was flat and hard. He had never been so healthy.

Not long afterward, however, came the realization that the Row would be his final home, and that the state would one day kill him here. What’s the benefit of good health and tight biceps when one is locked up twenty-three hours a day waiting to die? The exercise slowly stopped. The smoking intensified. Among his comrades, Sam was considered a lucky man, primarily because he had outside money. A younger brother, Donnie, lived in North Carolina and once a month shipped to Sam a cardboard box packed neatly with ten cartons of Montclair cigarettes. Sam averaged between three and four packs a day. He wanted to kill
himself before the state got around to it. And he preferred to go by way of some protracted illness or affliction, some disease that would require expensive treatment which the State of Mississippi would be constitutionally bound to provide.

It looked as though he would lose the race.

The federal judge who had assumed control of Parchman through a prisoners’ rights suit had issued sweeping orders overhauling fundamental correction procedures. He had carefully defined the rights of prisoners. And he had set forth minor details, such as the square footage of each cell on the Row and the amount of money each inmate could possess. Twenty dollars was the maximum. It was referred to as “dust,” and it always came from the outside. Death row inmates were not allowed to work and earn money. The lucky ones received a few dollars a month from relatives and friends. They could spend it in a canteen located in the middle of MSU. Soft drinks were known as “bottle-ups.” Candy and snacks were “zu-zus” and “wham-whams.” Real cigarettes in packages were “tight-legs” and “ready-rolls.”

The majority of the inmates received nothing from the outside. They traded, swapped, and bartered, and gathered enough coins to purchase loose leaf tobacco which they rolled into thin papers and smoked slowly. Sam was indeed a lucky man.

He took his seat and lit another one.

“Why didn’t you testify at trial?” his lawyer asked through the screen.

“Which trial?”

“Good point. The first two trials.”

“Didn’t need to. Brazelton picked good juries, all white, good sympathetic people who understood things. I knew I wouldn’t be convicted by those people. There was no need to testify.”

“And the last trial?”

“That’s a little more complicated. Keyes and I discussed it many times. He at first thought it might help, because I could explain to the jury what my intentions were. Nobody was supposed to get hurt, etc. The bomb was supposed to go off at 5 a.m. But we knew the cross-examination would be brutal. The judge had already ruled that the other bombings could be discussed to show certain things. I would be forced to admit that I did in fact plant the bomb, all fifteen sticks, which of course was more than enough to kill people.”

“So why didn’t you testify?”

“Dogan. That lying bastard told the jury that our plan was to kill the Jew. He was a very effective witness. I mean, think about it, here was the former Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi Klan testifying for the prosecution against one of his own men. It was stout stuff. The jury ate it up.”

“Why did Dogan lie?”

“Jerry Dogan went crazy, Adam. I mean, really crazy. The Feds pursued him for fifteen years—bugged his phones, followed his wife around town, harassed his kinfolks, threatened his children, knocked on his door at all hours of the night. His life was miserable. Someone was always watching and listening. Then, he got sloppy, and the IRS stepped in. They, along with the FBI, told him he was looking at thirty years. Dogan cracked under the pressure. After my trial, I heard he was sent away for a while. You know, to an institution. He got some treatment, returned home, and died not long after.”

“Dogan’s dead?”

Sam froze in mid-puff. Smoke leaked from his mouth and curled upward past his nose and in front of his eyes, which at the moment were staring in disbelief
through the opening and into those of his grandson. “You don’t know about Dogan?” he asked.

Adam’s memory blitzed through the countless articles and stories which he’d collected and indexed. He shook his head. “No. What happened to Dogan?”

“I thought you knew everything,” Sam said. “Thought you’d memorized everything about me.”

“I know a lot about you, Sam. I really don’t care about Jeremiah Dogan.”

“He burned in a house fire. He and his wife. They were asleep one night when a gas line somehow began leaking propane. Neighbors said it was like a bomb going off.”

“When did this happen?”

“Exactly one year to the day after he testified against me.”

Adam tried to write this down, but his pen wouldn’t move. He studied Sam’s face for a clue. “Exactly a year?”

“Yep.”

“That’s a nice coincidence.”

“I was in here, of course, but I heard bits and pieces of it. Cops ruled it accidental. In fact, I think there was a lawsuit against the propane company.”

“So, you don’t think he was murdered?”

“Sure I think he was murdered.”

“Okay. Who did it?”

“In fact, the FBI came here and asked me some questions. Can you believe it? The Feds poking their noses around here. A couple of kids from up North. Just couldn’t wait to visit death row and flash their badges and meet a real live Klan terrorist. They were so damned scared they were afraid of their shadows. They asked me stupid questions for an hour, then left. Never heard from anybody again.”

“Who would murder Dogan?”

Sam bit the filter and extracted the last mouthful of smoke from the cigarette. He stubbed it in the ashtray while exhaling through the screen. Adam waved at the smoke with exaggerated motions, but Sam ignored him. “Lots of people,” he mumbled.

Adam made a note in the margin to talk about Dogan later. He would do the research first, then spring it again in some future conversation.

“Just for the sake of argument,” he said, still writing, “it seems as though you should’ve testified to counter Dogan.”

“I almost did,” Sam said with a trace of regret. “The last night of the trial, me and Keyes and his associate, I forget her name, stayed up until midnight discussing whether or not I should take the stand. But think about it, Adam. I would’ve been forced to admit that I planted the bomb, that it had a timing device set to go off later, that I had been involved in other bombings, and that I was across the street from the building when it blew. Plus, the prosecution had clearly proven that Marvin Kramer was a target. I mean, hell, they played those FBI phone tapes to the jury. You should’ve heard it. They rigged up these huge speakers in the courtroom, and they set the tape player on a table in front of the jury like it was some kind of a live bomb. And there was Dogan on the phone to Wayne Graves, his voice was scratchy but very audible, talking about bombing Marvin Kramer for this and for that, and bragging about how he would send his Group, as he called me, to Greenville to take care of matters. The voices on that tape sounded like ghosts from hell, and the jury hung on every word. Very effective. And, then, of course, there was Dogan’s own testimony. I would’ve looked ridiculous at that moment trying to testify and convince the jury that I really wasn’t a bad guy. McAllister would’ve eaten me alive. So we decided
I shouldn’t take the stand. Looking back, it was a bad move. I should’ve talked.”

“But on the advice of your attorney you didn’t?”

“Look, Adam, if you’re thinking about attacking Keyes on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, then forget it. I paid Keyes good money, mortgaged everything I had, and he did a good job. A long time ago Goodman and Tyner considered going after Keyes, but they found nothing wrong with his representation. Forget it.”

The Cayhall file at Kravitz & Bane had at least two inches of research and memos on the issue of Benjamin Keyes’ representation. Ineffective assistance of trial counsel was a standard argument in death penalty appeals, but it had not been used in Sam’s case. Goodman and Tyner had discussed it at length, bouncing long memos back and forth between their offices on the sixty-first and sixty-sixth floors in Chicago. The final memo declared that Keyes had done such a good job at trial that there was nothing to attack.

The file also included a three-page letter from Sam expressly forbidding any attack on Keyes. He would not sign any petition doing so, he promised.

The last memo, however, had been written seven years earlier at a time when death was a distant possibility. Things were different now. Issues had to be resurrected or even fabricated. It was time to grasp at straws.

“Where is Keyes now?” Adam asked.

“Last I heard he took a job in Washington. He wrote me about five years ago, said he wasn’t practicing anymore. He took it pretty hard when we lost. I don’t think either one of us expected it.”

“You didn’t expect to be convicted?”

“Not really. I had already beaten it twice, you know. And my jury the third time had eight whites, or Anglo-Americans
I should say. As bad as the trial went, I don’t think I ever really believed they’d convict me.”

“What about Keyes?”

“Oh, he was worried. We damned sure didn’t take it lightly. We spent months preparing for the trial. He neglected his other clients, even his family, for weeks while we were getting ready. McAllister was popping off in the papers every day, it seemed, and the more he talked the more we worked. They released the list of potential jurors, four hundred of them, and we spent days investigating those people. His pretrial preparation was impeccable. We were not naive.”