The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips (30 page)

Andy was on the road, heading north, by ten-thirty on the morning of March 7. He didn’t pay much attention to his speed, even though he was in his own car and was wearing a pair of jeans and an old Indiana Pacers T-shirt. The state trooper uniform hanging in the back pretty much insured that he could go as fast as he wanted without worrying about any tickets. He stopped in Indianapolis for lunch, if you can call a bag of sliders lunch. His leg and shoulder stiffened up a few times during the rest of the drive, which meant he had to stop and stretch frequently. But that was why he drove up a day early. He didn’t want to stumble around like Herman Munster when he accompanied the governor into the prison. The extra day would give his body a chance to get back to normal after such a long drive.

The area around the state prison wasn’t exactly the tourist center of Indiana. Most of the hotels catered to the families of inmates who come up for visitation on the weekends. All of that means that finding a decent place to stay can be tough. Andy decided to stay at the Holiday Inn in Merrillville, just off Interstate 65 and just south of Gary. He definitely didn’t want to stay in Gary. I think it was because of a bad reaction to
The Music Man
back when he was a kid. Once he settled into his room, he called the state attorney general’s office and asked for Rachel Maris. She planned to drive up in the governor’s motorcade early on the morning of the eighth. John’s execution wouldn’t take place until just before midnight on that day, which gave them plenty of time to arrive. Like I said, Andy drove up early to give his stiff bones a chance to loosen up after the long drive.

Rachel answered on the first ring. “Hello. Rachel Maris speaking.”

“Hey, Rachel, it’s Andy Myers checking in.”

“Andy! It’s good to hear your voice.” Andy still couldn’t figure out if she was just as good a politician as her boss, or if she was interested in him. He never quite got the chance to find out. “I trust you had a good trip.”

“I can’t complain. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn in Merrillville, room 104.”

“Good. Now, do you want a driver to swing by and pick you up tomorrow night?”

“No, I’d rather drive myself. I’m going to leave from the prison for a much needed vacation right after this is all over.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I’m going to catch a red-eye out of O’Hare. I figure I might as well do something productive, because I doubt if I will be able to go to sleep after this one.”

“No, probably not.”

“Are you going to be in the observation room when it happens?”

“No, no. Not me. I don’t have any interest in watching something like this. I believe in the death penalty, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it carried out.” Andy wasn’t surprised by her answer. Although Maris came across as very tough, very self-assured, he knew she had a soft streak in her that she did her best to keep at bay. Watching a man die in a chair might melt away her tough exterior and make it impossible for her to do her job.

“But I will see you at the news conference before, right?”

“You can count on it. And if you need anything between now and then, be sure to call.” She gave Andy the number of the hotel where the governor’s entourage would stay. It had been a long time since a woman had given Andy her number. “I gotta get out more,” he said to himself after he hung up the phone.

His wake-up call came at six the next morning, but Andy was already awake. After grabbing a doughnut and a cup of coffee at a nearby diner, he drove over here, actually. Yeah, he came right here to Indiana Dunes State Park. No one else was on the beach when he went for a walk down the sand, probably right around the same area where we are now. The wind whipped off the lake and the sun stayed behind the clouds. Needless to say, he pretty much had the beach to himself. He told me he just wanted to spend some time in a quiet place, where he could sit back and soak in the beauty of creation before he had to go into the prison and be confronted with the ugliness of man. Living alone for so long had made him quite the philosopher. On his way back to his hotel, he stopped and gassed up the Impala. Premium gas, that is. It wouldn’t run on regular unleaded, and the government had outlawed leaded gas by this time.

Although he didn’t plan on sleeping in his hotel room after the execution, he had paid for an extra night, just in case. If nothing else, it gave him a place to stay while he waited for the big event to roll around. An envelope lay on the floor just inside his hotel room door when he walked back into his room. The envelope smelled of perfume, although it wasn’t scented. Andy just had an extrasensitive smeller. Inside was a brief note from Rachel Maris, along with a schedule of the day’s events leading up to John’s execution. “Good ole Chambliss is working this thing like a campaign rally,” Andy said. He had a meeting scheduled with the leaders of the local law enforcement community at four-thirty in the afternoon, followed by an appearance at the Hammond VFW at six. Dinner with the mayors of Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, and Michigan City would be at 7:00 p.m. The governor was scheduled to arrive at the prison by eight-thirty in the evening, with his preexecution news conference from the prison visitor’s center slated for one hour later. “Giving plenty of time for all the members of the press corps to go through security,” Andy said with a laugh. “Chambliss and his people think of everything.” The actual execution would take place at eleven-fifteen, or right in the middle of the nightly eleven o’clock news. “After all, this is the story of the year,” Andy said as he folded the schedule and laid it on top of the television.

He picked up the phone and called the local number Rachel Maris had given him. No answer. Glancing down at his watch, he said, “Three-oh-nine, they must already be going full steam ahead.” He grabbed the schedule and glanced over it again, then read Rachel’s note. “Andy,” it read, “Feel free to join us for any of the day’s events or to spend the time relaxing before your trip. Either way, please be at the prison by eight. One of our staff will meet you at the main entrance and brief you on the governor’s plans for his press conference. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” She signed it, “Rachel.” Andy looked back at his watch. “Looks like I’ve got a few hours to kill.” He spent the next hour or so flipping back and forth between
I Love Lucy
reruns,
Phil Donahue,
and
Jeopardy!
When he got bored with that, he wrote a couple more letters and repacked his bags. Around the same time the governor was pressing the flesh with some local veterans, Andy put on his state trooper’s uniform, threw his bags in his Impala, and went out to find a place to eat. The wild man ended up at Denny’s. He told me nothing tastes better at five-thirty in the evening than the original Grand Slam. Go figure.

The prison parking lot was over three-quarters full when Andy pulled in at 7:30 p.m. He didn’t go to the law enforcement section, since he was driving his old Impala. Instead, he pulled into a spot under a light pole and next to a Volkswagen minibus with Illinois plates and an
EXECUTE THE DEATH PENALTY
bumper sticker plastered next to another that said
SAVE THE WHALES
. Over farther to the south sat two old-school yellow school buses, but the names of the school district had been sanded off. Just to the side of the buses, a group of protesters looked to be organizing their efforts. Andy saw plenty of bullhorns and protest signs stacked up on one of the buses. They didn’t notice him as he walked to the front gate. A guard waved him through. As he walked into the security area, a familiar face greeted him.

“Andy, it’s good to see you again,” Rachel Maris said.

He smiled and shook his head. “I thought some staffer would be here. I never expected it would be you.”

“Yeah, well, I can only take so much politics in any one day. Reg didn’t need me, so I thought I would head on over. Looks like we’re in for quite a show, doesn’t it?”

“Bringing ’em by the busload, aren’t they?”

“We expected it. We did our homework and found from other states that executions bring out a wide variety of protesters, everyone from radical hippy types, who can’t believe the sixties actually ended, to church groups. They rarely, if ever, get violent. Usually, they yell their slogans and protest while the dignitaries arrive. Then they switch to a quiet candlelight vigil. We’ re going to keep the police presence pretty low-key, but we will have the resources we need close by, just in case.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Andy tried to sound interested. “So, is that why the governor wanted me in uniform?”

Rachel laughed. “No, he has something much bigger in mind for you; that is, if you don’t mind. Reg and I talked a lot about you since you called asking if you could attend Phillips’s execution. The governor never forgot all the work you put in on this case. He’s not just blowing smoke when he says that he wouldn’t have had a case without you. He really means it. Now here’s what he would like to do. During his press conference he would like to introduce you and tell how instrumental you were in this case. Then, and this is the part that we want to make sure you are up to, he would like for you to answer a few questions. Now don’t panic. We’ve hand selected the reporters who will ask you these questions, and we also prepared the questions ahead of time. I’ll give them to you in a minute, if you want to do this. If you don’t, he’ll just introduce you, then let you step back into the background.”

“Wow. That’s quite an honor. I never expected anything like this.”

Rachel smiled. “I thought you’d be thrilled with it. And that’s not the best of it. Reg is the kind of man who likes to reward those who help him along the way. We checked into your service record since you joined the state police. I’ve got to say, Andy, it’s really impressive.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Anyway, the governor would like for you to consider being reassigned to Indianapolis as part of his personal security detail. Basically, that means you would be one of the troopers who travels with the governor wherever he goes.” She let out a huge smile. “You’d have to move to Indy, but it would be a big boost in your career.”

“I don’t know what to say. Wow. I’m shocked. Wow.”

“I thought you would be. I know you said you were going on a trip right after this, so you can think about this while you’re gone and give us an answer when you get back.”

“Okay, I will. Thanks.” Rachel leaned over and gave Andy a hug, which, again, he wasn’t really sure what it meant. He found it very interesting how she always referred to Reginald Chambliss, Esquire, as “Reg,” and to the two of them as “we.”

“So what do we do now?” he asked.

“We’ll wait here for the governor and the rest of his party. Then we will all go through security together and head back for the news conference.”

“With cameras rolling the whole time, of course,” Andy said.

“Of course.”

T
HE GOVERNOR’S MOTORCADE
pulled into the prison compound that night at precisely eight-thirty on the nose. State police cars led the way, their lights flashing and sirens blowing. As if on cue, the protestors, who now numbered in the hundreds, sprang into action. They started chanting in their bullhorns and waving their signs around. Local police confined them to a specified protest area, but that didn’t stop them from coming into physical contact with Reginald Chambliss himself. That, however, was his doing. He climbed out of his limo and walked straight over to the crowd. The consummate politician, he couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass him by. With a covey of reporters in tow, Chambliss addressed the crowd, which, surprisingly enough, quieted down and listened. Chambliss told them how he shared their concerns about escalating violence, and that he agreed with them, violence would never be a cure for violence. If you didn’t know better, you would have almost thought that he was there to join in the protest himself. But then he turned the whole thing around and started talking about justice and the plight of the victims of crime. “Someone has to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves,” he told the crowd. He went on from there. It was all quite moving, if hearing how a politician feels your pain moves you.

By 8:40 p.m., the governor walked into the security screening area, along with the rest of his staff and the reporters covering the event for every media outlet in Indiana, Chicago, and southern Michigan. Andy stayed as out of sight as was humanly possible in a confined space filled with an attention-hugging governor and hordes of cameras. The governor made a few remarks, then walked over to the security station. Andy noticed the same guard who’d worked the metal detector the day he last visited John was working the same station on this evening. She was, however, much more excited, and was wearing more makeup than she had that day.

“Good evening, Governor Chambliss,” she said with a giddy smile. “Would you please empty your pockets in this tray and step through the metal detector for me?”

“My pleasure,” Chambliss said as flashbulbs popped all around him.

The rest of the governor’s staff followed. When it was Andy’s turn, he said, “Good evening, Officer. It’s good to see you again.” The guard acted surprised, and did not immediately recognize him. “I was here a couple of months ago visiting Phillips.” When his face still didn’t register with her, he said, “I set off your machine with all the screws in my leg.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember. You were hit by a car while jogging.” A smile broke out on her face. “How’s that leg doing? You were still limping pretty good when you were here the last time.”

“Cold weather doesn’t do it any good, but it’s better than it was. Still sets off metal detectors, though,” he said with a laugh. He stepped through the arch of the machine, which made a siren go off. “Told you.”

“I guess you know the drill then,” the guard said as she stepped out with the wand in her hand. “Which leg is it, again?” she asked.

“Left.”

She passed the wand over his left leg, which made it howl. “Go on through,” she said without bothering to wand any other part of his body. “Next.” A very junior staff member started dumping out his pockets as Andy stepped up his pace to catch up with the governor’s entourage.