The Executioner's Song (104 page)

Of course, Schiller knew the reason. This morning, Gary was expecting to talk to Nicole. Bob Moody had filled Larry in on what he hoped to pull off in the courthouse today. He and Stanger intended to get their client back to Bullock's empty chambers, and from there ring up the hospital on the Judge's phone, and ask to speak to Sundberg. Ken would then pass the phone on to Nicole.

Bringing off the phone call had become a commitment for Bob Moody. The first time he ever laid eyes on Gilmore had happened to be outside this same courtroom when the Bushnell case was being tried. On that day, Bob had seen Nicole rush up to embrace Gary, and some special intensity in the demonstration of affection had stirred Moody to say to himself, "There's one girl immensely in love."

                It wasn't uncommon in Moody's experience that when a young criminal was taken out of Court—especially if he was good looking and had one of these macho mustaches—that a young woman would come running up to kiss him. In fact, such embraces usually went on for quite a while. This one, however, between Gilmore and his girl, must have been the longest and most passionate Bob ever saw. It went over the edge of decorum. He had to wonder a little about people who felt that strongly.

Moody might be fairly high in the Church, but saw himself as something of a liberal. From time to time, he liked, for instance, to contemplate such problems as why it was that good-looking girls like this always seemed to go for criminals. He knew his own experience wouldn't provide the answer. He placed himself as one of those steadfast fellows whose biggest problem in life had been whether to become a dentist, a businessman, or a lawyer. Now, he and his wife had five children, which made for a different relation than you were going to see in a courthouse corridor,

                Still, the memory of that first time he laid eyes on Gilmore always gave flavor to what Gary said about Nicole. It provided Moody with a bit of sympathy for what others might have seen as an outlandish desire to reach the girl at all costs. So Moody had been going to some ends to bring it off.

When they got down the hall today, however, they were put in a room without a phone. Their plan was simply wiped out. Gary had to step into Court on a full head of frustration. Schiller could see that even his body was starting to tighten. He had begun to flick his eyes back and forth, and was almost reptilian. Looked like he was planning where to strike.

                Gary whispered, "The Judge looks like Phil Silvers."

                "Who?" Moody whispered back.

                "Sergeant Bilko."

                Something to it. Same horn-rimmed eyeglasses, bald top, somewhat pendulous nose, same halfway pleasant expression. If Gary was getting contemptuous of the Judge, however, it meant Gary thought he was licked.

                Then Wootton took over. The 30/60 statute, he argued, could now be measured from today, December 5, which would place the earliest date of execution at January 5. It was not healthy, legally speaking, he said, to ram through an execution. Bullock kept nodding.

Schiller could see Gary give a look like everyone around him was scum. Damned if he didn't use his turn to say that nobody here had guts enough to let him die. All they were doing was jacking him around. The way he said "jacking" was obscene. It sent a ripple through the room.

                Bullock ignored the remark. How could you sentence a man to Contempt when he was already bound over to execution?

                "Unless this is a joke," said Gilmore, "I expect . . . " and he went on to say that he expected his sentence to take place in the next few days. "I'm serious about wanting to end my life," said Gilmore. "The least justice can do is to recognize that."

                Bullock set the date for January 7. "We're not here," said the Judge, "to accommodate you."

After Court, Gilmore happened to pass Wootton in the corridor.

                He took the opportunity to say, "Why don't you suck my cock, you motherfucker?" Wootton didn't reply.

Now that they had a full month before the execution, Schiller had a time-line long enough to sell the letters, so, after Court, he invited Vern and Bob and Ron out to lunch. Even asked them to pick a good restaurant. Since there was nothing around Orem or Provo that qualified, they ended up in some big Bavarian place in the foothills of Salt Lake City, and had to wait for a quiet corner table while a lot of businessmen were talking away at the top of their lungs. Schiller, however, wanted the right situation for this talk.

                Since he figured he would have to sell Moody on the proposal more than Stanger, he put Ron to his right and Moody across.

                Thereby he could look directly into Bob's eyes while making his pitch. Over food, he got into it all, really laid it on the line. He told them that he wanted to sell some of the letters in Europe for publication shortly before the execution, but could conceal the transactions in such a way that nobody would ever know who made the sale. The letters, after all, had been printed already in the Deseret News. There had to be at least one set of Xeroxes floating around.

                He couldn't pretend, he said, not to be concerned by Gary's reaction.

                The shit, Schiller assured them, would certainly hit the fan if Gary found out. Still, it wasn't going to hurt the man. Gary was more sympathetic in his letters than any other presentation he gave of himself. Moreover, his privacy had already been breached. The lines Tamera had quoted in the Deseret News had been syndicated across half of the world. Schiller said he would repeat what he had told them at the beginning: there were going to be a lot of things they might not like, but he would always lay it out. He would not work behind their backs.

A lot of discussion went on. Schiller felt the lawyers were surprised he was this open. As he'd expected, Moody was relatively against the project, and discussed with Stanger what the public effect might be if it all came out. They certainly didn't want to be tagged with Boaz's posture. Schiller kept repeating that if the letters they held weren't published, foreign papers would buy from other sources. Somebody was going to make money on Gary Gilmore.

                Schiller could see that Vern was being torn right down the middle. Subconsciously, he estimated, Vern wanted the money, but never did say, "I have to discuss this with Gary." It was ripping him up, however. He didn't talk, and went deep into himself. It wasn't that he was unfriendly so much as troubled. Still, Schiller decided, Vern was going to go for the money.

Finally Larry convinced them by saying "I could make a sale in Germany or Japan, and you'd never know a thing. Nobody could ever point to me as the man who sold them." It was the subtlest kind of threat. After all, they knew he had six Xeroxes. How could they be certain he had not made seven? They never gave any hard fully acknowledged consent, but from that moment he had the go-ahead.

After lunch, when Ron Stanger saw Gary again at the prison, it was like talking to steel. Worse than the pits of the hunger strike.

                Gary was as cold and hard and icy-fevered as Ron had ever seen him.

                It burned your eyes to look into his rage. Man, Gary was triggered.

                Call it possessed.

                On the drive back, Ron tried to make a joke of it. "Christ," he announced to Moody, "it was like a horror film. I could almost see his teeth getting longer."

DESERET NEWS

Gilmore Attempts Suicide Again

Salt Lake, December 16—Convicted murderer Gary Mark Gilmore was in a coma at the University Medical Center today after another suicide attempt.

                Gilmore, frustrated in his efforts for a quick execution, was in critical condition.

                He entered the hospital at 10:20 a.m., after being found unconscious in his prison cell at 8:15 a.m . . .

                The second time, Gilmore really tried to do it. That was Dr. Christensen's opinion. Gilmore had taken phenobarbital at a 6 milligrams per cent level. Any phenobarb greater than 10 milligrams per cent proved fatal for more than half the people who tried it. Gilmore had been well into the lethal range.

This time, when he came out of it, he wasn't obscene. One of the nurses even commented, "Gee, he seems a little nice." In fact, he acted subdued. There was a difference. There really was.

Stanger got to the hospital as soon as he heard the news, and ran into a bizarre episode. An old friend who had shared an office with Ron in Spanish Fork years ago, an optometrist named Ken Dutson, was now dying in the same emergency room where they were working on Gary. Stanger practically bumped into Dutson's wife and family. They were really upset. As soon as Gary was brought in, the hospital gave their main attention to him. Stanger was sure poor Dutson had reached the point where he couldn't be kept alive, but you could hardly expect his family to be happy that a killer was rushed in, and all of a sudden, personnel were swarming around that case.

                Gilmore's recovery seemed crazy, it was so fast. He had been at the honest brink of death, Stanger learned from the doctors, but his system seemed to have learned how to get rid of the poisons quickly.

                It was a joke the way they kept him only one day at the hospital before rushing the man back to Maximum Security as if afraid Gilmore would get loose and prowl the streets. Of course, he did look terrible. When Stanger went to see him back at the prison, Gary was still so intoxicated from the phenobarbital that he couldn't even sit on the stool. He'd just start tilting. And slurred his words slow as molasses running uphill. Even while talking, he slowly keeled over until he fell right to the floor.

                "Did you hurt yourself?" asked Vern.

                "I'm all right."

                "You sure?"

                "I'm all right even when I'm not all right," said Gary.

Schiller sent a couple of urgent questions:

WHEN YOU ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, DID YOU SEE ANYTHING OF WHAT IT IS LIKE ON THE OTHER SIDE?

                I can't tell you exactly whether it was light like daybreak or sunshine, or like a break in the darkness, but it was light. I felt I was talking to people, meeting people. That's the memory I came back with.

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU MEET BUSHNELL AND JENSEN ON THE OTHER SIDE?

                Who knows that I will? It could be that with death you pay all your debts. But they have their rights, just like I do, and they have privileges, like I guess I have privileges too. I wonder do they have any more right to do something than I do now? It's an interesting question.

                The second suicide attempt bothered Bob Hansen. It also got Earl worried about Gilmore's sanity. The State certainly didn't want a situation where the public would think they were executing a madman. So, Hansen and Sam Smith and Earl Dorius had a number of talks over who the psychiatrist should be. There was the idea for a while of getting Dr. Jerry West who was well known because of his testimony in the Patty Hearst case. West was very opposed to capital punishment,

                Hansen thought that if they could get him to say Gary was insane, it would settle the question for the public beyond any doubt.

                Earl, however, thought that was risky, and definitely going in for overkill. He set it as his goal to change Hansen's mind. Let the prison psychiatrist, Van Austen, give the evaluation, he said. It would satisfy the statute. No matter what you did, it was possible that public opinion was never going to be satisfied.

So they went with Van Austen. His evaluation declared Gary sane. Things could quiet down for a couple of weeks at least. Dorius hoped to enjoy his Christmas season.

Schiller's reaction to the second suicide attempt was that Gary had to be a very impatient man. Didn't want to die because of reincarnation, just out of spite. Had attempted to kill himself to show the world Gary Gilmore was in control. So Schiller lost respect. It was idiotic to kill yourself just to fuck the Judge. A streak of childish vengefulness.

                Maybe that was what kept Gary from doing anything with his life.

Schiller began to think more and more of April. He kept having the feeling that the night Gilmore had spent with April might be the key to a lot. Gary had certainly refused to say anything about her.

                The empty pages in those questionnaires intrigued Larry. He had been trying to talk Kathryne Baker into letting him meet her daughter, but now he tried harder. When he spoke to Phil Christensen, he went so far as to say it was imperative to meet the young lady.

Kathryne was afraid that April might freak out if she knew she was talking to a reporter. April seemed to believe that media people had all kinds of crazy powers. So, it took a bit of convincing, but Kathryne finally agreed when Phil offered to take April out of the hospital for Christmas shopping. They even brought one of Christensen's secretaries along who would go into the women's stores with April.