The Executioner's Song (105 page)

                Larry waited in the car while Phil came out of the hospital with this nice little adolescent. Schiller opened the door for her, and she got in the back seat, and he slid in next. It was a good, bright, sunny day, not at all cold, and she was wearing a skirt and blouse and little jacket, and her hair was neatly tied back in a ponytail. Schiller immediately noticed that she gave no eye contact. After he introduced himself as Larry—he and Christensen having agreed she might have heard the name Schiller on television—she said, "I'm April," and he cracked a joke. "I know a girl by the name of Tuesday," he said.

                "Tuesday Weld." Very little response. She just sat there looking prettier than he'd expected, a little plump, teenaged girl. Didn't give the impression of somebody who was kept in a mental home. Maybe on a sedative, but certainly not a heavy one.

When they discussed shopping at the University Mall, April said, "I'm going to buy Sissy a present." Something in the way she said it, told Schiller that Sissy had to be the family nickname for Nicole.

                Quite a nickname for a girl who got into suicide pacts.

When Christensen gave April $100 to buy gifts for everybody, she said that was the most money she'd ever had to spend. After a while she said she was going to get Sissy a Timex.

It didn't take long before Schiller had had enough of winter sunshine, mountain air, shopping centers, and jingle bells. He was dropped off, smiled at April, and said, "I hope to see you again. Get some nice presents." At that point, she did look in his eye and gave a nice, big smile. He came away fairly confident he'd be able to interview her. Schiller was excited. Other than Vern and Brenda and Sterling, this had been his first contact with somebody who knew Gilmore intimately before the murders.

Brenda went up to see Gary, but they wouldn't let her past the gate.

                A couple of days later, the prison finally agreed to some arrangement where she could see him through the glass. He was holding a phone on either side of his head so he could talk to Vern and her at the same time. Brenda just sailed in. "Gary, you dumb turd," she said, "you screw everything up. If you're not going to do it right, for hell's sake, quit trying." He said, "Brenda, I tried. Honestly, I tried. They just keep finding me too soon." She said, "You shithead, why don't you use a gun?" Then she made a face, and said, "Never mind, don't use a gun. You don't know where the trigger is."

                He said, "God, I know. My hand still hurts."

                They said good-bye the way they had the other time, touching fingers and palms on opposite sides of the glass.

Sunday morning, a girl from People magazine showed up at Brenda's house with a photographer. Her little son, Tony, let them in.

                Brenda was in the shower and came out with nothing but a negligee on. Since it had a low neckline, she used a washrag to hide the cleavage as best she could. In the mirror, she saw herself. Might as well be a cockatoo in heat. All the while, this girl reporter, Sheryl McCall, was talking about how she wanted to do an article on Cristie. Sheryl had found out that Cristie was going to be the recipient of Gary's pituitary.

                Brenda said "Get out. Don't use anything here, or I'll sue your ass." The photographer, whose name turned out to be John Telford, was shifting his weight and arranging the cameras hanging off his neck. Brenda thought he did it so they wouldn't bang together, but found out later he was taking pictures. Caught every angle of that awful negligee. Later People printed her picture. She was one of "Eight Tortured Women in Gary's Life." A real tacky and trashy article. Brenda was described as a barmaid. When she learned that Tony had left the storm door shut, and McCall and Telford had opened it and walked in, she contacted an attorney, and began suing People magazine.

Brenda also had a bad physical condition. It was getting to the point where she just couldn't bear the pain. She was having such attacks, she had to miss work pretty frequently. It was simply too difficult to wait on tables. So she went for a checkup and they made tests and fluoroscoped her.

                Then the doctors explained. It seemed the inner lining of a woman's uterus was shed every month, but in her case, that lining built up on the outside of the uterine wall. At present, it was attaching to her intestines, where it would rupture and bleed. Like cancer, except it wasn't cancerous. But, most definitely it had attached itself to the bowel. When this menstrual tissue broke, the doctors explained, it took the lining off. Very painful. They weren't sure they could get it under control without surgery. Meanwhile, she was hemorrhaging quite a bit. They gave her pain pills, but she still felt as if she were tearing inside. A couple of times when she went out to the prison, the sitting and waiting made the pain unendurable. Finally, when they showed no signs of letting her in, she stopped going.

                Then, walking got painful. Sometimes it would pull on her merely to stand up. There Vern was, just getting over his operation, and here she was, feeling stuck together and twisted inside.

It was Sundberg who told Nicole about Gary's second attempt. That was upsetting. She didn't understand how he could try to step out on her. It was like Gary was saying, "I've got to look out for myself.'' All the same, she was embarrassed that he had failed again. Should have gotten it done right.

She was flabbergasted when they nominated her for vice-president of the women's side. Just trying to get another government together. Nicole couldn't believe a couple of the idiots they picked with her. Of course, they didn't have a whole lot to choose from, just fifteen girls on the ward, and five were so loony, April would sound logical next to them. She was probably one of the few people in the ward who could add, say, five and eight. But it wasn't like she'd worked for the nomination. Most of the time, she still wouldn't talk to anybody, just ignored the meetings all day long. When they would turn to her for an opinion, she would say, "Humph." Just "Humph."

                Maybe she was saying it in a way that really got their attention, like she was smelling the finest and most peculiar shit.

Chapter 19

Advent

It was not the kind of news you could anticipate. In fact, it was unbelievable. Bob Moody received a phone call from Gary's friend, Gibbs, who said he was a police informer and was going to testify at a trial in the next couple of days. Having been Gary's cellmate in County Jail, he had quite a story to tell, he told Moody, and wanted ten thousand bucks and a chance to get on the Johnny Carson show.

                Moody informed Vern immediately of the conversation, and a couple of hours later, visiting the prison, Vern passed it on to Gary. When there was no reply, Vern explained again what Gibbs had said to Moody.

                Gary puckered his lips so tight, it looked as if he had taken out his plates.

                "I'm sorry, Gary," said Vern. "As you know, I already paid him the $2,000."

                "You know that guy," Gary said. "I trusted him. You don't trust too many people in the world."

                "I'd like to run into him," said Vern. "I'd change his head."

                "Well," Gary said, "don't worry, Vern. You can't do anything about it, but I can." He nodded. "I can take care of it right from here." He was certainly serious, thought Vern. "Yes," said Vern to himself, "if Gibbs doesn't leave town, he's going to get taken care of."

Schiller and Barry Farrell were working together that morning in Los Angeles when Moody called with the news. Gibbs, he said, was eager to talk to Schiller about a deal. Larry had been mentioned in the pages of Helter Skelter, and so he thought Schiller mIght want to buy inside stories on Gary, stuff no one else had. Schiller was plainly worried, and got on the phone and put in a call to Gibbs, and heard him repeat everything he had said to Moody. Then Gibbs asked that Schiller not divulge any of this private information to Gary. Schiller, hanging up, said to Farrell, "It's ridiculous. Does he think Moody is going to keep it from his client?" Farrell, fresh from reading Gilmore's letters full of encomiums to his cellmate, said, "Gibbs has got to be the lowest of all creatures."

Schiller had already decided to find out whether Gibbs really knew enough to do any damage to his exclusive, and, if so, sign him up at the lowest possible price. Since he and Barry were about to take off for Provo that afternoon, and were ready to prime Moody and Stanger with new questions, it would be relatively simple to interview Gibbs as well. Indeed, it would be the first job they would do in Utah together. Might be a way of christening their relationship. "Behooves us," said Farrell, "to wring Gibbs out like a washrag."

On the airplane, en route to Salt Lake, they went over the interrogatories Barry had prepared. In the last week, Farrell had read everything available, the letters, tapes, and every sheet of yellow paper on which Gilmore had written answers, and then had come up with a new and thorough set of questions. Schiller now read this work with attention and discussed each query and they changed a number of  them.

At Salt Lake, they rented a car, drove to Provo, and put up at the TraveLodge. Then he brought Barry over to meet Moody and Stanger. It took a while to convince the lawyers not to inform Gilmore about Farrell. "If Gary knows another man has been brought in, he's going to have to learn to trust the new man," Schiller said. In fact, after Gibbs, who would he accept?

                Then Schiller tried, in the politest way, to lay out some of his criticisms of the lawyers' interviews, and convince them why the approach from now on had to be mapped by Farrell and himself. "Here," he showed them, "is our first full-dress interview." He went through the questions, and emphasized the possible follow-throughs.

                Did his best to psych them up. It seemed encouraging. They obviously accepted Farrell as a working journalist—as always Barry made a good impression—and Schiller could feel the special attention they offered today. Quite likely, he thought, they were also worrying over Gibbs. God, if they didn't start to produce, Gibbs's story might look better and better.

That afternoon, Moody and Stanger went out to the prison, and did a tape with Gary. It went on for hours, and they didn't get back unto midnight. Next day, when he heard it, Schiller was excited.

                Gary had talked at length about his childhood and reform school and prison and the murders. Since this was only four days after his second suicide attempt, the responses were impressive. It was as if Gilmore was also concerned about Gibbs and had decided to tell his story. In fact, Schiller was ecstatic. After Farrell edited it, they would have, at the least, a good beginning for Playboy.

The meeting with Gibbs had been arranged by Moody through a detective named Halterman, who turned out to be a big, blond fellow with glasses, wearing a brown leather coat, a stuffing teddy-bear type, Schiller thought, except he was obviously one tough teddy bear.

                Halterman had set it up for the interview room at the Orem Police Station, a cubbyhole with a desk and a couple of chairs.

                Gibbs was in there, chain-smoking. Schiller's first impression was of a small, slimy, ratty, jailhouse guy. Red squinty eyes. He had a receding hairline, a Fu Manchu goatee, a little dingbat mustache.

                Bad teeth. Pale as a ghost. A guy who would stick a shiv under your armpit. Farrell liked him even less. He looked like a poor old weasel sitting there. The total stamp of jail was on the man.

                First thing after making introductions, Schiller took out a pack of Viceroy Super Longs and handed them over. It made Gibbs uneasy.

                Yesterday, on the phone, Schiller acted like he had hardly heard of him. Now, he seemed up on his habits. Gary had obviously, Gibbs thought, informed Schiller of his personal preferences. Besides, there was something about the man, and his associate, this Farrell, that made Gibbs uncomfortable. They didn't look like rich writers or producers from Los Angeles. They were wearing old parkas and dungarees, and looked like they had been brought in for vagrancy.

                Gibbs could feel the big money disappearing. Worse. He also felt a lot of warnings, so, even as he said hello, he asked if Schiller had disclosed their conversation to Gary. "I have to tell you," Schiller said, "I believe I made a mistake. I didn't understand that I wasn't supposed to tell him, and I did."

                "You gave me your word," Gibbs said.

                "I'm sorry," said Schiller, "I got it all mixed up."

                "What did Gary say?" asked Gibbs.

                The other fellow, Farrell, shook his head, and said, "Oh, Dick, Gary was so disappointed." On top of everything else, Gibbs hated to be called Dick. The name was Richard. He looked over at Halterman and Ken was almost puking. He gave a signal to Gibbs, and stepped out of the room. "That's the oldest con game in the world said Halterman. "Oh, Dick," said the detective, mimicking Farrell, "Gary was so disappointed." Then Halterman cussed. "You should have said, 'What do I care? He's just a cold-blooded killer.' " Still, he didn't disagree that it might be worth talking to these Los Angeles characters about a deal.