The Executioner's Song (51 page)

                Now, she had taken the blades over to Sterling. He wasn't, she told Gary, too enthused. First, he said he would, then decided he'd have to think about it. A couple of days had gone by. He was still thinking.

Gilmore owned the best sense of hearing Gibbs had ever come across.

                If there was a case of a man with bionic ears, it was Gary Gilmore.

                While it was at least ninety feet from their cell out to the front office, ninety feet of turning down three different halls and walkways, nonetheless Gilmore could listen to them book somebody, and tell you the name and the charge. It sure kept him from sleeping. Gibbs had noticed that Gilmore would only average two to three hours out of the twenty-four. He didn't seem to need more.

                Cahoon would have breakfast at 6:30, and Gibbs would still be in a drowse, but Gary would be up and eating. Then he would write a letter to Nicole, or read one of his books. He did this in the morning while it was peaceful through the jail.

From time to time Gilmore would speak of how unusual it was to find a man who had done as much time as Gibbs and didn't like to read. Gibbs figured he had gotten through three books in his life: The Godfather, The Green Felt Jungle, Vendetta. Now, Gary handed him The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Said it would give Gibbs a clue to the hereafter. Gibbs read it to make Gilmore feel good, but that didn't turn him into no believer in reincarnation.

They got into a discussion about Charlie Manson. Manson had psychic powers, Gilmore explained. "I know he made Squeaky Fromme take a shot at President Ford."

                "You actually believe such stuff?" asked Gibbs.

                "Yeah," Gilmore said, "you can control people with your mind."

                Gibbs felt apologetic. "I don't believe in nothing I just can't see."

                "Well," Gary said, "Manson put her up to it."

                "How?" asked Gibbs. "They didn't let Manson have a visit from the girl."

                "No," Gilmore said, "Manson was using psychic powers."

                Gibbs didn't see it.

Later that evening, Gilmore was heating water for coffee. They would roll toilet paper into a doughnut shape and light the middle. It produced a steady flame that lasted long enough to get the water to boil. Their heating pot was made out of a Dixie cup with the aluminum foil from their baked potatoes wrapped around it. For a handle, they tied the ends of a piece of string to two holes on the rim, and held the cup above the flame.

                Gibbs was lying on his bunk watching Gary do this when he had the thought, "I'd sure laugh if the string broke." Just then, the string did catch fire, the cup fell, the water spilled. Gibbs let it out. He laughed so hard he rolled up in his bunk like a potato bug, and pop-popped a string of farts. Gilmore looked at him with disgust, then threw the cup, string and all, into the toilet.

                "You are," said Gilmore to Gibbs, "the fartingest motherfucker I ever saw."

                "I," said Gibbs, "can fart at will." He laughed his ass off at the remark and gave another. Always laughed like a maniac after a fart.

                "Well," said Gilmore, "they don't stink. I'll say that for you."

                "I've always been a toot-tooting son of a bitch."

                "Why don't you save 'em for a week," said Gilmore, "and make an album?"

                After Gibbs caught his breath, he told him, "Hey, Gary, I wasn't being ignorant about your misfortune. It's just I was thinking it was going to happen. Right before it did."

                Gary lit up. "That," he said, "is psychic powers." Gibbs wanted to say, It will take more than a broken string to give me religion, but he kept his mouth shut.

Still, Gibbs did have a kid sister living in Provo who was married to a fellow named Gilmore. When Gibbs heard of Gilmore's arrest, meaning Gary's, he wondered at first if it was his brother-in-law, whom he had never met.

                Gary, hearing that, said, "Did you ever think how much we have in common? Maybe we were meant to meet." Gibbs thought, "Here we go with reincarnation again."

                Gary made a list: they had both spent a lot of time in prison, Gibbs in Utah and Wyoming, himself in Oregon and Illinois. Prior to prison, they had each gone to Reform School. Both were considered hard-core convicts. Both had done a lot of time in Maximum Security.

                Both had been shot in the left hand whilst in the commission of a crime. Neither of them cared for their fathers. Both fathers were heavy drinkers and dead now. Gilmore and Gibbs both loved their mothers, who were religious Mormons and lived in small trailer courts. Neither Gilmore nor Gibbs had anything to do with the rest of each immediate family. On top of that, the first two letters on both their last names were "GI" although neither had ever seen the armed services. Their first experience with drugs was in the early '60s and they both used the same drug, Ritalin, a rare type of speed not in common use.

                "Had enough?" Gilmore asked.

                "Hit me," said Gibbs.

                Well, Gary would point out that prior to their arrests, they had both been living with 20-year-old divorcées. Each of them had met the girl through her cousin. Each of the girls had two children. The first was a 5-year-old daughter, brunette, whose name started with an S. Each girl had a 3-year-old son by another marriage. Both little boys were blonds and their names started with a J. Both Nicole and Gibbs's girlfriend had mothers whose first name was Kathryne. And each of them had moved in right after he met the girl.

                After comparing these coincidences, Gibbs did stop and think.

                He even started to wonder. Maybe there was sense in what Gary was saying.

                Of course, Gary hadn't hit the difference. Gibbs's girl was nothing to look at, and Nicole was beautiful. After Gibbs saw the way she put herself out for Gary, he decided she must also be beautiful inside.

                Why, when she didn't have money for stamps, she would hitchhike down to the jail to bring Gary a letter. If they needed coffee, Tang, writing paper, pens, whatever, Gibbs had only to tell the jailer to release money from his account and Nicole would go right out and buy the things and bring them back.

One time, making up the list, Gibbs asked if there was anything that had not been mentioned, and Gary said, "Do you like that instant hot chocolate?" "Yeah," Gibbs replied, "it's all right." Actually he preferred cold drinks like Tang but said, "Have Nicole get a carton of those packets of hot chocolate." He could see how embarrassed Gary was to want something or need it. Got all choked up. "Gibbs," Gary said now, "you are one of the best sons of bitches I ever met in twenty years of lockup. Mark my words, somehow, someday, you'll be repaid for being so good to others."

Gibbs could see that Gilmore was really looking for some way to repay these favors. He even began to speak of fixing Gibbs's teeth, which rattled in his sleep. "Well," said Gibbs, feeling uncomfortable, "I like to play with them." He had a full upper plate, but he had sure broken it in two. Shortly before he came to the slammer, he had been driving along in his Eldorado, drunk as a skunk, got sick and had to puke. Too lazy to stop. What the hell, he was doing 80 on the Interstate.

                He just opened the window, heaved, and must have gone another 100 yards before he realized his teeth had gone out with the cakes. Slammed to a stop on the shoulder and ran back in the dark, until he found a stream of vomit. The false teeth were in two pieces in the middle of it.

Now he played with them. Made a Clickety-click sound like castanets.

                Sometimes Gibbs would poke the whole job out at people just to watch their expression when his front teeth split apart in front of them.

                He wouldn't kid this way around Gary, however. Gilmore was too self-conscious about his own teeth. It even took him a couple of days to get around to telling how he worked in the dental lab at Oregon State. If Nicole could buy a kit in a pharmacy, Gilmore could repair his denture. Gibbs released the money right off.

                After her visit, she sent back a box of Denture-Weld, which contained a bottle of liquid, tube of powder base, eyedropper, plastic cup, a stick to stir it all, sandpaper, and instructions. Gilmore threw the instructions aside and went to work. In fifteen minutes the teeth were back together and fit like new. It made Gibbs worry. With his plate fixed, Gilmore might be able to her the words he was saying while asleep. Gibbs just hoped those words wouldn't embarrass him.

                Later that night, Gilmore sat up and began to work at little adjustments on his own plates. Gary was really looking for a privacy trip with those teeth. In the silence of the night, Gibbs pretended to be sleeping and watched Gary, intent and alone at his work, old as his age and more, his lips fallen in on his gums.

The four trustees were petty criminals just serving a little county jail time. So they were all deathly afraid of Gilmore when they came back at mealtime. They would stand as far as they could from the slot in the door when they slid their trays through. A man could hardly reach out and grab you through that little space, but the trustees had a lot of caution. They had heard the jailers talk of how Gilmore made his victims get down on the floor, then, splat! Anytime a fellow in one of the other tanks started a tough-guy role, the jailers would now tell him to quit or he could go live with Gilmore. That man, they would point out, did not have a hell of a lot to lose by killing another man.

They took Gibbs out of the cell one day to let Gary be alone with a psychiatrist, and the jailer took Gibbs to the kitchen for coffee. The trustees couldn't be nice enough. Fixed Gibbs a sandwich, the works.

                Finally one of them asked why he was out of his cell. "Oh," Gibbs said, giving a wink to the jailer, "we're being pulled one at a time for a shakedown. Gary will be here just as soon as I go back." Gibbs had never seen four guys wash trays so fast. They planned to be done for sure before The Great Gilmore arrived.

                Just then the jailer had to walk to the front office to answer the phone. Soon as he did, Gibbs took every package of punch he could see on the table, stuffed them in his pants, said to the trustees, "If one of you punks say a word about this, you'll hate it."

                Soon as the jailer took him back, Gibbs started unloading his stolen goods. Gary said the nut doctor was going to recommend that he was sane and competent to stand trial. "What do you expect?" said Gilmore. "He's paid by the same people who pay my lawyers. The State of Utah. I can't win for losing." Then he said, "What are we waiting for? Let's mix up that punch before the Man comes looking," So they got busy and made up a gallon.

PART SIX

The Trial of Gary M. Gilmore

Chapter 23

SANITY

Esplin and Snyder had been offered a crack at distinguishing themselves in a big case, in fact, the most prominent case either of them had yet taken on. They certainly thought they were working hard.

                The legal community that met informally each morning and afternoon in the Provo Courthouse coffee shop in the basement hall across from the foot of the marble stairs was a group to pay attention to the upcoming trial. It was some time since Provo had had a case of Murder in the First Degree, and a young lawyer could do service or injury to his reputation among colleagues.

                So they were eager to put their skills to work, and not without awe at the responsibility. A man's life would depend on their presentation. It was frustrating, therefore, to discover they had an uncooperative client.

                He wanted to live—at least they assumed he wanted to live—he talked about getting off with Murder in the Second Degree, even being found Not Guilty. Yet he would not offer new material to improve a weak defense.

                The prosecution had circumstantial evidence that was tightly knit. If perfect evidence could run from A to Z without a letter missing, then here, perhaps no more than a letter or two was smudged, and only one was absent. The fingerprint on the automatic was not clear enough to be established as Gary's. Everything else brought the case together—most particularly the shell casing found beside Benny Bushnell's body. That could have come only from the Browning found in the bushes. A trail of blood led from those bushes to the service station where Martin Ontiveros and Norman Fulmer had seen Gary's bloody hand.

There was direct evidence as well. At the Preliminary Hearing on August 3, Peter Arroyo testified to seeing Gary with a gun in one hand and a cash box in the other. Arroyo made a perfect appearance.

                He was a family man who spoke in a clear and definite voice. If you were filming a movie and wanted a witness for the prosecution who could hurt the defense, you would cast Peter Arroyo. In fact, after the Preliminary Hearing, Snyder and Esplin ran into Noall Wootton in the coffee shop, and they joked about the witness's talents the way rival coaches might talk of a star who played for one of them.