That struck us as even funnier. I hadn’t laughed that hard since I was a kid and watched my cousin Shelby shoot a possum out of a tree onto his own damn head. Bill and I were downright certifiable by the time the perplexed guards arrived, ready to roust two amorous drunks.
“What the hell?” one of them said.
“I’ve been shot in the ass,” I explained, and Bill and I collapsed into still more laughter when we heard faint “helps!” echoing from the forest.
“I guess he’s afraid of the dark,” I managed to say between gasps for air.
“There’s someone calling for help in the woods,” one of the guards said.
“Call the cops,” the other one told his partner. “These two are on drugs.”
“She’s got blood all o ct bdiv heigver her…” The first guard ran out of words as the flashlight played over my skin. “All over her… well, let’s go call the cops.”
“I am a cop,” Bill said, still trying to stifle his laughter. “Call the Raleigh P.D. and tell them where I am.” He handed his identification wallet to the guards. “Tell them Bill Butler said to send out the Tillman murder team. I’ll fill them in when they arrive.”
I stopped laughing. “No,” I said as I struggled to tug my pants back on. “Call the Durham Police Department and don’t speak to anyone but Chief Robinette. Tell them where we are and that Casey Jones has been shot by a man named Steven Hill. Ask Robinette to send Detective Anne Morrow of the Raleigh P.D. to take charge. He’ll know where she is.” If anyone got official credit for the collar, it was going to be Anne Morrow.
Bill was staring at me, mouth open, laughter forgotten. “But I’m right here on the scene,” he protested. “I came to your rescue.”
“Hey, I rescued my own ass,” I reminded him. “Bullet hole and all.”
More than a week after that night in the woods, the governor had yet to issue a stay in the matter of Gail Honeycutt’s execution. Her sister made numerous phone calls to the governor’s personal counsel, and, finally, Chief Robinette and Detective Anne Morrow were called in to see him. Still, no word came.
Throughout this waiting period, a dozen anti-capital punishment protesters kept vigil outside the wrought iron gates of the governor’s mansion, standing witness for a woman they did not even know. I wasn’t sure what I envied about them the most: their conviction or their detachment.
I don’t know how the wait was for Gail, but it was horrible for me. Each morning and every afternoon, I received a phone call from Nanny Honeycutt asking if there had been any word. Each day I had to say “no.” Executions had never bothered me before. But it’s different when you know the person who’s going to die—and when you know she’s innocent. The process becomes a relentless march toward cold justice that reduces a person’s life to an appointment on someone else’s calendar. I didn’t like the taste of it at all.
Gail’s appeals lawyer wasted no time waiting around for a miracle. When word came through that the Fourth Circuit in Richmond had turned down Gail’s second appeal, she immediately filed a final plea with the Supreme Court. This time, new evidence was a crucial part of the argument. I was trying to decide if I was proud or embarrassed to have Clarence Thomas mulling over photos of my bullet-ridden butt when word came from the governor’s mansion: the governor had issued a stay. At five o’clock in the afternoon on the Friday of a three-day holiday weekend, the news—that ftly tme.
Gail Honeycutt’s upcoming execution would be postponed indefinitely pending further investigation—hit the wires.
While reports of the stay were buried in the excitement of vacation and traffic news, the Honeycutts sure got the word. Bobby D.—who’d been released from the hospital twenty-two pounds lighter—was driven crazy by the endless phone calls of thanks.
I went to see Gail the next day. She was not in good shape. The hope was worse for her than the despair had been. She seemed depressed, confused and afraid to hope for more. She was also doped to the gills.
“A stay means he could change his mind,” she mumbled, rubbing the knuckles of one hand anxiously. They were red and rapidly turning raw.
“He’s not going to change his mind,” I assured her. “There’s a woman detective in the Raleigh Police Department who’s not the type to let it go. She likes the innocent to go free and the guilty to go to jail. She won’t let you down.”
“What if they don’t believe her?” Gail asked, “I notice they haven’t let me off death row.”
“They will,” I promised. “It’s just going to take some time. More evidence is being uncovered every day.”
“Why did he do it?” she asked. “Why would that man choose to set me up like that? I hardly even knew him. And why would he kill Roy? Roy never hurt anyone. What kind of a person is he?”
“I don’t think Steven Hill really is a person,” I explained. “He just walks around in a human suit. And I can’t tell you why he thought he had the right to take so many lives.”
The information Gail had gotten up to then had been wildly distorted on its passage through the family grapevine. She listened carefully as I explained what I thought had happened.
I told Gail that Steven Hill had probably always been a dirty cop, even when he was patrolling a beat. That when he was promoted to the new drug unit, he saw a chance to make a lot more money. He would bury evidence and alter testimony in drug trials in exchange for cash or drugs he could resell. But he needed the cooperation of his unit partners to get away with it. It took a while for the unit’s early arrests to wind their way into court. By the time the first wave of trials began, there was a big backlog of cases waiting to be heard. Hill had put off making an offer to the other unit officers, but could not delay any longer. He went to each of the three other men in turn and offered to cut them in on his deals if they would help or at least look the other way. Pete Bunn agreed. Roy Taylor and George Carter were another story. Roy was adamant: he would not do it. George was less certain. He was confused about what to do and looked to Roy for advice. The two men met with Steven Hill and, unknown to Hill, recorded the conve kdedcertain.rsations on tape. Roy was too smart to meet with Hill otherwise.
“I think Roy probably got every conversation he had with Hill down on tape,” I explained to Gail. “He knew he’d need proof when he turned Hill in. That’s why Roy wanted to go up to the cabin instead of to your family reunion and argued with you about it the night he died. He needed to hide the tapes. Instead, after the fight about the reunion, he gave the tapes to George to hide. George drove up to the cabin the day Roy was killed, not even knowing that he was dead.”
“Why didn’t George just go to the police with the tapes after Roy died?” Gail asked.
“He didn’t know Hill had anything to do with Roy’s death,” I explained gently. “He thought you had done it. And without Roy to guide him, George lost his nerve about turning Hill in. Instead, he asked to be transferred out of the drug unit and let the issue go.”
“Where are the tapes now?” Gail asked. “How can you be sure they exist?”
“I can’t,” I admitted. “But Hill was looking for something or he wouldn’t have torn Tillman’s and Bunn’s houses apart. Or my office.”
“Why didn’t he look for them after Roy died?” she asked.
“He didn’t know they existed until this past Christmas, when Judge Tillman visited George and started asking questions. George figured out Hill had been the one to kill Roy, not you, and realized the tapes might help prove it. Pete Bunn figured out the same thing and may have learned the tapes existed from George by pretending to be as concerned as he was. But Bunn was more interested in blackmailing Hill then setting you free. In the end, Hill killed them both.”
“Why didn’t Steve just drive up to the cabin and get the tapes once he found out they existed?” Gail asked.
“He couldn’t find the cabin,” I explained. “He only knew it was near Lake Gaston. He probably checked the county records after George’s death, looking for evidence of a sale made by Roy’s estate. Since your stepfather really owned the cabin, there never was property listed in Roy’s name, so Hill couldn’t find anything. Hill would have known why if either he or Pete Bunn had attended the trial, but he was too busy keeping a safe distance. I don’t think Hill knows to this day why he couldn’t find the cabin. That’s why he came to see you here in prison. He was trying to find out where the cabin was.”
“How can all this help me?” Gail asked.
“Maybe Hill doesn’t know where the cabin is,” I explained. “But the police do. They’re searching it now. If the tapes are there, they’ll find them.”
There was more I could have told her. Like how I didn’t know who had actually killed George Carter, but that I did know he had been held at Pete Bunn’s farm while Bunn and Hill tried to learn whether George had told anyone what he suspected. Or how they had forced George to call his wife to tell her that he was going up to the cabin, but cut the call off to make it sound as if George was going away for good. Gail didn’t need to know more right now. She had enough to absorb for one day. Especially since she was still bombed on pills.
“What if they can’t find any evidence that Hill killed Roy?” she asked. “I could be here forever.”
“They’ll find it,” I promised. “With DNA testing, they’ll tie him to the murder scenes somehow. Just hang in there and we’ll get you out.”
She looked unconvinced.
“Gail,” I told her. “It’s time to start looking ahead. You’re going to have a life outside of here again. You need to prepare. It’s hard getting out. It’s weird and it’s scary. I know. But I know you can do it. You have your little girl to think about. You need to start thinking about how to be a mother again.”
“No,” Gail said flatly.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“No,” she said. “I know what you’re leading up to and the answer is ‘no.’ I don’t want you to bring her to see me. Even if I do get out of here, Brittany is staying where she is. I wouldn’t know how to be a mother anymore. They’ve kept me alone in here so long, I’ve forgotten how to talk to people. And I don’t know what to say when people talk to me. I can’t even stand to be touched. I’m not fit to raise a child right now.”
“How can you say that?” I asked. “She’s your daughter.”
“Look,” she insisted angrily, a spark of life breaking through the drugs that insulated her. “I’m not smart. I’m not lucky. I’m not much of anything, but I am sure that Brittany would be better off staying where she is. It just wasn’t meant to be. I’m not changing my mind, so don’t try.”
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I,” she answered.
After that, I left her with a promise to keep her up on any new developments. When I looked back through the window of the tiny visiting room, she looked uncertain and afraid. Uncertain of a life that would be quite different from the one she had come to know, and afraid to hope for too much from it.
On the way out, I passed an elderly couple checking in with Herman, the front-gate guard. The woman was frail and looked older than her husband, as if life had beaten her down more. Her hair was sprayed into a gray bubble; her clothes were plain but well-ironed. The old man stood almost painfully erect in polyester clothes obviously chosen for durability, not style.
“Relationship to the prisoner?” Herman was asking them.
“We’re her in-laws,” the woman replied in the flat twang of someone raised near the coast. She hesitated on the final word.
Herman raised his eyebrows in surprise. I stopped to watch.
“In-laws?” he asked.
“Yes,” the old man repeated firmly. “I assume relatives are allowed to visit?”
“Sure,” Herman answered quickly. “But usually you need twenty-four hours clearance,” he explained.
“Make an exception,” the old man ordered calmly.
“I’ll try,” Herman agreed, picking up the phone and dialing a superior. As I listened to him explain, I realized that I was looking at the mother and stepfather of Roy Taylor. They were there to see Gail.
“Purpose of the visit?” Herman asked, one hand covering the receiver.
The couple stared at him.
“Purpose of the visit?” Herman repeated more loudly.
The two old people exchanged a glance. The silence stretched long.
“Forgiveness,” the old man finally said.
I turned out to be wrong about some of the things I told Gail. For one, they never did get Hill for killing Roy Taylor. They couldn’t find enough evidence to bring charges, though they did find enough to convince everyone he had done it. The waitress who had worked at the Lone Wolf back then was fairly certain Hill had been the one to send Gail a drink the night Roy died. He was the best-looking man she’d ever seen, she explained, that was why she had remembered him so well. That and the murder the next day had fixed the whole night in her memory. There was no way to prove that Hill had put something, a drug that wouldn’t show up on standard screens, in that drink to cause Gail to black out, but other evidence confirmed his guilt.
kv hin th
A voice analysis of the taped 911 call reporting the shooting produced a match: Hill had been the one to call it in. And a thorough search of the fishing cabin near Lake Gaston had indeed produced audiotapes of several conversations between Steven Hill and Roy Taylor. George Carter had hidden them under the refrigerator by taping a protected bag beneath the cooling coils. But the audiotapes did not contain any direct threats, and the crime scene had long since been renovated. And Hill’s confession in the woods would never be allowed into court.