The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel (135 page)

“Sounds good,” he said. “What’s left?”

“The end of their relationship. The murder.” Six chapters, counting the afterword, three of them more or less written. She took off one of her gloves to pull out a cigarette, but he also took a glove off and held her hand and that was better. She felt spectacularly healthy.

Before her husband returned to the Capitol, he had one night with his friends in what he called the “library,” but by then she was beavering away in her study once more, earphones on to stifle any sounds that might leak from the Chamber. The front two and back two chapters, she foresaw, would more or less write themselves; the middle two would be more difficult, but now that they were defined as coming-together and falling-apart chapters, all the peripheral material dropped away into the background, and her two characters rose to the fore. She was having fun writing again.

When he came to bed that last night, she hugged him and thanked him. He was trembling still from whatever it was he had just gone through. “You’re like something out of a fairytale,” she said.

“Think of me more,” he murmured, “as a character from one of those Victorian novels you profess to hate. A kind of ambassador from them, as you might say.”

“If it’s your mission, Mr. Ambassador, to lure me into those tired woods, you will not succeed. It’s the wildness I want.” He laughed softly, sleepily, squeezed her hand.

In interviews she is often asked what she is working on now. When she tried to answer the question seriously, she only drew baffled stares and impatient interruptions: Didn’t she have another
faction
in mind? So she finally learned to duck the question by pretending she didn’t like to talk about work in progress and then, after she’d repeated it a few times, she was no longer pretending. To her agent, she has to be more specific. Gets an irritable sigh in return. Bad girl. The word “career” comes up again. When Sally dismisses it, the agent wants to know what, then, she needs him for. “To hold my hand when the rejections come in,” she says with a smile, and he looks pained but shrugs and smiles back.

The interviewers also ask, inevitably, about her disputing of the trial verdict and her legally unproven assumption that the real killer, whom she names, was not the one convicted by the court. Isn’t she liable to legal action herself? Yes, she is. But she is right. Or so she says when asked. Actually, throughout the writing, the doubt never went away. Doubt and the overcoming of doubt—it was like something out of one of those Brunist sermons she attended. Have faith, my daughter. Essentially Simon’s message whenever she called him. “Don’t worry. Darren killed your friend, then handed off the murder weapon to Young Abner just as he said he did and sent him back to the camp as the fall guy, everything points to it, and because the kid is naïve and stupid he fell for it. Might be hard to prove in a court of law if you got challenged, but I don’t think Rector would want to take the risk. Expect Christian forbearance.”

After they received the typescript, her publishers were also suddenly doubt-stricken. They sent her a list of requested alterations, and the first one was that she change all the real names to fictional ones, as in her published story. When she refused, they began demanding harsh cuts. What they seemed to hate most was her best writing. She sent a copy to her old workshop teacher and asked his opinion. A bit hasty, a few loose ends, but it’s a well-made book with a compelling story, he told her. Don’t give in. “The literary judgments of commercial publishers aren’t to be trusted. They don’t trust them themselves and will eventually back down.” They did, but made her sign a statement accepting full responsibility for any legal actions against the book. Simon told her not to worry, she had a good lawyer on her side.

She was proofing galleys when Simon called to say he had managed to secure yet another stay of execution for all five of the remaining condemned—not including Nathan Baxter and his gang, who may or may not have died in the East Texas massacre—but that it may be their last opportunity. And he had good news for her. Through his contacts in the area, he had managed to obtain for her a ten-minute meeting with Clara Collins-Wosznik. Word had gotten around about his law firm’s defense of the imprisoned Brunists and they were grateful. But Clara was said to be very weak, and ten minutes was all they could allow. He had made it clear that they should stop demonizing Miss Elliott, a talented young woman committed to their cause and an invaluable research assistant for his legal team. Moreover, she had something important to tell them. “I told them what you told me. That it was an act of redemption.” It was another last opportunity: Once the book was out, that door would be slammed shut.

She was able to bring Clara a gift. Simon had asked to see again the things removed from Billy Don’s car in case there was something there he could use that he’d missed before. There wasn’t, but he found a framed document wrapped in a sweatshirt at the bottom of Billy Don’s carrier bag which, according to the inscription on the back, was Ely Collins’ last note before he died in the Deepwater mine disaster, something Billy Don apparently rescued at the last minute. The glass was cracked, but otherwise it looked undamaged. Simon was able to sign out for it on the condition it would be returned to the widow. Sally had a receipt for Clara to sign, which she did with a trembling hand. Might have been emotions, might have been her frailty. Her hair was gone and she chose not to cover her baldness. A kind of defiant nakedness with which Sally empathized. Brought out her gaunt masculine features, but her essential femininity was what you saw. The gentle matriarch. She was surrounded by other women who called her Sister Clara. All unsmiling, watching Sally. But moved, she could see, by the return of the death note. A red-headed toddler joined them. One of the prisoners they interviewed had said there was a rumor that Elaine’s baby was not completely human, but this was a real kid, a bit scrawny but feisty and bright-eyed. His mother came out to snatch him up and Sally asked her please to stay, she had something to tell her. Elaine turned away in alarm but her mother called her over to her side and fearfully she went there, toddler in arms, her mouth pinched shut. Sally said there were three things she was trying to accomplish: to free as many of the jailed Brunists as possible, to get all the death penalties thrown out or reduced to prison time, and to find out how her friend Billy Don Tebbett got killed. “Junior Baxter did not shoot Billy Don. We know that now. So who did?” The women looked at each other. Something was being confirmed. But what Clara said was: “We don’t know.” They didn’t know where Darren Rector was either and would say no more. Half her time was up, so, starting with the trail of the red boots, Sally told them the story of Carl Dean Palmers, looking straight at Elaine. “I just wanted you to know. He was so brave. One against a whole gang. All of them with guns and knives. He loved you. Enough to die for you. Few of us can say as much.” Elaine’s mother seemed to be wilting, her head dipping. “Ben always said…” she whispered, and one of the other women, nodding, said: “I knew it.” “He is lying in a pauper’s grave in the municipal cemetery. Not far from Marcella Bruno, actually.” The girl showed no sign of emotion, other than the fear that seemed to reside in her. But who knows, maybe she touched her. And then Sally had to leave because Clara had to be helped back to bed. The woman who had spoken introduced herself as Ludie Belle Shawcross and accompanied her to her car. “Billy Don, he was a sweetheart,” she said. “Not much of a believer and less a one as time went on. I reckon you maybe had sumthin to do with that. Which ain’t a concern. But if you’re thinkin’ it was Darren mighta done him, well, you could be right. He’s got a mighty high notion of hisself, like he’s set above the rest of us and ain’t obliged to play by the rules. He ain’t none too poplar round here for the way he’s took things outa Clara’s hands. And now she’s dyin’ he ain’t got no further use of her.” They stood by the car, talking for a few minutes, but when Sally asked if they could stay in touch, Ludie Belle said, “Druther not. Done’s done.”

When she returned, she called Simon to tell him that both she and the district attorney were wrong about where the killing took place. In the courtroom version, Billy Don used the pay phone outside the main lodge and Young Abner, returning from the mine hill to guard the camp, surprised him there. Billy Don was betraying the sect, and Young Abner, no doubt on his father’s orders, executed him when he emerged from the phone booth and dragged him into the car, or perhaps he shot him as he reentered the car. Young Abner then drove the car to the spot where it was found and ditched it. It was where he was found, hiding in the trees, wearing Billy Don’s broken prescription sunglasses like a trophy. In her fictionalized version, Billy Don uses the free office phone inside, where he finds Darren locking up before heading to the hill. Darren chats amiably with him on the way back to the car, gives him a farewell hug, and once Billy Don is behind the wheel, shoots him in the head. But, according to Ludie Belle Shaw-cross, the camp was still full of departing traffic, so Billy Don left his car in the trailer park and walked up to the office and back. They had all agreed on a meeting place near the state line, and Billy Don had told them not to wait for him, that he had an errand to run. Thus, after the phone call, he returned to an empty lot, his friends gone, Darren waiting for him. That fit with Junior’s claim that he’d found the sunglasses down there “where the two bodies were,” which had been dismissed by the prosecutor as another of his lies. More importantly, Ludie Belle said there were two beekeepers who had passed through, following the blossoms, both cultists at the camp, who had stayed behind long enough that day of the murder to collect their hives and who told her they’d seen Darren driving Billy Don’s car that morning. Probably hard to locate, but they check in with the cult from time to time during their migrations. Simon said, if they were believable and reliable witnesses, this could be the key; he’d try to find them.

Simon also mentioned he’d be flying out to speak with Abner Baxter and his son again, and she asked to go with him. It was too late for any major changes to her book, but she might be able to tweak her descriptions of Junior in galleys. And, anyway, she enjoyed Simon’s company. He was quick to agree. He enjoyed hers. Both Abner and his son had always refused to meet with Simon if she were along, and that was still true of the father, but the fear of death had softened Junior up, and Simon felt sure he’d accept her presence. She had had a glimpse or two of Junior in the past, and remembered him vaguely from high school, but this was her first time to sit down with him face to face. She had described him to her husband, based on things Billy Don and Simon had said, as ugly, stupid, sullen. She did not misspeak. Though barely out of his teens, he was already heavy in the jowls, soft and lumpy looking, with a witless, baggy stare. Sally had always associated self-flagellation with a certain intelligence and imagination. He didn’t seem bright enough for it, but there you go: no blanket judgments. His shaved head was a bright red where the new hair was growing, and she remembered that Billy Don had told her that after his humiliation and scarring, Junior had let his hair grow long to cover the scar and wore a headband, much as Billy Don hid his strabismus behind dark glasses. The exposed scar, looking raw as though he’d been scratching at it, somehow called to mind Billy Don as she’d last seen him—without his glasses and frighteningly vulnerable—and she felt a deflected tenderness toward the condemned young man in front of her. The scar, which could still be read, must draw a lot of ridicule from the other prisoners. Four letters like the four on Jesus’ cross, declaring him a king. Another “lier.” She didn’t tell Junior that. She told her notebook. While she took notes and risked a sketch or two, Simon went over everything once more, searching for any detail that might have been overlooked, from the gathering early that morning in the Meeting Hall, through the mass move to the mine hill, the troubles there, Darren’s hand-off of the gun, what Junior witnessed at the camp, and so on. Nothing really new, though Junior’s confused embarrassment about the fire made Sally wonder. They got up to go. “By the way, Abner,” Sally asked, not having thought of it before, “do you drive?” He flushed again, hesitated, looking guilty, shook his head. “You don’t drive?” He stared at her sullenly as though facing another accusation. She looked at Simon. Simon looked at her.

In bed that night, sharing a smoke with her, Simon laid out his case. He’ll go back to the trial judge with a motion for a new trial. He’ll ask that the defense attorney be called to testify at the hearing. The prosecutor’s scenario, starting from the phone booth outside the Meeting Hall, was almost completely wrong, but they would use it. All they had to show was that Junior could not move the car to the side road and ditch, no matter where one started from. That’s the secret. Not the truth, but a good story.

By the time of the revised second edition,
The Killing of Billy D
is banded with the declaration T
HE
B
OOK
T
HAT
S
AVED A
M
AN’S
L
IFE!
and the afterword and jacket copy have been adjusted to include the story of Young Abner Baxter’s release from death row and then from prison itself. His release, in turn, inspires a new round of talk show and news hour interviews, and on one of them the host, introducing the author, describes the book as an “affectionate portrait” of the title character, whereupon Sally breaks down in tears, as the pent-up grief for Billy Don, buried under all these strenuous months beginning to stretch now into years, bursts explosively to the surface. She has the presence of mind, when she recovers enough to speak, though blinded still by the memory of Billy Don standing waist-deep in moonlit lake water with his sunglasses on, to attribute at least part of her grief to that felt for Young Abner’s father, the last remaining cultist on death row, whose execution in the electric chair is imminent—two of the other three having been granted clemency, the third having killed himself—and that felt for all other persons around the country and around the world, facing the barbarism of state-authorized human slaughter.