The Executioner's Song (76 page)

                Your Gary

Gibbs also received a note that day:

                So far, I've gotten a letter from Napoleon, one from Santa Claus, several from Satan, and you wouldn't believe how many postmarks and return addresses Jesus Christ himself uses. People think  I'm crazy. Ha ha ha.

                You'll never guess who I got a letter from. Brenda! First she helps them catch me, then she helps them convict me, now she wants to write and visit. She's got more balls than a bull elephant.

Next day, Thursday, soon as Tamera came into work, she received a call from a correspondent for Time magazine. Heard she'd been with Nicole. Wanted to know if she had a little information to pass along. Pressure was coming down on her editors as well. They were having to stall old newspaper acquaintances. It was the first time Tamera had seen how the newspaper business was like a swap shop. "I'll give you a piece of my story today, if you take care of me tomorrow."

                She had always thought it was closer to the movies: you went out by yourself and brought it back alive.

At this point, the news editor took Tamera off other assignments, and said, "You're on Nicole. Do what you have to do." She looked blank, and he added, "I don't care if you bring her up to Salt Lake, and have her stay at your house. If you have to, take her out to dinner. I don't care what it costs. Do anything, but don't lose that story."

                Well, this was more like what she had thought it would be. Then the guy from Time magazine called back to say he wanted quotes. When she said, "This is between me and Nicole," he said, "She's just given an interview to the New York Times." Tamera just thought, "WHAT??"

Later that morning, Tamera was waiting as Nicole came out of prison. Soon as she brought up the interview with the Times, Nicole said, "That's ridiculous. I'm not talking to anyone."

                "I just want you," said Tamera, "to understand my position. I'll keep the secrets you told me so long as you also keep them." She looked real straight at Nicole. "But as soon as you start talking to other media people, I don't feel bound to honor our agreement. If you want to earn some money on this thing, you're totally justified. Somebody wants to pay you, that's great. But I want you to know I'll write a story too when that happens."

                Nicole just said, "Agreed." Acted like they were still friends. All of Tamera's anger went away. She just loved Nicole again and started making plans for what they could do on Saturday, her day off. Maybe go up to the mountains. A good idea to get out. Nicole agreed.

Then they drove over to Kathryne's house and had whole wheat toast, and talked, and in the middle of that, Nicole whispered that she wanted Tamera to keep Gary's letters. Didn't want her mother to see them after she was gone.

Next, Nicole and Kathryne got into the most impossible conversation.

                "I'm going," Nicole said, "to the execution Monday morning."

                Kathryne said, "Sissy, I don't want you there."

                "Well," said Nicole, "I'm going."

                "If you are," said Kathryne, "I'm going too."

                "Gary didn't invite you."

                "I don't care whether he did or not. I'm not going to see him. I'm there to wait for you."

                "No," Nicole said, "I'll go myself."

                "Get it straight, kid," said Kathryne, "I'm taking you."

Then the news came over the radio. None of them could believe it. Gary's execution had been delayed again. Governor Rampton had just issued a Stay. The radio announcer kept repeating it in an excited voice.

Tamera was sure glad her editor had said to stick with Nicole.

                Otherwise, she might have run back to the newspaper to see if they needed her. Instead, she could now offer to take Nicole over to the prison. On the way, Nicole gave her the key to the apartment in Springville. Told her she could pick up the letters, and hold them.

During that twenty-minute trip to the prison, Nicole still looked calm, but Tamera knew she was stunned. What came off was one clear message: Gary would now have to commit suicide. That was bringing it very near to Nicole.

She started telling Tamera about her mother-in-law, Marie Barrett.

                Really liked Marie, she said, liked her a lot better than Jim Barrett.

                Marie was a groovy lady and loved Sunny and Jeremy. Nicole said she would have always gotten along great with her, if Marie hadn't been such a super housekeeper. Nicole liked to keep the house clean, but her mother-in-law had to do it her way. Other than that, she was terrific. Nicole had about decided Sunny and Jeremy ought to grow up with Marie after she was gone.

Then she told Tamera about the last time she saw Marie. It was just after Kip had been killed.

"Now, it will happen to Gary soon," Nicole had said to Marie Barrett, "I don't know what there is about me."

                She had been feeling miserable all over. Marie said, "Nicole, maybe next time, you'll find a fellow you can have a good relationship with. Just be more careful. Check him out a little more before you get married."

                Nicole said, "There won't be another time."

                "You're through with men?" Marie asked.

                Nicole said, "I don't know what I mean, but there won't be another time." She almost gave it away. "If something happens to me," Nicole said, "would you take the kids?"

                "Sure, I would," Marie said, "you know I would. Only nothing's going to happen to you."

"Then, that afternoon," Nicole said to Tamera, "the cops came around to Springville and knocked on the door and kind of looked me over." Just made polite conversation at the door, but she knew Marie had sent them. Nicole would still trust her with the children, only she didn't know about confiding in her personally. Tamera took it as a message.

                Soon as she dropped her at the prison, Tamera returned to Nicole's apartment, picked up the letters, put them in a grocery sack, and searched the place for a gun or sleeping pills. Didn't know what she would do if she did find something, but made the search.

PROVO HERALD

Nov. 11, 1976. Salt Lake City (UPI)—Utah Governor Calvin L. Rampton asked the Utah Board of Pardons to review Gilmore's conviction at their next meeting on Wednesday, November 17, and decide if the death penalty is justified.

                Gilmore said he was "disappointed and angered" by the governor's action. "The governor is apparently bowing to pressure from various groups who are motivated by publicity and their own egotistical concerns rather than concern for my 'welfare.' "

Chapter 4

PRESS CONFERENCES

Out in Phoenix, Earl Dorius was bombarded with the news. Everybody was stopping him in the lobby to ask, "What's going on in Utah?" Earl felt as if the conference were totally destroyed for him.

                He couldn't listen to anything. Kept racing back to his room to catch the news. If he wasn't on the phone, he was flipping stations on the TV set. "What do you think of the Governor's action?" everyone asked him. "I haven't had a chance to research it," he would say, "but it's my impression the Stay was improper because it was granted at the request of outside parties."

                He realized he was closer to the office at this point than to the conference, and decided to check out of Phoenix and get back to work.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Nov. 12, 1976—Boaz signed an agreement with Utah State Prison Warden Samuel W. Smith that he would serve only as an attorney for Gilmore, then talked freely about his intentions to "serve as a writer first, a lawyer second."

"We have no power to censure him. He is not a member of the Utah bar," a member of the Utah State Bar's executive committee explained.

PROVO HERALD

Provo, Nov. 13, 1976—Boaz said he plans to "make some money" from Gilmore's story and split it 50-50 with the condemned man's family and any charities he may choose.

Just as Dennis was coming into the prison, Sam Smith called him over and said, "I heard Gilmore had an interview with a London newspaper this morning. Do you know anything about that?"

                Dennis was in a real state of excitement. David Susskind had just called from New York. He was interested in doing a movie on Gary's life. There could be large money at the other end. Dennis's mind was racing.

                "The London newspaper?" he said to Sam Smith. "Oh, sure, I set it up."

                The Warden's face got red, unusual color for a pale man. Then he shouted. Everybody at that end of the hall popped their heads out of offices. For that matter, Dennis was startled too Nobody was used to Sam Smith yelling.

                Smith said he was going to file suit. Dennis said, "I couldn't care less, Warden." He was beginning to take personal pleasure in looking for statements to rile Sam Smith. There was something about Sam's skin that inspired you to get under it.

Dennis even laughed when they strip-searched him, just to be vindictive. It was a comedy. The guards came up to his armpits.

                Why, two days ago, they'd been so impressed with the way he acted before the Utah Supreme Court, they let him bring his typewriter into the talk with Gary.

After Boaz got through the strip-search, he met Nicole. There was a slitted window along the south end of the visiting room, and there she was sitting on Gary's lap, right at that end window, both of them looking out at Point of the Mountain. She didn't pay much attention to Dennis. Necking with Gary was all she was heeding.

Still, when she came out of it, Dennis thought she had a sweeter, more innocent-looking face than he had anticipated. She was looking tired, even washed out, and that gave her a melancholy wistfulness he definitely liked. But, Gary glowered. Didn't approve of the budding friendship whatsoever. Looked like he thought Nicole was flirting, when all she was saying was that her grandfather's funeral would be starting in an hour or so.

Once she left, and Dennis was alone with him, Gary hardly offered a chance to talk about Susskind's offer. He was too fired up over Governor Rampton. The subject proved infectious. Dennis loved the way Gary could pass you his steam. In fact, Dennis felt like a boiler, all fired up himself at what he could soon say about the Governor.

From the beginning, Dennis was looking to give out thoughts that would bring people face to face with stuff they had never pondered before. Dennis was looking to make a few shocking statements about public executions and get the people thinking. Make them ask themselves, "Why do we have executions behind locked doors? What are we ashamed of?" Just that morning one of his zingers had been printed:

PROVO HERALD

Provo, Nov. 14, 1976—"I think executions should be on prime time television," Boaz said. "Then we would get some deterrent out of it."

He'd been having press conferences practically twice a day since he and Gary won at the Utah Supreme Court and over and over he kept telling the press that he was there to represent free and open dealing and would present his life as an open book. He might get masted, but his responsibility was to be very Aquarian and even report things about himself and his feelings that might seem strange.

                At least the people would be getting open treatment, not manipulation.

                The press could misquote him, misrepresent him, take his remarks at random and distort them. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to flatten his personality. In fact, right after he came out of the Utah Supreme Court, he told the reporters he was in Salt Lake because it had a higher percentage of beautiful women than any city he'd been in, Plus the fact, he told the press, that a lot of these women like to meet Californians. For the taste of evil. There were millions to be made here, he said, importing California consciousness.

                Really, he said. Of course, they never printed a word of it.

The press responded by asking about his financial affairs. "I have nothing to hold back," he told them. "The fact is, I owe $10,000, actually about $15,000, if you include not only what I owe creditors but friends. I have no shame about this. I made a bad investment once, and immediately found the whole thing bellied up, money gone."

The word in response, he soon learned, was that he was playing Gilmore for the money. He didn't care. The word would turn around when they realized he wasn't.