Authors: Mary Willis Walker
If I could be
Somehow set free
From being me
Here’s what I’d be—
Wild Comanche
Painted with mud
And clotted blood,
Covered in skins,
No thought of sins.
Scalp takers
Skull breakers
Scream makers
Black hair lovers
Swift death givers.
LOUIE BRONK
Death Row, Ellis I Unit,
Huntsville, Texas
M
olly sat at her desk looking at the telephone. Her shoulder muscles burned, as if she had just done a hundred push-ups, or as if sharp claws were digging in between her shoulder blades. She pictured an evil-looking gargoyle clinging to her, grinning down at her.
She jiggled her shoulders up and down to relax them. This was ridiculous; it wasn’t her responsibility to act on this information. Tanya Klein was the one. After all, Klein was Louie’s attorney, a specialist in habeas corpus law. The thing to do was just unload it all on her and let her carry it from here.
She picked up the phone and dialed the number of the motel where Tanya was staying in Paducah, Kentucky. She was there doing research on behalf of a client of hers, another death-row inmate. It had taken Molly a half hour to wheedle Tanya’s unlisted home number out of one of her coworkers and then to beg her roommate to reveal the number in Kentucky.
“Slumber Rest Motor Lodge. How can I help you?”
“Tanya Klein’s room please,” Molly said.
The operator let it ring about fifteen times before coming back on the line. “Miss Klein doesn’t answer.”
Molly felt desperate; her shoulders were hunched up around her ears again. “Could you page her? She might be in your restaurant or the lobby or the pool maybe. It’s an emergency.”
“We don’t have no pool, but I’ll check the coffee shop.”
After a few minutes, Tanya’s world-weary voice came over the line: “This is Tanya Klein.”
“Oh, Tanya, it’s Molly Cates. I’m so glad I found you. I—”
“God. How did you track me down?”
“Tricks of my trade,” Molly said. Then, unable to keep a breathlessness out of her voice, she poured out everything that had happened in Fort Worth. As if she were presenting some prize, she told Tanya about the receipt for painting the Mustang dated July sixth.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Tanya said, “Wait a minute here. Molly, you aren’t saying you believe Louie Bronk is
innocent?
”
Molly took a deep breath and tried to lower her shoulders. “In the McFarland matter, yes. I am saying that.”
“On the basis of a carbon receipt from an auto body shop? Something anyone could manufacture? Give me a break, Molly.”
“I was thinking we might try to get DPS to date it.”
“Oh, sure.” Tanya let out a bark of a laugh. “It would be perfect for carbon 14 dating. You get it?
Carbon
14?”
“Yeah. I get it. Tanya, how did someone so young get so cynical?”
“You know the answer to that, Molly. You’ve covered enough of these cases. It’s dealing with a system where the Supreme Court of the land actually debates whether it is unconstitutional to execute someone who might be innocent. Where that same court agrees to hear the issues of a condemned man’s case but refuses to grant him a stay so he’ll be alive when his case gets heard.”
“I know,” Molly said. “It’s ludicrous. But where are we now with the appeals?”
“I wrote up a Certificate of Probable Cause and sent it to the Fifth Circuit Court. We may hear back tonight.”
“What can we do with this new evidence?”
Tanya sighed. “I guess I can go back to the state with a one-issue petition.”
“Good,” Molly said. “Let’s do that.”
“Of course there are a few little problems here. In Texas there’s a thirty-day limit on filing claims of new evidence after a conviction, a limit recently affirmed by the Supreme Court. And—let’s see—it’s been more than three thousand six hundred and fifty days since Louie was convicted, so we’re a little past the deadline. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t file these things. We do. All the time. You’d be amazed how often we find them: lost witnesses, newly uncovered alibis, confessions that were given by people now dead—you name it. Of course, the courts don’t pay any attention to them.”
“But those are bogus,” Molly protested. “This is the real thing.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Tanya said in a dead voice.
Molly took a deep breath and said, “So what are you supposed to do with new evidence that really does come up at the last minute?”
“Executive clemency is supposed to be the route for that.”
“How does that work exactly?”
“Well, you know in some other states the governor can commute a sentence or give a pardon unilaterally, but not in Texas. The way it works here is the Board of Pardons and Paroles has to recommend clemency first. But it’s never happened. Those pricks have never voted to commute a death sentence. Not once. And, anyway, all the paperwork has to be done in triplicate a minimum of five working days before the execution date and we’ve only got one day.”
“Oh, shit. Where does that leave us?”
Tanya measured another long-suffering silence into the phone. “Well, the governor does have the power to grant a one-time, thirty-day reprieve. In order to give the Board more time to consider a case. Like she did recently in the Boulton case. But, Molly, even if by some wild stretch of circumstance she could be convinced to do that, it would just delay it a month. The Board is simply not going to recommend commutation in this case, no matter how many carbon copies you come up with. Louie really doesn’t have any issues. Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter—they are out for blood.”
Molly dug her fingers into her right shoulder, trying to force the tension out. It was impossible. Surely she’d done as much as could be expected of her. She could stop here.
“Look. Molly,” Tanya said, “thanks for calling. Really. Tonight
I’ll fax a petition to CCA and the trial court simultaneously, and I’ll include your new piece of evidence. Okay?”
“How long will it take them to respond?” Molly asked.
“At this point in the process, a few hours, usually. Just long enough for the judges to have a good laugh. They’ll probably slap my hands and accuse me of abusing the writ, like they did last time.”
Molly put down the phone. She felt stabbing pains in her shoulders; the gargoyle was settling in, hooking its claws in deeper. This whole thing was futile. The state was determined to execute a killer and there was nothing she could do about it. She should go see a movie and forget the whole mess. Yes, that’s what she would do. But first she needed to talk to someone.
She called Stan Heffernan’s home number. His wife said her husband was out sailing on Lake Buchanan and had failed to take his beeper with him. Molly left an urgent message for him to call her the minute he got home.
Then, not knowing what to do next, she started making calls, trying to find someone to talk to, anyone who might be available on this sunny Sunday afternoon.
First she tried APD. Grady Traynor was at a crime scene in East Austin, one of the other homicide detectives said—another drive-by shooting.
Richard Dutton didn’t answer his phone and didn’t believe in answering machines.
Barbara Gruber, who was usually available, had actually gone out on a date—with a man, her mother said.
Jo Beth had said she was going in to her office, but she didn’t answer her phone there.
Molly even tried calling Jonathan Bellinger, her agent, to commiserate about the Japanese deal falling through. But Jonathan wasn’t home either.
She pushed her rolling chair away from the desk, grabbed her big tote bag, and rummaged through it, scooping all the loose pieces of paper off the bottom and dumping them out on the rug. In the pile were two credit card receipts, a used Kleenex, several little triangular corners torn from her Day-Timer, and what she was seeking—the card Addie Dodgin had given her, which had gotten badly crumpled.
She smoothed the card out and winced when she saw under the name and address the slogan “We are forgiven.” But it seemed less
obnoxious now than it had the first time she saw it. Maybe she was warming to the idea.
Maybe she felt more in need of forgiveness now than she had two days ago.
Picking up the card and her cordless phone, she lay down on the little sofa and arranged the pillow under her knees. Again she looked at the card. Maybe all of us should print slogans on our cards, she thought—something pithy that would explain us to the world. We would be limited to three words. Three words. That would be a challenge. What would hers be? She rubbed her thumb over the slightly raised letters of Addie Dodgin’s card and considered it. Maybe hers would be “Never give up” or “Honor the dead.” That sounded so grim. When all this was over she’d have to make some changes. Work less. Live more. No more vigils. God, now she was thinking in slogans.
She dialed the phone number, certain somehow that Addie Dodgin would be in; she would be there. She
would.
“Sister Addie Dodgin here.” The voice was so cheery, so sugary sweet that Molly felt like slamming the phone down. This woman was not her sort; she would probably suggest they pray together or leave it in God’s hands. Why had she made this call?
“Addie, this is Molly Cates.”
“Why, Sister Molly, I was just thinking about you.”
Molly let her head rest back on the sofa arm. “What were you thinking about me?” It sounded like a lover’s question.
“I had a feeling you would call. Maybe I was just hoping it.”
“I thought you might like to hear about the results of my trip to Fort Worth,” Molly said.
“Oh, yes indeed. I surely would. Just a minute. Let me get settled here.” There was a thump and some rustling, and then some clicks. “There. Now I’m settled with my knitting. I hope you don’t mind. I listen better when I knit.”
“What are you knitting?” Molly asked, surprising herself with the question.
“Oh, my. It’s an afghan. For Louie.” Addie sighed. “But I’m afraid it won’t be finished in time. And no one else could stomach the colors. You know what colors he asked for?”
Molly remembered the horrible thing Addie had been working on in the warden’s office. “Brown and pink,” she said.
Addie laughed. “I forgot you’re a writer; you notice these things.”
“Oh, I wish that were true,” Molly said. “So much gets by me. Sometimes I think I go through life swathed in cotton and preconceptions. I miss so much. About yesterday—” Molly cleared her throat and started in. She told her in detail about the stolen car and the fire that destroyed the records.
Addie listened actively with lots of oh, mys and dear, dears at the right times. Through it all Molly could hear the steady
click-click
of her needles.
When Molly got to the part about the three men attacking her, Addie said, “Goodness. You were blessed to escape that. Someone was riled over this.”
“Yes. But there’s more.” Molly told her about the receipt Nelda Fay Ferguson had been persuaded to unearth. “It should be on its way to Austin now, for whatever it’s worth.”
Addie Dodgin sighed one of the biggest sighs Molly had ever heard. “I suppose you’ve told Tanya Klein about it?”
“Yes. I tracked her to Paducah, Kentucky, to tell her.”
“And she said nothing would make any difference.”
“Yes. But she’s going to include it in a petition to the state anyway.”
“But the courts are not likely to give relief,” Addie said.
“That’s what she says.”
“So now you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you, dear?”
“Sister Addie, I can’t remember ever in my adult life not knowing what to do next.”
“That must feel strange.”
“Oh, does it ever,” Molly said.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just so you know what I’m really like,” Molly said, “my first thought was to do nothing. Just let it slide by. Then no one would know what a gullible fool I’ve been and my book wouldn’t look like the worthless piece of shit it is.”
Addie chuckled. “Isn’t that just the kind of creature we are? Our first instinct is to hunker down and protect ourselves.”
Molly felt her shoulders and neck relax into the sofa. “Yeah. And with me, it doesn’t get much better. My next thought was: He’s a
killer. He may not have done this, but he’s done others. What difference does it make which one he’s executed for?”
Sister Addie whistled, a low quivering sound like wind vibrating the wires between Waco and Austin. “Now that’s a real interesting question to ponder. What answer did you come up with?”
“Well, I’m still just nibbling around the edges of it, but it has to do with lying. Now I lie all the time. You wouldn’t believe what a liar I am. I can’t seem to get through a single day without telling lies right and left. You should hear me: ‘Yes, that is an interesting idea for an article; thank you for sharing it with me. It’s nice to see you again. No, you aren’t bothering me. Why, I’d love to come to the Symphony Women’s Fashion Show, but I’m going to be out of town.’ ”
Sister Addie laughed, a good belly laugh that made Molly smile. “Oh, those social lies,” Addie said. “It sure is hard to live in the world without telling them.”
“Yeah. I justify them as politenesses, but I get so inured to them, I don’t even notice I’m lying, and before I know it, real lies creep in.”
“What are the real lies?” Addie asked.
Molly let out a long breath and felt a small shudder deep in her chest. “Well, in my work—in writing—you start your lies small, with presenting some minor thing as fact when it isn’t or fudging a quote slightly to make it better, or to make it fit better with the point you’re making. But then it grows into something worse, like stopping your research at the point where you’ve got lots to support your point of view, but before you get to the really messy opposing stuff. And then the next thing you know, along comes a big bad wolf of a lie”—she felt short of breath—“like the long extended lie I tell about Louie Bronk in my book.”
“That was a mistake on your part,” Addie said, her voice firm, “not an intentional lie.”