The Reservoir (28 page)

Willie is kept waiting for nearly two hours outside the governor’s office. Important men come and go, and still he waits. He cannot remember sleeping at all last night, though he must have slept some for he remembers a dream of running to catch a train, his legs unable to coordinate into a dash.

Now a black man in a tailcoat tells him the governor is ready to see him. He enters a small office where a pretty young woman, her hair in a bun and her eyeglasses down her nose, is pecking away at a Remington typewriting machine, her fetching profile visible from the door. “You can go on in,” she tells him. Willie thanks her, and moves past her desk into another, larger office, where the governor sits behind a big mahogany desk in his shirtsleeves and tailored vest. He wears silver cuff links and has a gold watch chain that disappears into his vest pocket. The office is oak-paneled and furnished with three or four plush leather armchairs, shelves of neatly arranged books, a globe on a large brass stand, and a Confederate battle flag hanging above a sheathed dress sword, everything bespeaking order and respectability.

The governor stands and greets him warmly, shaking hands across the desk. Willie starts to give him a speech he’d rehearsed, but his lips keep quivering, and seeing this the governor tries to put him at his ease. “Have a seat, son,” he says. “Would you just look at that? Half a foot of snow in the first week of December.” Willie glances vaguely out the window and nods, the letter from his parents clutched in his hands.

“Son, I have the greatest respect for how you’ve stuck by your brother. You’ve shouldered this burden heroically. Did you have something you wanted to tell me?”

Willie blows his nose into his handkerchief and apologizes, smiling. “I didn’t think I’d be here begging for my brother’s—I didn’t think it would come to this, you see. He’s innocent, I know that, but I don’t know how I can make you see it. He was almost a stranger here. That’s why he can’t find anybody who remembers seeing him at the theater that night. It’s much easier to make a conjecture about where somebody was than to prove it, which he now finds himself having to do. And it should be the other way around—there is no proof he was at the reservoir, and no proof that my cousin was murdered there. Here is a letter from my parents. They beg you, and I beg you to … spare …” Willie swallows and tries to go on.

The governor takes the letter and smiles in a sad, not unkindly way. “Mr. Cluverius,” he says, “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. I’m looking into it, but you know I have a grave duty in this office. Three tribunals have pronounced your brother guilty. The most venerated jurisprudential body in the commonwealth has meticulously reviewed this case. Their learning and wisdom in these matters far surpasses mine. For me to overturn their ruling would require something extraordinary—some convincing new evidence, which so far has not come to light. I have great sympathy for your brother, you understand, and for your whole family, but I’m above all a servant of the commonwealth here.”

“Five jurors have changed their minds,” Willie says.

“I received their petition today,” Lee replies.

“And we have an affidavit coming from a gentleman who saw Tommie at the theater that night.”

Lee nods. “Mr. Crump informed me you might have something of that nature.”

“Yes, it’s a solid alibi.” Though Willie knows it is anything but—likely another derelict in need of money. “And you have Marcellus Gateweed’s retraction?”

“Yes, I do. It’s curious he would do that.”

“Yes, sir, people are rethinking this. I don’t believe the real culprit in this case has been revealed. It’s my opinion there’s a family member involved.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, sir, there is. I just don’t know how to get any evidence against him.”

“Mr. Cluverius, if there is any important new evidence, I’d be happy to consider it. I plan to review everything. I’m even going out to take a look at the reservoir.” But there is now a distance in the governor’s voice and demeanor, signaling that the meeting is over, and Willie leaves the capitol feeling that he has somehow failed his brother.

He begins walking along in a daze, and Tommie’s story comes flooding to mind—the letter, the hole in the wall, Poe, Reverend Jasper, the snow, the streetcar to the reservoir. How had he put it? A void whose dimensions were impossible to fathom. Such pretty language—Tommie was meant to be an orator … It all meshed together with the stories from the trial like a tongue and groove, but made something different.

The reservoir. That’s where he has to go, and without thinking he finds himself striding west out Main, then down toward a place he has tried to put out of his mind. The reservoir, and then to that house on Spring Street—Magdalen House. Did such a place even exist? And if it did not, what would he say to his brother? Would he tell him how much he himself misses Lillie, how he remembers stroking her hair and her face, and how soft and sweet she was?

When he gets there, it’s mid-afternoon, and a light snow has begun to fall, sifting through the trees and disappearing into the blanket already on the ground.
It was such a time as this
, Willie thinks, and he reaches for the handle on the tall wooden gate. The door opens and he walks in. The mound, its slopes rising higher than the cottages along the street, is quiet and white, and as Willie begins climbing the stairs, he can see them—Tommie and Lillie here that night, hand in hand as they ascend the embankment, Tommie leading the way. But it’s
Tommie
who has brought
her
here, not the other way around, Tommie whose idea this whole thing was. Tommie knew about the reservoir; why would Lillie want to come out here on a cold night to kill herself?

Willie can hardly catch his breath when he reaches the top. There’s a tall, stoop-shouldered man down the path, clearing snow with a shovel. He’s wearing no hat, and his ears protrude like wings from the side of his head. He looks up and lifts a hand in greeting, and Willie recognizes him as Mr. Lucas from the trial. Willie walks slowly along the cleared pathway, stopping a few feet from Lucas and turning to the reservoir as though admiring the view. It’s now a dark rectangle in a white frame, and farther out, way beyond a line of snowy trees, the river curves its way west.

Lucas nods hello. “Mighty nice out,” he says, chuckling. “And I don’t mean that for a joke. I like how it covers things up, makes everything clean and white. Just like brand new.” He leans on his shovel, glances at Willie as though he can’t quite place him. “But this one won’t last. They say warm weather’s a-coming.”

“That so?” Willie says. He leans and finds a pebble about the weight of a gold key. “Okay if I throw this?”

“It’s your water,” Lucas replies. Willie wings it out and watches it splash. He reaches for another pebble and turns, eyeing a spot well behind Lucas, trying to gauge how far it is from here to the corner of the outer fence. He’s sure he cannot throw it that far, but, then,
they
were farther along the path. What can he say to Lucas? “Do you think I could throw this over the fence?”

Lucas tilts his head, confused by the question. “I don’t know that Mr. Meade would approve of rock-throwing like this,” he says, hesitating. “Suppose somebody was on the other side of that fence?”

“What? In this weather?” Willie says. “There’s just graves over there.” He’s now walking along the uncleared path ahead of Lucas, because he is going to throw this one more stone and then he will leave and never come back. He finds a spot he judges to be about right. The corner boards have been replaced with new slats, but he knows the place. Right here. And he flings the rock out, hard, but not too hard, because she was a girl and was only trying to make a point. The rock disappears into the snow halfway to the fence. Not even close.

He goes back to Lucas. “Where did you find that key?” he demands. “Was it all the way at the fence?”

Lucas shakes his head slowly, staring into Willie’s eyes. “Who are you?” he says.

Willie tries to calm himself. He stares up into this strange man’s face as if the man has an answer that will make everything okay. But Lucas only looks wary and slightly annoyed. “It wasn’t really at the fence, was it?” Willie pleads. “It was out there somewhere, wasn’t it?” He points toward the middle of the snowy grounds. “It’s okay if it was. I won’t tell anybody, I swear to you I won’t.”

But Lucas has become a pillar of stone, leaning on his shovel, mute and impassive, his mouth open but unmoving, as flakes of snow dust his gray head and melt on his winged ears. Willie brushes past him. There is no answer. Lucas has forgotten, or maybe he lied about the whole thing from the beginning—finding that damned key, keeping it for his own private reasons, then turning it in. Of course he forgot. What difference does it make anyway?
What difference does it make?
And he can hear Evans as if he were right beside him:
It makes a great deal of difference, Willie
. But why do they want to kill him? Willie shakes his head to get the noise out, and he hurries down the steps as though flying from the reservoir.

• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE •

F
OR TWO DAYS
Tommie awaits the governor’s decision.

Life cannot be over, he thinks—if ever there was a case calling for executive clemency, this surely is it. Looking down the tunnel of years that awaits him if the governor chooses life in prison, Tommie can hardly bear it. Yet he dare not hope for under twenty years. Twenty years! He’d be forty-three years old, and starting out again with nothing—life would practically be over. But, of course, there would be a chance for parole. Everyone said he was the best-behaved prisoner they knew … But what should he reasonably hope for? Many were now calling for a life sentence, as though that were an act of mercy. After all, life in prison is at least life, with the chance of a pardon from a later governor. But surely Governor Lee would not be so hardhearted. Twenty, then, it would be twenty—just over a second-degree sentence, which would satisfy everyone.

He hears visitors. If it’s good news, it’ll be Willie.

There is Crump’s voice, speaking low, and Evans’s. Perhaps Willie was held up, has gone to tell Aunt Jane the news, or out to buy flowers. Tommie stands and paces in front of the window. The snow is turning into a muddy slush, and from the buildings in the lower part of town chimney smoke rises into a leaden sky. It’s too somber a day for the way he’s feeling, almost giddy with anticipation—today the burden will be lifted. The work is finally over; there’s nothing more to be done.

Crump enters first. Tommie decides to ignore the seriousness on his face and on Evans’s. “Where’s Willie?” he asks. “Shouldn’t he be here?” He can feel the wind being sucked out of him.

“He’ll be around later,” Crump says. “Tommie, I’m sorry. The petition was denied.”

“For a pardon?”

“And for a commutation.”

Tommie waits. There is always one more card to play, some word of encouragement or comfort. He himself has often been a step ahead of his own counsel. He takes the letter from Crump’s hand and his eyes swim across the page: “Gentlemen, I have had the honor of giving your statements, papers, and petitions about Thomas J. Cluverius careful consideration and attention … With the greatest sympathy for those upon whom this blow must fall, I now write to inform you that I have not been able to reach a decision different from that held by the courts …”

“So what does this mean?” he says.

Crump looks at Evans, then says, “I think the governor will probably grant you a reprieve. For a few weeks. It’s probably best if the request comes from your minister. I’ll see to it with Reverend Hatcher.”

Evans comes over and takes Tommie’s arm and guides him to a chair. Tommie suddenly feels himself sweating all over. His vision goes gray and spotted; he leans over to keep himself from fainting. And then as clear as day he can see his little brother going under the water, and he recognizes the vision from countless dreams—in the dreams it was himself as a little boy, but now it’s Charles, towheaded and round-cheeked, and he’s waving.

Tommie gets hold of himself and says, “Do you think he might change his mind?”

“No, I don’t,” says Crump.

Tommie nods. “All right, then,” he says quietly, yet there’s a bitterness of gall and ashes in his gut. He quickly composes himself and tells his counselors again how much he appreciates everything they’ve done for him. “Pray for me,” he says.

He cannot eat more than a few bites of his dinner that afternoon.

He sits at his desk and, with tears in his eyes, writes the governor the most servile letter he can:

Dear Governor Fitzhugh Lee,

I hereby humbly present to you my final petition, that you will in your mercy grant to me a respite of sixty days that I may have a suitable time to prepare for my inevitable end. This I solemnly feel is most important for me in my sad condition, all earthly hope being now cut off.

Your servant,

Thomas J. Cluverius

When Reverend Hatcher comes by, Tommie says he’ll feel more like talking after he has heard the governor’s response. Hatcher goes away, then returns within two hours with the news that the governor is giving him until January 14. Tommie thinks a moment, then brightens, and with a faint grin says, “Thirty-seven days. It’s less than sixty, but it’s the best news I’ve received in some time.”

He slumps to the edge of his cot and stares at his shoes; Hatcher takes a seat on one of the chairs. “It’s not so much for myself,” Tommie says. “I’ll be gone, but the others will take it hard. Willie and Aunt Jane and my parents—and to have to live with this stain the rest of their lives.”

“They’ll be forgiven.”

“I can’t help thinking that there’s still a chance. It’s a good sign, this reprieve—wouldn’t you agree?”

“Tommie, please, don’t keep putting your faith on getting out of prison. Now you have to look to God only—not to save you from death, but to redeem your soul for everlasting life. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

Hatcher smiles a little sheepishly. “Tommie, you just have to believe that in the end we’re none of us much different from the other. It’s all stripped away—the good and the bad—and we come away like newborns. At least, that’s what I think.”

“But you don’t know.”

“I feel that it’s true.” Hatcher places a hand over his heart. “But, no, I don’t know.”

Tommie looks away, then says, “I pray all the time, and I read my Bible. But I’m still here facing the gallows, so you can see I have doubts about whether God is listening.”

Hatcher goes to the window and looks out. “I’m going to ask you something a wise man once asked me,” he says. “Supposing this window were open and a man down in the yard yelled for you to jump and he would catch you. Would you jump?”

“Of course not.”

“No, but if it were Jesus, would you?”

“If I knew it was Jesus, I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t even ask why.”

“I wish I could help give you absolute trust in Jesus, Tommie. But I can only go with you a little ways. You have to make the leap yourself, over and over.”

When it appears that Tommie has no more to say, Hatcher stands, then hesitates. “I’ve struggled with something myself lately,” he says. “If you were to decide to make a confession, I would keep it a private matter for a long time. But eventually I might come to think that people had a right to know the truth. I tell you this, Tommie, because it would trouble me greatly knowing I’d deceived you in any way.”

“So you think I’m guilty of murder?”

Hatcher stands quietly, until the distant clanking-shut of a cell door breaks the silence. “No, I don’t,” he says.

Willie doesn’t arrive until that evening. To steel himself, he has stopped at a tavern on the way up, and his head is light, his tongue loose. Yes, he’ll comfort Tommie again, and go on doing it, but now he needs some answers.

A bulb-nosed guard named Dunn lets him in and he puts Tommie’s supper on the table, where his brother sits writing. “Mr. Evans told me,” Willie says.

Tommie nods, without looking around. “I’m writing a little book about my life and trial. Maybe you can sell it later and give the money to Aunt Jane?”

Willie waits until Tommie has scraped his chair around and is looking at him. “Mother has no recollection of any such letter from Hannah,” Willie says.

“Does that surprise you?” Tommie asks.

“I don’t know what to think, brother. I believe you told me the truth. I don’t think you could’ve invented all that in your head.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to do nothing but think.”

“Then what is the truth?” Willie demands.

“The truth is just like I told you.”

“Which time? The first time, about you not seeing her here atall? Or the second time, about her leading you up there and slipping? Or the third time, about you hitting her? Or is there another version you want to tell me now? Which is it, Tommie? Maybe now you want to say you never came to Richmond that day, or maybe you want to tell me somebody else killed her but you can’t prove it?”

“Nothing can hurt me anymore, Willie. I’m nearly a shade now. Look, can’t you see right through me to the wall? Can you read that verse behind me? ‘Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities—’ ”

“Shut up, Tommie.”

“ ‘—nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to separate us from the love—’ ”

“I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“Did you ever? Did you ever really know me, Willie? I don’t think you did. I don’t think I ever knew myself.”

Willie can see it’s no use trying to reason with his brother. He goes to the window and looks out toward the warehouses, between which he can make out the masts of schooners and a wedge of the river, glimmering in the low sun. “When you get home, you’ll be right back to normal.”

“When I get home, I’ll be in a box. Could you do me a favor and bury me out in the Tunstall plot, under the cedars beside Uncle Samuel? Can you see to that with Aunt Jane? I don’t fancy going into a church cemetery somehow—vandals might get to my grave.”

“There’s still hope, Tommie.”

“Yes,” Tommie says. “I’m sorry I haven’t been acting myself lately. I want you to do me a favor, though. When this is over, I want you to take a trip to Washington and New York and see the sights—the Capitol and the President’s House and all that. Would you do that for me?”

Willie nods.

“What I’ll miss the most,” Tommie says, “is the beauty all around. When you’re out there trying to make your mark on the world, don’t ever forget how beautiful it already is.”

“I won’t.” Willie watches a late-arriving ship, its sails lit by the sun, just before they’re furled.

“If I could do one thing different,” Tommie goes on, “it would be to love a little more. Willie, you can’t undo the wrong you did. You can only do other good things. I wish I could explain that. Everybody ends up paying with their life for what they did wrong.”

Willie nods, his lips pressed together.

“Ma’s been writing me all along.” Tommie shows Willie a bundle of letters. “And she said a curious thing. She said, ‘I didn’t come to love your father for a long time. Some people don’t learn to love right off.’ ” He looks at his brother for a response.

“You were always her favorite. She likes telling you things.” The visiting hour is nearly over, yet how little time remains to spend with his brother. He has put so much of himself into saving Tommie that he hasn’t given much thought to the real possibility of losing him. Eternity is not something he thinks much about, nor heaven either for that matter. But he feels an invisible force pulling them farther and farther apart, like roots plucked from the ground—and his brother, sitting there opposite him, may soon be nothing but a lifeless body. He is so startled by the idea that he has to get up, and, ashamed of himself, tell Tommie that he has to go now.