Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“You don’t have to keep on lying,” said Spencer. “Let’s just call a press conference and tell what really happened.”

For one moment something flickered in the prisoner’s eyes. He took a deep breath. “Have you got any new evidence? DNA?”

“No. All the physical evidence is gone. All we have is crime scene photos and witness interviews, but they haven’t changed since the trial.”

“And what about Tom and Ewell? Will they back you up?”

Spencer looked away. “No. I called them last night. Ewell swears he’s innocent, and Tom hung up on me. You’re on your own.”

“So it would just be my word and your hunch against a twenty-year-old murder conviction that has withstood decades of appeals?”

“Yes.”

Fate Harkryder shook his head with amused disbelief. “So you call your press conference and announce all this, and then what, Mr. Arrowood? You and me go out for a few beers? It won’t work like that. Nobody will pay us any mind. My death is news, not my legal arguments. Stanton will shout us down. The journalists will assume it’s a stunt of some kind. People will think I’m a coward, and they’ll sure as hell wonder what your problem is.” The spark in his eyes was gone. He looked away again, barely interested in the conversation anymore, barely listening.

“But you have to try,” said the sheriff. “You can’t let yourself be executed for a crime just to protect your brothers.”

“It isn’t about them anymore. Don’t you see that? It doesn’t matter why I came here, or whether I deserved it. Twenty years are gone. Who I was is gone. All that’s left is a tired old man who doesn’t want to be in here another day.”

“But we could get you a good lawyer and ask for a pardon.”

“I wouldn’t get one. I’m a poor, dumb hillbilly, Sheriff. Why should anybody bother to keep me alive? They’d just change the sentence to life and let me stay in here and rot. I had the jewelry on me, remember? I’m not just an innocent bystander. Charles Stanton is never going to let anyone forget that.”

“At least you wouldn’t die.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I’ve been dead for twenty years. I just want to get out of here and be done with it. Tonight.”

“In a pine box?”

“Whatever.”

“Well, if you won’t try, at least I can. I don’t want you on my conscience. I have seven hours. I can go and see the governor-”

Fate Harkryder shook his head. “I want it to be over, Sheriff. It’s too late. I’m tired of this life. Just let it happen, will you? Consider this a dying man’s last wish. Just let it happen .”

“But-”

Fate Harkryder tapped on the bars. “Visitor’s leaving!” He called out to the guard. In a loud, cheerful voice meant to be overheard, he said, “Thanks for coming by, Sheriff. Wish me luck tonight, okay?”

Spencer Arrowood turned to go.

“Mr. Arrowood! There is something you can do for me.” Fate Harkryder flashed his mocking smile, but his eyes shone. “I got nobody else to ask. But it’s my last wish, and I hope you’ll oblige me.”

“What is it?”

“When it’s over, I want you to take me home.”

SPENCER ARROWOOD left the prison a little after three in the afternoon. He had talked to the warden about the final arrangements in case a stay of execution did not come through. There was paperwork to sign, but it didn’t take long. Now he had six hours to kill-an idle afternoon for him, but for Fate Harkryder all the time in the world. He could still contact the newspaper or a local television station to reveal his theory about the murders, but he knew that he would accomplish nothing with such theatrics except to brand himself as a crackpot who balked at seeing a man executed. If he made any allegations about the Trail Murders, Charles Stanton would be asked to comment on them, of course, and Spencer had no doubt that the colonel would shred him with a few regretful, carefully chosen words. Stanton would not be cheated out of his long-awaited execution.

He could hear the colonel’s snide voice now. A few days ago, the sheriff was willing to believe that a recent homicide was committed by this mysterious killer. Now he wants to free a legally convicted man on the basis of this mythical evidence. I have every concern for the sheriff, who is a man injured in the line of duty, but I think the people of Wake County should ask themselves if he is still fit for the duties of his office.

No, he couldn’t fight Stanton, the master of the press conference. If Fate Harkryder had wanted him to oppose the execution, he would have tried, but he couldn’t fight both sides at once.

Spencer knew that he could expect no corroboration from the prisoner himself. Fate Harkryder had made it clear that he would say nothing on his own behalf, and he was right: a statement from a convicted killer would make no difference to the authorities. Even if the death penalty were set aside, Harkryder would not go free. He might not be a murderer, but he was not blameless. At best, he was an accessory after the fact, and Stanton would see to it that he never left Riverbend. If bringing the real killers to justice would have won him his freedom, he might have done it, but it wouldn’t-so, what was the point?

When Spencer reached the prison parking lot, television mobile units were already setting up their equipment in preparation for their coverage of the execution. The governor’s speech was probably already written, with neatly laser-printed copies in distribution to all the media people. Spencer could feel the tension in the prison, and the controlled excitement among the scrambling technicians in the parking lot. It’s going to happen, he thought. It has been gathering momentum for a long time, and nothing can stop it now. Not even the truth. The truth will be what they broadcast from this parking lot, not what happened on the mountain twenty years ago.

Knowing is one thing; changing is another. Nora Bonesteel was right about that.

He drove out of Cockrill Bend, right on Centennial, right on Briley Parkway, over I-40, and along White Bridge Road. He slowed down at Nashville Tech, thinking for one confused moment that he had reached another prison, but then he realized that it was a college. The prisons were all in his mind.

He saw a billboard for Opryland. Emblazoned across a picture of the amusement park’s roller coaster were the wordsRIDE THE HANGMAN! Spencer looked away. The hangman. Death had even staked out the billboards.

Spencer had intended to drive around Nashville for a while, but the humid, stale air of the flatlands oppressed him, and when he saw the entrance to the Lion’s Head Mall on White Bridge Road, he turned in to the parking lot, finding a parking space near the theater. The movies were as good a place as any to kill the rest of the day. There was nothing he wanted to see, but at least the building was air-conditioned, and no one would expect him to make conversation. In the cool darkness of the theater, the sheriff stared up at the screen, registering color and noises, but afterward he could not say what film it was that he had seen. A comedy of some sort, he thought, or an action-adventure movie aimed at teenage boys. The screen could not compete with his own thoughts. He kept running the possibilities through his mind as if they were alternate moves in a chess game. If I did this, then the governor would say that… He could devise no scenario that would give him so much as a stalemate. Every hypothesis ended with the death of Fate Harkryder. Spencer began to wonder why he cared so much, in defiance even of the condemned man’s own intentions. Was it the condemned man who concerned him, or was he indulging his own desire to be blameless?