David Ellis - Breach of Trust

No-he wanted a particular opinion. He wanted me to come to the same conclusion as his political advisers. He wanted to be able to tell himself that he was doing the right thing tonight by letting Antwain Otis die.

“Tell me what you would do,” he said.

I wouldn’t want to be him, I knew that much. My principal objection, prior to tonight, had been the lack of due diligence on the governor’s part. He hadn’t been paying any attention to Antwain Otis, and that, itself, was criminal in my mind. I’d focused on that objection to the exclusion of actually formulating an opinion myself. Now, here it was, and I had to concede it wasn’t easy having to make this decision.

But I knew this much: Carlton Snow still had a chance to pass my internal test. I’d been unsure whether he was a clueless leader or one who simply preferred to remain clueless to the crimes going on around him, who buried his head in the sand.

Now, I realized, there was another possibility: He might be someone who never had anyone whispering the right things in his ear. He had political animals around him. Everyone had more or less the same viewpoint; they might disagree about the political angle but it was always the political angle that mattered. He didn’t have a voice of conscience. Maybe if he did-maybe there was something more to this guy.

“That minister who talked to us?” I said. “Remember what he said he preaches to the inmates? ‘Don’t look backward,’ he said. ‘Look forward. Make tomorrow a better day.’ ”

“Right, right.” He pointed at me.

“Do you think tomorrow’s a better day with Antwain Otis dead or alive?”

He watched me for a long time. I broke eye contact only to note that we were inside an hour before the execution.

“If I do what a majority of the people in this state want me to do,” he said, “I don’t touch that phone. Now, what’s wrong with doing what the majority wants?”

“Because the majority wants you to exercise your judgment, not follow their lead like some permanent town hall meeting. You’re supposed to make the tough call.”

“I see.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Even if that tough call is against their wishes.”

“That’s why it’s tough.”

“Even if it fucks me in the election.”

“Right again.”

“You can’t be a good governor unless you’re gov-”

“Oh, Governor, spare me that, okay? I mean, what the hell’s the point of being governor if you can’t be a good one? To do the right thing as much as you can, as often as you can?”

He watched me, tolerating me like he might a child. “You’d commute the sentence.”

“Yes,” I said, “I would. Keep him in prison forever but let him make the world a slightly better place.”

I exhaled. I’d tried to keep an open mind on this issue. I’d really been more concerned with the governor making the decision for the right reason than with any particular outcome. I’d surprised myself with the abrupt answer and with how strongly I held the sentiment, once iterated.

The governor opened his hands. “I just can’t do that, son. I just can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

He gave me a grim smile. “You’re right. I won’t do that.”

I felt the air go out of the room. There was nothing really left to say. I hadn’t given the governor what he’d wanted-validation, reassurance-but it wasn’t going to change his mind. It never was.

He looked at his watch. “I thought I wanted some company, but I’m not sure I do.”

Right. He didn’t want my disapproving eyes boring into him as the hour struck midnight and the venom seeped into the veins of Antwain Otis, strapped to a gurney.

I got up and straightened my suit coat, the F-Bird resting heavy in the inner pocket. I thanked him and walked to the door.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” he said.

I stopped on my way back and turned to him. Antwain Otis aside, he’d probably said enough tonight about Judge Ippolito to buy himself an arrest warrant tomorrow.

“I’m sorry, too,” I said.

I stopped at the hotel bar in the lobby for a drink. I wasn’t in a tremendous hurry to get back. Tucker and Moody would devour the contents of this F-Bird like it was their last meal, which in some sense of the word it was. They’d want to debrief me, and now that my job was all but completed, they might even want me to review the application for the arrest warrants, given that much of the information contained in it had been supplied by me. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t eager for a long night. I wanted to escape. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

The dirty martini was too dirty, too salty, but I drank it fast and then ordered a shot of whiskey, hot and bitter down my raw throat, which somehow felt more appropriate.

I walked from the Ritz toward the federal building. It wasn’t all that cold out tonight, but there must have been rain, a damp musky odor on the emptying city streets. The fresh air helped.

“I’m done,” I said into the cell phone to Lee Tucker.

“And? How did we do?”

“See you in ten minutes,” I said.

I passed a couple arm in arm, drunk and amorous. I passed a homeless guy sitting against the wall of a building and handed him a crumpled five from my pocket. He made some noise, but I couldn’t make out words. So much suffering in the world. So few people-including me-who did anything to help. That was what these guys were supposed to be doing, the governor and his crew. They were supposed to be helping the rest of us. Trying, at least. Giving us their honest best.

I gave Carlton Snow a chance tonight. I gave him a chance to show me that he could be the right kind of governor, that if pushed in the right direction he could take that path. He didn’t take it. Maybe his ultimate decision was right. Plenty of people would believe that Antwain Otis’s death sentence was just. Good people. Well-intentioned people. But deep down, Carlton Snow wanted to give Otis a reprieve, and he denied it anyway. No matter the correctness of his decision, he did it for the wrong reasons.

I walked along the bridge over the river that divided the commercial district from the near north side, which put me about three blocks south of the federal building. I didn’t walk on the concrete pedestrian walkway but on the bridge surface itself, a grid design, a checkerboard of steel. I remember walking on this bridge as a kid with my father. My dad said the grid design was to prevent skidding. I didn’t know if that was true, but I remembered getting on my hands and knees and poking my fingers through the diamond-shaped holes made by the grid and looking through the bridge down to the river itself.

I stopped on the bridge, hopped up on to the concrete walkway, and leaned over the railing, watching the misty fog that covered the river. I’d done the principal thing that brought me into this mess. I could always say that much. I found Ernesto’s killer. In the process I’d played a role I never thought I would play, a snitch, a rat for the government. I suppose it was fair to say that I had performed a valuable service, but it didn’t feel that way.

When I checked my watch, it was three minutes after midnight. It didn’t matter anymore. I pushed off the railing and headed over the river.

My cell phone buzzed. I couldn’t imagine being in the mood to talk to anyone, but I checked the phone. It was Madison Koehler. I had nothing to say to her but I answered, anyway.

“Hi, Madison.”

“What the hell did you do?”

I sighed. I’d eaten a lot of shit from her for the greater good, but I’d hit my limit.

“I don’t know, Madison, what did I do now?”

“You tell me,” she said. “Please explain to me why the governor just halted the execution.”