David Dow - The Autobiography of an Execution

My interior rant apparently amused me. I smirked. Green said, What’s funny? I shook my head.

He said, So let’s get to it. My wife is waiting. I took a pad out of my briefcase and licked the eraser on my pencil. But I didn’t write anything down. There was no way I could forget what Green told me.

HE SAID, HENRY QUAKER didn’t kill no one. I asked him how he knew that. He said, I told that girl who works for you that Ruben did it. I just didn’t exactly tell her how I know it. I know he killed that family, ’cause I paid him to.

Green was not the first person to tell me he had gotten away with murder. I’ve had several clients over the years who, as their executions became imminent, made all sorts of exaggerated claims. Billy Vickers went to his death taking credit for at least a dozen murders. Henry Lee Lucas claimed hundreds. The inaptly named Angel Resendiz, known to law-enforcement officials as the railway killer, rode the train from Kentucky to Texas to California and back again, killing as many as fifteen people, he said. Were these inmates clearing their consciences or trying to be memorable? My vote was for option two. I said nothing. Green said, What? You don’t believe me? Go talk to Cantu. Tell him you know about the gun he left there.

He bit off a fingernail and said to me, Bring any change today, counselor?

Shit, I forgot again.

He spit the nail into his palm and looked at it. I said, You shouldn’t have told Destiny that I’m your lawyer. I can’t be your lawyer. There’s a conflict of interest.

He nodded, put the nail back on his tongue and moved it around in his mouth. He looked over my shoulder and nodded his head toward my left. I turned around, but there was nobody there. When I looked back at him, he was grinning.

He said, They taping this conversation? I told him they weren’t supposed to listen in on lawyers, but that they might be doing it anyway. He said, Uh-huh. I waited for him to go on. I wanted to look at my watch, but fought it off, like not scratching an itch.

I thought to myself, He could be playing with me. If he is, I want to say nothing and seem uninterested. Then I thought, Or he could be telling the truth. If he is, I need to say nothing and figure out what to ask him. So I sat there, head swimming, saying nothing.

He said, Cantu is a dumb fuck. He killed the wrong person.

His story was not incredible. I’m not saying I believed him. I’m just saying he had hooked me. According to Green, Cantu sold drugs for him and occasionally threatened people who owed Green money. Green said that Cantu had claimed to have killed two dealers who stole from him, but Green did not know their names or whether it was true. He said that a woman named Tricia Cummings had been selling Ecstasy for him in a mixed neighborhood of blacks and Chicanos. She had been stealing from him. He didn’t say how he knew that, and I didn’t ask. He paused, like the rest would be obvious to me. I said, And?

He said, So I paid Cantu to kill her.

Cantu killed the wrong person. Green realized it as soon as Cantu told him that he also had to kill two kids because they saw him after he had killed the woman. Green didn’t think Cummings had any kids and he knew she lived alone. He said he’d been to her house and slept with her, though he didn’t say it quite like that.

If Green was telling the truth, Dorris Quaker died because she lived exactly two blocks east of someone who had been stealing from Green, and her kids had died because they were there, too.

His story made just enough sense for me to believe it. He said, You don’t have to believe me. Ain’t you the big DNA expert? I bet Cantu’s DNA was all over the place.

I tried to think what evidence police had recovered that might have Cantu’s DNA on it. The police report said that Dorris had been lying down or asleep when she was shot. There was no evidence she had struggled with anyone. So Cantu’s skin wouldn’t be under her fingernails. And unless Cantu had been injured, he wouldn’t have left any blood. I doubted he pulled a beer out of the fridge when he was done, so I didn’t expect to find his saliva on a beer bottle. Green said, Plus, Cantu’s a talker. He probably told his old lady that he did it. I asked Green the name of Cantu’s girlfriend. He said, I don’t know, man. I don’t even know if he has a girl. I’m just saying that if he does, he probably told her.

This conversation was becoming worthless to me. Then Green said, He left a gun there, like he was gonna trick the cops into thinking the bitch killed herself. Dumb fuck didn’t leave the gun he used ’cause he said it was a good-luck charm. Left a piece he said was cold. What a dumb fuckin’ Mexican.

I could feel myself losing the battle to beat back my need to believe him. I modified my goal. Instead of aspiring to nonchalance, I’d settle for exterior serenity. I said, And why are you telling me this now?

His face flexed and his lips made an O , like a fish in a tank breathing at the surface. I thought to myself, Be still. I was aiming for blankness. I didn’t want Green to know what I was thinking before I knew myself. He said, What? You don’t believe me?

I said, Thanks for the help, Green. I’ll look into it.

He said, It’s ’cause I like Quaker. He’s next door to my house. I hear him reading words in there I don’t understand, like it ain’t even English. He might be going loco. His eye twitched into what I’m pretty sure was an involuntary wink. He said, You need me to sign something? I’ll sign it.

I told him I’d talk to his lawyer and get back to him. He said, Come on, man. You know I ain’t got that kind of time. I want you as my lawyer. My court-appointed lawyer’s a piece of shit. His face changed and he suddenly looked angry. He said, Fuck this, man. He looked over my shoulder. I turned around. Destiny had gone. He said, Tell the guard I’m ready to go back to my house. I told him that I would. He said, And don’t forget money next time.

WHEN I WAS in third grade, I stayed in the classroom to finish the book I was reading while everyone else lined up to go to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, I had to go. I asked Mrs. Pittman for permission, and she told me I should have gone when the rest of the class did. I told her it was an emergency. She said that maybe next time I would not insist on playing by my own rules. I sat down at my desk and relieved myself through my pants. Half an hour later, the principal came in to check on our class. She walked around the room, looking over our shoulders at whatever we were working on. She got to my desk, paused, and then went and whispered something to Mrs. Pittman. Mrs. Pittman grabbed me roughly by my elbow, and practically carried me to an empty desk next to Tommy Petite. He asked why I was there, and I told him there was something the matter with my chair. I looked back at my desk. There was a puddle of yellow under my seat.

That night after dinner I told my dad what had happened. He said, Sometimes it can be easy to confuse relief with revenge. Do you understand what I mean?

No, I don’t think so.

He said, You need to make sure before you do anything that you can live with the consequences.

I said, I get it.

Green stood up to wait for the guards. I saw a stain of wetness around his crotch. I shook my head. I was looking forward to telling Kassie.

IGOT UP TO STRETCH my legs and clear my head while the guards took Green out and brought Quaker in. The door to the unisex bathroom swung open and Destiny walked out. She waved to Green as the guards were taking him away, then walked over to me, suddenly friendly. She said, Do you think Zeke will get his stay?