Warren Murphy: Death Sentence

"Looks like I get to finish what was interrupted yesterday," he said. "Now, strip."

This time Remo didn't hesitate. If he resisted normal previsitation procedure, he would be denied all visitation rights and not see his lawyer. And if Pepone wrote up a report on him, he'd end up in solitary and probably never see his lawyer.

Remo wanted to see his lawyer. And so quietly he removed his apricot T-shirt and dungarees.

"Now drop your drawers, spread your cheeks, and crack a smile," Pepone said.

Remo hesitated. Some spark flickered in his stillgroggy mind. He looked Pepone straight in the eye and said, "I'm not carrying any contraband. Take my word for it."

Pepone's broad face darkened. "Think about it, Williams. It's just you and me in this cage. No way out. "

"For either of us," Remo said, putting cold meaning into the pronoun.

"You know the rules of this facility."

"And you know my reputation," Remo countered. Pepone stiffened. He looked around. There were no other guards nearby.

"Okay," he said dully. "Dress."

Remo dressed quickly, and only then was he led into one of the conference rooms.

There was only one other person in the room, a curly-haired young man who sat nervously on one side of the glass-partitioned conference cubicle. Remo strode up to the cubicle and took the seat. He fixed the man with his deep eyes. "You're not my lawyer," he said suspiciously.

"I'm local. Mr. Brooks asked me to manage your appeal through the Florida court system, now that you're under their jurisdiction. My name is George Proctor. "

"I didn't hire you. I hired Brooks," Remo said flatly.

"In all fairness to Mr. Brooks, he doesn't know his way around the Florida courts. I do. And you can't expect him to fly down here every time your appeal goes before a judge, can you?"

Remo said nothing. He didn't know this man. He looked fresh out of Tulane. Worse, he looked nervous. And nervous men usually don't have the presence of mind to do the right thing in a crunch.

"Are we clear on this, Mr. Williams?" Attorney Barry Proctor was saying.

"Where do I stand?" Remo asked at last.

Proctor took a sheaf of legal briefs out of his flat leather valise and looked them over. It seemed to Remo as if he were looking at them for the first time. Another bad sign.

"Florida isn't New Jersey, Mr. Williams," Proctor said at last. "We have the largest death row in the country, and space is at a premium. They process people through the system as fast as they can."

"They execute them, you mean."

"Er, yes. That's what I mean. Because we're in a new state and a fresh legal system, I thought we'd start from scratch."

"The last I heard, my case would be appealed to the Supreme Court," Remo offered.

"Frankly, Mr. Williams, according to Brooks, he's been carrying you these last few years. Your life savings have been exhausted. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm willing to go through the appeals court in Miami on the grounds that having been transferred against your will to another state, you're entitled to at second bite of the judicial apple.

"I'm innocent," Remo said.

"The New Jersey authorities claim you killed one of their corrections officers."

Remo paused. His eyes went blank. It was starting to come back. The constant hassling. The whispered threats. And the fight in the cell. He saw the hack's weather-beaten face go shocked as the blade dug into his guts. "He was riding me," Remo said. "He wouldn't get off my back. It was either him or me."

"Then you admit to killing him."

"Remo sighed. "Yeah," he said in a defeated voice. "I did the guard. But not the pusher in the alley. I was framed for that one." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Remo realized what he sounded like.

He sounded exactly like every other whiny con on the row.

"You know what I think?" Proctor was saying. "I think New Jersey dumped you on Florida to save themselves the cost of a new trial for that killing. They knew you would never be executed up there, no matter how many guards you killed. But in Florida you have an excellent chance of going to the chair within the next five years."

"Can they do that? Legally, I mean."

"It's highly unusual," Proctor admitted. "Frankly, I think the fix is in on you."

"They're trying to railroad me," Remo said bitterly. But his eyes were bleak. It was starting to sink in. After all these years, he might actually pay for a crime he never committed because of another killing that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been wrongly imprisoned.

Proctor shoved the papers back into his valise. "I'll do what I can," he said, starting to offer his hand in a farewell shake. His manicured fingernails tapped the glass partition and he withdrew the hand sheepishly.

Proctor stood up and signaled to the guard. A C.O. took Remo away, again calling, "Clear the hall! Dead Man coming through!" over and over until Remo began to feel very cold inside.

Half the cells on death row were empty as Remo made his way through the endless succession of control doors to his cell. He had missed his shower. And for the first time, he realized the significance of the black door which sealed off the corridor two cells down from his own cell. Beyond it was the electric chair.

Remo felt drained after the cell door buzzed closed and the guard had departed.

He paced the cell, feeling the craving for a cigarette return. But he remembered his last experience. What was wrong with him? he wondered. He was acting like a fish-a man new to prison. It must have been the sudden change in environment, he decided. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his old cell. They must have sedated him while he slept. Waking up in a new prison had been quite a shock. He was still struggling with it.

Later, all along death row, cells buzzed open as those who had the luxury of showers returned to their cells. Popcorn was the last. He shot Remo the V-for-victory sign as he passed the cell. But the gesture was made ironic by the hunted look deep in his dark eyes.

After the guards were gone, Popcorn asked, "What's the good word, my man?"

"Saw my lawyer," Remo said in a remote voice.

"I hope you got better news than I did."

"He told me I have an excellent chance of getting fried in the next five years."

"Five!" Popcorn guffawed. "Hell, man, he was jivin' you! You're next after me."

Remo stopped pacing like a man who had been impaled by an icy thought. He drifted up to the cinder-block wall that separated him from Popcorn's cell. Cell Number 1.

"Bullshit," Remo said hotly. But his voice was anxious.

"Man, you know I'm next. That's why they got me in the cell next door from ol' Sparky. You got the next cell up. What that tell you?"

"I can't be ahead of everyone else on the row," Remo said. "I just got here."

"Oh, yes, you can," Popcorn returned. "You done killed a hack. None of them others got that distinction in their jacket. Truth to tell, my man, you got Ted Bundy's old cell. Now, you think about that a spell."

Remo sat on his cot heavily. The color drained from his face like water down a porcelain sink. After a while he asked a dull-voiced question. "Who's Ted Bundy?"

"Shee-it!" Popcorn said in disgust. "Where you been livin'? In a cave?"

Chapter 7

That night, beef and rice were served for dinner. The beef was gray and Remo decided to pass it up. Although he wanted to keep up his strength, he had no taste for meat. He wondered if it was because of the bad news he had received.

But he ate all the rice and wanted-more. He found a single grain clinging to the side of his plastic tray and he greedily took it in his mouth, holding it there, tasting its pristine starchy purity, until slowly, reluctantly, he chewed it to a liquid and swallowed the taste.