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  “So that she’s soooo surprised when she winds up in the kip with him?”

  Another shrug.

  “That his MO with you?”

  “MOs don’t work with me, Max. Just a good stiff dick.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The warden’s office at the state penitentiary on Durango Avenue overlooked the visitors’ parking lot. On the wall opposite the warden’s desk, there were monitors showing each cellblock, and in the death-row holding cell a ceiling camera recorded what promised to be the last hours of Percy Darrow’s life.

  “Who do you think designed the electric chair?” Charley Buckles said.

  “A matter of some dispute, Charley,” J.J. McClure said. “Thomas Alva Edison was in the running. A direct-current man. George Westinghouse favored alternating. AC and DC. Each trying to corner the electricity market. Capitalism at work. Edison juiced a horse to make the case for DC. A prison electrician wired up the actual piece of furniture. He used AC. A fellow named Kemmler was the first to sit in it. His girlfriend had run into the business end of his axe. He needed a couple of jolts, but it worked. The newspapers said he’d been Westinghoused.”

  “You been reading up, J.J.,” Charley Buckles said disapprovingly. Charley Buckles was the Osceola County medical examiner. And had been for as long as anyone could remember.

  “Observing the courtesies of the occasion, Charley.”

  “Edison thought it would only take four seconds. He got that one wrong. Took four minutes.” Edison’s fallibility seemed to please Charley Buckles. “Two thousand volts for the first four seconds in this state, a thousand volts for the next seven, then two hundred and eight volts for two minutes. Depending on body weight. Eight amps should take care of Percy.”

  “After which you take out your stethoscope and do the honors.”

  “They were never quite sure the hot squat would take care of business,” Charley Buckles said. His interest in the way people died was inexhaustible. “That’s why they mandated immediate autopsies. To finish the job, so to speak.” He laughed heavily and leaned toward J.J. Even when he whispered, his voice was like gravel. “I did the post on that Parlance fellow. The pathologist down there in Regent thought it was a little beyond his capabilities. He does mostly highway and hunting accidents. Farmers who get sliced and diced falling into combines they can’t afford that their widows end up handing over to the bank, the odd suicide swinging in the barn, that sort of thing, nothing of the homicide variety.” He paused. “Your dad ever have a homicide out there in Parker County?”

  J.J. shook his head. Charley, why bring up suicides in a barn? J.J. thought of his father and the old single-action Colt he had put in his mouth and triggered with his thumb in the tack room. It was as if his face had never existed. He wondered if swinging from a beam in the barn would have been easier to take. Would he have cut him down or waited for the sheriff?

  No, he would have left him up. Maintained the integrity of the crime scene.

  “Good man, Walter,” Charley Buckles said, nodding his head slowly, as if processing what he seemed to have momentarily forgotten, the way Walter McClure had died. He plunged on. “One thing I did not want to do was drive all the goddamn way down to Regent. I can hardly fit behind the wheel of my automobile anymore. I get the wheel pushing in my stomach and it makes me sleepy.” His eyes closed for a moment, and then he snapped awake. “Well, I thought I’d seen just about everything in the homicide line. I’d have to say those two young gentlemen did not like Parlance much. The skinning you know about. He was alive when they did it. Cut out his tongue so he couldn’t scream. Shot off his fingers, stomped his chest with their cowboy boots. He must’ve been some tough bird. It was the hollow-point that took him out for good.” He appraised J.J. “You ain’t going to do this one, are you?”

  Plead ignorance. “It’s up to the A.G.”

  “Fat chance,” Charley Buckles grunted. “He’s looking at a primary against your wife, she decides to run. The last thing he wants is you on a case that brings Jamaal Jefferson and the president of the You-nited States to Regent.”

  J.J. wondered how Charley Buckles, who spent all his working life with the recently dead, had such perfect pitch for the politics of his home state.

  “You know why I went into the pathology line after I finished medical school?”

  A Charley Buckles perennial. It was easier to pretend it was the first time he had heard it. And it moved him away from the Parlance trial. “Why, Charley?”

  “Because your mistakes can’t kill people,” Charley Buckles said, swallowing a tobacco laugh. “They’re already dead.”

  “Funny, Charley.”

  “J.J.,” Charley Buckles said. “One thing I always wondered. Why the initials? What’s the matter with James?”

  “My family called me Jamie,” J.J. said after a moment. There was something about Charley Buckles that invited unintended confidences. It might have been his ridiculous name. Or his medicine-ball shape.

  “I think I see the problem,” Charley Buckles said, clearing his throat, a sound like the rumble of thunder. His face was beet red, and his breathing came in quick spurts heavy with phlegm and nicotine. “People named Jamie don’t generally ask for the death penalty.”

  J.J. nodded. As if to himself, he said, “It’s a frivolous name.” A sudden sharp memory. Emmett called him Jamie even as he was drowning. Death was much on his mind this evening.

  “And riding the lightning is a most unfrivolous penalty,” Charley Buckles said, his words lost inside a wheezy laugh. Another change of direction. “Listen. I saw Poppy outside when I got here. Signing autographs, enjoying the hell out of herself.”

  “She says she’s representing the mother and father.”

  “They’re lucky they died, you ask me.”

  An unexpected take. “Lucky, Charley?”

  “Hell, J.J., they would’ve been in the victim business.” He hawked some phlegm and left it in the blue bandanna he used as a handkerchief. “Selling T-shirts. NO MERCY FOR PERCY or some such. It’s a funny goddamn kind of famous, waiting for somebody like Percy Darrow to die. If they was still alive, they’d wake up tomorrow, wishing he was still around, wondering what the hell they’re going to do with the rest of their lives. Nobody on the TV wanting to talk to them. No cameras. No notebooks. They’d end up missing that son of a bitch.”

  Charley Buckles still had the capacity to surprise.

  “That Poppy.” Charley Buckles had switched gears again. “I see her on that fat one’s show. Rosie something. And that blonde, what’s-her-name, married to the bald guy with no eyebrows, her show. She’s going to be on Nightline tonight, I hear.” Another snort. “That fellow Poppel will have his hands full with her.”

  “Koppel,” Harold Pugh said. “Not Poppel.” Harold Pugh had slipped back into his office, as always unnoticed, after yet another trip to ensure that the wiring attached to the electric chair would not short out when the governor’s office ordered the execution to proceed. Practice makes perfect, the warden had said. You can’t over prepare. Harold is a compendium of the obvious, J.J. thought. In the A.G.’s office, the warden, as elusive and recessive as a piece of ectoplasm, was known as The Shadow. That night’s scheduled execution was the biggest event in Harold Pugh’s twenty-five years of silent and uncomplaining service in the Department of Corrections. It was an effort for him not to show his resentment that Poppy McClure would be talking to Ted Koppel in the parking lot while he was attending to the needs of Percy Darrow’s last meal and waiting for the governor’s message that all appeals had been exhausted. “And the reason he’s here is because it’s the first execution in this state since 1959, not because . . .”

  Harold Pugh caught J.J.’s eye and left the sentence dangling. He had made his point. No reason to mention Poppy. It was he who would ask Percy Darrow if he had any last words, he who would order the switch pulled, he who would announce to the media that the sentence had been carried out and the will of the people obse
rved. But it would be Poppy McClure on Nightline, not he. He would not have occasion to tell Mr. Koppel about the two Big Macs, the six-pack of Pepsi, and the bag of jelly beans Percy Darrow had ordered for his last meal, or about his demeanor as he sat in the electric chair, a leather hood covering his head and face.

  “I bet Big Macs are the last meal of choice,” Charley Buckles said, his breathing still labored. “I mean, around the country.”

  “I didn’t think it would be sweetbreads,” J.J. said. Every time he was with Charley Buckles he felt like a straight man.

  “It could be a hell of an ad campaign,” Charley Buckles said. “You get Ronald McDonald. And he says, ‘To all my friends on death row, think McDonald’s.’ ”

  “I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Harold Pugh said.

  “Shit, what is?” Charley Buckles said. “Gordy Sunday had cheese steak.” Gordon Sunday was the last man executed in the state’s electric chair. “I was there. Representing the Osceola County coroner’s office. They called us coroners those days. A good word. Now it’s medical examiner. And even that’s too much for some people.” He wheezed a cough. “They say M.E.” He elongated the two letters: EMMMM EEEEE. “J.J., I want you to promise that when I die, my obituary says that I was the coroner in this county for forty-two years, not some damn M.E.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Charley.” His beeper rang. It was Gerry Wormwold’s callback number. The A.G. had wanted to attend Darrow’s execution himself, but his advisors had counseled that a potential gubernatorial candidate should keep himself aloof from the proceedings and use his office instead as a pulpit to accuse the anti-death-penalty protestors who had gathered outside of “cynically manipulating the system.” It was an attempt at even-handedness that his handlers thought might assist him in getting past his nickname. And so around the state at 4-H Club meetings and Rhino booster lunches, the A.G. did not miss an opportunity to toss in the phrase “cynically manipulating the system.”

  J.J. dialed Wormwold’s number.

  “J.J., what’s the delay?”

  “No delay, General. The governor hasn’t called yet.”

  “You think that Democrat son of a bitch Kennedy is stalling?”

  “I think he’s waiting for the Twelfth Circuit to finish writing its decision.”

  “They’ll turn it down, right?”

  “Unless hell freezes over. Then the governor’s office has to make sure copies get in the hands of all the involved parties.”

  “I know what has to be done,” Wormwold said irritably. He paused for a second. “I just got off the phone with Niland. Murray Lubin wants to deal.”

  I called that one right, J.J. thought. It was in the wind. “I’ll put together a package.”

  “Toledo does time.”

  “No problem.”

  “Heavy duty.”

  “A touch.”

  Wormwold hesitated. “Write it up and run it past me in the morning.” J.J. was sure the A.G. had little interest in the Toledo case. He had something else on his mind, and he was having trouble getting to it. “Your wife’s outside over there.” There it was. Poppy was getting airtime and he wasn’t. He and Harold Pugh should compare notes. “Talking to all those TV boys.” Wormwold paused as if wondering if he should continue. He plunged on. “I know she’s your wife, but . . .” His voice trailed off. He was not ready to come right out and say that Poppy was cynically manipulating the system. As of course she was. Better to leave it hanging.

  “I’m giving the Parlance case to Maurice Dodd,” the A.G. said disagreeably after waiting an unseemly number of seconds for a response. “You’ve got a full plate.”

  Surprise, surprise. “Maurice could use the exposure.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing at all, General.”

  “It’s a slam dunk.”

  “As long as he doesn’t bounce it off the rim,” J.J. said. Wormwold started to speak, then hung up without another word. Blowing a layup was always a possibility with Maurice Dodd. Maurice the Uncontaminated. Maurice the Incorruptible. Maurice the Inflexible. Harvey Niland with attitude. A more effective gauleiter than trial lawyer, J.J. had said more than once about Maurice Dodd. Among other things.

  Maurice Dodd was equally charitable about J.J.

  Poppy McClure’s husband, he would say.

  On the holding-cell monitor, J.J. watched Percy Darrow sitting on a bunk, wearing only Jockey shorts and a T-shirt. His head had been shaved, his legs, even his eyebrows and his pubic hair. It would give the wrong impression to the witnesses if his eyebrows or the hair around his testicles caught fire when the electricity jolted him. He had his hand inside his shorts, and seemed to be masturbating. Not something Jesus would do, but why not. One last spasm. Like the two loads he left on the James twins. J.J. had read the execution procedures Harold Pugh had written. Percy Darrow’s Big Macs would be laced with Dulcolax to ensure that he would evacuate his bowels before he was led the fifteen steps from the holding cell to the execution chamber. He would be given a clean white shirt and freshly laundered jeans, with both pant legs split up the side to make it easier to roll them up and attach the restraining straps. He would wear a rubber diaper because the first jolt of electricity would loosen his sphincter. Clockwork was what Harold Pugh was after, and to that end he and his guard commander had drilled the seven-man tie-down team as if they were Riverdancers. Thirty-five seconds from entry into the chamber until ready-to-go was Harold Pugh’s timetable. There was a right-leg man to do the right-leg strap, a left-leg man to do the left-leg strap, a right-arm man and a left-arm man to do the same with the upper limbs, a guard to stick a gag into Percy Darrow’s mouth, a guard to stick the leather hood over his head, and a guard to screw the head electrode with its circular sponge down on top of his skull. Three guards pushed outlet buttons, but only one of the buttons was connected to the electrical source, so as to keep the identity of the real executioner unknown.

  His cell phone rang. Poppy from the parking lot. Looking for electric-chair chat that would surely end up on Nightline. No way. He had asked her not to come to Durango Avenue, but asking her to avoid press coverage was like asking the sun not to rise.

  “Gas Station Gordy,” Charley Buckles suddenly said. He seemed to have been sleeping. Gordon Sunday was on his mind. Even more than Percy Darrow. The past was an infinitely more interesting place for Charley Buckles than the present. “That’s what they called him. First four people he shot ran convenience stores out on the Interstate. I swear, all by himself he shut down every gas station in the state. From the Big Muddy to the Wyoming line. Must’ve passed through Parker County. Walter ever mention it to you?” J.J. shook his head. “Probably before your time. Might’ve shot Walter, he stopped off there. Then I guess you wouldn’t be here, if he had.” A spittled laugh. “Funny the way things work out.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nobody dared get in their car. Your grandma died, they kept her on ice until it was safe to plant her. Gordy and that little bit of fluff he drove with. Sue something.” He searched his memory. “Sue Carol Hayes. Convenience-store Bonnie and Clydes was what they were. I mean, they shot eleven people in nine days. The only reason they got caught was because there was nobody on the highway, and they just run out of gas.”

  Another rumble of phlegm, some of which Charley Buckles caught in the palm of his right hand. He wiped it off on a trouser leg. “Sixteen months from the day he got caught to the day he got the juice. They knew how to do things those days. Of course Sue Carol said she was Gordy’s prisoner, she hardly knew him. No way he’d been porking her. She was a good girl. Shit. Cowboy Collins ever got into her, he wouldn’t have touched the sides.” Cowboy Collins was another South Midland luminary, the star of a thousand porno films, now retired to anonymity and cattle ranching somewhere in the state, the immense weapon that had serviced two generations of adult cinema actresses now only unholstered, it was claimed, for his male companion. “So anyway, I was there. July 1
4, 1959. They wanted to do the job right, so they set the generator so high Gordy sizzled like bacon in a pan. The room stank, a greasy smell like fatty pork when it catches fire in the oven, and those were the days when there were no air fresheners. My stethoscope sunk into him like he was a goddamn swamp.”

  Charley Buckles pulled the blue bandanna from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his face. “That smell of pork still upsets my stomach. You take care of that, Harold?”

  Harold Pugh ignored the question.

  Charley Buckles motioned J.J. to come closer. “I hear the Cowboy contributes to Poppy’s campaign,” he said confidentially.

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  It would have been political nitro for Poppy to accept a contribution from Cowboy Collins. But then, Charley was plugged in all over the state; he could’ve heard something.

  “You might have her check out if she got something from the Loomis Cattle Company.” Charley Buckles’s whisper was like a shout. “That’s the Cowboy. She might think about returning it if she did.”

  His face contorted into another explosive cough.

  “You okay, Charley?”

  “Just let me catch my breath.” He gulped air. It was a moment before his breathing evened out. “You going to indict Jocko Cannon?”

  “Privileged information, Charley.”

  “It’ll knock the shit out of that dance down in the Orange Bowl, you do. That big son of a bitch is a number one draft choice, he plays and the Rhinos win the national championship.” He pronounced it “champeen-ship.” “Three hundred pounds of mean. Those Rhino boosters will be all over the Worm’s ass he indicts Jocko. He must be squirming on that one. Those boosters can raise a lot of money.”

  For Poppy as well as Wormwold.

  “How big was that little girl anyway?”

  “What little girl?”

  “The little girl Jocko dragged down three flights of stairs by her hair.”

  “ ‘Allegedly’ dragged.”

  “If that’s the way you want it, J.J.” Another coughing fit. This time some of the spray landed on Harold Pugh’s desk. Harold Pugh jumped back, nearly falling from his chair, then examined his shirt with distaste, looking for residue.