his execution would serve all of the people of Louisiana, even those who oppose executions.”
Winter saw the same confusion he was feeling reflected in Manseur's eyes.
“All due respect, Detective Manseur,” the CSI tech protested, “you can walk up the hill to the first news truck and ask them. I mean, there's news coverage on every channel. Caption said it was live from the Fairmont. They had some kind of fund-raiser there. I know one of the patrolmen on the bodyguard detail at the hotel.”
“The governor's staying at the Fairmont?” Winter asked. And when the perplexed tech nodded, Winter ran.
Manseur was close behind, the sight of the detective serving to get them past the cops on the ramp. From far behind Winter heard the tech yelp, “Hey! My tape!”
Winter arrived at the WWL van ahead of Manseur. On one of the monitors he saw the reporter standing outside the prison interviewing a woman under a KILL
POND SCUM banner. A clock beside the monitor was counting the minutes down to the execution. 19:52, 19:51, 19:50…
“What the hell is happening?” Winter demanded when Manseur reached him.
“I talked to Hurt, and he said he would… He didn't do it. Maybe they're just waiting for me to…”
“We've got to make sure,” Winter said, looking down at the tape in his hand.
“George!” Manseur yelled at a police sergeant, who was standing outside a cruiser, watching over the cops who were holding twenty reporters and a crowd of the curious back from the ferry ramp. “We're taking your car!” Nicky was limping toward them.
“We gotta run,” Winter yelled.
“Go!” a limping Nicky yelled, waving them off. “I'll see you at the hotel later.”
100
Manseur and Winter erupted from the elevator into the hallway where the governor's suite and his staff's rooms were located. Badges out, they met the uniformed highway patrolmen, who had been alerted that the pair were on the way up. The patrolmen pointed them to a set of double doors set in an ornate facade at the end of the carpeted corridor.
As they approached, Parker Hurt opened the right-side door, allowing Winter and Manseur into the foyer. The governor's executive assistant were a red V-neck sweater over a starched white shirt, stiffly pressed khakis, and shiny black loafers with tassels. He looked like a college fraternity rush chairman.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked.
“Why does the press think the Pond execution is still on?” Manseur blurted out.
“Why do you think it wouldn't be?” Hurt replied easily.
“Because you said the governor would call it off,” Manseur snapped. “Hours ago.”
“I said I'd tell the governor what you told me to tell him,” Hurt replied. “I never said he would do what you wanted. Did I? That was before I spoke to Captain Suggs, your superior.”
“You talked to-”
“And he told me all about your-”
Winter seized Parker Hurt by his cashmere sweater, ending the need for Manseur's words and erasing Hurt's smirk. He had stood around far too long already talking to someone who wasn't the governor.
“We'll talk to the governor now,” Winter snarled as he shoved the governor's executive assistant backward, throwing open the door into the suite using Hurt's narrow back as a battering ram. Four men in their shirtsleeves sat around a felt-covered table playing poker.
One of the men, a bodyguard, reached to his shoulder holster, but Governor Lucas Morton grabbed his arm to stop him.
A reporter, who had the illuminated ferry in the background, was showing on the large-screen TV on the wall.
“What in God's name is the meaning of this, Detective?” the governor asked, setting his cards facedown on the felt before standing. He waved his hand in the air, signaling the other three men to remain seated.
“Governor, my name is Winter Massey. I'm a United States Deputy Marshal. You know who Faith Ann Porter is?”
“Of course I do.”
Quickly, Winter told the governor about Pond's frame, about what had happened over the past two days. He was careful to hit all of the important points. Manseur nodded, didn't interrupt. When Winter finished, Morton stared at him for long seconds, thinking.
Finally he spoke. “Let me see if I have all this. Jerry Bennett, who is a respected businessman and a friend and political supporter of mine, killed Judge and Beth Williams? Harvey Suggs, a decorated member of NOPD, fabricated Pond's case out of whole cloth? That alone is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard.
“And you say Jerry Bennett then sent a professional killer to murder Attorney Porter and this Lee woman-his mistress? Because she had in her possession photographic evidence that he murdered the Williamses. The child had the negatives and that tape, but not the pictures.”
“The killer got those back. Faith Ann said he didn't ask about negatives. He probably didn't even know she had them.”
“And tonight Commander Suggs sent two detectives to kill Detective Manseur here and two professional killers to the ferry to kill you and the Porter child. And both of those killers are dead, the detectives under arrest.”
“Yes,” Winter said.
“There are warrants out now for Bennett and Suggs,” Manseur said.
“The ferry incident, all that gunplay, that was you two?”
“You have to stop the execution,” Winter said. The time on the screen was now ten minutes to go.
“Bennett sent the killer to Kimberly Porter's office, which is on your audiotape,” Morton said. “Marshal, if you had the pictures Faith Ann claimed to have, I would stop the execution this minute. That phone is connected directly to the death house.” He looked the screen. “I've got just enough time.”
“I only have the tape,” Winter said, holding it out. “Faith Ann had the pictures and the negatives on her when she went in the river.”
“So you said.”
Winter said, “You can check me out by calling the A.G.”
“Marshal, I don't have to call anybody to know who you are. Your reputation for leaving a veritable rooster tail of death and havoc in your wake is well-enough known hereabouts. Even if there are voices on that audiotape saying that Jerry Bennett sent a hired killer to Kimberly Porter's office, it doesn't prove who killed Judge Williams and his wife, unless Bennett himself confessed to it on the tape. You say Bennett's hired killers are dead. So who can prove the voice on this tape is this dead hit man? Or that he isn't lying when he says Jerry Bennett sent him? Or is it Ms. Lee or Ms. Porter who says that?”
“Faith Ann saw him commit the murders,” Manseur insisted. “She was hiding under a table.”
“She can't testify from the grave,” Hurt said.
“I was a prosecutor for twenty-two years,” the governor told them. “Emotion and hearsay aside-you have nothing but a wild tale.”
“Stop the execution,” Winter urged, feeling more desperate by the second. “Pond is innocent. Suggs will talk, and when he does, he'll implicate Bennett in the Williams murders. So will Tinnerino and Doyle.”
Manseur said, “I'll get Bennett and Suggs.”
Morton studied Winter's face. Then he said, “I prosecuted Horace Pond, and I know the evidence better than anybody. You haven't given me a scrap of proof that Pond is innocent. If Jerry sent a killer to Porter's office, it will take more than a recording of questionable authenticity to make me short-circuit a lawful execution. Only the child could have testified that the tape was authentic. Even if she was here with this tape now and I knew she had maintained the chain of custody, anybody who watches Judge Judy could keep it from ever seeing a courtroom. What is the sound quality? Who says what? How are the people identified?”
