Final Appeal

I feel a catch in my throat. I can’t say anything. I think of Sam, Armen, then my father. I need Ricki, fast.

Eletha folds her arms. “And I always thought you were so smart. Fancy degrees and all.”

“You just assumed wrong,” I say to her, and she laughs.

The marshals’ smelly gym is empty; it’s midafternoon. Against the wall is a huge mirror and racks of chrome free weights. A treadmill stands at the end behind some steppers. On the far wall hangs a poster of Christie Brinkley and beside it one of the electric chair. At the bottom it says: JUSTICE—FRIED OR EXTRA CRISPY? I kid you not.

“How can they have that there?” I ask Artie, who’s flat on his back, pumping a barbell up and down over his chest.

“Have what?”

“That poster.” I point, and his eyes follow my finger.

“Christie? She’s a babe. An old babe, like you.”

“The other one, whiz.”

He hoists the barbell up and down, exhaling like a whale through a blowhole. “I never noticed it. They let me work out here, Grace, I don’t give a shit about the artwork. Which rep am I on?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a lousy spotter.” He presses the barbell into the air.

I can’t take my eyes from the poster. The newspaper said that Hightower’s last meal was steak and an ice cream sundae. He ate the dessert first. After dinner he played Battleship with his guard, and the guard won. “Artie, if you were playing Battleship with a man who was condemned to death, wouldn’t you let him win?”

“What?” The barbell rises and falls.

“Wouldn’t you let him win? I mean, the man’s going to die.”

“I don’t know, would you?” He grunts with effort, his bangs damp from sweat.

“Of course. I let Maddie win all the time. What’s the difference? It’s a game.”

“Games matter, Grace.”

“Excuse me, I forgot who I was talking to.” I look back at the poster. The witnesses at Hightower’s execution said he shook his head back and forth as the lethal chemicals flowed into his veins. His feet trembled and his fingers twitched for about three minutes, and then it was over. Final, unknowable, and beyond this world. “Artie, what do you think about the death penalty?”

“What is this, menopause? Hot flashes and questions?”

“Come on. Tell me what you think.”

“I don’t think about the death penalty.”

“But if you had to say, how do you come out?”

He presses the barbell all the way up to a hook on a rack behind him, where it falls with a resounding clang. “It’s no biggie.” His arms flop over the sides of the bench.

“I thought you were against it.”

“That was when I was fucking Sarah. Now that she’s fucked me, it’s just fine.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He pushes his wet hair away from his forehead. “Yes, I do.”

“But think about the act. The actual act of killing someone.”

“I could do it, if he deserved it.”

“My, we’re in a macho mood.”

“You started it. This isn’t why I asked you to meet me in my branch office.”

I laugh. He has been spending a lot of time here, I gather because he’s out of work and avoiding Sarah. “All right. What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to tell you I was sorry about the other night. I drank too much. I wasn’t making any sense.”

“It’s okay. I understand why it happened.” Drowning your sorrows. I’ve done it exactly once.

“Thanks, Mom.” He rubs his chest, and sweat soaks through his thin T-shirt. I remember the basketball underneath.

“You still got that tattoo?”

“Until I find a blowtorch.” He sits up, straddling the bench, then sighs heavily. “Lifting sucks. I miss hoops.”

“You’re not playing anymore?”

“Nah. The team broke up.” He wipes his forehead with the edge of his T-shirt. “You know, before Sarah dumped me she told me something. She said you thought Armen was murdered.”

“I do.”

“Really?”

“Really. Why, what do you think? You gonna laugh at me?”

“No. I even thought of it myself, for a minute. After the way Galanter’s been acting.”

It surprises me. “You suspect Galanter?”

“I didn’t know about suspecting him, but if anybody did it, he did.”

“Why?”

“Besides the fact that he’s a dick?”

“Yes.”

“Because he wanted to be chief judge. He would never have been chief if Armen hadn’t died.” Artie straightens up, rallying. “And remember how Bernice went after him?”

“Do you think becoming chief judge is enough of a motive?”

He snorts. “What are you, funny? It’s the same as Battleship. It’s winning.”

“People don’t kill to win.”

“Sure they do. Plenty of people—mostly men, I admit—would kill to win. It’s ambition. Raw, naked, blind, cold. Ambition.”

I think of Galanter taking a bribe in Canavan and killing Armen to guarantee the result. That makes sense to me, in a perverse way. “I don’t agree. I think people kill for money—or love.”

“Love? Not Galanter, what does he know from love? He’s not even married, he lives for the frigging job. He has an Indian headdress, Grace. The man is not fucking kidding.”

“True.”

“As chief judge, he’ll get on all the Judicial Conference committees. Get to go to D.C., hobnob with the Supremes. It even positions him for the next appointment to the Court. Look at Breyer, he was chief.”

The Supreme Court. I hadn’t thought of that. Combined with Canavan, that’s one hell of a motive.

“It’s a place in history, Grace.”

I remember that Galanter has a collection of first editions in his office. “He would love that.”

“He sure would. It’s the top of the profession. They ain’t final because they’re right, they’re right because they’re final.”

“But Galanter’s a Republican appointee.”

“The Dems won’t be in forever, babe.” He looks down, then shakes his head. “Justice Galanter. That’s so beat. Can’t you just hurl?”

I consider this, and he’s right. I could just hurl.

  25

I slip my master key into the doorknob. It turns with a satisfying click, admitting me to the darkened chambers. No one’s there, as I expected; it’s too late even for geeks. I told my mother I had to work late, killing two birds with one stone: avoiding her and poking around. I enter the reception area and close the door quietly behind me.

The computer monitors are on, standing out like vivid squares of hot color in the dark, wasteful but helpful.