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birth certificate for Edward S. Cayhall and found that his father was Samuel Lucas Cayhall, the same man now on death row. He reported that Adam Hall had confirmed that his father's name had been changed in California, and that his grandfather was Sam Cayhall. He was careful not to attribute direct quotes to Adam, but he nonetheless violated their agreement. There was little doubt the two had talked.
Quoting unnamed sources, the story explained how Eddie and his family left Clanton in 1967 after Sam's arrest, and fled to California where Eddie later killed himself. The trail ended there because Marks obviously ran out of time late in the day and could confirm nothing from California. The unnamed source or sources didn't mention Sam's daughter living in Memphis, so Lee was spared. The story ran out of steam with a series of no- comments from Baker Cooley, Garner Goodman, Phillip Naifeh, Lucas Mann, and a lawyer with the Attorney General's office in Jackson. Marks finished strong, though, with a sensational recap of the Kramer bombing.
The story was on the front page of the Press, above the main headline. The ancient picture of Sam was to the right, and next to it was a strange photo of Adam from the waist up. Lee had brought the paper to him hours earlier as he sat on the terrace and watched the early morning river traffic. They drank coffee and juice, and read and reread the story. After much analysis, Adam had decided that Todd Marks had placed a photographer across the street from the Peabody Hotel, and when Adam left their little meeting yesterday and stepped onto the sidewalk, he got his picture taken. The suit and tie were definitely worn yesterday.
'Did you talk to this clown?' Sam growled as he placed the paper on the table. Adam sat across from him.
'We met.'
'Why?'
'Because he called our office in Memphis, said he'd heard some rumors, and I wanted him to get it straight. It's no big deal.'
'Our pictures on the front page is no big deal?'
'You've been there before.'
'And you?'
'I didn't exactly pose. It was. an ambush, you see. But I think I look rather dashing.'
'Did you confirm these facts for him?'
'I did. We agreed it would be background, and he could not quote me on anything. Nor was he supposed to use me as a source. He violated our agreement, and ripped his ass with me. He also planted a photographer, so I've spoken for the first and last time to the Memphis Press.'
Sam looked at the paper for a moment. He was relaxed, and his words were as slow as ever. He managed a trace of a smile. 'And you confirmed that you are my grandson?'
'Yes. Can't really deny it, can I?'
'Do you want to deny it?'
'Read the paper, Sam. If I wanted to deny it, would it be on the front page?'
This satisfied Sam, and the smile grew a bit.
He bit his lip and stared at Adam. Then he methodically removed a fresh pack of cigarettes, and Adam glanced around for a window.
After the first one was properly lit, Sam said, 'Stay away from the press. They're ruthless and they're stupid. They lie and they make careless mistakes.'
'But I'm a lawyer, Sam. It's inbred.'
'I know. It's hard, but try to control yourself. I don't want it to happen again.'
Adam reached into his briefcase, smiled, and pulled out some papers. 'I have a wonderful idea how to save your life.' He rubbed his hands together then removed a pen from his pocket. It was time for work.
'I'm listening.'
'Well, as you might guess, I've been doing a lot of research.'
'That's what you're paid to do.'
'Yes. And I've come up with a marvelous little theory, a new claim which I intend to file on Monday. The theory is simple. Mississippi is one of only five states still using the gas chamber, right?'
'That's right.'
'And the Mississippi Legislature in 1984 passed a law giving a condemned man the choice of dying by lethal injection or in the gas chamber. But the new law applies only to those convicted after July 1, 1984. Doesn't apply to you.'
'That's correct. I think about half the guys on the Row will get their choice. It's years away, though.'
'One of the reasons the legislature approved lethal injection was to make the killings more humane. I've studied the legislative history behind the law and there was a lot of discussion of problems the state's had with gas chamber executions. The theory is simple: make the executions quick and painless, and there will be fewer constitutional claims that they are cruel. Lethal injections raise fewer legal problems, thus the killings are easier to carry out. Our theory, then, is that since the state has adopted lethal injection, it has in effect said that the gas chamber is obsolete. And why is it obsolete? Because it's a cruel way to kill people.'
Sam puffed on this for a minute and nodded slowly. 'Keep going,' he said.
'We attack the gas chamber as a method of execution.'
'Do you limit it to Mississippi?'
'Probably. I know there were problems with Teddy Doyle Meeks and Maynard Tole.'
Sam snorted and blew smoke across the table. 'Problems? You could say that.'
'How much do you know?'
'Come on. They died within fifty yards of me. We sit in our cells all day long and think about death. Everyone on the Row knows what happened to those boys.'
'Tell me about them.'
Sam leaned forward on his elbows and stared absently at the newspaper in front of him. 'Meeks was the first execution in Mississippi in ten years, and they didn't know what they were doing. It was 1982. I'd been here for almost two years, and until then we were living in a dream world. We never thought about the gas chamber and cyanide pellets and last meals. We were sentenced to die, but, hell, they weren't killing anyone, so why worry? But Meeks woke us up. They killed him, so they could certainly kill the rest of us.'
'What happened to him?' Adam had read a dozen stories about the botched execution of Teddy Doyle Meeks, but he wanted to hear it from Sam.
'Everything went wrong. Have you seen the chamber?'
'Not yet.'
'There's a little room off to the side where the executioner mixes his solution. The sulfuric acid is in a canister which he takes from his little laboratory to a tube running into the bottom of the chamber. With Meeks, the executioner was drunk.'
'Come on, Sam.'
'I didn't see him, okay. But everyone knows he was drunk. State law designates an official state executioner, and the warden and his gang didn't think about it until just a few hours before the execution. Keep in mind, no one thought Meeks would die. We were all waiting on a last minute stay, because he'd been through it twice already. But there was no stay, and they scrambled around at the last minute trying to locate the official state executioner. They found him, drunk. He was a plumber, I think. Anyway, his first batch of brew didn't work. He placed the canister into the tube, pulled a lever, and everyone waited for Meeks to take a deep breath and die. Meeks held his breath as long as he could, then inhaled. Nothing happened. They waited. Meeks waited. The witnesses waited. Everybody slowly turned to the executioner, who was also waiting and cussing. He went back to his little room, and fixed up another mix of sulfuric acid. Then he had to retrieve the old canister from the chute, and that took ten minutes. The warden and Lucas Mann and the rest of the goons were standing around waiting and fidgeting and cussing this drunk plumber, who finally plugged in the new canister and pulled the lever. This time the sulfuric acid landed where it was supposed to - in a bowl under the chair where Meeks was strapped. The executioner pulled the second lever dropping the cyanide pellets, which were also under the chair, hovering above the sulfuric acid. The pellets dropped, and sure enough, the gas drifted upward to where old Meeks was holding his breath again. You can see the vapors, you know. When he finally sucked in a nose full of it, he started shaking and jerking, and this went on quite a while. For some reason, there's a metal pole that runs from the top of the chamber to the
