Mercy

“When the curtain is opened, the death warrant will be read out and the prisoner will be allowed to make a brief final statement. Members of the press may transcribe the final statement and, depending on the prisoner’s arrangements with the warden, written copies may be given out. Finally, we would ask that if any spectators experience any discomfort during the execution procedure, to leave the observation room as quietly as possible.”

23:56 PDT (07:56 BST)

“Can’t you stick the pieces of it together?”

Susan White had been incredulous when Juanita told her what had happened to the letter that she had faxed over. So she had hastily thrown on the minimum clothing to comply with the laws of decency and raced down the road to the clinic.

“I’ve been trying,” Juanita replied. “But we’ve only got four minutes. I need you to fax it over again.”

“I…”

Susan froze with fear. She could easily print out another copy. She knew that. But it was risky — in some ways riskier than the first time. At least it felt like that. She had been frightened enough yesterday. But now she was off the hook. If she printed another copy and signed it, she would be inviting trouble. It was forgery, whatever the excuse.

But still … it was a man’s life.

“Look, I didn’t tell you this before … but…”

She looked up. Nurse Michaels was a few feet away. She didn’t appear to be paying attention to the conversation, but she was still within earshot.

“Listen … it wasn’t all it seemed.”

“What wasn’t?” asked Juanita. “I don’t understand.”

“The letter … it wasn’t … look, it’s hard to explain.”

Juanita had pieced together enough of the letter to see the signature.

“Is Stuart Lloyd there?” she asked desperately.

“Not yet. None of the admin staff is. They should arrive between eight and nine.”

“Was he there last night? When the fax was sent?”

The hesitation was slight but noticeable.

“No.”

This the time the hesitation was on Juanita’s end of the phone line.

“It wasn’t from Stuart Lloyd, was it?” said Juanita. “The letter you faxed over, I mean. It was from you.”

Susan White lowered her voice, realizing that the truth could be concealed no longer.

“Look, I could lose my job.”

“I’m sorry … but we have a man here who could lose his life.”

Susan White thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a case of weighing up the rights and wrongs. She was simply trying to pluck up the courage to do what she had to do.

“Okay, I can’t get you a signed letter. But I can get you something else.”

“What?”

The nurse was thinking frantically about what she could gain access to that wasn’t under lock and key.

“Dorothy’s records.”

“Will it show the dates? When she was there? When she was discharged?”

“Yes. All of that.”

“Please hurry. We have only minutes.”

“All right.”

Susan White ended the call and raced over to the filing cabinets. But the files were numerical. She had to look up the name in the card index to get the file number. Then she realized that the cabinets were locked.

23:58 PDT

The staff at the fingerprint lab were taking this case very seriously — especially after what the governor had told them.

They had cut the pages out of the passport and put them in the chamber. They had filled the chamber with cyanoacrylic vapor. They had evacuated the chamber of the toxic gases. The lab technician — at twenty-two, a quintessential picture of a science nerd — thought it ironic that were using a “gas chamber” to decide if a man was to be spared lethal injection. He had even made a joke to that effect to the girl who worked with him. She had smiled politely, but he could tell that she didn’t find it amusing.

Now the fingerprint expert at the lab — a slightly older man than the technicians — was doing the comparison, noting points of comparison one by one with the thumbprint that had been sent over electronically from the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Most of the prints on the passport had been eliminated very quickly. But there were a couple that required a close look — those that were clearly thumbprints. And as the fingerprint expert looked, he was counting the number of points of comparison. And what he found amazed him.

After a few more seconds, he looked up as if a light bulb had gone off in his head. In the pregnant silence that followed, the sound of the three of them breathing could be heard. The others knew what he was about to say, from the look on his face.

“It’s a match.”

00:00 PDT (August 15, 2007)

The curtain that covered the window between the execution chamber and the observation room was opened.

Clayton Burrow lay strapped to the gurney.

Although no one was supposed to say anything, there was a collective gasp. The guards who stood at the corners of the observation room said nothing. They knew that it was an involuntary reaction and in any case could not be heard in the execution chamber itself. The flow of sound was regulated by microphones and speakers: the glass itself was triple-glazed.

The warden of the prison began reading out from a single-page, black-bordered document. But Nathaniel Anderson was not listening. He was looking down at Burrow, now a pathetic figure, staring up at the ceiling, making no effort to look round at the spectators.

What was he thinking? Nat wondered. Was he afraid? Did he feel guilty? Ashamed?

The warden finished reading the warrant and then looked up, through the window.

“Mr. Burrow has made a short written statement, which he has asked me to read to you:

“‘There are things I have done in my life that I’m not proud of. There were things I shouldn’t have done. I was a product of my upbringing. I wasn’t always taught right from wrong. And I was taught to hate people for things they had no control over or for things that I thought were bad because that’s the way I was brought up. But whatever wrongs I am guilty of, murder is not one of them. Dorothy Olsen suffered at my hands. I bullied her in school and I raped her. But I did not kill her. I am saying this, not in the hope of being spared the death penalty. I know it is too late for that. But simply because I want the truth to be known.’”

The warden then looked down at Burrow.

“Do you want to add anything to that?”

Burrow nodded, lifted his head slightly and turned to face the spectators.