Mercy

“I just want to say that I have no complaints about the justice system. I had a fair trial and everything was done that could and should be done in order to ensure that I had a fair trial and in order to ensure that justice was done.”

Then he lay back and the prison staff found two veins and inserted two needles, one for the sodium thiopental and one for the other two drugs. Then they stood back from the table. The execution was about to begin.

At that point, Clayton Burrow turned his head to face the spectators again, but this time, he tilted his head upward relative to his body, so that he could see all of them.

And then he met Nat’s eyes.

00:02 PDT (08:02 BST)

Susan White had shocked the other nursing staff by running from room to room in her disarrayed clothes. But, seeing the tenacity and determination in her eyes — as well as her large girth — none of them saw fit to challenge her.

She was now frantically putting papers into the fax machine and keying in a long number. It wasn’t clear what she was doing or why she was doing it. But she seemed to be having some kind of breakdown.

“Come on! Come on!” She muttered hysterically.

She was — in a very real sense — a “woman possessed,” not by some evil spirit, but by the determination to save the man whose life should have been saved last night by Stuart Lloyd, if he had had any sense of moral responsibility.

But in the face of his moral vacuity, it was now Susan’s burden to save this anonymous man whose life was in her hands. She cursed herself for her cowardice yesterday as well as her carelessness and complacency. She was painfully aware of the clock on the wall. The time showed that in California it must be just after midnight.

Do they do the execution immediately? How quickly does the person die?

00:03 PDT

Sergeant Grace Nightingale was at her desk doing routine paperwork when the phone rang.

“Nightingale.”

“Hi, Grace? It’s Lou here from the lab.”

Grace sat up abruptly.

“What have you got?”

“We’ve got a perfect match, that’s what!”

“Wait a minute, let me get this straight.”

“A couple of thumbprints on the passport — one on a page and one on the cover — match Nathaniel Anderson’s thumbprint from the CDMV. That means he handled this passport at one time or another, no question.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

“One hundred percent.”

“How many points of comparison?”

“In the best print? Sixteen.”

“Jesus Christ! We’d better call the governor!”

00:04 PDT

Clayton Burrow was no longer lying back peacefully. He was twisting and wrenching frantically, as if he was trying to get out of his restraints and sit up. All the calm and placidity that he had shown at the start of the execution procedure was now long gone.

Sodium thiopental was now being injected into his veins, but had yet to take effect. The drug was supposed to have rendered him unconscious in preparation for the other chemicals that were to follow.

But some sort of adrenalin rush was keeping him awake. After apparently making his peace with God, instead of lying back and quietly surrendering to unconsciousness, he was now showing all the fight and bluster of a man determined to cling on to life.

It was like that poem by Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” But then again, neither was he raging. It looked like he was crying … pleading … begging.

However, this was no escape attempt. Rather, it looked like an attempt to communicate … to say some words that had been left unsaid and that now cried out to be spoken in his dying moments. He kept twisting and turning to keep his eyes on the spectators. It was like he had unfinished business in this world and — like one of those tormented ghosts in the horror movies — he wasn’t yet ready to move on to the next. He seemed to be saying something. There was no sound coming from his lungs, or if there was, the spectators couldn’t hear it through the glass. But his lips were moving and his mouth was struggling to shape words.

Although the spectators had been given strict instructions not to stand up, some of the reporters and “citizen witnesses” were leaning forward — almost out of their seats — to catch his elusive words. Nobody could be sure what he was saying, or rather what he was trying to say. But one reporter thought that she could read his lips.

And what he appeared to be saying was … “I’m sorry … I’m sorry … I’m sorry…”

00:05 PDT

Chuck Dusenbury was sitting in the library of his suite in Sacramento. His wife was sitting nearby in patient silence. She was ready to hold his hand and comfort him if necessary, but she said nothing. She knew, all too well, what was going through his mind right now. This was the first execution of his tenure — and would surely also be his last.

He had been waiting all day for that phone call from Alex Sedaka, telling him where the body was located. He had been hoping against hope to be able to give Esther Olsen the closure that she so definitely needed as her own mortality loomed ahead of her.

But he realized now that it was not to be.

Alex Sedaka had done his best. But Alex’s client had been stubborn. He had denied his guilt even to the end.

Ironically, Burrow’s lawyer, who had started off so skeptical of his own client’s denials, had come close to believing his client as the day wore on. And even Dusenbury himself now had doubts that he hadn’t entertained before.

Was Sedaka right? Had Dorothy Olsen really fled to Britain to have an abortion? Had she really fled because she feared being implicated in the death of the man she had so long thought of as her father? That would have been the biggest irony of all, not only because he was not her father, but also because she was, in fact, in no danger of being blamed for his death.

Perhaps he had been wrong not to suspend the death warrant. Maybe there were unanswered questions. He had told Alex that he would stay the execution if Esther Olsen asked him to. But her relapse had precluded that.

Should I have done so anyway?