“Why not, Mr. Messer?” Karen said, realizing as she spoke that she was coming to Eddie’s defense in some way, and not stopping herself.
“Doctor, if it’s all the same to you,” said Messer. “I’ve got a doctorate in psychology.”
“Doctor,” said Karen, very distinctly, not mentioning her law degree from Harvard or her Ph.D. in economics from Penn.
“Thank you,” said Messer. “See, Nails is a criminal, all right, but not the white-collar type.” He glanced at the computer screen. “He got himself in here on a dope-smuggling conviction, five to fifteen, should have been out in three and a half, four, but then he killed three inmates and ended up pulling the full load. Not the white-collar type, if you see what I mean.”
“He killed three inmates?” She’d known about the dope conviction ninety minutes after Eddie had first knocked on Jack’s door.
“Not that we could ever prove in a court of law. No one’s going to talk for the record, right? Or he would’ve been here forever. But we didn’t need that shit to deny parole. Excuse my language.”
“Of course, doctor. Could you tell me more about these killings?”
“Like what?”
“The motives, for example.”
Messer turned to the screen, scrolled through. “The usual initiation thing, I guess you could say. Only he took revenge. Successfully, you might say. That hardly ever happens.”
“Initiation thing.”
“This isn’t summer camp, Miss de Vere. How specific do you want me to be?”
“They raped him, is that what you’re pussyfooting around?”
“One way of putting it,” said Messer. “You’ve got to look at it in context.”
“Context?”
“It wasn’t an attack on Joe or Joanne Normal. Ol’ Nails is a violent guy.”
“I’ve seen no sign of that.”
Messer leaned forward. “You’ve met him?”
“More than once.”
“In New York?”
“That’s right.”
There was a silence. “But you’ve got no idea where he is.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Karen said. “As I mentioned.”
“No idea at all.”
“That’s what I said.” Karen got the odd idea that Messer shared her interest in Eddie’s whereabouts.
Messer shot her a quick, angry glance from under his Santa Claus eyebrows. Then he heaved a deep sigh. “Sorry if I’m a little distracted today. These executions are a nuisance, if you want my frank opinion.”
“You’re against them?”
“Against capital punishment? Just the reverse. For all the usual reasons. Plus it just feels right, morally speaking.”
“To whom?”
He yawned, stretched. There were sweat stains under both arms of his short-sleeved white shirt. “I’m sure you didn’t come all this way for a philosophical discussion, Miss de Vere. Have you got any other questions relating to Mr. Nye?”
“I could use a list of all his visitors over the fifteen-year period, but if that’s too much trouble, the last two or three will do.”
Messer turned to the computer. After a moment or two he said, “You’ve already got it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There was just the one visit. His brother, two months after processing day.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It’s all in the computer,” said Messer. He checked his watch. “Now, if there’s nothing else …”
Karen rose, extended her hand. That took some effort. He shook it. “Good luck,” he said.
She was almost at the door when she had a final thought. She stopped, turned.
“Did Eddie know Willie Boggs?”
“All those longtimers know each other, more or less.”
“Did they spend time together?”
“The death-row boys don’t do much circulating. About the only place they might have run into each other was the library. That’s where Mister Willie Boggs went when he wanted to play lawyer.”
“And Eddie Nye spent time in the library.”
“Oh, yes, he was quite the reader.”
Karen drove away from the prison in her rental car. A crowd of people stood in a dusty field by the side of the road; a woman in black held up a sign: “Stop the Murder of Willie Boggs.” Karen pulled over and got out.
She walked through the crowd. She saw a priest, a nun, a Buddhist monk; a woman in business dress, a leathery man wearing nothing but cutoffs, a baby in a stroller; a cameraman, a soundman, a reporter fixing her lipstick. She didn’t see Eddie Nye.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t coming. She glanced in her bag, saw the red fragment of the
The sun was setting, but the air was still warm. In the middle distance, the prison rose like a castle in the kind of bloody fairy tales that have been dropped from the anthologies, its stone walls reddened by the last rays of the sun. A breeze stirred, raising dust off the field. When a vendor came by pushing a cart, Karen ordered a diet soda, just to wet her throat.
“I’ve got beer too,” said the vendor. “And wine coolers.”
“No, thanks.”
The leathery man bought a can of beer with change dug from the pockets of his cutoffs and sat down cross- legged to drink. Night fell. Lights shone on the walls of the prison, as though a
She found herself standing next to the woman with the sign. The woman had a milk-white face, bony arms, hair as black as her dress.
“They don’t interview me anymore,” she said.
“Did they use to?”
“Every time. Now they say they want a fresh point of view. Just when it’s most vital that I bear witness.”
“Aren’t you bearing witness anyway?”
“It’s hardly the same if the camera’s not running.” The woman, who had been gazing at the prison, glanced at Karen. “Everyone knows that.”
“What’s special about this time?”
“Willie Boggs.”
“I don’t know much about him.”
“Willie Boggs is a great man,” the woman said. “I’ve written him hundreds of letters. I mean that literally. Hundreds. He’s a wonderful human being, and now they’re going to murder him, when they should be setting him free at last. He could do so much good, out here in the world.”
“Did he ever write back?” Karen asked.
The woman closed her eyes. “Once,” she said. “He wrote me a beautiful letter.” Her eyes opened. “He writes like an angel, you know. If he’d written a book, it would have been published. I guarantee.”
“What did he say?”
“Say?”
“In his letter.”
