Final Argument: A Legal Thriller Part 10

"I don't," Muriel said. "That was the scary part. But he did it. That was the true part. That's all I had to know and believe, and I did. Like you knew and believed Morgan did it. Why is not our province."

"It's brave of you to go down there," I said.

"I know," Muriel said.

That evening, on the porch of his house in the black neighborhood where he'd always lived, Beldon Ruth brought out a pitcher of iced tea and settled down in a rocking chair to talk to me.

"I want to tell you a story," he said. "When I was younger, I prosecuted a seventeen-year-old black kid. This kid rang a doorbell over on Blodgett, put a gun in some woman's face, and said, 'Gimme your money or I'll blow your head off.' She gave him the housekeeping money-so the kid came back a few weeks later and did it to her again. I was a brand-new a.s.sistant state attorney, and to me this kid was dangerous. Day before sentencing, the public defender in the case-your pal Kenny Buckram, fresh out of law school-gets the woman, the complainant, to sign a statement saying, 'I've just heard about how this boy's father s.e.xually abused him and beat him with a wooden plank, and his mother was a drunk, and they wouldn't let him go to school even though he got good grades. I think what he did to me was terrible, but now I can sort of understand why he did it. And I'd like to see him get another chance.' "

Beldon poured the tea. Laurette, his wife, was inside the house, preparing dinner.

"Buckram gave this letter to Judge Fleming. You remember him? White-haired, crotchety good ole boy, rolled his own from those little sacks of Country Gentleman? Still around, although he's older'n dirt. And Fleming sat in his chambers from noon to three, we're all waiting, it's hot enough for a hen to lay a hard-boiled egg. Finally Fleming hobbles out and says to Kenny, 'If you're right about this boy and I put him in prison and he gets ruined in there, his blood is on my hands. If you're wrong, I'm gonna bring him back in my court and pound his knuckles to the floor with a sledgehammer, and he's gonna do every G.o.ddam day of the ten years I could have handed him.'

"He gave the kid probation. Some people were shocked, including me. I said, 'Judge, how can you do that? I mean, in conscience?' Fleming sizzles and said, 'Because, son, the people voted me into office, and I got the right to do it. Y'all don't have the right to question me or my conscience.' Stuck his finger right in my face like 'f.u.c.k you, Mr. Ruth.'

"That was twenty years ago. The kid graduated from college. The judge, Kenny, and I got a wedding announcement. Fleming took him off probation after five years. The kid went into computers, moved his family up to Atlanta. If Fleming had sent him to prison he'd be out there now, perpetrating more robberies and doing more time and b.u.t.t-f.u.c.king people. Or he'd be dead. Do you know that twenty-five percent of black men in this country have done time, are doing time now, or are on probation? In the case I'm talking about, the system wouldn't allow for the fact that a potentially good kid had done a violent crime. Fleming grasped it, and he was right."

Beldon sat back on his porch and sucked iced tea through a child's bent straw.

"You know what the point of that story is, Ted?"

"No, but I know if I sit here long enough on this porch, you're sure as h.e.l.l going to tell me."

Beldon smiled. "In twenty-five years, that's the only time I've ever known anyone to be right when they gave someone a second chance. All the rest were disasters. That's a pretty p.i.s.s-poor record, wouldn't you say? And that's why I still believe we're on the side of the angels. And you defense guys, you do your job, but you don't really help people. The PD's office has got the right idea. Churn 'em out, cut a deal. Hired lawyers waste time trying to show clients they're earning their fee."

"You're a disgusting old cynic."

"I'm a disgusting old realist."

"Why did you ever become a lawyer?"

"Fascination of aberrant behavior," Beldon said, and let that hang in the air while he went inside to refill the pitcher.

When he came back, I said, "Tell me about Muriel Suarez."

"Could be a division chief in a year or two, unless she goes for the bucks and becomes a partner in a fancy law firm. Like some others we know."

I hadn't come back to Jacksonville to be lectured, not even by Beldon. But my compulsion was more than theoretical. A man languished out there on death row-he wasn't an anonymous black thug, he was a human being I had once looked in the eye. In the last ten years I had helped many a businessman and entrepreneur become richer; in the process, I had become part of their club. That was one thing a lawyer did. The other thing he did, and what I had neglected to do for too long a time, was help people survive and live free with pride. A part of me, over the years, had been slowly and painfully eviscerated by my own greed, if I dared call it that. But that part wasn't dead. I could revive it if I wanted to, if I had the courage, and the stubbornness.

In time. I was here because I had new information that I was obliged to turn over to the state attorney, and I had done so. That was the first step.

I said to Beldon, "What are you going to do about it?"

"Not a G.o.ddam thing," he replied, "other than to add it to my long list of incidents that tend to prove that the human race at best is capable of anything under the sun, and at worst is deceitful, hypocritical, opportunistic, and generally no f.u.c.king good."

It wasn't exactly a complete vision. I ground my teeth, but didn't comment. "Where's Floyd Nickerson these days?"

"I somehow thought you'd ask that."

"Does that mean you know?"

"Didn't until yesterday, when you phoned. Then I dug a little. He left JSO nine years ago and went over to Gainesville. Chief of security in a big real estate and country club development. Place called Orange Meadow."

I wrote that down. "Must be on Orange Lake. We used to go down from school on weekends to water-ski. What's it all called? Orange Meadow Estates, something like that?"

"I guess so. Don't really remember."

"Is Nickerson still there?"

"Can't say. He ain't a pen pal."

"Who's the developer he works for? Do you know that?"

After just the barest hesitation, Beldon said, "ZiDevco."

Chapter 11.

I MADE UP my mind in the late afternoon, a couple of hours before I was due to drive to the airport. I called Muriel Suarez at her office in the courthouse.

"You want to see it?" she asked.

"I want to be there. Then I'll decide if I want to actually see it."

"You a death freak or something?"

But she called the superintendent at Raiford and requested that I be put on the list. Then she rang back.

"Done. They allow twelve witnesses other than the media goons. They've only got seven."

We arranged to meet at her place on Was.h.i.+ngton Street. I called home, and Alan answered on the first ring. "Bobby?"

"No, it's me. How're you doing, kid?"

"Fine, Dad."

"All well on the home front?"

"It's cool. I was just reading by the pool."

I liked hearing that. There was hope. "I've been thinking about our talk the other night. If you're ready to leave that drug program now, it's fine with me."

"I'm really ready to leave it."

"Then go for it. Where's Mom?"

"Taking a nap upstairs."

"I was supposed to come home this evening from Jacksonville, but I have to postpone. Tell her I'll be back tomorrow."

Alan said he'd write a note; he was leaving in another hour for a weekend of sailing at Captiva. I called Royal, Kelly and spoke to Ruby, who recited a list of death threats from my partners.

"I didn't hear any of that," I said.

That night Kenny Buckram had a date with his short rich widow in St. Augustine. "I probably won't be back here until morning," he said. "So you are the lord of the manor. You have plans?"

"A late date. Four A.M."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"What're you going to do until then?"

"Hang out. Listen to some music. Get drunk, smoke some dope. Is that okay, Dad?"

"Your car or mine?" Muriel asked.

"Sounds like a proposition from high school days," I said. At four o'clock in the morning we stood in the cool darkness in front of her house on Was.h.i.+ngton Street. "I'm driving a rental. Let's give the wear and tear to Mr. Hertz."

Through silent streets we headed out of town on the Fuller Warren Bridge across the St. Johns on I-10. There was no traffic at that hour. Replacing it was a predawn sense of adventure.

"Twenty miles," Muriel said, "and then you bear south on 121 to Raiford."

"Can we stop for breakfast in Raiford?"

"It's a prison, there's no town. You want to eat, cut off south on 301 to Starke. Often called the Paris of Bradford County." She was silent a minute, working that over. "Probably because some good ole boys still p.i.s.s on the sidewalks."

We drove through the darkness, past mobile homes and strings of darkened Baptist churches. Moonlight reflected off the mirrored silver skin of RVs and trailers that had come to rest along the road. Scrub palm grew thick in the sand hills, and night air brought the smell of wood smoke. This was not the Florida gold coast, where you tanned and partied, or the Keys, where you fished, or St. Pete with its shuffleboard courts, or Disney World, where you took the family to gawk and frolic. This was the Deep South. Black men, not too many years ago, had dangled from pine trees. People lived in clapboard houses with rusted was.h.i.+ng machines and truck parts in the yards. After the sun rose, Florida crackers in faded overalls sprawled on wooden benches in front of general stores, drinking long-neck Buds and home brew.

Muriel and I reached the town of Starke at a quarter to five and had breakfast in a greasy spoon on Main Street. A note on the menu said, "We shur hope ya'll have a nice day." Sitting in a plastic booth, I ordered black coffee and poached eggs on toast. Muriel chewed thoughtfully on a toothpick. She was not a cheerful woman today.

After breakfast I followed the signs and turned west on the Raiford road. Some scruffy palm trees thrust themselves against a lemony dawn sky. Concertina wire stretched between electrified fences and machine gun towers.

Birds began to warble. In the growing light we noticed that a halfdozen RVs, some pickup trucks and a few station wagons were parked in front of the prison on the crabgra.s.s. People had set up picnic tables with plastic cloths. The women were making coffee and flapjacks, the way they used to do during lynchings. The smell of maple syrup drifted through the early-morning air.

"Death penalty groupies," Muriel said. "Come from all over Florida, camp all night here. They can't get in to see anything, but the lights dim when the dude inside throws the switch. They stomp and cheer. One less bad guy to threaten the good life in the U.S. of A."

A man was selling doughnuts and T-s.h.i.+rts. I couldn't see the printing on the T-s.h.i.+rts, but I could imagine it.

In a gun tower a telephone sat in a niche. Muriel spoke into it, and a voice on a speaker told us to proceed to the first gate. Beyond it was a moat of stainless-steel barbed wire. I looked up, and in the pale light could make out the faces of men in the upper windows of a cell block, staring down. Like panthers, they had eyes that seemed to glow in the gloom.

We pa.s.sed through a series of gates into an indoor reception area with peach-colored walls. The linoleum floors smelled of fresh wax. The air was chilly and musty. While we waited for our escort, I read items on the staff bulletin board. One of the guards offered a mobile home for sale: "3 BR 2 BA $3500 OBO, with 5 acres, $24,000." This was a long way from Longboat Key.

Ident.i.ties were checked. Our hands were stamped with a glowing violet mark, as in a nightclub. We pa.s.sed through a metal detector. We left our keys and Muriel left a Llama .32 Blackhawk that she brought forth from her handbag. She smiled a little, as if in apology. "You never know," she said.

Our escort was a clean-shaven, thin-lipped young FSP administrative a.s.sistant, who introduced himself as Fred Olsen. He wore a pale- gray suit, a pale-gray tie, and s.h.i.+ny black shoes.

"I'll be taking you through the procedure," he said quietly, "and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Right now we're going to breakfast."

"Thank you, we've eaten," Muriel said.

"It's part of the procedure," Olsen explained.

He led us down a long waxed hall, through a door into a cafeteria with light-green walls. Two large flags dominated the room: the Stars and Stripes, and the red-and-white flag of Florida with the state motto, "In G.o.d We Trust." The other witnesses were there: half a dozen reporters, various state and FSP officials, the lawyer who had handled Sweeting's appeals, the father of one of Sweeting's victims, and an uncle of the other one. One representative of each victim's family was invited, and the condemned man was allowed one relative. Sweeting's mother sat with the appeal attorney. All of these people except Mrs. Sweeting were eating scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, and hash browns.

"Coffee?" Olsen asked. "There's no charge."

When Olsen left to get it, I asked Muriel if she knew the appeal attorney.

"Sure."

"What kind of a job did he do?"

"Thorough. But he didn't stand a chance."

"Do they ever?"

"Sometimes. Weird things happen."

"Like clemency?"

"That would certainly be weird. Well, if it's ever going to happen it might happen with Sweeting, because he's white."

Olsen came back with the coffee and his own plate of eggs and bacon. I noticed then that another young man in a gray suit sat at the table with the other witnesses, taking care of them in the same way that Olsen was taking care of me and Muriel.

"Would you like me to tell you the rest of the procedure?" Olsen asked. "It's what we recommend. It spares you any surprises."

I heard myself say, "All right."

"My colleague, Mr. Crocker, has already explained it to the other group. May I?"

Muriel finally nodded. There were dark smudges under her eyes today.

Olsen said, "For the last thirty days Mr. Sweeting has been in a program we call Death Watch. There are two phases. Phase One of Death Watch begins when the governor signs the death warrant. Mr. Sweeting was moved at that time to Q wing, which is a good deal closer to the place of execution-it's completely isolated from other inmates. He was permitted to read any religious books or tracts he chose, and he continued to receive any magazine or newspaper subscriptions he previously had. He was still fed three meals a day, and any dietary restrictions-that is to say, for medical reasons-were strictly observed."

"You want him in good health," I said.

Olsen nodded, glad that I understood. "He still can receive approved visits, but all contact visits terminate. That's in Phase One of Death Watch. In Phase Two, which began five days ago, Mr. Sweeting was permitted to retain only the following items." Olsen reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and consulted an index card. " 'One black-and-white TV, located outside the cell, one radio, one deck of cards, one Bible, one other book, periodical, or newspaper.' " Olsen put the card away. He waited.

Muriel and I both nodded our approval.

"During Phase Two, the condemned is under constant surveillance by a trained officer, who sits outside the cell and records in writing every fifteen minutes what the condemned is doing. Four days ago, Mr. Sweeting was asked to inventory his property and indicate its disposition, and asked to specify his funeral arrangements. Mr. Sweeting requested standard burial. He was therefore measured for a suit of clothing. Two days ago, he was allowed an interview with a media representative of his choice. He declined this interview. Yesterday, twenty-four hours before execution, our chef took Mr. Sweeting's order for his last meal. Would you like to know what he ordered?"