Execution Eve. William Buchanan
cell.
“This isn’t a day for that sort of talk, Bob,” he admonished. He handed one of the black coffees through the bars.
Thirty-eight-year-old Bob Anderson looked anything but what he was—a convicted killer. Of average height, stockily built with a double chin and distinct paunch, he had not, as had his two associates, lost weight during incarceration. His round, almost cherubic face usually shone with good humor. It was only when talking to or discussing Tom Penney that his dark eyes flashed with anger.
He took the coffee. “Thanks, Captain Rankin. No offense meant to you or anyone else except that bastard at the end of the hall.”
Captain Rankin let it pass and stepped to Willie’s cell. He handed the sugared and creamed coffee through the bars. “Here’s your morning milkshake, son.”
Willie smiled at the longstanding joke between him and Captain Rankin. He took the cup. It was the only thing he ever took for breakfast. Pearl didn’t like that about him, he remembered. She always tried to get him to eat a bowl of cereal, or at least a piece of toast, with his coffee. The thought made him sad. He didn’t want to think about Pearl anymore. He tried to banish her from his mind by concentrating again on the limited view beyond the window.
At the last cell Captain Rankin handed the remaining black coffee through the bars. “Looks like you’re catching up on your correspondence, Tom.”
“Yes sir.” Tom rose from his desk and took the coffee. “Thank you, Captain.”
Captain Rankin stepped to the center of the corridor, where he could be seen by all three men. How much easier it would be, he thought, if they were kept in adjoining cells. But the separation was the warden’s orders, and Captain Rankin didn’t question orders.
He cleared his throat. “Tom . . . Willie . . . Bob”—he looked at each man as he spoke their names—“there’s going to be a lot of people showing up here today. Lawyers, reporters, preachers. They’ll surely want to talk to you. Warden Buchanan says that’s your decision. As you know, he usually invites reporters to come with him when he makes the final reading of the warrants. If you want to talk to them afterward, fine. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. The warden has instructed me to respect your decision in the matter.”
He moved closer to the green-and-tan door.
“Now, since you’ve been here you’ve seen eight men go through this door. You know the routine. And you know I’ll be here for you. If there’s anything you want, anything I can do, just ask.”
Bob Anderson called out, “How about a one-way ticket to Louisville, Captain?”
Rankin chuckled at the death house humor. “Out of my jurisdiction, Bob. I’m afraid the only person who can do that for you now is Governor Johnson.”
“Not true,” Bob retorted. “There’s someone else can do it. You listening, Penney? Tell the captain how you railroaded me. You and your Holy-Joe act about being so concerned for your soul. You may have everybody else around here conned, but you ain’t fooling me one bit. My life’s on your soul, Penney, and we both know why. And you’re going to burn in hell for it unless you come clean in time for Johnson to act. Tell him that, Captain. Talk some sense into his thick skull.”
Captain Rankin shook his head and went to his office. He switched on the radio connected to two speakers mounted on the wall across from the cells. A rich baritone voice was singing: “Heaven . . . I’m in Heaven . . .”
“Hey, Penney,” Bob called. “Hear that? That’s the Old Groaner himself. He helped put your ass in this hell-hole, remember? Well, soon as I get sprung I’m going to make a special trip to Hollywood just to shake his hand for that.”
Tom ignored the diatribe. Seated at his desk, where he had been since dawn, he leaned back in his chair and listened to the mellow voice of Bing Crosby croon the words to “Cheek to Cheek.” It was one of Penney’s favorite songs.
The song ended and the announcer introduced another record. Tom Penney turned back to his work. On his desk was a writing tablet, a Watterman fountain pen, a package of Chesterfield cigarettes, and a box of Whitman chocolates, unopened. A shelf above the desk held a dozen well-thumbed books, among them The Long Way Home by Robert Benson, The Following of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, The Spiritual Life by Edgar Brightman, The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel, and the Catholic Bible. Beneath the shelf, stuck to the wall with tape, was a list of names scrawled in Toms handwriting: Father George, Father Brian, Sister Robert Ann, Sister Mary Laurentia, Mother. The first name had been lined through. One letter lay folded on the bed.
He thought of a name not on the list. He sat back and looked toward the cell window and conjured up her image.
Pam. Blithe spirit with the bewitching smile.
He wondered where she was. Had she followed her dream to California? He wished he knew, wished he could write to her and explain the dreadful things she must have read about him by now.
After a moment he turned back to the desk and picked up the pen and started a letter to Father Brian. Before he finished the salutation he laid the pen down. He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and gripped his head with both hands. He hadn’t gone to bed until well after midnight and had tossed fitfully until sunup. It had been that way now for seventeen months, ever since that night of horror in Lexington. For a long while afterward he had avoided sleeping at night, thinking that by napping during the day he could avoid the dream. It was futile, for the dream came not with darkness but with sleep. So he had turned to alcohol. Thereafter, his sleep became drunken stupors. Then, following his capture, the booze ended and once again sleep became terror. This morning, as he had every morning since incarceration, he awakened at dawn with an excruciating headache. Well, he thought, this will be the last. The ultimate cure to all his bodily ills loomed just on the other side of that green-and-tan door across the hallway, just hours ahead. No more headaches. Indeed, no more sunrises.
His thoughts turned to Bob Anderson, and the throbbing in his head intensified. He got up and stepped over to his bed. He was taller than his companions, standing an even six feet without shoes, with the sinewy build of one who had worked long at physical labor. His ruggedly handsome Nordic features were marred only by a jagged scar extending down his left cheek from below his chestnut hair to his chin. He was thirty-four.
He reached beneath his pillow and retrieved a wooden rosary. The beads were shiny from constant fingering. He grasped the rood tightly in his hands and returned to his desk and looked again at the list of names taped to the wall. Four names remained. Four letters. But it was another letter that obsessed his thoughts at this moment. A fifth and final letter he must write, to a person whose name was not taped there with the rest.
The last and most important letter of his life.
As he did each morning at five o’clock when reveille sounded for the inmate population, Warden W. Jesse Buchanan rose from bed in his private apartment on the second floor, administration building, of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. His sleep had been fitful. A subdued glow from the lighted front steps just below his window dimly illuminated the room. Moving quietly, so as not to awaken his wife sleeping in her own bed across the room, he slipped a red silk robe over his pajamas and went down the long hallway to the spacious marbled bathroom that had been designed to accommodate his great size. One of the country’s most esteemed wardens, he was by far the largest. Six-feet eight-inches tall, weighing three hundred pounds, he was, in spite of his fifty-nine years, solidly built. His biceps were as large as an average man’s thigh. The Kentucky cluster diamond ring he wore, a gift from his wife, measured a full inch in inside diameter. Every article of his clothing except socks, handkerchiefs, and ties was tailored by a clothier in Evansville, Indiana.
After bathing, the warden toweled briskly, then combed his silver hair into a part high on the left side. He would be shaved later that morning in the officers’ barber