Every few minutes or so, Blue Knights are rounding the corners on their Harleys. They are former police officers avenging their own, who would maybe like to push the syringe themselves. I watch them position themselves on the far side of the prison, the pro side, near the execution chamber. The police and guards have sprung to life, and are directing them to park a little farther away.
“Are you sure you want to be here?” Bill asks one more time. We are hovering in a little bit of no-man’s-land, in between both camps. “I’m not sure there’s a point.”
Of course there’s a point. The point is, I don’t know what I believe. I just know what I want to believe.
I don’t say it, though. The less emotion, the better. We agreed to an uneasy détente as soon as I called and asked him to please take me with him to Huntsville to meet Terrell. I promised I wouldn’t flake out. My eyes drift across the street to a man holding a battery-operated Christmas candle. He’s leaning against a railing backed up to a gas station billboard that tells newly sprung prisoners to cash their checks here. He’s comfortably packaged between two women with the peaceful countenance of nuns, and two men, all riding past sixty.
Bill follows my gaze. “That’s Dennis. He never misses. Sometimes, he’s the only guy out here.”
“I thought there would be more people. Where are all the people who scream on Facebook?”
“On the couch. Screaming.”
“When will it start?”
“The execution?” He glances at his watch. “It’s eight now. Probably in about fifteen minutes. Usually, it’s set for six and it’s done by seven. There was a delay tonight while the federal court was debating a last-minute appeal that the condemned was mentally deficient.” He gestures back across the street. “Dennis and that core group of four over there show up more as a vigil than protest. I mean, at this point, the writing’s on the wall. Dennis is the one who always stays until the bitter end, even on the rare occasion when appeals go on until midnight. He waits until the family of the executed walks out. Wants them to know someone is out here for them.”
I picture it-a skinny old Santa, his Christmas candle, a lonely corner by a Stop sign, and the night.
“The woman with the bullhorn is Gloria.” He redirects my attention to the sign-wielding protesters in the street, who are oddly silent. No chanting. “She’s a fixture, too. She pretty much believes everyone on Death Row is innocent. Of course, most of them are guilty as hell. She’s much beloved for dedication, however. She’ll start counting it down soon.”
“Where are the families now?”
“The family of the victim, if any of them want to be there, is already inside the prison. The family of the prisoner is in the building across the street. I’ve heard Gutierrez has asked his mother not to watch. Whoever is witnessing for him will walk across with a few reporters as soon as all appeals have expired. That’s the high sign.” He is directing my eyes under the clock tower, where there are steps that lead up and inside.
A young television reporter in a brand-new blue suit and a bright lavender camera-ready tie has appeared to my right. He’s thrusting his microphone into the face of a woman carrying a sign that declares the governor is a serial killer. The camera casts eerie light on both of their faces.
The protester’s shoulders are hunched in an arthritic mountain. She’s traveling on red cowboy boots anyway. She drawls her answers to the reporter a little cynically, as if she’s seen a hundred of him. Yes, the lights of the whole town used to dim for a second every time a prisoner was electrocuted. Yes, this is a typical crowd. Yes, Karla Faye Tucker was the biggest zoo, being a woman. Someone on the square even advertised “Killer Prices.”
The reporter cuts her off abruptly.
Bill nudges my shoulder. Gloria has raised the bullhorn to her lips.
Shadows are moving across the street. Ice keeps shooting out of the sky.
The air suddenly vibrates with the roar of a hundred angry tigers, so loud and so fierce that it rattles my brain, the balls of my feet, the pit of my stomach.
The thunderous noise drowns out Gloria shouting into her bullhorn and the hymn of the women, whose mouths continue to open and close like hungry birds.
The Blue Knights are revving their motorcycles in unison, so he can hear.
Kill him.
September 1995
MR. VEGA: Will you please state your full name for the record?
MR. BOYD: Ural Russell Boyd. People call me You-All. Ever since I played basketball in high school. The cheerleaders turned it into one of their yells.
MR. VEGA: How would you like me to address you today?
MR. BOYD: You-All’s fine. I’m a little nervous.
MR. VEGA: No need to be nervous. You’re doing just fine. You own four hundred acres of land approximately fifteen miles northwest of Fort Worth, correct?
MR. BOYD: Yes, sir. In my family for sixty years. But everybody still calls it the Jenkins property.
MR. VEGA: Will you please tell us what happened on the morning of June 23, 1994?
MR. BOYD: Yes, sir. My hound dog went missing. We were supposed to go bird hunting that morning real early. When I couldn’t find him, I set out with Ramona.
MR. LINCOLN: Ramona is…?
MR. BOYD: My daughter’s horse. Ramona was the most in the mood for a ride that morning.
MR. LINCOLN: And what happened after that?
MR. BOYD: Almost right away I heard Harley start to howl near the west pasture. I thought maybe he met a copperhead. I’ve had some problems with copperheads.
MR. VEGA: You followed his howl?
MR. BOYD: Yes, sir. Once he started he wouldn’t stop. I think he felt the vibration of Ramona’s hooves and could feel us coming. He’s a real smart dog.
MR. LINCOLN: Approximately what time was this?
MR. BOYD: About 4:30 A.M.
MR. LINCOLN: How long did it take to find Harley?
MR. BOYD: Ten minutes. It was dark. He was at the far corner of the property, about a half-mile off the highway. He was keeping watch.
MR. VEGA: What was he keeping watch over?
MR. BOYD: Two dead girls. I didn’t know that the one girl was alive. She didn’t look alive.
MR. VEGA: Will you please describe to the jury exactly what you saw when you came upon the grave?
MR. BOYD: First, I flashed my light on Harley. He was flat down in a bunch of flowers in a ditch. He didn’t move. I didn’t see the hand at first because his nose was lying on it. I knew it was a girl’s hand because of the blue fingernail polish. Sir, I’d like to take a minute.
MR. VEGA: Certainly.
MR. BOYD: (inaudible)
MR. VEGA: Take all the time you need.
MR. BOYD: It was a bad moment. My daughter picks those flowers all the time. I hadn’t checked her bed before I left the house.
18 days until the execution
While Bill and I waited for Manuel Abel Gutierrez to die, a light freezing rain had transformed the highway home into a ribbon of glistening ice. It’s the kind of storm that Yankees make fun of on Facebook with a picture of a spilled cup of ice on the sidewalk that shuts down schools or a cartoon that depicts massive car pileups with one culprit snowflake. It would be funny, if a tenth of an inch of ice in Texas wasn’t deadly.
Bill had announced six minutes onto I-45 that he wasn’t about to skate the four-hour trek back, and swung the car around. So here we are, locked in a Victorian ice castle two blocks from the death chamber and its dissipating cloud. We were lucky that Mrs. Munson, the eighty-seven-year-old B &B proprietor, picked up her phone at 11:26 P.M. Every other hotel that lined the highway was booked solid, their parking lots crammed with cars frosted like petits fours.