"You heard me. Sam Cayhall is Adam Hall's paternal grandfather. We were doing a routine background on Adam Hall yesterday, and noticed a few gray spots. I called the FBI in Jackson, and within two hours they had plenty of circumstantial evidence. I confronted him this morning, and he confessed. I don't think he's trying to hide it."
"But he has a different name."
"It's a long story. They haven't seen each other since Adam was a toddler. His father fled the state after Sam was arrested for the bombing. Moved out West, changed names, drifted around, in and out of work, sounds like a real loser. Killed himself in 1981. Anyway, Adam here goes to college and makes perfect grades. Goes to law school at Michigan, a Top Ten school, and is the editor of the law review. Takes a job with our pals at Kravitz & Bane, and he shows up this morning for the reunion with his grandfather."
Naifeh now raked both hands through his hair and shook his head. "How wonderful. As if we needed more publicity, more idiotic reporters asking more asinine questions."
"They're meeting now. I am assuming Sam will agree to allow the kid to represent him.
I certainly hope so. We've never executed an inmate without a lawyer."
"We should do some lawyers without the inmates," Naifeh said with a forced smile. His hatred for lawyers was legendary, and Lucas didn't mind. He understood. He had once estimated that Phillip Naifeh had been named as a defendant in more lawsuits than anyone else in the history of the state. He had earned the right to hate lawyers.
"I retire in nineteen months," he said, as if Lucas had never heard this. "Who's next after Sam?"
Lucas thought a minute and tried to catalog the voluminous appeals of forty-seven inmates. "No one, really. The Pizza Man came close four months ago, but he got his stay. It'll probably expire in a year or so, but there are other problems with his case. I can't see another execution for a couple of years."
"The Pizza Man? Forgive me."
"Malcolm Friar. Killed three pizza delivery boys in a week. At trial he claimed robbery was not the motive, said he was just hungry."
Naifeh raised both hands and nodded. "Okay, okay, I remember. He's the nearest after Sam?"
"Probably. It's hard to say."
"I know." Naifeh gently pushed away from his desk and walked to a window. His shoes were somewhere under the desk. He thrust his hands in his pockets, pressed his toes into the carpet, and thought deeply for a while. He had been hospitalized after the last execution, a mild heart flutter as his doctor preferred to call it.
He'd spent a week in a hospital bed watching his little flutter on a monitor, and promised his wife he would never suffer through another execution. If he could somehow survive Sam, then he could retire at full pension.
He turned and stared at his friend Lucas Mann. "I'm not doing this one, Lucas. I'm passing the buck to another man, one of my subordinates, a younger man, a good man, a, man who can be trusted, a man who's never seen one of these shows, a man who's just itching to get blood on his hands."
"Not Nugent."
"That's the man. Retired Colonel George Nugent, my trusted assistant."
"He's a nut."
"Yes, but he's our nut, Lucas. He's a fanatic for details, discipline, organization, hell, he's the perfect choice. I'll give him the manual, tell him what I want, and he'll do a marvelous job of killing Sam Cayhall. He'll be perfect."
George Nugent was an assistant superintendent at Parchman. He had made a name for himself by implementing a most successful boot camp for first offenders. It was a brutal, six-week ordeal in which Nugent strutted and swaggered around in black boots, cursing like a drill instructor and threatening gang rape for the slightest infraction. The first offenders rarely came back to Parchman.
"Nugent's crazy, Phillip. It's a matter of time before he hurts someone."
"Right! Now you understand. We're going to let him hurt Sam, just the way it should be done.
By the book. Heaven knows how much Nugent loves a book to go by. He's the perfect choice, Lucas. It'll be a flawless execution."
It really mattered little to Lucas Mann. He shrugged, and said, "You're the boss."
"Thanks," Naifeh said. "Just watch Nugent, okay. I'll watch him on this end, and you watch the legal stuff. We'll get through it."
"This will be the biggest one yet," Lucas said.
"I know. I'll have to pace myself. I'm an old man."
Lucas gathered his file from the desk and headed for the door. "I'll call you after the kid leaves. He's supposed to check in with me before he goes."
"I'd like to meet him," Naifeh said.
"He's a nice kid."
"Some family, huh."
The nice kid and his condemned grandfather had spent fifteen minutes in silence, the only sound in the room the uneasy rattling of the overworked AC unit. At one point, Adam had walked to the wall and waved his hand before the dusty vents. There was a trace of cool air. He leaned on the counter with his arms folded and stared at the door, as far away from Sam as possible. He was leaning and staring when the door opened and the head of Sergeant Packer appeared. Just checking to see if things were okay, he said, glancing first at Adam then down the room and through the screen at Sam, who was leaning forward in his chair with a hand over his face.
"We're fine," Adam said without conviction.
"Good, good," Packer said and hurriedly closed the door. It locked, and Adam slowly made his way back to his chair. He pulled it close to the screen and rested on his elbows. Sam ignored him for a minute or two, then wiped his eyes with a sleeve and sat up. They looked at each other.
"We need to talk," Adam said quietly.
Sam nodded but said nothing. He wiped his eyes again, this time with the other sleeve. He removed a cigarette and put it between his lips. His hand shook as he flicked the lighter. He puffed quickly.
"So you're really Alan," he said in a low, husky voice.
"At one time, I guess. I didn't know it until my father died."
"You were born in 1964."
"Correct."
"My first grandson."
Adam nodded and glanced away.
"You disappeared in 1967."
"Something like that. I don't remember it, you know. My earliest memories are from California."
"I heard Eddie went to California, and that there was another child. Someone told me later her name was Carmen. I would hear bits and pieces over the years, knew y'all were somewhere in Southern California, but he did a good job of disappearing."
"We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I think he had trouble keeping a job."
"You didn't know about me?"
"No. The family was never mentioned. I found out about it after his funeral."