Notes on an Execution(41)

*

Kristen married on a Sunday in April.

Saffy stood at the altar with three of Kristen’s friends from the salon, wearing a silky purple dress she couldn’t really afford. Kristen’s spine looked so delicate in her intricate white gown, Saffy wanted to fling herself across the vertebrae, to protect them from the harsh of the world. Over Kristen’s shoulder, Jake looked like the heavens had opened up. Saffy had to give the man some credit. He was not one of the bad ones.

She had been reinstated at work. The winter had been long and dark, and things felt different now. Moretti was icy, distant. She still gave Saffy advice under her breath as they approached a scene, still came in with an extra cup of coffee, but there was a layer of coolness that hadn’t been there before. Moretti was more untouchable, more unknowable, more inimitable than ever, and most days Saffy tried not to let it break her heart.

The trial for Izzy, Angela, and Lila was coming up soon, and everyone knew they’d lose. The homeless guy they arrested had become the center of a newfound wrongful-conviction campaign, and the committee had pooled the funds for his bail and a fancy lawyer. The captain, so keen on the arrest, hadn’t prepared for this. The case was shaky, the evidence even shakier. Saffy knew, with a grim and somewhat smug acceptance, that they’d been wrong, and the jury would see it. Nicholas Richards was innocent, and he would walk free.

Saffy told no one about her drives, though she thought of them now, as Kristen’s bridal veil whipped in the wind. The long weekends she spent winding through Vermont, only to park in front of Ansel Packer’s house, waiting for something to give him away. She’d watched as he unloaded groceries from the bed of his pickup, as he hunched over the workbench in the garage, as he washed dishes in front of the kitchen window. It was not obsession, and it was not addiction, though the hours she spent trailing Ansel filled some of the cravings of both.

It was only a matter of time. Saffy knew you could not hide your real self forever, no matter how normal you looked; the truth would come out eventually.

“In sickness and in health,” Kristen was saying. Goose bumps prickled Saffy’s arms as the wind picked up. A storm had gathered in the distance, hovering over the mountains in a looming black cloud, though the sun still shone flaxen over the wedding guests. Saffy begged the rain closer.

This day was about love, but Saffy had always been more interested in power. The black and pulsing heart of it. Power was the clink of her badge against the kitchen counter. It was the heft of the gun at her waist. As she stood at the altar, wind blowing her carefully pinned hair from its bun, as the bride and groom kissed and thunder rumbled in the distance, Saffy wondered about her own internal compass, the needle that kept her on this path, stopped her from wandering or regressing or giving up entirely. It scared her to realize there was no compass. There were only days and the choices she made within them.





6 Hours




Goodbye to every crack in the wall. Goodbye library books, goodbye radio. Goodbye to the toilet’s sour stench and filmy rot. Goodbye, you say, to the elephant on the ceiling.

Goodbye, old friend.

*

You reach back for the handcuffs.

They clink, snap.

Shawna stands behind the rest of the group. Her head is bowed to her shoes—you cannot catch her eye. She hunches between two familiar guards, pasty men with jiggling bellies, all of whom have gathered to see you out. One pudgy guard steps forward, slings your red mesh bag over his shoulder. You have left your Theory where Shawna has agreed to retrieve it later, a stack of pages tucked beneath the bed. Shawna will make copies in Huntsville. She will send them to the news stations, the talk shows, the big book publishers.

Do you have everything, Packer? the warden asks, with a sadness that ages him. A jowly, sagging pity. In it, you see the hundreds of other men the warden has walked down this stretch of concrete, the murderers and pedophiles and gang members and drunk drivers, indistinguishable in those fifty traveling feet.

Yes, you say. I’m ready.

As they lead you from your cell into the narrow white hall, you steal one last fleeting glance at Shawna. She cannot come along, but you try to say it with your eyes: We can do this. She is sweaty with nerves, her skin shining. A single tear travels down her cheek, delicate. You know, from years of practice with Jenny, how to shape your expression in a way that reassures her. You know how it’s supposed to look. Love. You slip it on, aim it at Shawna. Visibly, she softens.

As you make the fated march down the hall, the men in the surrounding cages are silent. This is the tradition: a blank, unnerving quiet. It is alarming to see their faces, a solemn procession behind the streaky glass. This farewell feels sad, deranged, aimed wrongly at you. You want to reassure them—you have a plan. You are not like the rest of them.

You step forward, through the crash gates. Metal detectors. Reception area.

A gasp.

You are outside.

The things you have forgotten. Clouds. The cotton candy puff of them, lethargic and easy, half asleep. The recreation cage only gets slats of light through the roof, and you have forgotten this texture, this detail. The smell of pavement, baking in the sun. Car exhaust. The trees on the other side of the parking lot stand still in the rancid heat, green leaves barely fluttering in the wind. You have forgotten the sun, tickling the skin on your arms, and you stop for a sweet breath before the warden yanks you forward.