Along Came a Spider

wasn’t surprised the state had gotten the death penalty for her and Charles Chakely. She was responsible for the death of the son of the secretary of the treasury, after all. She and the Secret Service men had kidnapped Maggie Rose Dunne. They were responsible for Michael Goldberg’s death, and also Vivian Kim’s. Jezzie and Devine had murdered the Florida pilot, Joseph Denyeau.
    Jezzie told me that she felt remorse, and had from the very beginning. “But not enough to stop me. Something must have broken inside me along the way. I’d probably do the same thing today. I’d take that kind of chance for ten million dollars. So would a lot of people, Alex. It’s the age of greed. But not for you.”
    “How do you know that?” I asked her.
    “Somehow, I do. You are the Black Knight.”
    She told me that I shouldn’t feel bad after it was over. She said the marchers and other protesters angered her. “If their child had died, most of them would act a lot differently about this.”
    I felt very bad. I didn’t know how much I believed Jezzie, but I felt bad. I didn’t want to be there at Lorton, but Jezzie had asked me to come.
    There was no one else at the window for Jezzie. Not a single person in the world. Jezzie’s mother had died not long after her arrest. Six weeks earlier, the former Secret Service agent Charles Chakely had been executed in front of his family. That had sealed Jezzie’s fate.
    Long plastic tubes connected the needle in Jezzie’s left arm to several intravenous drips. The first drip, which had already started, dispensed a harmless saline solution.
    At a signal from the warden, sodium thiopental would be added to the intravenous. This was a barbiturate used as an anesthetic and to put patients gently to sleep. Then a heavy dose of Pavulon would be added. This would induce death in about ten minutes. To speed the process, an equal dose of potassium chloride was administered This drug relaxes the heart and stops its pumping. It would cause death in about ten seconds
    Jezzie found my face in her “friends” window. She gave a little wave with her fingertips, and she even tried to smile. She had bothered to comb her hair, which was cut short now, but still beautiful. I thought of Maria, and how we hadn’t gotten to say good-bye before she died. I thought that this might be a little worse. I wanted to leave the prison so badly, but I stayed. I had promised Jezzie I would stay. I always kept my promises
    In reality, it was nothing very graphic. Jezzie finally closed her eyes. I wondered if any of the lethal drugs had been administered, but I had no way of knowing that.
    She took a deep breath, and then I saw her tongue drop back in her mouth. That was all there was to the modern execution of a human being. That was the end of the life of Jezzie Flanagan.
    I left the prison and hurried to my car. I was a psychologist and a detective, I told myself. I could take this. I could take anything. I was tougher than anybody. Always had been.
    My hands were jammed deeply into the pockets of my overcoat. In my right hand, so tightly clutched that it hurt, was the silver hair comb Jezzie had given me, once upon a time.
    When I got to my car, an ordinary white envelope was stuck under the driver-side wiper. I stuffed it in my coat pocket, and didn’t bother to open it until I was on my way back to Washington. I thought I knew what it was, and I was fight. The Thing had sent me a message. Up close and personal. In my face.

Alex,

Did she sob, and whine, and beg for forgiveness before they pricked her? Did you shed a tear?

Remember me to the family. I want to be remembered.

Always
,

Son of L.

    He was still playing his terrible mind games. He always would be. I’d told that to anyone willing to listen. I’d written a diagnostic profile for the journals. Gary Soneji/Murphy was responsible for his acts. I felt that he ought to be tried for the murders he’d committed in Southeast. The families of his black victims ought to have justice and retribution, too. If anyone deserved to be on death row, it was Soneji/Murphy.
    The note told me that he’d found a way to con one of the guards. He’d gotten to somebody inside Lorton. He had another plan. Another ten- or twenty-year plan? More of his fantasies and mind games.
    As I drove toward D.C., I wondered who was the more skilled manipulator. Gary or Jezzie? I knew both of them were psychopaths. This country is turning out more of them than any other