A Cruel and Unusual Punishment

A Cruel and Unusual Punishment


Riley Fakney sat at the table and smoked a cigarette. There was a clock on the wall in front of him and he watched with perverse fascination as the seconds ticked by. The execution would be at 9pm. The clock read 6.40.

He dragged deeply on the cigarette and let the smoke out in a controlled burst.

‘Better?’

‘Yeah,’ said Riley, ‘a lot better.’

The man across from him pushed a packet of Marlborough across the table. He did not smoke, but flipped the lid of a Zippo continuously, as though he were nervous.

‘You know, when the Warden said there was someone who wanted to talk to me I never thought it’d be you. I thought it’d be a politician or something. They visit the prison sometimes, trying to look like hard-asses.’

‘I’m glad you agreed to see me,’ said the man. ‘I used up a lot of favours to get here, but it wouldn’t have done any good if you’d said no.’

Riley examined the tip of his cigarette. ‘I don’t mind talking if it takes my mind off it.’

He found himself smiling. It had been two years since he’d seen detective Rowantree, but he hadn’t changed. He still sported a neat line in suits, spoiled by his ties. The one he wore now showed Wylie Coyote chasing Roadrunner in endless repition across the shiny silk desert. Riley wondered if it had been a gift or if the detective had bought it himself.
Rowantree’s grey eyes darted from Riley’s face to his hands and back again. Riley knew that they took everything in, appraising, studying, categorising. He looked like an accountant but was a dangerous son-of-a-*****.

‘You know, your case was the first I worked on after joining homicide.’

‘You never forget your first,’ said Riley, stubbing out the cigarette on the table top.

‘Hmm, yes, I suppose that’s true, but there’s more. I suppose I was never entirely comfortable with your case.’

‘I wasn’t either,’ said Riley. ‘After all, they’re about to kill because of it.’ He took another cigarette and leaned over the table while Rowantree lit it.

‘Johnston retired. He’s probably sunning himself as we speak.’

‘I’m very happy for him.’

‘It was Johnston’s case really. He was lead detective. I was still learning the ropes.’
‘How far we’ve come, detective. Look at us now.’
‘Johnston never doubted. It was open and shut. After all, you were found at the scene with the murder weapon. You had a conviction for burglary. Means, motive and opportunity - the holy trinity.’

‘And I confessed, detective, don’t forget that.’

Rowantree began flicking the lighter once again. ‘Yes, your confession,’ he said. He reached inside his pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. He opened it and placed it on the table.

‘Let’s see…you got sick of the victim living the high life while you sweated on his lawn and flower beds. You thought he’d gone and broke-in to rob the place. But Pearson and his wife were at home. You knocked the wife unconscious. Pearson appears with a gun and you struggle. You overpower him and shoot him dead.’ He looked up, ‘How am I doing so far?’ he asked.

Riley shrugged.

‘Neighbours hear the shot and call the cops. You kill two patrolmen. You were apprehended by another car called as back-up.’

Riley sighed. ‘You treated me right in the past, detective - not like Johnston - that’s why I agreed to see you. But this is getting very old, very fast.’

Rowantree folded the paper carefully like a man making an origami sculpture. He opened his jacket and tucked it back inside. ‘Yes, open and shut,’ he said. ‘No-one can blame Johnston for jumping at the chance to close the case quickly. But here’s the thing. I don’t think you did it.’

Riley coughed and let out a cloud of smoke. ‘Jesus! You really know how to stick it to a guy. You turn up three hours before the execution and tell me you think I’m innocent! What is this? Some kind of sick joke?’

‘No joke. I think you took the fall. I think you’re protecting someone.’

‘You’re crazy!’

Rowantree got to his feet and began pacing. He seemed to be in the grip of a fever. Riley could feel the heat radiating from the man’s body.

‘You’re no fool, Riley, and yet you break into the house of a customer on the day you were supposed to cut their lawn. You knock the wife unconscious and shoot her husband. You kill two cops to cover your tracks. Why didn’t you shoot the wife too? She was a witness. She saw your face and she knew you. You’d already killed three people; it would have been easy to put a bullet in her too.’

‘Didn’t have time,’ Riley mumbled. ‘It all happened fast.’

‘I’ve looked at the records. There was a gap of twelve minutes between the first patrol car and the second. Plenty of time to kill her and get away. You stuck around. You must have known more cops would be along.’

‘All right, so it wasn’t the crime of the century. So what? I was desperate and made mistakes. I ****ed-up.’

‘I don’t buy it,’ said Rowantree. ‘It reeks of a cover-up.’

‘Yeah, a one-armed man did it. I confessed for Christ’s sake! What more do you want?’

Rowantree rested his hands on the table. ‘Tell me about Jennifer Pearson,’ he said.

‘W-what…she was his wife. The guy I killed. What about her?’

‘I spoke with the neighbours and they said the Pearsons argued a lot. There was talk she was having an affair.’

‘I’m supposed to know about that?’

‘Do you?’

‘**** no!’

‘You used to do the lawn Tuesday afternoon. The husband was usually at work then –’

‘I know where you’re going and you’re wrong. Besides, he sure wasn’t at work on the Tuesday I broke-in.’

‘No, he wasn’t,’ said Rowantree. ‘Work colleagues said he’d been anxious all week. Behaving strangely. One of them asked what the problem was and he said “trouble at home”.’

Riley crossed his arms. ‘So what?’

‘So, I think Pearson knew about your Tuesday afternoon sessions, Riley. And I’m not talking about gardening sessions. Pearson left work early that day. Said he wasn’t feeling well and had to go home. I think he went to confront his wife. I think there was an argument and she shot him.’

‘Bull****!’

‘She wanted rid of him and she made the affair obvious. She did something…I don’t know, wrote something in a diary, a scrap of paper lying around with the time and date…she tipped him off somehow. She made sure he’d be home. She shot him and you walked in afterwards. She spun some bull**** story - he was going to kill her, he was going to kill you, she had to do it.’

The detective was close to Riley’s face. A delicate splatter of saliva peppered the table. ‘The cops arrive and she kills them too. She panicked, she says. She can’t handle it. There’s no way she can go to jail. She wouldn’t cope. Maybe she puts the gun to her head. Maybe she says she can’t go on. Maybe you say you’ll take the fall!’

‘No!’ Riley jumped to his feet, his hands balled into fists. His face was white and snarling. The light caught the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

‘I ain’t listening to this! I shot that cocksucker because he was going to shoot me. It was a robbery, okay? She had nothing to do with it!’

Rowantree held out his hands. ‘Okay, fine, calm down. Sit and have another cigarette.’

Riley stood a moment longer staring at the detective. Eventually he eased himself back into the seat, never taking his eyes from the man.

‘You know, it’s strange, but I always liked you, Riley. A lot of guys at the station didn’t. Cop killers have that effect. But you never gave us trouble during the investigation. You didn’t let us run over you, but you handled yourself well. I respected that.’ He reached over and slid a cigarette from the pack. He held it under his nose for a moment before placing it in the corner of his mouth.
‘Jennifer Pearson’s a wealthy woman. Her husband’s money and insurance.’

‘You don’t quit, do you?’

‘I’m just saying, that’s all. She’s coming along tonight, did you know that?’

Riley’s stomach flipped like a landed fish.

‘She’ll be in the viewing gallery.’

The detective lit the cigarette. ‘I can’t prove she killed her husband, I can’t even get you off the hook. I just had to see you one last time, to see if I could get an answer.’

‘You got your answer,’ said Riley.

‘Yes. Yes, I did. Two years on the job and I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen guys lay the blame on their friends, their brothers, their wives, hell, even their mothers. I’ve seen guys begging, telling me they didn’t do it, they weren’t capable of killing. If I’d told those guys what I told you… There isn’t one of them who wouldn’t have given their right arm to have Jennifer Pearson take the blame. But not you, Riley. You’re either the most honest murderer I’ve ever met, or the biggest fool.’

‘Just get out!’ Riley could no longer bear to look at the detective, at those quick grey eyes. He stared at the clock instead. It had an altogether more tolerable face.

‘I’m going. I hope it was worth it,’ he said. ‘I hope she was worth it.’

***

A Cruel and Unusual Punishment Part II




The guards kept close, grasping Riley’s arms as though he were an invalid in need of assistance. His wrists and ankles were bound with long-chained cuffs making it impossible to move his legs more than ten inches apart.

Underneath the prison uniform Riley could feel the bulk of the diaper. He hadn’t wanted to wear it. The guard had explained it would make the mortuary’s job easier, that the chair would rob him of dignity as well as life.

What the hell did he care that it made the mortuary’s job easier, Riley had said. What was a little chocolate sauce between friends? The guard said he could put it on himself, or be cuffed to the bed and he’d put it on for him. Riley had shook his head sadly and held out his hand as the man passed it through the bars. No-one ever bucked the system, he’d thought. Anyone who thought they could was a fool.

A steel door lay ahead, a square hatch set at head height.

‘I’ll take what’s behind door number two,’ he muttered. Neither of the guards smiled at the quip. Riley wasn’t surprised, it wasn’t that funny when you thought about it.

There was the clunk of a bolt being drawn and the door opened. Riley was led inside.

It was a poor Golgotha. In the centre of the room, on a patch of rubber sheeting, was the chair. It looked sturdy, made from pale wood, leather straps wrapped around the armrests and hanging at chest and ankle height. The wood was shining and Riley thought he could detect the faint odour of furniture wax.

Ten paces in front was a black curtain. It was closed, but Riley knew that when it opened he would see those who had come to watch him die peering at him like pale peeping-toms.

The guards pulled him gently forward. He noticed another door to the left. A porthole of mirrored glass set high up.

That’s where they hide, thought Riley. The one who throws the switch. He wondered if they cast lots or if they had a rota. Hell, maybe they even volunteered to kill him. One less scumbag on the streets. An act of charity. A belated abortion.

Riley looked at his hands and was surprised to see they were steady. It was as though the fear had evaporated earlier. Perhaps there was a finite amount and he had used his quota.

The door opened behind him and he turned to see the Warden. He nodded to the guards. ‘Everything ready?’

‘Yes Warden.’

He looked at his watch, as though he had an appointment and was anxious to be away.

‘Let’s proceed.’

In the long watches of the night – and there were many during his years on death row – Riley had often thought of how he would react at this moment. At one time or another it seemed to him that every scenario, however outlandish or bizarre, had flitted through the haunted halls of his mind. He had imagined noble defiance and searing contempt. He had visualised physical struggle and escape. He had even a protracted fantasy of overpowering the Warden and meeting out the punishment which was reserved for him. But the one scenario that never touched him, the one thing he never though he would do, Riley did now.

He went quietly to the chair and voluntarily sat down. It seemed right. The only control he had exercised over his life for the past two years.

A guard loosened the cuffs and replaced them with leather straps. While he was doing this another went to the curtain and pulled the cord until it opened.

Seven people sat in the viewing gallery. He looked at each of them, drinking in the hate. All of them would have happily flipped the switch themselves.

The exception sat in the front row - Jennifer. She wore a conservatively cut suit which failed to hide the swell of her bosom or the curve of her hips. There wasn’t a man in the room that didn’t turn to watch her. There wasn’t a man who didn’t wish she would turn to them for comfort.

The guard attached the electrode to his calf, but Riley barely felt it. Behind him another guard held the metal skull cap that would soon be strapped to his head.

As Riley watched, Jennifer tilted her head and brought her hand up to flick her hair away from her face. Her eyes never left his as she did so, and Riley felt something leap in his chest.

She leaned to her left and nodded at something the man next to her said. It had been many years since he’d seen him, but he recognised Walter Pearson - Jennifer’s brother-in-law.

He’ll be loving this, thought Riley. Walter Pearson had shouted in the courtroom during his trial, eventually being removed. He would dance on Riley’s corpse until it was nothing more than ashes.

He was aware of the Warden standing next to him and looked up.

‘Riley Fakney, do you wish to make a final statement prior to your scheduled execution?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Riley looked towards the viewing gallery and towards Jennifer. ‘I regret nothing,’ he said. ‘It was worth it and I would do the same again.’

He could sense a poisonous ripple pass through the spectators, as deadly as the electricity which would soon pass through him. Only Jennifer was calm, her eyes never leaving his.

A guard placed a hood on Riley’s head. It was rolled-up like a woollen cap, so the spectators could still see him. It would be pulled down to obscure his face seconds before the execution, to spare those who preferred justice blind.

The metal skull cap was put on top and fastened in place with the strap under his chin. It was very tight and he could hardly open his mouth.

Warden Jacobbs went to a rectangular box on the wall and produced a key from his pocket. He placed it in a keyhole and turned it clockwise.

‘Carry out the execution by order of the court. There is no reason to delay.’

The guard reached for the hood, and in that brief instant, as the man pulled the black material over Riley’s forehead, he saw Walter Pearson run his hand over Jennifer’s thigh. She turned and smiled.

Riley thought it a cruel and unusual punishment.

The End.