If I Die Before I Wake Page 14

  ‘Your Honor,’ said Bannister, ‘I ask that the defendant be allowed to continue, that the jury may have no doubt that every right has been extended him.’

  ‘Very well,’ boomed Judge Ditchburne. He talked as though I’d been accusing him. ‘The defendant may proceed.’

  ‘I see now,’ I went on, ‘why Bannister advised me to plead guilty and to stick to the accident story. It was to protect himself. The police had looked into the chance that he might have done it and had given him a clean bill of health. That was swell – it was perfect. He didn’t want them looking any further, if that’s what they thought. He didn’t want them finding out about the rear door of the building where he and Grisby had their offices. What Grisby had done was to unlock this door, so he could get back in at Bannister without the night watchman knowing. Usually it was kept locked.

  ‘All right. Bannister knew what Grisby was going to do. After he left, he went out the rear door himself and waited down at the Skyport for Grisby to show up. Then he killed him, firing the shot from about the same angle it would have been fired if I had killed him accidentally in the car, so that it would all work against me. He knew from my letter that I was going to be suspected, if I went through with it. And he knew from the cap in Grisby’s hand that I had gone through with it. Grisby had taken it to leave at the scene, so I’d be suspected of having killed Bannister. Then I’d show that I couldn’t have killed Bannister by telling about killing Grisby. That would establish Grisby’s death, and prove that he couldn’t have killed Bannister – not if he was dead himself at about the same time, twenty miles away.

  ‘The police say they looked into it – the chance that Bannister might have killed him, I mean. But did they? What alibi has he? Just that he was in his office when the watchman called to tell about Grisby, and that the watchman hadn’t seen him go out of the building before that time. Sure he was there when the watchman called him. He had plenty of time before Grisby was found lying in the street. And sure, the rear door was locked when the police looked at it – do you think he would forget to lock it when he came into the building after killing Grisby? He’d thought of everything else.’

  Judge Ditchburne leaned forward, his face redder than ever.

  ‘Have you any proof of all this?’ he asked. ‘If you have not—’

  I blazed up.

  ‘Of course I haven’t any proof,’ I said. ‘Nine-tenths of the murders committed are done without witnesses. If there were witnesses, they wouldn’t be done. Ask Galloway. I’m just saying that the case against Bannister is stronger than the case against me. Bannister says that no jury can convict you if there is a reasonable doubt of guilt. I’m showing that there is a reasonable doubt of my guilt – and that Bannister had every reason to kill Grisby and that I had none, unless it was an accident, and I’m telling you that it wasn’t, because I didn’t shoot him at all.’

  Galloway smiled and came up to me.

  ‘If Your Honor please, I should like to ask the defendant a question.’

  ‘Surely.’

  ‘Why would Mr Grisby want to kill Mr Bannister – can you tell us that?’

  ‘I didn’t ask him. But he said he was going to get a lot of money out of it – and they had one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of insurance between them – partnership insurance.’

  ‘But if Grisby was supposed to be dead, too, how could he expect to collect this insurance?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘But speaking of money, you were going to get a large sum, too – and you got it. Five thousand dollars!’

  ‘He gave it to me! I didn’t take it!’

  ‘But you hid it under your mattress, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘That’s all.’

  So here was Galloway standing up for Bannister – that was a fine one!

  ‘Listen!’ I said. ‘All that about why Grisby did what he did, and how Bannister beat him to it, is for you and the police to figure out. I’m just telling you the way it must have happened, because I didn’t do it, and if I didn’t do it, who could have? Only Bannister, because he’d be the only other person, outside of Broome and myself, who could have known about Grisby’s plan to kill him. That’s why he killed Broome – to keep him from talking. Broome must have seen the letter I’d left before I took Mrs Bannister out for the ride. That must have been how Bannister found out about what Grisby planned to do – Broome told him. So if Bannister killed Grisby, he’d have to kill Broome too, wouldn’t he? If he didn’t, as soon as the murder came out, Broome would tell the police that he must have beat Grisby to it.

  ‘Well, could Bannister have killed Broome? He could have easily. He was with the police when they came out to the house to get me. I got scared and started to go out the window. Broome saw me and I had to knock him out to keep him from stopping me. I hit him, sure, but there wasn’t time to choke him. But the police chasing me gave Bannister time to choke him. Maybe he wouldn’t have, except that it was so easy to do. With Broome knocked out, why should he take a chance on his talking?’

  Galloway popped up again.

  ‘Your Honor,’ he said, ‘we are not considering here the murder of the detective Broome. I think—’

  ‘Defendant will please confine his remarks to the case of Lee Grisby,’ said the judge.

  ‘And defendant will please remember also,’ Galloway added, ‘that it is he who is on trial for the murder of Lee Grisby, not his attorney.’

  I looked at the jurors. They turned away, one after the other. For some reason they seemed to resent my accusing Bannister. That made me boil.

  ‘Listen!’ I said. ‘I didn’t kill Grisby. I didn’t shoot him at all. I’ve told you the truth—’

  They looked at me and through me.

  I gave it up.

  ‘That’s all,’ I said. ‘Except – except—’

  I started to choke up. I couldn’t say another word. I climbed down off the stand and went over and sat beside Bannister.

  ‘Well, you’ve done it now,’ he said. ‘The first case of this kind I’ve ever lost, too.’

  He didn’t seem to have the slightest feeling against me either for having entered into the plot against him or for accusing him in open court.

  Galloway got up.

  ‘May it please the Court, I have a few closing remarks to make to the jury.’

  The judge nodded.

  ‘The integrity of defense counsel is unquestioned,’ said Galloway. ‘The police and the Coroner’s office and the Grand Jury each made a thorough investigation of all angles before preferring charges against the defendant. I think you may safely catalogue his remarks, therefore, as a desperate last-minute clutching at straws and render a verdict of guilty with all equanimity.’

  ‘Then I am to understand,’ said the judge, ‘that in spite of the defendant’s remarks, the District Attorney does not wish a warrant to be issued—’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Galloway. ‘The State closes its case.’

  Judge Ditchburne looked relieved.

  ‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘I have no other alternative than to instruct the jury to retire and to deliver a verdict based upon the facts as you know them. I need only add—’

  And he went on to tell the jury exactly what verdicts were possible.

  The jurors almost walked over each other trying to get out.

  ‘So you think they’ll convict me,’ I said to Bannister.

  ‘I’m sure of it. The very fact that you admitted to being in a murder plot against me, even if you were to be miles away at the time, and were entirely innocent of any actual wrong, is enough to send you to the chair. I told you that.’

  He began to file his papers away, leaving me alone. I looked around. Elsa was sitting with her head down. Everyone else was talking and laughing.

  VI

  The jury came in before I was ready. They had
been out only eighteen minutes.

  My heart was beating so fast it shook me. My eyes were fogged over. Whatever happened, I didn’t want to show it.

  A sudden tense silence fell over the room, in which only the sound of Bannister’s tapping on the table with his fingers could be heard.

  I wasn’t ready. My hands and face were streaming wet. I looked around to where Elsa had been sitting. She wasn’t there. Then I saw her, close behind me. She smiled. I turned away and then back. She wasn’t smiling at all. She was crying. Or maybe it was just the fog I saw her through this time. One minute everything would be clear, the next walls, ceiling, benches, people, all would be swimming together.

  The clerk stepped forward. He had a military haircut and snapped out his words.

  ‘The jury will stand.’

  They stood.

  ‘Have you agreed upon a verdict?’

  The foreman cleared his throat.

  ‘We have,’ he said.

  The clerk looked over at me like a ringmaster cracking his whip.

  ‘Prisoner, stand up!’

  I stood up. It was like being in a sinking elevator. I lurched and held onto the table. As my hand came down, Bannister jerked his back.

  ‘The jury will look upon the prisoner. The prisoner will look upon the jury. How say you: Guilty or Not Guilty?’

  I saw the foreman say the word before I heard the sound – like they say you feel the bullet before you hear the shot:

  ‘Guilty!’

  The formal sentence came later. They brought me through the same steel-barred door and stood me before the judge – not Ditchburne this time.

  ‘Laurence Planter,’ he said, ‘you have been convicted of the slaying of Lee Grisby, and it is my duty now to pass sentence upon you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Only I’m not guilty. I didn’t kill him, accidentally or any other way. It’s just like I said—’

  I looked around the courtroom. Someone must believe me. But there were only a few people sitting around. They hardly looked up at all. One man was even eating his lunch.

  The judge went on as though he hadn’t heard me, either.

  ‘It is the sentence of this court that you be taken hence to Sing Sing Prison and placed there in confinement, and that, during the week of February the sixth, you shall be put to death in the manner prescribed by the laws of this state.’

  My mouth dropped open.

  ‘Listen!’ I said. ‘I—’

  The judge turned to the clerk.

  ‘Next case!’

  Back in the cell, the words kept pounding over and over in my head, each time louder even than when he had said them:

  ‘… THAT, DURING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY THE SIXTH, YOU SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH IN THE MANNER PRESCRIBED BY THE LAWS OF THIS STATE.’

  Me – me!

  And I had never even killed a rat, or winged a bird…

  PART FIVE

  I

  February eighth – the death cell!

  Thirty-three hours, twenty-two minutes, fifteen seconds to go.

  The executions were set for Thursday night at eleven o’clock. Two others were slated to go with me. Who would be first down the ‘dance hall’ none of us knew. Probably me. I hadn’t broken – yet.

  Only the Governor could stop it now. Or a confession by the one who really did kill Grisby. Because I didn’t kill him, you know I didn’t. Everyone else was figuring that I did. Everyone but Elsa.

  Even the judge who did the sentencing said it wasn’t right. He didn’t say I was innocent, just that it wasn’t right. The reason he’d barked out, ‘Next case!’ was because there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The papers told what he really thought the next day… maybe you read it:

  Following his formal sentencing of Laurence Planter to death yesterday, Judge O’Connell delivered a surprising comment on the value to society of the death penalty. His views are certain to provoke widespread comment. Judge O’Connell spoke as follows:

  ‘In passing upon the verdict and the penalty, the court finds its public duty in conflict with its private conscience. There are many survivals of the barbaric and the medieval that at times belie the advance of civilization.

  ‘The life-for-a-life philosophy is a relic of feudalism. We have discovered no ideal crime-free state where the corrosive passions of jealousy, envy, hate and the attendant evils are non-existent. That a debt to society can be paid by a human body put to death is a philosophy incrusted with social futility.

  ‘The verdict of capital punishment for Laurence Planter, in a case filled still with mysteries unsolved and whole curious phases still unexplored, has incited an equally divided opinion of its severity as well as its fitness. But it is the law of this state that the only avenue of clemency open to the defendant in addition to appeal is vested by law in the chief executive of the state, who is empowered to commute the sentence or even to pardon.’

  Bannister was seeing the Governor now. Would he get the pardon? And did he want to?

  Judge O’Connell had been careful to keep Bannister in the clear. He said he had conducted the trial ‘commendably, in a legal and ethical manner.’

  Sure he had – why not? He’d known all along what the verdict would be. The case against me was so strong, he hadn’t needed to pull his punches to make sure they’d convict me.

  Or did I have him wrong? Maybe he hadn’t killed Grisby after all – or Broome. Maybe I had just been clutching at straws when I said he’d done it.

  But I didn’t believe it. I’d been clutching at straws, maybe – who wouldn’t? But they were the right straws, I was positive. Only – how could I prove it?

  Three o’clock.

  Everything was ready. All except me.

  I began to sweat, shivering.

  Why didn’t he come? I had the same panicky feeling I had waiting for the police to come the night I’d ‘killed’ Grisby. Only then I’d run away, out into the swamp.

  Now I couldn’t run away.

  ‘Most people live only when they are about to die.’

  It was funny. I hadn’t paid much attention to Bannister, the night he’d been spouting on the beach. He’d been drunk, I guess that was why. But there wasn’t anything he had said that I’d forgotten, I found now.

  And the next night on the beach, with Elsa. If what he had said about ‘seizing the moment’ hadn’t sunk in a little – more than I had thought – I might never have made love to her, and then this never would have happened. Because I wouldn’t have stayed on, no matter what threats Grisby made if I didn’t go through with it.

  I wouldn’t be awake, either. Not that it mattered much now. They were going to kill me just as I started to live. Like Bannister – remember? – telling about what had made him bitter:

  ‘Bitter!’ he’d said to the waves. ‘They wonder why I am bitter… Because, awakened, I was eager to grasp the fruits of life before it was too late. And reaching out for them – what happened? A shell, a burst of red – the whole sky whirling red – blackness – a twisted leg – the fruits denied.’

  But at least they hadn’t killed him just as he woke up. There was still a chance he might do something about it, in spite of his leg. After you’re dead, it doesn’t make much difference whether you are awake or asleep. Or maybe I was getting bitter too.

  All I knew was, if they killed me now, my life would be over almost before it had begun.

  II

  It is an unwritten code in Sing Sing that during the week before an execution all other condemned will give up their visiting privileges in favor of those about to die.

  There was someone to see me.

  I was led out to one of the three visiting cells. Before me, behind a heavy steel mesh screen, stood Sergeant McCracken.

  ‘I just dropped in to see how you were,’ he said. ‘I’m down here on official business. How are you?’
r />   ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but it’s lucky you found me in.’

  ‘I know. Tough. If there were only more time…’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if there were more time I might get you out. The more I think about it, the more it seems you didn’t do it.’

  ‘This is a swell time to tell me.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been working on the case, don’t think I haven’t. What started me was the way you accused Bannister in court, when you told about the “false murder.” But it’s a tough case to crack, all right. I haven’t been able to find any new evidence yet that would make the Governor put the execution off. If Bannister did the killing he’s covered his tracks at every turn.’

  ‘Maybe he hired someone else to do it, then.’

  ‘No, he’d be too smart to take a risk like that. Besides, he didn’t make any withdrawals from the bank that would account for that.’

  ‘Then the only chance is if he confesses?’

  ‘If! There isn’t much chance of that. Why should he confess if he did it? You even admitted being in the plot against him. He should worry about you. No, the only chance is if some new evidence turns up, like the gun used in the killing. But I’ll do everything I can. I’ll put a tail on him. I’ll watch every scrap of mail. I’ll work on it right up to the—’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Bannister’s seeing the Governor now. Maybe—’

  ‘I know. I just saw the Warden. He’s keeping the wires open to Albany. I’ll let you know the minute anything breaks.’

  But I could tell he didn’t think there was much hope.

  III

  There was a rat in the cell with me.

  Suddenly the hair on my neck bristled, I did not know why. I looked up startled, and there he was, crouched in a corner. It was a question who was the most surprised.

  We did not move.

  The light was weak; already the sky was bedding down for the night. Far away a train whistle sounded, a lonely, hurt wail.