CRIMINAL CHRISTMAS: A Set of 8 Holiday Suspense Stories, page 73
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t think for a second that he wouldn’t do the same to you. You just need to make sure that you aren’t within striking distance.”
He reminded me of a kid telling a scary story by the fire during a camping trip. I could tell it gave him a perverse thrill to try to frighten me. Jones glanced through the narrow sliver of a window on Eisenbrey’s cell door, said ‘clear’ into his radio, and the heavy steel door began to slide ever so slowly to the side, revealing Tom’s dismal enclosure.
Jones watched me as I pulled from my bag the pages I’d prepared for Tom. He set them in the tray-slot and I sat down on my folding chair. As Tom got up and took the stack of papers Jones decided that it looked safe to leave us to it. He headed back to the control booth. I had given Tom just enough to show him how the book was going, and I watched him as he read for several minutes in silence. Finally he spoke.
“I wonder if this book is really about me. Half of what you’ve written seems to be about how I make you feel. Hmm, the intensity of my gaze and the cadence of my speech are having a hypnotic effect on you…are they?” One side of his mouth curled into a grin, then he chose a small portion to read out loud, “And yet I don’t know how to reconcile this charming and amiable man who sits before me with the murderer that I know him to be.” He was correct. Everything I had written so far almost went so far as to glamorize and glorify him and, try as I might, I hadn’t been able to lose that tone. My accounts of our interviews were heavily laden with observations about his appearance, his mannerisms, and how spending time with him affected me. “Since when have I ever been charming and amiable?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Artistic license,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“So accuracy doesn’t concern you?” he chided.
“Look, if you want we can strike the words ‘charming and amiable man’ and replace that with ‘hot motherfucker’…in the interest of accuracy.”
That raised some laughter from both of us. Tom leaned back and crossed his arms. “This is so revealing. I like this very much. I think it’s a good angle, a good way to approach the book. It’s bold. I enjoy knowing how you feel about me, watching you bare your soul. And it’s going to make our visits much more enjoyable now that I know you’re in love with me.”
“Hold on a minute, I never said—”
“Maybe not in those words,” he interrupted. “But you did say it. And another thing—if this book comes out before my execution, and it better, then you might be able to stir up some kind of public outcry. If they make enough noise the governor might be obliged to come to my aid.” He placed his hands behind his head and reclined on his bed. “You just might prove to be good for something other than giving me a hard-on.”
“There’s that charm I was talking about. Fuck you Eisenbrey, and fuck your hard-on.” I snapped.
He sat up on the edge of his bed. “Hey sugar, what are you getting so pissy about?”
“Maybe I didn’t like being talked to that way. Did you ever consider that? Maybe it hurt me.” I watched him process that. First he looked speculative, then confused and then worried. It was fascinating to watch him struggle with a concept probably entirely unfamiliar to him—empathy.
He leaned toward me and said, “I’m sorry.” I rolled my eyes at that, and he added, “I really mean it. I am sorry. You wanna know something? You could hurt me too,” he said. “You could hurt me so easily. Do you know that?” Tom had a pained expression like nothing I’d ever seen on him before. He looked so vulnerable. He looked like someone else.
“How?” I asked, and I really wanted to know. Everything I had seen so far suggested that he had a hard shell around his heart, and any vulnerable place that might exist seemed even more untouchable than the rest of him.
“If I tell you, you have to promise me that you’ll never, ever do it.”
“I promise.”
He leaned closer and started to whisper. “If you ever decide that you want to destroy me, all you have to do is stop coming to see me.” His voice broke. Was he crying? Oh shit, he was. I could see tears in his eyes. I stared at him, mesmerized. This couldn’t be real, could it? He was so hardened, so devoid of any tender feeling. He had to be faking this, but he looked so sincere. I marveled at what an incredible actor he must be. “If I couldn’t see you anymore, I just wouldn’t be able to take that.”
“That’s not going to happen, Tom, because I feel the same way,” I said quietly. I told him the truth. I knew now he’d been right when he said I was in love with him, and I might as well stop pretending it was something else.
My reassurance brought a smile to his face, and we sat there in silence, gazing at each other through the bars for a long while. Then Tom said, “Aren’t you going to ask me any more questions today? Are you tired of hearing about me?”
“Don’t be silly, I’ll never get tired of hearing about you.” I checked the list I brought to remind me what I had planned to cover. “Your mom said that when you were a child you used to sneak out of your house at night. Where did you go?”
“I used to sit in the woods and listen to the sounds the night makes. I’d look for animals to stalk and kill. I loved to hunt, especially when it was dark. And I loved to look at the moon. I wish I could see it again.” He closed his eyes like he was trying to remember what it looked like. “I just felt like I was one with the night, like that’s where I belonged, the predator stalking his prey. It made me feel alive.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen the moon?”
Tom looked up at me and answered. “I haven’t seen it since I was transferred here in 2003. It’s been more than nine years,” he said dismissively. “Would you like to know what else makes me feel alive?”
“Yes.”
“You do,” he spoke softly. “You make my heart beat faster, darlin’.”
Hearing that caused a flood of euphoria to wash over me and as we gazed at each other I could feel myself being drawn in. Present now, the mesmerizing quality I’d mentioned in the pages I’d given him. He caressed my face with those unnatural deep cerulean-colored eyes of his and I leaned toward him involuntarily. Tom studied me intently.
He said, “Sometimes you make me wish I could take back every bad deed I’ve ever committed. I wish I would have met you instead. We could have gotten married and lived in a nice neighborhood and had two-point-three children.”
“And how would we get the point-three?”
“Uh…” he pondered that with a dreamy expression. “Well, let’s say we started off with three but one of them annoyed me.” He chuckled.
“Thomas Eisenbrey, you awful thing,” I whispered.
“Yeah, but I’m your awful thing,” he whispered back playfully. Tom didn’t need a knife to kill; he could take down his prey with flirtation. And those eyes.
I let out a sigh as his words melted me. I felt happy to have images floating around in my head of the two of us living together as a family. Regardless of how wrong it was, I ached to be with this man. If only there was a way. But instead of trying to verbalize all of that, I just said, “That’s a nice thought, Tom.” And regret wrapped its unfriendly fingers around my heart, giving an oppressive squeeze, as I remembered that a thought was all it could ever be.
The sound of footsteps approaching caused me to look up. Jones let us know that our visit was over. As I got up to leave I rubbed my temple, trying to chase away some of the grogginess. I had the odd sensation that I had just awakened from a dream. “Is Lutz there?” Tom asked me, nodding in the direction of the guard’s booth.
I glanced up the hallway. “Yes, I see him.”
“Good. There’s something that he’s going to show you.”
“What’s that?”
“Aw shit, I don’t wanna talk about it.” I looked at him questioningly, but he shook his head and told me, “It’s for the book. Just let him give you a tour on your way out.”
I said goodbye to Tom and then went to where Lutz was waiting for me at the control booth.
“Hi Rebecca. Follow me,” he said and I fell into step next to him, or tried to at least. The skinny young man moved as if we were in a speed-walking competition. I followed him up the hallway that led outside of the IMU building. “We’ll have to be quick. I only have twenty minutes before I need to get back to the control booth.”
“Where are we going?”
Lutz looked surprised at my question, but continued along at a fast clip. “The gallows. Tom said you wanted to see where he’s going to die.”
That halted me and Lutz spun around to look at me. “Oh no, are you serious?” I said. I didn’t want to see the gallows. Not today. I wasn’t even ready to think about that place. Why had Tom arranged it?
Lutz seemed disappointed by my reaction. “Well, yeah, Tom said you needed to see what it’s like, so I got clearance to take you back there and I made time before my shift starts to show it to you.”
“Oh. That’s really nice of you, Andy. Thank you. I’m sorry, I was just taken by surprise. Tom didn’t tell me about this.”
“He didn’t?” Lutz looked deflated. “Well…do you want to see it?”
“Yes, I suppose I should, especially since you’ve made all the arrangements.”
We went outside and Lutz led me across the grounds to the old stone wall that encompassed the original prison, unlocking a metal door in the wall and holding it open for me. We hurried down a cement walkway that ran along the inside of the perimeter wall to a far corner of the penitentiary where a tall brick building loomed in front of us. We entered through an unmarked metal door with weathered blue paint.
This seemingly unused part of the prison was a neglected and desolate place, silent except for the echoes of our own footfalls. Paint flaked off of the walls and the entry was decorated with copious amounts of dust and spider webs.
“It looks like the cleaning lady hasn’t been,” I said in an attempt to dispel the heavy blanket of depression that settled down upon me, threatening to smother.
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason to clean it. People hardly ever come here. We don’t have many executions.”
“What a creepy place,” I said. This place unsettled me in a way that a Halloween haunted house never could. Lives had actually been taken here. In these halls I felt the distinct absence of joy.
“It’s probably haunted,” Lutz opined.
“Why do you say that? Do people see things in here?”
“No, I haven’t heard of any ghost sightings, but people have died here. I expect some souls choose to remain where they die.”
“Perhaps,” I said absently, my eyes scanning my surroundings with trepidation. “You won’t come back to haunt me after you die, will you Andy?”
Lutz, chewed on that for a moment, then said, “Ma’am, given our respective ages, yours being quite a bit senior to mine, it seems more likely that you would be the first to go. So…you won’t come back to haunt me after you die, will you?”
“I will now you little smart-ass!” I was grateful for our laughter as it ricocheted off of the walls around us. The brief moment of levity helped me cope with the task at hand, but my sadness returned. Lutz recognized my expression. In silence, he took me gently by the arm and led me up the three flights of stairs, like an undertaker in a funeral home, to the room that I needed to see.
“This is the viewing arena,” he said flatly. We stood in a room furnished with heavy wooden benches that all faced the same direction, toward the spot where the main event would take place. Currently, a sheet that probably used to be white, but was now coated in a layer of the same grime that covered everything else, hung in the spot where the recently executed would normally be.
“What’s with the sheet?” I asked.
“They put it there so the witnesses won’t actually see the prisoner. They turn on these lights back here,” he gestured to some floodlights on the back wall aimed toward the viewing area. “The only thing they will see is his shadow.” Lutz had his hands clasped in front of him and wore the appropriate somber expression. He was such a clean-cut, handsome young man, a real sweet kid. He didn’t belong in this dark place.
“Oh, right, I guess it wouldn’t really be appropriate for them to see the prisoner’s face when it happens.”
Lutz perked up. “I don’t know about that, but there is an interesting story behind it. One time when they hung one of these guys they screwed-up and his head nearly came off. His blood squirted all over the place; it even got on the people sitting here in the viewing area. It must have been like something out of a horror movie.” His eyes opened wide with excitement, the somber expression gone, and he shook his head with wonder. “Can you imagine that?”
“No,” I said quietly, when in reality it was quite easy. Lutz’s story had conjured all kinds of death images in my head, unfortunately all of them involving Tom in particular.
“They hung the sheet up to protect the spectators from any squirting blood in case it happens again.”
“Super,” I said. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth in an effort to quell the nausea that had come upon me, then fished my camera out of my bag and snapped a few pictures of our surroundings. Looking up at the platform above us, I noted two trap doors in the floor. That’s where Tom would be taken to be killed.
“Why are there two trap doors Andy?”
“In case they do two executions in one night, or if one of the doors malfunctions.”
“Have they ever done two at one time?”
“Yeah, I think one time there were some brothers that they did together.”
So that room was the last place Tom would ever see. I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel bad about it. If anyone had earned a place on death row it was Tom. But seeing the place overwhelmed me. I looked back toward the stairwell, trying to hide the unbidden tears that had found their way into my eyes, knowing that I shouldn’t feel what I felt. I didn’t want Tom to die in this horrible place. I didn’t want Tom to die at all.
“You’re really fond of him, aren’t you?” Lutz asked quietly.
I nodded.
“Are you in love with him?”
I hesitated for a moment, pondering whether I should allow him in, but as I studied Lutz’s face I saw kindness. “Yes, I suppose I am,” I said. “You must think I’m incredibly stupid.”
“No. I just feel sorry…for you, for both of you. I like him too. As inmates go, Eisenbrey isn’t so bad. I mean, I know what he’s done, but he’s always been nice to me.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and then I did what I’d been working very hard not to do—I started sobbing. Lutz didn’t say anything, he just put his arms around me and we stayed like that for a few minutes until I finished.
“Would you like me to walk you to your car?” he asked.
“No, I’ll be all right. You need to get back to the control booth, don’t you?”
“That’s okay. I can be a little late. I think you need someone to walk out with you.”
“Thanks Andy.”
Chapter 22
November 16th, 2012
I came back to the prison for what would be my seventh meeting with Tom. As I neared the guard’s station I thought about how far my relationship with Tom had progressed in such a short time. It didn’t seem possible, but I had only known Tom for three weeks now. If anyone had told me four weeks ago that I would be feeling this way about a convicted serial killer I would have laughed my ass off, and possibly even taken a swing at them. It alarmed me to realize how quickly I’d become emotionally attached to him, and how quickly I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize anymore.
Officer DiMaggio stood when he saw me approach, not to be polite, but to block my path. He placed himself too close to me, his face in my face. His narrowed eyes held some emotion indiscernible to me, not quite anger, but perhaps one of its close cousins. Yes, his attempt to intimidate me had worked out very nicely. “I heard Lutz took you on a tour Monday. How did you like to see where we’re going to kill your boyfriend?”
I struggled to hold my ground and maintain eye contact with DiMaggio. “What do you want from me, Ricky?”
If there hadn’t been hatred in his expression earlier, there was now. I wondered if I was going to receive the same lecture about consequences that Tom had. “I feel bad that Lutz is the only one who’s been able to show you around. I’ve got something to show you also.” His hand gripped my upper arm so tight it hurt. He intended to take me somewhere, and I intended to refuse.
“No thanks,” I said curtly, trying to tug my arm free of his grasp without success.
“Oh, come on, you don’t even know where we’re going yet.”
“We aren’t going anywhere together. Whatever it is that you want to show me, I don’t want to see it.”
“So you’re one of those bitches that says she doesn’t want it, huh?”
“I don’t want it. Stay away from me,” I said clearly.
“Your mouth says no, but I’ll bet I could find another part of you that’s saying yes.” He shoved me backward into the wall and I felt pain in my shoulder blade where it collided with a metal pipe that ran along the wall. He had me pinned. Before I could respond he had slid his hand up my skirt and along my inner thigh until he rested it between my legs, the only thing between me and his fingers a flimsy layer of fabric. “Aw, darn, you got panties on. I thought you quit wearing those so you could show Eisenbrey your snatch.”
“Let go of me!” I hissed, knocking his hand away from my crotch. His other hand still held me against the wall.
“DiMaggio!” a stern, male voice shouted. Relief came over me as I spotted one of the nicer guards, Don Avery, in my peripheral vision. He approached us, and planted himself just as close to DiMaggio as DiMaggio was to me, the three of us in a close huddle, making me aware that both men towered over me by several inches. I thought about Lutz’s comment that these two used to be friends when they were kids, and that DiMaggio hadn’t been a bad guy then, but I couldn’t believe that DiMaggio had every been anything but a bully.
