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When it finally did, Starkey started to wade through deep puddles toward his Suburban. As he did, he spotted a couple sloshing toward him across the parking lot. They had just gotten out of an old blue pickup, and they’d left the headlights on.
“Hi, excuse me. Left your lights on,” Starkey called as they came forward. The woman turned to look. The man didn’t.
Instead, he started to talk, and it was clear he had a speech impediment. “Wir frum San Cros head’n La’nce. Forgath muh wuhlet n’mah pantz —”
The woman cut in. “I’m awful sorry to bother you. We’re from Sandy Cross goin’ to Lawrence,” she said. “So embarrassing. My brother left his wallet in his other pants. We don’t even have money for gas to get back home.”
“Kin you hep’s?” asked the sputtering male.
Starkey got the whole thing immediately. They’d left the goddamn truck lights on so he could be the one to make the first verbal contact, not them. The man’s speech impediment was a fake, and that’s what really did it to him. His son Hank was autistic. Now these two shitheels were using a fake handicap as part of their cheap con to get money.
Swiftly, Starkey had his handgun out. He wasn’t sure himself what was going to happen next. All he knew was that he was really pissed off. Jesus, he was steamed.
“Get on your knees, both of you,” he yelled, and thrust the gun into the male’s unshaved, miserable excuse for a face. “Now you apologize, and you better talk right, or I’ll shoot you dead in this fucking parking lot.”
He struck the kneeling man in the forehead with the barrel of his gun.
“Jesus, I’m sorry. We’re both sorry, mister. We jus’ wanted a few bucks. Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot us. We’re good Christians.”
“You both stay on your goddamn knees,” Starkey said. “You stay right there, and I don’t want to see you around here again. Ever, ever.”
He put his gun back in his jacket as he stomped off toward his car. He got to the Suburban and thanked God his teenage daughter had been listening to rock music and not watching what had gone on in the parking lot. Melanie was off in her own little world as usual.
“Let’s skedaddle home,” Starkey said as he scrunched down into the front seat of the Suburban. “And Mel, could you turn that damn music up?”
That was when his daughter looked up and spotted the couple kneeling in the lot. “What’s the matter with those two?” she asked her father. “They’re like, kneeling in the rain.”
Starkey finally managed a thin smile. “Guess they just been saved, and now they’re thanking the Lord,” he said.
Chapter 30
ON A COLD day in early October, Sampson and I made the six-hour trip by car back to Central Prison in Raleigh. We talked very little on the ride down. The clock had run out on Ellis Cooper.
Two days earlier, Cooper had been officially informed of his execution date by North Carolina’s Department of Correction. Then he had been moved to the prison’s deathwatch area. Things were proceeding in an orderly, and deadly, fashion.
Sampson and I had been authorized by the Division of Prisons to visit Sergeant Cooper. When we arrived at Central Prison, about a dozen protesters were out in the parking areas. Most were women, and they were singing gentle folk songs that harkened back to the sixties or even earlier. Three or four held up signs condemning capital punishment.
We hurried inside the prison and could still hear the mournful hymns beyond the heavy stone and mortar walls.
The deathwatch area at Central had four cells lined up side by side and opened to a dayroom with a TV and shower. Ellis Cooper was the only prisoner on deathwatch at that time. Two corrections officers were stationed outside his cell twenty-four hours a day. They were respectful and courteous when we arrived.
Ellis Cooper looked up as we entered the area and seemed glad to see us. He smiled and raised his hand in greeting.
“Hello, Ellis,” Sampson said in a quiet voice as we took chairs outside the cell. “Well, we’re back. Empty-handed, but we’re back.”
Cooper sat on a small stool on the other side of the bars. The legs of the stool were screwed into the floor. The cell itself was immaculately clean and was sparsely furnished with a bed, sink, toilet, and a wall-mounted writing table. The scene was depressing and desperate.
“Thank you for coming, John and Alex. Thanks for everything that you’ve done for me.”
“Tried to do,” said Sampson. “Tried and failed. Fucked up is all we did.”
Cooper shook his head. “Just wasn’t in the cards this time. Deck was stacked against us. Not your fault. Not anybody’s,” he muttered. “Anyway, it’s good to see the two of you. I was praying you’d come. Yeah, I’m praying now.”
Sampson and I knew that vigorous legal efforts we
re still proceeding to try to stop the execution, but there didn’t seem much reason to talk about them. Not unless Cooper chose to bring the matter up, and he didn’t. He seemed strangely at peace to me, the most relaxed I’d seen him. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, and his prison coveralls were neat and looked freshly pressed.
He smiled again. “Like a nice hotel in here, y’know. Luxury hotel. Four stars, five diamonds, whatever signifies the finest. These two gentlemen take good care of me. Best I could expect under the circumstances. They think I’m guilty of the three murders, but they’re pleasant all the same.”
