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Then Cooper leaned into the steel bars and got as close as he could to Sampson. “This is important for me to say, John. I know you did your best, and I hope you know that too. But like I said, the deck against me was stacked so goddamn high. I don’t know who wanted me to die, but somebody sure did.”
He looked directly at Sampson. “John, I have no reason in the world to lie to you. Not now, not here on deathwatch. I didn’t murder those women.”
Chapter 31
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS earlier, Sampson and I had signed an agreement to be searched before we entered the execution room. Now, at one o’clock in the morning, sixteen men and three women were led into the small viewing room inside the prison. One of the men was General Stephen Bowen from Bragg. He’d kept his promise to be there. The U.S. Army’s only representative.
At twenty minutes past one in the morning, the black drapes to the execution chamber were opened for the witnesses. I didn’t want to be there; I didn’t need to see another execution to know how I felt about them. On the order of the prison warden, the lethal-injection executioner approached Cooper. I heard Sampson suck in a breath beside me. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for him to watch his friend die like that.
The movement of the technician seemed to startle Ellis Cooper. He turned his head and looked into the viewing room for the first time. The warden asked him if he’d like to make a statement.
Cooper’s eyes found us, and he held contact. The eye contact was incredibly powerful, as if he were about to lose us as he fell into the deepest chasm.
Then Ellis Cooper spoke.
His voice was reedy at first, but it got stronger.
“I did not murder Tanya Jackson, Barbara Green, or Maureen Bruno. I would say so if I did, take this final injection like the man I was trained to be. I didn’t kill the three women outside Fort Bragg. Someone else did. God bless you all. Thank you, John and Alex. I forgive the United States Army, which has been a good father to me.”
Ellis Cooper held his head up. Proudly. Like a soldier on parade.
The executioner stepped forward. He injected a dose of Pavulon, which is a total muscle relaxer and would stop Cooper’s breathing.
Very soon Ellis Cooper’s heart, lungs, and brain stopped functioning.
Sergeant Cooper was pronounced dead by the warden of Central Prison at 1:31 A.M.
Sampson turned to me when it was over. “We just watched a murder,” he said. “Someone murdered Ellis Cooper, and they got away with it.”
Part Two
JAMILLA
Chapter 32
I WAS EARLY to meet the flight coming into Gate 74 at Reagan National; and once I was at the airport, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was definitely nervous, good nervous, with anticipation. Jamilla Hughes was coming to visit.
The airport was crowded at about four on a Friday afternoon. Lots of weary, edgy businesspeople sitting around ending their workweeks on the computer, or already off the clock at the bar, or reading magazines and popular novels that ranged from Jonathan Franzen to Nora Roberts to Stephen King. I sat down, then popped up again. Finally I walked close to the large, expansive windows and watched a big American jet slowly taxi to the gate. Well, here we go. Am I ready? Is she?
Jamilla was in the second wave of passengers getting off the plane. She had on jeans, a mauve top, a black leather car jacket that I remembered from our stakeouts together in New Orleans. The two of us had become fast friends on a bizarre homicide case that had started in her hometown of San Francisco, weaved its way through the South, including the Big Easy, then ended up on the West Coast again.
We had been talking about seeing each other ever since, and now we were actually doing it. It was pretty courageous on both of our parts; I just hoped it wasn’t dumb. I didn’t think so, and I hoped Jam felt the same way.
Jesus, I was twitching as she came walking up to me. She looked great, though. Nice, big smile. What was I so worried about?
“Where are the thick white clouds that are supposed to be covering the city as my plane approached? God, I could see everything — the White House, Lincoln Memorial, the Potomac,” Jamilla said, grinning.
I leaned in and gave her a kiss. “Not every city has mountains of fog like San Francisco. You need to travel more. Your flight okay?”
“Sucked.” Jamilla grinned again. “I don’t like flying much these days, but I’m glad to be here. This is good, Alex. You’re almost as nervous as I am. We never had trouble talking on stakeouts. We’ll be fine. We’ll be just fine. Now calm down, so I can calm down. Deal?”
She grabbed me in both arms, hugged me, then kissed me lightly, but nicely, on the lips. “That’s much better,” she said, and smacked her lips. “You taste good.”
“You must like spearmint.”
“No, I like you.”
We were a whole lot more comfortable during the ride into Washington in my old Porsche. We talked about everything that had been happening since we’d last seen each other. At first, it was work stuff, but then we got into the whole terrorist mess, then how my family was, and hers, and as usual neither of us shut up once we got started — which I love.
