The Reservoir (27 page)

“No,” Tommie replies, “first thing I’ll do is go over to Schoen’s and have a smoke and a drink. Then I’m going to Lumsden’s and buy presents for you and Aunt Jane, Ma and Daddy, everybody—the most expensive things I can find, borrowed against what I’ll earn later. Then we’ll see about that suit.”

And then afterward, by himself, he’s still smiling, and he goes over the scene again, putting a woman in somewhere after the suit, almost feeling the softness of her skin against his. Then the image dissolves and there above him is just the black iron ceiling and the raven’s wing.

• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR •

T
HE SUPREME COURT
of appeals rules three to two against Tommie. To get a rehearing he needs only one of the three who ruled against him to agree. Crump tells Tommie this to cheer him up. What he doesn’t say, and they both know, is that if the high court denies a rehearing the only remaining hope is a pardon or commutation from the governor.

From now on Tommie is to live a restricted life in a larger room on the second floor where a guard will be with him night and day, lest he attempt to escape or harm himself. “I’m sorry we have to do this,” one of the guards tells him.

“I don’t mind,” Tommie says. “You’ve always treated me fairly.”

The new room is altogether better. It’s larger and better ventilated and has two south-facing barred windows overlooking the city stables and the colored jail yard, from whence often rise tattered bits of work songs and spirituals. The room’s brick walls are painted white, and there’s an iron cot, a table, a nightstand, a trunk, and two chairs. The two officers who take turns at the watch have a poorer arrangement—they sleep or sit just outside the room. Often they leave the heavy wooden door ajar, but when it is closed they can check on him through a wicket. After Aunt Jane tells them that the potted geraniums she brought are for the two of them, as well as her nephew, they take it upon themselves to water them.

Tommie dresses nearly every day in a suit and cravat, or a necktie and gold pin. His health and appetite are good, but the strain begins to show in his face. Strands of gray appear in his hair, and lines become etched around his eyes and mouth; for lack of exercise he puts on some weight, so Willie buys him three new suits.

He begins writing a treatise on the death penalty, and why he opposes it: Convicts could repay some of their debt by hard labor; life in prison is often harsher punishment; the death penalty goes against the teachings of Christ; and, most important, mistakes are sometimes made. Reading the whole thing over, he thinks it would be seen as too self-serving and decides against sending it to the newspaper. Instead he mails a copy to the governor; he also shows it to Hatcher on his next visit.

“You are using the mind God gave you to a higher purpose and that’s good,” Hatcher says, “as long as you’re not putting your faith in things of this world to save you. There may not be much time, you know. You need to prepare for eternity, Tommie. Even your innocence won’t save you—only your trust in Jesus. I beg you not to cling to any hope of release.”

“I don’t want to,” Tommie says. “It’s the hope that makes me suffer.”

Hatcher nods, trying to understand where his lost sheep is leading him. “Tommie, I say your innocence won’t save you. But your guilt, if you are guilty, is a terrible burden to bring before God unconfessed. If you’re to be saved, you must confess and do it without fear of the gallows. But even a confession won’t save you without your faith in Christ as your redeemer.”

“I have nothing to confess,” Tommie says. “I am not guilty of the blood of Lillian Madison.”

Hatcher nods gravely, but the tightness around his eyes relaxes and he seems a little less burdened. “Very well then, I accept that as a true statement.”

“It’s just the shame—the gallows. Why does it have to be so cruel? I—” He looks away, unable to go on.

Hatcher tries to speak, but his lips have gone dry and he fights away tears.

“Reverend Hatcher,” Tommie says, “do you think a soul could be corrupt by nature?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Hatcher says. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered if some people are born bad and have to fight to be good.”

“I don’t think anybody is born bad. But, yes, it is harder for some people to do the right thing. Men with much greater minds than my own have even said that man is fundamentally prone to evil. Saint Augustine thought that, but I don’t. I do know one thing, though—the devil is loose in the world, and it’s hard to get through life without facing him. Some people are more sorely tested than others—I don’t know why. But only those with the most trust in God can survive the test.” He waits a moment, then says, “Is there anything else you want to talk about?” Tommie shakes his head, and Hatcher seems almost relieved.

When he is alone again, Tommie thinks about Willie and Jane and all the men here, going on with their lives after he’s dead and gone—most people will forget about him. Sometimes drifting off to sleep he can see her floating lifelessly on the unruffled surface of the reservoir, her white face and hands the only things visible in the blackness of the universe, her eyes open and staring into the depthless sky. Was it his desire only that was to blame? Of course not—she had wanted him as much as he had wanted her. They had cleaved together.

Evans comes to tell him how they ruled on the rehearing. Tommie knows right away that this penultimate prop has been pulled out from under him. He feels his face flush as Evans tells him how sorry he is.

“But, Tommie,” he says, “the governor has the final say and public opinion is turning. He’s pardoned plenty of people.” He can see that Tommie’s in no mood to talk about pardons. “How’s your brother getting along?”

Tommie tells him that Willie is supplying timber for the Richmond and Chesapeake company, and that if the new railroad is built he stands to make quite a profit. They talk about other news of the day, about the new trolley system being installed and how things are changing all the time. Then Evans says he’ll come back up as soon as he can. There is no need to say the obvious, that his work for Tommie is essentially over. They stand and shake hands.

The judgment of the supreme court is certified, and again Judge Hill is given the task of scheduling an execution date. He settles on Friday, December 11. Crump and Evans then write up petitions to the governor both for pardon and for commutation of sentence, and hand them over to Willie, who takes immediate charge. He brings them to a printer and has twenty-five copies made in booklet form so that signatures can be appended on the following pages. Then he travels around to everyone he knows in any position of influence and collects the names and addresses of people around the state and beyond who might be sympathetic to their cause. He enlists the help of a lady friend, then has more booklets printed up and mails those out as well, stressing in a covering letter that the matter is urgent. He discovers that his brother is about as well known as any man in the country. The petitions are circulated among Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Jews, and reform societies as far away as Boston and Charleston.

And they begin pouring back in—from Fauquier and Fluvanna, the Northern Neck, Baltimore. The little town of Chester, Pennsylvania, returns a petition signed by twenty-four people; one hundred twenty-seven citizens of New York City send back their own engraved petition. Northerners seem more sympathetic, or perhaps, Tommie and Willie conjecture, quicker to decry the apparent mob mentality of Southern justice.

The petitions pour in from the remotest corners of the land, a steady flow of voices pleading mercy for a man the signers have never seen. Willie is determined to keep sending petitions, even to the most unlikely places, until Governor Lee has made his decision. By the end of November, five jurors, all from Alexandria, have signed petitions for commutation. Three of them complain that they were not aware they could find for anything less than murder in the first degree. Now they begin to speak out: If they had known of their power, surely they would have voted for second degree. This prompts the hustings court clerk to defend himself, saying he gave them clear instructions at the beginning of the trial.

Other contrite voices speak up on behalf of the prisoner, citizens who have changed their minds—they’re no longer so sure, they think suicide was as likely as murder, they heard the jury had been unduly influenced.

Now it seems probable that Governor Lee will at least commute the sentence. He’ll show the same wisdom and compassion as his uncle, the greatest general in the nation’s history. Armed with over three thousand signatures, then, Crump and Evans call on him in the capitol, and Fitzhugh Lee—the dashing, bushy-bearded cavalry commander—welcomes them and says he has read every scrap of information about the case and will be pleased to hear their petition. They spend most of the afternoon with him, pointing out the weaknesses in the commonwealth’s murder theory. Lee listens politely, attentively, and with no attempt to hurry them along.

Willie planned to make his own appeal to the governor on the same day, but he has decided, without telling anyone, to travel back home and call on his mother. Things are out of balance, and a reckoning is coming due. Yes, Tommie had become scared and had left Lillie there, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it. Willie has anyway convinced himself that she was already dead, that there was nothing more Tommie could have done for her. The scales have to be righted in some way. Aylett and Meredith and Hill—they were only doing their jobs. The jury—it was partly to blame, but they had been swayed by all the witnesses Richardson and Wren and the others had dug up, and probably they were afraid of their reputations if they went against the tide. It was wrong, but Willie found it hard to be angry at twelve men he didn’t know. Everybody had a hand in it—the court of appeals, Governor Lee, Herman Joel.

But the person who most often surfaces to mind, bubbling up like gas from a rotting log on a pond bottom, is a criminal far worse than his brother. Lillie’s words, which he’d long ago put out of his mind, come back again and again: “He made me feel dirty.” Willie remembers telling this to Tommie—could it be that his brother was now embellishing from that? Or was it that Lillie had not told him the entire truth? Or did something happen later between her and her father? He feels his universe coming unhinged, and all he can do is direct his considerable energy on Madison. Whatever happened in the past, the man deserves jail, if not hanging, and yet he is allowed to walk free, to laugh and drink and grow old, while Tommie will turn cold in his grave before his twenty-fourth birthday. It isn’t right. But first Willie has to see about something.

He has to know for sure.

He walks in without knocking and finds his mother doing needlework by the light of the western parlor window. She drops it in her lap and looks up at him, haggard and confused. “Son? I thought you were in Richmond to see the governor. Did you forget the letter?”

“No, I have it, Ma,” Willie says. “I’ll see the governor tomorrow and I’ll give it to him.”

“Your Pa wrote it, and I cried a-reading it. If that doesn’t move the governor, he’s made of stone. Nothing but stone.” She takes a long sip from a blue ceramic mug of coffee and bourbon. “I wanted to take it myself, but I wasn’t feeling good, and the roads have been so bad with the weather. You know I write your brother every day. I just don’t know if I can bear to see him there.”

“That’s all right, Ma,” Willie says. “Does he ever write about visiting you here before—before Lillian died?”

“He visited me all the time.”

“Ma, he told me all about it. I know about the letter. I just want to know if you think Hannah would give me a statement. It’s time her husband was behind bars.”

“Statement? What do you mean?”

“Mother, you don’t have to pretend with me. I know what she wrote you.”

“Who wrote me?”

“Hannah Walker Madison, your niece, Mother, for God’s sakes!” Willie is beginning to lose his patience. He eyes his mother’s afternoon libation. “I’m sorry, Ma, I didn’t mean to shout.”

“That’s all right.”

She looks hurt now, and he tries a gentler approach. “Tommie told me about the letter Hannah sent, about how her husband had used Lillie.”

“I believe you, son. It’s just that I don’t remember it. You see, I don’t remember things like I used to. Your father still has a very good memory, he can remember everything he said and the day he said it. He says my memory’s fine, but I know it’s not so.”

“Ma, this is very important,” Willie says. He suddenly feels himself panicking, picturing his brother at the reservoir. “It is crucial that you remember some piece of this. You had a letter, it was in a book on the mantelpiece.
Pilgrim’s Progress.”
He gets up and strides to the fireplace where a little fire is going. The only items on the mantelpiece are two candles, a pewter cup filled with paper lamplighters, a box of cascara quinine tablets, and a photograph of Tommie and himself as boys standing outside their old house in Sunday clothes. “And he read the letter and you took it and threw it in the fire.”

“I believe we had a copy of
Pilgrim’s Progress
, but I don’t know where ’tis. It’s your father’s book.”

“No,” Willie says, adamant. “The book was up here.” He slaps the top of the mantelpiece and dust flies up. He has to get out of here before he says something he’ll regret. He has to get outside where he can breathe, where the world isn’t turning upside down.

There is no time now, he tells himself, to visit Hannah Madison even if he wasn’t afraid to—he has to hurry back to Richmond to see the governor first thing in the morning and hope that Lee will meet with him after Willie failed to present himself today. There is no time to take the evening train. He’ll have to leave his horse at his parents’ house—going up to Aunt Jane’s would only waste more time—and then hire a carriage and driver. To hell with the expense.