Detective (32 page)

The sergeant opened the door;
Ainslie followed him inside. The
scene ahead, with only minor
variations, was as it had been three
years earlier. They were at the rear
of the witness booth, and
immediately in front of them were
five rows of metal folding chairs,
most already filled. There would,
Ainslie knew, be the twelve official
witnesses whom he observed soon
after his own arrival today, about
the same number from the news media,
and perhaps a few special visitors
approved by the state governor.

Surrounding the witness booth on
three sides was an expanse of
reinforced and soundproof glass.
Visible through the glass and
directly ahead was the execution
chamber, its central feature the
electric chair made of solid oak,
with only three legs, and once
described as "rearing back like a
bucking horse." The chair, built by
convicts in 1924 after Florida's
legal form of execution changed from
hanging to electrocution, was bolted
to the floor. It had a high back and
a broad seat covered with thick
black rubber. Two vertical wooden
posts formed a headrest. Six wide
leather straps were designed to
secure a condemned prisoner so
tightly that any movement was
impossible.

Five feet from the chair, and also
visible through the glass, was the
executioner's booth, a walled
enclosure with a rectangular slit
for the executioner to peer through.
By this time the executioner would
already be in place hooded and
robed, his identity a guarded
secret. At the exact moment he
received a signal from outside, the
executioner would turn a red switch
inside the booth, sending two
thousand volts of electricity into
the electric chair and its occupant.

DETECTIVE 265

In the execution chamber a few
figures were milling around. A
prison officer studied his watch,
comparing it with a large wall clock
with a sweep second hand. The clock
showed the time as 6:53.

Within the witness booth a faint
hum of conversation ceased, most of
the assembled people watching
curiously as the guard sergeant led
Ainslie to the front row and pointed
to an empty central chair. "That's
for you."

Ainslie had already noticed that
Cynthia Ernst was in the seat
immediately to his left, though she
neither acknowledged him nor looked
at him, keeping her eyes directed
forward. Glancing beyond, Ainslie
was startled to see Patrick Jensen,
who did look over and gave the
slightest smile.

Abruptly, the execution chamber came
alive. Five of the men who had been
waiting in the chamber formed a
line. A prison lieutenant in charge
stood in front; behind him were two
guards, a doctor carrying a small
leather medical bag, and a lawyer
from the state attorney's office.
The prison electrician, surrounded
by thick, heavy cables that he would
shortly connect, was behind the
electric chair.

In the witness booth a guard
called out, "Silence, please! No
talking." What little conversation
there had been ceased entirely.

Seconds later a side door in the
execution chamber opened and a tall
man with stern features and close-
cropped, graying hair entered.
Ainslie recognized him as the prison
warden, Stuart Foxx.

Immediately behind the warden was
Elroy Doil, staring fixedly at the
ground as if unwilling to face what
he knew must lie ahead.

Ainslie noticed that Patrick
Jensen had reached out and was
holding Cynthia's hand. Presumably
consoling her, he thought, for the
murders of her parents.

His eyes went back to Doll, and
Ainslie was reminded again of the
difference between the once robust,
powerful

DETECTIVE 267

figure of the past, and the pathetic,
tremulous creature he had since
become.

Doil was still restricted by leg
irons, which allowed him to take only
small, awkward steps. A prison guard
was on each side of him, a third
guard in the rear. Each of Doil's
hands was secured to one of the
guards alongside by an "iron claw"
manacle device a single handcuff with
a horizontal metal bar that enabled
each guard to totally control one
hand, so that any kind of resistance
was impossible.

Doil was wearing a clean white
shirt and black trousers. A jacket
matching the trousers would be placed
on him for burial. His shaved head
shone where electrically conductive
gel had been applied moments earlier.

The small procession had come down
what was known as the "death watch
corridor," passing through two ar-
mored doors, and Doil, when he chose
to look up, would see for the first
time the electric chair and the
audience that had come to watch him
die.

Finally he did, and at the sight of
the chair, his eyes widened and his
face froze with terror. He halted
impulsively, averting his head and
body as if to bolt away, but it was
a split-second gesture only. The
guards on both sides instantly
twisted the iron claws, causing Doil
to yelp with pain. All three guards
then closed in on him, propelling him
to the chair, and while he struggled
in vain, they lifted him into it.

In his helplessness, Doil looked
intensely at the red telephone on a
wall to the right of the electric
chair. As every condemned prisoner
knew, it represented the only chance
of a last-minute reprieve from the
state governor. Doil stared at the
phone, as if pleading for it to ring.

Suddenly he turned toward the glass
separating him from the witness booth
and began shouting hysterically.

268 Arthur Halley

But because the glass was
soundproof, Ainslie and the others
could hear nothing. They simply
watched Doil's face contort with
rage.

He's probably ranting about
Revelation, Ainslie thought grimly.

In earlier days the sounds within
the execution chamber were
transmitted to witnesses through
microphones and speakers. Now, all
that witnesses heard was the
warden's reading of the death
warrant, his prompting of the con-
demned for any last words, and
whatever brief statement followed.

Then for a moment Doil stopped and
scanned the faces in the witness
booth, causing several to fidget
uncomfortably. When his eyes fell on
Ainslie, Doil's expression changed
to pleading, his lips framing words
that Ainslie understood. "Help me!
Help me!"

Ainslie felt beads of sweat break
out on his forehead. What am I doing
here? he asked himself. I don't want
to be involved in this. Whatever
he's done, it's wrong to kill anyone
this way. But there was no means of
moving. In a bizarre fashion, within
this prison Ainslie and the others
with him were prisoners, too, until
Doil's execution was concluded.
Then, when a guard on the execution
floor moved, blocking Doil's view,
Ainslie felt a flood of relief,
while reminding himself that Doil
had just confessed to fourteen
vicious murders and dismemberments.

For a moment, he realized, he had
fallen into the same warped trap as
the mawkish protesters outside the
prison caring about the murderer
while forgetting his dead, savaged
victims. Still, if cruelty was an
issue, Ainslie thought, these last
few minutes were probably the
cruelest of all. No matter how fast
the prison staff worked, the final
procedures all took time. First,
Doil was pulled back into the chair
by the guards on either side and
held there while a

DETECTIVE 269

wide chest strap was cinched and
secured; now, whatever else he did,
he could no longer move his body.
Next his feet were seized and pulled
down into T-shaped wooden stocks,
then secured by ankle straps so that
neither foot could shift at all. More
conductive gel was applied this time
to his previously shaved right leg;
after that a leadlined leather ground
pad was put around the leg four
inches above the ankle and laced
tightly. Meanwhile the remaining
straps had been cinched and
tightened, including a chin-strap
that held Doil's head immovably
against the two upright wooden posts
at the back of the chair. The brown
leather death cap, resembling an
ancient Viking helmet, which held a
copper conductive plate inside, was
poised above the chair like a
Damoclean sword about to be lowered
. . .

Ainslie wondered if electrical
execution really was as savage and
barbaric as so many claimed. What he
was now seeing certainly seemed so,
and there were other instances to
support that belief. He knew of one a
case nearly a decade ago. . .

On May 4, 199O, in Florida State
Prison, a condemned prisoner named
Joseph Tafero, convicted of killing
two police officers, received an
initial two thousand volts. Flames
and smoke erupted at once as his head
and a supposedly wet sponge beneath
the death cap caught fire. The
executioner immediately turned the
current off. Then, for four minutes,
the current was repeatedly turned on
and off again, and each time more
flames shot out and smoke poured from
under a black mask covering Tafero's
face. Through it all, Tafero
continued to breathe and slowly nod
his head until, after three voltage
surges, he was finally declared dead.
Witnesses were sickened; one fainted.
Later

270 Arthur Halley

an official statement admitted
"there was a fault in the
headpiece." Another claimed Tafero
"was unconscious the minute the
current hit him," though few
witnesses believed it.

Some people, Ainslie was reminded,
argued that execution should be
barbaric, given the nature of the
crime preceding it. The gas chamber,
still used in the United States,
killed a prisoner by suffocation
with cyanide gas, and witnesses said
it was a terrible, frequently slow
death. There seemed a consensus that
death by lethal injection was more
humane though not in the case of
former drug users with collapsed
veins; finding a vein to administer
the dose could take an hour. A
bullet to the head, used in China,
was probably swiftest of all, but
the prior torture and degradation
was undoubtedly the world's most
bestial.

Would Florida adopt some other
form of execution, perhaps lethal
injection? Ainslie speculated. It
seemed unlikely, given the public
mood about crime, and widespread
anger that criminals had brought the
Sunshine State into international
disrepute, thereby frightening away
tourists, so vital to Florida's
livelihood.

As to his own feelings about
capital punishment, he had been
opposed to it as a priest and was
against it now, though for different
reasons.

Once upon a time he had believed
all human life to be divinely
inspired. But not anymore. Nowadays
he simply believed that judicial
death morally demeaned those who
administered it, including the
public in whose name executions were
carried out. Also, whatever the
method, death was a release; a
lifetime in prison without parole
was a greater punishment by far. .
.

. ..

DETECTIVE 271

The warden's voice interrupted
Ainslie's thoughts, this time
transmitted to the witness booth, as
he read aloud the black-bordered
death warrant, signed by the state
governor.

" 'Whereas . . . Elroy Selby Doil
was convicted of the crime of murder
in the first degree, and thereupon .
. . sentenced for said crime to
suffer the pains of death by being
electrocuted by the passing through
his body of a current of electricity
. . . until he be dead . . .

" 'You the said Warden of our State
Maximum Security Prison, or some
deputy by you to be designated,
shall be present at such execution .
. . in the presence of a jury of
twelve respectable citizens who
shall be requested to be present,
and witness the same; and you shall
require the presence of a competent
practicing physician . . .

" 'Wherefore fail not at your peril
. . .' "

The document was lengthy, burdened
by pompous legalisms, and the
warden's words droned on.

When he was finished, a prison
guard held a microphone before Doil,
and the warden asked, "Do you have
any last words?"

Doil tried to wriggle but was too
tightly secured. When he spoke, his
voice was choked. "I never..." Then
he spluttered, trying vainly to move
his head while managing only a
feeble "Fuck you!"

The microphone was removed.
Immediately the preexecution
procedures resumed, and again
Ainslie wished he were not watching,
but the process was hypnotic; none
of the witnesses turned their eyes
away.

A tongue pad was forced between
Doil's teeth, so he could no longer
speak. Beside the chair, the prison
electrician dipped his hand into a
five-gallon bucket containing a
strong salt solution and retrieved
the copper contact plate and a
natural sponge. He inserted both in
the death cap poised above Doil's
shaven head. The contact plate was a

272 Arthur Halley

perfect conductor of electricity;
the salt-soaked sponge, also a good
conductor, was intended to prevent
the burning of Doil's scalp and the
resulting sickly stench of seared
flesh that had offended witnesses in
the past. Mostly the sponge worked;
occasionally, as in the Tafero
execution, it didn't.

The death cap was lowered onto
Doil's head and secured in place. At
the front a black leather strip
served as a mask, so that Doil's
face could no longer be seen.

Ainslie sensed a collective sigh
of relief from the witnesses around
him. Had it, he wondered, become
easier to watch now that the victim
had, in a sense, become anonymous?

Not anonymous, though, to Cynthia
in the seat beside him. Ainslie saw
now that Cynthia and Patrick Jensen
had their hands entwined so tightly
that Cynthia's knuckles were white.
She must hate Doil fiercely, he
thought, and in a way he could
understand why she was here, though
he doubted that watching Doil die
would ease her grief. And should he
tell her, he wondered, that while
Doil had confessed to fourteen
murders, he had denied killing Gus-
tav and Eleanor Ernst something
Ainslie himself considered might be
true? Perhaps he owed that
information to Cynthia, if only
because she was a former police
officer and colleague. He wasn't
sure.