Love Her Madly (4 page)

“Poppy, no need to give me philosophy.
One
through
F
were plenty. So, was your glib mix of numbers and letters meant to tell me that no one looked into whether or not she had the strength to lift the ax?”

“Well, one guy did. He came to us. You just saw the response he got. And there's something beyond the
One
through
F
that I really wanted to get to.”

“What?”

“Rona Leigh and her boyfriend may have had a fuse lit under them, and the fuse lighter hasn't paid any price. Little pet peeve I have.”

“Oh. The ulterior motive I was wondering about.”

Not quite.

He pressed his fingertips together and thought for a moment. “Poppy, it wasn't under my watch.”

“Of course it wasn't, sir.”

He stood. “Please let me wish you well. I don't like holding my hand out to your back.”

“Sorry, sir.”

We shook hands.

*   *   *

That night, while I was packing my suitcase, Joe called.

“How're you going to handle this, Poppy?”

“If she agrees to see me I'll be direct. I'll ask her for the details of the crime as she saw them, and then I'll go from there, check a few people out, see if I can put together a plausible explanation of what could well have happened as opposed to what she confessed to.”

“And then you'll go to the governor with the new version.”

“As long as I feel I have enough in hand, that's what I'll do.”

“He's never granted a single condemned killer a reprieve during all the years he's held office. He will never allow this crime to be reinvestigated.”

“There's always a first time.”

“It's such a long shot. Poppy…”

“What?”

“Listen, if you ever need to spill anything, feel free to spill it on me. I'm your friend.”

“You are. And I'm glad of it.”

“That's all I'll ever need to hear from you. Call in if you can.”

If.
Good man. “If I can I will, Joe.”

*   *   *

Before I saw Rona Leigh I needed to know more about glee. Might not be necessary to see her at all if I determined that under the influence of glee, or drugs or alcohol, she was perfectly capable of committing the crime she was to die for and had consequently enjoyed committing it after all. So during the flight to Waco, I called this friend of mine, a shrink who specializes in sociopathic behavior. I'd met him at a conference in London. He was having trouble with job ethics. If the patient says, “Tomorrow I shoot my boss,” is the guy fantasizing or will he do it? Should the shrink notify the boss and the police or not? My friend burned out, took a job offer from Stanford, and moved to San Fran. I begged him to sign on with us instead. He's the best. But he refused to be on our payroll even as a consultant. He'd had enough of dealing with the law. However, he told me I could consult him whenever I liked.

Through the crackling static, he said, “Poppy, we've not a connection, have we?”

I said, “Not in the cards, sweetie. Sorry.”

He said, “I was speaking of the phone connection. I've resolved myself to the sad truth that I'll never be the great love of your life, though you remain mine.”

“You're very sweet. Listen, I'm at thirty thousand feet.”

“Ah-hah. And where are we off to? West Coast, I hope?”

“No, dear. I'm landing in Waco in one hour.”

“Will that anarchy business never go away?”

“No, it won't. But anarchy isn't my purpose. Waco is also the place where Texas sends women sentenced to die. I'm going to visit Rona Leigh Glueck. Have you been following all that?”

“Most obviously. We Brits love a good murder, particularly when murder happens to be one's specialty. Besides, she's the latest media darling, so there's really no avoiding her, is there? Climbing on the bandwagon, are we, Poppy? Joining in to make a mockery of the U.S. askewery of liberty and justice for all?”

“You don't like it, go back to the razzle-dazzle of Liverpool or wherever.”

He cleared his throat. “Ah, loyalty. A cultural virtue that is just so much horseshit. But let us not argue and be distracted from your purpose. How can I be of help?”

“Listen, Doc, you know those stories you read in the tabloids about a mom who lifts a Chevy Suburban off her child after he's been hit? Is that kind of thing really possible?”

“Indeed it is. Rare but verified. The mothers crack their vertebrae, wrench and even rip muscles, break blood vessels in their eyes, but they're able to perform Olympic-quality bench presses long enough for someone to pull the child out. But let us also give fathers their due. In one case, a father was killed because he'd taken on the weight of the car with his back, and once the child was out he let go and was crushed.”

“Jesus.”

“Yes. Jesus.”

“So are there other examples of superhuman strength?”

“Why be hypothetical? What exactly do you want to know?”

I said, “That's why we've not a connection, Doc. You cut to the charge while I scope the battle.”

“Well, it's what I have to do. I can't help myself.”

“Yes, you could.”

He laughed. “I didn't win you, Poppy, and I never will because I don't make the effort required, do I? Bloody hell.”

“Now, now. You're—”

“No protest, please. This is business and I'm all ears. Tell me the problem.”

“I'm wondering if sexual frenzy is as potent as the need to save your child's life. Can it get you to do something along the same lines as lifting a car? Say, if you weighed eighty-eight pounds.”

“Not so far as to heft a car, but a sexual frenzy—if it has religious overtones—can allow an ordinary person to accomplish superhuman feats.”

“What religion are we talking here?”

“All of them. All religions that repress people sexually. In voodoo, people get themselves into such a state they strangle chickens, drink blood, pass out. Now, with Catholicism, the phenomenon is called ecstasy. People have been canonized because they perform extraordinary feats, which the saints attribute to Jesus thrusting His golden sword up through their bodies; with each thrust a feeling of mightiness, invincibility, comes over them and they are able to go out and raise an army, dig a well with their bare hands to water the troops' horses, lead the crusade, conquer nations. That kind of thing.”

“Jesus doesn't have a golden sword.”

“He does when you're having an orgasmic dream. There was the popular saint, Theresa, who wrote in her diary about the feeling of waking up to a sword being thrust into her body, the sword of Jesus plunging into her again and again. She was obviously having an orgasmic dream, and it woke her up. Religious ecstasy is often orgasmic. Now, if you were a religious person who knew nothing of orgasms and you had your first one in your sleep, you could well think God had something to do with it. Why, the first time I had one … well! If I'd thought for one minute that it had anything to do with Jesus, the vicar would never have gotten me out of the church.”

“The first time I had one I thought it was cancer.”

He laughed. He wasn't touching that one, though.

I said, “But do people
kill
in ecstasy? Outside the War of the Roses?”

“Yes. You've heard the verb
to smite,
haven't you?”

“But you don't think someone could dig a well in a sexual frenzy alone? I mean, without believing that God commanded it?”

“We're talking about Rona Leigh Glueck, are we not?”

“Yes, we are.”

“I don't personally know of it. But I can get a couple of opinions for you. By the way, I ask if it's Rona Leigh we're talking about because presumably you'd want those opinions right away.”

“She'll be executed in nine days.”

“Poppy, you think she mightn't have done it, is that right? You want to preclude such things as superhuman strength because you question whether she might have had the strength required?”

“Yes. Exactly. Perhaps she wasn't physically or mentally able to do it. But before I go making an ass of myself, it sure would help to find out that she didn't have some
unaccountable
physical abilities. Then I have to convince myself and a lot of others that maybe her boyfriend accomplished all the ax swinging on his own and manipulated her into thinking she did it.”

“Far more likely than lifting cars off toddlers. Sociopaths are the grand masters of manipulation. If I were a gambler, I'd take the odds on the boyfriend.”

“If you
weren't
a gambler you wouldn't use a Vegas term like
take the odds,
Doc.”

“Wouldn't I? We don't say that in the U.K.?”

“No, we don't.”

“Poppy, I am entitled to lose a wad in a casino now and again.”

“Never said you weren't.”

“Would you like to lose a wad with me next time? Come to Vegas. We'll stay at the Bellagio and pretend we're in a Borghese palace.”

“Call me a week before you plan to go and we'll see.”

He laughed some more. “You're such a good sport. You know that, don't you, darling?”

“I do know that. And I like the sound of
good sport
so much more than
slut.
Thanks for everything, Doc. Appreciate it.”

“Always a pleasure. And you must never be hard on yourself, Poppy, my girl. Always boring, that.”

He was right. I don't know how I slipped.

“Poppy?”

“Yes, Doc?”

“Whence cometh the bug in your bonnet? Surely there are others who—”

I told him we were about to land and hung up. Wasn't about to let him analyze me.

*   *   *

When I'd called Rona Leigh's warden from DC, described my spot check, and asked if I could speak with her, he said, “Come on down. My door is always open to the feds.” Just as accommodating as Dispatcher Melvin. He knew, though, that he didn't actually have to grant permission. I could arrive at his door equipped with the legal papers sidestepping any objections. We understood each other.

My plane arrived an hour late because the pilot was not a stud. He took wind-shear advisories as a personal threat to his life rather than as a challenge. The agent who was there to get me to my car wasn't too terribly annoyed, but something was on his mind, I could see. Before he got it off his chest he first gave me the good news that I didn't have to go into Waco to get to the prison.

The agent said, “Yes, ma'am, count your blessings. Waco is always jammed full of pilgrims who think the remains of the Branch Davidian compound are on Main Street. All David Koresh could afford was an empty dried-out field miles out of town.”

I didn't tell him I'd considered a pilgrimage myself. Joe got nicked in the shootout right when the agent next to him took a bullet through the neck, leaned over onto Joe like he was going to whisper something in his ear, and died. The agent was twenty-four years old. That was when Joe let loose and firebombed the place. When the FBI said they hadn't firebombed anything, they weren't lying. Joe did it. The surge of guilt he felt later will never go away. He thought the Davidians would come running out in order to save their babies. But they didn't, and the babies died too. Too bad he had to learn the hard way that maternal instinct is a myth. My friend the British shrink verified. “But members of a cult replace the love and loyalty one normally feels for one's child with devotion to their god, in this case, Mr. Koresh.”

The agent who met me—“Agent Northrup, ma'am”—said, “It's a pretty drive to Gatesville. You head south on the interstate but you curve off into a little arm of hill country that heads right directly to the Mountain View Unit, which is the place Rona Leigh's been callin' home since they built it for her. Nothin' like settlin' into an FM road in Texas and enjoyin' Mother Nature at her finest.”

Texans do love Texas. “What's an FM road? You're not allowed to listen to oldies on AM?”

“Ha-ha. No. Farm to Market.”

“Sounds slow.”

“It ain't. You'll be the only car on the road, trust me, and the highway patrol don't bother patrollin' them.”

“A prison is a unit?”

“That's right.”

“Most places it's facility. Which is worse?”

“A tie. Better when we just had place names. Or nicknames. Folsom. Angola. Sing Sing.”

“Alcatraz.”

“Now that was a lulu. Just don't dare refer to the men's death house as Huntsville. Huntsville is a city, not a prison. There's just no romance anymore, is there, Miz Rice?”

Miz. Some segments of society have been calling women Ms since the beginning of time. Just spelled it differently.

“None. So the death row holding Rona Leigh must be a fairly small place.”

“Used to be real small when she was the only one. Now it's caterin' to several more gals, all makin' their way down the path to the death house.”

“Well, I guess I need me a map about now.”

“You makin' fun?”

“No. I just can't help joinin' in. Y'all.”

“Y'all is plural.”

Oh.

He handed me the keys and then he took gentle hold of my elbow. I turned and faced him directly. Now he was ready to tell me what was bothering him.

“What?”

“We do routine checks fairly regularly. On our cars.”

“I should think so.”

He blushed. “Well there's something you should know.…”

“I should know everything.”

“That's true. Excuse me for allowin' you to think I meant otherwise. Ma'am, someone went and took the spare tire out of the car we'd intended for you.”

“So maybe the last person who drove the car had a flat and forgot—”