Nine Minutes

NINE MINUTES

A Novel By

Beth Flynn

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people and/or events
is purely coincidental.

All trademarked
names are honored by capitalization and no infringement is intended.

Copyright ©
2013 by Beth Flynn

Edited by
Jessica J. Connor

Cover Photo
and Book Design by Matt Brodie

Cover Models:
Kelli Flynn and Chase
McKeown

For Jim, my soul mate and forever best friend. He always believed, even
when I didn’t.

Prologue

Summer 2000

I’d never
attended an execution before. Well, at least not a legal one. My husband sat to
my left. A reporter for
Rolling Stone
was on my right.

     
The reporter,
Leslie Cowan, fidgeted nervously, and I looked over at her. I’m pretty sure
this was her first execution of any kind.
Rolling
Stone
had an upcoming issue dedicated to celebrity bikers. They thought it
would be interesting to include a real biker story in that issue.
The story of a girl who’d been abducted by a motorcycle gang in
1975.

     
That girl was
me
.

     
The remnants of
Leslie’s accident three weeks before were still visible. The stitches had been
removed from her forehead, but there was a thin red line where the cut had
been. Her eyes weren’t quite as
raccoonish
as before,
but it was apparent she’d recently suffered two severe black eyes. The swelling
of her nose had almost gone down completely, and she’d been to a dental surgeon
to replace her broken teeth.

     
When we’d first
started the interview, she’d told me she wanted me to be completely honest
about my experience with the man who was about to be executed. I’d spent the
last three months with her and held almost nothing back about my relationship
with him. Today was supposed to be the culmination of the interview, a chance
for her to truly understand the real side of that experience.
To see the unpleasant alongside the rest.
        

     
Of course, a man’s
death should be more than just unpleasant.

     
I knew as well as
he did that he deserved what he was getting. It was strange. I thought knowing
it and believing it would make it a little easier, but it didn’t. I thought I
would get through his execution unscathed emotionally. But I was only fooling
myself.

     
Just because I
hadn’t been with him for almost fifteen years did not mean I didn’t have
feelings for him. He was my first love. He was a true love. In fact, he was the
biological father of my firstborn, though she would never meet him. He wanted
it that way. And deep down, so did I.

     
The curtain
opened. I was no longer aware of anyone else in the small viewing room around
me. I stared through a large glass window at an empty gurney. I’d read up on
what to expect at an execution. He was supposed to be strapped to the gurney
when the curtain opened, wasn’t he? I’m sure that was procedure. But he was
never one for following rules. I wondered how he’d managed to convince law
enforcement to forego this important detail.

     
With a jolt, I
realized someone had entered the sterile-looking room. It was
him
, along with two officers, the warden and a physician. No
priest or pastor. He didn’t want one.

     
Him.

     
His name was Jason
William Talbot.
Such a normal-sounding name.
It’s
funny. I’d known him almost twenty-five years and it wasn’t until his arrest
fifteen years earlier that I learned his real middle and last name. That is, if
it was his real name. I’m still not certain.

     
He was always
Grizz
to me. Short for Grizzly, a nickname he’d earned due
to his massive size and brutal behavior.
Grizz
was a
huge and imposing man.
Ruggedly handsome.
Tattoos from
neck to toe covered his enormous body. His large hands could crush a windpipe
without effort. I knew this from experience. I’d personally witnessed what those
hands could do. I couldn’t keep my eyes off them now.

     
He had no family.
Just me. And I was not his family.

     
I immediately
sensed when he spotted me. I looked up from his hands into his mesmerizing
bright green eyes. I tried to assess whether those eyes held any emotion, but I
couldn’t tell. It’d been too long. He’d always been good at hiding his
feelings. I used to be able to read him. Not today, though.

     
As he looked at
me, he lifted his handcuffed hands and used the fingers of his right hand to
encircle the ring finger on his left hand. He then looked down to my hands, but
couldn’t see them. They were in my lap and blocked by the person seated in
front of me.

     
Would I give him
that last consolation? I didn’t want to hurt my husband. But considering I was
the reason for
Grizz’s
impending death, I felt the
stirrings of an old, old obligation to comfort him in those last moments. At
the same time, I felt an uncomfortable thrill in having some control over him.
In having the ability to be in charge of something, to be the decision-maker,
the empowered one.
For once.

     
Perhaps I was the
empowered one all along.

     
I felt my husband’s
hand on my left thigh, just above my knee. He gently squeezed. A memory almost
twenty-five years old rushed over me of another hand squeezing my leg.
A harder, crueler hand.
I turned to look at my husband, and
even though he was looking straight ahead, he was aware of my glance. He gave
an almost imperceptible nod. He’d decided for me. I was okay with that.

     
I removed my wide
wedding band and lifted my left hand so
Grizz
could
see it. He smiled ever so slightly. Then he looked at my husband, nodded once and
said, “Let’s get this shit over with.”

     
The warden asked
if he had any last words.
Grizz
replied, “I just said
’
em
.”

     
Leslie had caught
the exchange between us and mouthed, “What?”

     
I ignored her.
That was one part of my story that wouldn’t make it into her article. Even
though I’d vowed to be completely forthcoming, some things, no matter how
insignificant, had to remain mine. This was one of them.

     
Grizz
wasn’t an easy prisoner, so the guards assigned to
him were super-sized, just like him. Much to their surprise, this day he put up
no resistance. He lay down and stared at the ceiling as his handcuffs were
removed and he was strapped tightly to the gurney. He didn’t flinch when the
doctor inserted the IV needles, one in each arm. His shirt was unbuttoned and
heart monitors were attached to his chest. I wondered why he didn’t fight,
wondered whether he’d been given a sedative of some sort. But I wouldn’t ask.

 
    
He
didn’t glance around. He just closed his eyes and passed away. It took nine
minutes. It sounds quick. Less than ten minutes. But for me, it was an
eternity.

     
An elderly woman
in the front row started to sob quietly. She said to the woman sitting next to
her, “He didn’t even say he was sorry.”

     
The woman
whispered back to her, “That’s because he wasn’t.”

     
The doctor officially
pronounced
Grizz
dead at 12:19 p.m. One of the guards
walked over to the big window and closed the curtain. Done.

     
There were about
ten of us in the small viewing room, and as soon as the curtain closed, almost
everyone stood up and filed out without a word. I could still hear the elderly
woman crying as her companion placed her arms around her shoulders and guided
her toward the door.

     
Leslie looked at
me and asked just a little too loudly, “You okay, Ginny?”

     
“I’m fine.” I couldn’t
look at her. “Just no more interviews for the rest of the day.”

     
“Yeah, sure, that’s
understandable. I have just a few more questions for you before I can wrap this
story up. Let’s meet tomorrow and talk.”

     
My husband took
my hand, stood with me and told Leslie, “It’ll have to wait until we get home.
You can reach us by phone to finish the interview.”

     
My knees felt wobbly.
I sat back down.

     
Leslie started to
object, then noticed the expression on my husband’s face and stopped herself
from saying more. She managed a smile and said, “Okay then, until Sunday. Have
a safe trip home.”

     
She left the
room.

     
My husband and I were
the only ones remaining. I stood to leave and couldn’t move. I fell into his
arms, sobbing. He gently lowered me to the floor and sat down with me, holding
me against him. I lay like that in his arms, crying, for a long time.
A very long time.

Chapter
One

It was May
15, 1975.
A typical Thursday.
A day
just like any other day, nothing extraordinary or even remotely exciting about
it.

     
But it would be
the day that changed my life forever.

     
I’d gotten up a
little earlier than usual that morning and done some chores before school. I
didn’t have to do chores, but I was used to doing for myself, and there were
certain things I wanted done. I had a quick breakfast of toast and a glass of
orange juice,
then
loaded up my little backpack. It
wasn’t really a backpack, more like a baggy cloth purse with strings that I
could arrange around my shoulders and wear on my back for easy carrying. It
looked small but could hold a lot.

     
That morning it
would hold my wallet with my driver’s permit and four dollars. I wasn’t old
enough to have an official license yet; I’d just turned fifteen three months
before. The bag also held my reading glasses, a hairbrush, apple-flavored lip
gloss, two tampons, a birth control packet and two schoolbooks: advanced
geometry and chemistry. I’d finished my homework the night before, folded the
notebook papers in half and stuck them between the pages of my books.
Everything else I needed for my classes I kept in my locker at school.

     
I wore hip-hugger,
bell-bottom blue jeans with a macramé belt, a flowery peasant top and sandals.
I had on the same jewelry I wore every day: silver hoop earrings and a brown
felt choker that had a dangling peace sign. Even though this was South Florida
in May, the mornings could still get a little cool, so I wore a red and white
poncho Delia had knitted.

     
That morning my
stepfather, Vince, had driven me to the bus stop. I could’ve walked, but it was
far, so I grabbed rides from Vince whenever I could. He would’ve taken me all
the way to school, but he had to drive in the other direction to do that, and I
had no problem riding the bus.

     
I might have
asked Matthew for a ride, but something was off with him. Matthew was a senior
I was tutoring, and we’d become close. We weren’t a couple, but I knew he was
interested. I was also becoming close to his family. I actually spent more time
with them than my own. Less than a week ago, he’d kissed me goodnight on my
front porch. But now he was telling me he wouldn’t need my help with tutoring
and he didn’t have time to be my friend. Before, he was always offering to give
me a lift to and from school. Not anymore, I guess. But like I said, I didn’t
have a problem with the bus.

     
“See
ya
later, kiddo,” Vince said as I jumped out of his rickety
van.

 
    
“Later,
Vince.”

     
That day was a
regular day at school. I was spared the awkwardness of running into Matthew. We
didn’t take any of the same classes and didn’t hang with the same crowd. But
still, it would’ve been nice to ask him the reason behind the abrupt halt to
our friendship. I was more curious than hurt. I mean
,
it was just a simple goodnight kiss.

     
I’d finished all
my homework by the time Study Hall ended, which meant I could allow myself to go
to the public library after school. If I’d had homework, I would’ve gone
straight home or to
Smitty’s
. But on days I didn’t
have homework, I loved to go to the county library and immerse myself in books.
I’d been going there since grade school, and I’d made friends with everyone who
worked there. I’d just need to take a different bus from school. We weren’t
supposed to swap buses without a signed permission slip each time, but the bus
drivers all knew me, and Delia had given her approval earlier in the year. I
did it so often they’d stopped asking for a slip.

     
“Hey Gin, no
homework today, I see,” Mrs. Rogers, the librarian, said as I walked through
the doors. I just smiled and nodded at her as I headed for the card catalog. For
a long time I’d been meaning to look up some books on John Wilkes Booth. We
were studying President Lincoln’s assassination in school, and I’d already
devoured the books from the school library. I wanted to see if the local
library had anything else to offer on the subject. I was in luck.

     
By five o’clock
it was time to start packing things up, so I hauled my three books to the desk
to check out.

     
“Need to make a
call?” Mrs. Rogers asked.

     
“Yes, please,” I
replied. They were used to letting me use the phone to call Delia or Vince for
a ride home.

     
Vince must have
been running behind on his delivery schedule and wasn’t back at the warehouse
yet. I left a message saying I needed a ride home from the library, but that I’d
try calling Delia too. Which I did, but there was no answer where she worked.
That could’ve meant a few things: She’d left, or she was talking to a customer
and didn’t want to pick up the phone, or maybe she was in the back room and
didn’t hear it. Oh well, this had happened before. No big deal.

     
“You going to be
okay, Ginny?” Mrs. Rogers asked. “I don’t want to lock up and leave if you don’t
have a ride. I’d be glad to take you home.”

     
She was sweet.
She offered this every time I didn’t have an immediate lift home.

     
“Oh, no problem,
Mrs. Rogers. I’ll walk over to the convenience store and get a drink. Vince
knows to come by there if the library is closed.”

     
And that’s what I
did. Like I had done a hundred times in the past. I bought a soda and sat out
front with my back against the entrance. I drank my soda and was so engrossed
in one of my books I barely noticed when a noisy motorcycle pulled up.

     
It wasn’t until
the person driving turned it off and started walking toward me that I realized
someone was talking to me. I heard a little chuckle and then, “That must be
some good book you got your face buried in. I’ve been asking you what you’re
reading since I got off my bike and you didn’t even hear me.”

     
I glanced up. He
looked like a typical motorcycle guy. Average height.
Brown,
shaggy hair that just touched his collar.
He wore jeans, boots and a
white T-shirt under a leather jacket. He smiled then, and I answered with a
smile of my own.

     
“History.
Lincoln.” That was all I said. I wasn’t a flirt and didn’t think he required
any more than that. I immediately looked back down at the book I had propped up
against my knees.

     
That answer
seemed to suit him because he didn’t say anything else as he swung the door
open and proceeded inside.

     
He came out a few
minutes later with a Coke. He squatted next to me and looked at the book I was
reading as he drank his soda. Without any prompting he started to engage me in
conversation about Abraham Lincoln and more specifically about Booth. I found
what he said interesting so I closed my book and turned to give him my full
attention. He was nice and seemed like an okay guy—nothing like what I’d
expected a man on a motorcycle to be like.

     
After a few
minutes of discussing John Wilkes Booth the conversation turned personal, but
not in a disturbing way. He asked how old I was and seemed genuinely shocked
when I told him fifteen. He asked me what grade I was in, where I went to
school, my hobbies,
stuff
like that. He seemed really
interested and even teased, “Well, I guess I’ll have to come back in three
years if I want to take you on a real date or something.”

     
Oh, my goodness.
He was flirting with me. I had boys at school flirt with me all the time. They’d
say things like, “Gin, how come you’re not out there cheering? You’re just as
pretty as the cheerleaders.” They were always offering to give me a ride home
or asking if I wanted to hang out after school.

The boy I’d been tutoring, Matthew, had seemed interested,
too.
At least up until a couple days ago.
He was a
popular senior and our school’s star running back. He went by the nickname
Rocket Man.
He
was
cute and sweet
and flunking two classes
. I was tutoring him in English and math. Truth
was, I liked boys, and Matthew was growing on me. I liked the kiss we shared.
But I wasn’t interested in a serious boyfriend, especially one who would be
leaving for college in the fall. I had too much to accomplish before I could get
involved in a relationship.

     
But this was a
man flirting with me, not a boy. And I realized I was more than a little
flattered that he was taking an interest in me.

     
Unfortunately, I
didn’t know how to flirt back, so I reopened my book and just pretended to keep
reading while he talked.

     
After he finished
his soda he asked, “So, what are you doing sitting in front of the convenience
store? You
waitin
’ on someone?”

     
“Yeah, my stepdad
is supposed to pick me up. He should be here in a minute.”

     
He stood up and
looked around. “Well, I can give you a ride home. How far
ya
live?”

     
“Oh no, that’s
okay. I wouldn’t want him to show up and me not be here. He would worry.”

     
Actually, that
wasn’t true. Vince wouldn’t see me here and assume Delia picked me up, and he
would just go home.

     
“Can you call him
or
somethin
’ and let him know you’re
gettin
’ a ride?” Before I could answer he said, “You ever
been on a motorcycle before? You’ll like it. I’m a safe driver. I’ll go real
slow and let you wear my helmet.”

     
Again I didn’t
answer, just looked at him.

     
He laughed then
and said, “It’s not like I can do anything to hurt you while you’re on the back
of my bike. Seriously, it’s just a ride home. If you don’t want me to know
where you live, I can drop you at a corner close to your house. C’mon. Make an
old guy’s day.”

     
“Why not?” I
thought as I tried to mentally guess his age. He was older than me, but I didn’t
think he was an old guy. I closed my book and stood up.
     
“Well, I
guess it’d be okay. I live off Davie Boulevard, just west of I-95. Is that out
of your way?”

     
“No problem at
all.”

     
He tossed his
Coke in a garbage can, came back over to me and held my bag open while I stowed
my library book away. He made some comment about how my satchel was probably
heavier than I was. He walked toward his motorcycle and grabbed his helmet,
which had been hanging on the handlebar, and gave it to me. I put my bag on my
back, took the helmet from him and put it on. It was loose, so he tightened the
strap under my chin.

     
He swung a leg over
the bike, started it up and then stood. I realized he was standing to make it
easy for me to get on behind him, which I did with no problem. He revved the
engine and I felt a little thrill at being on the back of a motorcycle with an
older guy. I wasn’t the type to care, but for a second or two I actually hoped
someone I knew might see me. How prophetic that thought seemed much later. I
yelled that I was going to have him drop me at
Smitty’s
Bar and asked if he knew where it was on Davie Boulevard. He nodded yes.

     
I guess that was
the moment I was officially abducted.

     
We started out in
the direction I’d told him. At a red light he turned and asked if I was
enjoying the ride. I nodded yes and he said very loudly that he was going to
take a different route to give me a little longer ride. Not to worry though, he
would get me safely to
Smitty’s
. I didn’t worry. Not
even for a second. I was enjoying myself too much.

 
    
It
wasn’t until we were on State Road 84 heading west and missed the right turn
onto U.S. 441 that I felt my first stirring of fear. It was then I realized I
didn’t even know his name, and that with all the small talk and questions he
had for me at the 7-Eleven, he’d never even asked mine. That suddenly struck me
as very weird.

     
I leaned up so my
mouth was near his ear and shouted, “Hey, this is the really long way around. I
have to be home soon or my parents will be worried.”

     
He never
acknowledged that he heard me.

     
I leaned back
against the backrest on the motorcycle.
Don’t panic, don’t panic,
don’t
panic
. My bag was still on my back, and I could
feel the library books digging into me through the thin fabric. It was then
that I noticed his jacket for the first time.