The Chamber

The Chamber Page 7

THE funeral for Eddie Cayhall occurred less than a month after Sam was sentenced to die. It was held in a small chapel in Santa Monica, and attended by few friends and even fewer family members. Adam sat on a front pew between his mother and sister. They held hands and stared at the closed casket just inches away. As always, his mother was stiff and stoic. Her eyes watered occasionally, and she was forced to dab them with a tissue. She and Eddie had separated and reconciled so many times the children had lost track of whose clothes were where. Though their marriage had never been violent, it had been lived in a continual state of divorce - threats of divorce, plans for divorce, solemn chats with the kids about divorce, negotiations for divorce, filings for divorce, retreat from divorce, vows to avoid divorce. During the third trial of Sam Cayhall, Adam's mother quietly moved her possessions back into their small house, and stayed with Eddie as much as possible. Eddie stopped going to work, and withdrew once again into his dark little world. Adam quizzed his mother, but she explained in a few short words that Dad was simply having another `bad time.' The curtains were drawn; the shades were pulled; the lights were unplugged; the voices were lowered; the television was turned off as the family endured another of Eddie's bad times.

Three weeks after the verdict he was dead. He shot himself in Adam's bedroom, on a day when he knew Adam would be the first one home. He left a note on the floor with instructions for Adam to hurry and clean up the mess before the girls got home. Another note was found in the kitchen.

Carmen was fourteen at the time, three years younger than Adam. She had been conceived in Mississippi, but born in California after her parents' hasty migration westward. By the time she was born, Eddie had legally transformed his little family from Cayhalls to Halls. Alan had become Adam. They lived in East L.A., in a threeroom apartment with dirty sheets on the windows. Adam remembered the sheets with the holes in them. It was the first of many temporary residences.

Next to Carmen on the front pew was a mysterious woman known as Aunt Lee. She had just been introduced to Adam and Carmen as Eddie's sister, his only sibling. As children they were taught not to ask questions about family, but occasionally Lee's name would surface. She lived in Memphis, had at one point married into a wealthy Memphis family, had a child, and had nothing to do with Eddie because of some ancient feud. The kids, Adam especially, had longed to meet a relative, and since Aunt Lee was the only one ever mentioned they fantasized about her. They wanted to meet her, but Eddie always refused because she was not a nice person, he said. But their mother whispered that Lee was indeed a good person, and that one day she would take them to Memphis to meet her.

Lee, instead, made the trip to California, and together they buried Eddie Hall. She stayed for two weeks after the funeral, and became acquainted with her niece and nephew. They loved her because she was pretty and cool, wore blue jeans and tee shirts, and walked barefoot on the beach. She took them shopping, and to the movies, and they went for long walks by the shore of the ocean. She made all sorts of excuses for not visiting sooner. She wanted to, she promised, but Eddie wouldn't allow it. He didn't want to see her because they had fought in the past.

And it was Aunt Lee who sat with Adam on the end of a pier, watching the sun sink into the Pacific, and finally talked of her father, Sam Cayhall. As the waves rocked gently beneath them, Lee explained to young Adam that he had a brief prior life as a toddler in a small town in Mississippi. She held his hand and at times patted his knee while she unveiled the forlorn history of their family. She laid out the barest details of Sam's Klan activities, and of the Kramer bombing, and of the trials that eventually sent him to death row in Mississippi. There were gaps in her oral history large enough to fill libraries, but she covered the high spots with a great deal of finesse.

For an insecure sixteen-year-old who'd just lost his father, Adam took the whole thing rather well. He asked a few questions as a cool wind found the coast and they huddled together, but for the most part he just listened, not in shock or anger, but with enormous fascination. This awful tale was oddly satisfying. There was a family out there! Perhaps he wasn't so abnormal after all. Perhaps there were aunts and uncles and cousins with lives to share and stories to tell. Perhaps there were old homes built by real ancestors, and land and farms upon which they settled. He had a history after all.

But Lee was wise and quick enough to recognize this interest. She explained that the Cayhalls were a strange and secret breed who kept to themselves and shunned outsiders. They were not friendly and warm people who gathered for Christmas and reunited on the Fourth of July. She lived just an hour away from Clanton, yet never saw them.

The visits to the pier at dusk became a ritual for the next week. They would stop at the market and buy a sack of red grapes, then spit seeds into the ocean until well past dark. Lee told stories of her childhood in Mississippi with her little brother Eddie. They lived on a small farm fifteen minutes from Clanton, with ponds to fish in and ponies to ride. Sam was a decent father; not overbearing but certainly not affectionate. Her mother was a weak woman who disliked Sam but doted on her children. She lost a baby, a newborn, when Lee was six and Eddie was almost four, and she stayed in her bedroom for almost a year. Sam hired a black woman to care for Eddie and Lee. Her mother died of cancer, and it was the last time the Cayhalls gathered.

Eddie sneaked into town for the funeral, but tried to avoid everyone. Three years later Sam was arrested for the last time and convicted.

Lee had little to say about her own life. She left home in a hurry at the age of eighteen, the week after high school graduation, and went straight to Nashville to get famous as a recording artist. Somehow she met Phelps Booth, a graduate student at Vanderbilt whose family owned banks. They were eventually married and settled into what appeared to be a miserable existence in Memphis. They had one son, Walt, who evidently was quite rebellious and now lived in Amsterdam. These were the only details.

Adam couldn't tell if Lee had transformed herself into something other than a Cayhall, but he suspected she had. Who could blame her?

Lee left as quietly as she had come. Without a hug or a farewell, she eased from their home before dawn, and was gone. She called two days later and talked to Adam and Carmen. She encouraged them to write, which they eagerly did, but the calls and letters from her became further apart. The promise of a new relationship slowly faded. Their mother made excuses. She said Lee was a good person, but she was nonetheless a Cayhall, and thus given to a certain amount of gloom and weirdness. Adam was crushed.

The summer after his graduation from Pepperdine, Adam and a friend drove across the country to Key West. They stopped in Memphis and spent two nights with Aunt Lee. She lived alone in a spacious, modern condo on a bluff overlooking the river, and they sat for hours on the patio, just the three of them, eating homemade pizza, drinking beer, watching barges, and talking about almost everything. Family was never mentioned. Adam was excited about law school, and Lee was full of questions about his future. She was vibrant and fun and talkative, the perfect hostess and aunt. When they hugged good-bye, her eyes watered and she begged him to come again.

Adam and his friend avoided Mississippi. They drove eastward instead, through Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. At one point, according to Adam's calculations, they were within a hundred miles of Parchman and death row and Sam Cayhall. That was four years ago, in the summer of 1986, and he already had collected a large box full of materials about his grandfather. His video was almost complete.

Their conversation on the phone last night had been brief. Adam said he would be living in Memphis for a few months, and would like to see her. Lee invited him to her condo, the same one on the bluff, where she had four bedrooms and a part-time maid. He would live with her, she insisted. Then he said he would be working in the Memphis office, working on Sam's case as a matter of fact. There was silence on the other end, then a weak offer to come on down anyway and they would talk about it.

Adam pushed her doorbell at a few minutes after nine, and glanced at his black Saab convertible. The development was nothing but a single row of twenty units, all stacked tightly together with red-tiled roofs. A broad brick wall with heavy iron grating along the top protected those inside from the dangers of downtown Memphis. An armed guard worked the only gate. If not for the view of the river on the other side, the condos would be virtually worthless.

Lee opened the door and they pecked each other on the cheeks. "Welcome," she said, looking at the parking lot, then locking the door behind him. "Are you tired?"

"Not really. It's a ten-hour drive but it took me twelve. I was not in a hurry."

"Are you hungry?"

"No. I stopped a few hours ago." He followed her into the den where they faced each other and tried to think of something appropriate to say. She was almost fifty, and had aged a lot in the past four years. The hair was now an equal mixture of gray and brunette, and much longer. She pulled it tightly into a ponytail. Her soft blue eyes were red and worried, and surrounded by more wrinkles. She wore an oversized cotton button-down and faded jeans. Lee was still cool.

"It's good to see you," she said with a nice s'le.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Let's sit on the patio." She took his hand and led him through the glass doors onto a wooden deck where baskets of ferns and bougainvillea hung from wooden beams.

The river was below them. They sat in white wicker rockers. "How's Carmen?" she asked as she poured iced tea from a ceramic pitcher.

"Fine. Still in grad school at Berkeley. We talk once a week. She's dating a guy pretty serious."

"What's she studying now? I forget."

"Psychology. Wants to get her doctorate, then maybe teach." The tea was strong on lemon and short on sugar. Adam sipped it slowly. The air was still muggy and hot. "It's almost ten o'clock," he said. "Why is it so hot?"

"Welcome to Memphis, dear. We'll roast through September."

"I couldn't stand it."

"You get used to it. Sort o£ We drink lots of tea and stay inside. How's your mother?"

"Still in Portland. Now married to a man who made a fortune in timber. I've met him once. He's probably sixty-five, but could pass for seventy. She's forty-seven and looks forty. A beautiful couple. They jet here and there, St. Barts, southern France, Milan, all the places where the rich need to be seen. She's very happy. Her kids are grown. Eddie's dead. Her past is tucked neatly away. And she has plenty of money. Her life is very much in order."

"You're too harsh."

"I'm too easy. She really doesn't want me around because I'm a painful link to my father and his pathetic family."

"Your mother loves you, Adam."

"Boy that's good to hear. How do you know so much?"

"I just know."

"Didn't realize you and Mom were so close."

"We're not. Settle down, Adam. Take it easy."

"I'm sorry. I'm wired, that's all. I need a stronger drink."

"Relax. Let's have some fun while you're here."

"It's not a fun visit, Aunt Lee."

"Just call me Lee, okay."

"Okay. I'm going to see Sam tomorrow."

She carefully placed her glass on the table, then stood and left the patio. She returned with a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and poured a generous shot into both glasses. She took a long drink and stared at the river in the distance. "Why?" she finally asked.

"Why not? Because he's my grandfather. Because he's about to die. Because I'm a lawyer and he needs help."

"He doesn't even know you."

"He will tomorrow."

"So you'll tell him?"

"Yes, of course I'm going to tell him. Can you believe it? I'm actually going to tell a deep, dark, nasty Cayhall secret. What about that?"

Lee held her glass with both hands and slowly shook her head. "He'll die," she mumbled without looking at Adam.

"Not yet. But it's nice to know you're concerned."

"I am concerned."

"Oh really. When did you last see him?"

"Don't start this, Adam. You don't understand."

"Fine. Fair enough. Explain it to me then. I'm listening. I want to understand."

"Can't we talk about something else, dear? I'm not ready for this."

"No. 11"

"We can talk about this later, I promise. I'm just not ready for it right now. I thought we'd just gossip and laugh for a while."

"I'm sorry, Lee. I'm sick of gossip and secrets. I have no past because my father conveniently erased it. I want to know about it, Lee. I want to know how bad it really is."

"It's awful," she whispered, almost to herself.

"Okay. I'm a big boy now. I can handle it. My father checked out on me before he had to face it, so I'm afraid there's no one but you."

"Give me some time."

"There is no time. I'll be face-to-face with him tomorrow." Adam took a long drink and wiped his lips with his sleeve. "Twenty-three years ago, Newsweek said Sam's father was also a Klansman. Was he?"

"Yes. My grandfather."

"And several uncles and cousins as well."

"The whole damned bunch."

"Newsweek also said that it was common knowledge in Ford County that Sam Cayhall shot and killed a black man in the early fifties, and was never arrested for it. Never served a day in jail. Is this true?"

"Why does it matter now, Adam? That was years before you were born."

"So it really happened?"

"Yes, it happened."

"And you knew about it?"

"I saw it."

"You saw it!" Adam closed his eyes in disbelief. He breathed heavily and sunk lower into the rocker. The horn from a tugboat caught his attention, and he followed it downriver until it passed under a bridge. The bourbon was beginning to soothe.

"Let's talk about something else," Lee said softly.

"Even when I was a little kid," he said, still watching the river, "I loved history. I was fascinated by the way people lived years ago - the pioneers, the wagon trains, the gold rush, cowboys and Indians, the settling of the West. There was a kid in the fourth grade who claimed his great-great-grandfather had robbed trains and buried the money in Mexico. He wanted to form a gang and run away to find the money. We knew he was lying, but it was great fun playing along. I often wondered about my ancestors, and I remember being puzzled because I didn't seem to have any."

"What would Eddie say?"

"He told me they were all dead; said more time is wasted on family history than anything else. Every time I asked questions about my family, Mother would pull me aside and tell me to stop because it might upset him and he might go off into one of his dark moods and stay in his bedroom for a month. I spent most of my childhood walking on eggshells around my father. As I grew older, I began to realize he was a very strange man, very unhappy, but

I never dreamed he would kill himself."

She rattled her ice and took the last sip. "There's a lot to it, Adam."

"So when will you tell me?"

Lee gently took the pitcher and refilled their glasses. Adam poured bourbon into both. Several minutes passed as they sipped and watched the traffic on Riverside Drive.

"Have you been to death row?" he finally asked, still staring at the lights along the river.

"No," she said, barely audible.

"He's been there for almost ten years, and you've never gone to see him?"

"I wrote him a letter once, shortly after his last trial. Six months later he wrote me back and told me not to come. Said he didn't want me to see him on death row. I wrote him two more letters, neither of which he answered."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I'm carrying a lot of guilt, Adam, and it's not easy to talk about. Just give me some time."

"I may be in Memphis for a while."

"I want you to stay here. We'll need each other." She hesitated and stirred the drink with an index finger. "I mean, he is going to die, isn't he?"

"It's likely."

"When?"

"Two or three months. His appeals are virtually exhausted. There's not much left."

"Then why are you getting involved?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's because we have a fighting chance. I'll work my tail off for the next few months and pray for a miracle."

"I'll be praying too," she said as she took another sip.

"Can we talk about something?" he asked, suddenly looking at her.

"Sure."

"Do you live here alone? I mean, it's a fair question if I'm going to be staying here."

"I live alone. My husband lives in our house in the country."

"Does he live alone? Just curious."

"Sometimes. He likes young girls, early twenties, usually employees at his banks. I'm expected to call before I go to the house. And he's expected to call before he comes here."

"That's nice and convenient. Who negotiated that agreement?"

"We just sort of worked it out over time. We haven't lived together in fifteen years."

"Some marriage."

"It works quite well, actually. I take his money, and I ask no questions about his private life. We do the required little social numbers together, and he's happy."

"Are you happy?"

"Most of the time."

"If he cheats, why don't you sue for divorce and clean him out. I'll represent you."

"A divorce wouldn't work. Phelps comes from a very proper, stiff old family of miserably rich people. Old Memphis society. Some of these families have intermarried for decades. In fact, Phelps was expected to marry a fifth cousin, but instead he fell under my charms. His family was viciously opposed to it, and a divorce now would be a painful admission that his family was right. Plus, these people are proud bluebloods, and a nasty divorce would humiliate them. I love the independence of taking his money and living as I choose."

"Did you ever love him?"

"Of course. We were madly in love when we married. We eloped, by the way. It was 1963, and the idea of a large wedding with his family of aristocrats and my family of rednecks was not appealing. His mother would not speak to me, and my father was burning crosses. At that time, Phelps did not know my father was a Klansman, and of course I desperately wanted to keep it quiet."

"Did he find out?"

"As soon as Daddy was arrested for the bombing, I told him. He in turn told his father, and the word was spread slowly and carefully through the Booth family. These people are quite proficient at keeping secrets. It's the only thing they have in common with us Cayhalls."

"So only a few know you're Sam's daughter?"

"Very few. I'd like to keep it that way."

"You're ashamed of - "

"Hell yes I'm ashamed of my father! Who wouldn't be?" Her words were suddenly sharp and bitter. "I hope you don't have some romanticized image of this poor old man suffering on death row, about to be unjustly crucified for his sins."

"I don't think he should die."

"Neither do 1. But he's damned sure killed enough people - the Kramer twins, their father, your father, and God knows who else. He should stay in prison for the rest of his life."

"You have no sympathy for him?"

"Occasionally. If I'm having a good day and the sun is shining, then I might think of him and remember a small pleasant event from my childhood. But those moments are very rare, Adam. He has caused much misery in my life and in the lives of those around him. He taught us to hate everybody. He was mean to our mother. His whole damned family is mean."

"So let's just kill him then."

"I didn't say that, Adam, and you're being unfair. I think about him all the time. I pray for him every day. I've asked these walls a million times why and how my father became such a horrible person. Why can't he be some nice old man right now sitting on the front porch with a pipe and a cane, maybe a little bourbon in a glass, for his stomach, of course? Why did my father have to be a Klansman who killed innocent children and ruined his own family?"

"Maybe he didn't intend to kill them."

"They're dead, aren't they? The jury said he did it. They were blown to bits and buried side by side in the same neat little grave. Who cares if he intended to kill them? He was there, Adam."

"It could be very important."

Lee jumped to her feet and grabbed his hand. "Come here," she insisted. They stepped a few feet to the edge of the patio. She pointed to the Memphis skyline several blocks away. "You see that flat building facing the river there. The nearest to us. Just over there, three or four blocks away."

"Yes," he answered slowly.

"The top floor is the fifteenth, okay. Now, from the right, count down six levels. Do you follow?"

"Yes," Adam nodded and counted obediently. The building was a showy high-rise.

"Now, count four windows to the left. There's a light on. Do you see it?"

"Yes."

"Guess who lives there."

"How would I know?"

"Ruth Kramer."

"Ruth Kramer! The mother?"

"That's her."

"Do you know her?"

"We met once, by accident. She knew I was Lee Booth, wife of the infamous Phelps Booth, but that was all. It was a glitzy fundraiser for the ballet or something. I've always avoided her if possible."

"This must be a small town."

"It can be tiny. If you could ask her about Sam, what would she say?"

Adam stared at the lights in the distance. "I don't know. I've read that she's still bitter."

"Bitter? She lost her entire family. She's never remarried. Do you think she cares if my father intended to kill her children? Of course not. She just knows they're dead, Adam, dead for twentythree years now. She knows they were killed by a bomb planted by my father, and if he'd been home with his family instead of riding around at night with his idiot buddies, little josh and John would not be dead. They instead would be twenty-eight years old, probably very well educated and married with perhaps a baby or two for Ruth and Marvin to play with. She doesn't care who the bomb was intended for, Adam, only that it was placed there and it exploded. Her babies are dead. That's all that matters."

Lee stepped backward and sat in her rocker. She rattled her ice again and took a drink. "Don't get me wrong, Adam. I'm opposed to the death penalty. I'm probably the only fifty-year-old white woman in the country whose father is on death row. It's barbaric, immoral, discriminatory, cruel, uncivilized - I subscribe to all the above. But don't forget the victims, okay. They have the right to want retribution. They've earned it."

"Does Ruth Kramer want retribution?"

"By all accounts, yes. She doesn't say much to the press anymore, but she's active with victims groups. Years ago she was quoted as saying she would be in the witness room when Sam Cayhall was executed."

"Not exactly a forgiving spirit."

"I don't recall my father asking for forgiveness."

Adam turned and sat on the ledge with his back to the river. He glanced at the buildings downtown, then studied his feet. Lee took another long drink.

"Well, Aunt Lee, what are we going to do?"

"Please drop the Aunt."

"Okay, Lee. I'm here. I'm not leaving. I'll visit Sam tomorrow, and when I leave I intend to be his lawyer."

"Do you intend to keep it quiet?"

"The fact that I'm really a Cayhall? I don't plan to tell anyone, but I'll be surprised if it's a secret much longer. When it comes to death row inmates, Sam's a famous one. The press will start some serious digging pretty soon."

Lee folded her feet under her and stared at the river. "Will it harm you?" she asked softly.

"Of course not. I'm a lawyer. Lawyers defend child molesters and assassins and drug dealers and rapists and terrorists. We are not popular people. How can I be harmed by the fact that he's my grandfather?"

"Your firm knows?"

"I told them yesterday. They were not exactly delighted, but they came around. I hid it from them, actually, when they hired me, and I was wrong to do so. But I think things are okay."

"What if he says no?"

"Then we'll be safe, won't we? No one will ever know, and you'll be protected. I'll go back to Chicago and wait for CNN to cover the carnival of the execution. And I'm sure I'll drive down one cool day in the fall and put some flowers on his grave, probably look at the tombstone and ask myself again why he did it and how he became such a lowlife and why was I born into such a wretched family, you know, the questions we've been asking for many years. I'll invite you to come with me. It'll be sort of a little family reunion, you know, just us Cayhalls slithering through the cemetery with a cheapo bouquet of flowers and thick sunglasses so no one will discover us."

"Stop it," she said, and Adam saw the tears. They were flowing and were almost to her chin when she wiped them with her fingers.

"I'm sorry," he said, then turned to watch another barge inch north through the shadows of the river. "I'm sorry, Lee."