More static had us all pinched head-to-head before we heard the governor’s words again.
“Gentlemen, I’ll take one last question. You, Mr. Hagar, from the OwensboroMessenger.”
I cocked my ear, trying to make out his question wallowing under the squawks of chorusing crows, the newsmen hungering for more.
Reverend grumbled and fiddled with the dial as his wife smacked her fist against the counter.
“Time.”
“Seconds.”
“Precise—”
A quarrel of words fizzled into the governor’s final choppy statement: “…immediately…hospitalized…chair malfunctioned at approximately twenty-four sec—execution was—”
I leaned in closer.
More broken questions rose, and the newsmen’s urgent inquiries collided and dipped under the crackling static.
“Thank you for coming, gentlemen; that’s all I have for you at this time. I’ll update you on her medical prognosis as soon I learn more from the doctors.”
“Sinner,” Reverend Claxton muttered, shaking his head, slowly pushing away from the counter.
“Warrior,” Mrs. Claxton said softly, silencing the radio with a click.
Thirty
We set out for the library at seven, the chorus of the city striking under the dawn’s pull chain of speedy vehicles, horns, and a budding busyness.
As we approached the building, Mrs. Claxton asked, “Did you know her? Miss Sipes?”
“Yes, ma’am. I taught her to write.”
“Did she really do those men in?”
I turned my head to an empty playground. “She had a difficult life with her husband.Husbands.A lot like Lizbeth Hall is having now, I reckon.” I raised a hand to my ear, lightly touched, remembering how Frazier had beat me senseless through the long night until dawn, and until he keeled over from my fevered prayers. “She was trying to protect herself and her sons, ma’am.”
“Seen a lot of that difficulty with some of our other womenfolk around here. And no matter, it ain’t right to try and kill someone three times. Poor children having to suffer a mother’s burial more than once.”
“Three, ma’am?”
“I imagine her men tried first, and prison life was the state’s second attempt. Now today makes three. And yet she lives. Though like a limp rotting vegetable.”
My hands darkened as I grieved for Sassyann locked away in the prison infirmary. She would be tortured with brutal exams by medical staff needing to poke and pry every inch of fleshto learn how she had survived the electric chair. Damned as a peculiar. And for the grievance, they would both fear and try to persecute this unknown. Maybe even lobotomize Sassyann to try to bring her back before likely executing her again. She would surely die a hundred deaths before she rested eternal under the blood-soaked Kentucky grounds.
“I’ll add her to our prayer circle,” Mrs. Claxton said.
“Prayer circle, ma’am?”
“Reverend’s congregation knows the power of prayer. I’ve seen it move mountains. And I’m a mountain woman. I know.”
“Mrs. Claxton, did the prison tell you what my crime was?” I studied her, trying to decide if I dared to be bold and tell her more.
She stopped on the library steps and whispered, “Only that you had library training and were not violent. Is there something else I should know, chile?”
“I was jailed for violating miscegenation laws because I married a white man. And he was sent to prison too,” I blurted, unable to keep it in any longer.
“Law, chile. I didn’t know.” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t give out any information other than what I was told. I’m sorry.Law.There ought to be rules against those high ’n mighty men making such ugly laws. Downright sinful!”
