Page 26 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

The unsmiling faces. The mace clipped to every belt. The endless doors and gates, necessitating a great, long loop of keys attached to every khaki-clad staff member. The smell. The constant metallic clanging. Kate could think of many better places to spend a Saturday.

To be fair, there was far less clanging up on Spur C.

They didn’t call it death row, but that was its function.

Up to a year before the appointed date, the condemned men moved from Gen Pop into this unit of single cells, where they sat, or stood, paced or rocked or slept the remaining hours of their lives away, while elsewhere teams of lawyers frantically filed plea upon plea in the hope of getting the sentence commuted.

“It’s quieter than I imagined,” Kate observed to the unit warden. His name badge said Kovacs.

“It can get to you,” said Kovacs.

He had an encyclopedic memory for the men under his care, past and present, and he reeled off the facts of Denton’s prison career like a shopping list. Sentenced to death in early 2016, Denton had been sent to Leavenworth, from where he’d mounted three unsuccessful appeals.

In late 2018, he’d been shipped to the Wedmore Facility and, within a few months, renounced any future bids for clemency, announcing that he accepted his fate.

In November 2024, the Department of Justice had announced Denton’s impending execution date, causing Kate’s nightmares to return in earnest. And they troubled her still now, three months after his last breath.

For some reason – superstitious or administrative, Kate wasn’t sure – condemned men’s cells were kept empty for a year after the execution, although there were no traces of Denton inside.

“He did a lot of sketches,” said Kovacs, whose flattened nose, wall-to-wall tattoos, and ham-sized biceps contrasted with a gentle, almost peaceful manner.

“They were quite good. Portraits, mainly. Somehow, it got out on the web, and we had every kind of whack job offering us money for them. One person – I can’t tell you his name because you’ll know him – offered six million. ”

“What happened to them?” Kate asked, warily. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see Denton’s artwork.

“Some forensic psychology profiler guy at Penn State got them for zilch. Don’t ask me why. The governor’s big on ‘understanding the criminal mind’ and all that that jazz.”

He made a face, such a comic one that Kate laughed involuntarily. “You’re not so interested yourself, I take it.”

“Three hots and a cot. Stop ‘em from killing themselves or each other. In some cases, so we can kill them ourselves, but let’s not get into that one.”

Kate had a feeling she’d just received all or part of the death row induction speech. And it finished just as they came to a stop by a door. Kovacs reached for one of his many loops of keys. “Ready to go in?”

“All right.”

“Sure?”

“I am,” she said. “Thanks.”

The front face of each cell was made of toughened glass, meaning that the death row prisoners spent their final months effectively living in separate goldfish bowls. A low wall around the toilet afforded each man some rudimentary dignity.

Once the door was open, she found herself hesitating.

“You won’t shut the door, will you?”

She went inside and realized that she was shaking a little.

She’d made Denton into something in her mind.

A phantom. A distillation of evil. A monster.

In reality, he’d slept in a bed, in this little transparent shoebox of a room.

Sat on a toilet. Brushed his teeth. Tried to decorate his spartan surroundings with drawings.

Done a host of simple, trivial, everyday things that every other person did.

She remembered something Gabe had said. He’d interviewed over fifty serial killers and what frightened him the most was not their coldness, not the depths of their depravity nor the savagery of their crimes. It was their mundanity.

They wrote letters to local newspapers. They took the trash out. Preferred vinaigrette to mayonnaise. They were just like everyone else.

She didn’t feel better for having stood in Denton’s pitiful cell. But she could imagine feeling better. She could picture a time when his grip upon her had loosened. She just had to keep it all together. And integral to that would be solving this case.

“You wanted to see who visited him,” said Kovacs, looking at his watch.

They went over to the prison’s admin block, where the doors, gates, and bars were less prevalent.

The main office could have been just about any office, anywhere; a half-dozen staff in smart-casual garb sat at desks in swivel chairs, answered calls, shredded paper.

A solitary prisoner, white-haired and stooped in an orange jumpsuit, was watering the plants.

While Kate’s escort talked to a lady at a desk piled high with buff-colored folders, she took in a row of black and white photographs along the adjacent wall.

Kate spotted some familiar faces, touring various parts of the prison – politicians, actors, a couple of sporting legends.

“Is that Willie Nelson?” she asked.

“Could be,” Kovacs said, squinting over. “Governor’s big on rehabilitation. A lot of celebrities like to get involved. Or look as if they’re getting involved.”

She spotted another face she recognized. It startled her.

“When did Professor Whitman visit?”

“Several times last year and this. Interviewing cons for his book. Links between violence and religious fundamentalism.”

“Did he interview Denton?”

“Few times. Him and half a dozen others.”

“Did his visits coincide with when Father Thomas was here?”

Kovacs held up a finger, asking her to wait, and then typed something onto the laptop on the desk.

“Same time period, but never same days. We try to make sure the Spur doesn’t get too busy. It upsets the fellas.” He typed some more. “Father Thomas wasn’t the prison Chaplain. He worked with some kind of national outreach program – counseling men and women on death row.”

“So who’s the Chaplain?”

“Reverend Elijah Cox took on the job – I’d have to look up the date. But I’ll tell you something. When he and Father Tom crossed paths, it was ugly.”

“Ugly?”

“They didn’t see eye to eye. Particularly about Denton.

See, Denton stopped appealing his sentence right when the Reverend appeared on the scene.

I don’t know for sure if the Reverend directly influenced the decision, but he supported it.

And Father Tom didn’t. So it wasn’t exactly peace and love.

I think that’s why Denton refused the Last Rites, actually.

So he didn’t have to pick one priest over the other one. ”

“Didn’t you think that was odd?” Kate asked. “I mean, Denton was a showman, a narcissist. He loved the attention, the drama. He was the kind of guy who’d order up lobsters for his final meal. But he doesn’t. And he doesn’t even make a grand speech.”

“That was before Cox came on the scene. You’re exactly right with what you say.

The reason Denton was shipped out of Leavenworth was because he manipulated so many cons and guards that they damn near had a riot on their hands.

But he changed. Became very calm. Stopped with all the BS. Not everybody believed it, of course.”

“But you did.”

Kovacs opened his mouth to respond, but then seemed to think better of it.

“Are we done here, Miss Valentine?” he said, brisk but still polite. “I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to conquer.”

Kate wondered if she’d crossed a line somewhere, or if Kovacs suddenly felt he’d said too much.

She let herself be marched down the corridor towards a final, complex set of turnstiles and scanners, pondering the day’s haul.

Another link between the Denton case and the recent murders.

And her. If Marcus thought she was crazy before today, then he was definitely going to be struggling with the latest information.

He’d called her several times: a couple of attempts last night, four so far today. She’d speak to him when she was good and ready.

Chivalrously, Kovacs was walking her to her hired car but saying very little. He seemed to be wrestling with something. Right by the door, it came out.

He stared at the toe of one, highly polished boot for a moment or two, cleared his throat, then dove in.

“You mentioned his last words.”

“You said he didn’t say any.”

“Well, I don’t tell folks this because they’ll think I’m crazy,” he said, in a low voice, avoiding her gaze.

Tell me about it , Kate thought.

He took a deep breath. “He’d been dead for two minutes.

No vital signs. No bleeps. The Doc and I go in there.

We have to unhook him, sign and countersign each other’s paperwork.

Doc’s forgotten Form 109E, left it in the obs room, goes back for it.

Literally he’s gone three seconds. I can see him through the window, getting the slip.

Denton says, ‘Golgotha.’ He said it in his voice. I swear to God. He spoke.”