booze ended and once again sleep became terror. This morning, as he had every morning since incarceration, he awakened at dawn with an excruciating headache. Well, he thought, this will be the last. The ultimate cure to all his bodily ills loomed just on the other side of that green-and-tan door across the hallway, just hours ahead. No more headaches. Indeed, no more sunrises.
His thoughts turned to Bob Anderson, and the throbbing in his head intensified. He got up and stepped over to his bed. He was taller than his companions, standing an even six feet without shoes, with the sinewy build of one who had worked long at physical labor. His ruggedly handsome Nordic features were marred only by a jagged scar extending down his left cheek from below his chestnut hair to his chin. He was thirty-four.
He reached beneath his pillow and retrieved a wooden rosary. The beads were shiny from constant fingering. He grasped the rood tightly in his hands and returned to his desk and looked again at the list of names taped to the wall. Four names remained. Four letters. But it was another letter that obsessed his thoughts at this moment. A fifth and final letter he must write, to a person whose name was not taped there with the rest.
The last and most important letter of his life.
As he did each morning at five o’clock when reveille sounded for the inmate population, Warden W. Jesse Buchanan rose from bed in his private apartment on the second floor, administration building, of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. His sleep had been fitful. A subdued glow from the lighted front steps just below his window dimly illuminated the room. Moving quietly, so as not to awaken his wife sleeping in her own bed across the room, he slipped a red silk robe over his pajamas and went down the long hallway to the spacious marbled bathroom that had been designed to accommodate his great size. One of the country’s most esteemed wardens, he was by far the largest. Six-feet eight-inches tall, weighing three hundred pounds, he was, in spite of his fifty-nine years, solidly built. His biceps were as large as an average man’s thigh. The Kentucky cluster diamond ring he wore, a gift from his wife, measured a full inch in inside diameter. Every article of his clothing except socks, handkerchiefs, and ties was tailored by a clothier in Evansville, Indiana.
After bathing, the warden toweled briskly, then combed his silver hair into a part high on the left side. He would be shaved later that morning in the officers’ barber shop by an inmate serving a life sentence for armed robbery.
He detoured back through the hallway for a moment to retrieve a package he had stored in a desk there the day before, then went to the apartment’s country-size kitchen. He handed the package to a large black man who was turning sausage patties in a cast-iron skillet atop a coal-burning range. Lucien Greenwell laid down the spatula and wiped his hands on his apron. He took the package and laid it aside near the stove. “Yessir. I’ll put ’em on right after breakfast.”
Back-to-back, Greenwell stood a half-inch shorter than the warden. But in all other respects of girth and size the two were identical. The package the warden handed his cook that morning contained a new pair of shoes, size 15-EEE, just arrived from a cobbler in Boston. The warden detested new shoes. Lucien would wear them until they were well broken in, then return them. An amusing pastime at the prison was observing Lucien Greenwell’s feet for evidence that the warden had purchased a new pair of shoes.
The warden sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. Lucien brought eggs, sausages, and biscuits to the table, laid two morning newspapers near the warden’s plate, then pulled up a chair and sat down. Then, as they had each morning for six years, the warden of Kentucky’s maximum security penitentiary and a convict serving life for murder ate the first meal of the day together.
Breakfast finished, the warden put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and picked up the first paper. War news dominated the front page. With one son in the Navy and another preparing to enter the Army Air Corps, he read about the German advances in Europe and North Africa with heavy heart.
Finishing the lead stories, he thumbed through the following pages looking for the article he knew would be there today. He found it near the bottom of page two. Two columns wide, it read:
MILEY MURDERERS TO DIE TONIGHT
Lexington, Ky. — Barring intervention from Governor Johnson or the courts, a scar-faced carpenter, a burly cafe owner, and a dope-addicted handyman will die tonight in the electric chair at Eddyville. Thomas C. Penney, Robert H. Anderson, and Raymond S. Baxter, convicted for the murders of popular golf star Marion Miley and her mother at the Lexington Country Club in 1941, are slated to begin their walk to death just minutes past midnight tonight.
Subsequent paragraphs described the brutality of the murders, the trials, the previous stays of execution. The final paragraph posed a chilling question:
Is Anderson guilty? Despite the latest ruling from the Court of Appeals, doubts about Robert Anderson’s guilt continue to plague legal scholars and some officials close to the case. Anderson’s attorneys vow to continue the fight to save their client’s life and are planning to meet again with Governor Johnson in Frankfort today.
The warden laid the paper down, removed his heavy glasses, and rubbed his eyes wearily. He’d been thinking about Bob Anderson for days. Indeed, it had ruined his sleep for nights. There were too many unanswered questions about the man’s involvement in the killings—too many loose ends. Surely the truth about Bob Anderson would surface some day. But someday might be too late—for both Anderson and himself.
His mind focused on another thought, something that had come to him during the night, though he realized on reflection that he’d been mulling it over for days. Perhaps there was a way to determine if Anderson was guilty or innocent before it was too late. It would be risky, controversial, perhaps even unlawful. It would mean reneging on a plan he had formulated earlier with Governor Johnson. But that would be a small price to pay to save the life of a possibly innocent man. He made a mental note to inform the deputy warden of his plan following the morning staff meeting.
He finished his second cup of coffee, folded the papers, and handed them to Lucien to read later. Then he went to his bedroom to finish dressing before going downstairs to his office.
It was going to be a long day.
From his office high in the Citizens Bank Building at Fourth and Broadway in Paducah, Kentucky, Thomas S. Waller, senior partner at Waller, Threlkeld & Whitlow, Attorneys at Law, sat facing the window and gazed into the distance beyond the Ohio River, deep in thought. A large man, known for his trademark dark suits and Kentucky Colonel string ties, Waller was renowned as a quick study with penetrating insight. One of the South’s most prominent attorneys, his appointment calendar was filled months in advance. Yet he had cancelled all appointments for this day and asked his secretary to hold all calls. After a while he swiveled back to his desk and noted today’s date on his calendar pad—Thursday, February 25, 1943. He had circled the date in red months before on the day when Warden Buchanan came to see him in confidence.
For over fifty years Tom Waller and Jess Buchanan had been the closest of friends. They had grown up together in Union County. Each held the other in utmost esteem, each respected the other’s opinion. In matters of law, Jess Buchanan always sought Tom Waller’s counsel. In matters of politics, Waller usually deferred to Buchanan’s instincts. But on that day four months ago when Buchanan came to see his old friend, Waller sensed that there was more to the visit than a question of politics or legal fine points. The warden was in torment.
The two old friends talked for most of the morning. At the end, Tom Waller agreed
