Hangman Read online

  Those below had to strain to catch his last words. Weeks had gone into rehearsing, preparing the rope and testing the trapdoor, but checking the loudspeaker was not a priority. The system popped and distorted what he had to say while the guards on both sides supported his arms. Had Justin not already been told what those words would be, he would have missed most of what Haddon said to the gallery.

  “My last words are—”

  Peter’s voice broke.

  “That I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Be under no illusion. This is injustice. I owe society nothing. I am—”

  He choked the words.

  “An innocent man. Something wrong is taking place here tonight.”

  Behind Justin, the father of the dead girl cursed in Greek.

  The shade dropped suddenly, and a backlight came on behind the gallows. Haddon’s silhouette stepped back to one of the trapdoors, where he stood on a black square that had been painted in the middle. Guaranteed anonymity and trained to be quick, a volunteer prison worker placed a hood on Haddon’s head. Then the shadow hangman looped the noose about his neck, tightening the knot directly behind his left ear.

  Justin felt a wave of dread surge through him. He willed himself to watch carefully. The hangman appeared to be chewing gum. A nod from the superintendent was his signal to push the button. The trapdoor crashed open and struck a metal hook.

  In a blink, Haddon’s silhouette disappeared. His body plunged seven feet into the lower room, where, by court order, the blinds were open. It jerked to a halt six feet from the floor. The snap of the rope yanking taut could be the snap of his neck.

  The witness from the ACLU leaped out of his chair, craning forward to get a better view. Was he let down by the hanging? It fell far short of what the union had predicted: a slow death by strangulation, or a hard one by decapitation.

  Instead, the body seemed to unstretch as it turned counter-clockwise. The black hood in the noose was cocked at an odd angle. The shackled hands clenched, and one knee bent slightly. Muscles tightened in the torso, then went limp, and seconds later Justin witnessed life abandon Peter Bryce Haddon.

  The superintendent came down from the scaffold to shut the blinds.

  At 12:07, the doctor pronounced death.

  Outside, in the FOR camp, fireworks exploded and cheers rang out. Across the great divide, candles were lit as those AGAINST shed tears. And down from the black sky, white snow buried the gallows under a midnight shroud.

  The Aftermath

  Like enough, you won’t be glad,

  When they come to hang you, lad:

  But bacon’s not the only thing

  That’s cured by hanging from a string.

  —Hugh Kingsmill

  The Hanging Judge

  Vancouver, British Columbia

  Tonight

  The Hanging Judge was in fine form for his last day on the bench. No meaner man had ever sat in lordly judgment over his fellow man than Mr. Justice Kincaid, or “Kinky” to the bar. He was a little guy, less than five feet tall, who surely had his bottom whacked by many a wet towel in gym showers at school, and later took his latent anger out on those unfortunate enough to end up in his court. Had he sucked on a lemon before climbing to the bench, his ashen face could have been no more puckered and pinched than the withered glare that glowered down at the convict.

  “Mudge,” growled the Hanging Judge, “you have been found guilty of a most heinous rape …”

  Our social-studies teacher shifted uneasily on his seat. Flanked by twenty ten-year-olds in the gallery of the court, he no doubt had second thoughts about this idea: guiding his class on a field trip to the criminal courts, so we could go home to tell our parents about the exciting rape case Mr. Pritchard took us out of school to watch. Some parents get bent out of shape over education like that.

  “Mudge,” threatened the Hanging Judge, “it is now my duty to pass sentence on you …”

  The skinny convict shuddered in the dock.

  The homely woman beside me tensed.

  Actually, the rape was not a “most heinous” crime. In years to come, we would dub it a “he said, she said” squabble, culminating in a most unusual verdict by the jury: “Guilty with a strong recommendation for leniency as according to the evidence there was insufficient resistance by the complainant.” But Mudge, unfortunately, had drawn Kincaid.

  The Hanging Judge had earned his name by hanging a lot of cons (a sentence he got kinky relish from having ordered carried out), not to mention his penchant for strokes of the lash (which he would tack on to a prison term wherever the law allowed). Time, however, had blunted Kinky’s brutal fangs and claws, first removing the whip of corporal punishment from his grasp, then dismantling the gallows, though hanging was still on the books. And now, an unfair amendment to the Judges’ Act was forcing him into retirement at the far-too-early age of seventy-five. His last chance to vent his spleen was Mudge trapped in the dock.

  “Mudge,” thundered the Hanging Judge, “you are the scum of the earth!” Kinky’s last sentence would see the old boy off in style. “You are a sexual predator of the most insidious kind!” Kinky brushed aside the fact that Mudge had no prior record. “You are a jeopardy to every decent woman in your hunting ground!” Kinky ignored the recommendation of the jury. “If Parliament had not seen fit to remove it from the law, the lash would await you in custody!” Mudge’s knees were knocking; his bones were rattling. “A fitting punishment for filth of your ilk is fifteen years in the penitentiary!” Kinky swept a dismissive arm toward the pit in the prisoner’s dock, where iron steps descended to the holding cells below. “Take him down!” he ordered.

  As poor, bewildered Mudge turned to stumble down the steps, the homely woman seated beside me leaped to her feet.

  “You cruel cocksucker!” she yelled at the judge.

  Must be Mudge’s mom, I figured.

  Mr. Pritchard, our socials teacher, blanched.

  “You mean motherfucker!” Mrs. Mudge bellowed.

  Mr. Pritchard turned positively white, undoubtedly imagining us running home to tell our parents what the angry lady said when the teacher took us off to court to watch the rape case.

  “You miserable, rotten, sadistic old bastard!” she hurled at Kinky. Meanwhile burly court officials waded into the packed gallery to get hold of her, trundling her, kicking and screaming, out of Kincaid’s court. The last we heard from her was “Nazi cunt!” echoing in from the hall.

  Mr. Pritchard was in dire need of smelling salts.

  Down the iron steps trod downtrodden Mudge.

  So ended Mr. Justice Kincaid’s last case, and all that separated the old bull from pension pasture was a shovelful or two of retirement-from-the-law bullshit. To mark Kinky’s last day on the bench, counsel for the Crown rose at the prosecution table and managed to come up with a suitable laudatory remark: “No one could ever deny that Your Lordship has been a very courageous judge.”

  Then junior Crown counsel was on his feet. “I associate myself with that remark of my learned friend.”

  Then Mudge’s counsel rose at the defense table. “I, too, associate myself with that remark from my learned friend.”

  Then the court clerk, who had served the judge for too many years, and who—I would later learn—admired alcohol, rose unsteadily to his feet and turned to face Kincaid. “And I associate myself with those remarks of Mrs. Mudge.”

  I howled with laughter.

  The only laughter under Kinky’s glare.

  And became—I am told—the youngest person ever thrown out of court.

  It wouldn’t be the last time.

  I had found my calling.

  The arena of the courtroom was my kind of battleground.

  Jeffrey Kline, Esq.

  Barrister-at-law.

  Counsel to the scum of the earth.

  Counsel for the damned.

  No doubt the reason I recall what lured me to the law is that the Hangman stalking me tonight brings the Hanging Judge
to mind. Kinky, in his own way, was a serial killer too.

  Almost twenty years have passed since Mrs. Mudge exploded at that sadistic judge. The memory highlights the danger to those who practice criminal law from the wretches who suffer the consequences of what we do in court. Imagine Mrs. Mudge with a gun.

  Looking back on my breakthrough murder case, I see that as the lesson I was destined to learn tonight. The case began with a hanging—two hangings actually—the hanging of Peter Bryce Haddon way back in 1993 and the hanging of Mary Konrad in Seattle sixteen days ago, on Halloween. If the Hangman succeeds tonight, it will end with a hanging too. My hanging, here in this house in the East End of Vancouver.

  There!

  Is that it?

  The snick of a key in the lock?

  Showtime, folks!

  Is the psycho at the door …?

  Halloween

  Seattle, Washington

  Tuesday, October 31 (Sixteen days ago)

  “Once upon a time,” said Granny O’Grady, sitting with Mary in her lap on the porch of the farmhouse in eastern Washington, “there was a mischievous Irishman named Jack. One day, after he had too much whiskey to drink, Jack tricked the Devil into climbing up a tree for a juicy red apple. No sooner was the Devil in the treetop than Jack carved the sign of the cross on the trunk so he couldn’t get down. Only by promising Jack that he would never claim his soul was the Devil able to escape. Eventually, Jack died and his soul went to heaven, but he was turned back from the gates because of all his pranks. When Jack tried to go to hell, the Devil rejected him too, shouting, ‘Go back where you came from. I’ll keep my promise to you.’ But Jack was lost in the smoky dark and couldn’t find the path, so he called out, ‘How do I do that when I can’t see the way?’ The Devil responded by tossing Jack a live coal from hell. Jack, who had been eating a turnip, put it inside to make a lantern. Ever since then, on All Hallows Eve, Mary, my darling, Jack of the lantern has roamed the earth in an endless, ghostly search for his final resting place.”

  “A turnip?” said Mary.

  “A turnip,” Granny repeated.

  “Then why carve jack-o’-lanterns out of pumpkins now?”

  “Because of potatoes.”

  “Potatoes?” said Mary.

  “Lack of potatoes, actually.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Once upon a time,” said Granny O’Grady, “a long time ago in Ireland, our ancestors were farmers known as Celts.”

  “Daddy plays Celtic music.”

  The old woman tweaked Mary’s nose. “Because they were farmers, Celts worshipped Baal, the powerful sun god who made crops grow. But Baal had power only half the year, and come the end of October, the winter god began his six-month reign. He was the Prince of Darkness. He was the Lord of the Dead. He was the god who killed crops and brought cold, black nights. His name was Samhain, or Summer’s End.”

  “How long ago, Granny?”

  “More than two thousand years.”

  Grandmother and granddaughter sat rocking on the porch. Before them stretched the origins of Halloween in the crops gathered from the orchards and fields of O’Grady Farm. The fertile valley into which the apple trees dipped blazed fiery orange with autumn’s color. Leaves falling from branches and pumpkins plumping in patches and shocks guarded by scarecrows were orange, orange, orange. Black was the shade of the cat in the small pioneer graveyard, and come night, black would be the vault of the sky, into which would rise the face of an orange harvest moon.

  “November 1,” said Granny O’Grady, “marked the end of autumn and the start of winter, so that’s when Celts held their ancient harvest festival of Samhain. It was a supernatural time when barriers between them and the underworld vanished. Of all the nights of the year, sunset October 31 to sunrise the next morning was most feared. Evil spirits summoned by the Lord of the Dead were everywhere. Ghosts, goblins, devils, and demons were about, so it was a night when dark forces were at work. Witches gathered in covens to celebrate black sabbaths …

  “Cackle, Mary.”

  Mary cackled.

  “That’s the sound of a witch. Hiss, Mary.”

  Mary hissed.

  “That’s the sound of a demon. Sigh, Mary.”

  Mary sighed.

  “That’s the sound of a ghost. To drive the evil spirits away, Celts gathered together around blazing bonfires.”

  Mary imagined the huge fire her dad would light that night, down in the field next to the big red barn. The burning wood would crackle and hiss like witches and demons, the sharp smell of woodsmoke would hang in the night, and sparks would fly up like fireflies into a black sky bursting with fireworks.

  “Hoping to blend in with the spirits and not be noticed, Celts who ventured into the dark wore beast heads and skins, or costumed themselves to look like the demons they feared. Some of the demons tormented Celts by playing tricks on their homes to drive them mad, and the only way to stop that was to offer them treats of apples or sweets.”

  Fidgeting in Granny’s lap, Mary was bursting at the seams to don her goblin garb and join other farm kids for the hayride tonight that would bounce them from door to door along the valley, where each homeowner would face the little demons’ threat of “Trick or treat.”

  “Black is the shadow,” said Granny O’Grady, “of death, mystery, and magic. Black is the color of cats and bats and witches’ cloaks. Evil spirits made evil people into cats, so Celts threw black cats into the fires of Samhain. Evil spirits lurked in black crows and ravens, so Celts hung straw-filled scarecrows on crosses in their fields. A coven of witches numbered thirteen, twelve witches and a grand master, so the number thirteen brought Celts bad luck. Ghosts crept from graveyards to haunt Samhain, so tombstones were used to weigh them down.”

  “Potatoes, Granny. You forgot potatoes.”

  “Lack of potatoes, Mary. Famine in Ireland. So Irishmen left the old country for North America, and with them brought the Celtic traditions of Halloween. The pumpkins they found on arrival were better than turnips, so that’s why we use pumpkins to carve jack-o’-lanterns today.”

  With a Hershey bar in one hand, a Coke in the other, Mary Konrad, dressed like a witch, green face and so on, stood crying in the darkened living room of what would soon no longer be her Seattle home, gazing out at the city street spooked up for Halloween, as Mary O’Grady, the girl she had been, recalled the happier hauntings of her youth.

  How had life gone so wrong?

  Tears gushed again.

  All because of a summons.

  And Halloween.

  “The Romans,” said Granny O’Grady thirty years ago, “had a harvest festival to honor Pomona, their apple queen. Orange, too, was the color of Pomona’s celebration, so when Rome conquered Britain, Pomona joined Samhain. That’s why apples play an important part in Halloween, and why we Irish have Snap Apple Night.”

  Apples were an important crop at O’Grady Farm, so after the hayride and trick-or-treat, and after the bonfire and fireworks, the O’Grady family held its own apple festival, inviting neighbors from miles around. The adults drank apple cider and the kids drank apple juice, and Celtic music coaxed everyone to dance an Irish jig, and teens took part in time-honored games that predicted their romantic futures.

  Snap apple, of course. Played with apples hung from the ceiling by strings, the boys below jumping like rabbits for a bite. The first to chomp was the first who would marry.

  But marry whom?

  Marry Mary?

  That was predicted by bobbing for apples. Each girl set her marked apple afloat in a tub of water, then the boys, hands behind their backs, dunked for them. The girl who launched the apple a boy grabbed with his teeth was the girl he would marry.

  Four years in a row, Bill Somerset had chomped Mary’s apple.

  If there was any doubt about Bill and Mary, it was dispelled by the apple-paring test. Mary peeled an apple without breaking the skin, then swung that paring three times above her head, befor
e she threw it over her magical shoulder. “By this paring,” she wished, “let me discover the initial of my one true lover.”

  The peel formed a W.

  For William.

  For Bill.

  Looking back from now to then, Mary remembered another superstition. “Never strip every apple from its tree,” said Granny O’Grady. “That’s unlucky. An apple or two must be left hanging for the birds. If an apple is found in the orchard come spring, there will be a death in the family.”

  The spring Mary married Bill an apple remained on one tree, and two days after the blossom wedding Granny died.

  If Mary could turn back the hands of time, she would still be married to hard-working farmer Bill, having never left the valley where she grew up. But Mary was the lusty half of that relationship, built like those sexy country queens on record covers, so she had tired of cock-crow dawns and work that hurt her looks, and she eventually forsook Bill for the bright lights of Seattle.

  It was the sad tale of many a country tune.

  Had Mary not moved to the city, Mary would not have been summoned. Had Mary not been summoned, she would not have been mugged. Not mugged in the city sense of being waylaid on the street, but mugged morally in the sense of being forced against her will. Had she not felt intimidated by the pressure of the others to buckle before Halloween slipped away, she would not have made the biggest mistake of her life, and she wouldn’t feel this uncontrollable urge to eat, eat, eat. If eating had not ballooned her up to twice the size she was when she married Dag, her second marriage would not have hit the rocks. Dag would not be drinking. The house would not be for sale. And Mary would not be crying her heart out now, tears streaking the green makeup on her face that masked the black shiner around her eye from Dag’s fist.