CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
A Delicate Exercise
It began with a phone call on the night of April seventeen, nineteen sixty-seven. Not trusting his own telephone, Jeremiah Dogan drove to a pay phone at a gas station to make the call. At the other end, Sam Cayhall listened to the instructions he was given. When he returned to bed, he told his wife nothing. She didn't ask.
Two days later, Cayhall left his home town of Clanton at dusk and drove to Greenville, Mississippi. There he drove slowly through the center of the city, and found the offices of the Jewish lawyer Marvin B. Kramer. It had been easy for the Klan to pick Kramer as their next target. He had a long history of support for the civil rights movement. He led protests against whites-only facilities. He accused public officials of racism. He had paid for the rebuilding of a black church destroyed by the Klan. He even welcomed Negroes to his home.
The operation had been simple to plan, as it involved only three people. Mississippi Klan leader Dogan provided the money, and enjoyed his role as organizer. The second man was Sam Cayhall, one of two men chosen by Dogan to do the actual dirty work. The Cayhall family's connections with the Klan went back very many years, but there was little Klan activity in Clanton so he was considered harmless by the FBI. He was a good choice.
At eleven, Cayhall drove to Cleveland, where he looked for a green Pontiac. He found the vehicle parked at a truck stop on
Highway sixty-one, got in, and drove it out into open farming country. There he stopped on a lonely road and opened the trunk. In a box covered with newspapers, he found everything he needed. Then he drove back into town and waited at an all-night cafe.
At exactly two a.m., the third person in the team walked into the cafe and sat across from Sam Cayhall. This young man's name was Rollie Wedge. At the age of twenty-two, Rollie was already deeply committed to the struggle for white power. His father was in the construction industry, and had taught his son how to use explosives. Cayhall knew little about the young man, but they had done this kind of job together several times now and Rollie certainly knew what he was doing. They drank coffee together for half an hour. Sam's cup shook in his hand, but Rollie's was steady.
The two men climbed into the green Pontiac and, with Cayhall at the wheel, the car headed south on Highway sixty-one. It was around four a.m. when they drove up to Kramer's office in Greenville. The street was very quiet and dark.
"This'll be easy," Rollie said softly. "Too bad we can't bomb his house, though."
"Yeah. Too bad," Sam agreed nervously. "But there's a guard at the house. And he's got kids in there, you know."
"Kill them while they're young," Rollie said. "Little Jews grow up to be big ones."
Cayhall parked the car in an alley behind Kramer's office. The men quietly opened the trunk, removed the box and Rollie's bag, and moved silently along to the door at the back of the office. Cayhall broke open the door and in seconds, they were inside. In the main hallway was a closet filled with old legal files. The perfect place for the bomb.
"Stay by the door and watch the alley," Wedge whispered, and Sam did exactly as he was told. He preferred not to handle the explosives himself.
Rollie quickly set the box on the floor in the closet, and wired the dynamite. It was a delicate exercise, and Sam's heart raced as he waited. He kept his back to the explosives, just in case something went wrong. They were in the office less than five minutes.
In each of the bombings they had carried out before, Wedge had used a fifteen-minute fuse, lit with a match. The two bombers enjoyed being on the road, on the edge of the town, just as the bomb destroyed its target. With the car windows down, they had heard and felt each of the explosions at a comfortable distance.
But tonight was different. Sam made a wrong turn, and suddenly they were stopped at a railroad crossing as a long, slow train went through. Sam checked his watch. The train passed, and Sam took another wrong turn. The ground would shake in less than five minutes. Greenville was not a big city, and Sam guessed he must soon meet a familiar street. As he turned again, he realized he was going the wrong way down a one-way street. He hit the brakes hard, and the car stopped. He tried the engine, but it wouldn't start. Sam was shaking with fear.
"Stay calm," Rollie said slowly.
The minutes were passing. They could not be very far from the lawyer's office. When the bomb goes off, thought Sam, we might be too close for comfort.
He turned the key once more, and the car started this time. They sped away. More than fifteen minutes had passed since they had left the office. No explosion. At last, Sam found himself in a street he knew, and began to head toward the edge of town.
"What kind of fuse did you use?" Sam finally asked, as they turned on to Highway eighty-two. Rollie didn't reply. That was his business.
They slowed while they passed a parked police car, and then gained speed out of town. Within minutes, Greenville was behind them, still quiet and at peace.
"What kind of fuse did you use?" Sam asked again, more loudly this time. Rollie did not look at him. "I tried something new," he answered.
"What?"
"You wouldn't understand," Rollie said. Sam considered the possibilities.
"A timer?" he asked, a few miles down the road.
"Something like that."
The horror of the Kramer bombing actually began about the time when Sam Cayhall was leaving Rollie Wedge back at the truck stop cafe in Cleveland. Ruth Kramer's alarm clock went off around five-thirty in the morning, and she realized immediately that she was very sick. Her husband Marvin helped her to the bathroom and said he would take the five-year-old twins, Josh and John, to their nursery school. As soon as the boys were bathed, dressed, and fed, he said goodbye to Ruth, and he and the twins left the house. They were early, and as Marvin had some work to do before going into court for the morning, he decided to take the twins into the office with him before delivering them to nursery school.
The boys loved their father's office. When they arrived there around seven-thirty, they went straight to the secretary's desk, with its tempting pile of typing paper, scissors, and pens. Marvin looked in and began to lecture the twins about the mess, but they were running off down the hallway, not listening. Marvin smiled to himself.
At that time, none of the other staff had arrived at the office. Marvin's secretary, Helen, was on her way, just leaving the post office. His colleague, David Lukland, had just locked his apartment door three blocks away.
Marvin decided to go up to the third floor to find an old file, which might help him with the case he was preparing. As he climbed the stairs, he could hear the little boys laughing somewhere down the hall. At about a quarter to eight, the huge explosion shot upward and horizontally at several thousand feet per second. The fifteen sticks of dynamite in the center of the wooden building destroyed it in seconds. It took a full minute for the pieces of wood, metal, and glass to return to earth.
Josh and John Kramer were less than fifteen feet from the bomb and were killed immediately. Their twisted little bodies were found under the ruins by local firemen. Marvin Kramer was thrown against the ceiling of the third floor, then fell through the great hole in the center of the building. He was found twenty minutes later and rushed to hospital. He lost both his legs.
A number of pedestrians in the street outside were also hurt. One of these injuries was minor but very significant. A stranger called Sam Cayhall was walking toward the Kramer office when the ground shook so hard he fell over. He was hit by flying glass. His face turned pale with horror at the sight before him, then he ran away. In shock, and with blood still running from him, he climbed into a green Pontiac and drove off. Two police officers were speeding toward the scene of the bombing. When they met the Pontiac, it stopped still, frozen in its traffic lane, refusing to move and let the police car through. The officers ran to the car, pulled open the door, and found a man covered in blood. They secured his wrists and forced him into the back of the police car. The Pontiac was taken away.
At the jail, they almost decided to release Sam on the minor charge of blocking the road to emergency vehicles. But then Detective Ivy saw him, bloody and pale-faced, and decided to ask him a few questions. He took Sam into his office. How did Sam's face get cut? He said that maybe he'd been in a fight. Where was the fight? Who was he fighting with? Where did it happen? Where did he get the car? Sam had no answers. His hands were shaking.
"Two little boys got blown to bits in their daddy's office this morning. A local lawyer by the name of Kramer ... Jewish. Let me guess - you know nothing about it, right?" asked the detective.
"No. I'd like to see a lawyer," Sam said finally.
The piece of glass in Sam's face was removed and sent to the laboratory. It matched the glass in the front windows of the office building. The green Pontiac car was traced to Jeremiah Dogan. A fifteen-minute fuse was found in its trunk. Sam Cayhall was also found to be a longtime member of the Klan. The case was solved as far as the FBI was concerned. Rollie Wedge's name was not mentioned, and would not be spoken by either Dogan or Cayhall. They feared for their own homes and families if they did.
Sam Cayhall and Jeremiah Dogan were charged with murder on May fifth, nineteen sixty-seven. Their lawyer, Clovis Brazelton, made sure that the trial was held many miles away, in Nettles County, an area sympathetic to the Klan.
"You don't think I'll be found guilty?" Sam asked him.
"Of course not. You just deny everything." Brazelton patted Sam on the arm. "Trust me, Sam, I've done this before. We'll get an all-white jury. Your kind of people."
Outside the courthouse, the Klan set up camp. Supporters arrived from other states, and their leaders made long speeches calling Cayhall and Dogan their heroes.
Inside the courtroom, things went smoothly for the two men. Brazelton raised doubts about the prosecution's case. Most importantly, no one actually saw Cayhall putting the bomb in the office. In fact, no one could prove anything.
After a day and a half of hard discussion, the jury could not agree whether the men were guilty or not. The trial was abandoned, and Sam Cayhall went home for the first time in five months.
The second trial was held six months later, in another rural area four hours from Greenville. This area too was full of Klan members and people sympathetic to them. The jury again was all white and non-Jewish. They heard the same stories, the same lies.
This trial did have something new. Marvin Kramer was there, sitting in his wheelchair next to the front row. He watched the jury for three days. Most of them could not bear to look at him. However, one young woman glanced at Marvin repeatedly - Sharon Culpepper was the mother of twin boys. As Marvin looked back at her, his eyes begged her for justice.
When the jury went away to discuss the case, Sharon Culpepper alone voted the men guilty. For two days, the rest of the jury tried to make her change her mind, but she was firm. The second trial ended with the jury undecided, eleven to one. Again, everyone was sent home.
Rollie Wedge's name had been mentioned only once. During a lunch break, Dogan whispered to Cayhall that a message had been received from the kid. Wedge wanted them to know that he was in the area, watching the trial, and watching them.
Ruth and Marvin Kramer separated in nineteen seventy. He entered a mental hospital later that year, and in nineteen seventy-one, he killed himself. He was buried next to his sons.
Ruth Kramer returned to Memphis to live with her parents.
They wanted Cayhall and Dogan to go on trial for a third time. In fact, the whole Jewish community in Greenville was angry when it became apparent that the District Attorney was tired of losing. There was no new evidence, and a prosecution looked hopeless. Despite pressure from the FBI, the possibility of a new trial gradually faded.
By the late nineteen seventies, many things had changed. Civil rights had arrived in Mississippi. Blacks were voting. Black children went to school with white children. The Klan had not succeeded in keeping Negroes where they belonged.
Then in nineteen seventy-nine, two events occurred in the inactive Kramer bombing case. The first was the election of David McAllister as the District Attorney in Greenville. At twenty-seven he was the youngest D A in the state's history. As a teenager, he had stood with the crowd in front of the ruins of Marvin Kramer's office. Now he promised to bring the terrorists to justice.
The second event was an investigation by the tax authorities of Jeremiah Dogan's financial affairs. They produced eighty-six charges against him, relating to non-payment of taxes, which could lead to a maximum of twenty-eight years in prison. After much discussion, the government offered Dogan a deal. They would not jail him for the tax avoidance if he gave evidence against Sam Cayhall in a new trial of the Kramer case. Dogan accepted the offer.
After twelve years of living quietly in Ford County, Sam Cayhall found himself once again on trial. Much had changed. All-white juries were now rare. There were black judges and black lawyers.
The trial began in February nineteen eighty-one, in a little courthouse in Lakehead County. The young and ambitious District Attorney, David McAllister, did a fine job for the prosecution. He looked good and spoke with feeling to the jury of eight whites and four blacks. He told them how, as a child in Greenville, he had grown up with Jewish friends and had played with black kids too. He told them how, one morning in nineteen sixty-seven, he had seen the smoking ruins of Kramer's office. He saw the firemen finding Marvin Kramer, then the bodies of the boys. Tears had run down his cheeks as they slowly carried the little bodies to an ambulance. When McAllister's speech finished, the courtroom was silent. Several members of the jury had tears in their eyes.
On February twelfth, nineteen eighty-one, Sam Cayhall was found guilty of murder. Two days later, the jury decided he should be put to death. He was taken to Parchman prison to begin his long wait for the gas chamber. He was now on death row.
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
Kravitz and Bane
With two hundred eighty-six lawyers, Kravitz and Bane was the third largest law firm in Chicago. Appropriately, its fashionable offices filled the top floors of the third largest building downtown. The firm earned most of its huge income from commercial and insurance cases. Like most large firms, it made so much money that it felt it had an obligation to society to take a few worthwhile cases without charge. There was a full-time partner dealing with these cases, an eccentric do-gooder named E. Garner Goodman. He worked for clients who could not afford to pay: death row prisoners, people on drugs, and the homeless.
Adam Hall headed along the hallway, toward Goodman's office. Hall was twenty-six years old, and had been employed by Kravitz and Bane for nine months now. He held a thin file in his hand, a summary of his education and career.
In Goodman's disorganized office, Adam sat and waited nervously while the gray-haired old man studied the file.
"This is a pretty strong recommendation." He was reading a letter from Wycoff, the partner responsible for Adam. "You're bright. You work very hard. The firm is lucky to have you. And you want to work with me? Why? Let me guess. You want to help other people, do some honest work, give something back to your community?"
"Not really," admitted Adam.
"So what is it you have in mind, then?"
Adam cleared his throat. "It's a death penalty case."
"A death penalty case?" Goodman repeated. "Why?"
"Well, I'm opposed to the death penalty."
"Aren't we all?" Goodman closed the file. "Look, Mr. Hall, these are high pressure cases. Life and death. You're too young and you don't have the experience to handle something like this."
"I want to take on the Cayhall case," Adam said slowly. Goodman shook his head. "Sam Cayhall just fired us. And frankly, I'm relieved to have him out of my life."
"The man needs a lawyer."
"No he doesn't. He'll be dead in three months with or without one. He's decided to represent himself."
"He needs a lawyer," Adam repeated. "I think so, and I've studied his entire file."
Goodman thought about this. "That's a lot of paper. Why did you do it?"
"It's an interesting case."
"Sam Cayhall is not a nice man. He's a racist who hates just about everybody. He hates lawyers. He'd hate you."
"I don't think so. I want the chance to meet him."
Goodman folded his hands in front of him. "Why, may I ask, are you so determined to work on this particular case?"
Adam paused. "I have a secret for you, Mr. Goodman. You must promise not to reveal it to anyone, OK?"
"You have my promise."
Adam took a deep breath. "I'm related to Sam Cayhall." Goodman stared at him. Adam explained, "Sam Cayhall had a son, Eddie. Eddie Cayhall left Mississippi when his father was arrested for the bombing. He ran to California with his young family, changed his name, and tried to forget. But he suffered terribly. He killed himself soon after his father was found guilty in nineteen eighty-one. Eddie Cayhall was my father."
"Sam Cayhall is your grandfather?"
"Yes. I didn't know it until I was almost seventeen."
"That was when your father killed himself?"
"Right. I'll spare you the details, but I found his body, and I cleaned up the mess before my mother and sister returned home. After we buried my father, my Aunt"
Lee told me the truth about Sam Cayhall. Since then I've read everything I can about the case."
"And you think Sam will trust you as his lawyer?"
"I don't know. All I know is he's my grandfather and I have to go and see him."
"You should've told someone about this when you joined the firm."
"I know. But nobody asked if my grandfather was a client of the firm."
Goodman made a decision. "We'll work something out. I'll need to present this to the other partners. They won't like it, but I'll make them agree. You'll have to persuade your grandfather. You'll be the front man and we'll give you all the help we can." He paused. "Then, when they kill him, we'll be around to support you."
"It's not hopeless, is it?"
"Almost. We've handled Sam's appeals for seven years now, and they've all failed. A new execution date will be chosen any day now Probably late summer. I have to warn you - it will be very nasty, Mr. Hall. I've watched three of my clients die. If they kill him, you'll never be the same again."
It was after midnight. Adam sat on the sofa in his tiny apartment. The room was dark, except for the light from the television screen. The video he was watching was one he had pieced together over the years. The Adventures of a Klan Bomber, he called it. It started with a television news report from nineteen sixty-seven about the bombing of a Jewish church.
The Kramer bombing was next. People were seen running to the remains of Marvin's office, while the police tried to push them back. A cloud of dust and smoke hung over the ruins. Voices shouted and the camera rocked as it captured the shocking scene.
The video cut from the bombing scene to the front of the jail, where Sam Cayhall was being led to a car. It was nineteen sixty-seven, twenty-three years ago. Sam was forty-six years old. At that time, Adam was a little boy, known as Alan Cayhall; soon after that, he was taken to a distant state where he was given a new name. Now Adam pressed the pause button and stared for the millionth time into the face of his grandfather.
The video continued with more pictures of Sam outside various jails and courthouses. One scene showed Marvin Kramer after the second trial. He was in his wheelchair on the sidewalk outside the courthouse. He suddenly saw two Klansmen dressed in white and began shouting at them. They made some cruel remark, and Marvin went crazy, screaming and cursing. He spun the metal wheels of his chair, chasing after them, the cameras recording it all. The wheelchair turned over, and Marvin fell out onto the grass, crying in an odd high-pitched voice.
When the video ended, Adam stared at the blank screen. Behind the sofa were three large boxes, which contained the rest of the story: endless pages of notes on all three trials; copies of all the documents relating to the case since the last trial; hundreds of newspaper stories about Sam; notes from law school. Adam knew more about his grandfather than anyone alive. But he also knew that the man was still a mystery to him.
Adam and his sister Carmen first met their Aunt Lee at their father's funeral. Her name had been mentioned occasionally, but as children, they were taught not to ask questions about family. All they knew was that she lived in Memphis, had married into a rich Memphis family, and had no contact with her brother Eddie because of some ancient family fight. After her brother's funeral, Lee stayed for two weeks and spent time with her nephew and niece. They loved her because she was pretty and cool; she took them shopping, and to the movies, and for long walks by the ocean.
And it was Aunt Lee who sat with Adam and at last told him something about his family. She told him about Sam's Klan activities, and the Kramer bombing, and the trials that eventually sent him to death row in Mississippi. Adam's interest was awakened. It was an awful story, but at least there was a family out there! Perhaps he wasn't so unusual after all. Perhaps there were aunts and uncles and cousins with lives to share and stories to tell. But Lee was wise and quick enough to recognize this interest. She explained that the Cayhalls were not friendly and warm people, but a strange and secretive family who kept themselves apart.
Lee told Adam something of her childhood, living on a small farm fifteen minutes from Clanton. Sam was a decent father but not affectionate. Her mother was a weak woman who died of cancer. About her adult life, Lee told Adam very little. She had left home at the age of eighteen and married Phelps Booth, who came from a rich banking family. They seemed to have had a miserable marriage.
Lee stayed with Adam's family for two weeks after the funeral, then left. They had occasionally exchanged letters and cards, but had seen little of each other since then.
Their conversation on the phone last night had been brief. When Adam said he would be living in Memphis for a few months, and would like to see her, Lee invited him to her luxury apartment by the river. He would live with her, she insisted. She was now living apart from her husband, and he would be company. Then he said he would be working in the Memphis office, working on Sam's case, in fact.
Adam pushed Lee's doorbell at a few minutes after nine. Lee opened the door and they kissed.
"Welcome," she said.
She led him out onto the patio overlooking the river.
"It's good to see you," she said with a nice smile. She was almost fifty, and had aged a lot. Her hair was now going gray, and her soft blue eyes were red and worried.
They talked about Adam's sister Carmen, studying psychology at Berkeley, and about his mother, who had got married again to a man who made a fortune in timber. But Adam was in no mood for small talk.
"I'm going to see Sam tomorrow."
Lee poured them both a large whisky. "Why?"
"Why not? Because he's my grandfather. Because he's going to die. Because I'm a lawyer and he needs help."
"He doesn't even know you."
"He will tomorrow. I'll tell him who I am. I'm sick of Cayhall secrets. When I was a kid, every time I asked questions about my family, Mother would tell me to stop because it might upset my father. I want to know about the family, Lee, however bad it really is."
"It's awful," she whispered, almost to herself.
"But do you care? Have you been to see Sam?"
"Don't start this, Adam. You don't understand." "Explain it to me then. I want to understand." "It's not easy to talk about. Just give me some time"
"I may be in Memphis for months."
"I want you to stay here. We'll need each other." She hesitated. "I mean, he is going to die, isn't he?"
"It's likely." "Then why are you getting involved?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because I don't believe that he intended to kill those kids. There's something that doesn't add up." He paused. "How many people know you're Sam's daughter? Do your husband's family know?"
"Very few people know. I'd like to keep it that way."
"You're ashamed of -"
"Yes, I'm ashamed of my father! Who wouldn't be?" Her words were suddenly sharp and bitter. "He's killed enough people - the Kramer twins, their father, your father, and God knows who else."
"You feel no pity for him?"
"Occasionally. I think about him all the time. I've wondered a million times how my father became such a horrible person. Why did my father have to be a Klansman who killed innocent children and ruined his own family?"
Adam saw that tears were running down her face.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry, Lee."