The Devil's Interval Read online

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

  “Lots,” said Isabella. “That’s why we want you to read the file.”

  I persisted. “I mean, why did you and Eleanor give each other the big look a minute ago?”

  Isabella shook her head. “Read the file. There is another possibility…”

  “This mysterious possibility—is it the reason you’re convinced Travis Gifford is innocent?”

  The room grew uncomfortably quiet. “Maggie,” said Eleanor gently. “Isabella may not want to discuss some things with you until she knows you’re committed to helping.”

  Isabella gave me a barely perceptible nod. And I walked out the door thinking that I might be turning into a real journalist after all. The possibility of access to inside information was fueling a suddenly ungovernable hunger to be on a “need-to-know” basis with the Gasworks Gang.

  CHAPTER 4

  After breakfast, cold cereal and lukewarm coffee, Travis Gifford closed his eyes and tried to imagine this woman, Maggie Fiori, Isabella was bringing to visit that day. Smart for sure, he thought, careless, maybe. The way she scribbled notes in the margins of her books made him think she might be quick to judge, likely to trust her own instincts. He put his hands flat on either side of his bowl, as if he were trying to levitate right out of the chair, through the roof of his cell and into the early spring sky. What was that song his mother liked? “I remember sky/It was blue as ink/Or at least I think/I remember sky.” He opened his eyes. Had Isabella said that the Fiori woman was a mother? He hoped so.

  CHAPTER 5

  Take a breath, Maggie,” said Isabella, as she paid the toll at the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

  She gunned the motor and zipped up the slow rise to the bridge. I looked out over the edge, into the cold, blue-gray waters. “Have I been talking too much? I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  Isabella took her hand off the polished burl of the gearshift and patted vaguely in the direction of my knee.

  “Don’t worry, chica. Everyone gets a little nervous on the way to Death Row. Even if you’re just visiting.”

  “Hey,” I said, “can I ask you a personal question?”

  Isabella glanced my way. “Isn’t that what you do for a living?”

  “You speak Spanish, right?”

  “I grew up speaking Spanish. I still leak the stuff, and it comes in handy once in a while.”

  “But you don’t look…”

  Isabella laughed. “Latina? I am, though. Mom was Vietnamese, Dad’s family came on the run from some horrible regime or other in Nicaragua. My brother always described us as Latisians. I loved that, made it sound as if we came from somewhere else in the solar system. Instead of just being another brown-skinned, weird immigrant mix. When we were kids and went to Hawaii on vacation, I always felt it was the only place on earth people didn’t stare at us and wonder, ‘Where’d you come from?’”

  “Why Hawaii?”

  “Oh, because in Hawaii, everybody’s a mix of something or other, so nobody wonders about your ethnicity. Everybody looks like some variation of me.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Isabella laughed. “Oh, right. Now, I’ve got a question for you. What made you decide to come with me today?”

  “The photos,” I said. “They were haunting me.”

  After several sleepless nights when the Hollywood Confidential–style, brutal black-and-white police photos kept swimming to the surface every time I dropped off, I knew the only way to get them out of my head was to visit Travis Gifford.

  “I don’t get it,” said Michael, over breakfast. “If this thing is creeping you out enough to keep you up at night, why do you even want to go meet this guy?” Without missing a beat, he added, “Hey, Josh, what’s the rule? Drink the last of the orange juice, you’ve got to mix up another batch.”

  Josh looked guilty. “How’d you know I was drinking the end of the pitcher?”

  “Your father has eyes in the back of his head,” I said. “All parents do. You might as well learn it now.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. He was leggy and mouthy, two inches taller than me, and a poster kid for irritating adolescence. I scrutinized Josh as he hauled another can of orange juice out of the freezer with a martyred sigh. My sweet-tempered first-born was morphing into some wiseass, moody teenager. Some days, I felt as if I’d retrieved the wrong kid at school, like turning in a plaid wool skirt at the dry cleaners and coming home with a leather mini. His major sign of affection these days was absently patting me on the head as he walked by, much as he did the dog, and saying, “How ya doing, little buddy?” I was constantly confused: Was I still his mom or just a really boring playmate he’d outgrown?

  Zach, on the other hand, still seemed like his real self—goofy, completely unself-conscious about his affection for Michael and me. Lately, though, I’d noted him watching Josh, and I worried that the wheels were turning. If his adored, hero-worshipped older brother thought the parents were so lame, maybe he needed to readjust his thinking as well. Soon, I suspected, Zach would just find us annoying as well. I figured we had two, three years tops to enjoy an uncomplicated relationship, and I wanted to make the most of it.

  “Maggie?” said Michael. “Did you hear anything I said?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “You know what? I don’t get why I want to go either, but I guess it’s the devil-you-know theory. I mean, maybe Gifford is innocent, but right now I’ve got those awful police photos stuck in my head. And until I meet Gifford himself, I’ve got a monster pictured.”

  Michael tugged at the comics planted under my elbow. “If you’re not reading those, I want them.”

  “I can’t read the comics on the morning of a trip to Death Row,” I said. “Take ’em.”

  “So, you think that if you see this guy, you’ll be able to tell just by looking at him that he is—or he isn’t a monster?” Michael persisted. “Gee, let’s get rid of the criminal justice system, cara, and let you take a look at accused people. Save the taxpayers a lot of time and money, eliminate jury trials altogether.” He sipped his coffee and gave me a particularly smug grin. “Why don’t you explain your intuition to the warden at San Quentin, and maybe he’ll send this guy home with you?”

  I examined Michael while he read the comics, top to bottom. The fact that he was making wisecracks about my visit puzzled me.

  I reached over and tapped my fingers on the back of his hand. Without looking up, he turned his hand over and clasped mine.

  “Hey,” I said. “How come you’re not trying to talk me out of going to San Quentin?”

  He put down the paper. “You’re interrupting Sherman’s Lagoon,” he said. “Okay, remember when we were at Dr. McQuist’s the other day?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “You said you’re interested in this as a story. I’ve decided I’ve got to believe you. I can’t be second-guessing everything you’re doing at work, looking for trouble. You want me to trust you, so I guess I’m going to try. If it turns into anything else, can I assume you’ll talk to me?”

  “I will,” I said eagerly. “I promise. It’s just…”

  “What?”

  “Well, that’s great. That’s wonderful. I guess that means therapy is working, it’s just that I never would have thought that someone like Dr. Coat of Many Colors would work for us.”

  Michael sipped his coffee. “You don’t think much of her, huh?”

  “Do you? Look at her!”

  Michael regarded me coolly. “And the great evenhanded journalist Maggie Fiori is judging people on the basis of looks again?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m not a real journalist, I was an underemployed freelance writer who fell into this job, and I’m trying to take it seriously, and yes, absolutely, I’m a terrible, shallow person and I do judge people not by how they look but by how they choose to present themselves.”

  “Well, if you don’t give Dr. McQuist a chance, this whole thin
g isn’t going to work,” he pointed out, letting go of my hand.

  Shut up, Maggie, I said to myself, just shut up. I stood, came around behind Michael and threw my arms around his neck. “I’m an idiot,” I said. “Dr. McQuist is fashion-challenged, but she’s a genius. I saw you light up when she made me stop talking and listen to you.” I kissed the top of his head. “I’ve got to run. I promise not to get into any mischief today.”

  Michael reached up and grabbed my hand.

  “One other thing you should know, Maggie.”

  “What? That sounds ominous.”

  Michael turned around to face me. “I know Frederick Plummer. Not well, but I know him.”

  I sank back down into the chair next to Michael.

  “The widower of the murdered woman? Grace Plummer? You know him?”

  Michael nodded. “I hadn’t said anything because I didn’t know if this was going anywhere. And I certainly don’t know him well. He’s a client of the firm, or at least, the nonprofit foundation he started is a client.”

  “You know him?” I repeated, a little dazed by this news.

  Michael shrugged. “I’ve met him a few times, that’s all.”

  “My goodness,” I said. “Small Town all around.”

  “You shouldn’t be that surprised,” said Michael. “There are only a handful of law firms in the city that serve business-linked nonprofit foundations. And it’s not like I play hockey with him or anything.”

  “So what do you think I should do?” I asked.

  “Give the information to Isabella and, if this goes any further, to Mr. Gifford, and to your publisher. Most of all, remember that promise you just made not to get into mischief.”

  I thought about that promise as I chattered away to Isabella, all the way from her Berkeley office to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, until she suggested I slow down and take a breath. She seemed unflapped by the news that Michael had a connection, however tenuous, to Frederick Plummer. But I still couldn’t stop talking. Instead of being relaxed and ready for anything as we approached San Quentin, as I assumed a seasoned journalist would be, my hands were icy and I felt the kind of breathlessness you associate with high-altitude hikes. The night before, I had asked Isabella if there were special instructions about what to wear. “No denim, no green—and make sure you don’t have on an underwire bra.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Metal detector,” she said. “It’s really sensitive, and the underwires set it off. One time, I had to go into the ladies room, cut holes in my bra and rip the wires out. Wrecked a fifty-dollar Cosabella. You don’t want to screw around with that detector. They only give you three tries through, and then you’re out.”

  “You couldn’t just stash your bra?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? That’s another rule. No braless women visitors. No exceptions.”

  As we curved off the bridge, we were at sea level, and the exit to San Quentin was ahead on our right.

  We pulled off the road and up to the entry gate. Isabella said, “Look at that view. If San Quentin weren’t already here, some developer could throw up some condos and get top dollar in the real estate market.”

  Sure enough, looking out from the parking lot, the San Francisco Bay beyond, spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge, expensive cars were wending their way from Marin County’s privileged hillsides into Everybody’s Favorite City. A perfectly trimmed and edged lawn stretched beyond the parking lot, and the walkway from the lot to the reception building was lined with early-blooming rosebushes. “Inmate-gardeners,” said Isabella, “they’re the best. They’re not working on anybody’s clock.”

  “People would kill for this view,” I said, “but I guess that’s an awful and old joke.”

  “Punch line doesn’t work,” said Isabella. “No view from Death Row. Say your prayers,” she said to me, “we’re here.”

  In fact, the duties and rituals associated with getting from the front gate guardhouse to sitting down across the table from Travis Gifford did remind me of a religious ceremony. There was a hierarchy at San Quentin, and you had to navigate it just right, or the indulgence you sought—an interview with Isabella’s client—could be withheld. It reminded me of the first time Michael had taken me to Mass with his family. Even though I’d gone to St. Agnes, I still felt like the quintessential outsider, the Jewish girl ignorant of the language, the culture, even the scents, and the responsibilities of all those people in all those elaborate costumes. The costumes were less off-putting here than at Sts. Peter’s and Paul’s—khaki for the guards, denim for the prisoners, instead of all those billowy white getups the priests and acolytes went in for, but there was just as much mystery.

  Isabella seemed to know most of the correctional officers, big, buffed-up guys almost without exception. It was near noon when we arrived, and many carried handled coolers on their way to and from lunch. “Why do they look like they’re going on a picnic?” I asked Isabella.

  “You mean the coolers? They’re all into bodybuilding, so they eat massive amounts of food. No little brown sack could possibly accommodate what they’ve got in there.”

  It wasn’t a regular visiting day, Isabella explained to me, so she and I had the family room almost to ourselves. “On a family day, this place is filled with people,” she said. “People come with plastic see-through containers, filled with change for the vending machine.”

  “No cakes with files in them,” I joked.

  “You can’t bring any outside food,” she explained. “So visitors bring enough change so they can get stuff from the machines. Keeps the kids busy, and gives people a chance to feel as if they’re having a meal together. It’s quite a scene on visiting day with all the kids wandering around, people playing checkers, people holding hands.” She gave a dry laugh. “I always think it looks a little like a Jane Austen movie. You see couples strolling around the room, the woman with her arm tucked into the man’s, as if they’re promenading.”

  Today, the room felt like an empty dining hall at camp, just the two of us, alone in a sea of tables and chairs. Suddenly, the door swung open and a correctional officer gestured Travis Gifford in. “One hour, Ms. Fuentes,” he said to Isabella. She nodded. “Travis Gifford, Maggie Fiori.”

  We shook hands and sat down, Gifford on one side of the table, Isabella and me on the other. Pale, pale blue eyes, close-cropped graying blond hair, faint freckles across his nose and visible under the gold hairs on his forearms. He didn’t look bodybuilderish like the correctional officers, but his shoulders were broad and straight, and suddenly a picture of a young Nureyev floated into my head. Muscles under artful control.

  “I feel as if I know you already, Mrs. Fiori,” he said.

  “Isabella’s been talking too much,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been reading your books. The ones you donated to the prison library? Some of them had your maiden name in them, Margaret Stern.”

  I remembered the bags of books, mostly old paperbacks and some battered college texts I’d packed up and sent via Women Defenders to the Death Row Library.

  “I’ve got plenty of time to read,” said Travis, “and to pay very close attention. We get a lot of second- and thirdhand books here, so I always read everything on the page. What people underline, notes they write, everything.”

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “Want to know what I’ve figured out about you?”

  Isabella protested, “We’ve got limited time, Travis…”

  I put my hand on her arm; I could feel the heat radiating through the red wool. “It’s okay, Isabella.”

  “I’ll be quick,” said Travis. “You don’t like the romantic poets much—Byron, Shelley, those guys, hardly a mark on those pages. But you like the religious stuff—George Herbert, John Donne. If I were nineteen and trying to get you into bed, I’d send you Andrew Marvell, but not the usual, ‘To his coy mistress.’”

  “Travis…” began Isabella.

&nbs
p; Travis held his hand up to stop her, and then he lowered his hand, palm cupped upward and put it in front of me. I followed his eyes, down to his palm, and he opened it slowly, as if he were setting a firefly free to twinkle away into the air. There on his palm, written in ink, it said, “Clora, come view my soul…”

  “Who’s Clora?” asked Isabella impatiently, looking over her shoulder to see if someone was watching this strange scene through the pane in the door.

  Travis turned his palm face down on the table, leaned forward and whispered:

  Clora, come view my soul, and tell

  Whether I have contrived it well.

  Now all its several lodgings lie

  Composed into one gallery;

  And the great arras-hangings, made

  Of various faces, by are laid;

  That for all furniture, you’ll find

  Only your picture in my mind.

  Travis sat back and smiled. A prisoner, in a cold sterile room, with big squared shoulders and an even bigger presence. His self-confidence was palpable and seductive. It took an effort to resist. And an even greater effort not to feel invaded by the idea of a man in a cell memorizing a passage for me.

  ‘The Gallery,’ I said, coolly. “No wonder they call you Lothario. Nice parlor trick to memorize a poem I loved in college. Good thing I’m not nineteen any more.”

  “Why’d you give the book away?” he asked.

  “I have a hardbound copy of Marvell now,” I said. “I thought the paperback deserved a new home.”

  Isabella sighed and tapped one carmine nail on her wristwatch. “Time flies, my friends.”

  Travis unfolded his arms and placed his hands flat on the metal table. “Let me get this straight, Isabella. My job today is to convince Mrs. Fiori that I’m innocent so that she’ll help us—before the great State of California succeeds in its goal to put me down like a stray dog. Is that about the size of it?”