Introduction

Chillicothe Correctional Institution, Ohio

July 23, 2010

 

          Randall Grey was fifty-two years old; he would not see fifty-three. This was Friday, July twenty-third, 2010. On the twenty-fourth he had an important appointment scheduled, one he doubted would be cancelled. There would be no snow day off from school, no ball game that might be called onaccounta rain.  He had spent the last sixteen years in this ten-by-ten cell, seeing the light of day, feeling the warmth of the sun, or the cool of the rain, speaking to another human being for one hour out of twenty-four. He knew he had seen it, felt it, spoken it for the last time. They would come for him at five AM. He didn’t understand why the dog and pony show. Why not just shoot him?

          But no, they had to do it their way; all the gruesome pomp and circumstance made them feel important. The guards would solemnly escort him to another cell where he would spend the last hour on Earth the Good Lord had seen fit to bestow upon him. Then they would take him to the next little room, with one-way mirrors through which a small audience consisting mostly of her family, and a few lucky reporters chosen by lottery, would listen while the good warden gravely intoned the final sentence: “Randall Grey, you have been found guilty by a jury of your peers…” blah, blah, blah.

Then, they would throw a switch, and 2,200 volts of elect-ricity would course through his body.

               Amen.

 

●   ●   ●

 

     By all accounts, Randall Grey had been successful. As an independent manufacturers’ representative in Akron, Ohio, he had helped his client businesses make millions of dollars, and he pulled in a half million a year commission of his own. Well over six feet tall, lean, and athletic, and with dark hair and eyes, and that particular suntan distinctive to the wealthy, he had carried himself with confidence and panache that fell just short of arrogance. He was one of those guys people liked in spite of themselves.

But that was long ago. Now, at fifty-two years old, sixteen years of prison life had slouched him just a little, slowed him just a little, grayed him just a little. He still displayed a level of confidence, but it always seemed contrived, a defense mechanism, with a more bellicose, sarcastic bent.

Sixteen years of prison life had made Randall Grey a very, very angry man.

Over the past sixteen years he had been asked many, many times if he had any “regrets.” Did he regret losing that power career, the million-dollar house, the Jaguar, the country club… all the trappings of wealth.

          No.

          Did he regret murdering his wife?

          No.

          Did he have any regrets at all?

          Just one: he never got the chance to kill Daniel Barton. 

 

PART ONE

 

Chapter One

Burnstown, North Carolina

October 17, 2009

 

          Quarterback Kyle Bianco turned and handed the ball off to left halfback, number four, Devonte Elliott. Twelve-year-old, seventh-grader Devonte was the Rams' best player. He had started the season wearing number 42, but the two had peeled off after the second game when his Mom, Sally Mae Elliot, accidentally washed the jersey in hot water. Davonte was a head taller than anyone else on the team, but with his slim-jim frame, he seemed all arms and legs with his gangly, high-knees running style. But he was fast and elusive, and on the twenty-four slant play, he wriggled his way down to the two yard line.

          Kyle's Dad, thirty-five-year-old Rams Head Coach Frank Bianco, quickly called time-out. At six foot two and two hundred twenty-five pounds, with a full, bushy beard, and the rugged complexion of a man who had worked hard all of his life, Frank, at first blush, seemed like an imposing figure. But a five-minute conversation revealed him to be the big teddy bear he was. Soft of speech and slow of manner, he was about as unpretentious as a person could ever be. As Kyle ran over to the sideline, his longish blonde hair trailing behind out of his helmet, Frank asked the referee how much time was left. The Burnstown Little League Football field did not have a clock. It did have a scoreboard though. It said the Rams were losing to the Bears 24 to 12, but Frank knew that was not correct. The kid who had been hanging up the numbers had gotten hungry, bored, or both, and gone home in the third quarter. The real score was 24 to 20, and when the ref told Frank there were ten seconds left, he knew that the whole season was on the line; he had one more play, one play to score the touchdown and pull off the upset, one play to fulfill the goal he had laid out back in September when the season began, one play to carry his team, the kids’ team, to a new high.

          With the slow drawl of a life-long North Carolinian, Frank encouraged his boy. “Alright Son, this is it now. We going to go wing right, twenty-eight sweep, you got it?”

          “But Dad, they know that's what we're gonna do.”

         “Well now, Kyle, knowing it's coming and stopping it's two different things now, ain't it? Davante’s our best player and that’s his best play, so there ya go. Alrighty now then, let's go. We are going twenty-eight sweep, hear?”

          And as Kyle was running back out onto the field, his Dad yelled behind him, “and you tell Devonte not to hold the daggone ball like a loaf of bread now, hear?”

          Kyle thought, “Sure Dad, and you just go ahead and tell the whole world Davonte’s getting the ball, just in case they didn’t know already.”

          The Rams huddled up, and before Kyle even called the play, Davonte said, “Lemme take a wild guess.”

        When the Bears’ rotund, mustachioed sixty-year-old coach, Al Bowden, saw the Rams boys shift to the wing-right formation, he sniggered and elbowed the assistant coach standing beside him. Good old Frank Bianco, bless ‘is heart, was as predictable as the day was long. They both knew that the sweep to the right was coming, even before the “loaf of bread” faux pas. At the time out, Bowden had instructed two of his biggest boys to line up right over ninety-four-pound right tackle, David Parker. At the snap, the two bull-rushed the smaller boy into the backfield, where he stepped on Davante perpetually untied shoelace. Davonte stumbled, and the ball slipped out of his one-handed, loaf of bread grasp. The fumble was scooped up by one of the Bears. That the boy ran out of wind and fell down at the forty yard line didn't really matter. The game was over, and the Rams finished the season 3-5, missing, once again Frank's goal of a five hundred season.

When the boys all took a knee on the sidelines, Frank gave his end-of-year pep talk. Kyle knew what his Dad was going to say; he'd given the same pep talk last year, and Kyle was reasonably sure he'd give it again next year.

          “All right, boys, y'all listen up now. All y’all’s got nothing to be ashamed of, hear? Y'all did your best, and I'm proud of you. Now, all y'all head over to the concession stand and get you a ice cream bar. I paid for ‘em already. All y’all have yourselves a good rest of the year. Do good in school now, hear? Tell your folks I’ll be calling about getting the uniforms turned in.”

            “Yeah, I know, Dad” Kyle thought to himself. “We did our best. That was the problem.”​​