The Late Matthew Brown. Paul Ketzle

be razed to the ground. That was the plan, at any rate.

      Radically new ideas flowed slowly through these legislative halls, and the halting process gave time for opposition to grow. Soon the preservationists were clamoring to save the old capitol, upset that the new one was to be built over the foundations of its predecessor. A local historical preservation society marched onto the Senate floor and dumped a hundred-thousand signed petitions across the dais. A chapter of the Daughters of the South mounted the steps of the old capitol building and chained themselves to the bronze statue of a Civil War cavalry soldier. It was the lead story on all three local newscasts and one national.

      The ultimate compromise left no one entirely pleased. The two buildings would both remain, side by side, nearly overlapping. The past and the present. The new capitol towering over the old—the old refusing to give ground to the new. And so it was done.

      The Department of Corrections stood next door to this two-headed monster of government. Each workday, as the tall, thick shadows stretched across the parking lot, I’d look upward at the newly completed building, its twenty-five stories rising straight up, and every time it appeared to be collapsing down upon me.

      In the office, my associate Hal Wallace stood beside an employee’s desk, his leg propped up on a trash can, leaning over the shoulder of our new assistant, a young woman whose name I had had to ask for, and then forgotten, probably a dozen times now. We made eye contact, Hal and I, and I waved. He nodded but didn’t stop talking. His western-style holster flashed, its tanned leather cut, its ornamental curlicues plainly visible at his waist beneath the flap of his coat. Hal always wore that sidearm to work, an ivory-handled revolver that had been handed down to him by his G.I. father. He was an assistant director of the Department of Corrections, technically one step below me, though he’d been there much longer, nearly seven years, with a degree in criminal justice —and now he’d advanced to the top of the civil service heap, where the only ones above him were members of the political establishment, like the director and me. That he held such an important position, or for that matter that the government building he worked in forbade weapons of any sort, had no bearing on the matter for him, nor apparently for the security guards downstairs, or anyone else. Ours is an open-carry state. We don’t care if you want to bring lethal weaponry to work. We just want to see what’s coming.

      Also, as a well-to-do black man in the South, Hal said he preferred letting everyone know that he was armed. It not only fed the frustrations of the old guard Klansmen, who could never have imagined the sight a generation ago, it was also a much safer way to walk down deserted and dark streets at night. Multi-ethnic gang violence had been on the rise for years, and for anyone with a hint of status, whatever your race, it paid to watch your back.

      Through the haze of fluorescent lights, I navigated the padded cubicles to my office unmolested. The many faces of my coworkers looked up as I passed, then quickly looked down again without acknowledgment. Hal insisted that they were still getting used to me, that eventually I’d fit in. A year, though, seemed like a long time looking for a fit, and I was fairly convinced that whatever opinion they were going to have of me had long ago been formed and set.

      During my year at Corrections, I had instituted my routine of delegation, a style of management that had served me well throughout my administrative career. I rarely attached my name to anything directly. I signed few documents. I wrote vague and brief letters. I avoided email and conveniently forgot my government-issued electronic address. As a result, my career had thus far been a rousing success. Only in my early thirties and already I was holding my second executive administrative position, a swift climb of the state government ladder and on pace to surpass all my relatives. And my accomplishments, while admittedly slight and largely cosmetic, were testament to the fact that the true currency of management wasn’t success, but change. Or, in my case, taking credit for the changes happening around you and the labors of others.

      Hal suddenly popped his head through my doorway.

      “Christy wants us.”

      “What about?

      “You know how he likes surprises.”

      The director of the Department of Corrections, Christy Donaldson, was, like me, a political appointee, having been in and out of government for the better part of thirty years. His faded blue sports coats, his thinning gray comb-over—he was a holdover from another era, the heyday of the Old South political machine, his only qualification for the job being his fierce partisanship. He was standing in front of his desk and smiling as we entered, and before we had even settled into our seats, announced that the governor was going to sign a warrant of execution.

      “No shit?” Hal laughed, then caught himself as if embarrassed.

      “There’s a presser set for this afternoon. Going to be a big deal. Fits nicely with the overall campaign themes: Justice for victims. Crap like that.”

      I was as surprised as Hal. Due to a variety of reasons, the state hadn’t managed to execute anyone in more than a decade. A moratorium following the last, admittedly disastrous, series of executions was no longer in effect, but the long appeals process had kept some of the more promising prospects from coming due. Two strong candidates for the chair had both recently had their convictions thrown back to the lower courts. Another had been the subject of a recent Dateline special, casting overwhelming doubt on his likely guilt. Executing him now would have been a public relations nightmare.

      “We sure this one’s not going to fall through?” I asked.

      Christy just smiled, handing me a case file.

      Andrew Carl Adler was just the killer everyone had been waiting for: a middle- aged white man whose brutal and premeditated rape and murder of a local college student had only been eclipsed by his grotesquely comical attempts to cover up the crime. The fire he’d hoped to use to obliterate the evidence had scorched several apartments in the historical district where she lived and severely injured two firefighters, yet hadn’t harmed the girl’s body, left partially insulated in the tub where he’d strangled her. Though he denied it, genetic evidence had tied him to the murder, the arson, and also the theft of the victim’s car, which he tried to sell through an ad in the local paper. The trial had been a media sensation, the verdict quick, and his lack of public remorse for the death of an innocent young woman had only further inflamed public passions. If ever there was a slam dunk case for capital punishment, everyone agreed, this was it.

      “Now, I’m going to be on the road for the next several weeks almost nonstop,” Christy explained. “The governor has called in just about everyone to help with the campaign. So I need you to put this thing together.”

      “What do we have to do?”

      “There’re a lot of little details to arrange—hiring someone to pull the switch, settling things with the warden. Not to mention the press. Our first execution in ten years. Matthew, I want you to personally arrange all the details.”

      “What makes me so lucky?”

      “We don’t want any accidents, like what happened last time. This is going to be a three-ring circus, and you’re the perfect public face for this.”

      “I’ve never done anything like this.”

      “Consider it a personal challenge.”

      “I would have thought Hal seemed like a more natural choice. His experience.”

      Christy shook his head. “Hal’s been tasked with a top-to-bottom department review, so he’s not going to be available. Besides, you shouldn’t need any help. You’re a former director, so you’re the natural choice. Just do a job like you did with the Work for Justice program and everything will be golden.”

      I didn’t say anything but managed a tight smile. Hal was stoic, his fingers tracing the embroidered lines on his holster.

      The Work for Justice program was part of an intense effort to bring the state correctional system into the 21st century. Having evolved well past the age of stocks and racks, thumb screws and iron maidens and pickup basketball, our modern prisons were productive and cost-efficient and privately run. For years