As she listens she keeps looking around. “Well, I must say, first impressions are not very good.”
Cody takes a step back, releases the bars, and enjoys a good laugh. “It’s designed to be an awful place, Miss Iris.”
“And how long have you been here in this cell?”
“Fourteen years. I was fifteen when I was convicted, fourteen when I was arrested. Dead at twenty-nine, the youngest to be executed in this country since the Wild West days when they would string up anybody.”
“It’s a pretty depressing place. Could you ask to be moved?”
“Why? Where would I go? All the cells are the same. Eight feet by ten. Same rules, same food, same guards, same unbearable heat in the summer, same freezing cold in the winter. We’re just a bunch of rats trying to survive in the sewer and dying slowly every day.”
“You were just a baby.”
“No, I wasn’t a baby. I was a tough kid who’d been living in the woods for four years. I had no other place to live, except for the orphanage or another foster home. Brian found me and we escaped and lived the way we wanted for a few years. I wasn’t a baby, Miss Iris, but I was too young for this.”
“Do you feel safe here?”
“Sure. Death row is a very safe place, even though it’s full of murderers. We’re all locked down in solitary so there’s no one to fight, no one to hurt.”
“You said that in one of your letters.”
“What have I not said in my letters, Miss Iris? I’ve told you everything. And you’ve been pretty honest with me.”
“I have, yes.”
“So, if we assume we’ve already talked about everything, in our letters, what can we talk about now? We only have a few more minutes.”
“Did you save my letters?”
“Of course.” Cody quickly falls to his knees, reaches under his bunk, and pulls out a long, flat cardboard box filled with colorful envelopes. “Every one of them, Miss Iris, and I’ve read them all a dozen times. One letter each week for the past twelve years, plus cards for my birthday, Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. All in all, six hundred and seventy-four letters and cards. You’re pretty amazing, Miss Iris. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“All the time.”
Cody carefully chooses an envelope and removes the letter. “The very first. April twenty-second, 1978. ‘Dear Cody. My name is Iris Vanderkamp and I live in North Platte, Nebraska. I am a member of St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church, and our ladies’ Bible class is starting a new project. We are reaching out to young men on death row. We are opposed to the death penalty and want to see it abolished. This may sound a bit odd—but is there anything I can do for you? Please write back and let me know. Sincerely, Iris.’？”
“I remember it like it was yesterday. We were having a Bible study at my house one night and Geraldine Fisher said she’d read a story about a lady in Omaha who’d been pen pals with a death row inmate for over twenty years, some poor man down south. They were about to put him in the gas chamber. That’s how it all got started. We searched for some names. Yours jumped out because you were only seventeen at the time, so young. So I wrote that letter, and I waited and waited.”
“I read your letter and I couldn’t believe it. Somebody out there knew my name, knew that I was on death row, and wanted to do something nice for me. Keep in mind, Miss Iris, and I know I’ve told you this a hundred times, but I have no family anywhere. And no friends. Not a single friend until you came along. Jack’s my friend, I guess, but he doesn’t really count because he’s my lawyer.”
“And you wrote me back.”
“I was so intimidated. I had never written a letter before and I’d never received one, other than stuff from the courts. But I was determined. I borrowed a dictionary from the library and studied every word. I wrote in block letters, like they tried to teach me in the first grade, I guess.”
“It was a beautiful letter. Not a single word was misspelled. I got the impression it took a long time to write it.”
“Hours and hours, but, hey, I have plenty of time. It kept me busy, gave me a purpose. I wanted to impress you.”
“You made me cry, and not for the last time.”
“You know, Miss Iris, when I came here as a boy I couldn’t read much. I dropped out of school when I was ten. I had bounced around so many schools, had so many teachers, that I didn’t care about learning. Brian escaped from a juvenile home and found me in foster care, again, and we ran away. That was the end of my schooling. I could read a little, but not very well. When I got this letter, I knew I had to answer it. I borrowed some paper and a pencil, got the dictionary, and I wanted every word to be perfect.”