Love Her Madly by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith Page A

put whiskey in my baby bottles so’s I’d sleep. I did hard drugs, me and my mother and sisters together, from the time I was conceived. Then she introduced me to her johns. Drugs and alcohol and havin’ sex as a child transformed my nature. Poisoned my DNA.
    â€œThrough Jesus’ love I have recognized what was stolen from me and have gotten it back, because Jesus is by my side. I battled Satan so’s I could find out who I was before he fouled me in my mother’s womb.
    â€œBy trusting in the Lord Jesus, I have found that person. I am not a killer. I am not a drug user. I am not a drunk. I am not a prostitute. That was someone else. I am not that other person anymore. I am born again.”
    She spoke with enormous conviction. She’d become a preacher. But the tone, the woeful tone, was one I’d heard before: the tone of a convict who needs you to understand that he or she didn’t kill anybody, rob anybody, rape anybody, slash anybody’s face.
    I said to her, “Even if the woman I am talking to now represents a rebirth, there are people who have suffered as much negligence and abuse as you have—more—who didn’t grow up to become prostitutes or addicts, let alone killers. I need to convince the governor with facts, not a sob story. Excuse my harshness here. We need to—”
    She leaned forward. “Harsh? Ma’am, harsh don’t bother me none. Jesus has stepped in to protect me from harshness. Jesus wants you to be my witness. The woman you are looking at is innocent. The Rona Leigh I once was has been vanquished by my acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. Jesus has baptized me with His love. He has helped me to root out that other Rona Leigh. I am sorry for what these hands have done. But these hands are now clean, clean. Washed by Jesus, may I be forever deserving.”
    She held out her hands to me to see how clean they were, her delicate hands. Then she pushed her chair back. “I don’t understand why you have chosen to make this effort for me. I have confessed my crime. I—”
    She would never understand. “Rona Leigh, yes, you have confessed. But a confession doesn’t mean you did it.”
    Her eyes opened wide just the way her husband’s had. What an amazing thing for anyone to say. She smiled down at me. She said, “Exactly right. Exactly what I been tellin’ everyone. I confessed, but I didn’t do it. Satan did it.” She straightened her back. “Tell the governor I am a lady. I now have the DNA of a lady, thanks to the Lord whose arms enfold me now. That is what will sway the governor. Never mind your facts. The governor is a Christian, a good Texas boy. He will not kill a lady.”
    And she took on an air of remove, a haughtiness. Indeed, she was a lady, the kind of lady recognized in such places as Texas. We don’t have them in DC. Just like we don’t have the hairdo.
    Captain Shank stepped forward to escort his prisoner back to the other ladies on death row, and she flashed him a beatific smile. The little creases that had come into her forehead in the last ten minutes melted away. All aflutter, she said to him, “We will pray for this peace officer today, Harley. She will crusade for us with Jesus by her side.”
    He said quietly, “Amen,” and they were gone.
    Was she utterly deranged? At least now there was no doubt in my mind that she could well have been set up to kill, was convinced she did kill, and then agreed to sign a confession. But derangement didn’t matter, as Captain Shank had made clear.
    *   *   *
    I checked out of the Holiday Inn and into the Best Western. I put my stuff in the closet, in the drawers, into the bathroom. And then there was a knock at the door. I opened it.
    A Texas Ranger filled the doorway, Nick Nolte in a white Stetson.
    He said, “Max Scraggs. May I come in, Agent?”
    â€œHow did you know I was