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murder.
    “What do we do?” the warden asked his deputy.
    Just at that moment, Dave’s words started to slur to the point where they couldn’t be understood. He stopped kicking, and his eyes looked like white marbles as they rolled to the back of his head. Then there was no more movement at all. There were no more sounds.
    The doctor checked his vitals. “He’s dead.”
    “Look at his face,” somebody said. When everyone turned to look, each was caught off guard by what they witnessed: Dave had a smile on his face. An eerie smile like the one Jack Nicholson sported when he played the Joker in that Batman movie.
    That night Isis lay in bed, unable to get the scene she had witnessed earlier out of her mind. She had experienced something that would change her forever. She had sat and watched the man whom she would have traded places with in a heartbeat die before her eyes. She hadn’t so much as shed a tear. She knew she couldn’t cry while at the prison, but she thought for sure she’d break down once alone. But she didn’t. By pretending to be someone other than herself, she had been so far removed from the person she really was that she had no idea if she could ever find her way back again.

Chapter 2
    Necessary Arrangements
    The next morning the weatherman had predicted the three H’s for the day: hot, humid, and hazy.
    It was 10 AM and Isis was still enveloped in her leopard-print comforter. The air-conditioning was set on sixty degrees, but she hadn’t slept well. She tossed and turned all night; her body and mind subconsciously fighting the sandman tooth and nail. During those rare rounds when the sandman did land a lucky punch to the chin and put Isis to sleep, the images of what the state had done to David—and the look on his face—would cause her to reawaken. Just when she thought she was about to get a few winks just before midmorning to compensate for last night, the phone rang.
    Who the heck is this?
she thought to herself, reaching for the phone. The caller ID read “Department of Corrections.” After last night, she had thought that all of her business with them was over: no more trials, no more visits, no more collect phone calls. No more Dave.
    “Hello?” she answered.
    “Yes, I’m trying to get in touch with Isis Tatum,” a high-pitched, cheerful voice said. “Is this she?”
    “It depends on who wants to know and why,” Isis snapped.
    “Well, my name is Janet Smith, and I am calling from the Department of Corrections. Miss Tatum, we have in our possession the corpse of David Davis, and as you probably know, he had you listed as next of kin. We need to confirm whether you will pick it up.”
    Isis was shocked. “Pick
it
up?” She finally got herself somewhat together. “The body?” She was now sitting straight up in the bed—confused.
    “Yes, the corpse,” Janet Smith explained. “We have Mr. David Davis’s corpse. Most families usually like to pick it up and make their own funeral arrangements.” She paused. “Although there are those who simply like to let us deal with it. DOC policy isn’t usually to call the families; we just assume you know. Some families make arrangements beforehand. But when I didn’t hear from you…” Ms. Smith’s voice trailed off and lowered. “Look, I like to give a basic courtesy call because I know if it were a loved one of mine, I wouldn’t want the state to bury them in a box and just throw some dirt on them.”
    Isis thought for a minute and let out a long sigh before she spoke again. “Yes,” she said, “I would like to claim…take possession of…”—Isis was having a hard time wording it—“…receive the body. Where do I go, and what do I need to do?”
    “We generally like to have the paperwork done before the execution,” Ms. Smith said. “That’s why I’m calling you this morning. The body is at the Medical College of Virginia morgue, and if you can make arrangements to come or have it picked up within twenty-four