Read Stay of Execution for Free Online Page B

death row, I was waiting for this moment.” He surveyed the crowd as his voice grew louder, more insistent. “I am not a stupid man. I wasn’t stupid back then, and I’m not stupid now. I made some mistakes, and those mistakes cost me the support of my friends and ­people who had known me my whole life. I didn’t understand back then, but I understand now.”
    A new restlessness came over some of the locals in the crowd. An angry man, his fists clenched at his side, stood near Cancini. Others were losing patience with the speech. Still others listened, eyes and mouths round.
    â€œI guess I deserved it. I was a jerk. Maybe I made it easy to believe I was guilty.” Spradlin hung his head, his voice breaking on the last words. Several moments went by before he spoke again. “The hardest part, and my biggest regret, is that my mother is not here to see my exoneration, to hear the truth from those who condemned me.” He sighed deeply. “She deserved better than she got from this town after I was sent away, but for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, she refused to leave. She loved this town so much.”
    Cancini had met Spradlin’s mother only a ­couple of times. He remembered her as a lady with a raspy voice and prematurely gray hair, deep lines creasing the corners of her eyes and mouth. The investigation and the trial had nearly done her in. She’d lost her job. She’d lost everything. Cancini never understood why she’d stayed in Little Springs despite being ostracized, unemployed, and alone.
    â€œNot long before she died, my mom came to see me. She told me she knew I was going to get out and that I would be free someday. She gave me new hope, never losing faith in my innocence. She told me that when that day came, when I walked out of prison, I must return to Little Springs. So, here I am. Like her, I won’t run away. God rest her soul, she told me to hold my head high.” He paused, bracing both sides of the podium. “She was right. I am free, and I will not run away. This is my home, and you are forgiven.”
    He spun on his heel and walked to the row of cars, the uniformed police scrambling into position. He halted in front of the press box, the cameras clicking furiously, and then he was gone, ducking into a car and speeding off before the crowd could figure out what had happened.
    Cancini’s eyes followed the dark sedan until it turned the corner and disappeared from view. The knot between his shoulders hardened, a sign that a full-­blown tension headache was setting in. His head throbbed, and the pain began its inevitable movement up from the base of his skull. He needed to lie down in a cold, dark room. Around him, the anger that had defined the crowd earlier simmered again, voices raised in indignation. He ducked his head, moving away from the corner and the crowd, escaping before tempers flared and erupted.
    Soon he was stretched out on his bed, an ice pack from the hotel kitchen plastered on his forehead and another propped under his neck. He lay still, his mind preoccupied with Spradlin’s speech. He had to give the guy credit. It took balls to show up and stand before a crowd who’d surely stone you if they could, and remain so calm and cool. Then again, Spradlin had always been a cool customer. When they’d first started looking at him for the rapes and murders, he’d seemed unperturbed, amused even. A cocky young man, Leo Spradlin had carried himself with a brash confidence, a combination of youthful ego and innate arrogance. He was tall and handsome with thick, wavy hair, but it was his charisma, an uncommon magnetism, that seemed to draw in both men and women. Naturally athletic, he was the type of guy who might lead a varsity football team or win the title of prom king—­or would have if he’d cared. But he hadn’t. In fact, Spradlin hadn’t seemed to care about much of anything.