Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [451]
At 4:07 P.M., Gilmore's last meal was brought to him in his cell. It consisted of steak, potatoes, bread, butter, peas, cherry pie, coffee and milk. He had only coffee and milk.
Between 8 and 9 P.M., he asked prison staff members to call Radio Station KSOP and request two of his favorite songs-"Valley of Tears" and "Walking in the Footsteps of Your Mind."
Two switchboard operators spent the night taking calls from all over the world.
From Munich, Germany, one woman called 17 times.
"My husband died in a concentration camp," she said. "The same thing is happening there. America's no better than that," was her repeated contention. Another woman caller cried, saying she had a dream three weeks ago that Gary should not die.
Schiller had reassigned Jerry Scott from watching over the office to meeting up with Gary's body in Salt Lake. Jerry was to make certain no kooks tried something while the autopsy took place.
On the drive from Orem to the hospital, Jerry Scott was mulling over how he had been the one to take Gary to Utah State Prison from the County Jail right after his trial, and now, he'd probably be the last one to view the remains. That was a large enough coincidence to occupy your mind.
The autopsy room on the fifth floor at the University of Utah Hospital was good sized with two slabs and Jerry, by way of his police work, was familiar with it. Postmortems for the State were held there.
This morning, they had just brought in the body of a woman who had drowned in a river north of Salt Lake, and they had her beside Gary, the two tables about ten feet apart.
At first, it was hard to tell who were the doctors what with three males and three females all around the tables, and a couple of them busy removing Gilmore's eyes, and then another team on the organs for the transplants. They all seemed to be working in a great rush, and obviously had to get everything out pretty quickly. All the same, another doctor, watching, kept saying, "Can you hurry? I have a lot of work to do," and just a little later, "Aren't you done with him yet?"
Finally, the last of the special doctors said, "Yes, he's yours," and the regular autopsy crew took over.
Jerry Scott stood only three or four feet away. He was curious to see what was going on, and the medical examiner told him he could be a witness to the postmortem, and took his name, plus the name of Cordell Jones, a Deputy Sheriff whom Jerry Scott was glad to see there, because Jerry expected trouble later with the people outside when Gary's body would be transported from the hospital to the crematorium. In fact, he asked Cordell Jones to help on crowd control.
Jerry had counted at least twenty people down below at the hospital door of which only a couple were bona fide newsmen, and, more than a good dozen, oddballs and thrill-seekers. So, at the least, Jerry was expecting problems and a confrontation, possibly with agitators.
The doctor who had been getting the transplants had left Gary open from above the pubic hair to his breastbone. Now, the autopsy crew washed him down and the examiner took a scalpel, and continued the incision up the breastbone to the neck, and continued the cut on out to the shoulder on each side. Then, he started pulling up.
He skinned Gilmore right up over his shoulders like taking a shirt half off, and with a saw cut right up the breastbone to the throat, and removed the breastplate and set it in a big, open sink with running water. Then, he took out what was left of Gilmore's heart.
Jerry Scott couldn't believe what he saw. The thing was pulverized.
Not even half left. Jerry didn't recognize it as the heart. Had to ask the doctor. "Excuse me," he said, "is that it?" The doctor said, "Yup."
"Well, he didn't feel anything, did he?" asked Jerry Scott. The doctor said, "No." Jerry had been looking at the bullet pattern earlier, and there had been four neat little holes you could have covered with a water glass, all within a haft