Free Ford County by John Grisham Page A

activity, something unusual happening. To the right were the white stone front gates of the prison, and across the highway in a gravel lot a circus was under way. Death penalty protesters were busy. Some knelt in a circle and prayed. Some walked a tight formation with handmade posters supporting Ray Graney. Another group sang a hymn. Another knelt around a priest and held candles. Farther down the highway, a smaller group chanted pro-death slogans and tossed insults at the supporters of Graney. Uniformed deputies kept the peace. Television news crews were busy recording it all.
    Leon stopped at the guardhouse, which was crawling withprison guards and anxious security personnel. A guard with a clipboard stepped to the driver’s door and said, “Your name?”
    “Graney, family of Mr. Raymond Graney. Leon, Butch, and our mother, Inez.”
    The guard wrote nothing, took a step back, managed to say, “Wait a minute,” then left them. Three guards stood directly in front of the van, at a barricade across the entry road.
    “He’s gone to get Fitch,” Butch said. “Wanna bet?”
    “No,” Leon replied.
    Fitch was an assistant warden of some variety, a career prison employee whose dead-end job was brightened only by an escape or an execution. In cowboy boots and fake Stetson, and with a large pistol on his hip, he swaggered around Parchman as if he owned it. Fitch had outlasted a dozen wardens and had survived that many lawsuits. As he approached the van, he said loudly, “Well, well, the Graney boys’re back where they belong. Here for a little furniture repair, boys? We have an old electric chair ya’ll can reupholster.” He laughed at his own humor, and there was more laughter behind him.
    “Evenin’, Mr. Fitch,” Leon said. “We have our mother with us.”
    “Evenin’, ma’am,” Fitch said as he glanced inside the van. Inez did not respond.
    “Where’d you get this van?” Fitch asked.
    “We borrowed it,” Leon answered. Butch stared straight ahead and refused to look at Fitch.
    “Borrowed my ass. When’s the last time you boys borrowedanything? I’m sure Mr. McBride is lookin’ for his van right now. Might give him a call.”
    “You do that, Fitch,” Leon said.
    “It’s Mr. Fitch to you.”
    “Whatever you say.”
    Fitch unloaded a mouthful of spit. He nodded ahead as if he and he alone controlled the details. “I reckon you boys know where you’re goin’,” he said. “God knows you been here enough. Follow that car back to max security. They’ll do the search there.” He waved at the guards at the barricade. An opening was created, and they left Fitch without another word. For a few minutes, they followed an unmarked car filled with armed men. They passed one unit after another, each entirely separate, each encircled by chain-link topped with razor wire. Butch gazed at the unit where he’d surrendered several years of his life. In a well-lit open area, the “playground,” as they called it, he saw the inevitable basketball game with shirtless men drenched in sweat, always one hard foul away from another mindless brawl. He saw the calmer ones sitting on picnic tables, waiting for the 10:00 p.m. bed check, waiting for the heat to break because the barracks air units seldom worked, especially in July.
    As usual, Leon glanced at his old unit but did not dwell on his time there. After so many years, he had been able to tuck away the emotional scars of physical abuse. The inmate population was 80 percent black, and Parchman was one of the few places in Mississippi where the whites did not make the rules.
    The maximum security unit was a 1950s-style flat-roofedbuilding, one level, redbrick, much like countless elementary schools built back then. It, too, was wrapped in chain-link and razor wire and watched by guards lounging in towers, though on this night everyone in uniform was awake and excited. Leon parked where he was directed, then he and Butch were thoroughly searched by a small