They got me for it. Katz took it all this time, the $10,000 he had got for us, and the money we had made, and a deed for the place. He did his best for me, but he was licked from the start. Sackett said I was a mad dog, that had to be put out of the way before life would be safe. He had it all figured out. We murdered the Greek to get the money, and then I married her, and murdered her so I could have it all myself. When she found out about the Mexican trip, that hurried it up a little, that was all. He had the autopsy report, that showed she was going to have a baby, and he said that was part of it. He put Madge on the stand, and she told about the Mexican trip. She didn’t want to, but she had to. He even had the puma in court. It had grown, but it hadn’t been taken care of right, so it was mangy and sick looking, and yowled, and tried to bite him. It was an awful looking thing, and it didn’t do me any good, believe me. But what really sunk me was the note she wrote before she called up the cab, and put in the cash register so I would get it in the morning, and then forgot about. I never saw it, because we didn’t open the place before we went swimming, and I never even looked in the cash register. It was the sweetest note in the world, but it had in it about us killing the Greek, and that did the work. They argued about it three days, and Katz fought them with every law book in Los Angeles County, but the judge let it in, and that let in all about us murdering the Greek. Sackett said that fixed me up with a motive. That and just being a mad dog. Katz never even let me take the stand. What could I say? That I didn’t do it, because we had just fixed it up, all the trouble we had had over killing the Greek? That would have been swell. The jury was out five minutes. The judge said he would give me exactly the same consideration he would show any other mad dog.
So I’m in the death house, now, writing the last of this, so Father McConnell can look it over and show me the places where maybe it ought to be fixed up a little, for punctuation and all that. If I get a stay, he’s to hold on to it and wait for what happens. If I get a commutation, then, he’s to burn it, and they’ll never know whether there really was any murder or not, from anything I tell them. But if they get me, he’s to take it and see if he can find somebody to print it. There won’t be any stay, and there won’t be any commutation, I know that. I never kidded myself. But in this place, you hope anyhow, just because you can’t help it. I never confessed anything, that’s one thing. I heard a guy say they never hang you without you confess. I don’t know. Unless Father McConnell crosses me, they’ll never know anything from me. Maybe I’ll get a stay.
I’m getting up tight now, and I’ve been thinking about Cora. Do you think she knows I didn’t do it? After what we said in the water, you would think she would know it. But that’s the awful part, when you monkey with murder. Maybe it went through her head, when the car hit, that I did it anyhow. That’s why I hope I’ve got another life after this one. Father McConnell says I have, and I want to see her. I want her to know that it was all so, what we said to each other, and that I didn’t do it. What did she have that makes me feel that way about her? I don’t know. She wanted something, and she tried to get it. She tried all the wrong ways, but she tried. I don’t know what made her feel that way about me, because she knew me. She called it on me plenty of times, that I wasn’t any good. I never really wanted anything, but her. But that’s a lot. I guess it’s not often that a woman even has that.
There’s a guy in No. 7 that murdered his brother, and says he didn’t really do it, his subconscious did it. I asked him what that meant, and he says you got two selves, one that you know about and the other that you don’t know about, because it’s subconscious. It shook me up. Did I really do it, and not know it? God Almighty, I can’t believe that! I didn’t do it! I loved her so, then, I tell you, that I would have died for her! To hell with the subconscious. I don’t believe it. It’s just a lot of hooey, that this guy thought up so he could fool the judge. You know what you’re doing, and you do it. I didn’t do it, I know that. That’s what I’m going to tell her, if I ever see her again.
I’m up awful tight, now. I think they give you dope in the grub, so you don’t think about it. I try not to think. Whenever I can make it, I’m out there with Cora, with the sky above us, and the water around us, talking about how happy we’re going to be, and how it’s going to last forever. I guess I’m over the big river, when I’m there with her. That’s when it seems real, about another life, not with all this stuff how Father McConnell has got it figured out. When I’m with her I believe it. When I start to figure, it all goes blooey.
No stay.
Here they come. Father McConnell says prayers help. If you’ve got this far, send up one for me, and Cora, and make it that we’re together, wherever it is.