Chapter 5: Almost Out

When I reached the front door of the LCI, I thought I was home free. It was 3:56 a.m. on a Sunday, the Lord’s day, and the door clicked open as the buzzer sounded. It had been a long shift (12 p.m. to 4 a.m., at the end of which a man named Oscar Reed Mort was pronounced dead by lethal injection.

The October morning made my skin prickle, but I was too numb to feel it. It had been a long seventeen hours since I’d received my late wake-up call at the hotel. I’d barely eaten. Witnessing Oscar Mor...