*
After Lorilei visits Ricky in jail, he stops saying he wants to die. He doesn’t seem to dream of release—I have many notes written in his hand, but after Georgia, he never again mentions release—and seems to accept living at the jail. His status has changed. He was on death row. Everyone knows Angola, knows he did hard time in that place of legend. Now he has opinions about how the parish jail ought to be run. The man in charge of the correctional center is Colonel Bruce LaFargue. In July of 2002, LaFargue is walking by Ricky’s cell when Ricky calls out to him and asks if the two of them can talk. LaFargue leads him into a private room. There, Ricky complains that he feels like with this new trial, he’s being used as a guinea pig by his lawyers. They want to set new precedent with his case, he says. But he doesn’t want to be released. He says he molested Jeremy and fears that if he gets out he’ll molest other children again. This is what Georgia has given him: an understanding of who he is that he can trade like a bargaining chip. He says that in Georgia he was able to get therapy for being a pedophile and it made him think about how to help other pedophiles, how to stop people from offending. That’s what he cares about now, but no one will listen to him on it. He believes that if he could just share that knowledge, he’d have something good to offer the world.
“Uh-huh,” LaFargue says. Nothing happens.
In October, Ricky tells another jailer that he wants to talk to LaFargue again. The man brings him to LaFargue’s office. There Ricky tells LaFargue that after Angola he has ideas for how the prison could be run better. He wants better toilet paper. He wants more time to smoke. And one more thing, he tells LaFargue. He still thinks he could help people understand pedophiles.
“Talk to your attorney about that idea,” LaFargue replies.
Ricky writes to his parents. “I want to share with you what has made me so happy, no, so proud. Do you remember, Mom, that in one of my letters to you I said that something good will come out of this?” If you believe that the slant of his writing on the page conveys a kind of emotion, conveys a kind of truth, you can trace a line back to his Georgia prison days for this. If you believe him. If you think he understands and that he truly wants to help.
*
Clive and Ricky decide to hold what Clive calls a “seminar” for the officers at the jail, at which Ricky will explain the mind of a pedophile. Ricky seems to believe that the seminar is his own idea, but meanwhile Clive has been putting it in place. He has his own reasons: At the last trial, the jury sentenced Ricky to death in only three hours. Clive has to find another way to tell this story. The prosecutors won’t be invited to the seminar—Clive doesn’t even let them know that it’s happening. LaFargue has agreed, Clive will say later, that nothing Ricky says is to be used against him and there would be no recordings of the day. LaFargue will say that, no, what they agreed upon was that Ricky wouldn’t talk specifically about the murder. An agreement Ricky quickly broke. That nothing Ricky said would be used against him? LaFargue says he agreed to no such thing.
And it’s hard to know how seriously Clive intends the secrecy. He’ll tell everyone he invites that they are not to take notes, that none of the information given is to leave the room. But two of the people in the room are reporters. More likely he wants to control how the story’s presented and make sure it’s Ricky’s version that gets the ink. The prosecutors will be spitting mad when they find out. They’ll depose everyone who was there and call the whole thing illegal and improper. But they won’t be able to undo it. Like a line that a lawyer says in court knowing it’s improper, knowing that the judge will say to strike it from the record, but knowing, too, that what the jurors have heard will lodge in their minds, harder to expunge from their memory, Clive will have what he needs: a test.
On December 17, 2002, at about three in the afternoon, Ricky is led through the tile-sterile corridors of the Calcasieu Correctional Center with his wrists cuffed, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and having once again neatened his hair down with water. Likely he’s excited. Likely he hasn’t been able to sit still all day, or eat his lunch or even one of the ramen packets he squirrels away in his cell from the commissary shop. He’s fresh-shaven, though, with a razor he bought there, his skin rubbed raw in his excitement. Now his wiry body springs up with every step, the nervous energy and twitch that shows up on confession videos here directed toward propelling him forward down the halls, forward to what he’ll do, the chance he’s waited for so hard he quivers with it. To tell his story. The officers lead him into a small room where Clive’s waiting, and the two of them rehearse again. Is this where Clive reminds him that under the agreement he’s not to talk about the murder? Or is this where he says, never mind, talk about it?
Outside the courtroom stand officers from the Sex Offender Tracking Unit, detectives from the sheriff’s department, and other law enforcement personnel, about two dozen people total. The hallway is abuzz with walkie-talkies, chatter, the smell of weak coffee emanating from soggy cardboard cups, the muzzled energy of holstered weapons. One of LaFargue’s assistants gestures everyone in. The judge’s bench is empty, an American flag hanging wanly beside it. After people are seated, Clive leads Ricky to the small table at the front at which the defendant usually sits with attorneys. Now the chairs are on the opposite side, so Ricky and Clive can face the audience. Clive introduces himself, then goes around the room, having everyone give their names and their roles. Then he says, “This is Ricky Langley. Ricky is the reason we’re here today. He’s going to tell you his story.”
When Lorilei heard Ricky’s story from Ricky at the prison, something in it swayed her, something made her understand that he wasn’t just the monster who had taken her child’s life, but a man, and made her decide to fight for him. Somewhere in this story is the person Bessie knew. The people in this courtroom are sitting in front of real-life, flesh-and-blood Ricky. Small and scrawny in his chair, swallowed by his orange jumpsuit. He will tell them who he is. He will tell them how trapped he’s been. Clive takes a gamble.
How it backfires.