John Grisham - The Confession

They talked about Joey Gamble and some of the other boys Nicole had dated through high school. Kerber repeatedly asked if Donté dated her, or was seeing her on the sly. His questions were more like accusations, and Donté began to worry.

Roberta Drumm served dinner each night at 7:00, and if for some reason Donté wasn’t there, he was expected to call. At 7:00 p.m., Donté asked the detectives if he could leave. Just a few more questions, Kerber said. Donté asked if he could call his mother. No, cell phones were not permitted inside the police station.

After two hours in the room, Kerber finally dropped a bomb. He informed Donté that they had a witness willing to testify that Nicole had confided to her close friends that she was seeing Donté and there was a lot of sex involved. But she had to keep it quiet. Her parents would never approve. Her rich father in Dallas would cut off his support and disinherit her. Her church would be scornful. And so on.

There was no such witness, but police are permitted to lie at will during an interrogation.

Donté strongly denied any relationship with Nicole.

And, Kerber went on with his tale, this witness had told them that Nicole was becoming increasingly worried about the affair. She wanted to end it, but that he, Donté, refused to leave her alone. She thought she was being stalked. She thought Donté had become obsessed with her.

Donté vehemently denied all of this. He demanded to know the identity of this witness, but Kerber said it was all confidential. Your witness is lying, Donté said over and over.

As with all interrogations, the detectives knew the direction their questions were headed. Donté did not. Abruptly, Kerber changed subjects and grilled Donté about the green Ford van, and how often he drove it, and where, and so on. It had been in the family for years, and it was shared by the Drumm children.

Kerber asked how often Donté drove it to school, to the gym, to the mall, and to several other places frequented by high school students. Did Donté drive it to the mall on the night of December 4, a Friday, the night Nicole disappeared?

No. On the night Nicole disappeared, Donté was at home with his younger sister. His parents were in Dallas at a weekend church convention. Donté was baby-sitting. They ate frozen pizza and watched television in the den, something his mother did not usually allow. Yes, the green van was parked in the driveway. His parents had taken the family’s Buick to Dallas. Neighbors testified that the green van was where he said it was. No one saw it leave during the night. His sister testified that he was with her throughout the night, that he did not leave.

Kerber informed the suspect that they had a witness who saw a green Ford van in the mall parking lot around the time Nicole disappeared. Donté said there was probably more than one such van in Slone. He began asking the detectives if he was a suspect. Do you think I took Nicole? he asked over and over. When it became evident that they did, he grew extremely agitated. He was also frightened at the thought of being suspected.

Around 9:00 p.m., Roberta Drumm was concerned. Donté rarely missed dinner, and he usually kept his cell phone in his pocket. Her calls to him were going straight to voice mail. She began calling his friends, none of whom knew his whereabouts.

Kerber asked Donté straight-out if he had killed Nicole and disposed of her body. Donté angrily denied this, denied any involvement whatsoever. Kerber said he didn’t believe Donté. The exchanges between the two became tense and the language deteriorated. Accusations, denials, accusations, denials. At 9:45 p.m., Kerber kicked back his chair and stormed out of the room. Morrissey put down his pen and apologized for Kerber’s behavior. He said the guy was under a lot of stress because he was the lead detective and everybody wanted to know what happened to Nicole. There was a chance she was still alive. Plus, Kerber was a hothead who could be overbearing.

It was the classic good-cop, bad-cop routine, and Donté knew exactly what was going on. But since Morrissey was being polite, Donté chatted with him. They did not discuss the case. Donté asked for a soft drink and something to eat, and Morrissey went to get it.

Donté had a good friend by the name of Torrey Pickett. They had played football together since the seventh grade, but Torrey had some legal problems the summer before his junior year. He was caught in a crack-selling sting and sent away. He did not finish high school and was currently working at a grocery store in Slone. The police knew that Torrey clocked out each weeknight at 10:00, when the store closed. Two uniformed officers were waiting. They asked him if he would voluntarily come down to the station and answer some questions about the Nicole Yarber case. He hesitated, and this made the police suspicious. They told him that his buddy Donté was already down there and needed his help. Torrey decided to go see for himself. He rode in the backseat of a police car. At the station, Torrey was placed in a room two doors down from Donté. The room had a large window with one-way glass so that officers could look in but the suspect could not see them. It was also wired so that the interrogation could be heard on a speaker in the hall. Detective Needham worked alone and asked the usual generic, noninvasive questions. Torrey quickly waived his Miranda rights. Needham soon got to the topic of girls, and who was dating whom and who was fooling around when they were not supposed to be. Torrey claimed he barely knew Nicole, hadn’t seen her in years. He scoffed at the idea that his pal Donté was seeing the girl. After thirty minutes of questioning, Needham left the room. Torrey sat at a table and waited.

Meanwhile, in “The Choir Room,” Donté was getting another jolt. Kerber informed him they had a witness who was willing to testify that Donté and Torrey Pickett grabbed the girl, raped her in the back of the green van, then tossed her body off a bridge over the Red River. Donté actually laughed at this lunacy, and his laughter rankled Detective Kerber. Donté explained that he was laughing not about a dead girl but at the fantasy that Kerber was putting together. If Kerber really had a witness, then he, Kerber, was foolish for believing the lying idiot. The two men called each other liars, among other things. A bad situation became even uglier.

Suddenly Needham opened the door and informed Kerber and Morrissey that they had Torrey Pickett “in custody.” This news was so exciting that Kerber jumped to his feet and left the room again.

Moments later he was back. He resumed the same line of questioning and accused Donté of the murder. When Donté denied everything, Kerber accused him of lying. He claimed to know for a fact that Donté and Torrey Pickett raped and killed the girl, and if Donté wanted to prove his innocence, then they should start with a polygraph. A lie-detector test. It was foolproof, clear evidence, admissible in court, and so on. Donté was immediately suspicious of the test, but at the same time thought it might be a good idea, a quick way to end this foolishness. He knew he was innocent. He knew he could pass the test, and in doing so, he could get Kerber off his back before things got worse. He agreed to an exam.

Under the stress of police questioning, innocent people are far likelier to agree to a polygraph. They have nothing to hide and they’re desperate to prove it. Guilty suspects rarely consent to the exams, and for obvious reasons.

Donté was led to another room and introduced to a Detective Ferguson, who’d been at home asleep an hour earlier when Detective Needham called. Ferguson was the department’s polygraph expert, and he insisted that Kerber, Morrissey, and Needham leave the room. Ferguson was extremely polite, soft-spoken, even apologetic for putting Donté through the process. He explained everything, ran through the paperwork, rigged up the machine, and began asking Donté about his involvement in the Nicole Yarber matter. This went on for about an hour.