John Grisham - The Confession

The second consequence was that of a possible disciplinary action by the church. But in light of the facts, and especially in light of the liberal leanings of the synod, he could not imagine anything more than a slap on the wrist.

Screw it, he said to himself. I’m talking.

He typed an e-mail for Robbie Flak. He described himself, leaving all possible phone numbers and addresses along the way. He described his encounter with an unnamed parolee who once lived in Slone, and did so at the time Nicole disappeared. This parolee has a lengthy criminal record, a violent one, and was once arrested and jailed in Slone. Keith had verified this. The man confessed to the rape and murder of Nicole Yarber and gave plenty of details. Her body was buried deep in the hills south of Joplin, Missouri, where this parolee grew up. The only person who can find the body is the parolee himself. Please call. Keith Schroeder.

An hour later, Keith left his office and drove back to Anchor House. No one had seen Boyette. He drove downtown and had another quick lunch with Matthew Burns. After some debate, and a bit of cajoling, Matthew pulled out his cell phone and called Flak’s office. Keith heard him say, “Yes, hello, my name is Matthew Burns, and I am a prosecutor in Topeka, Kansas. I would like to speak to Mr. Robbie Flak.” Mr. Flak was unavailable.

“I have some information about the Donté Drumm case, specifically the identity of the real killer.” Mr. Flak was still unavailable. Matthew then gave his phone numbers, cell and office, and invited the receptionist to visit the Web site for the City of Topeka, Office of the City Attorney, to verify his legitimacy. She said she would do this.

“I’m not some nut, okay? Please have Mr. Flak call me as soon as possible. Thank you.”

They finished lunch and agreed to alert each other if a call came from Texas. Driving back to the office, Keith was relieved to have a friend, an attorney at that, willing to lend a hand.

———

By noon, the streets of downtown Slone had been blocked and barricaded, and routine traffic had been diverted elsewhere. Dozens of church buses and vans were double-parked around the courthouse, but the police were not writing tickets. Their orders were to maintain a presence, keep the peace, and, by all means, do nothing to provoke anyone. Emotions were high. The situation was tense. Most of the merchants closed their shops, and most of the white folks disappeared.

The crowd, all black, continued to grow. Hundreds of students from Slone High School skipped out and arrived in packs, already rowdy and anxious to be heard. Factory workers brought their lunch boxes and ate while they milled around the courthouse lawn. Reporters took photos and scribbled notes. Camera crews from Slone and Tyler bunched together near the podium on the front steps of the courthouse. At 12:15 p.m., Mr. Oscar Betts, president of the local NAACP chapter, stepped to the microphones, thanked everyone for coming, and quickly got down to business. He proclaimed the innocence of Donté Drumm and said his execution was nothing more than a legal lynching. He blistered the police in a scathing condemnation, calling them “racist” and “determined to kill an innocent man.” He ridiculed a judicial system that would allow an all-white jury to pass judgment on an innocent black man. Unable to resist, he asked the crowd: “How you supposed to get a fair trial when the prosecutor is sleeping with the judge?” “And the appeals courts said it was okay?” “Only in Texas!” He described the death penalty as a disgrace—an outdated tool of revenge that does not deter crime, is not used fairly, and has been abandoned by all civilized countries. Almost every sentence was followed with applause and shouting as the crowd grew louder. He called on the court system to stop the madness. He mocked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. He called the governor a coward for not stopping the execution. He warned of unrest in Slone and East Texas and perhaps even the entire nation if the state went forward with the execution of an innocent black man.

Betts did a masterful job of raising emotions and tensions. When he finally wound down, he changed course and asked the crowd to behave, to stay off the streets tonight and tomorrow night. “We gain nothing by violence,” he pleaded. When he finished, he introduced the Reverend Johnny Canty, pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Church, where the Drumm family had worshipped for over twenty years. Reverend Canty began with a message from the family. They were thankful for the support. They remained strong in their faith and were praying for a miracle. Roberta Drumm was doing as well as could be expected. Her plans were to travel to death row tomorrow and be there until the end. Reverend Canty then asked for quiet and began a long eloquent prayer that started with a plea for compassion for the family of Nicole Yarber, a family that had endured the nightmare of the death of an innocent child. Just like the Drumm family. He thanked the Almighty for the gift of life and the promise of eternity for all people. He thanked God for His laws, the most basic and most important being the Ten Commandments, which included the prohibition “Thou shalt not kill.” He prayed for those “other Christians” out there who take the same Bible and twist it and use it as a weapon to kill others. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”

Canty had worked on his prayer for a long time, and he delivered it slowly, with perfect timing, and without notes. The crowd hummed and swayed and offered hearty “Amens” as he plodded along, no end in sight. It was far more a speech than a prayer, and Canty savored the moment. After praying for justice, he prayed for peace, not the peace that avoids violence, but the peace yet to be found in a society in which young black men are incarcerated in record numbers, in which they are executed far more often than those of other races, in which crimes committed by blacks are deemed more grievous than the same crimes committed by whites. He prayed for mercy, for forgiveness, for strength. Like most ministers, Canty went on too long and was losing his audience when he suddenly found it again. He began praying for Donté, “our persecuted brother,” a young man snatched from his family nine years ago and thrown into a “hellhole” from which no man escaped alive. Nine years without his family and friends, nine years locked away like a caged animal. Nine years serving the time for a crime committed by someone else.

———

From the window of a small law library on the third floor, Judge Elias Henry watched and listened. The crowd was under control as the reverend prayed, yet it was the restlessness that frightened the judge.

Slone had known little racial discord over the decades, and the judge took most of the credit for this, but only when talking to himself. Fifty years earlier, when he’d been a young lawyer struggling to pay his bills, he’d taken a part-time job reporting and writing editorials for the Slone Daily News , then a prosperous weekly that was read by all. Now it was a struggling daily with a lower readership. In the early 1960s, the newspaper was one of the few in East Texas that recognized the fact that a sizable portion of the population was black. Elias Henry wrote occasional stories about black sports teams and black history, and though this was not well received, it was not openly condemned. His editorials, though, managed to rile up the whites. He explained in layman’s terms the true meaning of Brown v. Board of Education and criticized the segregated schools in Slone and Chester County. The newspaper, through the growing influence of Elias and the declining health of its owner, took bold stands in favor of voting rights for blacks, as well as fair pay and fair housing. His arguments were persuasive, his reasoning was sound, and most of those who read his opinions realized he was far smarter than they were. He bought the paper in 1966 and owned it for ten years. He also became a skilled lawyer and politician and a leader in the community. A lot of white folks disagreed with Elias, but few challenged him publicly. When the schools were finally desegregated, at the end of a federal gun barrel, white resistance in Slone had been softened after years of crafty manipulation by Elias Henry.