John Grisham - The Confession

After he was elected judge, he sold the paper and assumed a loftier position. From there, he quietly but firmly controlled a judicial system that was known to be tough on those who were violent, strict on those who needed guidance, and compassionate to those who needed another chance. His defeat by Vivian Grale led to a nervous breakdown.

The conviction of Donté Drumm would not have happened on his watch. He would have known about the arrest not long after it occurred. He would have examined the confession and the circumstances surrounding it, and he would have called in Paul Koffee for an unofficial meeting, just the two of them with the door locked, to inform the DA that his case was rotten. The confession was hopelessly unconstitutional. It would not get to the jury. Keep looking, Koffee, because you have yet to find your killer.

Judge Henry looked at the throng packed tightly around the front of the courthouse. Not a white face anywhere, except for the reporters. It was an angry black crowd. The whites were hiding, and not sympathetic. His town was split, something he thought he would never see.

“God help us,” he mumbled to himself.

———

The next speaker was Palomar Reed, a senior at the high school and vice president of the student body. He began with the obligatory condemnation of the death sentence and launched into a windy and technical diatribe against capital punishment, with heavy emphasis on the Texas version of it. The crowd stayed with him, though he lacked the drama of the more experienced speakers. Palomar, though, soon proved to have an incredible knack for the dramatic. Looking at a sheet of paper, he began calling the names of the black players on the Slone High School football team. One by one, they hurried to the podium and formed a line along the top step. Each wore the royal blue home jersey of the Slone Warriors. When all twenty-eight were packed shoulder to shoulder, Palomar made a shocking announcement: “These players stand here united with their brother Donté Drumm. A Slone Warrior. An African warrior. If the people of this city, county, and state succeed in their illegal and unconstitutional efforts to kill Donté Drumm tomorrow night, these warriors will not play in Friday’s game against Longview.”

The crowd exhaled in one massive cheer that rattled the windows of the courthouse. Palomar looked at the players, and on cue all twenty-eight reached for their shirttails and quickly yanked off the jerseys. They threw them at their feet. Under the jerseys, each player wore an identical white T-shirt with the unmistakable image of Donté’s face. Under it, in bold lettering, was the word “INNOCENT.” The players puffed their chests and pumped their fists, and the crowd drowned them in adoration.

“We will boycott classes tomorrow!” Palomar yelled into the microphone. “And Friday, too!

“And there will be no football game on Friday night!”

———

The rally was being broadcast live on the local channel, and most of the white folks in Slone were glued to their televisions. In banks and schools and homes and offices, the same muted utterances were heard:

“They can’t do that, can they?”

“Of course they can. How do you stop them?”

“They’ve gone too far.”

“No, we’ve gone too far.”

“So, you think he’s innocent?”

“I’m not sure. No one’s sure. That’s the problem. There’s just too much doubt.”

“He confessed.”

“They never found the body.”

“Why can’t they just stop things for a few days, you know, a reprieve or something like that?”

“Why?”

“Wait till after football season.”

“I’d prefer not to have a riot.”

“If they riot, then they’ll be prosecuted.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

“This place is going to explode.”

“Kick ’em off the team.”

“Who do they think they are, calling the game off?”

“We got forty white boys who can play.”

“Damn right we do.”

“Coach oughtta kick ’em off the team.”

“And they oughtta arrest ’em if they skip school.”

“Brilliant. That’ll throw gas on the fire.”

At the high school, the football coach watched the protest in the principal’s office. The coach was white, the principal black. They stared at the television and said nothing.

At the police department, three blocks down Main Street from the courthouse, Chief of Police Joe Radford watched the television with his assistant chief. The department had four dozen uniformed officers on the payroll, and at that moment thirty were watching nervously from the fringes of the rally.

“Will the execution take place?” the assistant chief asked.

“Far as I know,” Radford answered. “I talked to Paul Koffee an hour ago, and he thinks it’s a go.”

“We might need some help.”

“Naw. They’ll throw a few rocks, but it’ll blow over.”

Paul Koffee watched the show alone at his desk with a sandwich and chips. His office was two blocks behind the courthouse, and he could hear the crowd when it roared. For him, such demonstrations were necessary evils in a country that valued the Bill of Rights. Folks could gather lawfully, with permission of course, and express their feelings. The same laws that protected this right also governed the orderly flow of justice. His job was to prosecute criminals and put the guilty ones away. And when a crime was grave enough, the laws of his state directed him to extract revenge and seek the death penalty. This he had done in the Drumm case. He had no regrets, no doubts, not the slightest uneasiness about his decisions, his tactics at trial, or the guilt of Drumm. His work had been ratified by seasoned appellate judges on numerous occasions. Dozens of these learned jurists had reviewed every word of the Drumm trial and affirmed his conviction. Koffee was at peace with himself. He regretted his involvement with Judge Vivian Grale, and the pain and embarrassment it had caused, but he had never doubted that her rulings were right.

He missed her. Their romance had cracked under the strain of all the negative attention it created. She ran away and refused any contact. His career as a prosecutor would soon be over, and he hated to admit that he would leave office under a cloud. The Drumm execution, though, would be his high-water mark, his vindication, a shining moment that the people of Slone, or at least the white ones, would appreciate.

Tomorrow would be his finest day.

———

The Flak Law Firm watched the rally on the wide-screen television in the main conference room, and when it was finally over, Robbie retreated to his office with half a sandwich and a diet cola. The receptionist had carefully arranged a dozen phone message slips on the center of his desk. The ones from Topeka caught his attention. Something rang a bell. Ignoring the food, he picked up the phone and punched in the number for a cell phone of the Reverend Keith Schroeder.

“Keith Schroeder please,” he said when someone answered “Hello.”

“Speaking.”

“This is Robbie Flak, attorney in Slone, Texas. I have your message, and I think I saw an e-mail a few hours ago.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Flak.”

“It’s Robbie.”

“Okay, Robbie. It’s Keith on this end.”

“Fine, Keith. Where’s the body?”

“In Missouri.”

“I have no time to waste, Keith, and something tells me this call is a complete waste of time.”

“Maybe it is, but give me five minutes.”

“Talk fast.”

Keith ran through the facts—his encounters with an unnamed parolee, his search into his background, the man’s criminal record, his dire medical condition, everything he could cram into five uninterrupted minutes.

“Obviously, you’re not worried about breaching confidentiality here,” Robbie said.