John Grisham - The Confession

Robbie stared at Donté too, at the right side of his face, and thought of all the things he would have changed. In every trial, the lawyer makes a dozen snap decisions, and Robbie had relived them all. He would have hired a different expert, called different witnesses, toned down his attitude toward the judge, been nicer to the jury. He would always blame himself, though no one else did. He had failed to save an innocent man, and that burden was too heavy. A big piece of his life was about to perish also, and he doubted he would ever be the same.

Next door, Reeva wept at the sight of her daughter’s killer flat on his back, helpless, hopeless, waiting to take his last breath and go on to hell. His death—quick and rather pleasant—was nothing compared to Nicole’s, and Reeva wanted more suffering and pain than she was about to witness. Wallis boosted her with an arm around her shoulder. She was held by her two children. Nicole’s biological father was not there, and Reeva would never let him forget it.

Donté turned hard to his right, and his mother finally came into focus. He smiled, gave a thumbs-up, then turned back and closed his eyes.

At 6:01, Warden Jeter stepped to a table and picked up a phone, a direct line to the attorney general’s office in Austin. He was informed that all appeals were final; there was no reason to stop the execution. He replaced the receiver, then picked up another one, identical to the first. It was a direct line to the governor’s office. The message was the same, green lights all around. At 6:06, he stepped to the bed and said, “Mr. Drumm, would you like to make a final statement?”

Donté said, “Yes.”

The warden reached toward the ceiling, grabbed a small microphone, and pulled it to within twelve inches of Donté’s face. “Go ahead,” he said. Wires ran to a small speaker in each witness room.

Donté cleared his throat, stared at the microphone, and said, “I love my mother and my father and I’m so sad my dad died before I could say good-bye. The State of Texas would not allow me to attend his funeral. To Cedric, Marvin, and Andrea, I love ya’ll and I’ll see you down the road. I’m sorry I’ve put you through all this, but it wasn’t my fault. To Robbie, I love you, man. You’re the greatest. To the family of Nicole Yarber, I’m sorry about what happened to her. She was a sweet girl, and I hope someday they find the man who killed her. Then I guess you all will have to be here and do this again.”

He paused, closed his eyes, then yelled, “I am an innocent man! I’ve been persecuted for nine years by the State of Texas for a crime I didn’t do! I never touched Nicole Yarber and I don’t know who killed her.” He took a breath, opened his eyes, and went on. “To Detective Drew Kerber, Paul Koffee, Judge Grale, all those bigots on the jury, all those blind mice on the appeals courts, and to Governor Newton, your day of judgment is coming. When they find the real killer, I’ll be there to haunt you.”

He turned and looked at his mother. “Good-bye, Momma. Love you.”

After a few seconds of silence, Ben Jeter pushed the microphone toward the ceiling. He took a step backward and nodded at the faceless chemist who hid behind the black window to the left of the bed. The injection began—three different doses given in quick succession. Each of the three was lethal enough if used alone. The first was sodium thiopental, a powerful sedative. Donté closed his eyes, never to reopen them. Two minutes later, a dose of pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer, stopped his breathing. Third was a shot of potassium chloride that stopped his heart.

With all the leather strapping, it was difficult to tell when Donté’s breathing stopped. But stop it did. At 6:19, the medical technician appeared and prodded the corpse with a stethoscope. He nodded at the warden, who announced at 6:21 that Donté Drumm was dead.

CHAPTER 27

The curtains closed; the death chamber vanished.

Reeva hugged Wallis and Wallis hugged Reeva, and they hugged their children. The door to their witness room opened, and a prison official hurried them through it. Two minutes after the announcement of death, Reeva and her family were back in the van, whisked away with an amazing efficiency. After they left, the Drumm family was escorted through a different door, but along the same route.

Robbie and Keith were alone for a few seconds in the witness room. Robbie’s eyes were wet, his face pale. He was thoroughly defeated, drained, but at the same time looking for someone to fight. “Are you glad you watched it?” he asked.

“No, I am not.”

“Neither am I.”

———

At the train station, news of Donté’s death was received without a word. They were too stunned to speak. In the conference room, they stared at the television, heard the words, but still couldn’t believe that the miracle had somehow slipped away. Only three hours earlier, they had been frantically working on the Boyette petition and the Gamble petition, two eleventh-hour gifts from above that seemed so hopeful. But the TCCA rejected Boyette and literally slammed the door on Gamble.

Now Donté was dead.

Sammie Thomas cried softly in one corner. Carlos and Bonnie stared at the television, as if the story might change to a happier ending. Travis Boyette sat hunched over, rubbing his head, while Fred Pryor watched him. They worried about Robbie.

Boyette suddenly stood and said, “I don’t understand. What happened? Those people didn’t listen to me. I’m telling the truth.”

“You’re too late, Boyette,” Carlos snapped.

“Nine years too late,” Sammie said. “You sit on your ass for nine years, perfectly willing to let someone else serve your time, and then you pop in here with five hours to go and expect everyone to listen to you.”

Carlos was walking toward Boyette, pointing a finger. “All we needed was twenty-four hours, Boyette. If you had shown up yesterday, we could’ve searched for the body. We find the body, there’s no execution. There’s no execution because they got the wrong guy. They got the wrong guy because they’re stupid, but also because you’re too much of a coward to come forward. Donté is dead, Boyette, because of you.”

Boyette’s face turned crimson and he reached for his cane. Fred Pryor, though, was quicker. He grabbed Boyette’s hand, looked at Carlos, and said, “Let’s cool it. Everybody calm down.”

Sammie’s cell phone buzzed. She glanced at it and said, “It’s Robbie.” Carlos turned away and Boyette sat down, with Pryor close by. Sammie listened for a few minutes, then laid down the phone. She wiped a tear and said, “The press got it right for a change. He’s dead. He said Donté was strong to the bitter end, proclaimed his innocence, did so very convincingly. Robbie’s leaving the prison now. They’ll fly back and be here around 8:00. He would like for us to wait.” She paused and wiped her face again.

———

The National Guardsmen had just fanned out through the streets around Civitan Park in the white section and Washington Park in the black section when the news hit that Donté had been executed. The crowd in Civitan Park had grown steadily throughout the afternoon, in both size and volume, and it immediately pressed outward toward the guardsmen. The soldiers were taunted, cursed, insulted, a few rocks were thrown, but the violence, seething just under the surface, was suppressed. It was near dark, and there was little doubt that nighttime would see the situation deteriorate. In Washington Park, the crowd was older and made up primarily of neighbors. The younger, rowdier ones headed across town, where trouble was more likely.

Homes were locked, vigils commenced on front porches, and weapons were at the ready. The sentries stepped up their patrols at every church in Slone.