Authors: John Grisham
Four had eaten at a table near the Drumms late the night before. They were usually noticeable, with their thick accents and suggestive clothing. They liked to be noticed. Back home they were minor celebrities.
Donté had rebuffed all offers of matrimony. During his final days, he turned down book deals, requests for interviews, marriage proposals, and the chance to make an appearance on
Fordyce—Hitting Hard!
He had refused to meet with both the prison chaplain and his own minister, the
Reverend Johnny Canty. Donté had given up on religion. He wanted no part of the same God so fervently worshipped by the devout Christians who were hell-bent on killing him.
Roberta Drumm awoke in the darkness of room 109. She had slept so little in the past month that her fatigue now kept her awake. The doctor had given her some pills, but they had backfired and made her edgy. The room was warm and she pulled back the sheets. Her daughter, Andrea, was in the other twin bed, only a few feet away, and seemed to be sleeping. Her sons Cedric and Marvin were next door. The rules of the prison allowed them to visit with Donté from 8:00 a.m. until noon on this, his final day. After their last farewell, he would be transported to the death chamber at the prison in Huntsville.
Eight in the morning was hours away.
The schedule was fixed, all movements dictated by a system famous for its efficiency. At 5:00 that afternoon, the family would report to a prison office in Huntsville and then take a short ride in a van to the death chamber, where they would be herded into a cramped witness room just seconds before the drugs were administered. They would see him on the gurney, tubes already in his arms, listen to his final words, wait ten minutes or so for the official declaration of death, then leave quickly. From there, they would drive to a local funeral home to retrieve the body and take it home.
Could it be a dream, a nightmare? Was she really there, awake in the darkness contemplating her son’s final hours? Of course she was. She had lived the nightmare for nine years now, ever since the day she’d been told that Donté had not only been arrested but also confessed. The nightmare was a book as thick as her Bible, every chapter another tragedy, every page filled with sorrow and disbelief.
Andrea rolled from one side to another, the cheap bed squeaking and rattling. Then she was still and breathing heavily.
For Roberta, one horror had been replaced by the next: the numbing shock of seeing her boy in jail for the first time, in an orange jumpsuit, eyes wild and scared; the ache in her stomach as she thought about
him in jail, locked away from his family and surrounded by criminals; the hope of a fair trial, only to suffer the shock of realizing it was anything but fair; her loud and unrestrained sobbing when the death sentence was announced; the last image of her son being led from the courtroom by thick deputies so smug in their work; the endless appeals and fading hopes; the countless visits to death row, where she watched a strong, healthy young man slowly deteriorate. She lost friends along the way and she really didn’t care. Some were skeptical of the claims of innocence. Some grew weary of all the talk about her son. But she was consumed, and had little else to say. How could anyone else know what a mother was going through?
And the nightmare would never end. Not today, when Texas finally executed him. Not next week, when she buried him. Not at some point in the future, when the truth was finally known, if ever.
The horrors add up, and there were many days when Roberta Drumm doubted she had the strength to get out of bed. She was so tired of pretending to be strong.
“Are you wake, Momma?” Andrea asked softly.
“You know I am, honey.”
“Did you sleep any?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Andrea kicked off the sheets and stretched her legs. The room was very dark with no light filtering in from the outside. “It’s four thirty, Momma.”
“I can’t see.”
“My watch glows in the dark.”
Andrea was the only one of the Drumm kids with a college degree. She taught kindergarten in a town near Slone. She had a husband and she wanted to be at home, in her bed, far away from Livingston, Texas. She closed her eyes in an effort to fall asleep, but only seconds passed before she was staring at the ceiling. “Momma, I gotta tell you something.”
“What is it, honey?”
“I’ve never told anyone this, and I never will. It’s a burden I’ve carried a long, long time, and I want you to know it before they take Donté.”
“I’m listening.”
“There was a time, after the trial, after they’d sent him away that I began to doubt his story. I think I was looking for a reason to doubt him. What they said sort of made sense. I could see Donté fooling around with that girl, afraid of getting caught, and I could see her trying to break up and him not wanting to. Maybe he sneaked out of the house that night when I was asleep. And when I heard his confession in court, I have to admit it made me uneasy. They never found her body, and if he threw her in the river, then maybe that’s why they’ll never find her. I was trying to make sense out of everything that had happened. I wanted to believe that the system is not totally broken. And so I convinced myself that he was probably guilty, that they probably got the right man. I kept writing to him, kept coming over here to see him and all, but I was convinced he was guilty. For a while, it made me feel better, in some strange way. This went on for months, maybe a year.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Robbie. You remember that time we went to Austin to hear the case on direct appeal?”
“Indeed I do.”
“It was a year or so after the trial.”
“I was there, honey.”
“We were sitting in that big courtroom, looking at those nine judges, all white, all looking so important in their black robes and hard frowns, their airs, and across the room was Nicole’s family and her big-mouthed mother, and Robbie got up to argue for us. He was so good. He went through the trial and pointed out how weak the evidence was. He mocked the prosecutor and the judge. He was afraid of nothing. He attacked the confession. And he brought up, for the first time, the fact that the police had not told him about the anonymous phone caller who said it was Donté. That shocked me. How could the police and the prosecutor withhold evidence? Didn’t bother the court, though. I
remember watching Robbie argue so passionately, and it dawned on me that he, the lawyer, the white guy from the rich part of town, had no doubt whatsoever that my brother was innocent. And I believed him right then and there. I felt so ashamed for doubting Donté.”
“It’s okay, honey.”
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Never. You can trust your mother, you know.”
They sat up and moved to the edges of their beds, holding hands, foreheads touching. Andrea said, “You wanna cry or you wanna pray?”
“We can pray later, but we can’t cry later.”
“Right. Let’s have us a good cry.”
———
The predawn traffic picked up as they approached Oklahoma City. Boyette’s forehead was pressed against the passenger’s window, his mouth open in a pathetic drool. His nap was entering its second hour, and Keith was happy with the solitude. He’d stopped back near the state line for a cup of carryout coffee, a dreadful machine brew that he would normally pour into a ditch. But what it lacked in flavor it more than made up for in caffeine, and Keith was buzzing right along, his head spinning, his speedometer exactly eight miles per hour over the limit.
Boyette had requested a beer at the last stop. Keith declined and bought him a bottle of water. He found a bluegrass station out of Edmond and listened to it at low volume. At 5:30, he called Dana, but she had little to say. South of Oklahoma City, Boyette jerked from his slumber and said, “Guess I dozed off.”
“You did indeed.”
“Pastor, these pills I take really work on the bladder. Can we do a quick pit stop?”
“Sure,” Keith said. What else could he say? He kept one eye on the clock. They would leave the expressway somewhere north of Denton, Texas, and head east on two-lane roads. Keith had no idea how long that would take. His best guess was arriving in Slone between noon and 1:00 p.m. The pit stops, of course, were not helping their progress.
They stopped in Norman and bought more coffee and water. Boyette managed to blaze through two cigarettes, sucking and blowing rapidly as if it might be his last smoke, while Keith quickly refueled. Fifteen minutes later, they were back on I-35, racing south through the flat country of Oklahoma.
As a man of God, Keith felt compelled to at least explore the subject of faith. He began, somewhat tentatively, “You’ve talked about your childhood, Travis, and we don’t need to go back there. Just curious, though, if you were ever exposed to a church or to a preacher when you were a kid?”
The tic was back. So was the contemplation. “No,” he said, and for a moment that seemed to be all. Then, “I never knew my mother to go to church. She didn’t have much of a family. I think they were ashamed of her, so they kept away. Darrell certainly didn’t do the church thing. Uncle Chett needed a good dose of religion, but I’m sure he’s in hell right now.”
Keith saw an opening. “So you believe in hell?”
“I suppose. I believe we all go somewhere after we die, and I can’t imagine you and me going to the same place. Can you, Pastor? I mean, look, I’ve spent most of my life in prison, and, trust me, there’s a species of mankind that’s subhuman. These people were born mean. They’re vicious, soulless, crazy men who cannot be helped. When they die, they gotta go to some bad place.”
The irony was almost comical. A confessed murderer and serial rapist condemning violent men.
“Was there a Bible in the house?” Keith asked, trying to stay away from the subject of heinous crimes.
“Never saw one. Never saw much in the way of books. I was raised on porn, Pastor, fed to me by Uncle Chett and kept under Darrell’s bed. That’s the extent of my childhood reading.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Look, Pastor, I’m not talking about God and Jesus and salvation and all that. I heard it all the time in prison. Lots of guys get really turned on when they’re locked away and start thumping the Bible. I guess some
are serious, but it also sounds good at the parole hearings. I just never bought into it.”
“Are you prepared for death, Travis?”
A pause. “Look, Pastor, I’m forty-four years old, and my life has been one massive train wreck. I’m tired of living in prison. I’m tired of living with the guilt of what I’ve done. I’m tired of hearing the pitiful voices of the people I hurt. I’m tired of a lot of shit, Pastor, okay? Sorry for the language. I’m tired of being some degenerate who lives on the edges of society. I’m just so sick of it all. I’m proud of my tumor, okay? Hard to believe, but when it’s not cracking my skull, I kinda like the damned thing. It tells me what’s ahead. My days are numbered, and that doesn’t bother me. I won’t hurt anybody else. No one will miss me, Pastor. If I didn’t have the tumor, I’d get a bottle of pills and a bottle of vodka and float away forever. Still might do that.”
So much for a penetrating discussion on the subject of faith. Ten miles passed before Keith said, “What would you like to talk about, Travis?”
“Nothing. I just want to sit here and look at the road and think about nothing.”
“Sounds good to me. You hungry?”
“No, thanks.”
———
Robbie left the house at 5:00 a.m. and drove a circuitous route to the office. He kept his window down so he could smell the smoke. The fire had long since been extinguished, but the odor of freshly charred wood hung like a thick cloud over Slone. There was no wind. Downtown, anxious cops were blocking streets and diverting traffic away from the First Baptist Church. Robbie got just a glimpse of its smoking ruins, illuminated by the flashing lights of fire and rescue vehicles. He took the backstreets, and when he parked at the old train station and got out of his car, the smell was still pungent and fresh. All of Slone would be awakened and greeted with the ominous vapor of a suspicious fire. And the obvious question would be, will there be more?
His staff drifted in, all sleep deprived and anxious to see if the day would take a dramatic turn away from the direction it was headed. They gathered in the main conference room, around the long table still cluttered with the debris of the night before. Carlos gathered empty pizza boxes and beer bottles, while Samantha Thomas served coffee and bagels. Robbie, trying to appear upbeat, replayed for the gang his conversation with Fred Pryor about the surreptitious recording from the strip club. Pryor himself had not yet arrived.
The phone started ringing. No one wanted to answer it. The receptionist was not in yet. “Somebody punch ‘Do Not Disturb,’ ” Robbie barked, and the phone stopped ringing.
Aaron Rey walked from room to room, looking out the windows. The television was on, but muted.
Bonnie entered the conference room and said, “Robbie, I just checked the phone messages for the past six hours. Nothing important. Just a couple of death threats, and a couple of rednecks happy the big day is finally here.”
“No call from the governor?” Robbie asked.
“Not yet.”
“What a surprise. I’m sure he lost sleep like the rest of us.”
———
Keith would eventually frame the speeding ticket, and because of it he would always know exactly what he was doing at 5:50 a.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2007. The location wasn’t clear, because there was no town in sight. Just a long, empty stretch of I-35, somewhere north of Ardmore, Oklahoma.
The trooper was hiding in some trees in the median, and as soon as Keith saw him and glanced at his speedometer, he knew he was in trouble. He hit his brakes, slowed considerably, and waited a few seconds. When the blue lights appeared, Boyette said, “Oh, shit.”
“Watch your language.” Keith was braking hard and hurrying to the shoulder.
“My language is the least of your problems. What’re you gonna tell him?”
“That I’m sorry.”
“What if he asks what we’re doing?”
“We’re driving down the highway, maybe a bit too fast, but we’re okay.”