The Confession (34 page)

The mood was so tense that they were ignoring the bourbon.

On the other side, Barry argued that any form of retreat would be nothing but a show of weakness, especially in light of the governor’s performance before the mob less than three hours earlier. Executions, especially high-profile ones, attract all sorts of attention seekers, and this guy Boyette was a perfect example. He was obviously looking for the spotlight, his fifteen minutes onstage, and to allow him to derail a proper execution was wrong from a judicial point of view, and even more so from a political one. Drumm confessed to the murder, Barry said over and over. Don’t let some serial pervert cloud the truth. It was a fair trial! The appeals courts, all of them, had affirmed the conviction!

Play it safe, Wayne countered. Just thirty days, maybe we’ll learn something new about the case.

But it’s been nine years, Barry retorted. Enough is enough.

“Are there any reporters outside?” Newton asked.

“Sure,” Barry said. “They have been hanging around all day.”

“Line ’em up.”

———

The final walk was a short one, some thirty feet from the holding cell to the death chamber, the entire pathway lined with guards, some of whom watched from the corners of their eyes to see the dead man’s face, others stared at the floor as if they were sentries guarding a lonely gate. One of three faces could be expected from the condemned man. The most common was a hard frown with wide eyes, a look of fear and
disbelief. The second most common was a passive surrender, eyes half-open, as if the chemicals were already at work. The third and least common was the angry look of a man who’d kill every guard in sight if he had a gun. Donté Drumm did not resist; that rarely happens. With a guard holding each elbow, he marched on, his face calm, his eyes on the floor. He refused to allow his captors to see the fear he felt, nor did he wish to acknowledge them in any way.

For such a notorious room, the Texas death chamber is remarkably small, a near-square box twelve feet long and wide, with a low ceiling and a permanent metal bed in the center, adorned in clean white sheets for each occasion. The bed fills the room.

Donté could not believe how cramped it was. He sat on the edge of the bed, and four guards quickly took over. They swung his legs around, stretched them out, then methodically secured his body with five thick leather straps, one around his chest, midsection, groin, thighs, and calves. His arms were placed on extensions 45 degrees from his body and secured with more leather straps. As they prepped him, he closed his eyes, listened to and felt the urgent business about him. There were grunts and a few words, but these men knew their tasks. This was the last stop on the system’s assembly line, and the workers were well experienced.

When all the straps were tightened, the guards retreated. A medical technician who smelled of antiseptic hovered and said, “I’m going to poke and find a vein, left arm first, then the right. You understand?”

“Be my guest,” Donté said and opened his eyes. The technician was rubbing his arm with alcohol. To prevent infection? How thoughtful. Behind him was a darkened window, and below it was an opening from which two ominous tubes ran toward the bed. The warden was to his right, watching it all carefully, very much in charge. Behind the warden were two identical windows—the witness rooms—sealed off by curtains. If he’d been so inclined, and were it not for all the damned leather straps, Donté could’ve reached out and touched the nearest window.

The tubes were in place, one in each arm, though only one would be used. The second one was a backup, just in case.

———

At 5:59, Governor Gill Newton hurriedly stepped in front of three cameras outside of his office and, without notes, said, “My denial of a reprieve still stands. Donté Drumm confessed to this atrocious crime and must pay the ultimate price. He received a fair trial eight years ago, by a jury of his peers, and his case has been reviewed by five different courts, dozens of judges, and all have confirmed his conviction. His claim of innocence is not believable, nor is this last-minute sensational effort by his attorneys to produce a new killer. The judicial system of Texas cannot be hijacked by some criminal looking for attention and a desperate lawyer who will say anything. God bless Texas.”

He refused to answer questions and returned to his office.

———

When the curtains were suddenly opened, Roberta Drumm nearly collapsed at the sight of her youngest son strapped tightly to the bed with tubes running from both arms. She gasped, covered her mouth with both hands, and had Cedric and Marvin not braced her, she would have been on the floor. The shock hit all of them. They squeezed tighter together, and Robbie joined the huddle, adding support.

Keith was too stricken to move. He stood a few feet away. Some strangers were behind him, witnesses who had entered at some point, Keith wasn’t sure when. They inched forward straining for a view. It was Thursday, the second one in November, and at that moment the Ladies’ Bible Class was meeting in the vestry of St. Mark’s Lutheran for the continuation of their study of the Gospel of Luke, to be followed by a pasta dinner in the kitchen. Keith, Dana, and the boys were always invited to the dinner and usually attended. He really missed his church, and his family, and he wasn’t sure why he was having such thoughts as he stared at the very dark head of Donté Drumm. It contrasted sharply
with the white shirt he was wearing and the snow-white sheets around him. The leather straps were light brown. Roberta sobbed loudly and Robbie was mumbling and the unknown witnesses behind him were pressing for a better view, and Keith wanted to scream. He was tired of praying, and his prayers weren’t working anyway.

Keith asked himself if he would feel differently if Donté was guilty. He didn’t think so. Guilt would certainly take away some of the sympathy for the kid, but as he watched the preliminaries unfold, he was struck by the coldness, the ruthless efficiency, the sanitized neatness of it. It was similar to killing an old dog, a lame horse, or a laboratory rat. Who, exactly, gives us the right to kill? If killing is wrong, then why are we allowed to kill? As Keith stared at Donté, he knew the image would never go away. And he knew that he would never be the same.

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.

T
he 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.

Ten miles to the south, the mood was much merrier at the cabin. Huddled around the television, fresh drinks in hand, they grinned smugly when death was confirmed. Paul Koffee toasted Drew Kerber, then Drew Kerber toasted Paul Koffee. Glasses clinked together. The discomforting hesitation they had felt with that Boyette thing was quickly forgotten. At least for the moment.