The Confession: A Novel Read online

  Keith obliged with a chuckle of his own, then stood, walked to his desk, and said, "Well, let me give you one of my cards. Feel free to call anytime. You're always welcome here, Travis." He picked up a card and glanced at his monitor. Four, count 'em, four convictions, all related to sexual assault. He walked back to the chair, handed Travis a card, and sat down.

  "Prison's especially rough for rapists, isn't it, Travis?" Keith said.

  You move to a new town; you're required to hustle down to the police station or the courthouse and register as a sex offender. After twenty years of this, you just assume that everybody knows. Everybody's watching. Boyette did not seem surprised. "Very rough," he agreed. "I can't remember the times I've been attacked."

  "Travis, look, I'm not keen on discussing this subject. I have some appointments. If you'd like to visit again, fine, just call ahead. And I welcome you back to our services this Sunday." Keith wasn't sure he meant that, but he sounded sincere.

  From a pocket of his Windbreaker, Boyette removed a folded sheet of paper. "You ever hear of the case of Donte Drumm?" he asked as he handed the paper to Keith.

  "No."

  "Black kid, small town in East Texas, convicted of murder in 1999. Said he killed a high school cheerleader, white girl, body's never been found."

  Keith unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a copy of a brief article in the Topeka newspaper, dated Sunday, the day before. Keith read it quickly and looked at the mug shot of Donte Drumm. There was nothing remarkable about the story, just another routine execution in Texas involving another defendant claiming to be innocent. "The execution is set for this Thursday," Keith said, looking up.

  "I'll tell you something, Pastor. They got the wrong guy. That kid had nothing to do with her murder."

  "And how do you know this?"

  "There's no evidence. Not one piece of evidence. The cops decided he did it, beat a confession out of him, and now they're going to kill him. It's wrong, Pastor. So wrong."

  "How do you know so much?"

  Boyette leaned in closer, as if he might whisper something he'd never uttered before. Keith's pulse was increasing by the second. No words came, though. Another long pause as the two men stared at each other.

  "It says the body was never found," Keith said. Make him talk.

  "Right. They concocted this wild tale about the boy grabbing the girl, raping her, choking her, and then throwing her body off a bridge into the Red River. Total fabrication."

  "So you know where the body is?"

  Boyette sat straight up and crossed his arms over his chest. He began to nod. The tic. Then another tic. They happened quicker when he was under pressure.

  "Did you kill her, Travis?" Keith asked, stunned by his own question. Not five minutes earlier, he was making a mental list of all the church members he needed to visit in the hospitals. He was thinking of ways to ease Travis out of the building. Now they were dancing around a murder and a hidden body.

  "I don't know what to do," Boyette said as another wave of pain hit hard. He bent over as if to throw up and then began pressing both palms against his head. "I'm dying, okay? I'll be dead in a few months. Why should that kid have to die too? He didn't do anything." His eyes were wet, his face contorted.

  Keith watched him as he trembled. He handed him a Kleenex and watched as Travis wiped his face. "The tumor is growing," he said. "Each day it puts more pressure on the skull."

  "Do you have medications?"

  "Some. They don't work. I need to go."

  "I don't think we're finished."

  "Yes we are."

  "Where's the body, Travis?"

  "You don't want to know."

  "Yes I do. Maybe we can stop the execution."

  Boyette laughed. "Oh, really? Fat chance in Texas." He slowly stood and tapped his cane on the rug. "Thank you, Pastor."

  Keith did not stand. Instead, he watched Boyette shuffle quickly out of his office.

  Dana was staring at the door, refusing a smile. She managed a weak "Good-bye" after he said "Thanks." Then he was gone, back on the street without a coat and gloves, and she really didn't care.

  Her husband hadn't moved. He was still slouched in his chair, dazed, staring blankly at a wall and holding the copy of the newspaper article. "You all right?" she asked. Keith handed her the article and she read it.

  "I'm not connecting the dots here," she said when she finished.

  "Travis Boyette knows where the body is buried. He knows because he killed her."

  "Did he admit he killed her?"

  "Almost. He says he has an inoperable brain tumor and will be dead in a few months. He says Donte Drumm had nothing to do with the murder. He strongly implied that he knows where the body is."

  Dana fell onto the sofa and sank amid the pillows and throws. "And you believe him?"

  "He's a career criminal, Dana, a con man. He'd rather lie than tell the truth. You can't believe a word he says."

  "Do you believe him?"

  "I think so."

  "How can you believe him? Why?"

  "He's suffering, Dana. And not just from the tumor. He knows something about the murder, and the body. He knows a lot, and he's genuinely disturbed by the fact that an innocent man is facing an execution."

  For a man who spent much of his time listening to the delicate problems of others, and offering advice and counsel that they relied on, Keith had become a wise and astute observer. And he was seldom wrong. Dana was much quicker on the draw, much more likely to criticize and judge and be wrong about it. "So what are you thinking, Pastor?" she asked.

  "Let's take the next hour and do nothing but research. Let's verify a few things: Is he really on parole? If so, who is his parole officer? Is he being treated at St. Francis? Does he have a brain tumor? If so, is it terminal?"

  "It will be impossible to get his medical records without his consent."

  "Sure, but let's see how much we can verify. Call Dr. Herzlich--was he in church yesterday?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought so. Call him and fish around. He should be making rounds this morning at St. Francis. Call the parole board and see how far you can dig."

  "And what might you be doing while I'm burning up the phones?"

  "I'll go online, see what I can find about the murder, the trial, the defendant, everything that happened down there."

  They both stood, in a hurry now. Dana said, "And what if it's all true, Keith? What if we convince ourselves that this creep is telling the truth?"

  "Then we have to do something."

  "Such as?"

  "I have no earthly idea."

  CHAPTER 2

  Robbie Flak's father purchased the old train station in downtown Slone in 1972, while Robbie was still in high school and just before the city was about to tear it down. Mr. Flak Sr. had made some money suing drilling companies and needed to spend a little of it. He and his partners renovated the station and reestablished themselves there, and for the next twenty years prospered nicely. They certainly weren't rich, not by Texas standards anyway, but they were successful lawyers and the small firm was well regarded in town.

  Then along came Robbie. He began working at the firm when he was a teenager, and it was soon evident to the other lawyers there that he was different. He showed little interest in profits but was consumed with social injustice. He urged his father to take on civil-rights cases, age- and sex-discrimination cases, unfair-housing cases, police-brutality cases, the type of work that can get one ostracized in a small southern town. Brilliant and brash, Robbie finished college up north, in three years, and sailed through law school at the University of Texas at Austin. He never interviewed for a job, never thought about working anywhere but the train station in downtown Slone. There were so many people there he wanted to sue, so many mistreated and downtrodden clients who needed him.

  He and his father fought from day one. The other lawyers either retired or moved on. In 1990, at the age of thirty-five, Robbie sued the City of Tyler, Texas,
for housing discrimination. The trial, in Tyler, lasted for a month, and at one point Robbie was forced to hire bodyguards when the death threats became too credible. When the jury returned a verdict for $90 million, Robbie Flak became a legend, a wealthy man, and an unrestrained radical lawyer now with the money to raise more hell than he could ever imagine. To get out of his way, his father retired to a golf course. Robbie's first wife took a small cut and hurried back to St. Paul.

  The Flak Law Firm became the destination for those who considered themselves even remotely slighted by society. The abused, the accused, the mistreated, the injured, they eventually sought out Mr. Flak. To screen the cases, Robbie hired young associates and paralegals by the boatload. He picked through the net each day, took the good catches, and tossed the rest away. The firm grew, then it imploded. It grew again, then it broke up in another meltdown. Lawyers came and went. He sued them, they sued him. The money evaporated, then Robbie won big in another case. The lowest point of his colorful career happened when he caught his bookkeeper embezzling and beat him with a briefcase. He escaped serious punishment by negotiating a thirty-day misdemeanor jail sentence. It was a front-page story, and Slone hung on every word. Robbie, who, not surprisingly, craved publicity, was bothered more by the bad press than by the incarceration. The state bar association issued a public reprimand and a ninety-day suspension of his license. It was his third entanglement with the ethics panel. He vowed it would not be his last. Wife No. 2 eventually left, with a nice check.

  His life, like his personality, was chaotic, outrageous, and in constant conflict with itself and those around him, but it was never dull. Behind his back, he was often referred to as "Robbie Flake." And as his drinking grew worse, "Robbie Flask" was born. But regardless of the turmoil, of the hangovers and crazy women and feuding partners and shaky finances and lost causes and scorn of those in power, Robbie Flak arrived at the train station early each morning with a fierce determination to spend the day fighting for the little people. And he did not always wait for them to find him. If Robbie got wind of an injustice, he often jumped in his car and went searching for it. This relentless zeal led him to the most notorious case of his career.

  ------

  In 1998, Slone was stunned by the most sensational crime in its history. A seventeen-year-old senior at Slone High, Nicole Yarber, vanished and was never seen again, dead or alive. For two weeks, the town stood still as thousands of volunteers combed the alleys and fields and ditches and abandoned buildings. The search was futile.

  Nicole was a popular girl, a B student, a member of the usual clubs, church on Sunday at First Baptist, where she sometimes sang in the youth choir. Her most important achievement, though, was that of being a cheerleader at Slone High. By her senior year, she had become the captain of the squad, perhaps the most envied position in school, at least for girls. She was on and off with a boyfriend, a football player with big dreams but limited talent. The night she disappeared, she had just spoken to her mother by cell and promised to be home before midnight. It was a Friday in early December. Football was over for the Slone Warriors, and life had returned to normal. Her mother would later state, and the phone records bore this out, that she and Nicole spoke by cell phone at least six times a day. They also averaged four text messages. They were in touch, and the idea that Nicole would simply run away without a word to her mom was inconceivable.

  Nicole had no history of emotional problems, eating disorders, erratic behavior, psychiatric care, or drug use. She simply vanished. No witnesses. No explanations. Nothing. Prayer vigils in churches and schools ran nonstop. A hotline was established and calls flooded in, but none proved credible. A Web site was created to monitor the search and filter the gossip. Experts, both real and fake, came to town to give advice. A psychic appeared, unsolicited, but left town when no one offered to pay. As the search dragged on, the gossip seethed nonstop as the town talked of little else. A police car was parked in front of her home twenty-four hours a day, ostensibly to make the family feel better. Slone's only television station hired another rookie reporter to get to the bottom of things. Volunteers scoured the earth as the search spread throughout the countryside. Doors and windows were bolted. Fathers slept with their guns on their nightstands. Little children were watched closely by their parents and babysitters. Preachers reworked their sermons to beef up their slant against evil. The police gave daily briefings for the first week, but when they realized they had nothing to say, they began skipping days. They waited and waited, hoping for the lead, the unexpected phone call, the snitch looking for the reward money. They prayed for a break.

  It finally came sixteen days after Nicole disappeared. At 4:33 a.m., the home phone of Detective Drew Kerber rang twice before he grabbed it. Though exhausted, he had not been sleeping well. Instinctively, he flipped a switch to record what was about to be said. The recording, later played a thousand times, ran:

  Kerber: "Hello."

  Voice: "Is this Detective Kerber?"

  Kerber: "It is. Who's calling?"

  Voice: "That's not important. What's important is that I know who killed her."

  Kerber: "I need your name."

  Voice: "Forget it, Kerber. You wanna talk about the girl?"

  Kerber: "Go ahead."

  Voice: "She was seeing Donte Drumm. A big secret. She was trying to break it off, but he wouldn't go away."

  Kerber: "Who's Donte Drumm?"

  Voice: "Come on, Detective. Everybody knows Drumm. He's your killer. He grabbed her outside the mall, tossed her over the bridge on Route 244. She's at the bottom of the Red River."

  The line went dead. The call was traced to a pay phone at an all-night convenience store in Slone, and there the trail ended.

  Detective Kerber had heard the hushed rumors of Nicole seeing a black football player, but no one had been able to verify this. Her boyfriend adamantly denied it. He claimed that they had dated on and off for a year, and he was certain that Nicole was not yet sexually active. But like many rumors too salacious to leave alone, it persisted. It was so repulsive and so potentially explosive that Kerber had thus far been unwilling to discuss it with Nicole's parents.

  Kerber stared at the phone, then removed the tape. He drove to the Slone Police Department, made a pot of coffee, and listened to the tape again. He was elated and couldn't wait to share the news with his investigative team. Everything fit now--the teenage love affair, black on white, still very much taboo in East Texas, the attempted breakup by Nicole, the bad reaction from her scorned lover. It made perfect sense.

  They had their man.

  Two days later, Donte Drumm was arrested and charged with the abduction, aggravated rape, and murder of Nicole Yarber. He confessed to the crime and admitted that he'd tossed her body into the Red River.

  ------

  Robbie Flak and Detective Kerber had a history that had almost been violent. They had clashed several times in criminal cases over the years. Kerber loathed the lawyer as much as he loathed the other lowlifes who represented criminals. Flak considered Kerber an abusive thug, a rogue cop, a dangerous man with a badge and gun who would do anything to get a conviction. In one memorable exchange, in front of a jury, Flak caught Kerber in an outright lie and, to underscore the obvious, yelled at the witness, "You're just a lying son of a bitch, aren't you, Kerber?"

  Robbie was admonished, held in contempt, required to apologize to Kerber and the jurors, and fined $500. But his client was found not guilty, and nothing else mattered. In the history of the Chester County Bar Association, no lawyer had ever been held in contempt as often as Robbie Flak. It was a record he was quite proud of.

  As soon as he heard the news about Donte Drumm's arrest, Robbie made a few frantic phone calls, then took off to the black section of Slone, a neighborhood he knew well. He was accompanied by Aaron Rey, a former gang member who'd served time for drug distribution and was now gainfully employed by the Flak Law Firm as a bodyguard, runner, driver, investigator, and anything else Robbie might
need. Rey carried at least two guns on his person and two more in a satchel, all legal because Mr. Flak had gotten his rights restored and now he could even vote. Around Slone, Robbie Flak had more than his share of enemies. However, all of these enemies knew about Mr. Aaron Rey.

  Drumm's mother worked at the hospital, and his father drove a truck for a lumber mill south of town. They lived with their four children in a small white-framed house with Christmas lights around the windows and garland on the door. Their minister arrived not long after Robbie. They talked for hours. The parents were confused, devastated, furious, and frightened beyond reason. They were also grateful that Mr. Flak would come and see them. They had no idea what to do.

  "I can get myself appointed to handle the case," Robbie said, and they agreed.

  Nine years later, he was still handling it.

  ------

  Robbie arrived at the station early on Monday morning, November 5. He had worked on Saturday and Sunday and did not feel at all rested from the weekend. His mood was gloomy, even foul. The next four days would be a chaotic mess, a frenzy of events, some anticipated and others wholly unexpected, and when the dust settled at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, Robbie knew that in all likelihood, he would be standing in a cramped witness room at the Huntsville prison, holding hands with Roberta Drumm as the State of Texas injected her son with enough chemicals to kill a horse.

  He'd been there once before.

  He turned off the engine of his BMW but could not unfasten his seat belt. His hands clutched the steering wheel as he looked through the windshield and saw nothing.

  For nine years, he had fought for Donte Drumm. He had waged war as he had never done before. He had fought like a madman at the ridiculous trial in which Donte was convicted of the murder. He had abused the appellate courts during his appeals. He had danced around ethics and skirted the law. He had written grating articles declaring his client's innocence. He had paid experts to concoct novel theories that no one bought. He had pestered the governor to the point that his calls were no longer returned, not even by lowly staffers. He had lobbied politicians, innocence groups, religious groups, bar associations, civil-rights advocates, the ACLU, Amnesty International, death-penalty abolitionists, anybody and everybody who might possibly be able to do something to save his client. Yet the clock had not stopped. It was still ticking, louder and louder.