The Confession (35 page)

Justice had finally prevailed.

———

Warden Jeter walked Robbie and Keith back to the front of the prison, shook their hands, said good-bye. Robbie thanked him for his thoughtfulness. Keith wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank him or insult him—his last-second approval of Keith as a witness had led to a horrific experience—but he was gracious anyway, as was his nature. When they stepped through the front door, they saw where the noise was coming from. To the right, three blocks away, and on the other side of a wall of
police and state troopers, students were yelling and waving homemade banners and placards. They were packed together in the middle of a street that had been cordoned off. Beyond them, traffic was backed up. A wave of cars had tried to reach the prison, and when they were blocked, their drivers simply got out and joined the crowd. Operation Detour had planned to choke the prison with people and vehicles, and the plan was working. The goal of preventing the execution had not been reached, but Donté’s supporters had at least been mobilized, and they had been heard.

Aaron Rey was waiting on the sidewalk, waving Keith and Robbie over. “We’ve found an escape route,” he said. “This place is ready to blow up.” They hurried to the minivan and took off. The driver began darting through side streets, dodging parked cars and angry students. Martha Handler studied Robbie’s face, but he did not make eye contact.

“Can we talk?” she asked.

He shook his head no. Keith did the same. Both closed their eyes.

———

A Huntsville funeral home had the contract. One of its black hearses was inside the Walls Unit, out of sight, and when the last of the witnesses and officials left the death house, it backed to the same gate where the vans had come and gone. A collapsible gurney was pulled out, extended, and rolled inside to the death chamber, where it was wedged tightly next to the bed where Donté lay motionless and unrestrained. The tubes had been removed and recoiled into the dark room where the chemist, still unseen, was filling out his paperwork. On the count of three, four guards lifted the corpse gently and placed it on the gurney, where it was once again strapped, but not as tightly this time. A blanket, owned by the funeral home, was tucked over him, and when all was in place, the gurney was rolled back to the hearse. Twenty minutes after the pronouncement of death, the body was leaving the Walls Unit, through a different route, to avoid the protesters and cameras.

At the funeral home, the body was taken to a prep room. Mr.
Hubert Lamb and his son Alvin, owners of Lamb & Son Funeral Home, Slone, Texas, were waiting. They would embalm the body at their place in Slone, on the same table where they had prepared Riley Drumm five years earlier. But Riley had been an old man of fifty-five when he passed, his body shrunken and decayed, and his death had been anticipated. It could be explained. His son’s could not. As men who dealt in death, constantly handling corpses, the Lambs figured they had seen it all. But they were taken aback by the sight of Donté lying peacefully on the gurney, his face content, his body undisturbed, a young man of twenty-seven. They had known him since he was a boy. They had cheered for him on the football field and, like all of Slone, expected a long, glorious career. They had whispered and gossiped with the rest of the town when he was arrested. They were stunned by the confession, and quick to believe Donté when he immediately recanted. The Slone police, and Detective Kerber in particular, were not trusted on their side of town. The boy was tricked; they beat a confession out of him, just like in the old days. They watched with frustration as he was tried and convicted by a white jury, and after he was sent away, they, like the rest of the town, half expected the girl’s body to show up, or maybe even the girl herself.

With the help of two others, they lifted Donté from the gurney and gently placed him in a handsome oak casket selected by his mother on Monday. Roberta had paid a small deposit—she had burial insurance—and the Lambs were quick to agree to a full refund if the casket became unnecessary. They would have happily forgone the use of it. They had prayed they would not be where they were at that moment—collecting the body, then driving it home, then preparing for a painful wake, memorial, and funeral.

The four men wrestled the casket into the Lamb & Son hearse, and at 7:02 Donté left Huntsville and headed home.

———

The
Fordyce—Hitting Hard!
set was in a small “ballroom” in a cheap chain motel on the fringe of Huntsville. Reeva and Wallis were perched
on director’s chairs and made up for the cameras while Sean Fordyce stomped around in his usual manic mode. He’d just “jetted” in from an execution in Florida, barely made it to Huntsville, but so glad he did because the Nicole Yarber case had become one of his best ever. In preliminary chitchat, as the technicians worked frantically on the sound, the lighting, the makeup, the script, Fordyce realized that Reeva had not yet heard about the appearance of Travis Boyette. She had been inside the prison, preparing for the big event, when the story broke. Instinctively, he decided not to tell her. He would save it for later.

The post-execution interview was the most dramatic segment of his show. Catch ’em just minutes after they’ve watched the bastard die and they might say anything. He snapped at a technician, cursed a cameraman, yelled that he was ready to go. A final dusting of powder on his forehead, then an instant change of demeanor as he looked at the camera, smiled, and became a man of great compassion. With tape running, he explained where he was, gave the time, the hour, the gravity of the moment, then he walked to Reeva and said, “Reeva, it’s over. Tell us what you saw.”

Reeva, a Kleenex in each hand—she’d gone through a box since lunch—dabbed her eyes and said, “I saw him, for the first time in eight years, I saw the man who killed my baby. I looked him in the eyes, but he would not look at me.” Her voice was strong, no breakdown yet.

“What did he say?”

“He said he was sorry, and I appreciate that.”

Fordyce leaned in closer, frowning. “Did he say he was sorry for killing Nicole?”

“Something like that,” she said, but Wallis shook his head and glanced at his wife.

“You disagree, Mr. Pike?”

“He said he was sorry for what happened, not sorry for anything he did,” Wallis grunted.

“Are you sure?” Reeva fired back at her husband.

“I’m sure.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Tell us about the execution, the dying,” Fordyce pleaded.

Reeva, still pissed at Wallis, shook her head and wiped her nose with a Kleenex. “It was much too easy. He just went to sleep. When they opened the curtains, he was already on the little bed in there, all strapped down, looking very much at peace. He made his last statement, then he closed his eyes. We couldn’t tell anything, nothing, no sign that the drugs had been administered, nothing. He just went to sleep.”

“And you were thinking about Nicole and how horrible her death must have been?”

“Oh, God, yes, exactly, my poor baby. She suffered greatly. Just terrible …” Her voice choked and the camera zoomed even closer.

“Did you want him to suffer?” Fordyce asked, prodding, prompting.

She nodded vigorously, her eyes closed. Fordyce asked Wallis, “What changes now, Mr. Pike? What does this mean for your family?”

Wallis thought for a second, and while he was thinking, Reeva blurted, “It means a lot, knowing he’s dead, knowing he’s been punished. I think I’ll sleep better at night.”

“Did he claim to be innocent?”

“Oh yes,” Reeva said, the tears gone for the moment. “Same old stuff we’ve been hearing for years. ‘I’m an innocent man!’ Well, now he’s a dead man, that’s all I can say.”

“Have you ever thought that he might be innocent, that someone else might have killed Nicole?”

“No, not for a minute. The monster confessed.”

Fordyce pulled back a little. “Have you heard of a man named Travis Boyette?”

A blank face. “Who?”

“Travis Boyette. At 5:30 this afternoon, he went on television in Slone and claimed to be the killer.”

“Nonsense.”

“Here’s the tape,” Fordyce said, pointing to a twenty-inch screen off to the right. On cue, the video of Travis Boyette appeared. The volume was high; the rest of the set was perfectly still. As he talked, Reeva
watched closely, frowning, almost smirking, then shaking her head no. An idiot, a fraud. She knew who the killer was. But when Boyette pulled out the class ring, shoved it at the cameras, and said he had kept it for nine years, Reeva’s face turned pale, her jaw dropped, her shoulders slumped.

Sean Fordyce may have been a noisy proponent of the death penalty, but like most cable screamers he never let ideology get in the way of a sensational story. The possibility that the wrong man had just been executed would undoubtedly strike a blow against capital punishment, but Fordyce couldn’t have cared less. He was smack in the middle of the hour’s hottest story—number two on CNN’s home page—and he planned to make the most of it.

And he saw nothing wrong with ambushing his own guest. He’d done it before, and he would do it again if it produced great drama.

Boyette vanished from the screen.

“Did you see the ring, Reeva?” Fordyce boomed.

Reeva looked as though she’d seen a ghost. Then she collected herself and remembered that everything was being filmed. “Yes,” she managed to say.

“And is it Nicole’s?”

“Oh, there’s no way to tell. Who is this guy and where did he come from?”

“He’s a serial rapist with a rap sheet a mile long, that’s who he is.”

“Well, there. Who can believe him?”

“So you don’t, Reeva?”

“Of course not.” But the tears were gone, as was the spunk. Reeva appeared confused, disoriented, and very tired. As Fordyce moved in for another question, she said, “Sean, it’s been a long day. We’re going home.”

“Yes, sure, Reeva, just one more question. Now that you’ve seen an execution, do you think they should be televised?”

Reeva yanked the mike off her jacket and bounced to her feet. “Come on, Wallis. I’m tired.”

The interview was over. Reeva, Wallis, and their two children
walked out of the motel with Brother Ronnie behind them. They piled into the church van and headed for Slone.

———

At the airport, Keith called Dana with the latest update on his little road trip. He was free-falling now, with no idea where he was going and not sure where he’d been. When he explained, gently, that he had just witnessed the execution, she was speechless. So was he. The conversation was brief. She asked if he was okay, and he replied that he definitely was not.

The King Air lifted off at 7:05 and was soon in heavy clouds. The plane dipped and lurched, much like an old truck on a bumpy road. “Moderate turbulence” the pilot had called it as they boarded. With the noise of the engines, the sense of being tossed about, and the mind-bending blur of images from the past two hours, Keith found it easy to close his eyes and withdraw into his own little cocoon.

Robbie was withdrawn too. He sat forward, elbows on knees, chin in hand, eyes closed, deep in thought and painful memories. Martha Handler wanted to talk, to take notes, to capture the moment fully, but there was no one to interview. Aaron Rey stared nervously out the window, as if waiting for a wing to break off.

At five thousand feet, the ride smoothed somewhat and the cabin noise died down. Robbie reclined in his seat and smiled at Martha. “What were his last words?” she asked.

“He loves his momma and he’s an innocent man.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s enough. There’s a Web site for the Texas death row, an official one, and they post all of the last statements. Donté’s will be up by noon tomorrow. It was beautiful. He called ’em by name, the bad guys—Kerber, Koffee, Judge Grale, the governor. Beautiful, just beautiful.”

“So he went down fighting?”

“He was not able to fight, but he did not give an inch.”

———

The car was an old Buick owned by an old widow, Ms. Nadine Snyderwine, and it was parked beside her modest home on a concrete pad, under a willow oak. She drove it three times a week, max, and with her failing eyesight she knew her driving days were numbered. Ms. Snyderwine had never worked outside the home, never met a lot of people, and certainly never provoked anyone. Her car was chosen because it was accessible and, more important, because it was parked on a quiet, dark street in a very white part of town. The Buick was unlocked, not that a lock would have mattered. The driver’s door was opened, a Molotov cocktail was lit and tossed inside, and the arsonists disappeared into the night without a trace. A neighbor saw flames, and the 911 call was recorded at 7:28.

If there was a chance that the old Buick’s wiring shorted, that the car somehow ignited on its own, such thoughts were dashed when the second 911 call came at 7:36. Another car was on fire, a Volvo wagon parked on a street halfway between the courthouse and Civitan Park. Fire trucks screamed back and forth across town, with police escorts clearing the way. The sirens were applauded by the mob at the park, a mob that was growing larger as the night grew later. But aside from underage drinking and possession of pot, no crimes were being committed. Yet. Perhaps disturbing the peace, but given the tension of the moment, the police were not inclined to enter the park and break up the fun. The crowd was in a belligerent mood, fueled by the news of Donté’s death, the statements of Travis Boyette, the angry rap blasting from car stereos, and some drugs and alcohol.

The police watched and pondered their options. They huddled with the National Guardsmen and plotted strategy. The wrong move could provoke a response that was unpredictable, primarily because the crowd had no real leader at that point and had no idea where the night would lead it. Every half hour or so, some clown lit a string of firecrackers, and for a split second the policemen and guardsmen froze and strained to tell if the noise was gunfire. So far, only firecrackers.

The third call was recorded at 7:40, and it was the most ominous so far. In fact, when the police chief got the details, he thought about leaving
town himself. At Big Louie’s honky-tonk west of town, the gravel parking lot was packed as usual for a Thursday night, the unofficial beginning of the weekend. To kick things off, Louie offered a variety of drink specials, all involving reduced prices, and the Bubbas responded with enthusiasm. Of the vehicles parked outside the cheap metal building, virtually all were pickup trucks, an even split between Ford and Chevrolet. The arsonists picked one of each, broke the windows, tossed the cocktails, and disappeared into the darkness. A latecomer, in a pickup, thought he saw a “coupla black boys” running away, crouching low, very suspicious. But he wasn’t close and didn’t see their faces. In fact, he wasn’t even sure they were black.