The Confession (43 page)

———

Eventually, Robbie moved on to the confession. Here he picked up steam and was consumed by a controlled rage. It was very effective. The
courtroom was silent. Carlos projected a photo of Detective Drew Kerber, and Robbie announced with great drama, “And here is the principal architect of the wrongful conviction.”

Drew Kerber was watching, at the office. He had spent a horrible night at home. After leaving Judge Henry’s, he had gone for a long drive and tried to imagine a happier ending to this nightmare. None appeared. Around midnight, he sat down with his wife at the kitchen table and bared his soul: the grave, the bones, the ID, the unmentionable idea that “evidently” they had nailed the wrong guy; Flak and his lawsuits and his threats of vigilante-style suing that would follow Kerber to his grave and the high probability of future unemployment, legal bills, and judgments. Kerber unloaded a mountain of grief upon his poor wife, but he did not tell the whole truth. Detective Kerber had never admitted, and he never would, that he had bullied Donté into confessing.

As a chief detective with sixteen years of experience, he earned $56,000 a year. He had three teenagers and a nine-year-old, a mortgage, two car payments, an IRA with around ten grand, and a savings account with $800. If fired, or retired, he might be entitled to a small pension, but he could not survive financially. And his days as a police officer would be over.

“Drew Kerber is a rogue cop with a history of obtaining fake confessions,” Robbie said loudly, and Kerber flinched. He was at his desk, in a small locked office, all alone. He had instructed his wife to keep the TVs off in the house, as if they could somehow hide this story from his kids. He cursed Flak, then watched with horror as the slimeball explained to the world exactly how he, Kerber, had obtained the confession.

Kerber’s life was over. He might handle the ending by himself.

———

Robbie moved on to the trial. He introduced more characters—Paul Koffee and Judge Vivian Grale. Photos, please. On the large screen, Carlos projected them side by side, as if still attached, and Robbie assailed them for their relationship. He mocked the “brilliant decision to
move the trial all the way to Paris, Texas, forty-nine miles from here.” He drove home the point that he tried valiantly to keep the confession away from the jury, while Koffee fought just as hard to keep it in evidence. Judge Grale sided with the prosecution and “her lover, the Honorable Paul Koffee.”

Paul Koffee was watching, and seething. He was at the cabin by the lake, very much alone, watching the local station’s “exclusive live coverage” of the Robbie Flak show, when he saw his face next to Vivian’s. Flak was railing against the jury, as white as a Klan rally because Paul Koffee had systematically used his jury strikes to eliminate blacks, and, of course, his girlfriend up on the bench went along with it. “Texas-style justice,” Robbie lamented, over and over.

He eventually moved away from the more tawdry aspects of the judge-prosecutor relationship and found his rhythm railing against the lack of evidence. Grale’s face disappeared from the screen, and Koffee’s was enlarged. No physical evidence, no dead body, only a trumped-up confession, a jailhouse snitch, a bloodhound, and a lying witness named Joey Gamble. Meanwhile, Travis Boyette was free, certainly not worried about getting caught, not by these clowns.

Koffee had tried all night to conjure up a revised theory that would somehow link Donté Drumm and Travis Boyette, but fiction failed him. He felt lousy. His head ached from too much vodka, and his heart pounded as he tried to breathe under the crushing weight of a ruined career. He was finished, and that troubled him much more than the notion that he had helped kill an innocent young man.

———

When he finished with the jailhouse snitch and the bloodhound, Robbie attacked Joey Gamble and his fraudulent testimony. With perfect timing, Carlos flashed up Gamble’s affidavit, the one signed in Houston on Thursday, an hour before the execution. Highlighted were Joey’s statements admitting he lied at trial and admitting he was the first to suggest that Donté Drumm was the killer.

Joey Gamble was watching. He was at his mother’s house in Slone.
His father was away; his mother needed him. He had told her the truth, and the truth had not been well received. Now he was shocked to see and hear his transgressions broadcast in such a startling way. He had assumed that when he came clean, he would be subjected to some level of embarrassment, but nothing like this.

“Joey Gamble lied repeatedly,” Flak announced at full throttle, and Joey almost reached for the remote. “And now he admits it!” Joey’s mother was upstairs in her bedroom, too upset to be around him. “You helped kill that boy,” she had said more than once, not that Joey needed reminding.

———

Robbie continued, “Moving on from the incompetent investigation, the travesty of a trial, and the wrongful conviction, I would like to now discuss the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This court heard Donté’s first appeal in February 2001. The body of Nicole Yarber was still missing. The court noted that there was no physical evidence in the trial. The court seemed slightly bothered by the lies of the jailhouse snitch. It nibbled at the edges of Donté’s confession but refused to criticize Judge Grale for allowing the jury to hear it. It commented on the use of the bloodhound testimony, saying perhaps it wasn’t the ‘best evidence’ to use in such a serious trial. But all in all, the court saw nothing wrong. The vote was nine to affirm the conviction, zero to overturn it.”

Chief Justice Milton Prudlowe was watching. A frantic call from his law clerk had alerted him to the press conference, and he was with his wife in their small apartment in Austin, glued to CNN. If Texas had indeed executed an innocent man, he knew his court was in for an avalanche of scorching criticism. Mr. Flak seemed prepared to lead the attack.

“Last Thursday,” Robbie was saying, “at exactly 3:35 p.m., lawyers for Donté Drumm filed a petition for relief, and we included a video that we had just taken of Travis Boyette confessing to the rape and murder.
This was two and a half hours before the execution. I assume the court considered this matter and was not impressed with the video, or the affidavit, because an hour later the court denied relief and refused to stop the execution. Again, the vote was nine to zero.” On cue, Carlos flashed up the times and actions by the court. Robbie plowed ahead. “The court closes for business each day at 5:00 p.m., even when an execution is pending. Our final filing was the last-minute affidavit and recantation by Joey Gamble. In Austin, attorneys for Donté called the court clerk, a Mr. Emerson Pugh, and informed him that they were on their way with the petition. He said the court would close at 5:00. And he was right. When the attorneys arrived at the court at 5:07, the door was locked. The petition could not be filed.”

Prudlowe’s wife glared at him and said, “I hope he’s lying.”

Prudlowe wanted to assure her that of course this loudmouthed lawyer was lying, but he hesitated. Flak was too shrewd to make such damning statements in public without having the facts to back them up.

“Milton, tell me this guy is lying.”

“Well, honey, I’m not sure right now.”

“You’re not sure? Why would the court close if the lawyers were trying to file something?”

“Well, uh, we—”

“You’re stuttering here, Milton, and that means you’re struggling to tell me something that may or may not be entirely accurate. Did you see Boyette’s video two hours before the execution?”

“Yes, it was passed—”

“Oh my God, Milton! Then why didn’t you stop things for a few days. You’re the chief justice, Milton; you can do anything you want. Executions are delayed all the time. Why not give it another thirty days, or a year for that matter?”

“We thought it was bogus. The guy is a serial rapist with no credibility.”

“Well, right now he’s got a helluva lot more credibility than the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The murderer confesses, no one believes
him, so he shows them exactly where he buried the body. Sounds pretty credible to me.”

———

Robbie paused and took a sip of water. “As for the governor, his office received a copy of the Boyette video at 3:11 Thursday afternoon. I don’t know for sure whether the governor saw the video. We do know that at 4:30 he addressed a crowd of protesters and publicly denied a reprieve for Donté.”

The governor was watching. He was standing in his office in the Governor’s Mansion, dressed for a golf game that would not be played, with Wayne on one side and Barry on the other. When Robbie paused, he demanded, “Is that true? Did we have the video at 3:11 p.m.?”

Wayne lied first. “Don’t know. So much stuff was happening. They were filing junk by the truckload.”

Barry told the second lie. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Did anyone see the video when it came in?” he asked, his irritation growing by the second.

“Don’t know, Boss, but we’ll find out,” Barry said.

The governor stared at the television, his mind spinning, trying to grasp the severity of what he was hearing. Robbie was saying, “Even after denying clemency, the governor had the right to reconsider and stop the execution. He refused to do so.”

The governor hissed the word “Asshole,” then yelled, “Get to the bottom of this, and now!”

———

Carlos closed his laptop, and the screen went blank. Robbie flipped through his legal pad to make sure he’d said enough. He lowered his voice and in a grave tone said, “In closing, it is now obvious that we have finally done it. Those who study the death penalty, and those of us who fight it, have long feared the day when this would happen, when we would wake up to the horrible fact that we have executed an innocent man, and that it can be proven by clear and convincing evidence.
Innocent men have been executed before, but the proof was not clear. With Donté, there is no doubt.” A pause. The courtroom was still and silent. “What you will see in the days to come will be a pathetic game of finger-pointing, lying, and dodging blame. I have just given you the names and some of the faces of those responsible. Go after them, listen to their lies. This did not have to happen. This was not an unavoidable mistake. This was a willful disregard for the rights of Donté Drumm. May he rest in peace. Thank you.”

Before the onslaught of questions, Robbie stepped to the bar and took the hand of Roberta Drumm. She rose and walked stiffly to the podium, Robbie by her side. She pulled the microphone down a bit closer and said, “My name is Roberta Drumm. Donté was my son. I have little to say at this moment. My family is grieving. We are in shock. But I beg of you, I plead with the people of this town, to stop the violence. Stop the fires and the rock throwing, the fighting, the threats. Please stop it. It does no good. Yes, we are angry. Yes, we are wounded. But the violence serves no purpose. I call on my people to lay down your arms, to respect everyone, and to get off the streets. The violence does nothing but harm the honor of my son.”

Robbie led her back to her seat, then smiled at the crowd and said, “Now, does anyone have a question?”

M
atthew Burns joined the Schroeder family for a late breakfast of pancakes and sausage. The boys ate quickly and returned to their video games. Dana made more coffee and began clearing the table. They discussed the press conference, Robbie’s brilliant presentation of the case, and Roberta’s poignant remarks. Matthew was curious about Slone, the fires and violence, but Keith had seen little of it. He had felt the tension, smelled the smoke, heard the police helicopter hovering overhead, but he had not seen much of the town.

With fresh coffee, the three sat at the table and talked about Keith’s improbable journey and the whereabouts of Travis Boyette. Keith, though, was growing weary of the details. He had other issues, and Matthew was prepared for the conversation.

“So, Counselor, how much trouble could I be in?” Keith asked.

“The law is not real clear. There is no specific prohibition against aiding a convicted felon in his efforts to violate the terms of his parole. But it’s still against the law. The applicable code section deals with obstruction of justice, which is a huge net for a lot of behavior that would otherwise be difficult to classify. By driving Boyette out of this
jurisdiction, and with the knowledge that it was a violation of his parole, you violated the law.”

“How serious?”

Matthew shrugged, grimaced, stirred his coffee with a spoon. “It’s a felony, but not a serious one. And it’s not the type of violation that we get excited about.”

“We?” Dana asked.

“As in prosecutors. The district attorney would have jurisdiction, a different office. I’m with the city.”

“A felony?” Keith asked.

“Probably. It appears that your trip to Texas has gone unnoticed here in Topeka. You managed to avoid the cameras, and I have yet to see your name in print.”

“But you know about it, Matthew,” Dana said.

“I do, and I suppose that, technically, I’m expected to inform the police, to turn you in. But it doesn’t work that way. We can process only so much crime. We’re forced to pick and choose. This is not a violation that any prosecutor would want to deal with.”

“But Boyette is a famous guy right now,” Dana said. “It’s just a matter of time before a reporter here picks up on the story. He jumped parole, took off to Texas, and we’ve seen his face for three days now.”

“Yes, but who can link Keith to Boyette?”

“Several folks in Texas,” Keith said.

“True, but I doubt if they care what happens here. And these folks are on our side, right?”

“I guess.”

“So, who can make the link? Did anyone see you with Boyette?”

“What about the guy at the halfway house?” Dana asked.

“It’s possible,” Keith said. “I went there several times looking for Boyette. I signed the register, and there was a guy at the desk, Rudy, I think, who knew my name.”

“But he didn’t see you drive away with Boyette late Wednesday night?”

“No one saw us. It was after midnight.”

Matthew shrugged, satisfied. All three worked on their coffee for a moment, then Keith said, “I can make the link, Matthew. I knew I was violating the law when I left with Boyette because you made things very clear. I made a choice. At the time, I knew I was doing the right thing. I have no regrets now, so long as Boyette is found before he hurts anyone else. But if he’s not found, and if someone gets hurt, then I’ll have a ton of regrets. I am not going to live with a possible criminal violation hanging over my head. We plan to deal with it now.”