“I suppose everything is serious right now, Mr. Flak,” Boyette said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“This is the first mention of reward money,” Keith said, completely exasperated.
“I have needs,” Boyette said. “I don’t have a dime and no prospects of finding one. Just curious, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Robbie repeated. “The execution is less than six hours away, and our chances of stopping it are very slim. Texas is about to execute an innocent man, and I’m sitting here with the real killer, who suddenly wants to get paid for what he’s done.”
“Who says I’m the real killer?”
“You,” Keith blurted. “You told me you killed her and you know where the body is buried because you buried it. Stop playing games, Travis.”
“If I recall correctly, her father put up a bunch of dough when they were trying to find her. Something like $200,000. That right, Mr. Flak?”
“That was nine years ago. If you think you’re in line for the reward money, you’re badly mistaken.” Robbie’s words were measured, but an explosion was imminent.
“Why do you want money?” Keith asked. “According to your own words, you’ll be dead in a few months. The tumor, remember?”
“Thanks for reminding me, Pastor.”
Robbie glared at Boyette with unrestrained hatred. The truth was that Robbie, at that moment, would sign over every asset he could find in exchange for a nice thick affidavit that told the truth and might save his client. There was a long stretch of silence as the three contemplated what to do next. Boyette grimaced and then began rubbing his slick head. He placed both palms on both temples and pressed as hard as possible, as if pressure from the outside world would relieve the pressure from within.
“Are you having a seizure?” Keith asked, but there was no response.
“He has these seizures,” Keith said to Robbie, as if an explanation would help matters. “Caffeine helps.”
Robbie jumped to his feet and left the room. Outside his office, he told Aaron and Pryor, “The son of a bitch wants money.” He walked to the kitchen, grabbed a pot of stale coffee, found two paper cups, and returned to his office. He poured a cup for Boyette, who was bent double at the waist, elbows on knees, cradling his head, and moaning. “Here’s some coffee.”
Silence.
Finally, Boyette said, “I’m going to be sick. I need to lie down.”
“Take the sofa,” Robbie said, pointing to it across the room. Boyette struggled to his feet and with Keith’s help made it to the sofa, where he wrapped his arms around his head and pulled his knees to his chest. “Can you turn off the lights?” Boyette said. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Robbie said, ready to scream.
“Please, just a minute,” Boyette said pathetically as his body vibrated and he gasped for air. Keith and Robbie left the office and stepped into the conference room. A crowd soon gathered, and Robbie introduced Keith to the rest of the gang. The food arrived and they ate quickly.
CHAPTER 21
They came for Donté at noon. Not a minute before, not a minute after. Everything precise and well rehearsed. There was a knock on the metal door behind him. Three loud raps. He was talking to Cedric, but when he knew it was time, he asked for his mother. Roberta was standing behind Cedric, with Andrea and Marvin at her sides, all four squeezed into the small room, all four crying now with no effort to hold back the tears. They had watched the clock for four hours, and there was nothing left to say. Cedric exchanged places with Roberta, who took the phone and placed her palm on the Plexiglas. Donté did the same from the other side. His three siblings embraced behind his mother, all four huddled together, touching, with Andrea in the middle and on the verge of collapse.
“I love you, Momma,” Donté said. “And I’m so sorry this is happening.”
“I love you too, baby, and you don’t have to say you’re sorry. You did nothing wrong.”
Donté wiped his cheeks with a sleeve. “I always wished I could’ve gotten outta here before Daddy died. I wanted him to see me as a free man. I wanted him to know that I did nothing wrong.”
“He knew that, Donté. Your daddy never doubted you. When he died, he knew you were innocent.” She wiped her face with a tissue. “I’ve never doubted you either, baby.”
“I know. I guess I’ll be seeing Daddy pretty soon.”
Roberta nodded, but could not respond. The door behind him opened, and a large male guard appeared. Donté hung up the phone, stood, and placed both palms flat on the Plexiglas. His family did the same. One final embrace, and then he was gone.
With his hands cuffed again, Donté was led from the visitors’ wing, through a series of clicking metal doors, out of the building, over a lawn crisscrossed with sidewalks, and into a wing where he was taken back to his cell for the last time. Everything, now, was for the last time, and as Donté sat on his bunk and stared at his box of assets, he almost convinced himself that it would be a relief to get away.
His family was given a few minutes to collect themselves. As Ruth was leading them out of the room, she gave them a hug. She said she was sorry, and they thanked her for her kindness. Just as they were walking through a metal door, she said, “You folks headed to Huntsville?”
Yes, of course, they were.
“Might want to get on over there. Rumor is there might be trouble on the roads.”
They nodded but were not sure how to respond. They walked through security at the front building, got their driver’s licenses and purses, and walked out of Polunsky for the last time.
———
The “trouble on the roads” mentioned by Ruth was a clandestine Facebook conspiracy inspired by two black students at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. The code name was Detour, and the plan was so simple and so brilliant that it attracted dozens of volunteers.
In 2000, soon after Donté arrived on death row, the inmates were moved from Huntsville to Polunsky. The inmates were moved; the death chamber was not. For seven years and two hundred executions, it had been necessary to haul the condemned men from Polunsky to Huntsville. Elaborate movements were planned and used, but after a few dozen transfers, with no ambushes, no heroic efforts to rescue the condemned, without a hitch of any kind, the authorities realized that no one was watching. No one really cared. The elaborate plans were discarded, and the same route was used with every transfer. They left the prison at 1:00 p.m., turned left on 350, turned left again on 190, a four-lane road with plenty of traffic, and an hour later the trip was over.
Inmates were placed in the rear of an unmarked passenger van, surrounded by enough muscle and weaponry to protect the president, and escorted, for good measure, by an identical van filled with another squad of bored guards hoping for a little excitement.
The last execution had been on September 25, when Michael Richard was injected. Ten students, all members of Operation Detour, used five vehicles and plenty of cell phones to track the movements of the two white vans from Polunsky to Huntsville. The students were not detected. No one suspected them. No one was looking for them. By early November, their plan was complete, and their operatives were itching for trouble.
At 12:50 p.m., a guard, a black one sympathetic to Donté, tipped off a member of Detour. The two white vans were being loaded; the transfer had begun. At 1:00 p.m., the vans left the prison for a service road near the maximum security unit. They turned onto Route 350 and headed for Livingston. There was little traffic. Two miles from the prison, the traffic increased, became heavy, then stopped completely. Ahead of the vans, a car had stalled in the right lane. Oddly, one had stalled in the left lane, and another on the shoulder. The three cars blocked any passage. Their drivers were out checking under their hoods. Then, behind the three cars, there were three more, all stalled in a neat line across the road. The vans did not move, and seemed to be in no hurry. Behind them, in the right lane, another car came to a stop. Its driver, a young black woman, popped the hood, got out, feigned exasperation because her Nissan had quit on her. A Volkswagen Beetle pulled beside her in the left lane, suffered a mechanical failure on cue, and the hood went up. More vehicles materialized from nowhere and bunched together behind the first wave, thoroughly blocking the road, its shoulders, and all exits and entrances to it. Within five minutes, a traffic jam of at least twenty vehicles had occurred. The white vans were surrounded by disabled cars and SUVs, all with their hoods up, the drivers loitering about, talking, laughing, chatting on cell phones. Several of the male students went from car to car, disabling each by pulling the wires to the distributor caps.