Now, at the end, he was expected to order a feast and be thankful for this one last favor. As silly as it was, virtually all condemned men gave thought to the final meal. They had so little else to think about. Donté had decided days earlier that he wanted to be served nothing that even remotely resembled dishes his mother once prepared. So he ordered a pepperoni pizza and a glass of root beer. It arrived at 4:00 p.m., rolled into the holding cell on a small tray by two guards. Donté said nothing as they left. He’d been napping off and on throughout the afternoon, waiting on his pizza, waiting on his lawyer. Waiting on a miracle, though by 4:00 p.m. he’d given up.
In the hallway, just beyond the bars, his audience watched without a word. A guard, a prison official, and the chaplain who’d tried twice to talk to him. Twice Donté had rejected the offers of spiritual counseling. He wasn’t sure why they watched him so closely, but presumed it was to prevent a suicide. How he might go about killing himself wasn’t clear, not in this holding cell. If Donté could have committed suicide, he would have done so months earlier. And now he wished he had. He would already be gone, and his mother could not watch him die.
For a palate neutralized by tasteless white bread, bland applesauce, and an endless stream of “mystery meats,” the pizza was surprisingly delicious. He ate it slowly.
Ben Jeter stepped to the bars and asked, “How’s the pizza, Donté?”
Donté did not look at the warden. “It’s fine,” he said softly.
“Need anything?”
He shook his head no. I need a lot of things, pal, not a damned one of which you can provide. And if you could, you wouldn’t. Just leave me alone.
“I think your lawyer’s on the way.”
Donté nodded and picked up another slice.
———
At 4:21, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied relief under Donté’s claim of mental illness. The Flak Law Firm immediately filed in the U.S. Supreme Court a petition for a writ of certiorari, or cert, as it’s known; a request that the Court hear the appeal and consider the merits of the petition. If cert was granted, the execution would be stopped, and time would pass while the dust settled and briefs were filed. If cert was denied, the claim would be dead, and so would the claimant, in all likelihood. There was no other place to appeal.
At the Supreme Court Building in Washington, the “death clerk” received the cert petition electronically and distributed it to the offices of the nine justices.
There was no word on the Boyette petition pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
When the King Air landed in Huntsville, Robbie called the office and was informed of the adverse ruling in the Fifth Circuit. Joey Gamble had not yet found his way to the law office of Agnes Tanner in Houston. The governor had denied a reprieve, in spectacular fashion. There were currently no new fires in Slone, but the National Guard was on the way. A depressing phone call, but then Robbie had expected little else.
He, Aaron, Martha, and Keith jumped into a minivan driven by an investigator Robbie had used before, and they raced off. The prison was fifteen minutes away. Keith called Dana and tried to explain what was happening in his life, but the explanation got complicated, and others were listening. She was beyond bewildered and certain that he was doing something stupid. He promised to call back in a few moments. Aaron called the office and talked to Fred Pryor. Boyette was up and moving about, but slowly. He was complaining because he had not talked to any reporters. He expected to tell his side of the story to everyone, and it seemed as if no one wanted to hear him. Robbie was frantically trying to reach Joey Gamble, with no luck. Martha Handler took her usual pages of notes.
———
At 4:30, Chief Justice Milton Prudlowe convened the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, by teleconference, to consider the Boyette petition in the case of Donté Drumm. The court had not been impressed with Boyette. The general feeling was that he was a publicity seeker with serious credibility issues. After a brief discussion, he called the roll. The vote was unanimous; not a single judge voted to grant relief to Donté Drumm. The clerk of the court e-mailed the decision to the attorney general’s office, the lawyers fighting Donté’s appeals; to Wayne Wallcott, the governor’s lawyer; and to the law office of Robbie Flak.
The van was almost at the prison when Robbie got the call from Carlos. Though he’d been reminding himself throughout the afternoon that relief was unlikely, he still took it hard. “Sons of bitches!” he snapped. “Didn’t believe Boyette. Denied, denied, denied, all nine of them. Sons of bitches.”
“What happens next?” Keith asked.
“We run to the U.S. Supreme Court. Let ’em see Boyette. Pray for a miracle. We’re running out of options.”
“Did they give a reason?” Martha asked.
“Nope, they don’t have to. The problem is that we want desperately to believe Boyette, and they, the chosen nine, have no interest in believing him. Believing Boyette would upset the system. Excuse me. I gotta call Agnes Tanner. Gamble’s probably in a strip club getting plastered while a lap dancer works him over.”
———
There were no strippers, no stops or detours, just a couple of wrong turns. Joey walked into the law office of Agnes Tanner at 4:40, and she was waiting at the door. Ms. Tanner was a hard-nosed divorce lawyer who, when bored, occasionally volunteered for a capital murder defense. She knew Robbie well, though they had not spoken in over a year.
She was holding the affidavit and, after a tense “Nice to meet you,” led Joey to a small meeting room. She wanted to ask him where he had been, why it took so long, whether he was drunk, if he realized they were out of time, and why he lied nine years ago and had sat on his fat ass ever since. She wanted to grill him for an hour, but there was no time; plus, he was moody and unpredictable, according to Robbie.
“You can read this, or I’ll tell you what it says,” she said, waving the affidavit.
Joey sat in a chair, buried his face in his hands, and said, “Just tell me.”
“It gives your name, address, all that crap. It says you testified at the trial of Donté Drumm on such and such date in October 1999; that you gave crucial testimony on behalf of the prosecution, and in your testimony you told the jury that on the night of Nicole’s disappearance, at about the same time, you saw a green Ford van driving suspiciously through the parking lot where her car was parked, and that the driver appeared to be a black male, and that the van was very similar to the one owned by Donté Drumm. There are a lot more details, but we don’t have time for details. Are you with me, Joey?”
“Yes.” His eyes were covered, and he appeared to be crying.
“You now recant that testimony and swear that it was not true. You’re saying that you lied at trial. Got that, Joey?”
He nodded his head in the affirmative.
“And it goes on to say that you made the anonymous phone call to Detective Drew Kerber in which you informed him that Donté Drumm was the killer. Again, lots of details, but I’ll spare you. I think you understand all this, Joey, don’t you?”
He uncovered his face, wiped tears, and said, “I’ve lived with this for a long time.”
“Then fix it, Joey.” She slapped the affidavit on the table and thrust a pen at him. “Page five, bottom right. Quickly.”