The Confession Read Online Free Page B

the cause of Donté Drumm with big plans to enlist other Cowboys and NFL heavyweights to help wave the flag. He would meet with the governor, the parole board, big business boys, politicians, a couple of rappers he claimed to know well, maybe even some Hollywood types. He would lead a parade so noisy that the state would be forced to back down. Rahmad, though, proved to be all talk. He suddenly went silent, went into “seclusion,” according to his agent, who also explained that the cause was too distracting for the great running back. Robbie, always on the conspiracy trail, suspected that the Cowboys organization and its network of corporate sponsors somehow pressured Rahmad.
    By 8:30, the entire firm had assembled in the conference room, and Robbie called the meeting to order. At the moment he had no partners—the last had left in a feud that was still tied up in litigation—but there were two associates, two paralegals, three secretaries, and Aaron Rey, who was always close by. After fifteen years with Robbie, Aaron knew more law than most seasoned paralegals. Also present was a lawyer from Amnesty Now, a London-based human rights group that had donated thousands of skilled hours to the Drumm appeals. Participating by teleconference was a lawyer in Austin, an appellate advocate furnished by the Texas Capital Defender Group.
    Robbie ran through the plans for the week. Duties were defined, tasks distributed, responsibilities clarified. He tried to appear upbeat, hopeful, confident that a miracle was on the way.
    The miracle was slowly coming together, some four hundred miles due north, in Topeka, Kansas.

CHAPTER 3
    A few of the details were confirmed with little effort. Dana, calling from St. Mark’s Lutheran and just going about her business of following up on those kind enough to visit their church, chatted with the supervisor at Anchor House, who said that Boyette had been there for three weeks. His “stay” was scheduled for ninety days, and if all went well, he would then be a free man, subject, of course, to some rather stringent parole requirements. The facility currently had twenty-two male residents, no females, and it was operated under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections. Boyette, like the others, was expected to leave each morning at 8:00 and return each evening at 6:00, in time for dinner. Employment was encouraged, and the supervisor usually kept the men busy in janitorial work and odd, part-time jobs. Boyette was working four hours a day, at $7 an hour, watching security cameras in the basement of a government office building. He was reliable and neat, said little, and had yet to cause trouble. As a general rule, the men were very well behaved because a broken rule or an ugly incident could send them back to prison. They could see, feel, and smell freedom, and they didn’t want to screw up.
    About the cane, the supervisor knew little. Boyette was using it the day he arrived. However, among a group of bored criminals there is little privacy and an avalanche of gossip, and the rumor was that Boyette had been severely beaten in prison. Yes, everybody knew he had a nasty record, and they gave him plenty of room. He was weird, kept to himself, and slept alone in a small room behind the kitchen while the rest bunked down in the main room. “But we get all types in here,” the supervisor said. “From murderers to pickpockets. We don’t ask too many questions.”
    Fudging a bit, or perhaps a lot, Dana breezily mentioned a medical concern that Boyette noted on the visitor’s card he’d been kind enough to fill out. A prayer request. There was no card, and Dana asked for forgiveness with a quick petition to the Almighty. She justified the small and harmless lie with what was at stake here. Yes, the supervisor said, they’d hauled him to the hospital when he wouldn’t shut up about his headaches. These guys love medical treatment. At St. Francis, they ran a bunch of tests, but the supervisor