the man said, nodding. 'Sign here.'
Keith signed in and walked to the corner. When Boyette saw him approach, he grabbed his cane and scrambled to his feet. 'Didn't expect you,' he said, obviously surprised.
'I was in the neighborhood. Got a few minutes to talk?'
The other men were taking casual note of Keith. The checkers and chess went on without interruption.
'Sure,' Boyette said, glancing around. 'Let's go to the mess hall.' Keith followed him, watching the left leg as it paused slightly with each step, causing the shuffle. The cane jabbed the floor as they clicked along. How awful would it be, Keith asked himself, to live each minute with a grade-four tumor between your ears, growing and growing until your skull seems ready to crack? As miserable a person as he was, Keith couldn't help but feel sorry for him. A dead man.
The mess hall was a small room with four long folding tables and a wide opening at the far end that gave way to the kitchen. The cleanup crew was making a racket back there, slinging pots and pans and laughing. Rap music came from a radio. It was the perfect cover for a hushed conversation.
'We can talk here,' Boyette said, nodding at a table. Crumbs of food were scattered about. The thick smell of cooking oil hung in the air. They sat down across from each other. Since they had nothing in common but the weather, Keith decided not to waste time.
'Would you like some coffee?' Boyette asked politely.
'No, thanks.'
'Smart move. Worst coffee in Kansas. Worse than prison.'
'Travis, after you left this morning, I went online, found the Web site for Donte Drumm, and spent the rest of the day lost in that world. It's fascinating, and heartbreaking. There are serious doubts about his guilt.'
'Serious?' Boyette said with a laugh. 'There should be serious doubts. The boy had nothing to do with what happened to Nikki.'
'What happened to Nikki?'
A startled look, like a deer in headlights. Silence. Boyette wrapped his hands around his head and massaged his scalp. His shoulders began to shake. The tic came and went and came back again. Keith watched him and could almost feel the agony. The rap music thumped mindlessly from the kitchen.
Keith slowly reached into his coat pocket and removed a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and slid it across the table. 'Recognize this girl?' he asked. It was a copy of a black-and-white photo printed from the Web site, a photo of Nicole Yarber, posing in her cheerleader outfit, holding a pom-pom, smiling with all the innocence of a sweet seventeen-year-old.
At first, Boyette did not react. He looked at Nikki as if he'd never seen her before. He stared at her for a long time, then the tears came without warning. No gasps, no sobs, no apologies, just a flood of moisture that ran down his cheeks and dripped off his chin. He made no effort to wipe his face. He looked at Keith, and the two men stared at each other as the tears continued. The photo was getting wet.
Boyette grunted, cleared his throat, and said, 'I really want to die.' – Keith came back from the kitchen with two cups of black coffee in paper cups, along with some paper towels. Boyette took one, wiped his face and chin, and said, 'Thanks.'
Keith resumed his seat and said, 'What happened to Nikki?'
Boyette seemed to count to ten before saying, 'I've still got her.'
Keith thought he was prepared for every possible answer, but in fact he was not. Could she be alive? No. He'd spent the past six years in prison. How could he keep her locked up somewhere? He's crazy.
'Where is she?' Keith asked firmly.
'Buried.'
'Where?'
'Missouri.'
'Look, Travis, these one-word answers will keep us here forever. You came to my office this morning for one reason, and that was to finally confess. But you couldn't muster the courage, so here I am. Let's hear it.'
'Why do you care?'
'That's pretty obvious, isn't it? An innocent man is about to be executed for something you did. Maybe there's time to save him.'
'I doubt it.'
'Did you kill Nicole Yarber?'
'Is this confidential, Pastor?'
'Do you want it to be?'
'Yes.'
'Why? Why not confess, then make a full admission, then try to help Donte Drumm? That's what you should do, Travis. Your days are numbered, according to what you said this morning.'
'Confidential or not?'
Keith took a breath, then made the mistake of taking a sip of coffee. Travis was right.
'If you want it to be confidential, Travis, then it is.'
A smile, a tic. He glanced around, though they had yet to be noticed by anyone else. He began to nod. 'I did it, Pastor. I don't know why. I never know why.'
'You grabbed her in the parking lot?'
The tumor expanded, the headaches hit like lightning. He grabbed his head again and weathered the storm. His jaws clenched in a determined effort to keep going. 'I grabbed her, took her away. I had a gun, she didn't fight much. We left town. I kept her a few days. We had sex. We-'
'You didn't have sex. You raped her.'
'Yes, over and over. Then I did it, and buried her.'
'You killed her?'
'Yes.'
'How?'
'Strangled her with her belt. It's still there, around her neck.'
'And you buried her?'
'Yes.' Boyette looked at the photo, and Keith could almost see a smile.
'Where?'
'South of Joplin, where I grew up. Lots of hills, valleys, hollows, logging trails, dead-end roads. She'll never be found. They never got close.'
A long pause as the sickening reality settled in. Of course, there was a chance he was lying, but Keith could not force himself to believe that. What could he possibly gain by lying, especially at this stage in his miserable life?
The kitchen lights went out and the radio was turned off. Three burly black men made their exit and walked through the mess hall. They nodded and spoke politely to Keith, but only glanced at Travis. They closed the door behind themselves.
Keith took the copy of the photo and turned it over. He uncapped his pen and wrote something on it. 'How about a little background, Travis?' he said.
'Sure. I have nothing else to do.'
'What were you doing in Slone, Texas?'
'Working for a company called R. S. McGuire and Sons, out of Fort Smith. Construction. They had a contract to build a warehouse for Monsanto, just west of Slone. I hired on as a laborer, just a grunt, crappy work, but it's all I could find. They paid me less than minimum wage, in cash, off the books, same as the Mexicans. Sixty hours a week, flat rate, no insurance, no skill, no nothing. It won't be worth your time to check with the company, because I was never officially employed. I was renting a room in an old motel west of town, called the Rebel Motor Inn. It's probably still there. Check it out. Forty bucks a week. The job lasted five or six months. One Friday night I saw the lights, found the field behind the high school, bought a ticket, and sat with the crowd. Didn't know a soul. They were watching football. Me, I was watching the cheerleaders. Always loved the cheerleaders. Cute little butts, short skirts, dark tights on underneath. They bounce and flip and throw each other around and you see so much of them. They want you to see. That's when I fell in love with Nicole. She was there for me, showing it all. I knew from the first moment that she was the one.'
