speedometer and realized he was doing eighty, ten over, enough for a ticket anywhere in Kansas. He slowed down and, to keep his mind going, played out the scene in which a state trooper pulled him over, checked his ID, checked Boyette's, then called for backup. A fleeing felon. A wayward Lutheran minister aiding the fleeing felon. Blue lights all over the road. Handcuffs. A night in jail, maybe in the same cell with his friend, a man who wouldn't be the least bit bothered by another night behind bars. What would Keith tell his boys?
He began to nod again. There was a phone call he had to make, and there was no good time to make it. The call was guaranteed to engage his mind at such a level that sleep would be forgotten momentarily. He removed his cell phone from his pocket and speed-dialed Matthew Burns. It was almost 2:00 a.m. Evidently, Matthew was a sound sleeper. It took eight rings to rouse him.
'This better be good,' he growled.
'Good morning, Matthew. Sleep well?'
'Fine, Father. Why the hell are you calling me?'
'Watch your language, son. Look, I'm on the road headed for Texas, traveling with a man named Travis Boyette, a nice gentleman who visited our church last Sunday. You may have seen him. Walks with a cane. Anyway, Travis here has a confession to make to the authorities in Texas, a small town called Slone, and we're dashing off to stop an execution.'
Matthew's voice cleared quickly. 'Have you lost your mind, Keith? You've got that guy in the car?'
'Oh yes, left Topeka about an hour ago. The reason I'm calling, Matt, is to ask for your help.'
'I'll give you some help, Keith. Free advice. Turn that damned car around and get back here.'
'Thanks, Matt, but look, in a few hours I'll need you to make a couple of phone calls to Slone, Texas.'
'What does Dana say about this?'
'Fine, fine. I'll need you to call the police, the prosecutor, and maybe a defense lawyer. I'll be calling them too, Matt, but since you're a prosecutor, they might listen to you.'
'Are you still in Kansas?'
'Yes, I-35.'
'Don't cross the state line, Keith. Please.'
'Well, that might make it rather difficult to get to Texas, don't you think?'
'Don't cross the state line!'
'Get some sleep. I'll call you back around six, and we'll start working the phones, okay?'
Keith closed his phone, punched voice mail, and waited. Ten seconds later it buzzed. Matthew was calling back.
They were through Emporia and bearing down on Wichita. – Nothing prompted the narrative. Perhaps Boyette was getting sleepy himself, or maybe he was just bored. But the more he talked, the more Keith realized he was listening to the twisted autobiography of a dying man, one who knew no sense could be made of his life, but wanted to try anyway.
'Darrell's brother, we called him Uncle Chett, would take me fishing, that was what he told my parents. Never caught the first fish, never wet the first hook. We'd go to his little house out in the country, had a pond out back, and that's where all the fish were supposed to be. Never made it that far. He'd give me a cigarette, let me taste his beer. At first I didn't know what he was doing. Had no idea. I was just a kid, eight years old. I was too scared to move, to fight back. I remember how bad it hurt. He had all sorts of kiddie porn, magazines and movies, sick stuff he was generous enough to share with me. You cram all that garbage into the head of a little boy, and before long he sort of accepts it. I thought, well, maybe this is what kids do. Maybe this is what adults do to kids. It looked legitimate and normal. He wasn't mean to me; in fact, he bought me ice cream and pizza-anything I wanted. After each fishing trip, he would drive me home, and right before we'd get to my house, he would get real serious, sort of mean and threatening. He would tell me that it was important for me to keep our little secret. Some things are private. He kept a gun in his truck, a shiny pistol. Later, he would show me how to use it. But at first, he would take it out and place it on the seat, then explain that he loved his secrets, and if they were ever revealed, then he would be forced to hurt someone. Even me. If I told anyone, he would be forced to kill me, and then kill whomever I told, and that included Darrell and my mother. It was very effective. I never told anyone.
'We kept fishing. I think my mother knew, but she had her own problems, primarily with the bottle. She was drunk most of the time, didn't sober up until much later, until it was too late for me. When I was about ten or so, my uncle gave me some pot, and we started smoking together. Then some pills. It wasn't all bad. I thought I was pretty cool. A young punk smoking cigarettes and pot, drinking beer, watching porn. The other part was never pleasant, but it didn't last long. We were living in Springfield at the time, and one day my mother told me we had to move. My dad, her husband, whatever the hell he was, had found a job near Joplin, Missouri, where I was born. We packed in a hurry, loaded everything into a U-Haul, and fled in the middle of the night. I'm sure there was some unpaid rent involved. Probably a lot more than that-bills, lawsuits, arrest warrants, indictments, who knows. Anyway, I woke up the next morning in a double-wide trailer, a nice one. Uncle Chett got left behind. I'm sure it broke his heart. He finally found us and showed up a month or so later, asked me if I wanted to go fishing. I said no. He had no place to take me, so he just hung around the house, couldn't take his eyes off me. They were drinking, the adults, and before long they got into a fight over money. Uncle Chett left cussing. Never saw him again. But the damage was done. If I saw him now, I'd take a baseball bat and splatter his brains across forty acres. I was one screwed-up little boy. And I guess I've never gotten over it. Can I smoke?'
'No.'
'Then can we pull over for a minute so I can smoke?'
'Sure.' A few miles down the road, they pulled in to a rest stop and took a break. Keith's phone buzzed again. Another missed call from Matthew Burns. Boyette wandered away, last seen drifting into some woods behind the restrooms, a cloud of smoke trailing him. Keith was walking across the parking lot, back and forth, back and forth, trying to pump the blood, with one eye on his passenger. When Boyette was out of sight, gone in the darkness, Keith wondered if he was gone for good. He was already tired of the trip, and if there was an escape at this point, who would care? Keith would drive back home, wonderfully alone in the car, and face the music with his wife and get an earful from Matthew. With some luck, no one would ever know about the aborted mission. Boyette would do what he'd always done-drift here and there until he either died or got himself arrested again.
But what if he hurt someone? Would Keith share criminal responsibility?
Minutes passed with no movement from the woods. A dozen 18-wheelers were parked together at one end of the parking lot, their generators humming as their drivers slept.
Keith leaned on his car and waited. He'd lost his nerve, and he wanted to go home. He wanted Boyette to stay in the woods, to go deeper until there was no turning back, to simply disappear. Then he thought of Donte Drumm.
A puff of smoke wafted from the trees. His passenger had not escaped. – Miles passed without a word. Boyette seemed content to forget his past, though minutes earlier he'd been gushing details. At the first hint of numbness, Keith plowed ahead.
'You were in Joplin. Uncle Chett had come and gone.'
The tic, five, ten seconds, then, 'Yes, uh, we were living in a trailer out from town, a poor section. We were always in the poor section, but I remember being proud because we had a nice trailer. A rental, but I didn't know it then. Next to the trailer park, there was a little road, asphalt, that ran for miles into the hills south of Joplin, in Newton County. There were creeks and dells and dirt roads. It was a kid's paradise. We'd ride our bikes for hours along the trails and no one could ever find us. Sometimes we'd steal beer and booze out of the trailer, or even out of a store, and dash off into the hills for a little party. One time a kid named Damian had a bag of pot he'd stolen from his big brother, and we got so stoned we couldn't stay on our bikes.'
'And this is where Nicole is buried?'
Keith counted to eleven before Boyette said, 'I suppose. She's somewhere in there. Not sure I can remember, to tell you the truth. I was pretty drunk, Pastor. I've tried to remember, even tried to draw a map the other day, but it'll be difficult. If we get that far.'
'Why did you bury her there?'
'Didn't want anybody to find her. It worked.'
'How do you know it worked? How do you know her body hasn't been found? You buried her nine years ago. You've been in prison for the past six years, away from the news.'
'Pastor, I assure you she has not been found.'
